Re: [Wikimania-l] Outcomes from the Consultation on Wikimedia movement conferences/Wikimania

[James Forrester]

On Mon, 8 Feb 2016 at 14:54 Ellie Young  wrote:

> The Community Resources team at the WMF recently held a consultation
> 
> on articulating the value of Wikimedia movement conferences overall, the
> unique value of Wikimania, and what new form Wikimania could take to better
> serve the movement going forward.   We have completed analysis of these
> results and have prepared this report:
>
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Towards_a_New_Wikimania/Outcomes
>
> I will be working with the community, organizers, committees, and WMF in
> 2017 to begin set up and planning for an experimental model for Wikimedia
> movement conferences, including Wikimania, starting in 2018.
>
> Feedback and comments are welcome at the discussion page
> 
> Thanks to all who participated!
>

On behalf of the Wikimania Committee, I would like to thank everyone who
took part and the Community Resources team for organising this discussion.

The Committee will consider these recommendations and will then come back
with some changes to our processes.

Yours,
___
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

[Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2017 to be held in Montréal in Canada

[James Forrester]

All,

I am delighted to announce on behalf of the Wikimania Committee that
Wikimania, the annual Wikimedia community conference, will be held in
Montréal, Canada in 8–13 August 2017.

2017 will be the 375th anniversary of the founding of Montréal as a city,
which will make it a great time for a cultural event to take place. Despite
being our twelfth Wikimania, Montréal will be our first in a Francophone
location, and the Montréal team is working with French-speaking community
members worldwide to make Montréal a success. WikiFranca and Wikimedia
Canada will be supporting the local team led by Marc-André Pelletier
(User:Coren). A press release/announcement from them will be forthcoming.
You can contact the team via e-mail at team{at}wikimania.ca.

For 2017, we decided to investigate and vet a revised earlier proposal for
Montréal to host while the selection process itself is being reviewed.
Selecting and confirming the venue with more lead time ensures cost savings
in hotel prices and contract terms; affords us favourable dates and rates;
and allows participation and overlap with current and future teams.

Please join us in congratulating the team, and working to support them in
holding an excellent conference.

Yours,

James D. Forrester
Chair, Wikimania Committee
___
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

Re: [Wikimania-l] Coming up with a new process for Wikimania selection

[James Forrester]

On Tue, 6 Oct 2015 at 01:59 Lodewijk  wrote:

> Did anyone do a calculation whether holding it in an expensive city (say,
> London) with cheaper flights actually /is/ cheaper than holding it in a
> cheap city in Asia (say, Delhi or Mumbai)? And then I don't mean WMF-budget
> wise, but total costs: including the costs by all affiliates, and the costs
> privately paid for by the volunteers. I recall being positively surprised
> that there was very little difference between India and Berlin for the
> chapters meeting...
>

I've been doing this regularly for years in an *ad hoc* way. It informed
the pick of areas. For example, the additional cost to the community of
hosting Wikimania in Australia is (very roughly) US$1k extra per person
from outside Oceania compared to the base cost, and US$1k less for each
person in Oceania. At typical levels of 800 non-local self-funded
attendees, of whom we have around 10 from Oceania, and 400 local people who
wouldn't otherwise come at all, This means an additional community cost of
~US$750k (and a bunch more for Wikimedia organisational funds, paid
directly from WMF or via the chapters) in return for the opportunity for
400 local Oceanians to attend who wouldn't otherwise have the opportunity.

This is, clearly, not a completely unacceptable additional burden, but it
is one we should take on carefully. By picking the venue for Wikimania we
are not just 'awarding' some locals, but demanding a great many community
people reach even deeper to try to attend, and for a great many, put it
beyond their financial reach. Though Wikimedia organisational funds pay a
huge amount for scholarships, almost entirely focussed on the
less-represented countries in our community, but this does not (and cannot
reasonably) cover the majority of attendees.

Off the top of my head, the numbers are roughly comparable for Latin
America (slightly less for Mexico), a bit lower for South Asia, Sub-Saharan
Africa, and Eastern Europe/Russia/Central Asia, and lower still for Asia
Pacific and the Middle East and North Africa. The numbers drift from year
to year a bit, but sadly there's not much impact on the overall headline
whilst the editing community is so unequally geographically distributed.

This is why we included the call to area to get into the practice of having
annual regional or sub-regional conferences. These would let a much larger
portion of our community more easily afford to come to an in-person
community event to share their passion, talk about what we can do to
improve the projects, and learn new things. This is what the Wikimedia
conferences, be they the global Wikimania or the regional "Wikimeetings"
(people should suggest a great name!), should be about.

J.
___
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

[Wikimania-l] Coming up with a new process for Wikimania selection

[James Forrester]

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. 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 

Re: [Wikimania-l] Coming up with a new process for Wikimania selection

[James Forrester]

On Sun, 4 Oct 2015 at 11:25 Joseph Fox <josephfoxw...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 4 October 2015 at 19:10, James Forrester <jdforres...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> At the Committee’s meeting in Mexico City in August, we agreed to alter
>> the way that Wikimania locations are decided.
>>
>
> ​I don't mean to slight yourself, James, or the committee, but this seems
> an unnecessary delay. Why is this only now being communicated?​
>

A fair question. We spent too long discussing options rather than
presenting this earlier. I'm sorry. I have discussed this change with a
variety of people since at least 2007, and others were talking about it
before me, but as the complexity of Wikimania rises each year it has become
more chronic. As Chair of the Committee, the delay is my fault, and I
apologise.



