[Wikinews-l] Wikimania 2007 - Call for Submissions

Sun Apr 8 00:18:57 UTC 2007

I'm (re)sending this to lots of lists -- people, we need more
submissions! Please be bold in sending us your papers -- we'd love to
see you in Taiwan this year. :-)

Please forward to other relevant lists as well! See
http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Call_for_Participation/distribution
for the ones we've already covered.

Erik

- - - -

Wikimania is an annual global event devoted to Wikipedia and the other
Wikimedia Foundation projects. It is a community event, which is also
open to the public and to researchers. This year's conference will be
held from August 3-5, 2007 in Taipei, Taiwan at Chien Tan Overseas
Youth Activity Center. For more information, please visit the
Wikimania site:

http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/

Send your submissions through:

http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submission

We are accepting submissions for posters, presentations, workshops,
and discussion groups. We are also accepting nominations for speakers
and speaker panels, and suggestions for other activities. Please note
the details below and be bold in your submissions!

== Important dates ==

    * 1 March – 30 April: Submission
    * 1 May – 31 May: Feedback and notification of acceptance
    * 3 – 5 Aug 2007 : Wikimania

== Conference Themes ==

Submissions should address one or more of the following themes:

    * Wikimedia Communities – Interesting projects and particularities
within the communities (we explicitly invite you to present your local
Wikimedia project's community!); policy creation within individual
projects; conflict resolution and community dynamics; reputation and
identity; multilingualism, languages and cultures; social studies.

    * Free Content – Open access to information; ways to gather and
distribute free knowledge, usage of the Wikimedia projects in
education, journalism, research; ways to improve content quality and
usability; copyright laws and other legal areas that interfere with
Wikimedia projects.

    * Technical infrastructure – Issues related to MediaWiki
development and extensions; Wikimedia hardware layout; new ideas for
development (including usable case studies from other wikis or similar
projects).

Your topic must be related to Wikimedia projects and its communities
or to the creation of free content in general.

== Types of Submissions ==

We are seeking submissions for

* presentations (10–30 minute talks with optional short or full papers)
* posters (printed presentations or visual displays that can stand on their own)
* workshops (30–120 minute session with more involvement of the audience)
* panels (group of 2-5 speakers to discuss on a specific subject)
* Birds-of-a-Feather (BoF) (45-60 minute informal meetup of group
discussion on a particular topic)
* artistic artifacts (plays, competitions, comedy, visualizations, or
other representations of some aspect of the projects)

== Guidelines ==

Wikimania is organized by volunteers, so please help us to minimize
wasted effort by following these guidelines carefully before
submitting and be sure not to forget anything that is mentioned here.
All submissions must explicitly include the following:

* an English title
* a short English abstract of 50 to 100 words. The abstracts should be
provided as plain text, and not as file attachments. This abstract
will be used as public description of your submission in the
conference program
* a detailed description (or full paper) of at least one page (300
words or more). This description will not be published unless you want
it, but used for reviewing your submission. Give an overview of the
areas to be covered or taught. State clearly the relevance to the
Wikimedia projects and whether submission concerns a specific wiki
project. You may use any language, but we strongly suggest English or
Chinese. Full descriptions may include a link to a full paper or
slides in HTML or PDF, if available.
* full name, email address, and a short bio of 1–3 sentences for each
author. You may also add wiki usernames and nicknames.
* the type of submission (presentation, poster, workshop, panel, BoF, artistic)
* the language(s) you are going to talk in (or the language of your poster)

Please tell us with your submission whether you will attend to
Wikimania (a) surely, (b) probably, (c) only if your submission is
accepted, or (d) only if we provide travel and/or accommodation.

Additionally, please specify:

* the target audience you are going to reach and what previous
knowledge is needed
* special requirements (such as equipment for a workshop or panel) if needed
* images or sketches of the poster or artistic artifact if available
* for panel submissions short biographies of each suggested panelist
* whether the presentation is intended to be a specific length.
* BoF proposals should describe the significance of and community
interest in the topic, and name the proposed discussion leader(s).

For poster sessions there are additional guidelines:
http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Poster_session

Please note that all submissions must be dual licensed under the GNU
Free Documentation License version 1.2 or later and the Creative
Commons Attribution License.

== Submissions ==

Once you are sure you have included all of the required information,
please send your submission by the respective deadline through our
submission system:

http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submission

Please do not send submissions by email. If you need help for
translating your work please visit our translation help page.
Questions, but not submissions, may be directed to cfp at wikimedia.org.

== Hacking Days ==

Before the main conference there will also be informal Hacking days
for MediaWiki developers who are familiar with the software, If you
are interested in joining it, please visit:

http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Planning/Hacking_Days_Extra_2007

== See also ==

* About the venue: http://www.cyh.org.tw/
* Brainstorming page for program ideas:
http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Program_Ideas
* Editable list of attendees: http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Attendees
* WikiSym 2007 (October 21-23, 2007, Montreal), an alternative wiki
conference: http://www.wikisym.org/ws2007/