(Not directed at Beria or anyone else, just an observation)
We should go where there is a local community that can put together a Wikimania, where the
local infrastructure is suitable, where there are venues and accommodation of a decent
standard, and where as many of our community as possible can get to with the least hassle
and expense, where the members of our community will be welcomed (including, for example,
openly LGBT people and those with disabilities), and where the atmosphere is politically
stable.
Unfortunately, that's going to exclude a lot of places, and it does carry a certain
bias towards major cities in Western countries, but we should not fall into the trap of
putting Wikimania in a certain place for the sake of political correctness. Harry
Mitchellhttp://enwp.org/User:HJ
Phone: +44 (0) 7507 536971
Skype: harry_j_mitchell
From: Béria Lima <berialima(a)gmail.com>
To: Wikimania general list (open subscription) <wikimania-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Monday, 5 October 2015, 15:31
Subject: Re: [Wikimania-l] Coming up with a new process for Wikimania selection
015-10-04 18:41 GMT-03:00 Osmar Valdebenito <b1mbo.wikipedia(a)gmail.com>om>:
I'm simply baffled in the way the Committee has just decided to explicitly reduce the
participation from the so-called Global South, specially when we are supposed to promote
the communities in those countries. (...) Considering this rotation system, one of 21
countries from Latin America will only have an opportunity to host in 2035, while the US
will have the opportunity 7 times in the same timespan. Absurd.
Let's even forget for a second that Latin America, Asia and Africa will only host
one Wikimania once or twice each in 2 decades. The committee also forgot that in the other
10-12 Wikimanias pretty much no one from those regions will be able to attend without a
Scholarship. Right now the rate exchange to USD and EUR to BRL (my currency and one of the
strongest of Latin America) is - respectively - 4 BRL to USD and 5 BRL to EUR. Which makes
a coffee in Paris as expensive as a dress in São Paulo.
And besides the costs, lets remember who gets rejected the most to enter Europe and USA in
any kind of visa (I'm a "white" latina and was held in an European Airport -
twice. I can't even imagine how it is for Africans or Indians). So that decision
basically solidified the fact that for now on, US and Europe and not only the hosts of
pretty much all wikimanias, they are also almost all of the attendees.
Seriously, the committee couldn't do a better job in excluding the Global South.
_____
Béria L. de Rodríguez
Imagine um mundo onde é dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter livre acesso ao
somatório de todo o conhecimento humano. Ajude-nos a construir esse sonho.
2015-10-04 18:41 GMT-03:00 Osmar Valdebenito <b1mbo.wikipedia(a)gmail.com>om>:
I'm simply baffled in the way the Committee has just decided to explicitly reduce the
participation from the so-called Global South, specially when we are supposed to promote
the communities in those countries. Although I agree and understand that places with
bigger communities should host Wikimania more often, the decided rotation is more
unbalanced that in the past. Since 2009, Wikimania has rotated between the Global North
and the Global South each year; now, the Global North will have 2 Wikimanias for each one
hosted in the Global South (and I'm not considering the case of developed countries
-such as Poland or Australia- hosting those years with the weird classification others
have pointed out).
Considering this rotation system, one of 21 countries from Latin America will only have an
opportunity to host in 2035, while the US will have the opportunity 7 times in the same
timespan. Absurd.
2015-10-04 18:01 GMT-03:00 aude <aude.wiki(a)gmail.com>om>:
On Oct 4, 2015 8:10 PM, "James Forrester" <jdforrester(a)gmail.com> wrote:
All,
TL;DR: The Wikimania Committee and the WMF Community Engagement department will be
working on coming up with a new process for venues for future Wikimanias, which we will be
seeking input from the community in the next few months
------
At the Committee’s meeting in Mexico City in August, we agreed to alter the way that
Wikimania locations are decided.
The existing bidding process has developed over time. It has become unwieldy and hard
work for the community and staff. It demands that people pour a huge amount of effort into
building local teams, contracts and institutional relationships only for rejected
bids' work to be left unused. A lot of pressure is put on volunteers to try to work on
logistics rather than dream about what would make a great programme for our communities.
Each year, the jury has to decide on a venue based on what is presented by each group
divisively, rather than what we as a community could come together and build.
