[Foundation-l] A question for the Wikimania jury

[phoebe ayers]

On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 2:42 PM, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 30/03/2008, Andrew Whitworth <wknight8111 at gmail.com> wrote:
>  > On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 5:31 PM, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  >  > Does the phrase "easily accessible" mean wheelchairs, etc., or does it
>  >  >  mean "close to Europe and North America"?
>
>  > Some of the largest projects are english, german, french, italian,
>  >  etc. Members of these projects are predominantly (although certainly
>  >  not completely) from Europe and North America. It therefore should be
>  >  worth some concern as to whether or not people from North America and
>  >  Europe are able to attend a Wikimania event. It isn't the only factor
>  >  to consider, but it can't be ignored either.
>  >  helping out people in wheelchairs is a good goal too.
>
>
>  Are you answering as a jury member?
>
>  I'm asking what the phrase actually meant when they were using it.
>
>
>  - d.

As one of the Jury moderators: Andrew's reading is correct. (Jury
members, please feel free to step in if I'm misrepresenting your
views.) As most of you know, there has been extensive debate the past
couple of years over where Wikimania should be, and how to provide a
location that has easy travel for the large numbers of editors in
Europe and North America while *also* making the conference accessible
for editing communities on other continents and fully representing the
international nature of Wikimedia. Obviously, one problem with having
a physical meetup for a global project is that *any* possible location
is close by one part of the community but difficult to get to for
another -- so the question of "accessibility" always has to be
qualified.

In the letter, the Jury wanted to note that they *had* paid attention
to the many discussions on this subject, that this issue of community
accessibility had been discussed extensively amongst the jury members,
give the reasons why it was felt Buenos Aires was the best bid
irregardless of location, and also acknowledge that there are a lot of
people who would like to see another Wikimania in Europe or North
America -- and that thus strong bids from those places would be
welcome for 2010's Wikimania.

-- phoebe