Wikimania

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Wikimania
Wikimania logo
Status Active
Location(s) London, UK (2014)
Hong Kong, PRC (2013)
Washington, D.C., USA (2012)
Haifa, Israel (2011)
Gdańsk, Poland (2010)
Buenos Aires, Argentina (2009)
Alexandria, Egypt (2008)
Taipei, Taiwan (2007)
Cambridge, Massachusetts (2006)
Frankfurt, Germany (2005)
Inaugurated 2005
Organized by Local volunteer teams
Filing status Non-profit
Website
wikimania.wikimedia.org

Wikimania is an annual international conference for users of the Wikimedia Foundation's wiki projects (such as Wikipedia and its sister projects). Topics of presentations and discussions include Wikimedia Foundation projects, other wikis, open-source software, free knowledge and free content, and social and technical aspects related to these topics.

Overview

Wikimania conferences
Conference Date Place Continent attendance Archive of presentations
Wikimania 2005 August 5–7 Germany Frankfurt, Germany Europe 380[1] slides, video
Wikimania 2006 August 4–6 United States Cambridge, United States North America 400[2] slides and papers, video
Wikimania 2007 August 3–5 Taiwan Taipei, ROC (Taiwan) Asia 440[3] Commons gallery
Wikimania 2008 July 17–19 Egypt Alexandria, Egypt Africa 650[4] abstracts, slides,video
Wikimania 2009 August 26–28 Argentina Buenos Aires, Argentina South America 559[5] slides, video
Wikimania 2010 July 9–11 Poland Gdańsk, Poland Europe about 500[6] slides
Wikimania 2011 August 4–7 Israel Haifa, Israel Asia 720[7] presentations, video
Wikimania 2012 July 12–15 United States Washington, D.C., United States North America 1,400[8][9] presentations, videos
Wikimania 2013 August 7–11 Hong Kong Hong Kong Asia 700[10] presentations, videos
Wikimania 2014 August 6–10 United Kingdom London, United Kingdom Europe N/A
Map showing the location of Wikimania conferences, with continents shaded according to the number of conferences hosted there (darker = more conferences)

History

Wikimania 2005

Global Voices Panel at the 2005 conference. Shown are Hossein Derakhshan, Ting Chen, Isam Bayazidi and Milton Ainehuranga

The first Wikimania conference was held in the Haus der Jugend at Frankfurt, Germany, August 4–8, 2005. It had attracted about 380 attendees.[1]

The week of the conference included four "Hacking Days", August 1–4, when some 25 developers gathered to work on code and discuss the technical aspects of MediaWiki and of running the Wikimedia projects. The main days of the conference, despite its billing as being "August 4–8", were Friday to Sunday of that week, August 5–7. Presentation sessions were scheduled all day during those three days.

Keynote speakers included Jimmy Wales, Ross Mayfield, Ward Cunningham and Richard Stallman (who spoke on "Copyright and community in the age of computer networks"). The majority of sessions and conversations were in English, although a few were in German.

Sponsors of the event included Answers.com, SocialText, Sun Microsystems, DocCheck,[11] and Logos Group.

Wikimania 2006

Attendees break for lunch

Wikimania 2006 took place from August 6 to 8, 2006, at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the United States. It had about 400[2]–500[12] attendees.

Speakers included Jimmy Wales, Lawrence Lessig, Brewster Kahle, Yochai Benkler, Mitch Kapor, Ward Cunningham, and David Weinberger. Dan Gillmor held a citizen journalism unconference the day after.