> Would it not have been wise to reveal this as it was agreed upon rather
> than now, after at least two bidding parties have put time and effort into
> their bids for 2017?
>

I might equally ask why people not associated with running Wikimania
decided the create and keep updating mistaken pages on meta about Wikimania
2017 being open for bids without even a post to this list, let alone the
Committee, where we could have pointed out it was false before people spent
time ill-advisedly. :-(


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.
>>
>
> ​This is true and cannot be ignored. But why, then, is "Europe" such a
> narrow definition? Why no provision for Eastern Europe and Russia? This
> seems quite disappointing given we have active affiliates in these areas.
>

The groupings are based on where the majority of Wikimedians are. They can
of course change over time. I was hoping to work with fellow Wikimedians to
narrow down these definitions so that it's clear for instance which group
each interested community group falls.

I'd note that we've already had one Wikimania in the "Eastern Europe,
Russia, and Central Asia" area, which is one more than, for instance, South
Asia where we also have a large number of Wikimedians.


> ​We should probably cut to the chase and just name the location, since by
> now it's common knowledge.
>

Despite people breaching trust and leaking "news" rather than seeking
clarification, the announcement for 2017 is not final and is still subject
to approval.



> Other than my previous comment about the lack of inclusion of Eastern
> Europe—are we seriously suggesting holding one in Russia and then one in
> (for instance) Warsaw? That seems to defeat the point of this exercise
> somewhat.
>

No. "Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia" would cover both of those
locations, so at the smallest they would be three years apart, and in
practice probably a great deal more.

Yours,
___
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

Re: [Wikimania-l] program submissions

[James Forrester]

On 7 April 2014 08:37, Lodewijk lodew...@effeietsanders.org wrote:

 Hi,

 on the wiki, there seem to be several (all?) submissions without
 submission number. Is there a way to check if a submission is being
 considered and/or what the status is? Right now I'm uncertain if mine was
 included in the process at all for example.


I'm working on this right now. As normal (as was done last year),
submissions will be listed and reviewed at
https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submission_review.

J.
-- 
James D. Forrester
jdforres...@gmail.com
[[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] (speaking purely in a personal
capacity)
___
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

[Wikimania-l] 1 week reminder: Wikimania 2014 – Call for Submissions

[James Forrester]

On 2 January 2014 04:24, James Forrester jdforres...@gmail.com wrote:

 Everyone,

 I would like to invite submissions[0] proposing presentations, panels,
 tutorials and workshops for Wikimania 2014 in London this coming August.

 Note that the deadline is the end of March; we hope to have final
 decisions about the programme by the end of April.



[0] – https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions


All,

A reminder that this deadline is just over *one week away* – by the end of
31 March.

Note that a complete submission is required, including an abstract of 300
words or more that explains to the Programme Committee why you think your
proposal should be accepted over others.

(For the curious, we will accept submissions up to 23:59 UTC−12:00 on 31
March 2014, which is 11:59 UTC on 1 April 2014, but not later.)

Yours,
-- 
James D. Forrester
Chair, Programme Committee
Wikimania 2014

jdforres...@gmail.com
[[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] (speaking purely in a personal
capacity)
___
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

[Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2015 - Call for Jury volunteers

[James Forrester]

Dear all,

Soon we will be kicking off the selection process for deciding where we
will hold Wikimania 2015[0].

The Requests for Proposals (RfP) is being written right now[1], and will be
coming out soon, but in this e-mail we would like to invite volunteers to
serve on the selection jury[2]. The jury will select the winning bid based
on published criteria, reviewing the bids from January onwards until the
final selection is made in April 2014.

This is roughly 30-40 hours' work, and is key to us making Wikimania a
strong, healthy community conference that we all can enjoy. The Wikimania
Committee will select a jury that is a balanced representation of the
community, from a diverse range of backgrounds, sexes, languages, cultures
and regions of the world.

The main criteria are as follows:

* You want to help make Wikimania as great a celebration of the community
as we can make it;
* You can represent some of the Wikimedia community's varied projects and
activities;
* You have some experience of community events, meetings, conferences, or
want to learn;
* You have some free time during the selection period, especially late
March and early April; and
* You are not closely involved in any bid (it's a conflict of interest).

If you would like to serve on the jury, please e-mail Florence Devouard
(off-list) [[Wikipedia:User:Anthere]] at fdevouard @ wikimedia.org by 12
November. We will announce the jury in two weeks' time.

Please help us by translating this message and passing it on to your wiki's
community for those that don't read these mailing lists.

Thank you, and good luck to all Bids.

[0] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2015
[1] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2015_bids
[2] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_jury

On behalf of the Wikimania Committee.

Yours,
-- 
James D. Forrester
jdforres...@gmail.com
[[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] (speaking purely in a personal
capacity)
___
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

Re: [Wikimania-l] Thank you!!

[James Forrester]

Here here. A wonderful conference. Thank you!

On Monday, August 12, 2013, Joseph Fox wrote:

 I just wanted to say, on behalf of all the attendees this year, a massive
 THANK YOU to all 350 volunteer organisers and Wikimedia Hong Kong for a
 fantastic conference!

 Thanks for everything! :-)

 Joe


 --
 *Joseph Fox*
 enwp.org/user:foxj



-- 
James D. Forrester
jdforres...@gmail.com
[[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] (speaking purely in a personal
capacity)
___
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

[Wikimania-l] Selection of winning bid for Wikimania 2014: London

[James Forrester]

Dear Wikimedians,

On behalf of the Wikimania 2014 selection Jury, after review and
evaluation of the two final bids, we have awarded the conference to
London. Congratulations to the London team, and to the Arusha team who
also put forward a solid effort.

