[Foundation-l] Why should Wikimedians meet?

[Austin Hair]

On Sat, Jul 31, 2010 at 5:34 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 31 July 2010 16:27, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 31 July 2010 16:21, 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?
>>
>>
>> Most of the chapters.
>
> Are you sure? Don't chapters come out of local meetups more than
> Wikimanias? Three chapters pre-date the first Wikimania and one was
> founded a week after (so I don't think Wikimania can take credit for
> that). Can you give some examples of chapters you know were founded as
> a result of a Wikimania? I can imagine some people being inspired to
> form chapters after meeting people from other chapters, but I don't
> know any definite examples of it actually happening.

Israel, to name just one.

Not to call them out, but I remember sitting at the chapters meeting
at Wikimania 2006 and hearing out some rather vocal arguments against
a Wikimedia chapter in Israel.  (Seriously, I think we were almost at
fisticuffs.)  We had extensive discussions during and after the
conference, and clarified a lot of misunderstandings.

A few months later, an exploratory committee was founded to
investigate creating an Israeli organization, which resulted in what's
now one of our most successful chapters.

We get a few chapters a year out of Wikimania, not because locals
can't meet with each other by themselves, but because a personal
connection is made with other people involved with chapters and they
see what it's all about.  I know that I, personally, spend a few hours
a day during Wikimania talking about nothing but chapters.

To answer the original post, many projects have resulted from random
talks at dinners during Wikimania, five-minute chats between sessions,
and people just getting to know each other.  I wish I could take the
time to make a more complete list—I think it would be great if other
people would weigh in on this thread, though.

Austin