| Wikimania | |
|---|---|
| Status | Active |
| Location | 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) |
| First held | 2005 |
| Organizer | Wikimedia Foundation |
| Filing status | Non-profit |
| Official website | wikimania.wikimedia.org |
Wikimania is an annual international conference for users of the wiki projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation (such as Wikipedia and other sister projects). Topics of presentations and discussions include Wikimedia Foundation projects, other wikis, open source software, free knowledge and free content, and the different social and technical aspects which relate to these topics.
Contents |
| Conference | Date | Place | Continent | Attendance | Archive of presentations |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wikimania 2005 | 5–7 August | Frankfurt am Main, Germany |
|
slides, video | |
| Wikimania 2006 | 4–6 August | Cambridge, United States |
|
slides and papers, video | |
| Wikimania 2007 | 3–4 August | Taipei, ROC (Taiwan) |
|
Commons gallery | |
| Wikimania 2008 | 17–19 July | Alexandria, Egypt |
|
abstracts, slides,video | |
| Wikimania 2009 | 26–28 August | Buenos Aires, Argentina |
|
slides, video | |
| Wikimania 2010 | 9–11 July | Gdańsk, Poland |
|
slides | |
| Wikimania 2011 | 4–7 August | Haifa, Israel |
|
presentations, video | |
| Wikimania 2012 | 12–15 July | Washington, D.C., United States | N/A |
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,[7] and Logos Group.
Wikimania 2006 took place from August 6 to August 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[8] 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.
Wales' plenary speech was covered by the Associated Press, and printed in numerous worldwide newspapers. He chronicled how the Foundation evolved from him "sitting in his pajamas" to the maturing corporate structure that it is now; the frequent push for quality over quantity; Wikipedia will be included on computers distributed through One Laptop per Child; both Wikiversity and the creation of an advisory board were approved by the Foundation board; and that Wiki-WYG is in development thanks to private investment by Wikia, Inc. and Socialtext.[9]
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.[10]
Three other teams submitted hosting bids, for the cities of London, Milan, Boston, and Toronto; only Toronto and Boston were passed to the second round of consideration by Wikimania organizers. In Toronto's case the event would have been hosted in the University of Toronto's Bahen Centre.
As announced on September 25, 2006, Wikimania 2007[11] 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.[12]
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.[13]
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 was held in Alexandria, Egypt from July 17 to July 19, 2008. It had about 650 attendees The venue was the 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.[14][15]
Wikimania 2009 was held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on August 26–28, 2009. It had 559 attendees.[4] Final selection was made between Buenos Aires and Toronto. Brisbane and Karlsruhe were formally proposed, but later withdrawn from consideration.
Wikimania 2010[16] 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 was held in Haifa, Israel, on August 4–7.[17] 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.[18] 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.[19] One of the sponsors of the event was Haifa University.[20] Wikimania 2011 included 125 sessions in five simultaneous tracks. It was attended by 720 Wikimedians [6] from 56 different countries,[19] including some that have no diplomatic relations with Israel.[21] Among the new projects discussed was collaboration with cultural institutions such as galleries, libraries, archives and museums.[22] Another first for Wikimania was a Saturday-night beach party. At the end of the closing ceremony on August 7, Jimmy Wales was presented with the first day cover of a special stamp edition issued by the Israeli postal service in honor of Wikipedia's 10th anniversary. Wikimedia Israel also surprised Wales with a cake in honor of his birthday.[23] After the conference, participants were offered a free tour of Haifa, Jerusalem, Nazareth or Akko.[24] One of the topics discussed at the conference at the initiative of Sue Garner was the Western male-dominated mind-set that characterizes Wikipedia today.[25]Shay Yakir, outgoing chairman of Wikimedia Israel, said that for Israel, holding the conference in Haifa was like hosting the Olympic Games.[26]
Wikimania 2012 will be held July 12–15 2012 at Georgetown University, Washington DC.[27]
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