We were concerned this year to see that both bidding teams put forward
proposals which were costly and complicated, in contrast to the
Wikimania tradition. The Jury briefly considered re-opening the bid
for other teams, and asked both bids to present a simpler core budget
and lower-cost options for attendees.

The London team took our comments to heart and decreased their core
budget to 20% of their initial proposal, and have committed to finding
ways to reduce the cost for community attendees.

We encourage future bidding teams to not give up their dreams, to keep
aiming for the stars, but at the same time, to not forget the spirit
of Wikimedia: a volunteer movement that makes creative use of limited
resources. We look forward to the proposed Wikimania Committee setting
out clearer guidelines on these principles.

The process to bid for hosting Wikimania requires a substantial time
investment, and we thank both candidate teams for their submissions
and hard work.

Yours,

James Forrester
Moderator, Wikimania 2014 Jury
For the Wikimania 2014 Jury
--
James D. Forrester
jdforres...@gmail.com
[[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] (speaking purely in a personal capacity)

___
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

Re: [Wikimania-l] [Wikimedia-l] Creating a Wikimania Committee

[James Forrester]

On 23 April 2013 07:01, Orsolya Gyenes gyenes.orso...@wiki.media.hu wrote:
 2013/4/23 Butch Bustria bu...@wikimedia.org.ph

 Hi,

 I suggest Wikimedia Conference Coordination Committee (WC3) so that
 conferences similar to *Regional Wikimanias* or *Thematic Wikimania*
 be accommodated.

 Hi,

 It's already there:

- Provide advice (on request) with regards to other large-scale
Wikimedia events to the community and movement bodies.

Indeed - the point is that the Committee shouldn't just declare itself
in charge of all events that happen around the world that are related
to Wikimedia. It is about Wikimania (including, potentially, regional
Wikimanias) and should advise but not direct other events.

J.
--
James D. Forrester
jdforres...@gmail.com
[[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] (speaking purely in a personal capacity)

___
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

Re: [Wikimania-l] Creating a Wikimania Committee

[James Forrester]

On 22 April 2013 22:17, James Forrester jdforres...@gmail.com wrote:
 Dear all,

 A small group of long-time Wikimaniacs have been working on the
 perrenial plan to produce a Wikimania Committee - a community group
 who would help steer Wikimania from year to year, advising each local
 hosting team and ensuring that the processes are open, transparent and
 community-led.

Some comments based on private questions that I think should be
answered publicly:

[Conflicts of Interest]
There would be a relatively strong Conflict of Interest policy that
would mean that people running a current conference (or bidding for
one) would not be able to sit on the committee, and would have to
resign if they were going to start doing so.

[Timing]
The July timing is if anything too slow - from my point of view, we
really should be commissioning Wikimania 2015 by 1 August 2013 to give
the host team two clear years to organise (so the call for bids should
go out as soon as possible). However, life isn't perfect, and I doubt
we'll manage to get the committee up and running (and redrafting its
charter and procedures for the Board to approve) before then. We can,
of course, always change things later when they're not working. :-)

I'm sure we could discuss the initial protocols in-person with high
effectiveness, at a cost to the movement of US$15k or similar, but we
could work from some drafts and discuss in meetings and on-wiki for
'free', and also involve the community much more rather than some
ivory-tower pronouncement of what we think works.

The hope is that the committee will be in a place to start advising HK
right away, though we'll see if that's achievable.

[Things the committee could do]
* Provide a template for bids that focusses them onto the issues that
criteria related, rather than too much opportunity for tourist-like
generic information that takes a great deal of effort from the bidding
team and provide less valuable information for the selection
judgement.
* Meet with bidding teams via video-conference rather than IRC to open
things up more. (Though this makes things harder for people with
non-native English skills - not the entire bidding team will
necessarily be fluent.)
* Run a stakeholder meeting for interested parties at Wikimania 2013
- 
https://wikimania2013.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/The_Growth_and_Future_of_Wikimania
* Possibly also run focussed in-person workshops at Wikimania (or
beforehand?) as well.

[Appetite to be part of a committee]
Recently we have had issues providing enough volunteers for the jury
process. However, just because only a few people offered to be part of
a secretive and unclear process doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to
open up this into the community properly, and be transparent and open
as much as we can.

[Elections to the committee?]
I am (extremely) strongly against making this yet another elected
position - it's hugely expensive in terms of volunteer time and
resources (not just those running the election, and the candidates,
but also in the minds of all 200,000 people that dismiss the you can
vote! banners), and the important thing is having expertise on the
committee and being as open as possible, not electioneering.


Yours,
--
James D. Forrester
jdforres...@gmail.com
[[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] (speaking purely in a personal capacity)

___
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

[Wikimania-l] Creating a Wikimania Committee

[James Forrester]

Dear all,

A small group of long-time Wikimaniacs have been working on the
perrenial plan to produce a Wikimania Committee - a community group
who would help steer Wikimania from year to year, advising each local
hosting team and ensuring that the processes are open, transparent and
community-led.

Here are our drafts of what we think we'd want the committee to be
like, a charter, and the resolution which we're submitting to the WMF Board:

* https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_Committee
* https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_Committee/Charter
* https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_resolutions/Wikimania_Committee

Comments are very welcome; we're trying to get this done fairly
quickly, and of course we will iterate these plans as we get feedback
and hopefully more forward on the oft-stalled next steps.

