We used to regularly raise the issue of a lack of active videoconferencing at Wikimania. Though we (Wikimedians) are highly technically literate, we still do not host virtual attendees, such as 3D virtual conferencing and claim it a win if we release video streams of some of the presentations.
Both to reduce our community's carbon footprint, and to encourage access for those that find air travel challenging or impossible, it would be great to see the Wikimedia Foundation being active in trialing and funding virtual environments for our events. 25 years ago I worked for a global bank and had regular virtual meetings in a video room where you physically sat at a conference table where the other half telemagically was in other headquarters in other cities with shared (physical) whiteboards to help workshopping. These days it's relatively easy to videoconference, but we should do more to experiment with whether booking video suites in different cities might also be a good way of encouraging Wikimedians to default to local travel and still be active in our multi-national or global events and workshops. At the end of the day, paying a few hundred dollars for several conference suites or higher end conference kit hire hosted by local Wikimedia Chapters, is a fraction the cost of paying for a far smaller number of lucky applicants to get their flights and accommodation paid for.
This type of high quality conferencing initiative would perfectly fit the non-specific high level aims mentioned in the WMF sustainability documents. It's weird to me that this is still a debate, and folks are defending continued air travel at the current consumption levels, rather than even trialling all the virtual alternatives.
Fae
On Mon, 23 Sep 2019 at 12:14, Ilario Valdelli valdelli@gmail.com wrote:
Anyways this is perceived by the community.
In Wikimedia CH we cannot give scholarships for Wikimania because people would not do long trips.
IMHO the problem is these big events.
For this reason we prefer to give more scholarships for regional wikicon than to Wikimania.
This is the reason why you dont see more Swiss people at Wikimania.
Kind regards