Talk:Wikimania 2014 bids/London

2012 discussion

Jury Feedback on 2013 bid

• Chapter support was lukewarm even when there were two UK bids, but nothing really improved after that. But it was noted that WMUK had provided the support that the bid team had asked for.
• UK chapter has money, but HK chapter dedicated a lot more trustee time towards the bid
• Chapter needs to detail specific commitments
• Need to focus on attendees who would be at the lower end of the budget spectrum: get hostels/budget hotels/uni dorms etc. early on
• Jury liked the Barbican venue - good and well contained
• The high cost leads to a much higher fundraising target requirement than some of its competitors. Some of the worry about what happens if the target isn't met might have been lowered if the bid were able to show how the budget could be modified in such a situation.

Community Feedback on 2013 bid

Please concentrate on major points for now, such as venue, dates, events, etc. that would affect our initial planning and booking.

I'd just like to make the point that having two UK bids made it harder for (ahem) certain institutions with a national remit to back either one. I think the Chapter should back one horse. Mr impossible (talk) 16:32, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Kick-off Meeting

I suggest an in-person meeting to kick-off this bid. It's probably best to wait until after the AGM, so I suggest Sunday 27th May at 1pm in our usual pub in Holborn. This would just be to gauge interest in the bid and to do some initial brainstorming. It would be useful if the London 2013 team could give a short presentation on their bid (what parts you really liked and think we should carry forward to 2014, what parts you found more difficult that expected and that we should start thinking about early, what feedback you got from the jury, etc.). What do people think? --Tango (talk) 23:07, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Having an in-person kick-off meeting is definitely a good idea. I'd recommend seeing whether a meeting room at the WMUK office could be used, so you have a quieter venue, ability to show powerpoint, and possibly even record the discussion for those afar to watch afterwards. Mike Peel (talk) 07:37, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

I would be up for 27th May. Sounds like a good plan. Seddon (talk) 19:34, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Note that we're heading for a meeting at the WMUK office on 13 May - see wmuk:Wikimania 2014/Planning meeting. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:06, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

It is clear that a lot of people can't make the 13 May, so I've created a doodle poll here for people to specify what dates they can make so that we can find a date that suits as many people as possible. --Tango (talk) 16:25, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Offers of help

If you'd like to join the organising committee and take a central role in planning for the bid, please add your name there. If you'd like to help, but for any reason you don't want to join the organising committee, please sign below. It would be greatly appreciated if you could give us your Wikimedia username, home wiki, and a bit about any on- or off-wiki skills and experience you have that might be useful. If you want to share your contact details with the organisers, or if you want to help but don't want to sign up publicly, that's not a problem—just email me at james@originalcontentlondon.com

Offers

• Example post. HJ Mitchell, English Wikipedia (admin). I have about a year's worth of events organisation/management and coordination of volunteers with Wikimedia UK, I'm attending Wikimania 2012 in DC, and I chaired the initial meeting of the organising committee. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:21, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
• I'll be in London in mid 2014 and I'm happy to help. Some background: I do most of my edits on the English Wikipedia, but I've made small contributions to about 50 wikipedias in other languages. I like thinking of Wikipedia as a global project Azylber (talk) 15:08, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
• KTo288, Commons admin living in London, contributing to English and other Wikipedias since about 2006. Organised transport and accommodation when at poly for sports teams in the days before the internet, many years of front of house experience in the restaurant business. Happy to do meet and greet, registrations and wayfinding on the day.-KTo288 (talk) 18:11, 8 July 2012 (UTC)18:10
• Paul W - long-time Wikipedian, also have PR and event organisation experience, have done some work with Wikimedia UK volunteers, and I live in London. Paul W (talk) 09:52, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
• Moswento, non-admin editor at the English Wikipedia. I have some relevant off-wiki experience - I've worked in a few customer service roles and earlier this year was involved in organising a conference for ~300 people. I also live near to London. Moswento (talk) 12:56, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
• Not nearby, not got any experience, but give me a shout if I can help. Worm^TT 10:57, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
• Happy to bring some grunt work to bear as a student helper (and longtime editor) -- also have significant skills as a wiki-maintainer and developer in and outside MediaWiki. Jarry1250 (talk) 09:25, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
• Dan Bull, I'm a musician, I offer to write and produce a song to help publicise this event. http://itsdanbull.com/
• John Keays, never edited until this very post - and i've never met someone who does - so I look forward to it! I'd like to be treasurer.
• Joseph Fox, admin and oversighter on the English Wikipedia, and located in bonnie Scotland. Very happy to help in any way I can. :) I have a strong interest in graphic design, but would be interested in helping with whatever. — Joseph Fox 15:34, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
• I'm Bob, and I'm keen to help out. I spend a lot of time working on enwiki, and a little on other projects (am admin on Outreach). Not 100% where I'll be living in 2014 - I go where the work is - but London seems likely, and if not I'm happy to travel. I have some experience of organising other stuff as a volunteer, and am halfway through an MBA, so many people would be forgiven for thinking I can competently manage people, events, and financials ;-) Feel free to get in touch on my talkpage. bobrayner (talk) 15:51, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
• Kevin McLaughlin Support mainly but if I can help at all will do what I can, previous event experience MrKev82
• Tom Morris. Happy to help during the event with all sorts of things: technical, gruntwork, advice. Have a strong aversion to paperwork. —Tom Morris (talk) 21:18, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
• Gordon Joly. Can offer to work up to, during and after the event. Interested in the outreach element of the bid. Gordo (talk) 09:24, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

How much is set in stone so far?

Is the venue &c definitely chosen, or are details still subject to change/improvement? I notice there's quite a long to-do list over at Wikimania Handbook but presumably 90% of that is nailed down somewhat closer to the date... bobrayner (talk) 16:05, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Also, can we get a "lessons learned" list from this year's wikimania? What worked well, what was unpopular, what was hard to arrange, what fell into place easily... bobrayner (talk) 16:13, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Feedback on the previous bids can be found here. As for lessons learned from actually hosting Wikimania, I would recommend reviewing wm2011:Feedback and wm2012:Feedback, the latter of which is live. Obviously, not all of it will be relevant to a UK bid team (e.g. homeless people in Washington DC), but some potential pitfulls are noted (e.g. starting the scholarship process too late). CT Cooper · talk 23:22, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

OK, thanks; that's useful stuff. bobrayner (talk) 20:16, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

2013 discussion

Security

Not that it will be a major issue, but does the bid team have a statement on 'security' given the ongoing terrorist threat to the UK? Sfan00 IMG (talk) 20:43, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

The US State Department's Bureau of Consular Services travel advice for the United Kingdom page may be useful here. —Tom Morris (talk) 21:16, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Questions for the bid team

Hello London Team,

There are a lot of strengths in this innovative and bold bid, including its clear purpose; its alignment with Foundation and movement goals, especially "increased public awareness" and enhancing the "potential pool of high quality editors"; its credible efforts to link with technical and financial partners and build on GLAM partnerships; its set of principles on which the fundraising strategy is based; its separation of the bidding phase from the planning/implementation phase; its willingness to pass on its experience in a timely way, by inviting "people from the "Wikimania 2015 Organizing Committee" to the Implementation Team; its thoughtful and relevant cultural/social activities; its use of identified experienced Wikimedians as advisers to the bid team; the range of accommodation identified; and the attention given to delegate convenience (for example, providing attendees with "a London travel card valid for the duration of the event").

The flow on effects of one part of the plan to another have generally been considered - for example, you note that the university accommodation "typically has high speed/reliable Internet access"; and in regard to the ticketing strategy, "Wikipedians get priority booking, released at cheaper price". However, could you answer the following questions about other aspects of the implications of your bid?

The scope of the project - being "open to the public and designed with outreach in mind" is ambitious (and exciting). The open foyer with its public access and outreach focus are interesting innovations, bringing extra demands on the event as well as extra risks to it.

• Have you decided on exact dates and will small changes to the date have an impact on sponsorship/ accommodation/ keynote speakers/ or the venue? That is, are any of the other components extremely time sensitive?

We're looking at 8/9/10 Aug at the moment. We're pretty set on these dates - the main constraint is availability of the venue, but luckily August is the low season. Nothing else is particularly time sensitive (+/- a week or two) at this stage. EdSaperia (talk) 02:11, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

• Is the figure of "10,000 delegates" one that includes the outreach component? (That is, does this figure include the public?)

Yes, this includes the outreach component. When we are able to do final detailed plans with space we can work out exactly how many fit upstairs - something like 2000 - then we'll release the rest of the venue capacity to the public. 10,000 is if we get different public every day, a rough upper limit. EdSaperia (talk) 02:11, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

• Is there an impact on staffing from this? (Or is London First going to cover it?)

