We have been completly overrun by registrations for the developer meet-up in Berlin. That’s exhilarating, but forces on me the sad duty to tell you: we are out of room, we are closing registration early.
So: if you have not yet send a registration mail, you will not be able to attend!
Sorry. We may even have to reject some registrations we have already received.
There’s some good news too, though: anyone interested my join us at the c-base for the party on saturday March 4., starting 8pm. The developers will be there and people from the chapter and board meeting will also come. This will be a good opportunity for getting to know Wikimedians from all over the world.
Regards, Daniel
On Tue, Mar 17, 2009 at 7:26 PM, Daniel Kinzler daniel@brightbyte.de wrote:
We have been completly overrun by registrations for the developer meet-up in Berlin. That’s exhilarating, but forces on me the sad duty to tell you: we are out of room, we are closing registration early.
So: if you have not yet send a registration mail, you will not be able to attend!
Sorry. We may even have to reject some registrations we have already received.
There’s some good news too, though: anyone interested my join us at the c-base for the party on saturday March 4., starting 8pm. The developers will be there and people from the chapter and board meeting will also come. This will be a good opportunity for getting to know Wikimedians from all over the world.
Regards, Daniel
Going to offer something like a webcam cast of it for those that can't attend?
Going to offer something like a webcam cast of it for those that can't attend?
No, sorry. We would need a video team for that, and we have nither the time nor the people to do it. Also note that this is is an OpenSpace with 5 tracs with about 10 people each. There will be few if any real talks or presentations. These will be discussion rounds. That would be quite hard to capture on video.
I will urge people to take notes and put them online, ideally live during the sessions. If you have any suggestions as to how to better document the discussions, please tell me.
-- daniel
Hoi, This is what is called a "pent up demand". Given the relevance given to the meeting, I hope that there will be "hacker das" in Argentiana. I know for a fact that when Wikimania hits Amsterdam in 2010, there will be hacker days. Thanks, GerardM
2009/3/17 Daniel Kinzler daniel@brightbyte.de
We have been completly overrun by registrations for the developer meet-up in Berlin. That’s exhilarating, but forces on me the sad duty to tell you: we are out of room, we are closing registration early.
So: if you have not yet send a registration mail, you will not be able to attend!
Sorry. We may even have to reject some registrations we have already received.
There’s some good news too, though: anyone interested my join us at the c-base for the party on saturday March 4., starting 8pm. The developers will be there and people from the chapter and board meeting will also come. This will be a good opportunity for getting to know Wikimedians from all over the world.
Regards, Daniel
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
afaik there will be hacker days at Wikimania of some kind. what/when/who/where etc isnt yet sorted
regards
mark
On Tue, Mar 17, 2009 at 9:41 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.comwrote:
Hoi, This is what is called a "pent up demand". Given the relevance given to the meeting, I hope that there will be "hacker das" in Argentiana. I know for a fact that when Wikimania hits Amsterdam in 2010, there will be hacker days. Thanks, GerardM
2009/3/17 Daniel Kinzler daniel@brightbyte.de
We have been completly overrun by registrations for the developer meet-up in Berlin. That’s exhilarating, but forces on me the sad duty to tell you:
we
are out of room, we are closing registration early.
So: if you have not yet send a registration mail, you will not be able to attend!
Sorry. We may even have to reject some registrations we have already received.
There’s some good news too, though: anyone interested my join us at the c-base for the party on saturday March 4., starting 8pm. The developers will be there and people from the chapter and board meeting will also come. This will
be
a good opportunity for getting to know Wikimedians from all over the world.
Regards, Daniel
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
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Gerard Meijssen:
This is what is called a "pent up demand". Given the relevance given to the meeting, I hope that there will be "hacker das" in Argentiana. I know for a fact that when Wikimania hits Amsterdam in 2010, there will be hacker days.
please not if it's anything like the previous "hacking" days, which turned into a strange sort of pre-conference, even with scheduled talks (!), and very little actual hacking. i don't think this is at all what the developer meet is meant to be.
- river.
