Short historic tidbits to RCC, WikiSym, Wikimania
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Dirk Riehle
Mar 16, 2012, 5:30:00 AM3/16/12
to RecentChangesCamp Planning
Copy and paste because I can't directly send to this group any longer.
Dunno why...
Hope this is helpful, even though late.
Dirk
----
FWIW, here is my recollection about RCC before it was founded.
Many of the later RCC-founders wiki-vanned down from Portland to the
first WikiSym (WikiSym 2005), in San Diego. Participation was hard on
them, I was told, because they were self-sponsored and WikiSym, held
under the umbrella of OOPSLA, charged a non-trivial participation fee.
It is budgeted to break even (this is a non-profit endeavour) but the
fee still hurt.
John Abbe introduced me to Open Space and suggested we look at it. We
did. I introduced it next year at WikiSym 2006 and we have stuck to it
ever since. I love open space and I consider it key to how WikiSym is
different from many other conferences (not only do we have open space,
we take it serious too).
Because WikiSym 2006 was held in Denmark, it became even more
expensive for US folks to attend, so many dropped out. This may or may
not have been the primary reason for starting a new wiki conference.
I'm happy about RCC in itself though I regret that few of the typical
RCC participants also attend WikiSym.
Like it is difficult for wiki enthusiasts to attend WikiSym if it
isn't close by, it is difficult for me to justify going to RCC so I
never managed to do that. I regret that. We all want more holistic
integration but it is hard.
The Wikimedia Foundation has sponsored WikiSym for the last two years
and has attended in large numbers. I believe this is due to a couple
of reasons: they want to support wiki research, they like it as an off-
site for their folks, they love open space too for that, they want to
do good, etc. The Wikimedia sponsorship has not changed much about
WikiSym and they never approached us with any particular requirements
or needs to change WikiSym. We are very happy to have them.
WikiSym has been able to keep prices low, even lower than most
comparable academic (computer science) conferences. WikiSym 2012 will
be held in Linz, Austria, and co-located with Ars Electronica.
I still love open space and have big plans for it in the context of
WikiSym.
Cheers,
Dirk
On 30.01.2012 13:16, Laura Hale wrote:
> I'll be pretty awful and pretty blunt: I love RecentChangesCamp.
> RecentChangesCamp has provided me with fantastic opportunities in my life. I
> have met some fantastic people as a result of RecentChangesCamp. They have
> helped me do things I would not have been able to do otherwise.
>
> The reason for this is because RecentChangesCamp was open to anyone, it was
> about addressing needs in the wider wiki community, and it was not WMF
> centric. If it had been WMF centric, I doubt it would have been as useful. I
> think the Open Space facilitation is key.
>
> I'm extremely leery of the following:
> * Pete and Steve backed out of organising RCC 2009 in Portland, leaving most
> of the work to Mark Dilley, Nicole and myself. He hasn't been that involved
> in planning 2010 or 2011. He didn't help with Australia at all.
> * Having it in California again on top of WestCoastWikiConference is a problem
> of location.
> * The event appears married to the WMF. WestCoastWikiConference was a WMF
> centric event. Wikimania is a WMF centric event. GLAM Camp is a Wiki Centric
> Event. Sarah and Pete and Steven are WMF people and often think of WMF
> first. RCC was created because of the lack of opportunities for non-WMF
> people. The WMF organising contingent is exclusionary to the very community
> the event sought to attract. Their involvement just excludes people because
> wiki =/= Wikipedia.
> * WMF centricness means WMF needs to put up all the costs for the event as I
> can't see previous sponsors wanting to sponsor a WMF conference. There is
> very little benefit to wiki companies to sponsor a wiki event that their
> contributors cannot represent themselves at.
> * wikiHow is not being considered and the participation of their members, and
> the participation of Wikians, is being made secondary to WMF participation.
> * Costs. It would be great to have 150 people to 250 people. Before going
> further with that, it needs to be priced out. Who is paying for that? Why do
> we need that many people? How many people will attend? Who will attend?
> * There does not appear to have been efforts to engage the non-WMF community
> that traditionally has attended the conference and helped organise the conference.
>
> It is seriously annoying the major wiki conference for non-WMF wiki folks in
> the United States and Canada is being co-opted by WMF folks who have not
> attended RCC in the past, where the format is being changed to suit them. If
> WMF folks want a similar event in San Fransisco to RecentChangesCamp, they
> really change the name to say "West Coast Wiki Conference."
>
> --
> twitter: purplepopple
> blog: ozziesport.com <http://ozziesport.com>
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "RecentChangesCamp Planning" group.
> To post to this group, send email to rcc-pl...@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> rcc-planning...@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit this group at
> http://groups.google.com/group/rcc-planning?hl=en.