London First, plus the Barbican's staff, plus a local volunteer base. If the Olympics can rustle up 70,000 "games makers", we should be able to cope... EdSaperia (talk) 02:11, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

To elaborate on this; as a ballpark figure I estimate we'll need approximately 50 volunteers per day, and we plan to draw from existing Wikimedia UK lists, local schools and universities, the bid team's extended network, and perhaps any international delegates who might be interested. EdSaperia (talk) 22:57, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

The potential of expanded public and business involvement is noted in the bid.

• What effect/impact do you expect that will result from the public's interaction with the conference?

Hopefully, hundreds of new editors, and a massively increased awareness of the movement internationally. It's my firm belief that most people don't really understand that Wikipedia is actually written by regular people, rather than being a website that magically comes from nowhere - and that sitting just underneath the articles is a very active social network that they can quickly become part of. As it's London, I expect we'll have a lot of tech-conference type audience coming along too, so hopefully a good new crop of more technical editors who will help improve editing tools and templates, and perhaps even some startups based around open data from Wikimedia. EdSaperia (talk) 02:11, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

I realise I may have misunderstood this question; perhaps you mean "how will the public interacting with the conference affect the conference for the wikimedian attendees?". In that case, the first thing to note is that regular attendees for previous wikimanias still represent people with all levels of experience with the project. People come to wikimanias who don't know how to edit. So from that perspective, I don't think it will feel particularly different. Secondly, there is an area that is a safe haven for the wikimedians where the public will have limited access, so even if the unenlightened do rise up to overthrow their masters, we can quickly install an effective barricade and survive for several days on the leftover catering supplies. EdSaperia (talk) 02:23, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

The desired impact on public awareness is clear. So yes, I meant the latter. The combination of "safe haven" and "leftover catering" should be protect anyone who needs protecting. :) Whiteghost.ink (talk) 10:05, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

• Do you foresee any risk to Wikipedia itself, (from for example, developing unfulfillable expectations about marketing opportunities) as a result of "introducing firms with significant marketing budgets to Wikimania?" That is, do you think they will think that Wikimania and Wikipedia have similar attitudes to "marketing opportunities"?

Even if this event is a huge success, it's still dwarfed by the global reach of the Wikipedia brand as it stands currently, so I can't really see anything sudden and catastrophic happening. If anything, this is a great chance to educate companies and PR firms about what they can do (support and amplify volunteer efforts) and can't do (add press releases to articles) to get involved with Wikipedia. EdSaperia (talk) 02:11, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

• What do you perceive are the main risks, especially given the conference's expanded scope and the involvement of the public?

Since we're working with a very experienced events company (London First), the event delivery should be pretty smooth even if it doesn't go exactly to plan, and they'll be able to ensure that we don't accidentally go overboard with the budget. We'll have to raise significant funds for this event, but likewise we have an experienced fundraising team and Wikipedia (Education! Charity! Tech! Innovation! Culture! International and lasting impact!) is not a hard sell, and this is a big, high visibility event - something very surprising would be going on if we struggle to fundraise for this, and even if we come in below our target we can easily scale back the event (see Logistics/AudioVisual for one example of how we could do this). Perhaps if something incapacitates a few of the core team at a crucial stage of the process that might cause some problems if we can't find any other enthusiastic people to pick up the mantle, but if the bid is successful it'll be unlikely that we won't find anyone interested. EdSaperia (talk) 02:11, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

The bid is technically ambitious too. For example, "live casting and "edited versions the same day" demand people power.

• Do you have reliable commitments from individuals who can fulfil these plans, for example, the daily editing? (Or is London First also responsible for this?)

We have a technical director in Declan Pattison who has relevant industry experience, and whom I have worked together with before on several projects. We or London First will subcontract for the technicians; this is represented in the AV budget. EdSaperia (talk) 02:11, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

• Given the strong fund raising team and experience, do you think that other aspects are weaker and will need extra care to ensure they are not overshadowed by this strong financial focus?

I will personally be fully focused on the event delivery, and (hopefully!!) won't have to get involved in the fundraising side at all! So - I hope not? I've been organising events in London both large and small for many years, from running a music festival to working at a tech co-working space to running my own restaurant, so I have a lot of experience of making hospitable environments for geeks (being one myself!). While I'm not much of an editor, I lurk a lot and I'm friends with a lot of longtime Wikimedians, I go to meetups, and have significant contact with staff and trustees of the local chapter. I've also been curating a blog on wikipedia for quite a while now (www.facebook.com/lolwikipedia); so I really hope that people feel that the Wikimedian culture is adequately represented at the event. EdSaperia (talk) 02:11, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

• What did the bid team advisers who had been to previous Wikimanias bring to this bid? (That is, dos/ don'ts/ ideas. (This is a question about how effectively learning was/can be shared).

The best and most frequent advice we had was really on the basic stuff you need for any event: clear signage and programme, easy travel, plentiful food, strong wifi, good acoustics, comfortable seats. It's this kind of thing that it's easy to get wrong or be unable to supply if you are inexperienced or on a small budget, because you just don't have all the options you'd like. Of course there's wide feedback given on wiki as well (e.g. here) and also through the wikimania handbook, which is actually very good and thorough, and which we've all read through carefully. EdSaperia (talk) 02:11, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

• Are you expecting your "Implementation Team" to be responsible for BOTH planning and implementation? Or are you considering adding to/ reducing the team after the planning is done?

As it says on the project management page "These aren't necessarily individual roles - one person may do more than one to start with, and as the event approaches these roles will split into several roles or even committees. What they represent is more independent 'streams' that may be tackled fairly independently." We'll work with people we believe are capable (between ourselves, contacts with whom we have worked before and professionals (London First, etc)) and cover all the streams, which will then move forward at their own pace overseen by the regular project management processes, and the team will be grown as necessary. In my experience, there is no clear boundary between planning and implementation; problems mostly arise when there's a chunk of work that you've forgotten about entirely ("But I thought you were going to order plates?!") until it's too late. The list of implementation streams is to show that we're aware of and planning for all the problems that we'll have to tackle, even if we don't know quite how they'll be solved yet. EdSaperia (talk) 02:11, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Some other simpler questions:

• Is the Barbican venue booked and secured?

We can't make a firm booking until the bid is secured. However, it's been pledged by the City of London Corporation (although we can't get anything in writing until our corporate entity exists, because there's nobody for them to sign a contract *with* at the moment), and the venue is aware of the dates we prefer for the event, which is the best we can do at this stage. EdSaperia (talk) 02:11, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

My understanding is that all of the financial arrangements for Wikimania 2014, including bookings such as this, will go through Wikimedia UK if this bid is successful. However, I agree with Ed that a booking can't be made here until the outcome of the bid is known. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 22:13, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

• How are the negotiations going for a London pass for attendees?

By London Pass I'm assuming you mean a public transport travelcard? We've managed to negotiate a 10% discount so far. The rest will come out of the budget, unless we make a good contact at Transport For London between now and next summer! NB organising these things is significantly easier to do once the event is definitely going ahead; there are certainly large CSR budgets floating around, but people don't like apportioning them on things that have a chance of not happening. EdSaperia (talk) 02:11, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks,

Whiteghost.ink (talk) 06:17, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Question about the schedule

Hello London Team,

Some questions regarding the schedule: How would you like to squeeze in 7 keynote speakers into 3 days, while -as far as I see-, each day has a 3-hour long Unconference and only 2 or 3 hours for sessions? Speaking of experience, you will need to schedule 120-130 presentations (including workshops and panels). How will you do that? How many session rooms are you planning?

BTW, how much are the Keynote Speakers confirmed? Some of these names are circulating on bid pages/mailing lists for years now. Best, --OrsolyaVirág (talk) 20:53, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

The bid says there will be 5 tracks. Is the intention to have one keynote per track (and then two general ones - it's normal to have a plenary session at the beginning and end, so that makes sense)? I am also concerned by the amount of time dedicated to an unconference - unconferences are great, but it is very different to how Wikimania usually works. I would suggest a smaller amount of time (maybe one hour a day) for unconference sessions. --Tango (talk) 21:42, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Hey Orsolya,

Good question - As Tango mentions above there are two main tracks (community and public) with multiple subtracks each so there are plenty of spots, the second point is we are going to aim more of a TED style session where speakers have 20-30 minutes speaking slot (there is a lot of research about the effectiveness of shorter sessions - no matter how interesting the content, people invariable lose focus). In terms of the total number of sessions, this is hard to tell at the moment, until we do a deep schedule analysis we won't know, and it's far to early in the process to do it. We need all the talk submissions, all confirmed key notes and estimates of the popularity of each talk etc

In terms of how confirmed the keynotes are, I've copied another answer from elsewhere on the talk page:

"No - all the keynotes listed are confirmed speakers (hopefully the videos help confirm this) and we are in the process of drawing up speakers contracts (with built in proviso should we lose the bid). We are in discussion with several others speakers such as Tim Burners-Lee, Linus Torvalds, representatives of London's Open Data Institute, The EFF, The Mozilla Foundation as well as members of the British government, but as of yet we have not got 100% confirmation - hence they are not on the bid page."