Hoi, Have you been at the hacker days in Taipei? Have you been to the hacker days in Frankfurt? The hacker days in Cambridge were indeed a sort of pre-conference. Not much hacking went on, several of the presentations were however really relevant. What the Dutch hacker days will be will not be like your Cambridge experience, an actual MediaWiki developer is already involved at this stage to make the hacker days Amsterdam 2010 truly memorable. Thanks, GerardM
2009/3/17 River Tarnell river@loreley.flyingparchment.org.uk
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Gerard Meijssen:
This is what is called a "pent up demand". Given the relevance given to
the
meeting, I hope that there will be "hacker das" in Argentiana. I know for
a
fact that when Wikimania hits Amsterdam in 2010, there will be hacker
days.
please not if it's anything like the previous "hacking" days, which turned into a strange sort of pre-conference, even with scheduled talks (!), and very little actual hacking. i don't think this is at all what the developer meet is meant to be.
- river.-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (HP-UX)
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Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On 3/17/09 3:04 AM, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi, Have you been at the hacker days in Taipei?
That was a bit of a disaster -- somehow the local team scheduled two simultaneous "hacking days" events, one with the Wikimedia core developers and one without. :)
The Cambridge one was overproduced, with a tight schedule of dozens of tiny talks leaving no time for, you know, hacking. Some interesting tidbits came up but we couldn't really accomplish what we wanted.
I'll be talking w/ the program team for Buenos Aires to ensure that things go more happily the way we like it this time -- a nice friendly unconference-style meeting that gives people a chance to chat, come up with ideas, and work a bit at them.
-- brion
2009/3/17 Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com:
Hoi, This is what is called a "pent up demand". Given the relevance given to the meeting, I hope that there will be "hacker das" in Argentiana. I know for a fact that when Wikimania hits Amsterdam in 2010, there will be hacker days.
You mean when Wikimania hits *Oxford* in 2010, there will be hacker days. And you are right, they will be in the Oxford Internet Institute [1].
Hoi, I am glad to learn that when Wikimania hits Oxford or Amsterdam there will be hacker days. Given our friendly competition, I am sure that the other cities who hope to host Wikimania 2010 will have a similar response. The lack of hackerdays was what I missed most in Alexandria. Thanks, GerardM
2009/3/17 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com
2009/3/17 Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com:
Hoi, This is what is called a "pent up demand". Given the relevance given to
the
meeting, I hope that there will be "hacker das" in Argentiana. I know for
a
fact that when Wikimania hits Amsterdam in 2010, there will be hacker
days.
You mean when Wikimania hits *Oxford* in 2010, there will be hacker days. And you are right, they will be in the Oxford Internet Institute [1].
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Any idea when the registrations will get a confirmation?
thx Finne/henna
On Tue, Mar 17, 2009 at 10:26, Daniel Kinzler daniel@brightbyte.de wrote:
We have been completly overrun by registrations for the developer meet-up in Berlin. That’s exhilarating, but forces on me the sad duty to tell you: we are out of room, we are closing registration early.
So: if you have not yet send a registration mail, you will not be able to attend!
Sorry. We may even have to reject some registrations we have already received.
There’s some good news too, though: anyone interested my join us at the c-base for the party on saturday March 4., starting 8pm. The developers will be there and people from the chapter and board meeting will also come. This will be a good opportunity for getting to know Wikimedians from all over the world.
Regards, Daniel
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Daniel Kinzler wrote:
Really Soon Now. That is, as soon as we have figured out who *not* to confirm. We are overbooked :(
This is a problem that you can solve if you want to. Just ask for rooms at the technical university if c-base is too small. We can always find accommodation.
I sent in my registeration on March 9 and have still not received confirmation. After that I have recruited two more Swedish attendees, who also sent their registration. Our flights are already booked, so there is no way we can stay home. Of course we are coming to Berlin.
2009/3/17 Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se:
I sent in my registeration on March 9 and have still not received confirmation. After that I have recruited two more Swedish attendees, who also sent their registration. Our flights are already booked, so there is no way we can stay home. Of course we are coming to Berlin.
