Talk:Wikimania 2008/Bids/Toronto

Carbon neutral?

Will the conference and the flights to it be carbon neutral? -- Jeandré, 2007-07-07t16:28z

Well, I don't believe this bid is still active, so... -- Zanimum 18:29, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I had written a lovely plan regarding this, but the whole thing disappeared when my computer frozen. Anyway, look for the "Environmental awareness" section for some of the content, regarding what actions are already existent at the bid location. -- Zanimum 19:37, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Logo

I see that both the Atlanta and Toronto bids share the same conference logo. Is this an official logo? Greenman 13:19, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes and no. It was Boston's logo, and Taipei reused it. When Nat.tang asked to create an image for the header, I gave him the go ahead, mentioning he might consider making an alternate logo, but it appears he's stuck with the tried and tested. -- Zanimum 15:13, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

If you like to know, I am glad to share.

Hi, Wikimania 2008 bidders,

I was informed by an Alexandria bidder that it is necessary for bidders to take a look of the WM07 budget, for your better imagination and calculation. I would love to share these information with you, and I have already started to write a summary report in detail for better organization of Wikimania. (Though it is still in Chinese currently) As a member of the Wikimania 2008 bidding jury, I hope every bidding team are on the same ground. So, there's nothing I have already told to Alexandria.

The budget is in my Google docs and spreadsheets. I think it will be good that every bidding team could let one person to read the WM07 budget. However, we had signed some agreements with confidential obligations, so I hope that the person who I share the budget with could help me on this. Don't show it to people not related to your bidding. If it is not hard for you to follow, then please inform me the person's email. :)

Titan Deng | Theodoranian--theodoranian 17:26, 13 September 2007 (UTC) Wikimania 2007 Coordinator

Facebook group

Considering that Canada and Toronto in particular is pretty well represented in Facebook, I think having a group there might help the cause. I have just created a group, feel free to join. --TimBits 12:14, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Accommodation

I work in Best Western Hotel's airport location. I've talked to the manager and for Wikimania atendees we can give standard rooms for $89 plus tax (11%), and the price includes breakfast and shuttle to and from the airport (shuttle depending on availability). I just don't know how to include that in the accommodation section. --TimBits 06:31, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Flight costs

To avoid another taipei-scam (flight costs underextimated by thousands of dollars) I am going to check on Expedia all the flight costs indicated. But I am fair, so I am leaving you guys some time to "check for errors"...

And I am helping you too! Just to begin, I can say that flying roundtrip from Rome to Toronto, 3-10 aug 2008, will cost no less than 1004$ (Delta Airlines). 1004 =/= 710, as far as I can remember...

Please check those prices and be sure they are ROUND TRIP, ALL INCLUDED (taxes, and extra fares). If I get to check them and find them wrong, that could be very unpleasant for your bid. --Jollyroger 10:31, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Prices I have stated are advertised prices, taxes and all are going to add a considerable sum to it obviously. But as there is no such uniform formula for determining these fees it should not count as negative as long as we indicate that these are advertised prices and there may (and probably will) be fees on top of that. --TimBits 11:04, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

So you are confirming that the prices indicated are not the real ones. Booking websites usually calculates taxes, so it is not that difficult to indicate them. Don't mind if I will provide true prices anyway? --Jollyroger 11:10, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

No, I'm not saying that the prices are not real. I, neither anybody has any way to show "real" prices for August 2008 in September 2007. And just because there is a higher price available, it does not mean that the lower price can not be shown. I don't think that travel website price estimates are any truer than the advertised prices. If it is said that these are the advertised prices by so and so that would be enough. --TimBits 12:22, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

TimBits, Jollyroger is trolling on everyone's bid. Do not pay him any mind. This is the last week, you and me and the other bids have more important work to do. :) Mike Halterman 12:35, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Looking for real prices on a single website, 11 months before the event is meaningless. If you don't spend some time looking for the best prices when the tickets are available, you'll spend much more than necessary. Just for the record, I've flown from Paris to Toronto three times, including one in the summer — the round-trip, all included, was around ~400-500 EUR (Air Transat). Much less than what is said on the bid page… Manuel Menal 12:45, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Dear Halterman, I am not trolling. I am asking some informations, and I want them 1) complete 2) true.

Last year, the Taipei bid showed a bunch of numbers totally unrelated with the real air fares (flights costing more than 1600$ stated as 700$ or less), and, since the committee was fooled by their lies, this helped in choosing a location that had a great impact on finances of people attending the event and on WMF bills.

Expedia offers the widest range of fares and travel accommodation, and in my experience is by far the most convenient way to book a flight in advance. The maximum time in advance for booking is 1 year, so you can effectively see the real prices now (prices that may increase due to surcharges, but quite accurate).

You can't provide just the price of a special low-cost offer: remember, you are moving thousands of people not a couple of weekend tourists. The only accurate index of air flight cost is given by the official prices of tickets + taxes + surcharges, and Expedia can provide them.

Any other number is pure speculation, and is unreliable. --Jollyroger 07:54, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Not really. I don't see any wisdom in choosing one source and ignoring others. There is nothing wrong in providing the cheapest prices. I will make sure that at the end of the bidding, all prices shown here are the lowest available advertised prices. --TimBits 22:21, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Then, please, provide the website where you found this price.

Again, I don't think that "the lowest available" is enough, since if "the lowest available advertised prices" is a special offer or similar non-repeatable occasion, that would not be meaningful.

Don't forget to include taxes, since most of the times the "the lowest available advertised prices" are so low because they have some extra expenses, and result in being higher than the all-included real prices you can find on expedia. --Jollyroger 09:31, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the advise, whatever will be done will be done the bid team members. If it's good then out bid will benefit from it, if not it's we who will suffer, so it's not really up to you to provide guidlines for us and nobody has any obligation to follow it. --TimBits 13:52, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I just want to help the committee avoing to be fooled (again).

Really don't care a bit about the bidders.

But I see they have a professional in this kind of things, this year... --Jollyroger 08:20, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

IRC chat

Why ain't any of our reps in #wikimania2008 right now???? WilyD 15:48, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Accomo

I am not sure what the sentence "Total cost for three nights is $29.50 Canadian per night (21.175€ or USD 25.43)" means. So how much does three night stay cost? $29.50 (21.175€ or USD 25.43) or just three times of this amount? --Aphaia 09:39, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

29.50 CAD = 20.7570 EUR = 29.3398 USD according to XE currency converter as of time posted. -- Jeandré, 2007-09-26t19:06z

Is that the total cost for three nights, or is it the cost per night? --Boivie 08:48, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I think I asked the same question of Boivie. Your reply in time will be appreciated. --Aphaia 09:42, 27 September 2007 (UTC)