Meetup/Pretoria
Angela and Erik were in South Africa between April 18 and 21 for an International FLOSS and Free Knowledge Workshop run by the CSIR Open Source Centre and arranged the first ever Wikimedia meetup in Africa. It was held on Wednesday 20th April, 2005, at the Court Classique hotel in Pretoria. See Conference reports/FLOSS, South Africa 2005 for their report on the conference and this meetup.
Discussion before the event
[edit]- Angela (any day)
- Eloquence (any day)
- Alias - preferably 19th or 20th, but I'll do my utmost to be there whenever it turns out to be.
- Renier Maritz - I would prefer 20th or 21st, I would need a few days notice however.
- Jerome West - 19th is out for me otherwise any day in the evening
I assume we're talking about an evening, right? Any idea for a venue yet? Don't know if any of the other major contributors at Afrikaans lives close to en:Gauteng, so I might be the only representative. (Don't know about English wikipedians.) If appropriate, I can try to get a few possible future wikipedians together. The African languages (and specifically 9 of South Africa's official languages) are doing very poorly at wp. Is the workshop open to the public? --Alias 21:24, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- An evening would probably be best. I don't know any venues, so I'm open to suggestions. I'll try to find out about the workshop and whether it's public. I haven't really been given any information on it yet. Angela 20:56, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- A bit of an issue might be whether you have own transport, and where you are based. So let us know when you have all your info. --Alias 11:18, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- The workshop is at CSIR, Building 43, Auditorium, Pretoria. You will need to contact Kim Tucker <ktucker at csir.co.za> to attend since it isn't open to the public. We're staying here and have no transport. The 20th would be best, since we actually leave on the 21st. Does 7pm seem ok? Angela 02:58, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- 7 would suit me fine! Which would be the venue for the meeting? Courtclassique? --Renier Maritz 05:51, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- I'm working, and I guess the meeting at the CSIR is during the day. I'll ask another friend if he's interested in that. I think 7pm will work for me (traffic can be quite bad, but I should be well on time). I'll try to bring one other friend who is interested in wp, but not really active. I don't really know that area (Arcadia). The website mentions closeby restaurants; perhaps that will work best so that we don't waste too much time looking for things. (I'll probably have to leave Pretoria at 22:30.) I would be able to transport 2 in my humble vehicle if it is necessary. So shall we agree to meet at Court Classique and stroll to something closeby? Otherwise at Court Classique if that is possible would probably be easiest. Renier, do you know Arcadia well? --Alias 06:03, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- Meeting at the hotel sounds the easiest option. It will prevent us getting lost which we're quite likely to do :) Angela 15:54, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I would very much like to meet Angela or Eloquence - and am making a trip up to Pretoria to see you folks. I put wikipedia snapshots down in South African schools, right on the LAN. http://wizzy.org.za They rarely have full-time connectivity (cost issues) and a local copy of wikipedia is a much-welcomed addition to the lab. I contract with the Shuttleworth Foundation in Cape Town, among other things. Will be getting in Tuesday night, and will make the Wednesday meet at 7:00pm. Wizzy
I can only get out of Sandton about 18h30 and would very much like to met with other wikis. If you wikipeans move on from the hotel, how would I find you? Would one of you have a cell or something?--Jcw69 18:06, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- I have a cell - 0826814887 Wizzy