You may well not be along in that situation. I guess no-one anticipated the meet-up would be so popular! Expanding it really would be the best option. (I'll be at the chapter meeting, so I'll see you around!)
Thomas Dalton schrieb:
2009/3/17 Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se:
I sent in my registeration on March 9 and have still not received confirmation. After that I have recruited two more Swedish attendees, who also sent their registration. Our flights are already booked, so there is no way we can stay home. Of course we are coming to Berlin.
You may well not be along in that situation. I guess no-one anticipated the meet-up would be so popular! Expanding it really would be the best option. (I'll be at the chapter meeting, so I'll see you around!)
We already added a room and i found myself some help with moderating. We are still heavily overbooked. We try our best not to cause too much damage, but we will have to reject some people. We will send confirmation when we have decided on this - and it's tough. I really hate it.
Next time, i'ld make pre-registering mendatory. and make it a month earlier. then we wouldn't have the problem. I expected people to not show, i didn't expect to get overrun by registrations :P
-- daniel
Lars Aronsson schrieb:
Daniel Kinzler wrote:
Really Soon Now. That is, as soon as we have figured out who *not* to confirm. We are overbooked :(
This is a problem that you can solve if you want to. Just ask for rooms at the technical university if c-base is too small. We can always find accommodation.
Great to know for next time. A bit late to set this up now though, and we also can't fit more people in our budget for the party, for drinks, etc.
Had we expected a crowd of 100 developers, I guess we'd have asked at the TU :) Perhaps next time.
Daniel Kinzler schreef:
Finne Boonen schrieb:
Any idea when the registrations will get a confirmation?
Really Soon Now. That is, as soon as we have figured out who *not* to confirm. We are overbooked :(
Does this mean the capacity overrun is at the accommodation rather than at the venue? Does it mean that people who have arranged their own accommodation won't be rejected?
Roan Kattouw (Catrope)
Roan Kattouw schrieb:
Daniel Kinzler schreef:
Finne Boonen schrieb:
Any idea when the registrations will get a confirmation?
Really Soon Now. That is, as soon as we have figured out who *not* to confirm. We are overbooked :(
Does this mean the capacity overrun is at the accommodation rather than at the venue? Does it mean that people who have arranged their own accommodation won't be rejected?
No, accommodation is fine. The venue is tight, and our budget for sponsored food&drinks, and our capacity for managing people, getting them around, giving them info packages, etc is at an end.
-- daniel
Daniel Kinzler <daniel <at> brightbyte.de> writes:
No, accommodation is fine. The venue is tight, and our budget for sponsored food&drinks, and our capacity for managing people, getting them around, giving them info packages, etc is at an end.
Well I don't drink and I can buy my own food and buss pass. Info packages I can do without, what I can't do is get a refund for my ticket :(
IMHO it's far better to start looking for solutions than getting stuck on the problems.
/Micke
Daniel Kinzler wrote:
No, accommodation is fine. The venue is tight, and our budget for sponsored food&drinks, and our capacity for managing people, getting them around, giving them info packages, etc is at an end.
The organizing of this meet-up follows the same communication disaster as the toolserver project and also the WMF tech staff. First we register, then we hear nothing, now we're told it's impossible. You can't get there from here. Can't be done.
I asked earlier how the Swedish chapter could help the toolserver project, and all I got was that 8000 euro (which we don't have available) could help to buy a new server, but smaller amounts like 80 or 800 euro could not be useful at all. Now you're out of funds for buying food. Maybe 800 euro could be useful after all? Maybe people can pay for their own food? No, you're not asking for that, instead you're telling people (who might already have bought air tickets) to stay home. Incredible! Berlin is full. Go home!
I have made it clear that I'm arriving in Berlin already on Thursday April 2. I know Berlin. I speak German. Maybe I can help to receive people and distribute info packages? No, all you can do is say you're overbooked. You never asked for volunteers.