Hope this helps :) Jknight1603

Just to add my 2c; We plan for there to be 7 tracks, and "keynotes" is perhaps a misnomer; some of these speakers may be scheduled in parallel to other sessions, we just imagine them to be the more popular talks. Also, I'm just generally a big fan of the unconference format, there will probably be a perpetual unconference track alongside the other tracks, which will be in the standard format. EdSaperia (talk) 17:53, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Two concerns

• Hello! I went through almost the entire bid. This is a question I am posing to both the bids (so far) and particularly to the bidders from London. Internet connectivity is crucial to an event like Wikimania. I don't see any mention of connectivity in logistics and budgeting. Does the Barbican have its own routers and network? I am concerned also because given the scale you propose, the available bandwidth may not support everyone well. Maybe you could elaborate on this?

Hello! Typically with events like this in London a telecoms sponsor provides powerful mobile wifi devices to cover the event. We have some contacts at some relevant companies who are interested. The Barbican's native system is even not that bad, in a pinch, and is due to be upgraded this year. EdSaperia (talk) 02:11, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

• Another concern, again, is scale. I see really ambitious propositions like making it a global event, involving international volunteers and press coverage. However, your timeline does not state when you plan to reach out to the global community and will they all be given scholarships to attend Wikimania as well?

As you can see in http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2014_bids/London/Logistics/Project_Management#International_Media_Co-ordinators, involving the global community is a high priority. We don't have a timeline for this, but it will be part of our main publicity and PR rollout that we do for the event. We may find some donors who wish to pay for this specifically, but traditionally scholarships to attend Wikimania are paid for by the WMF rather than the event teams, though I believe we are tasked with organising the committee. The scholarship process will be largely the same as the existing system, organised on similar timelines in a similar manner (heeding any advice from the 2012/2013 teams). We have planned a role for this in the team: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2014_bids/London/Logistics/Project_Management#Scholarship_Coordinator EdSaperia (talk) 02:11, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Noopur28 (talk)

London has a massive connectivity plus over many other cities (but not all). I guess we can use fibre, copper or infra red to connect if the Barbican cannot supply. Gordo (talk) 21:57, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Jewish Holiday

Do note that religious jews can not attend a conference on 4-5 August 2014. Deror avi (talk) 11:53, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

That's unfortunate, but I don't think it is possible to cater to everyone with the scheduling. There are only so many days in the year so there will always be clashes. --Tango (talk) 13:20, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

That answer is very rude and condescending on many levels. Currently the schedual has no clash. It was a point to make sure nothing happens on the 4 -5th (on which religious Jews can not travel to the conference). Deror avi (talk) 14:57, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

It is not remotely rude and condescending. Your suggestion that nothing should happen on certain days because a certain group of people would then choose not to attend is incredibly arrogant. There are a large number of factors that must be considered when scheduling a large event like Wikimania. Clashes with religious observances is one of them, but it is far from a large enough one to absolutely preclude anything being scheduled on certain days. --Tango (talk) 19:42, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

There's a difference between people choosing to not attend an event as they are more interested in attending another one happening at the same time, and them feeling unable (and unwelcome) to attend an event as it clashes with something that they feel morally obliged to attend or adhere to. One is a choice, the other can be a demonstration against their beliefs. In this case, the potential clash that Deror is referring to seems to be with Tisha B'Av on 5 August 2014 - James says below that the main event is on 8-10 August, and based on File:Wikimania London Schedule.jpg that means that the hackathon would take place on 6-7 Aug, so there's no clashes on the days of the event (although, I can't see these dates explicitly set out on the event page, which would be a good clarification to provide). I can't see any prohibition on travel described at Tisha B'Av - which may be an omission from that article (if so, please update it!) - but if there is such a prohibition then traveling on the days preceding Tisha B'Av would seem like a reasonable compromise. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 22:49, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you Mike. This was only a comment to the London bid, as the bid states the conference would start on the 6th (and an official answer was required, as dates may change - and I would not like to see the conference begin on the 5th) - A similar comment (more strongly worded) was made to the Arusha bid to change their dates.

And Thomas - should every a conference take place on Easter day, do you think it would cause a problem? I am not intending to have a discussion on the religious values set on certain religious holidays. The questions was put as part of the Jury questions, and as in past years - religious holidays (such as Ramadan and Eid) which fall in the summer need to be taken into account in the schedualing and planning (Ramadan effects meal times for example, as dinner must begin after sunset). Deror avi (talk) 08:25, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Wikimania being over the Easter weekend would be a massive problem, because it would clash with the start of the new series of Doctor Who! We could just watch it on a big screen in the auditorium, I suppose... Other than that, I see no problem with a conference being over Easter. Those people that want to attend church services on the Friday or Sunday would either attend early/late ones that don't clash or would miss a bit of the conference. That would be their choice. --Tango (talk) 12:44, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Tom, you can make your point without being quite so abrasive. I agree with your point that, as unfortunate as a (thus far hypothetical) clash may be, it may be unavoidable, but we should consider that there may be pragmatic, as well as religious, concerns. To take Deror's example of Easter (or indeed Christmas), even for the atheists among us, a conference over those periods would be problematic because there's no public transport. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:15, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

People trying to impose their superstitions on me is something I will absolutely not tolerate. I was careful to be a tactful as possible with my initial response and was called "rude and condescending" because it wasn't what he wanted to hear, and you're calling me "abrasive"? (And there is generally public transport over Easter in the UK - most operators run a Sunday service on Good Friday and Easter Monday, as with other public holidays, but they do run a service.) --Tango (talk) 23:57, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Hey Guys, I appreciate this is a sensitive issue but I want to reiterate my response below; the conference (including hack) will be run from the 6-10th of August, the venue has been provisionally reserved and should we win the bid, it is highly unlikely these dates will change. This does not currently clash with any major spiritual holiday (as far as I am aware) and I have outlined our reasons for these dates below. Should there by any major oversight when it comes to the dates of the conference - we will of course review options - but for the moment there is none, and as such I think this conversation thread should conclude here. Jknight1603

Hey - The main conference would be run 8/9/10 Aug. The commonwealth Games are to be run in Glasgow the two weeks prior to this (which obviously we dont want to clash with) hence the dates choice. --Jknight1603

Hi guys

I would like to know with total certainty whether Thomas is part of the UK team or not (hi Thomas !). Could someone clarify ? Thanks in advance Anthere (talk) 14:57, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

He is not. -- KTC (talk) 17:46, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

What difference does it make? --Tango (talk) 18:18, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

The Jury had long discussions about this thread, and wanted to know who is giving the official answer "of the team". Deror avi (talk) 18:21, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Accommodations comments/ questions

Can you clarify accommodations by filling in the following table (per each hotel/dorms ): Deror avi (talk) 14:50, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Five stars

Hotel type (no. of Stars)	Hotel Name	No. of Rooms (Single/Double) 1	No. of Beds	Hotel Price 2	Distance from Venue	Link to Hotel's website
5*	The Montcalm		235	£250-500 ($400-800)	0.2M	http://www.montcalm.co.uk
5*	Grange St. Pauls Hotel		430	£85-200 ($136-320)	0.6M	www.grangehotels.com
5*	Grange City Hotel	240		£131-382 ($209.6-611.2)	0.97 M	http://www.grangehotels.com/hotels-london/grange-city-hotel/grange-city-hotel.aspx
5*	London City Suites			£108-320 ($172.8-512)	0.15 M	http://www.londoncitysuites.co.uk/
5*	Threadneedles	69		£174 ($278.4)	0.54 M	http://threadneedles-boutique.hotel-rv.com/index.htm?lbl=ggl-en&gclid=CPe4g-XOibYCFcLHtAodZQkAOw
5*	Andaz London - Liverpool Street	267		£324-651 ($518.4-1041.6)	0.59 M	http://london.liverpoolstreet.andaz.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels-london-liverpoolstreet-andaz/index.jsp

