[Foundation-l] Why should Wikimedians meet?

[Yaroslav M. Blanter]

On Sat, 31 Jul 2010 18:21:25 +0300, "Amir E. Aharoni"
<amir.aharoni at mail.huji.ac.il> wrote:
> But all of the above are nice dreams about the future. Is there any
> proven experience from the past that demonstrates why personal
> meetings between Wikimedians are not just fun for them, but actually
> beneficial to the Wikimedia community, the Internet, the Humanity? Can
> anyone here give me solid examples of successful projects that were
> born thanks to past Wikimanias?
> 

Well, it is just more efficient to discuss ideas in person. For instance,
if one wants to propose a new project or a new innovation, submitting a
Meta proposal will most probably lead to nowhere and even if it does not it
may takes years of discussions, especially if trolls are involved. Having
first a closed-circle discussion to make a reasonable proposal is much more
efficient, and having it in person is a good investment of time.

On the other hand, I am very sceptical about Wikimania. I am possibly the
only organizer who actually did not attend in 2010, and one of the reasons
is that whereas it could be beneficial to discuss problems which interest
me, for instance, strategy, I was not looking forward to going there just
to make appointments with people whose first priority is to make
appointments with somebody else etc. I know this pretty well from my
experience as a scientist and a participant of scientific conferences: On a
rather small meeting, say 50 participants, one can freely discuss with
whowever he/she wants, including big shots, whereas on events which are
more oriented to public relations, as for instance an annual meeting of
American Physical Society (5000 participants) chances to discuss smth
reasonable without having a pre-appointment are close to zero. 

Cheers
Yaroslav