Guess what, Jens Frank has been promised 15,000 euro from WMDE to organize a "map toolserver". One very important item on his agenda is to host a map toolserver meet-up as part of this developer meet-up. Maybe some of his money can be used to help you. Did you ask him?
We're not out of resources and Berlin is big.
ACK Lars.
There are also people who - before they can register - first had to arrange their vacation at the office and after that tried to get tickets, and just at the day when the vacation was fixed and the tickets bought they are told that this was all worth nothing.
Manuel Schneider schreef:
ACK Lars.
There are also people who - before they can register - first had to arrange their vacation at the office and after that tried to get tickets, and just at the day when the vacation was fixed and the tickets bought they are told that this was all worth nothing.
... and there are people who get a ride from someone who lives nearby, only to hear that that person was rejected.
To get back on topic: if the problem is financial, get more money. Asking participants to pay a small fee is quite normal and would raise quite a bit of money with so many attendees (10 euros would be a reasonable fee and raise about 1000 euros, assuming the "100 developers" comment was to be taken literally). I don't see how physical space would be a problem: I've never been to the c-base of course, but it looks like it'll easily fit a hundred people.
It'd be nice if we could find a solution to fit at least everybody who registered before registration closed, and if that involves paying a small fee I'd happily do so.
Roan Kattouw (Catrope)
Roan Kattouw <roan.kattouw <at> home.nl> writes:
To get back on topic: if the problem is financial, get more money. Asking participants to pay a small fee is quite normal and would raise quite a bit of money with so many attendees [...] It'd be nice if we could find a solution to fit at least everybody who registered before registration closed, and if that involves paying a small fee I'd happily do so.
Roan Kattouw (Catrope)
+1
I wouldn't mind a small fee and I'm sure it would be possible to find a bigger place if the one we've got is too small.
What kind of help would you need to fit us all in? Money? More people? A bigger place? I'm sure we can fix what ever is the problem if we try.
/Micke
Hello all
I understand that your are disappointed. And I'm sad about having to reject people myself. Which is one reason I hesitated - and made things worse. Do I suck at organizing a conference? Quite possibly. I's my first time, and I never asked for the job.
Anyway, I'll try to answer you as good as I can.
Lars Aronsson wrote:
The organizing of this meet-up follows the same communication disaster as the toolserver project and also the WMF tech staff. First we register, then we hear nothing, now we're told it's impossible. You can't get there from here. Can't be done.
The time it took for registration to go from "a few people" to "more than ever said that they would be interested" was so short, it completely took me by surprise. By the time we had decided to stop registration early (which was too late), we were already badly overbooked.
So, if I ever get into the position again of organizing something like this, there's one round of registration, at least two months before the event, and mandatory. That way, we know exactly what to plan for.
I asked earlier how the Swedish chapter could help the toolserver project, and all I got was that 8000 euro (which we don't have available) could help to buy a new server, but smaller amounts like 80 or 800 euro could not be useful at all.
Well, who did you ask? I'd be the person to talk to.
But it's true that we can't handle small purpose-bound donations, they'd need to go toWMDE in general. Contributing money to the toolserver as such isn't possible, because the toolserver is not an organization and has no account. Contributing hardware would be great, but that requires bigger sums, usually. Do we need a Toolserver Inc. To solve this problem? Well, I fear it would create more problems that it selves. But it's worth considering.
Now you're out of funds for buying food. Maybe 800 euro could be useful after all?
We did get additional funds for food and travel from three sources, on very short notice, to be able to allow more people to come. A contribution to the travel budget would still be welcome.
Maybe people can pay for their own food? No, you're not asking for that, instead you're telling people (who might already have bought air tickets) to stay home. Incredible! Berlin is full. Go home!
If money was the only problem, that would have been an option, though I would have felt a bit bad about this too. The main problem is scaling the event as such - making it be more than a bunch of people in a room. Maybe there are people who can do that on their own, for 200 people, on short notice. I can't.
Also... who has bought airline tickets and i told to stay home?
I have made it clear that I'm arriving in Berlin already on Thursday April 2. I know Berlin. I speak German. Maybe I can help to receive people and distribute info packages? No, all you can do is say you're overbooked. You never asked for volunteers.
