Talk:EuroWikimania

EuroWikimania

Accommodation

Something to keep in mind when selecting venues and accomodation :) For me (and I don't think I'm the only one), community building is one of the most important parts of wikimania. Spreading people over different hotels hinders this tremendously, especially when there is no easy common place to hang out at all hours of the day and night.

Henna 07:58, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Right. Accommodations section at this point on the page merely act as a template. Something more definite will be available in the up coming days. -- Cat ^chi? 18:27, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Choice of venue

This seems like a great idea to me, but Turkey seems an odd choice for the venue of the first ever EuroWikimania, seeing as it's only half in Europe! Wouldn't somewhere more central be better? The more people who can attend, the better, surely? I would assume (I don't have the stats) that most European Wikimedians are in the UK, France and Germany, so wouldn't Paris, say, be an easier place for people to get to? --Tango 01:48, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I really am uninterested in the politics... The definition of Europe as covered in the wikipedia article (the map) was the basis I used.

I do not think so. A wikimania had already been held in Germany. IMHO Germany and/or nearby countries would be a poor choice because:

• Diversity: It would be boring to do it in a nearby place. Let's have a level of diversity.
• Affordability: People from poorer Europe such as people from a number of former soviet countries are geographical closer to Turkey. Turkey is a central location for people from such countries making it more affordable to travel to. For example a train ride from Bulgaria to Turkey is quite cheap with a price tag of $56 round trip. Some one living in richer western Europe would be more likely to be able to afford a higher price tag. I do intend to arrange scholarships to cover all of the travel costs but I had not managed to sort that out yet. If I fail to do so, this fact would be most useful. This allows optimum use of resources basically.
• Visa issues: Acquiring a visa to any of the countries particularly the UK is rather difficult. Any citizen of any and all countries in Europe (except Kosovo (I am yet to figure its status out)) can easily enter Turkey. A good number does not even need a visa. Unfortunately this is a real problem when choosing a venue. People from non-EU countries will have a hard time getting a visa to the countries you have mentioned.
• Promotion: One of the key objective of a Wikimania is to promote various Mediawiki projects. Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects are already quite popular in Germany, France, and the UK. Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects are not so popular in and around Eastern Europe. There is nothing to promote in Western Europe...
• My geographic location: I am geographically too far away from Paris to organize anything from here...
• My language skills: And I do not know any French... :)

-- Cat ^chi? 14:03, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I think the definition of continents is more down to geology than politics. I don't understand your comment about diversity, that's more a matter of who turns up than where it is. I don't think you can address the issue of affordability without knowing the distribution of your intended audience - if most people interested in going are in Western Europe (as I expect is the case), then it will be far cheaper to have it in Western Europe and give scholarships to the few people wanting to come from far away. While promotion may be an objective, I don't think it is a key one, most of the conference focuses around attendees from the community. The fact that you can't do much to organise it if it's far away from you is an issue, but hopefully there will be other people that can help. --Tango 21:52, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

My working plan is Istanbul and nothing is going to change that. The politics and geology is of no interest to me. I am merely trying to organize a Wikimania. You are welcome to organize something rivaling this which only an elite minority of Europe can attend due to visa issues. You effectively are asking me to bugger off. -- Cat ^chi? 16:53, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

minconf @ Fosdem

Fosdem has developers rooms(http://www.fosdem.org/2009/about/fosdem#devrooms) each year, we could try to grab one of those potentially. Henna 07:55, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Hmm... Could work... Do you have anyone in your mind in particular? I am trying to construct EuroWikimania/Topics‎ as well... -- Cat ^chi? 14:29, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Is there are reason why the topics schedule only has 1.5hrs a day? Was the length just a placeholder than never got changed to something realistic? I expect we can manage at least 4 hours a day, probably 6. --Tango 21:57, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

devrooms is a rather large concept, have something to do from far with open source and ask early. It's a weekend event, no money involved Henna 17:00, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I am merely mimicking Egyptian wikimania for my times. Increasing the slots can be done with trivial effort. -- Cat ^chi? 17:14, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Name

Shouldn't it be named Euromania?.--Alnokta 13:47, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

But there's no mention of Wikis, which is what it's about. Majorly ^talk 14:54, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Euromania sounds nice but it lacks the "Wiki" distinction. -- Cat ^chi? 19:01, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

questions

Some questions

1) Who is running this? just one person? is there an organising committee?

2) Who has the final say on venue, themes etc?

3) Is the time scale realistic? what numbers are projected? what numbers have been planned for? --Allemandtando 20:42, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

In due course I'll provide this info. I need like a month to get things together. -- Cat ^chi? 21:55, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

What's happening with this?

It seems like nothing has happened regarding this for a while, are you still planning on holding it? If you're going to, you need to finalise dates and announce it pretty soon so people can book travel and accommodation. --Tango 18:49, 26 November 2008 (UTC)