Four stars

Hotel type (no. of Stars)	Hotel Name	No. of Rooms (Single/Double) 1	No. of Beds	Hotel Price 2	Distance from Venue	Link to Hotel's website
* * * *	Malmaison	97 rooms		£138-800 ($220.8-1280)	0.29 M	http://www.malmaison.com/locations/london/
* * * *	Apex London Wall Hotel	89 rooms		£220-250 ($352-400)	0.4M	apexhotels.co.uk
* * * *	Hotel Russel London		356	£239-343 ($382.4-548.8)	1.8 M	http://www.hotelrusselllondon.co.uk
* * * *	Thistle™ City Barbican	463		£142-238 ($227.2-380.8)	0.6 M	http://www.thistle.com/en/hotels/united_kingdom/london/thistle_city_barbican/index.html
* * * *	Thistle™ Euston	362		£141-274 ($225.6-438.4)	2.4 M	http://www.thistle.com/en/hotels/united_kingdom/london/thistle_euston/index.html
* * * *	The Re London Shoreditch	178		£109-159 ($174.4-254.4)	1.9 M	http://www.hotelshoreditch.com/
* * * *	Rookery Hotel	33		£222-660 ($355.2-1056)	0.37 M	http://www.rookeryhotel.com/
* * * *	The Zetter Hotel	59		£220-525 ($352-840)	0.4M	http://www.thezetter.com/
* * * *	Club Quarters St Pauls	265		£99-189 ($158.4-302.4)	0.48 M	http://club-quarters-st-pauls.h-rzn.com/
* * * *	66 Turnmill Street	14 apartments		£180-270 ($288-432)	0.5 M
* * * *	Marlin Queen Street	96		£110-320 ($176-512)	0.56 M	http://www.marlinapartments.com/queen-street-apartments.html
* * * *	Kings Wardrobe Apartments by Bridgestreet	86		£138-240 ($220.8-384)	0.56 M	http://www.bridgestreet.com/The_Kings_Wardrobe_by_BridgeStreet_Worldwide.htm
* * * *	Atelier EC1 by BridgeStreet	24 units consisting of studios, one and two-bedroom apartments and penthouses.		£152-207 ($243.2-331.2)	0.61 M	http://www.bridgestreet.com/Atelier_EC1_by_Bridgestreet_Worldwide.htm
* * * *	196 Bishopsgate	48		£242-335 ($387.2-536)	0.64 M	http://www.196bishopsgate.com/
* * * *	Club Quarters Gracechurch Hotel	203		£178-260 ($284.8-416)	0.64 M	http://www.clubquarters.com/loc_londonGracechurch.php
* * * *	Saco London - Fleet Street			£199 ($318.4)	0.74 M	http://www.sacoapartments.com/serviced-apartments/uk/london-the-city-of-london/saco-london-fleet-street
* * * *	Novotel London Tower Bridge	203		£99-429 ($158.4-686.4)	0.95 M	http://www.novotel.com/gb/hotel-3107-novotel-london-tower-bridge/index.shtml
* * * *	Novotel London City South	182		£99-345 ($158.4-552)	0.96 M	http://www.novotel.com/gb/hotel-3269-novotel-london-city-south/index.shtml
* * * *	Chamberlain Hotel	64		£90-375 ($144-600)	0.97 M	http://www.thechamberlainhotel.co.uk/
* * * *	Mercure London Bridge Hotel	144		£88 ($140.8)	1.01 M	http://www.mercure.com/gb/hotel-2814-mercure-london-bridge-hotel/room.shtml

Three stars

Hotel type (no. of Stars)	Hotel Name	No. of Rooms (Single/Double) 1	No. of Beds	Hotel Price 2	Distance from Venue	Link to Hotel's website
* * *	HOTEL IBIS LONDON CITY		348	£74-90 ($118.4-144)	1.1M	http://www.ibis.com/gb/hotel-5011-ibis-london-city/index.shtml
* * *	Citadines Barbican London	129		£102 ($163.2)	0.1M	http://www.citadines.com/
* * *	Travelodge City Road		392	£106 ($169.6)	0.8 M	http://www.travelodge.co.uk/hotels/340/London-Central-City-Road-prev-Moorgate-hotel
* * *	Travelodge Liverpool Street		142	£132 ($211.2)	0.7 M	http://www.travelodge.co.uk/hotels/44/London-Central-Liverpool-Street-hotel
* * *	Holiday Inn Express Hotel London City	224		£112-229 ($179.2-366.4)	0.69 M	http://www.ihg.com/holidayinnexpress/hotels/us/en/london/lonct/hoteldetail?cm_mmc=mdpr-_-GoogleMapsUK-_-ex-_-lonct
* * *	Holiday Inn Express Southwark	88		£95-199 ($152-318.4)	0.98 M	http://www.ihg.com/holidayinnexpress/hotels/us/en/london/lonsw/hoteldetail?cm_mmc=mdpr-_-GoogleMapsUK-_-ex-_-lonsw
* * *	Premier Inn Tower Hill			£105-160 ($168-256)	1.8 M	http://www.premierinn.com/en/hotel/LONCIT/london-city-tower-hill
* * *	Premier Inn London City (Old Street)	251		£122-152 ($195.2-243.2)	0.59 M	http://www.premierinn.com/en/hotel/LONOLD/london-city-old-street
* * *	All Seasons Southwark Rose Hotel/ Ibis Styles London Southwark Rose	114		£97-225 ($155.2-360)	0.94 M	http://www.accorhotels.com/gb/hotel-7465-ibis-styles-london-southwark-rose-previously-all-seasons/index.shtml
* * *	Mad Hatter Hotel	30		£95-225 ($152-360)	1.0 M	http://www.madhatterhotel.co.uk/
* * *	London City Hotel			£59-199 ($94.4-318.4)	1.6 M	http://london-city-hotel.co.uk/
* * *	City Hotel	110		£55-149 ($88-238.4)	1.09 M	http://www.cityhotellondon.co.uk/
* * *	Montana Excel	48		£40-210 ($64-336)	1.3 M	http://www.smoothhound.co.uk/a44261.html

One- Two stars

Hotel type (no. of Stars)	Hotel Name	No. of Rooms (Single/Double) 1	No. of Beds	Hotel Price 2	Distance from Venue	Link to Hotel's website
*	Lonsdale Hotel	40		£45-80 ($72-128)	1.3 M	http://lonsdalehotellondon.com/
*	St. Athans Hotel	45		£46-108 ($73.6-172.8)	1.4 M	http://www.stathanshotel.com/
* *	Arriva Hotel	75		£80 ($128)	1.2 M	http://www.hotelarriva.co.uk/
* *	Elmwood Hotel	35		£75-150 ($120-240)	1.35 M	http://www.elmwoodhotel.co.uk/Default.aspx
	Hotel Strand Continental	26		£20-70 ($32-112)	1.1 M	http://www.strand-continental.co.uk/Welcome.html
* *	Wardonia Hotel	50		£40-70 ($64-112)	1.36 M	http://www.wardoniahotel.co.uk/
* *	Gresham Hotel London	40		£45 ($72) -	1.37 M	http://londongreshamhotel.com/
* *	Hotel Meridiana	26		£44-84 ($70.4-134.4)	1.4 M	http://www.hotelmeridiana.co.uk/#
* *	The Bridge Hotel	60		£55-109 ($88-174.4)	1.46 M	http://www.thebridgehotel.net
* *	Goodwood Hotel	26		£45-125 ($72-200)	1.4 M	http://www.goodwood-hotel.com/Contact%20Us.html

