On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 5:32 PM, Gregory Maxwell <[email protected]> wrote: > Wikimania 2011 has come, yet again another location in the middle-east. > > It seems to me that every major populated geographic region has a > multitude of sites which could create viable wikimania candidacies— > and this has certainly been supported by the past applications. > > A leading application takes an enormous amount of work, expenditure of > political energy, etc. on the part of the proposing team— work that > could perhaps be applied to advancing the Wikimedia mission in other > ways for candidacies which are ultimately fruitless. > > I believe that if you were to take the best candidate from each region > and compare among them you'd find them all to be excellent options and > ultimately end up choosing based little details and preferences, often > ones mostly outside of the control of the applicants. > > Accordingly I believe it would be better if we pre-announced a > preferred geography for the candidacies each year. > > Effort could then be conserved for producing really excellent > proposals in those years when a candidacy is most likely to be > successful. This could also be expected to result in better > applications.
Ah, rotation, the bane of Wikimania planning... or perhaps the challenge, the opportunity? This seems like a good opportunity to propose an idea I have had for a long time, and have discussed with many people, but have never formally proposed. I'm interested in seeing a community-based group being formed to work on the on-going issues surrounding Wikimania. Such a group could (for instance): * work on documentation of past conferences and best practices, so each new team does not have to work hard to get this information (as is currently the case) * set the timetables for choosing future locations and perhaps provide optimal planning schedules (much as the election committee does, in years when it exists) * provide a centralized resource of knowledgeable people that all interested parties (Foundation staff, conference planners, community members, etc) could turn to with questions and ideas * and last but not least.... actively hold and host [and perhaps come to consensus on] discussions such as this (the rotation issue) which has come up every single year in the public and private bid discussions, to no resolve. I imagine such a group would be separate from the year's actual conference planners and the bid jury. This would rather be a group of those interested and those with past wikimania experience -- perhaps less formal than the current standing committees but more formal than the current situation of "whoever happens to work on wikimania and answer their mail." Imagine a really engaged wikiproject. I have had this exchange more than once: "Hey Phoebe, how do I contact the Wikimania group [with my idea for the future/question/proposal]?" "You do realize there's no such thing, right?" And I would like to change that situation. What do you all think? Anyone interested? Starting on meta seems like a good idea: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/community -- Phoebe -- * I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers <at> gmail.com * _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
