[Foundation-l] [Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2008 will happen in Alexandria, Egypt

[Delirium]

Andrew Gray wrote:
> On 11/10/2007, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>
>   
>> True, but some places are less expensive for a greater number of people
>> than others are. If we were to order cities by some vague criterion of
>> "number of people who can get there for under US$500, plus number of
>> people who can get there for under US$1000, weighted by some unspecified
>> amount", my guess based on consolidator spot-checking is that, from
>> least to most expensive, the four Wikimania cities would be ordered:
>> Frankfurt, Boston, Taipei, Alexandria.  I.e., we're picking somewhere
>> less accessible every year!
>>     
>
> I'm surprised at the latter two - my gut instinct is that the
> accessibility from Europe for Alexandria should outweigh the
> accessibility bonus for the Far Eastern users going to Taiwan. Was it
> close?
>
> (This is probably me systematically underestimating our usership
> figures, again...)
>   

I guess it's probably close, and it might be fair to say Alexandria and 
Taipei are about equally accessible/inaccessible depending on what you 
care about. Both are clearly much less accessible than the two previous 
locations, though. It also partly depends on whether you weight by 
typical attendees, or by the possibility of attracting new attendees 
(e.g. the Japanese Wikipedia is a top-5 by size, but underrepresented at 
our events).

For cheap (under US$500):
-- Frankfurt: Nearly all of Europe, much of North Africa, some of the 
Middle East
-- Boston: Nearly all of the U.S., much of Canada, most of the 
Carribbean, much of Central America
-- Taipei: Hong Kong, maybe some other nearby places if you're lucky 
(Malaysia, Japan, etc.)
-- Alexandria: North Africa and the Middle East

For semi-cheap (US$500-1000):
-- Frankfurt: Much of the rest of Africa and the Middle East, parts of 
the U.S. east coast if you're lucky
-- Boston: Most of the rest of North, Central, and South America, and a 
few European cities if you're lucky
-- Taipei: Most of the rest of eastern Asia, a few U.S. west coast 
cities if you're lucky (e.g. Los Angeles)
-- Alexandria: Most of Europe, a handful of African cities if you're 
lucky (e.g. Nairobi)

A major problem with Alexandria's accessibility seems to be that, due to 
the way airline markets are structured, it's actually *less* accessible 
from most of Africa than Europe is, despite being on the African continent.

But of course Phoebe has a point that this isn't really the selection 
committee's fault. Europe seems to have the best overall accessibility, 
but we can't pick a European city if no European cities submit bids. =]

-Mark