We are organizing volunteers currently. And I did get someone to help me with moderating the actual event, also on short notice, which I'm very grateful for. Otherwise we would have had to reject more people.
Guess what, Jens Frank has been promised 15,000 euro from WMDE to organize a "map toolserver". One very important item on his agenda is to host a map toolserver meet-up as part of this developer meet-up. Maybe some of his money can be used to help you. Did you ask him?
Jens appears to be a bit hard to reach, but I did coordinate with the OSM people, yes. Including their meeting added some more people - I'm very happy to have them, but it made it even harder for me to fit everything in. But did indeed organize some additional funding for getting the OSM people to Berlin.
We're not out of resources and Berlin is big.
Yes, Berlin is big. So, what do you suggest?
Lars Aronsson wrote:
I don't see how physical space would be a problem: I've never been to the c-base of course, but it looks like it'll easily fit a hundred people.
Standing up and drinking beer, yes. Having a conference and getting results, no. I expected max 40 people. That number was, and still is, exceeded by far.
It'd be nice if we could find a solution to fit at least everybody who registered before registration closed, and if that involves paying a small fee I'd happily do so.
Somehow I have the feeling that the outcry that would cause wouldn't be much smaller than now. But as I said: money is "a" problem, but not "the" problem. Ultimately, our (and especially my own) ability to manage and run the event is, as well as the venue. The c-base is great, because it's a good place for working *and* for the party after. But for a conference with more than 50 people, I wouldn't have chosen it.
Micke Nordin wrote:
What kind of help would you need to fit us all in? Money? More people? A bigger place? I'm sure we can fix what ever is the problem if we try.
All of the above, but more importantly: more time.
We have committed to the venue, and with the plans for getting everyone together for a party, this wouldn't mean moving, it would mean *adding* a place. Close by, so it fits with where people have accommodation.
Sorry, I can't really see it happening. I really hate to disappoint people. But I rather do that than jeopardizing the entire event.
Regards, Daniel
On 3/18/09 1:42 PM, Daniel Kinzler wrote:
I understand that your are disappointed. And I'm sad about having to reject people myself. Which is one reason I hesitated - and made things worse. Do I suck at organizing a conference? Quite possibly. I's my first time, and I never asked for the job.
I think it's going pretty well for a first time with an unexpectedly high response. :) Let us know if we can help...
-- brion
Brion Vibber schrieb:
On 3/18/09 1:42 PM, Daniel Kinzler wrote:
I understand that your are disappointed. And I'm sad about having to reject people myself. Which is one reason I hesitated - and made things worse. Do I suck at organizing a conference? Quite possibly. I's my first time, and I never asked for the job.
I think it's going pretty well for a first time with an unexpectedly high response. :) Let us know if we can help...
Thanks.
Until a few hours ago, it went a bit *too* well, I guess. Which was, in fact, the problem.
Life is so odd.
-- daniel
well, as I already bought the ticket - though I didn't make sense to register after this news - I will be in Berlin anyway. I'm taking care for participants of the chapters meeting the week before (showing around in Germany) and will be in Berlin at Thursday afternoon. I know the locations and the city quite well, so if I may help somewhere I am happy to do so.
Hi Manuel
Manuel Schneider schrieb:
well, as I already bought the ticket - though I didn't make sense to register after this news - I will be in Berlin anyway. I'm taking care for participants of the chapters meeting the week before (showing around in Germany) and will be in Berlin at Thursday afternoon. I know the locations and the city quite well, so if I may help somewhere I am happy to do so.
Too bad. I guess with Wikimedia, the usual "only half the people who say they are interested actually show" has to be replaced by "be prepared for twice as many". I don't think I'll forget that lesson.
Anyway, thanks for the offer, and I hope you'll come to party anyway. And as to showing people around town: I suppose a lot of people would like to do that, I think something is being planned for Friday evening. But Guillom organizes all that, as far as I know. We'll meet tomorrow to discuss details.
-- daniel
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