Dorms

Institution	Dorm Name	No. of Rooms (Single/Double) 1	No. of Beds 3	Dorm bed Price 2	Distance from Venue	Link to Dorm's website
Hostel	YHA London St Pauls			£40 ($64)	0.54 M	http://www.yha.org.uk/hostel/london-st-pauls
Hostel	Keystone House		140	£16-35 ($25.6-56)	2.0 M	http://www.keystone-house.com/
Hostel	Clink78		640	£13 ($20.8),5-33	1.1 M	http://www.clinkhostels.com/london/backpacker-hostels/clink78
Hostel	Smart Russell Square		460	£12-32 ($19.2-51.2)	1.1 M	http://www.smartbackpackers.com/
B&B	Roseberry Hall			£45-83 ($72-132.8)	1.1 M	http://www.lsevacations.co.uk/residences/rosebery.htm
B&B	Grenville House Hotel	13		£69-145 ($110.4-232)	1.03 M	http://www.grenvillehotel.co.uk/index.htm
Hostel	Budget Guest House	11		£33-79 ($52.8-126.4)	1.2 M	http://www.budgetguesthouse.co.uk/
Hostel	Clink261	25		£9-50 ($14.4-80)	1.3 M	http://www.clinkhostels.com/london/backpacker-hostels/clink261/rooms-prices
Hostel	Generator Hostel London		217	£12 ($19.2)	1.38 M	http://generatorhostels.com/en/destinations/london/
B&B	Fairway Hotel	32		£44-119 ($70.4-190.4)	1.5 M	http://www.fairwaylondon.com/
Hostel	Sundial Court Summer Lettings	177	≈ 531	From £29 ($46.4)	0.18 M	http://www.cheaphotelsandhostels.com/hostel/h-37338/Sundial-Court-Summer-Lettings/
Hostel (Female only)	St Christophers Oasis	40		£17.50-45 ($28-72)	1.04 M	http://www.st-christophers.co.uk/london-hostels/london-bridge-oasis
B&B	Ruskin Hotel	33		from £39 ($62.4)	1.3 M	http://ruskinhotel.reserve-easy.com/
Hostel	St Christopher's Village			£17.50-42 ($28-67.2)	1.0 M	http://www.st-christophers.co.uk/london-hostels/london-bridge
Hostel	London Eye Hostel	47		£16-34 ($25.6-54.4)	2.0 M	http://londoneyehostel.com/
Hostel	Arsenal Tavern Hostel			£11-25 ($17.6-40)	3.5 M	http://www.hostelworld.com/hosteldetails.php/Arsenal-Tavern-Hostel/London/49791?dateFrom=23+Mar+2013&dateTo=26+Mar+2013&sc_sau=avdc&sc_pos=22

¹ No. of rooms available to us - please check with the hotel. Usually block no. of rooms is only 50% of the hotel's actual no. of rooms. Account for single or double rooms - but not expensive suites. ² current price without block discounts. The actual price for the conference may be lower but not higher then this amount. ³ Also - for dorms - maximum no. of beds per room, and if toilets and bathrooms are inside the room or apartment.

Shouldn't this form be filled in on the bid page, rather than the talk page? Ditto "Venue Questions" below... Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 23:37, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Jury questions are put on the talk page. The table may be filled wherever you wish, but do leave a note here as well. Deror avi (talk) 08:27, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Yep we will update the info on the bid page and answer in line here. In the interim most of the accommodation information can be found here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2014_bids/London/Your_Journey including a map of the area surrounding the venue with information on number of beds / pricing etc. The venue infomation is already in the bid (just not table form) here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2014_bids/London/The_Event -- Jknight1603

Currently the bid info is insufficient. Please prepare a table as seen in the Arusha bid talkpage. Deror avi (talk) 10:58, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Just to clarify - the cost above is in pounds? can the table be done in $? Deror avi (talk) 18:22, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

I added $ conversions at the rate of 1.60 (note this is dynamic conversion rate). Rich Farmbrough 23:44 1 April 2013 (GMT).

Budget comments/ questions

The Budget should have been finalized, Please have only one column – the actual cost as know to the bidding team. |Do not list future and undocumented discounts which may or may not happen. Deror avi (talk) 14:50, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Hey - We're in the process of finalising the budget and it will completed by late tomorrow. I should clarify the intent of the two col system. These are not undocumented discounts, they are discounts which we have negotiated and are for the most part already in place - however because we have not won the bid, we have no signed on the dotted line and thus we must be pragmatic and assume they are subject to change. Where possible i.e the Barbican we are working on an MOU in the interim but we want to be transparent about what the actual costs could be although we anticipate them being less. -- Jknight1603

Has any team ever had a 100% finalised budget at the bidding stage? The conference is more than a year away, there will inevitably be some degree of uncertainty... --Tango (talk) 18:22, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Venue Questions

Please fill in the following details for each conference room: Deror avi (talk) 15:16, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Hall Name	Is main hall? 1	Hall Size 2	Dates on which Hall is available 3	Wifi 4
The Great Hall	Yes	2000	Main Conference	Yes
The Theatre	No	1166	Main Conference	Yes
The Foyer	No	5000+	Main Conference	Yes
Cinema 1	No	246	Main Conference	Yes
Cinema 2	No	143	Main Conference	Yes
Cinema 3	No	135	Main Conference	Yes
Conference Suite 1-3	No	170	Main Conference	Yes
Conference Suite 4-6	No	170	Main Conference	Yes
Conservatory	No	150	Hackathon+Main Conference	Yes
Conservatory Roof Terrace	No	200	Hackathon+Main Conference	Yes

Additional infomation on the venue can be found here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2014_bids/London/The_Event. The entire Barbican has sophisticated wifi capable of catering to thousands of guests. Pending the results by a survey by Cisco it is possible we will install boosters however this has yet to be determined. --Jknight1603

¹ Will this hall be used as the main hall of the conference

² Max no. of people sitting in hall

³ please note if this hall is a combination of other halls - making them unavailable when it is used

⁴ Will this hall have WiFi? Does it have it currently

Questions from James Hare

Hello,

Thank you for taking the time to prepare the impressive bid for Wikimania 2014. I have some questions regarding your bid.

1. You are pushing for a 10,000-person mega-conference. However, your venue's largest presentation space only seems to seat about 2,000 people. You explain above that you calculate this figure based on different members of the public coming in each day, pushing the numbers of registered people to 10,000. Still, you seem to be pushing your venue to its capacity, so I would like to you to clarify how many attendees (i.e., human bodies) you are expecting at the venue during peak attendance.
2. How likely are you to get this venue? In other words, if I were to tell you "Congratulations! You have been awarded Wikimania 2014," would you be able to put ink to paper that day? If the venue does not let you book >1 year in advance, then I am very concerned.
3. One of the biggest problems of Wikimania 2012 was that Washington, relative to the rest of the world, is darned expensive. London's even more expensive, as far as I know. (You are welcome to refute me!) Expensive accommodations are a hindrance to participants who must travel from remote corners of the world who are accustomed to lower living costs. Further, booking accommodations for Wikimania is unlike booking accommodations for many other conferences. Is there anyone on your team who is experienced with negotiating hotel room blocks? If you can't bring the prices down to the point that many are capable of paying (for reference, US$150 was pushing it), are you willing to eat some of the cost to ensure affordability?
4. You referenced a corporation above that would sign for the venue hire but does not exist yet. Are you forming a new corporation to conduct Wikimania? How much does this add to the cost relative to the benefit derived?
5. A question more personal in nature than related to my role on the jury. I recently rewrote the Wikimania Handbook and I am wondering if you read it and if it was helpful to your bid.

Thank you for your time.

harej (talk) 21:33, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Hey James! - Thankyou for the kind words, i've answered your questions below, let me know if you need any additional information.

1. This is something we need to clarify on the bid page. The simple answer to your question is around 4000-4500 people in the venue at any one point. Its easiest to visualise this is as two conferences running in parallel, one is a traditional Wikimania community driven conference with capacity of up to 2000 people, the other is a public (by public in reality we mean people with an interest in free culture / open data / tech) festival which again will realistically have a cap of about 2500 people a day at maximum (we will be selling the public tickets at day passess - hence as you rightly ascertained we could reach a maximum of 10,000 different people through the door) This obviously requires some careful scheduling (especially in the case of the Great Hall), which we have started doing at a high level as is completely workable, especially if you start looking at dividing the foyer space into workshop / presentation areas, which it is equipped to do. The great thing about the Barbican is that it is easily dividable so we can isolate certain elements unique to the community conference such as inclusive Lunch. I should also note at this point that their are substantial amenities near and witihn the venue, for instance there are 4 restaurants in the barbican itself

2. The venue is owned by the City of London corporation who are backing this bid. The venue has a tentative reservation on it until June 1st and has provisionally been given to us at cost, we are currently in the process of drawing up an MOU which we hope will be done in time for the bid decision. This is a high level agreement, including dates, estimated costs and includes things such as the Lord Mayor (Head of the city of London) opening the conference. Once this is complete we will be at the point in negotiation where we are debating over who will pay for things like security, on site medical, disposable items (trash bags, toilet roll etc), this is surprisingly time consuming and requires legal input from both sides, as such there is a reluctance to move any further until we get confirmation one way or another if we have won the bid. So in answer to your question we could have it signed off within a month of getting the go ahead.

3. London is expensive, there is no avoiding it but with key partnerships we can defiantly make it affordable for people to attend. The area of London which we are in is one of the cheaper areas of central London, we have negotiated with the Youth hostel association (which has 900 beds in London) to get a rate of £40 per night which includes breakfast, we are also partnering with several universities in London which can offer accommodation as cheap as £24 per night - which i hope you will agree is affordable - with the conference providing lunch and several dinners and entertainment we should be able to keep the costs of participants low. London First have been involved with organising acccomedation and have strong links with all the major hotel chains, universities etc They will most likely be dealing with the accommodation moving forward.

