Wikimania 2006/Website/Call for Participation

Call for Participation

Wikimania 2006 is the official conference of the Wikimedia Foundation.

We are accepting submissions for papers, posters, presentations, workshops, and discussion groups. We are also accepting nominations for speakers and speaker panels, and suggestions for other activities. Everyone is welcome to submit abstracts and ideas. Be bold in your submissions!

Important dates

• 30 Mar 2006  : Proposal deadline for workshops and tutorials
  • Notification of acceptance: by April 30
• 15 Apr 2006  : Abstracts due for panels, papers, posters and presentations
  • Notification of acceptance: by May 15
• 1 Jul 2006 : Final Submissions
• 4-6 Aug 2006 : Wikimania

Conference Themes

Submissions should address one or more of the following themes:

• Technical infrastructure – Issues related to Mediawiki development and extensions; Wikimedia hardware layout; new ideas for development (including case studies from other wikis or similar projects).

• Wikimedia projects and content – Presentation of interesting projects and results; future aims of the projects and types of distribution; ways to improve content quality. New uses for project content: in education, journalism, research, &c.

• Free knowledge and access to information – Present and future free knowledge initiatives; related library and archival projects around the world and input from librarians and archivists; ways to gather and distribute knowledge.

• Wiki social science – The contributors and users (who are they? Where do they come from?); reputation and identity issues; conflict resolution and community dynamics; scaling digital communities. Languages and cultures and their interactions online; multilingualism via wikis.

• Law and Policy - Copyleft, collective copyright, special issues pertaining to communal editing and distribution; other legal areas for which Wiki[mp]edia is an interesting case study. Policy creation within individual projects.

Submissions

Types of Submissions

• Panels (Suggest a group of 2-5 speakers on a specific subject)
• Workshops (From 30-120 minutes)
• Presentations (10-30 minute presentations/papers)
• Posters (Printed presentations or visual displays that can stand on their own)
• BOFs (Birds-of-a-Feather/discussion sessions - 45-60 minutes of group discussion)

We are also accepting artistic submissions, especially visualizations or other representations of some aspect of the projects.

Submission format

All submissions must include a title and an abstract of 100 to 300 words. They should also list the full name (and wiki name if appropriate) of the submitter, with contact information and affiliations. Special requirements for the presentation (equipment for a workshop or panel) should be noted. The abstracts should be provided as plain text, and not as file attachments.

• Workshop submissions should include a 1-2pp overview of the areas to be covered or taught.

• Speaker panel submissions should include short biographies of each suggested panelist.

• Paper and Presentation submissions may include a link to a draft of the paper or slides, if available. State clearly whether the submission concerns a specific wiki project, and whether the presentation is intended to be a specific length.

• BOF proposals should describe the significance of and community interest in the topic, and name the proposed discussion leader(s).

To process your submission, please see the Wikimania website. Send questions or suggestions to wikimania-cfp <at> wikimedia.org .

Final Submissions

Final submissions must be provided in an open format (OpenOffice, LaTeX sources, HTML…) and licensed under a free content license (GFDL or CC-BY-SA).

Stipends

A limited number of stipends will be available to those unable to obtain funding to attend the conference. Accepted presenters are encouraged to apply if assistance is needed.