The process is too short-term, setting out venue much less than two years ahead (often
only just more than twelve months in advance). This greatly increases expenses when other
similar conferences plan locations out many years ahead. This makes it impossible for us
to be strategic about location, prevents us from arranging co-location with like-minded
conferences, and it means that some areas of the world are ignored when they could provide
great Wikimanias.
Consequently, from now on the Committee will pick an area for Wikimania four to five
years in advance, from the following (provisional) list. The years in which we have
already held Wikimanias in these areas are shown in parentheses
* Western, Northern, and Southern Europe (2005, 2014)
* Canada and United States (2006, 2012)
* Asia-Pacific (2007, 2013)
* Middle East and North Africa (2008, 2011)
* Latin America (2009, 2015)
* Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia (2010)
* South Asia (none yet)
* Sub-Saharan Africa (none yet)
* Oceania (none yet)
The Committee intends to deliberately rotate between these areas to make sure we allow as
many community members to attend as cheaply as possible.
The large majority of our community members are based in either North America or Europe;
organising Wikimanias in these areas allows the majority of our community members to
attend cheaply, so that money spent on scholarships can go further, and be more focussed
in supporting our community members wherever they are based.
Locating Wikimania in other continents does not assure that participants from these areas
can attend more cheaply. Nevertheless, to support the movement worldwide, we do want to
ensure that, every third year, Wikimania will take place neither in Europe nor North
America.
We propose that a sequence of "Western, Northern, and Southern Europe",
"Canada and United States", and one of the others every three years, picked out
several years into the future.I am not convinced this is a good idea, given this
definition of regions. Eastern Europe should definitely be considered along with western,
southern, ... It is pretty cheap to travel there from elsewhere in europe, probably venue
+ accommodations are cheaper, and most important we have significant communities there
with track record of organising regional conferences.
I would also be tempted to
include north Africa and middle east with europe. (after all, the next European hackathon
is being held in Israel)I also think having wikimania in Canada + US every three years is
too often. The visa process for the US is hugely annoying, difficult and results in
excluding attendees. Also, while great and important to have wmf support for wikimania,
imho it is important that ultimate leadership for wikimania each year is from volunteers.
I am not sure the volunteer community in the US + Canada has this capacity to be lead
organizer every three years. Maybe once every four years is reasonable, imho. Also, stuff
like accommodations tends to be a bit expensive in the US compared to elsewhere, and
flights within north America (especially Canada) are also somewhat pricey in my
experience. Cheers,
Katie Beyond the first two areas, we may not visit some as often as others. (I have not
listed Antarctica as an area to which we will rotate, which may well be a disappointment
to members of the British Antarctic Survey and others in that location.)
More widely, we would like to encourage Wikimedia conferences as open, engaging and fun
community meetups, alongside the annual Wikimania conference. I know that several chapters
run country-specific conferences each year, which is a good move. I think that there
should be at least one annual Wikimedia conference in each of these areas. This would help
newer editors know that there are people like them nearby without requiring the existence
of, or putting too great a demand on, every national chapter or other local affiliated
body. In some areas like Africa where the distances are great, multiple regional
conferences may make sense.
As part of the new system of location selection, we will no longer have a
'bidding' process. Instead, the Committee invites people interested in leading or
helping to run a Wikimania to contact us on-wiki, or via the wikimania-l list. If you
think that you know a great team, venue or concept for holding Wikimania, in your area or
anywhere else, please discuss the possibilities with us. We will work with interested
community members to narrow down the selection to a particular venue.
Our next few locations will thus go like this:
* 2016: Western, Northern, and Southern Europe – Esino Lario in Italy
* 2017: Canada and United States – TBD
* 2018: TBD – TBD
* 2019: Western, Northern, and Southern Europe – TBD
* 2020: Canada and United States – TBD
* 2021: TBD – TBD
As you can see, as well as picking the 2017 venue in Canada or the United States, for
which we have a candidate lined up, we need to select very quickly the area for 2018, and
after that, 2019 and beyond. There are several areas we’ve outlined above that have never
had a Wikimania, and others where we have not visited for some time. We would love your
thoughts on the areas on which we should focus for 2018 and beyond. We’ll also be asking
in future for your thoughts about how to structure the programme of each Wikimania to make
it as good as it can be for you, for others, and for our community overall.
Thank you.
Yours,
--
James D. Forrester
Chair, Wikimania Committee
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