[Wikimania-l] Wikimania meeting minutes 2005/11/05
Poor, Edmund W
Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com
Fri Nov 11 14:35:00 UTC 2005
Note that Harvard Square is near Harvard Law School (restaurants are 5 min. to 15 min. by walking). Kendall Square is near MIT Media Lab. I might be able to interest my mother in providing bed and breakfast for a couple; she has a spare bedroom with a Queen-size bed overlooking a lovely garden.
Conference goals should be:
1. Enhance community interaction: make it more fun to be a Wikipedian / WikiMedian!
2. Improve the quality of Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects
I can get professional encyclopedia editors to attend / speak at the conference - all with PhD's in their fields.
I am preparing a paper and/or speech (with slides) on "Online Interactions which Facilitate the Production of Quality".
Ed Poor
(who grew up in Cambridge, Mass.)
> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikimania-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikimania-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of SJ
> Sent: Thursday, November 10, 2005 9:24 PM
> To: wikimania-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania meeting minutes 2005/11/05
>
>
> Society of Wikimaniacs
> November 5, 2005, 20:00 UTC
> irc.freenode.net#wikimania
>
> Present : _sj_, akl, Alkivar, Angela, AnyFile, brettstil,
> brion, Chris_Parham, delphine, e2m__, EricaG, gwdash,
> JamesF, jikomboe, MikeSnow, mysekurity, Phroziac, randy_f,
> reagleBRKLN, sasha_ (asw),
> Shanel, shekhar, Solensean, TitaniumDreads,
>
> ...but silent : Bdka, cathyma, Chiacomo, CraigSpurrier,
> da_didi, GerardM, Get_It, here, mattis, MichaelDiederich,
> poli_, Rdsmith4, SabineCretella, soufron, SvenDowideit,
> tobacman, tractor, zwitter ...and away : AppleBoy, Austin,
> GhostFreeman, JeLuF, mark, Rince, Schuyler, SethIlys,
>
> 1. Long before the meeting, Alkivar links to [[Jason Scott
> Sadofsky]] ("a computer history archivist... who is
> humorously anti-wikipedia") and suggests he would make a good
> speaker. Also notes that on campus you can have better
> parties later than you can elsewhere in town.
>
> 2. e2m__ asked if attendees from Asia, Africa, and South
> America will be particularly welcome. The meeting is just
> starting, and this is never answered... are they? See also
> the discussion of conference goals, below.
>
> Via email, Node suggested organizing travel groups of people
> from similar countries / languages, to help them get used to
> the new environment; and to offer partner-interpreters (for
> each group?) --
> to encourage people with poor English skills to attend who
> normally avoid such international events.
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimania_2006#Internation
> al_outreach
>
> 3. Time sensitive issues first : dates for the conference?
> There are 3 promising weekends : July 22-23, July 29-30, and
> August 5-6. The weekend in August seems to be the easiest
> for people to schedule, but may be more expensive for flights
> from Europe.
>
> 3A - Todo: compare flight prices for these dates.
>
> 3B - Harvard professional schools start late for the US, but
> early for Europe. UK high schools get out late, will still
> be in session mid-July (so flights might be cheaper).
>
> 3C - Anyfile did a quick price search; prices were the same
> for those two weekends. Group & corporate flight discounts
> were mentioned.
>
> 4. Working with the Harvard dorm & room offices : the [room]
> office hasn't sorted out their schedule yet; will get to it
> "very soon".
>
> UPDATE: The optimal week[end] for dorms is in early August
> (we could get any combination of dorms we want, up to 450
> beds). Still waiting on room details.
>
> 5. Amgine: will the whole event be at the Harvard Law School?
> Answer: No. The MIT Media Lab wants to host some smaller
> events, even all of the hacking days. They've also offered
> to book their largest hall, Kresge auditorium, if we want to use it.
>
> 6. Where is there food? Places mentioned : The Harkness
> Commons (next door), on-campus caterers (cheers from the
> local union member), nearby restaurants around Harvard &
> Kendall Square.
>
> 7. Timeline : budget 3 months for travel preparation after
> acceptnace of papers, for the most difficult cases. CfP in
> January, December; give initial acceptances by April.
>
> 8A : Next meeting - when is good? rotate every meeting by 15.2 days?
> Pick two times and switch between them? Have multiple
> meetings on some weeks? We settle on the second option.
> Next meeting tentatively set for 1600 UTC, Saturday November 19.
>
> 8B : Have short meetings and keep most discussion on [Meta].
> Clean out the Wikimania wiki and decide if want the site to
> be a wiki next year.
>
> 9A. What should the conference goals be? We agree generally that it
> should support the online communities, and be a party and
> social gathering; and that it should involve "a conference".