J.
--
James D. Forrester
jdforres...@gmail.com
[[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] (speaking purely in a personal capacity)

___
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

[Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2014 - Public meeting, Arusha #1 (2013-04-07) log

[James Forrester]

All,

The public meeting with Arusha happened just now; for those that
missed it or want to review, the log is posted on meta at:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2014/IRC_meeting_2013-04-07

Yours,
--
James D. Forrester
jdforres...@gmail.com
[[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] (speaking purely in a personal capacity)

___
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

[Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2014: Official bid list

[James Forrester]

All,

To confirm, the candidate bids to host Wikimania 2014 are:

* Arusha, Tanzania
* London, UK

The bids now have two weeks (until 23:59 UTC on 17 March 2013) to
finalise all major information on their pages, responding to questions
from the jury and the community, and prepare for the
question-and-answer phase.

Good luck to both bids!

On behalf of the Wikimania 2014 Jury,

Yours,
--
James D. Forrester
jdforres...@gmail.com
[[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] (speaking purely in a personal capacity)

___
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

[Wikimania-l] Announcement of Wikimania 2014 jury

[James Forrester]

[Please note that I send this purely as a volunteer, and in no
connexion to the Wikimedia Foundation.]

Dear all,

I write to announce the Jury to select which bid will be chosen to
host Wikimania in 2014.

The twelve members will be:

* Deror Avi - [[User:Deror avi]] from Israel (Wikimania 2011 General Manager)
* Philippe Beaudette - [[User:Philippe (WMF)]] from the US (Wikimedia
Foundation Director, Community Advocacy)
* Jeromy-Yu Chan - [[User:Yuyu]] from HK (Wikimania 2013 Co-ordinator-in-Chief)
* Shujen Chang - [[User:Shujenchang]] from HK
* Florence Devouard - [[User:Anthere]] from France
* Orsolya Gyenes - [[User:OrsolyaVirág]] from Hungary (Wikimania 2012
Deputy Program Chair)
* James Hare - [[User:Harej]] from the US (Wikimania 2012 Co-chair)
* Achal Prabhala - [[User:Aprabhala]] from India - Wikimedia Advisory
Board member
* Konarak Ratnakar - [[User:Kondicherry]] from India
* Noopur Raval - [[User:Noopur28]] from India
* Manuel Schneider - [[User:80686]] from Austria (Wikimedia
Österreich; perpetual Wikimania organiser)
* [[User:Whiteghost.ink]] from Australia

Jan-Bart de Vreede and Sam Klein (of the Wikimedia Foundation Board)
will also be part of the Jury, as normal.

I and Phoebe Ayers - [[User:Phoebe]] - will be serving as moderators,
neutral aides for the Jury who do not vote.

To re-iterate what we've said before, it would be lovely if this was
the last year we used this process, and that for 2015 onwards we could
create a new, community-led and more open and transparent process.
Some earlier discussions took place at [[m:Talk:Wikimania Advisory
Group]]. Please feel free to give your thoughts there.

As a reminder, bids have two weeks (until 23:59 UTC on 3 March 2013)
until bidding creation closes. All cities which intend to run for the
bidding process should have created a page on meta and entered the
official list by this point.

Thank you, and good luck to all Bids.

Yours,
--
James D. Forrester
jdforres...@gmail.com
[[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] (speaking purely in a personal capacity)

___
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

[Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2014 - Request for Bids and Jury nominations

[James Forrester]

[Please note that I send this as a volunteer, and in no connexion to
the Wikimedia Foundation.]

Dear all,

== Preamble ==

Last year, after some discussion on this list[0] and other places, I
felt we as a community had said we were unhappy with the traditional
ad-hoc system for selecting the location for each year's Wikimania,
and wanted something different, a process that involved the community
and was more transparent, clearer and possibly set out candidate areas
or countries rather than inviting interested bids alone. In the hope
that the community would self-organise along these lines, I haven't
done anything to re-run the existing system.

However, no real discussion has taken place, and it's clear



[0] - http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimania-l/2011-November/003225.html
etc.


It's getting towards the end of November, which means it is time to
run the Wikimania bidding process for 2013[0].

Given the traditional absence of a formal system, I'm putting myself
forward as Jury[1] co-ordinator - a non-voting person who helps the
Jury form and Bids get started up, sets the timeline[2], and hopefully
makes sure everything happens smoothly.

In this role, I would like to make two requests:

Firstly, I'm sure the whole Wikimedia community would love to see as
many good bids as possible. There are already a few bids[3] on Meta,
but if you or your local community are thinking about putting one in,
I'd urge you to get started now - there's not much time left before
new bids will not be accepted. Making a good bid for Wikimania can be
a lot of work, but we all benefit from there being a strong field of
bids.


Secondly, [Please note that I send this as a volunteer, and in no
connexion to the Wikimedia Foundation.]

Dear all,

I write again to ask for people to submit bids to host Wikimania in
2014[0], and also to serve on the Jury to select which bid will be
chosen, in my traditonal .


== Request for bids ==

As always, the whole Wikimedia community would love to see as many
good bids as possible. There are only two bids[1] on Meta, so if you
or your local community are thinking about putting one in, or
re-submitting one that is now withdrawn, I'd urge you to get started
right away - there is very little time left. Making a good bid for
Wikimania can be a lot of work, but we all benefit from there being a
strong field of bids.

