The Wikimania of my dreams
No argument, no debate, just ideas, a giant brainstorming of what the Wikimania of your dreams would be.
Please throw your stuff in, and try to make it only positive things (ie.write "something that's green" rather than "something that's not blue or red".)
- From Wikimania-l.
here is the Wikimania of my dreams:
- It would be in a city easy to reach, with a big airport and cheap flights incoming because it's a huge hub, or it would be next door (Frankfurt airport ;-) )
- It would be in a top-notch conference facility, with tons of plugs everywhere, air conditionned if needed, modular conference rooms, all in one place and close to the accommodation building (a mix of Cambridge, Alexandria for the conference facility, Taipei and Frankfurt for access).
- It would have a great outdoor and indoor community area, with wifi that works all the time, with comfy couches as well as ground mats for the yoga-types, with coffee, cookies, juices and fresh water available at all times. (a mix of Frankfurt and Taipei)
- It would have all the accommodation in one place, close to the conference grounds, or even actually _on_ the conference grounds, and it would be cheap but practical, clean and modern accommodation, with different possibilities - share a room, not share a room, share a dorm etc. (a mix of Frankfurt and Taipei)
- It would have an amazing range of food for lunches, which would be served in a big room where annoucements and meetings can take place (a mix of Taipei and Cambridge).
- It would take place in a really "wow" place so that we get speakers to want to come to speak (Harvard or Bibliotheca Alexandrina)
- It would be close to sightseeing stuff for social evenings as "discovery trips".
- It would have an amazing party location and an amazing party with dancers with rotating hat-thingies (just like Alexandria!)
- It would host up to 500 people, not more, so I can get to meet almost all of them. :-)
- And finally, to steal Sj's idea, it would have a giant rotating Wikipedia globe that people could get into and make roll around like a hamster wheel, just for the fun of it.
Cheers,
Delphine
-- ~notafish
Mohamed Sanad
- From Wikimania-l.
I wanna add one more point:
- It would have someone who can drive really fast like crazy to handle the "needed right now" stuff and urgent situations :)
- From Wikimania-l.
The mania of my dreams has voice-montages from the public speeches of various wikimedians to announce the end of sessions / meals / coffee-times. A 90-min panel on article quality with John Seigenthaler, Ryan Jordan, Larry Sanger and Mathias Schindler, moderated by Lord Emsworth. And various covers of the chipmunk-voiced wiki-section of "Jam On It" as musical theme.
my dreams are troubled dreams.
SJ
- From Foundation-l.
The Wikimania of my dreams is not a vague Wikimania, focused on a generic idea, without a specific aim.
Surely closest to my country and to my problems.
For this reason I think that Wikimania should be splitted in three events happening in three different periods and in three different continents.
One Wikimania for Wikipedians where sysops, users and developers can meet each other to share best practices, can collect suggestions, can organize more collaborative international projects. A Wikimania when the main aim is collaboration (*active participation*).
One Wikimania for scientific purposes where academic people can speak of Wikipedia and its projects but also about related arguments (open content, wikis in general and something else) with a scientific publication at the end of the event. A Wikimania where the best aim is to hear other persons like in some traditional universities (*passive participation*).
One Wikimania (but it already exists like Chapter meeting) where wikimedians can discuss about organizational purposes.
In these three different types of Wikimanias any person can match his particular interests, and any of these can satisfy any expectation.
Ilario
- From Foundation-l.
- involves some techy subjects that talk about what's new and exciting, rather then project managment around them
- water if it's hot, thee/coffee if it's cold
- lot's of breakout spaces to sit&talk all hours of the night and day
- brainstorming sessions to get people involved rather then just watching a presentation
- new topics/presenters
- easy get involved/get to know people
Mary Murrell
- From Foundation-l.
Wikiawards to recognize outstanding members of the community
Brian Mingus
- From Foundation-l.
> A 100% free software Wikimania.
Oh, and since I'm dreaming, a Wikimania without ads.
- From Foundation-l.
On Thu, Aug 14, 2008 at 9:08 PM, Brian Mingus wrote:
> Oh, and since I'm dreaming, a Wikimania without ads.
>
Actually, this is only part of my wildest dreams in which not a single boundary of reality applies. If I had to choose between a compromise in any other quality of a conference (food support, venue, entrance fee, travel scholarship and documentation) and an ad-free environment, I would accept the ads.
On the contrary, I saw many white spaces at the last conferences, which could have been used to generate income, which in turn would have helped to support the conference.
Mathias
- From Foundation-l.
Wikimania of my dreams:
Location: Reykjavik (surprisingly cheap airfare from both SF, Washington/BWI, and Orlando/Sanford!). Alternatively, Nuremberg (one of my parents was born and grew up there but I've never been, and I hear the castles are spectacular. Also, isn't there a really big auto racing ring nearby). Transportation: Each participant who verifies themselves to the foundation as a sysop on any Wikimedia project, gets their conference entrance fee waived. All Foundation employees and board members must be required to ride Segway scooters the entire time they are at the project. Food: There must be sushi, bbq, fish and chips, GOOD pizza, doner, and thai on site. Everything else we can go out for.
Ok, that covers where it is, how to get there, and what I'm eating. Yep that's about the most important things. Everything else is flexible.
-Dan
- From Foundation-l.
Wikimania of my dreams is a global event with tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands or millions of participants, localized at every place which has possibility to join that event.
I think that it is more than possible to make one central event and a number of events all over the world at the same time. All of the places would be connected via video links as better as it is possible.
Wikimania should be an open event, not dedicated for Wikimedians, but a possibility to involve other people in Wikimedian work.
And I think that we may make an experiment during the next Wikimania (which means that we need to prepare everything months earlier). A couple of cities may connect with Buenos Aires and between each other. We may organize places where the events and lectures from the main events at Wikimania would be shown. Wikimania may host a couple of lectures from other places, too.
There are a lot of space for different ideas in relation to organizing Wikimania in such manner. If Wikimedia is global, Wikimania should be, too.