[Foundation-l] The Wikimania of my dreams

[Andrew Whitworth]

On Sat, Aug 16, 2008 at 1:51 AM, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
> Wikimania should be an open event, not dedicated for Wikimedians, but
> a possibility to involve other people in Wikimedian work.

Wikibooks is finding that we have a lot of friends in like-minded
book-oriented organizations outside the WMF umbrella. We've talked,
perhaps informally, about setting up our own meetups for Wikibookians
and other open-content book enthusiasts. Whether we ever get this
initiative off the ground or not relies on a number of factors, money
not the least of which. It is a good idea, however, and as things
mature it might make sense for the single Wikimedia to become a number
of smaller project-centric or purpose-centric meetups instead.

I would love to see an educational conference organized with Wikibooks
+ Wikiversity + Wikieducator + (insert other cool education and
textbooks groups here) to talk about the present and future issues in
open education. This is the kind of thing that really feels tangential
to the current Wikimania format.

> And I think that we may make an experiment during the next Wikimania
> (which means that we need to prepare everything months earlier). A
> couple of cities may connect with Buenos Aires and between each other.
> We may organize places where the events and lectures from the main
> events at Wikimania would be shown. Wikimania may host a couple of
> lectures from other places, too.

This is a very interesting possibility, with the primary benefit being
that we can increase wikimedian participation in the event without
having to break everybody's bank. If we make it clear that events in
multiple places are all connected to the larger whole, it will be
easier to secure funding and donations at each venue.

Maybe not next year, but in 2010 maybe the committee should select
three wikimedia venues instead of just one with the intention that
they be synchronized and videolink connected. We might be able to
secure donations from computer hardware manufacturers to support video
chat, videoconferencing, and other telepresence.

--Andrew Whitworth