i think so too, there is a huge cultural and language gap, many chinese users have misunderstood the meaning of "wikimania" as simply a short word for "wikimedia conference" or "wikimedia meetup" instead of "INTERNATIONAL wikimedia conference" (of wikimedia foundation). most of them were not aware that "wikimania" is a brand name and should be a trademark for the foundation.
the chinese name for the chinese conference "中文維基年會" can be more precisely translated as "chinese language wikipedia/wikimedia annual conference". since the english name is seeked largely to serve international attenders/readers, i think that suggestions/advice from international users on the mailing list would probably be helpful and productive. if you have comments, please kindly send it to the wikizh-l list at wikizh-l@wikipedia.org.
(i personally still favor "chinese wikimedia conference" if authorized by the foundation, which seems likely.)
the planning of the chinese conference is still in the early stage. it's not clear how many would attend, but personally i would not be surprised by a number between 20 and 100. it will be held on august 26-27 after wikimania in boston.
roc (User:R.O.C) --
在 2006/3/16，THD theodoranian@gmail.com 撰寫：
Hi, Ladies and all,
I am Theodoranian from zh.wikipedia. I went to Frankfurt last year, and now I am thinking to go to Boston to join the 2006 wikimania.
I want to explain the "2006 Chinese wikimania" to you. Actually, this annual conference is first-time-held this year, since Zh.wikipedians from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and else places thought that there should be a meetup.
The formal name of this meetup is "中文維基年會" in Chinese (which literally
means
"Chinese Wikimedia Annual Conference"), and we don't have an appropriate English name for it yet. Now, we are still thinking what would be good. However, somebody translated the "CWAC" into English as "Chinese wikimania". There seems to
be
a cultural gap which misleads the translator to regard "Wiki-meetup" as "wikimania".
Just for your information.
Theodoanian
2006/3/16, Anthere Anthere9@yahoo.com:
I hope we'll also see some chinese in Boston as well :-) I could not see the information in the news. Do you have any idea how many people you could gather ?
ant
R.O.C wrote:
what if using "wikimedia", for example. "chinese wikimedia
conference"?
just to clarify that "chinese" here means ethnic chinese around the
world,
not limited to the people's republic of china or mainland china, as
what
"china" nowadays often refers to. a number of users of zh.wikipedia
(along
with other wikimedia projects in chinese language) from mainland
china,
taiwan, hong kong, malaysia, canada, united states, germany, etc. have expressed interests to attend.
the chinese community decided to hold the conference in hong kong,
which
enjoys convenient transportation and high degree of autonomy from the central government in beijing. among other candidate cities were
beijing,
shanghai, and taipei. blocking of wikipedia in PRC poses concerns/difficulties for promoting wikimedia and organizing a
conference
within mainland china. taipei has a highly devoted local community but
there
is a difficulty also from politics that entry permits generally are
not
issued to mainland chinese.
-roc (User:R.O.C)
2006/3/16, Angela beesley@gmail.com:
I'm pleased to see a conference in China is being planned, but this and similar events really need to use a different name, both to prevent confusion with the actual Wikimania, and to avoid the need for each event to get permission from Wikimedia to use the name.
Angela. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
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