James, Can you describe the source of your authority, and that of the committee, to make such a decision? Do you have the approval of Lila and/or the Board? Which movement organizations, including those responsible for funding endeavours like Wikimania, did you consult?
~Nathan On Sun, Oct 4, 2015 at 2:10 PM, James Forrester <jdforres...@gmail.com> wrote: > 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 > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimania>, 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 thoughts > on the areas on which we should focus for 2018 and beyond. We’ll also be > asking in future for your thoughts about how to structure the programme of > each Wikimania to make it as good as it can be for you, for others, and for > our community overall. > > Thank you. > > Yours, > > -- > > James D. Forrester > > Chair, Wikimania Committee > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimania-l mailing list > wikimani...@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l > > _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
