Battle of the Wiki-conferences: New conference aside from Wikimania announced

>>Full Interview

Atlanta, Georgia – After losing their bid to host Wikimania 2008, Wikimedians from the Atlanta, Georgia bid proposal are now working to host a conference focusing on Wikimedia in the Americas.

Mike Halterman, a student at the University of South Florida and unpaid intern at the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) offices in St. Petersburg, Florida is helping to plan the Conference of the Americas which will be be held at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) in Atlanta, Georgia on May 15-18, 2008. Several others who helped in the conference's creation include; Andrew Guyton, Dan Rosenthal, Geoff Swanstrom, Hillary Lipko, Jessica Gibson, Matt Britt and Wikinews administrator and contributor, Craig Spurrier.

Click here for the full Wikinews interview.

Location of Wikimania 2008 creates controversy; LGBT community concerned

Wikimedians grow concerned about the decision to hold Wikimania 2008 in Alexandria, Egypt because of the country's opressive government, imprisonment of homosexuals, free speech, and overall safety from a possible terrorist attack.

Well I am going to put my two cents in because I have read just about enough on the mailing lists.

Here is why I am entirely opposed to Wikimania being in Egypt at this time. Also remember that I am a hardcore contributer to Wikinews.org.

1) Since the announcement of this, the LGBT wikimedians have expressed grave concern. As mentioned previously, this is a regime in which "opresses" homosexuals and imprisons them. Me being gay, I am not sure I would want to risk that. Not to mention my partner, if I had one and he came, but yet the WMF states that they picked Egypt because of its "geo-diversity."

2) Human rights and "free" speech (free being the key word). Why hold a conference of a foundation that is based entirely on FREE media when that country and the government don't even support free speech? Why in an country that limits the rights of women and humans in general? What is so "free" about that?

3) Egypt is in too close proximity to several areas which are in a near constant war: Israel and Palestine, Sudan, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan...not to mention holding this is the Middle East puts (for the most part) Americans at risk and the rest at risk for a prime target of violence or an attack. Was safety considered when making this decision?

4) Who are these people on the "jury"? I mean I know their names, but who are they. Are they wealthy? Travel the world frequently? Seems like it because in my opinion this place was picked because it was somewhere they decided it would be nice to visit. More than half of all wikimedians will likely NOT be able to afford the trip, in some cases from literally on the other side of the globe. Might as well rob a bank for the finances.

5) The "jury" was composed of, from what I see, 12 individuals who in some way or another "work" for WMF (and that does NOT necessarily mean getting paid). I see IMO a conflict of interest. The other 2 seem to be just contributers, which is what most of this jury should have been composed of. After all this is a conference for all Wikis.

Ok...so according to our Wikinews article, because of the controversy this has created, Jimbo Wales plans to speak and "decided his talk at the conference will be entitled Free knowledge and human rights." Reminder: this in a country where you can get arrested for saying what you believe. This is going to be a high profile conference...should Wales really go that far?

Sarcasm: next time they will want to hold Wikimania 2009 in Tehran, Iran. 2010: Burma/Myanmar. 2011: China (Wikipedia is banned in China). Now you get my drift???

I am NOT against ever having a Wikimania in the Middle East or eventually in Egypt. But right now, it's not the right time. We need to think about how diverse our contributers are and base a decision off that. In my opinion there are a lot better, safer and more "geo-diversed" places than somewhere where there is a potential for people to be injured or killed or go broke just getting there.

• Wikinews article on the jury's decision
• List of WMF (foundation-l mailing list) e-mail replies regarding decision
• Wikimania 2008 homepage

Wikinews reports from Wikimania 2007

Wikimania 2007 Site Events warming up for main conference

Counting down to Wikimania 2007, the Site Events such as "Hacking Days & Extra", "One Laptop Per Child Curriculum Jam", and the "Citizen Journalism Unconference" preluded the main conference.

On August 1, Cary Bass and many other programmers participated in the Hacking Days. Mike "b6s" Jiang hosted this two-day long event where programmers can exchange experiences.

That same day, the One Laptop Per Child Curriculum Jam kicked off. Project Director Samuel "SJ" Klein invited many teams with an interest in freely licensed content to produce learning materials, which youngsters from 6 to 16 years of age could judge.

The Citizen Journalism Unconference was held August 2. It hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation and Public Television Services Taiwan (PTS). The organization invited Frontier Foundation Researcher Shu-fang Tsai and Facilitator of Institute of Culture Affairs Taiwan Gail West to host this unconference. The Unconference was held in an open space style. Topics for discussion were created by participants at the unconference.

In this unconference, participants talked about lots of free content portals comparisons, such as PeoPo by PTS Taiwan, the characteristics and role of citizen journalists, the comparisons between citizen journalism and professional journalism, and the future of citizen journalism.

Wikimania 2007 begins in Taipei, Taiwan

The third annual conference for users of the Wikimedia Foundation projects, Wikimania, began on August 3. Over 1,100 people registered from 98 countries. Fifty five percent of attendees were from Taiwan. There are over 100 presenters holding a total of 65 sessions.

Florence Devouard, Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation, in the opening to the conference, reviewed what has been accomplished in the past year. Among the accomplishments are the creation of the Wikimedia Taiwan chapter, and the creation of Wikiversity. Florence also said that the Russian Wikipedia was the fastest growing Wikipedia, with the Chinese Wikipedia coming second. There still is huge disparity in language though, with projects such as the Afrikaans Wikipedia having 6 million native speakers, but less then 8,000 articles.

>> More...

• Wikimania 2007 Exhibitions shows the culture of freedom

On the second day of Wikimania 2007 in Taipei, Group Sessions continued, while the Virtual i.d.ea Interactive Net Art 2007 Exhibition attracted visitors and participants. This exhibition shows the creation of interactions by using creative contents. Four college teams and two individuals exhibited their work. The exhibition is mainly focused on Interactive Net Art.

The Wikimania 2007 Conference will end on August 5. Submitting free-licensed works for the Wikimania Awards is still in progress, the deadline being 8:00 a.m. August 5 (Taipei time). Wikimania Award winners will be announced at the Closing Ceremony.

>> More...