I have updated the timeline[2] to have an (extremely) foreshortened
pre-bidding process, which means that all provisional bids must be
created by 23:59 UTC 3 March 2013 at the latest - i.e., three weeks'
time from when this e-mail was written. I appreciate that this is
short notice, but it's very important to give the winning bid the time
to make a success, and the idea of bidding for Wikimanias should not
be completely new to everyone by now.


== Request for Jury volunteers ==

I would like to invite volunteers to serve on the Wikimania 2014 Jury.
There is a list of general requirements on Meta[4], but to summarise:

* The Jury will be mostly community volunteers with possibly some
Wikimedia Foundation staff or Board members;
* We of course want a mix of people from a diverse range of
backgrounds, sexes, cultures and regions of the world;
* We want to represent the community across the different projects and
activities;
* You can't be on the Jury if you are closely involved in a Bid (it's
a conflict of interest); and
* You need to have some free time during the selection period (March-April).

If you wish to be involved in the Jury, please e-mail me (off-list) at
jdforrester at gmail.com - I will announce the Jury in one week's
time, so please contact me immediately.


== Note ==

Last year, after some discussion on the Wikimania list[4] and other
places, I felt we as a community had said we were unhappy with the
traditional ad-hoc system for selecting the location for each year's
Wikimania, and wanted something different, a process that involved the
community and was more transparent, clearer and possibly set out
candidate areas or countries rather than inviting interested bids
alone. In the hope that the community would self-organise along these
lines, I haven't done anything to re-run the existing system.

However, no real discussion has taken place, and the process is now
four months overdue[5]. It's clear that a community-agreed system
won't magically snap into existence in the next few days.  I would
implore the community to work to establish a selection system for 2015
and beyond, but we cannot wait for 2014. Therefore, on the basis that
I've done this before, I am running the process for Wikimania 2014 as
before, as a non-voting organiser like the previous times. I would
hope that this is the last time.



Please also consider passing this message on (and translating it!) for
your wiki's community forum for those that don't read these mailing
lists.

Thank you, and good luck to all Bids.


[0] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2014
[1] - 

Re: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2014 - Request for Bids and Jury nominations

[James Forrester]

Secondary copy for clarity:

[Please note that I send this as a volunteer, and in no connexion to
the Wikimedia Foundation.]

Dear all,

I write again to ask for people to submit bids to host Wikimania in
2014[0], and also to serve on the Jury to select which bid will be
chosen, in my traditonal .


== Request for bids ==

As always, the whole Wikimedia community would love to see as many
good bids as possible. There are only two bids[1] on Meta, so if you
or your local community are thinking about putting one in, or
re-submitting one that is now withdrawn, I'd urge you to get started
right away - there is very little time left. Making a good bid for
Wikimania can be a lot of work, but we all benefit from there being a
strong field of bids.

I have updated the timeline[2] to have an (extremely) foreshortened
pre-bidding process, which means that all provisional bids must be
created by 23:59 UTC 3 March 2013 at the latest - i.e., three weeks'
time from when this e-mail was written. I appreciate that this is
short notice, but it's very important to give the winning bid the time
to make a success, and the idea of bidding for Wikimanias should not
be completely new to everyone by now.


== Request for Jury volunteers ==

I would like to invite volunteers to serve on the Wikimania 2014 Jury.
There is a list of general requirements on Meta[4], but to summarise:

* The Jury will be mostly community volunteers with possibly some
Wikimedia Foundation staff or Board members;
* We of course want a mix of people from a diverse range of
backgrounds, sexes, cultures and regions of the world;
* We want to represent the community across the different projects and
activities;
* You can't be on the Jury if you are closely involved in a Bid (it's
a conflict of interest); and
* You need to have some free time during the selection period (March-April).

If you wish to be involved in the Jury, please e-mail me (off-list) at
jdforrester at gmail.com - I will announce the Jury in one week's
time, so please contact me immediately.


== Note ==

Last year, after some discussion on the Wikimania list[4] and other
places, I felt we as a community had said we were unhappy with the
traditional ad-hoc system for selecting the location for each year's
Wikimania, and wanted something different, a process that involved the
community and was more transparent, clearer and possibly set out
candidate areas or countries rather than inviting interested bids
alone. In the hope that the community would self-organise along these
lines, I haven't done anything to re-run the existing system.

However, no real discussion has taken place, and the process is now
four months overdue[5]. It's clear that a community-agreed system
won't magically snap into existence in the next few days.  I would
implore the community to work to establish a selection system for 2015
and beyond, but we cannot wait for 2014. Therefore, on the basis that
I've done this before, I am running the process for Wikimania 2014 as
before, as a non-voting organiser like the previous times. I would
hope that this is the last time.



Please also consider passing this message on (and translating it!) for
your wiki's community forum for those that don't read these mailing
lists.

Thank you, and good luck to all Bids.


[0] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2014
[1] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2014/Bids
[5] - 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2014_bid_selection_timeline?oldid=5233347
[3] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_jury
[4] - http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimania-l/2011-November/003225.html
etc.
[5] - 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2014_bid_selection_timeline?oldid=5042528

Yours,

On 10 February 2013 18:30, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote:
 Maybe it's because it's 2:30 am here, but I can't figure out how to follow
 those instructions. Can you just fix it and resend?

 On Feb 11, 2013 2:25 AM, James Forrester ja...@jdforrester.org wrote:

 Oh, whoops. I moved the pre-amble down to be notes, and somehow it's
 back. My apologies.

 Everything between == Preamble == and However, no real discussion
 has taken place, and it's clear can be ignored.

 J.

 On 10 February 2013 18:22, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote:
  I think this email has been corrupted...
 