Answers.com was the Wikimania 2006 Patron sponsor, while Amazon.com, the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, Nokia, WikiHow were Benefactors-level sponsors, Wetpaint, Ask.com, Yahoo!, and Socialtext were Friends-level sponsors, and IBM, FAQ Farm, Elevation Partners, One Laptop per Child, and the Sunlight Foundation were Supporter-level sponsors of the conference.[13]

Wikimania 2007

Chunghwa Telecom press conference, sponsor of Wikimania 2007 in Taipei

As announced on September 25, 2006, Wikimania 2007[14] was held in Taipei, Republic of China on Taiwan from August 3, 2007 to August 5, 2007. It was the first to hold a volunteer training course.[15]

Three other teams submitted hosting bids, for the cities of London, Alexandria, and Turin. Bids for Hong Kong, Singapore, Istanbul, and Orlando failed to make the shortlist.[16]

On August 3, 2007, New York Times reporter Noam Cohen reported: "The conference has attracted about 440 attendees, a little more than half from Taiwan, who want to immerse themselves for three days in the ideas and issues that come up making an entirely volunteer-written encyclopedia.[3] The workshops cover practical topics like how to collaborate peacefully; what importance to give 'expertise' in a project that is celebrated for allowing anyone to contribute, including anonymous editors".[3]

Wikimania 2008

Registration area at the conference.

Wikimania 2008 was held in Alexandria, Egypt from July 17 to 19, 2008. It had 650 attendees from 45 countries.[4] Alexandria was the location of the ancient Library of Alexandria[17] and the venue was the modern library, Bibliotheca Alexandrina.

Bibliotheca Alexandrina

Three proposed cities were in the running at the end, the other two being Atlanta and Cape Town. Proposals for Karlsruhe, London and Toronto were also submitted, but later withdrew. There was a controversy about the conference, and even a call to boycott Wikimania 2008 because of Egypt's alleged censorship and imprisoning of bloggers during Mubarak's era.[18][19] Mohamed Ibrahim, a graduate of Alexandria University who worked to bring the conference to Alexandria, told the BBC "I think we have the right to develop and to make freedom of expression on a larger scale."[20] One of his goals was to help grow Arabic Wikipedia which he contributes to since early 2005. An Egyptian cabinet minister spoke at the opening ceremonies on Mubarak's behalf.[17]

Wikimania 2009

Wikimania 2009 was held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on August 26–28, 2009. It had 559 attendees.[5] Final selection was made between Buenos Aires, Toronto, Brisbane and Karlsruhe, with the final selection coming down to Buenos Aires and Toronto.

Wikimania 2010

Jimmy Wales keynote address at Gdańsk

Wikimania 2010[21] was held July 9–11 in the Polish Baltic Philharmonic in Gdańsk, Poland. The starting day on July 9 overlapped with the end of the WikiSym academic conference. Bids for Amsterdam and Oxford for Wikimania 2010 lost by a small margin.

It was the first conference which included a big focus on the cultural aspects of the hosting nation, particularly a concert of a philharmonic orchestra, celebrating the tenth anniversary of the death of the most important contemporary Polish composer Władysław Szpilman and the premiere of the film Truth in Numbers?. At the conference, Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, said that the foundation's aim was to grow the number of visitors to Wikimedia sites from 371 million to 680 million a month, over the next five years.

Wikimania 2011

Group photo

Wikimania 2011 was held in Haifa, Israel, on August 4–7.[22] The conference venue was the Haifa Auditorium and adjoining Beit Hecht cultural center on Mount Carmel. Keynote speakers at the conference included Yochai Benkler, a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University and Joseph M. Reagle Jr. of MIT, author of Good Faith Collaboration: The Culture of Wikipedia.[23] Head of the Science and Technology Committee at the Knesset, Meir Sheetrit, also spoke at the conference, as did Yonah Yahav, the Mayor of Haifa.[24] One of the sponsors of the event was Haifa University.[25] The conference featured 125 sessions in five simultaneous tracks and was attended by 720 Wikimedians[7] from 56 different countries,[24] including some that have no diplomatic relations with Israel.[26]

Wikimania 2012

Group photo

Wikimania 2012 was held July 12–15 2012 at The George Washington University in Washington, DC. There were over 1400 attendees from 87 countries.[27] In addition, the U.S. Department of State, in conjunction with Wikimania 2012, hosted a conference labeled Tech@State:Wiki.Gov which focused on "Collaborative knowledge and the use of wikis in the public sector".[28]

Wikimania 2013

Logo of Wikimania 2013

Wikimania 2013 was held from August 7–11, 2013 at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

One of the parties for the event was held at the tallest building in Hong Kong, the International Commerce Centre.