--
Website: http://dirkriehle.com - Twitter: @dirkriehle
Ph (DE): +49-157-8153-4150 - Ph (US): +1-650-450-8550
Dunno why...
Hope this is helpful, even though late.
Dirk
----
FWIW, here is my recollection about RCC before it was founded.
Many of the later RCC-founders wiki-vanned down from Portland to the
first WikiSym (WikiSym 2005), in San Diego. Participation was hard on
them, I was told, because they were self-sponsored and WikiSym, held
under the umbrella of OOPSLA, charged a non-trivial participation fee.
It is budgeted to break even (this is a non-profit endeavour) but the
fee still hurt.
John Abbe introduced me to Open Space and suggested we look at it. We
did. I introduced it next year at WikiSym 2006 and we have stuck to it
ever since. I love open space and I consider it key to how WikiSym is
different from many other conferences (not only do we have open space,
we take it serious too).
Because WikiSym 2006 was held in Denmark, it became even more
expensive for US folks to attend, so many dropped out. This may or may
not have been the primary reason for starting a new wiki conference.
I'm happy about RCC in itself though I regret that few of the typical
RCC participants also attend WikiSym.
Like it is difficult for wiki enthusiasts to attend WikiSym if it
isn't close by, it is difficult for me to justify going to RCC so I
never managed to do that. I regret that. We all want more holistic
integration but it is hard.
The Wikimedia Foundation has sponsored WikiSym for the last two years
and has attended in large numbers. I believe this is due to a couple
of reasons: they want to support wiki research, they like it as an off-
site for their folks, they love open space too for that, they want to
do good, etc. The Wikimedia sponsorship has not changed much about
WikiSym and they never approached us with any particular requirements
or needs to change WikiSym. We are very happy to have them.
WikiSym has been able to keep prices low, even lower than most
comparable academic (computer science) conferences. WikiSym 2012 will
be held in Linz, Austria, and co-located with Ars Electronica.
I still love open space and have big plans for it in the context of
WikiSym.
Cheers,
Dirk
On 30.01.2012 13:16, Laura Hale wrote:
> I'll be pretty awful and pretty blunt: I love RecentChangesCamp.
> RecentChangesCamp has provided me with fantastic opportunities in my life. I
> have met some fantastic people as a result of RecentChangesCamp. They have
> helped me do things I would not have been able to do otherwise.
>
> The reason for this is because RecentChangesCamp was open to anyone, it was
> about addressing needs in the wider wiki community, and it was not WMF
> centric. If it had been WMF centric, I doubt it would have been as useful. I
> think the Open Space facilitation is key.
>
> I'm extremely leery of the following:
> * Pete and Steve backed out of organising RCC 2009 in Portland, leaving most
> of the work to Mark Dilley, Nicole and myself. He hasn't been that involved
> in planning 2010 or 2011. He didn't help with Australia at all.
> * Having it in California again on top of WestCoastWikiConference is a problem
> of location.
> * The event appears married to the WMF. WestCoastWikiConference was a WMF
> centric event. Wikimania is a WMF centric event. GLAM Camp is a Wiki Centric
> Event. Sarah and Pete and Steven are WMF people and often think of WMF
> first. RCC was created because of the lack of opportunities for non-WMF
> people. The WMF organising contingent is exclusionary to the very community
> the event sought to attract. Their involvement just excludes people because
> wiki =/= Wikipedia.
> * WMF centricness means WMF needs to put up all the costs for the event as I
> can't see previous sponsors wanting to sponsor a WMF conference. There is
> very little benefit to wiki companies to sponsor a wiki event that their
> contributors cannot represent themselves at.
> * wikiHow is not being considered and the participation of their members, and
> the participation of Wikians, is being made secondary to WMF participation.
> * Costs. It would be great to have 150 people to 250 people. Before going
> further with that, it needs to be priced out. Who is paying for that? Why do
> we need that many people? How many people will attend? Who will attend?
> * There does not appear to have been efforts to engage the non-WMF community
> that traditionally has attended the conference and helped organise the conference.
>
> It is seriously annoying the major wiki conference for non-WMF wiki folks in
> the United States and Canada is being co-opted by WMF folks who have not
> attended RCC in the past, where the format is being changed to suit them. If
> WMF folks want a similar event in San Fransisco to RecentChangesCamp, they
> really change the name to say "West Coast Wiki Conference."
>
> --
> twitter: purplepopple
> blog: ozziesport.com <http://ozziesport.com>
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "RecentChangesCamp Planning" group.
> To post to this group, send email to rcc-pl...@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> rcc-planning...@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit this group at
> http://groups.google.com/group/rcc-planning?hl=en.
--
Website: http://dirkriehle.com - Twitter: @dirkriehle
Ph (DE): +49-157-8153-4150 - Ph (US): +1-650-450-8550
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