  On Feb 11, 2013 2:15 AM, James Forrester jdforres...@gmail.com
  wrote:
 
  [Please note that I send this as a volunteer, and in no connexion to
  the Wikimedia Foundation.]
 
  Dear all,
 
  == Preamble ==
 
  Last year, after some discussion on this list[0] and other places, I
  felt we as a community had said we were unhappy with the traditional
  ad-hoc system for selecting the location for each year's Wikimania,
  and wanted something different, a process that involved the community
  and was more transparent, clearer and possibly set out candidate areas
  or countries rather than inviting interested bids alone. In the hope

[Wikimania-l] Selection of winning bid for Wikimania 2013: Hong Kong

[James Forrester]

On behalf of the Wikimania 2013[0] selection Jury[1], I can announce
that we have awarded the conference to Hong Kong. Congratulations to
the bidding team, and to the London team who also did a particularly
excellent job.

There were five official bids: Bristol, Naples and Surakarta, as well
as the two finalists of Hong Kong and London[2]. The Jury and the
bidding teams discussed them in three public IRC meetings in April. We
determined that Hong Kong and London were the strongest contenders,
and decided to focus on these two as the finalists. After further
e-mail enquiries, and considering evaluation by Wikimedia Foundation
staff, a final, private meeting was held to reach a final decision.

The Jury was pleased by the high quality in both the final bids, and
required over three hours' discussion to reach the final verdict. We
considered each bid according to the criteria[3], focussing on
following factors: Venue, Program, Geo-location  Logistics, Local
Opportunities, Accommodations, Team  Chapter, and Budget  Finances.
We found consensus that the Hong Kong bid was the stronger, especially
because of their strong advance planning; solid support by the local
Wikimedia Chapter, the community, local government, and a partner
organisation that is experienced in planning conferences; and their
good combination of venue and accommodation.

The Jury has confidence that the Hong Kong bidding team will pull off
a magnificent Wikimania, and we are pleased for our global community
to return to Asia once again. With a motivated group of volunteers who
have experience in organizing smaller Wikimedia activities, and a
partner with experience in organizing larger-scale events, they have
found a good mix to create a successful conference. The Jury did also
identify some weaker points in each the bids, and will be happy to
share those privately with the teams so that the Hong Kong team can
use that to their advantage in organizing Wikimania 2013, and the
other teams can use the feedback to improve their bids for a future
year.

We thank all candidate teams - the process is gruelling and requires a
very substantial time investment. They are all to be commended for
their submissions.

To use this soap-box for a moment, as Moderator I would like to remind
the community that we hope that this time was the last that we use
this ad-hoc process to decide on the Wikimania venue, and encourage
everyone to engage with the discussion on Meta[4] about how we might
select Wikimania 2014 and beyond in a more open, community-led way.
Please, do join in the discussions.

Yours,

James Forrester
Moderator, Wikimania 2013 Jury
For the Wikimania 2013 Jury

[0] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2013
[1] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2013_jury
[2] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2013_bids
[3] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2013_judging_criteria
[4] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_Advisory_Group
-- 
James D. Forrester
jdforres...@wikimedia.org | jdforres...@gmail.com
[[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]

___
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

Re: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2013 - Request for Bids and Jury nominations

[James Forrester]

On 26 December 2011 23:26, Lodewijk lodew...@effeietsanders.org wrote:
 (for the record, because there seems to be some confusion: I think it would
 be good to have clearity on the timeline, but I don't agree that there is an
 urgency to announce the jury soon - if the quality of the jury is improved
 by waiting a bit because we're short of candidates or any other random
 reason, I'm all for taking a little extra time.)

OK, well, given the lack of movement on this issue[0], and given some
discussion here, on wiki and on IRC, I propose to proceed with the
plan and announce a Jury for Wikimania 2013 later today/tomorrow.

My idea is that the 2013 selection will happen under the current
rules[1], and that we (in parallel) try to work out properly how we as
a community want the meta-level decisions like how do we decide who
gets Wikimania each year? and just what do we want Wikimania to be
anyway?. Certainly I hope that we have decided this by the time many
of us meet in Washington DC this (Northern hemisphere) Summer!

Yours,

[0] - There's https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_Advisory_Group
which looks like it could work out in the next few months, but not
with enough time to get Wikimania 2013 properly sorted out with a
decent space of time.

[1] - Honestly, if you've never organised a Wikimania, it's
astonishing just how much work is involved; giving the team just over
a year can be very demanding - this is something I'd love for the
Wikimania Advisory Group or whatever to help simplify.

James
-- 
James D. Forrester
jdforres...@wikimedia.org | jdforres...@gmail.com
[[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]

___
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

[Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2013 - Request for Bids and Jury nominations

[James Forrester]

Dear all,

It's getting towards the end of November, which means it is time to
run the Wikimania bidding process for 2013[0].

Given the traditional absence of a formal system, I'm putting myself
forward as Jury[1] co-ordinator - a non-voting person who helps the
Jury form and Bids get started up, sets the timeline[2], and hopefully
makes sure everything happens smoothly.

In this role, I would like to make two requests:

Firstly, I'm sure the whole Wikimedia community would love to see as
many good bids as possible. There are already a few bids[3] on Meta,
but if you or your local community are thinking about putting one in,
I'd urge you to get started now - there's not much time left before
new bids will not be accepted. Making a good bid for Wikimania can be
a lot of work, but we all benefit from there being a strong field of
bids.