Candidate cities were London (UK), Bristol (UK), Naples (Italy) and Surakarta (Indonesia).

Wikimania 2014

For Wikimania 2014, bidding officially opened in December 2012. London was chosen in May 2013 as the host city,[29] with the only other bid coming from Arusha (Tanzania). The conference will be held from 8–10 August 2014 at the Barbican Centre.[30]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Main Page – Wikimania 2005. wikimedia.org
  2. ^ a b The Many Voices of Wikipedia, Heard in One Place. New York Times, August 7, 2006.
  3. ^ a b c "In Taipei, Wikipedians Talk Wiki Fatigue, Wikiwars and Wiki Bucks". New York Times. Noam Cohen, Saul Hansell (ed). August 3, 2007.
  4. ^ a b James Gleick, Wikipedians Leave Cyberspace, Meet in Egypt, Wall Street Journal, August 8, 2008.
  5. ^ a b 2009 Wikimedia.org
  6. ^ Wikimania 2010 site – Attendees. wikimedia.org.
  7. ^ a b Wikimania 2011 in Haifa[dead link]
  8. ^ "Annual Report for Fiscal Year 2011–12". WikimediaDC. Retrieved 30 April 2013. 
  9. ^ "Wikimania 2012". groundreport. Retrieved 30 April 2013. 
  10. ^ [1]
  11. ^ Doccheck.com. Website.
  12. ^ "The neutrality of this article is disputed". Reason Magazine. August 15, 2006.
  13. ^ Wikimania 2006: Sponsors. wikimedia.org.
  14. ^ Wikimania 2007. wikimedia.org.
  15. ^ "Volunteer Training 2006". wikimedia.org.
  16. ^ "Talk:Wikimania 2007 Bid List". Wikimedia.org.
  17. ^ a b Noam Cohen, Wikipedia Goes to Alexandria, Home of Other Great Reference Works, New York Times, July 17, 2008.
  18. ^ "Is there a boycott of Wikimania 2008?". Los Angeles Times. July 2008.
  19. ^ "In Egypt, Wikipedia is more than hobby". International Herald Tribune. July 21, 2008.
  20. ^ Spreading the wiki footprint, BBC, July 23, 2008.
  21. ^ Wikimania 2010 main page. wikimedia.org.
  22. ^ Wikimania 2011 main page. Wikimania2011.wikimedia.org. Retrieved on April 20, 2012.
  23. ^ Avigayil Kadesh (July 14, 2011). "Israel hosts Wikimania 2011". mfa.gov.il. Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Retrieved October 2, 2011. 
  24. ^ a b Levin, Verony (August 5, 2011). "Wikimania Conference at Its Peak; Founder Jimmy Wales to Speak Tomorrow". TheMarker. Retrieved August 12, 2011.  (Hebrew)
  25. ^ Editor (Aug 07, 2011). "Wikimania 2011-Haifa". University of Haifa. Retrieved October 29, 2012. 
  26. ^ Wikimania hits Israel as conference opens. The Jewish Chronicle (2011-08-05). Retrieved on April 20, 2012.
  27. ^ Nicholas Bashour, Wikimania 2012 swan song, Wikimedia website, July 17, 2012.
  28. ^ U.S. Department of State Hosts Tech@State:Wiki.Gov Conference, press release issued by U.S. Department of State on July 9, 2012.
  29. ^ Announcement on Wikimania-l mailing list]
  30. ^ "Wikimania 2014 London". 

External links

News reports
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