There is more information on accommodation here: https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?vps=11&hl=en&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=200417156291445980481.0004bb361b12ab580683d and i will be completing the accommodation table above over the next day or so.

Another point to consider is that London is one of the best connected cities on earth in terms of transportation links and visa access. There are cheap flights to the majority of Europe and northern africa and direct flights to most of the major world hubs - In other words getting to London is quite affordable and getting Visas is relatively easy and not overly expensive (especially when we consider its free for EU Citizens). When we consider a significant part of the wikimedia movement is in the EU and US i think London is a easy place to travel to.

4. This is something which has been debated a lot from the bid team to WMUK to the WMUK board. At one point we discussed setting up a separate entity to run the conference, however we have decided it would be best to act as part of WMUK. Saad (a lawyer on the bid team) is currently refining this but the broad stokes are this. WMUK has significant ifrasturucte in place (accounting, insurance, chairty status etc) which have taken several years to set up and frankly we should take advantage of this experience. The leaders of the bid team will be contracted by WMUK to plan and execute the conference with major decisions being cleared with the CEO and substantial spending to be cleared with the Board. There has to be balance between our team being able to be suitable agile and effective while limiting the liability of the bid team while also mitigating the risk for WMUK. This basic relationship is currently outlined in an MOU. In terms of financials we will most likely set up a separate bank account in the name of WMUK.

5. Yes we're read a good deal of it, actually we had a new volunteer recently join the team, along with our bid page it was her first set of reading materials. Definatly useful and really comprehensive. One of things i would really like to expand is the sponsorship / fundraising section i.e how to fundraise effectively, more examples of high quality sponsor packs and strategies / angles when approaching potential corporates. - Regardless of the outcome of our bid its something i personally think Ed and I could really contribute to (we both do a lot of professional fundraising). One thing that i think would be really interesting is building upon sponsor relations from previous years - but thats another discussion altogether :) The other thing which would be really useful is financial / legal oversite of the bid either by a local chapter or the WMF - Essentially what you asked in question 4 - what is the most effective way to set up your bids corporate structure. Having case studies from previous bids would be really useful. The last point I would make is it would be great if there was any statistical feedback from previous bids available in one location so teams can build upon the feedback of previous events.

--jknight1603

Your responses are satisfactory. I will let you know if I have any questions. Thank you! harej (talk) 23:31, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Waste management

Has the team given any consideration to reducing the amount of waste at the conference by thoughtful consideration of suppliers, materials, volume or recycling? While I appreciate that negotiations with suppliers is a whole task in itself, when the team makes its decision about which supplier to give its business to, has anyone asked if there is a choice between plastic and paper plates, for example, or the possibility of multiple-use cups; or the extent of involvement in any recycling regime for bottles and cans? Are the venues' kitchens available for use at our conference? Thanks, Whiteghost.ink (talk) 02:45, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Based on feedback from previous Wikimaniae, it's been noted by the bid team that environmental responsibility is a high priority for this event. While we haven't approached this level of detail in our negotiations yet, it's certainly something that we'll be keeping in mind. Note also that The Barbican venue already has an award winning waste management programme that our event will fall within: http://www.barbican.org.uk/about-barbican/sustainability EdSaperia (talk) 11:21, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Keynotes

I'd like to reiterate Orsolya's question above (under "bid questions") about keynotes: are the people you list confirmed, hoped-for, or what? It's not generally a good idea to advertise a roster of keynotes before they are actually firmed up. -- phoebe | talk 00:14, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Hey Phoebe,

No - all the keynotes listed are confirmed speakers (hopefully the videos help confirm this) and we are in the process of drawing up speakers contracts (with built in proviso should we lose the bid). We are in discussion with several others speakers such as Tim Burners-Lee, Linus Torvalds, representatives of London's Open Data Institute, The EFF, The Mozilla Foundation as well as members of the British government, but as of yet we have not got 100% confirmation - hence they are not on the bid page. --Jknight1603

Budget

I had my first look at the budget. It's very disappointing to see the budget, the tentative costs have reached close to a million USD for an single event. The year on year increase in not even in the same league. I understand London would be an expensive city but even if the budget is cut in half - this will still go down as the most expensive event in Wikimedia history by far. I am concerned that this might send off a wrong signal, and make the event become more expensive from now on, making it too prohibitive for other potential bidders to undertake, headed towards killing the spirit behind Wikimania all together. Along with the usual staff travel costs, the scholarships by chapters, and additional expenses - this would be closer to $1.5 Million USD - it might be my third world mentality but its baffling to justify the amount seeing the bids we saw in the last 5 years, or to the other teams who constantly peeled away their budget to make it feasible and stretch every cent, nor can this be justified to the benefactors who probably don't even know that the a large chunk of their donations this year will go to a single event, the event is for London, globally this has little relevance to anyone not attending - a school student in Thailand, a little girl in kentucky or someone in India who might have donated to Wikimedia this year.

• Please note that this Wikimania will not be funded through donations to WMF or WMUK. The budget we propose is something that we will be fundraising independently through corporate sponsorship, private sponsorship and ticket sales.
• There are several factors that go towards this budget being larger than previous budgets;
  • As noted, this Wikimania will be larger than any previous purely in terms of Wikimedian delegates. Partly this reflects the high Wikimedian concentration in the region, and also ease of international travel to the city.
  • We've gone through the feedback from previous Wikimanias and have priced what we think it would take to satisfy these requests. Further than that, though, it's important to us that this event shouldn't just be an investment for the sake of those that can afford to take the time and money to attend, but something that will be of value for the entire community. In many cases this specifically means a significantly higher spend on AV, both in terms of equipment and professionals to operate it. We believe that previous Wikimanias have fallen short in this area, and is a significant factor that has kept this event from reaching its full potential.
  • London is a city world renowned for its media influence and diversity, and an explicit objective of this event is to take advantage of this opportunity for outreach. Including the public track is an explicit change to the format of the conference. The bidding team believes this change fits well with the project's strategic objectives, and that it is within our rights as bidders to propose such a change. However, it raises the total attendance, and so raises the total budget.
  • London has many internationally renowned cultural sites, and so we've included several cultural events in the programme. Should the fundraising fall far short of target, these will be cut. EdSaperia (talk) 14:13, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

I have concerns over how brazenly certain quotes have been added to the budgets, for example-

• 1)"AV" alone is listed as between 100-125k GBP - there doesn't seem to be any breakdown, not a lot of explanation. 250,000 USD for AV equipment is preposterous, unless you are shooting a prime time tv pilot for that amount. I know cable tv shows currently airing that cost less than 250k USD to produce and air per episode (I think the entire first season on Louie CK on Fx costs less or around 200k USD for the first season, not to mention I can name multiple indie movies that have costed less.) I seem to recall "Truth in numbers" - the actual documentary about Wikimedia cost around $55k USD to produce per its entry on Wikipedia, and it had to include large prohibitive travel costs for the team around the world in the same budget. I have no idea why the team would brazenly throw around a number for "AV" that has been more than the budget of the last few events.

In previous years bid teams have promised features such as live streaming and have not delivered, for the simple reason that is expensive, especially across multiple stages / tracks. You require camera teams, line editors, stage managers... and you’re talking about our top top bracket budget. We describe a breakdown and lower tiers here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2014_bids/London/Logistics/AudioVisual. Through offering live streaming, same day uploading and highlight packages, social media feeds within the events (i.e live Q&A) we can engage not just the people in attendance but members of the community globally. Having a delay of even a day after the event massively decreases the reach of this content as the buzz surrounding it is already over. Note also that the AV budget also includes 4 evening events, some of which are offsite from The Barbican. EdSaperia (talk) 14:13, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

The top top bracket you quote is closer to $375K USD... If you want to invest in making AV awesome, consider funding regional arts-and-tech groups to take on the project. Solid funding here could get you amazing visuals, a month of creative crunch time, and crossover interest/attendance from an entire multimedia subcommunity, as well as a backroom team overseeing same-day uploads and coordinating Amara subtitling. I think an ultra-high-quality amateur AV and media production would be more interesting and in line with our movement - and more likely to have other things to teach and share - than a group of professionals. –SJ talk 

• 2)The difference between expected price and price seem relatively ok, except for the first item. The difference of 95k GBP and 20k GBP is too large to just assume, I hope the team would lock down a more reliable quote, between the two wildly different ones listed. I understand that there can be fluctuations in price, or something might be tentative on signing an agreement or conditional discounts - but difference of 5 times the amount is just too high.