> We had some
> trouble defininzg 'conference.' How could we describe the community
> and academic parts of Wikimania more clearly?
> Is international outreach important? Increasing the
> visibility of small projects? Increasing outreach to
> underrepresented languages? Should the goals for this year
> be different than they were last year?
>
> 9B. Naming : JamesF liked "symposium" better than
> conference, but didn't find broad support . (Wikisym's use of
> the term was noted.)
> Mysekurity suggested "the [N]th First Annual" conference, a
> la the Ignobels. MikeSnow chimed in with "Wikimania 2.0".
>
> 10. Design, logos, mascots. Mysekurity wanted a logo contest. This
> met with some definite opposition. Conference t-shirts and
> laptop stickers, however... JamesF dreams of having a
> different shirt from each wikimania in 20 years. Delphine
> suggests a confernce mascot... a new one every year. (the
> Wikipedia worm? Bob the Angry Sunflower? a dolphin? a
> weasel? a marmot?)
>
> 11. Advisors : Sj brings up Tthe idea of a general advisory
> panel -- representatives from outside the community, from
> different parts of the world, who could suggest and provide
> intros to potential speakers and sponsors. Chris Parham
> noted the structure doesn't have to be formal, but that
> getting people involved in this way would be helpful.
> Delphine wanted to know what the advisors would do, other
> than advising the program team.
>
> 12. Announcements. Will there be announcements on the main
> WP page[s]? A sitewide notice? When, for how long? At the
> first opportunity to sign up, before a major
> paper/registration deadline? It is noted that sitewide
> notices were put up last year on fr:wp, to some complaints,
> but not on en:wp.
>
> 13. Media streaming. Mysekurity: webcam streams? audio?
> Mysekurity: will it be broken down into 'important' and 'not
> important' segments?
> Akl: as long as there's someone to do it... mysekurity would
> be glad to '''help''' (emphasis his :)
>
> 14. Feedback from attendees and presenters. Attendees from
> last year want a social list to keep up with friends from
> Wikimania. Other feedback already left on meta needs to be reviewed.
>
> 15. Licensing of papers. General agreement: ask speakers to
> agree to a reasonably free license, and to audio/video
> reproduction if they're being recorded, well ahead of time.
>
> 16. Conference planning software. No word from Austin, Jakob,
> or Patrick; it is generally agreed that a license agreement
> on paper submission makes sense. JamesF mentions that he was
> at some point happy to help Austin improve on last year's reg
> system; regrets mentioning it again :-) It is also agreed we
> should choose our program planning software in time for the
> program team to look at it.
>
> 17. Program team and Papers
> This team is one of the first to act. How will it be
> structured? Who will be on it? Who will lead it? We should
> get help from outside the community; technologists and
> academics (e.g., Sunir, others from Wikimania '05?)
> methodically split up papers into review groups.
> Amgine notes CfPs should have a postmark deadline.
> Delphine says there should be a very official, and a secret
> unofficial deadline. Sj suggests having an early deadline
> for people who need advnce notice; Delphine said she will pay
> Sj a beer if anyone submits a paper early.
> Mysekurity: will papers be physical, on a wiki? will they be
> editable / commentable by others before the event? Delphine
> notes she would not like that.
>
> 18. Other teams
> Website and conf-software are also needed soon. Ditto
> general conference organization. How should the organization
> be divided?
> Should they be split into formal committees? Do we need to
> hire people to coordinate the volunteers, or have an external
> conference organizer?
> Sj noted there is an agenda item on the upcoming board
> meeting re: hiring an organizer for Wikimania.
>
> 19. Multilingualism
> Soleansan thinks we should translate papers into Swahili, "or
> at least in Réunion creole," so people don't get the
> impression that WP is only
> English, or only for English-speakers. Alkivar thinks we need
> Fr/Es/De translations for every major speaker. Delphine
> suggests waiting until registration is opened and we see who
> signs up. akl notes that in Frankfurt, none of the German
> attendees needed translations. .
> Sj added that we know hardly any relevant presenters who
> don't speak in English, but if we had a better way of
> finding/filtering potential speakers, we might find them.
> Delphine suggests spending money on travel sponsorships and
> visas, and not on translation.. But we didn't release the
> CfP in too many languages last year... can sj evaluate a
> Russian paper? via a translator. (e.g., the Chinese-language
> paper submitted last year)
> akl wants to know if the next irc meeting will be held in
> swahili, russian or in chinese? :)
>
> 20. Closure and followups
> Two hours was a bit long. Follow-ups on the wiki:
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimania_2006/En#November
_5_discussion
++SJ
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