Secondly, I would like to invite volunteers to serve on the Wikimania
2013 jury. There is a list of general requirements on Meta[4], but to
summarise:

* The Jury will have some from the Wikimedia Foundation's Board and
staff alongside the community volunteers;
* You can't be on the Jury if you're closely involved in a Bid (it's a
conflict of interest);
* You need to have some free time during the selection period (January-March);
* We want to represent the community across the different projects and
activities; and
* We of course want a mix of people from a diverse range of
backgrounds, sexes, cultures and regions of the world.

If you wish to be involved in the Jury, please e-mail me (off-list) at
jdforres...@gmail.com - I hope we can announce the Jury in the first
week of December, so please contact me as soon as you can.


Please also consider passing this message on (and translating it!) for
your wiki's community forum for those that don't read these mailing
lists.

Thank you, and good luck to all Bids.

[0] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2013
[1] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2013/Jury
[2] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2013/Bids/Timeline
[3] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2013/Bids
[4] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_jury

Yours,
-- 
James D. Forrester
jdforres...@wikimedia.org | jdforres...@gmail.com
[[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]

___
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

Re: [Wikimania-l] [Foundation-l] Wikimania 2013 - Request for Bids and Jury nominations

[James Forrester]

On 23 November 2011 19:31, Jan-Bart de Vreede janb...@wikimedia.org wrote:
 On 23 nov. 2011, at 20:17, James Forrester wrote:
 On 23 November 2011 19:07, Jan-Bart de Vreede janb...@wikimedia.org wrote:
 In the past years I have seen a lot of people spend a lot of time on 
 different bids which never
 made it (even though they were pretty good). Could this be the year that we 
 change this
 procedure and try to do things differently? I would love to explore how we 
 can avoid a lot of
 people wasting their energy...

 How about taking a little time to look at these and other imperfects of the 
 current system
 before jumping right in, and trying to see if we can improve it?

 Happy to pause things, but there's limited time (even if we just
 awarded it today, 19 months isn't a huge amount of time to organise an
 event which is quite a significant amount of work). Previously there
 have been calls for the Board to establish a Committee of some sort
 to oversee Wikimanias and try to come to some agreement about how to
 improve the system - but I worry that if we start discussions about
 how we're going to decide to decide we'll never get anywhere. :-)

 true,

 And if I am the only one having these concerns then no worries, but taking a
 couple of days to share concerns might be a good idea :)

Sure. I'm totally not going to try to rail-road this discussion (or
maybe it should be on-wiki?) by announcing a Jury when we're not sure
how we'll proceed. :-)

J.
-- 
James D. Forrester
jdforres...@wikimedia.org | jdforres...@gmail.com
[[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]

___
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

Re: [Wikimania-l] What to do tonight

[James Forrester]

On 1 August 2011 14:40, Harel Cain harel.c...@gmail.com wrote:
 If you are already in town (well, I'll be in a few more hours...) and don't
 have very clear plans for what to do tonight, we can try to arrange
 something quick.

 See this page:
 http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Monday_night_hangout

Great idea - thank you!

J.
-- 
James D. Forrester
jdforres...@wikimedia.org | jdforres...@gmail.com
[[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]

___
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

Re: [Wikimania-l] [Foundation-l] Floating a notion: permanent Wikimania committee?

[James Forrester]

On 18 June 2010 08:00, phoebe ayers phoebe.w...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 10:58 PM, Michael Snow wikipe...@verizon.net wrote:
 On 6/17/2010 5:35 PM, phoebe ayers wrote:
 OK, so I guess my question is (and we talked about this on IRC too) --
 who has the power or the ability -- or who *should*, in a perfect
 world -- create such a committee? We don't have much precedent for
 this. There were concerns over who or what body can create
 governance/oversight structures, particularly if this isn't really
 just a Foundation issue.

 I suppose the board could create the committee, if it's not clear who
 else might have the authority. Or perhaps better, the board could
 authorize its creation. I think the board is a bit reluctant to jump in,
 partly for the reason Sue mentioned that overseeing Wikimania is not
 really a board-level issue (it's primarily operational rather than
 strategic), but also because the board is not well placed to fill and
 maintain committees like this. When it becomes a situation of appointing
 people none of us really knows, or feeling that there are probably
 people we're not aware who ought to be recruited to a committee like
 this, it's pretty uncomfortable to have that responsibility. But if we
 authorized the committee and then let the staff and experienced
 Wikimania volunteers review applications or expressions of interest to
 join the committee, that might work out. That's kind of the direction
 things have moved in any case. Some of the early committees that still
 function have evolved to a place outside the board's immediate activity,
 and the current work of the governance committee is focused more on
 structures needed to organize the board's own functions.

 --Michael Snow

 Yes, authorization seems right. I wouldn't really expect that the
 Board actually fill such a committee or even necessarily ask for
 direct reports. The question that came up in IRC though was where
 would such a committee derive its authority from (assuming it had any
 particular authority). Perhaps the answer for this is it doesn't and
 simply fills a communication and reporting role that is currently
 lacking. Or perhaps (my ideal scenario) we come up with a way where
 the interested community grants it authority by building the
 structure, filling the seats, etc., and that is generally recognized.

 I'm interested in this case specifically of course, but I also am
 wondering more generally what the current state of affairs is for
 forming any sort of operational, community-driven committee. Of course
 we're good at forming wikiprojects to do things that need doing, but
 for areas that also require overlap with things that the office works
 on, it seems tricky.