The usual cost of the venue is approximately 95k, The city of London corporation who owns the venue has donated the Barbican to us at cost price 20k, however the deal has not been 100% finalised. We want to be transparent about the potential costs involved while also demonstrating how strategic partnerships can indeed lower the costs of the entire event. From a previous answer: "The venue is owned by the City of London corporation who are backing this bid. The venue has a tentative reservation on it until June 1st and has provisionally been given to us at cost, we are currently in the process of drawing up an MOU which we hope will be done in time for the bid decision. This is a high level agreement, including dates, estimated costs and includes things such as the Lord Mayor (Head of the city of London) opening the conference. Once this is complete we will be at the point in negotiation where we are debating over who will pay for things like security, on site medical, disposable items (trash bags, toilet roll etc), this is surprisingly time consuming and requires legal input from both sides, as such there is a reluctance to move any further until we get confirmation one way or another if we have won the bid. So in answer to your question we could have it signed off within a month of getting the go ahead." EdSaperia (talk) 14:13, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

• 3)Event insurance - is listed as 60k GBP for an event? I have limited exposure to london but I do know about event planning and insurance - over a 100,000 USD just for an event doesn't seem reasonable. Unless you have a multi-million dollar PR event under some security concerns or some very high profile figures attending. This doesn't seem justified. I don't think event insurance for any of the past events came near a tenth of that one. Perhaps, this figure could be vetted by an insurance agent first.

This cost is a conservative estimate given to us via London First, at this stage in the process it is very difficult to produce an exact figure. Obviously we would like to reduce this cost, but we need to be vigilant and pragmatic that this is a large event and we need to ensure that all parties are protected adequately. Some of the factors that need to be considered are:

• Employee liability insurance - this depends on the corporate structure of the bid team (i.e if financials are run through WMUK accounts), the number of team members (including contractors eg AV teams), are they employees, interns, volunteers etc, how much they are paid etc
• The value of contracts - this depends on the value of sponsorship, what is offered in return, liability of speakers contracts etc
• Final budget for the event - this is of course subject to change over the coming months. EdSaperia (talk) 14:13, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

• 4) The rest of the budget is supposedly in-line for what I would expect from London, and the most expensive bid so far. I am surprised that revenue side is equally ambitious, to which I would like to ask, why not hold the event without WM funding as primary? The amount requested from Wikimedia can be lowered, and some of these items could be moved to a tentative budget that would be contingent on securing a certain amount of sponsorships?

To reiterate; we are not asking The Wikimedia Foundation for any money to host the conference, the primary revenue streams are ticket sales and corporates sponsorship and should cover all costs involved, and we are exploring alternatives as well. The budget itself is tiered; our first priority is putting on a successful "traditional" community driven Wikimania, which means we will be prioritising spend on venue, wifi and basic amenities. The evening events and the public track elements are a secondary priority based upon the amount of sponsorship raised. One of the primary advantages to running a larger event in London is that sponsorship and fundraising in general is substantially easier and more readily available. London's TechCity initiative has sparked a substantial level of investment (including sponsorship) into the area (in excess of £500m), as part of the sponsorship strategy we plan to position the conference within this mandate of making London the digital culture capital of Europe, which I think will allow us to successfully raise a significant amount of money for the event. EdSaperia (talk) 14:13, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Regards, Theo10011 (talk) 08:48, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the detailed response Ed, it's very appreciated. I still have my concerns but I would first suggest clarification of the amount being requested from WMF for this - it might not be as important but delineating it now about how much is being expected internally is very important - The budget and the associated costs are always the most important factor a jury has to consider every year. The revenue side of the budget sorely needs more expansion if possible - things like Scholarships, and WMF funding, chapter support, and expected outside funding can be fleshed out a bit more. If the team can come up with a bare-minimum number that would be needed from WMF, along with a slightly more detailed breakdown of the revenue side, then it would make things a lot simpler to follow. I hope the team could prioritize this, and add a bit more detail to the revenue side of the budget in the next few days.

Aside from that, I have to say, this might be the most aggressive and ambitious plan I've seen. I really hope that the team achieves its target and is able to deliver on what they are proposing here, but as a concerned pessimist, I would suggest the team divide the budget in two - the bare-minimum/core expenses needed for a regular wikimania conference - the larger, more ambitious plans contingent on the discretionary income from sponsors, and then prioritize things with tiers of spending.

Getting back to the specifics raised above. I still feel $200,000 USD for camera teams, line editors, stage managers are all overkill. The last few conferences had issues with streaming etc. but this is a severe over-reaction to the need of the event. The largest events like campus party don't have internal production teams for AV, even from a budgeting point-of-view, this is overspending on something that really isn't a big factor. the return on investment is very little here. Sure, you can spend 200k USD on this, you can even spend 1 million but is it worthwhile? You can get a lot more use out of that money, if you stick with a few cameras, instead of a whole production team behind it.

Anyway, Thank you again for the response. Please see if the team can add a better breakdown for the revenue side in the coming days and lock down the funding being requested from the WMF. It might be relevant for the jury. I have to say, If the team can pull this off with minimal to regular WMF support, I, along with several others would be very impressed. This is too ambitious in my opinion. Regards. Theo10011 (talk) 16:15, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Similar thoughts:

• The food budget is high. An average of 75 GBP/person for 3 days of breakfast, lunch + snacks is a lot - considering economies of scale and the average % of attendees who attend each meal. –SJ talk  15:31, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Process status

Hello all,

I wanted to give both bids and anyone interested in the process an update.

The jury is continuing to post questions for the bids this week and next. The bid teams are welcome (and encouraged!) to keep refining their proposals during this time period; any major changes should be explained on the talk page. For the bidders, please note that the answers posted on the talk page form an important part of the jury's deliberations (as well as an important mechanism for refining and improving the bids; we are hoping it will be a dialog). For this reason, everyone is welcome to participate in the talk pages, but it's also important to know who "speaks for" the bids -- so please note if you giving an "official answer" for a bid. We all recognize that many of these questions (especially about the "core" parts of the conference like budget, infrastructure, and team) are complex and difficult to answer; thanks to everyone on both sides for being patient!

IRC meetings with the jury and bid teams are now scheduled. These are also open to anyone interested (though if there are lots of participants we will prioritize questions from the jury). These are scheduled with Arusha on April 6th and London on April 7th at 16:00 UTC, in #wikimania. If the time or channel changes we'll update everyone. Here is a quick guide to IRC for those new to using it.

After these meetings the jury will deliberate and may have more questions as well, or specific suggestions for the bids.

Please let me/us know if you have any questions about process. -- phoebe | talk 23:32, 25 March 2013 (UTC) (non-voting moderator)

As a quick correction, the London bid's meeting will be at 16:00 UTC on 6 April and the Arusha bid's will provisionally be at 16:00 UTC on 7 April. Sorry for the confusion. James F. (talk) 15:42, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Bid Team Update - March 28th

Hey folks, I just wanted to give a quick update on a few things we are working on. I'm going to try and do this every week or two between now and the bid announcement just to highlight some of the initiatives we have in the works to save you all constantly trawling through the bid page.

• Some of you may have noticed we have added Danny O'Brien as a speaker on the bid page. For those of you who don't know, Danny is the International Director of the EFF and a regular speaker / advocate in free culture circles. The EFF has expressed its support for the London bid, and while it's too early for any formal agreement they are offering to provide us with speakers from the organisation / wider free culture movement and UK government (notably the education secretary - for those of you interested in eduwiki, we have some cool stuff planned around this), promotion of the event, media contacts etc. We will be posting a letter of support in the coming days.
• We are partnering with London's Open Data Institute (founded by Tim Burners-Lee) who will have a similar remit to the EFF. We are also chatting to Students for Free Culture and Open Street Maps but have yet to reach an agreement.
• The Wikimania London website is live, it's still very much a work in progress but I just wanted to show that it does in fact exist! The purpose of the website is to be a more aesthetic landing page for potential partners so they can better understand what Wikimania is and access sponsorship and media packs, hence the more traditional conference look to it. The URL is http://www.wikimanialondon.org. Please note that the domain ownership has been transfered to the WMF. I'd appreciate if people did not circulate this outside of wiki circles for the moment as it is still a work in progress.
• We are secured a provisional deal with Eventbrite which would grant us free use of their platform for ticket sales - which would be significant savings for us.
• Ed and I will be attending the chapters conference in Milan next month to discuss how we can best integrate the chapters into Wikimania (for the avoidance of doubt, our trip is self funded). We'll discuss letting chapters running events during / around the conference, exhibition stands, how to best channel the PR generated through Wikimania to the benefit of the local chapters i.e. attracting more volunteers, and general feedback on the bid. This is not us being presumptuous about winning the bid, but simply too good an opportunity to miss having all the chapters and WMF in one place, and it's an opportunity we cannot wait until next year to exploit. For those of you who are coming, we look forward to seeing you.

