[Foundation-l] Wikimania 2007 - get ready for the third edition.

[SJ]

Damian Finol writes:
> unsafe). Cancun has a lot of hotels and there are a lot of Flights
> coming and going, plus it's in a central location for people in the
> Americas and Europe (Most people from Europe will connect in Miami or

Cancun would be interesting.  How many Wikipedians are from around
there?  (nudges Jair to check it out)

Rio : visas could be easier for Americans than the other way around.
Brasil was the most difficult country to work with this year re:
visas.

> Either way, I think just like the World Cup and the Olympics, Wikimania
> should jump continents, Last year it was Europe, this year was North
> America, next year should be either Asia or Latin America.

Absolutely.  Wikimania should make an effort to showcase the
geographic and linguistic diversity of the projects, even/especially
where the diversity of the most-active Wikimedians lags behind -- this
is a chicken and egg problem.


On 8/16/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Kelly Martin wrote:
> > I strongly urge that we should begin discussing venues for 2008 not
> > later than October of this year (by which point we should have 2007's
> > host city decided), and 2009's host city not later than February of
> > next year.  Going forward, the host city for year n+2 should be
> > decided not later than May of year n, and the venue decided not later
> > than May of year n+1.

We could also take advantage of Wikimania as a center for discussion,
and have the bulk of a distributed planning meeting at Wikimania each
year about the coming three years -- encouraging new bids for year
n+3, deciding the host city for year n+2 [currently we're a year
behind that schedule] and discussing the venue for year n+1 [which
should already be reserved].


Jimmy Wales writes:
> I agree, and I was talking with some UK people who felt the same way...
> it is hard to get a good venue in some cases because they are reserved
> a full year in advance.
>
> Perhaps in the deliberations about next year's wikimania, we should
> ponder 2007 and 2008 simultaneously, since the choices are not fully
> independent, given our desire for ongoing geographical diversity.

Good speakers are also sometimes reserved a year in advance, and other
conferences want to know how to avoid conflicting with Wikimania's
dates.

Considering two years at once : it's true the choices are not
independent.  Hopefully we can set a schedule for decisions about 2008
and 2009 so that we shift smoothly to a less hectic calendar.

SJ

ps - http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2008/Bids