 Re: scheduling a time at wikimania for discussing this potential
 glorious wikimania committee: yes, let's. I wanted to have a reprise
 of the Future of Wikimania discussion from last year, anyway. How
 about Sunday? I'll volunteer to check with the 2011 team and other
 interested parties and schedule a time. This overlaps with Manuel's
 panel, too, but I think we need a dedicated time maybe. Stay tuned!

 -- phoebe

 p.s. if we get both James Owen AND James Forrester involved it will be
 unstoppable. Powered by James^2.

Pah. To disambiguate between the two of us, I will allow people to
refer to me as God-Prince James, per Jimmy. ;-)

James. No, the other one.
-- 
James D. Forrester
jdforres...@wikimedia.org | jdforres...@gmail.com
[[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]

___
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

Re: [Wikimania-l] [Foundation-l] Floating a notion: permanent Wikimania committee?

[James Forrester]

On 17 June 2010 23:48,  susanpgard...@gmail.com wrote:
 (James Owen, not Forrester. I actually don't know if James Forrester is 
 coming this year,
 although now that I think of it, maybe he is one of the train-travelling 
 people?)

I am, to both counts, and you can rely on me turning up to anything to
do with Wikimania organisation. :-)

J.
-- 
James D. Forrester
jdforres...@wikimedia.org | jdforres...@gmail.com
[[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]

___
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

Re: [Wikimania-l] Tonight's Party at Uniclub

[James Forrester]

2009/8/28 Takashi OTA supertakot+wikima...@gmail.com:
 I'm so sorry forgetting Liam's name.
 It's incidentally and I have no intention for that.

 BTW, the guy behind me (I'm keeping his name secret here :p)
 asked me if we need the badge or name tag to enter the club.
 Does anybody know that?

I don't know for sure, but I understand that the badges are our
tickets to the club, so yes. :-)

J.
-- 
James D. Forrester
jdforres...@wikimedia.org | jdforres...@gmail.com
[[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]

___
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

Re: [Wikimania-l] Semantic web/open data/etc dinner tonight

[James Forrester]

2009/8/27 Kirrily Robert s...@infotrope.net:
 I was talking to Christian from DBPedia and Markus from Semantic
 Mediawiki, and we thought it would be nice to meet up for dinner
 tonight.  We were thinking of meeting after the tango lesson, say
 around 9pm, in the lobby at Bauen.

 If you're interested in chatting about these subjects with people who
 are working on related projects (eg. also Open Streetmap, Freebase,
 etc), please join us!

That sounds excellent. See you there.

James
-- 
James D. Forrester
jdforres...@wikimedia.org | jdforres...@gmail.com
[[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]

___
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

[Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2008 - Urgent Bid deadline

[James Forrester]

All,

This is final notification that we will stop accepting all Bids for
hosting Wikimania 2008 in just over 24 hours' time, at midnight
(00:00) GMT on Friday 31 August 2007. At that time, all outstanding
Bids including at least some of the fundamental information will be
taken through to the next round, as per the timetable on meta.

If you are considering placing a serious Bid, you have a *very* short
period in which to post it to meta, so please do not leave it any
later.

Good luck to all involved!

On behalf of the Wikimania Jury,
-- 
James D. Forrester
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]

___
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

[Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2008 - Invitation for input and clarification of time-line

[James Forrester]

All,

This is, first and foremost, a (delayed) invitation to all interested
parties to continue to contribute to the discussion on meta at
[[m:Wikimania 2008/Judging criteria]] regarding the exact criteria
that that the Jury ([[m:Wikimania 2008/Jury]]) will be using in their
judgements on which Bid will be selected to host Wikimania 2008. We
would like as many people as possible to make suggestions as to what
they would want from the conference - after all, a large part of it is
for the community. These ideally should be finalised by 30 August, so
this is a priority.

Secondly, I would like to clarify and expand in slightly more detail
the time-line that the Jury will be using, as I have received some
questions as to how the process will work:

Firstly, on Thursday 30 August (3 days' time), any Bids which have
been put up on meta as proper attempts will be accepted for the next
stage; at this point, no new Bids will be accepted. This means that if
you are considering working on a Bid, *start immediately*.

Then, on Sunday 23 September (24 days later), all Bids should be
complete. This includes information on venue  accommodation, budget 
sponsors, proposed dates, and the local team who will work on it (see
[[m:Wikimania 2008/Official requirements for bidding cities]] for some
more information) on this. There will be a public IRC meeting (on the
Freenode network, probably in #wikimania - details to be announced
nearer the time) in which the Jury will discuss things with the Bid
teams and raise initial queries than they have.

From this point on until Friday 5 October (12 days later) the Jury
will ask the Bid teams questions they have about their Bids, on meta
and also via e-mail. During this period we encourage Bid teams to
tweak their submissions in response to concerns and questions, though
teams are not meant to need to make significant changes to the content
of their Bids at this time.

There will be a private meeting of the Jury on 5 October at which
point they will each vote separately on a grid based on the criteria
that will be finalised soon, with discussion and options to change
votes until a Bid has gathered appropriately-strong support. The
result will be announced here by myself or one of my fellow
Moderators.

The exact voting mechanism is currently being discussed and will be
formally announced some time before the meeting for transparency.
Please note that it is not intended to release individual Jury
members' voting records, but general feedback on each criterion for
each Bid (successful or not) will be provided.

Once the 2008 Bid selection is finished, we will be setting up the
2009 Bid selection procedure, so feedback on how this system worked,
and what can be improved, is very welcome. The best place for this is
probably the talk page of the Jury page, [[m:Talk:Wikimania
2008/Jury]].

Yours,
-- 
James D. Forrester
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]

___
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l