For those of you celebrating - I hope you all have great Easter break - Jknight1603

Thanks for the update! -- phoebe | talk 17:41, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Catering

Has thought been given to second breakfast? Rich Farmbrough 04:54 2 April 2013 (GMT).

We have a whole section on it: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2014_bids/London/Second_Breakfast EdSaperia (talk) 17:54, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

What about elevensies, afternoon tea, and supper? ;) HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:13, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Getting ahead of itself

I am not seeing a good level of engagement here from the team. There is little to no back and forth. Besides the small update above there has been little engagement from the team, no expansion of the listed budget, not a lot of relevant updates or comments. I understand this might be due to the holidays, or some other reason, but I would appreciate something beyond the minor update provided above (minor, in the sense of impact or relevance). It's been mentioned that prices will be locked down further, there would be some expansion/explanation of what is listed, but as it stands, the first glimpse others had of what the funding strategy is for the team is a question a week above - the work on the bid itself is very disappointing, the budget especially.

The team is either getting ahead of itself or focusing on unimportant aspects of the bid. Launching a website, partnering with institutes and ticketing services before even explaining or winning the bid itself, is not inspiring confidence. My concern is and has been the budget, the majority of the explanation above is - "we don't need any money, we'll raise more than a million dollar ourselves." - please look at it from an outside point of view, this is supposed to be the crunch-time for the bid, not a time to take off and rely on a 3 line revenue budget for a million dollar bid.

What would the team do if it is not able to raise the money? what exposure to funding would WMF have if the team fails its revenue target? Would the team be willing to revise or lower any of the expenses its listed? I haven't seen any revisions to the budget itself, if I'm missing a page in the bid itself, please point me to it. The accommodation info listed above should be added to the bid itself. Regards. Theo10011 (talk) 03:51, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

The website and partnerships are precisely in order to get the revenue side of the budget firmed up... you can't have it both ways... --Tango (talk) 11:17, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

There doesn't seem to be any firming up of the budget so far, even after the website and those partnerships. I don't know exactly how the two partnerships listed above would have a measurable impact on the budget but I'll wait to see the outcome. There has been no explanation so far about the revenue breakdown, the first time I learned that the team expects to raise all the money for the conference was in the answer above - to the surprise of others as well. This is not something you just drop without a proper explanation on a talk page weeks in to the bidding process. We still have no idea how much money the team is requesting for this - this is perhaps the most important aspect of the bid. The decision date coming closer, the team should give some sort of an explanation as to how much they actually are requesting and how much they want to raise on their own. Regards. rTheo10011 (talk) 16:46, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Having done little more than read some of the bid, I have to say it was clear to me that the intention was to be fully self-funding. Effectively some £75000 ($120000) has been raised in subsidy from one source already. While as a professional project manager I am always wary of speaking to the effectiveness of any plan early on in the project's life, it does seem that the budget is made with pessimistic assumptions about spending, and the target is to raise funds to meet that budget. Should it prove possible to implement more cost effective solutions (and I am certain it will be, in some parts), while still raising the target sum form sponsors, then adjustments can be made elsewhere (for example reducing the day ticket price for students, covering additional scholarships, funding scholarships for 2015, donating to a movement organisation, etc. etc.). Rich Farmbrough 17:35 4 April 2013 (GMT).

I don't share the same optimism. Either way, all of this is irrelevant to the purpose of the bid and the jury - as of now, this still remains *a bid*. The team seems overly-confident in its ability to raise funds without going into much detail. However, the final decision has to be made by a jury, the team has not won to host the event. For the purposes of evaluating this bid, it is imperative that the team provide a number for the requested amount. Ambiguity and lack of explanation is not helping this situation. I don't think it is unreasonable to provide an X number to host and event for Y number people on specified dates. I am actually surprised that the team has already raised amounts from a source without actually a decision being made by the jury. what happens if the team is unable to raise its target? There is limited communication about these things. Theo10011 (talk) 18:42, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Hey Theo - We've put together a considered answer to your points above, we will post later this evening / early tomorrow - Thanks for your patience,

Thank you anon. I look forward to a response. Regards. Theo10011 (talk) 21:26, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Bid Team Update - April 20th

• Greetings from The Chapters' Conference in Milan!
• On 11th April, we had a meeting at the proposed venue with jury members Deror and Manuel, and moderator James. We went through the bid in detail, and the jury members shared their advice and experiences at length.
• Based on the feedback and advice, we're doing a fairly significant overhaul to the bid. Unfortunately it's been a very busy week for the bid team in their professional lives so we haven't been able to deliver this as quickly as we'd like; We'll be working on it all this weekend at the conference and hopefully finish enough to publish in the next few days.

I have no idea what the bid team would be doing at the chapters conference. I recall neither one of the team leads are chapter board members. These physical meetings where information doesn't trickle down openly are becoming hard to follow. I have been sorely waiting for an update on your actual bid online for close to a month at this point. There are 3 updates above all promising expansion and more work on the bid. This is supposed to be the tail end of the process and you have barely laid out your financial requirements and strategy yet - we don't even know what the team wants out of this bid. I have never seen a lagging bid like this in a while. Theo10011 (talk) 04:05, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

P.S. Please don't forget to sign your posts. I am asking this as an administrator, your posts are becoming harder to follow and discern. Regards. Theo10011 (talk) 04:06, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Accessibility

How differently abled accessible are the hotels and venues being discussed for this bid? --User:Varnent 16:13, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

UK Law dictates certain standards. But there is a large amount of variation of compliance with the Disability_Discrimination_Act_1995.

• http://www.lcdisability.org/download.php?id=430
• http://www.disabled-world.com/disability/dda/dda-hotels.php]

Two examples of reports on UK hotelsGordo (talk) 08:42, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Here is the Barbican's own information Gordo (talk) 08:45, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Excellent, thank you, I will look those over in the next couple of days. I was trying to remember, but honestly I do not recall how much we talked about this last year, and I cannot find any immediate examples on-wiki of this being addressed for DC or HK. I think it would be fantastic if HK or London started a trend of having a wikipage on the Wikimania wiki discussing this topic specifically. Again, I have no idea if this has come up before, or how well it has been addressed. From my own personal experience, I know that if not addressed in promo materials some folks are not comfortable contacting the hosts to ask. Which is what makes me think that making the info available up-front may draw some more folks in and feel included rather than forced to bring it up on their own. Would the conference be able to cover the costs of a sign-language interpreter? I know there are other services traditionally made available at conferences, but given the unique focus of Wikimania, I suspect focusing on physically differently abled or hearing related challenges would be reasonable. However, I would be curious if there are any folks within WMF/WM that could offer better advice than I feel confident being able to do. That said, I am pleased to see that the bid team was able to provide a helpful initial response. --Varnent (talk)^(COI) 04:50, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Err...why are you asking this question from yourself? The update above and this question is from the same IP in what I assume is Milan. Theo10011 (talk) 04:12, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Sorry - just happened to not be logged in on my phone at the time. Although, why does it matter who is asking? :) Would a question from an anon user interested in attending Wikimania be less important? Anyway, I remain interested in the answer. --Varnent (talk)^(COI) 08:16, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Varnent, if you read again my point wasn't that it was from an anon user, but the same anon user who gave the update above as the official team representative. It was essentially as if someone is having a conversation with themselves on a talk page. Asking a question to themselves? If that was indeed the case, it sounded unhealthy. ;) Theo10011 (talk) 16:25, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

That makes sense - I read the point again and did not read it that way - but with context makes sense. :) --Varnent (talk)^(COI) 19:26, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

No doubt it was the IP of the Wikimedia Conference 2013 venue where some of the bid team members were at, and shared among all attendees at the conference. -- KTC (talk) 22:25, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Interpreter(s)

While the suggestion for "an interpreter" is a good one, there are some factors that would need to be taken into consideration:

1. What would the deliverables be?
   1. Interpreting for attendees
      1. Would BSL or Aslan (or other) be used?
      2. How would booking conflicts be handled?
      3. How many interpreters would be provided?
   2. Interpreting presentations
      1. Which presentations would be interpreted?
      2. Would recordings be made?
      3. Would BSL or Aslan (or other) be used?

While a substantial pool of qualified BSL interpreters are available in London, the cost is not negligible. Volunteers might be found, but I wouldn't hold my breath. As far as internationalization goes it would probably be better to have subtitle files created post-hoc, or maybe close-caption creation before or live (live is expensive - and really might at best make sense for Q & A sessions).

In terms of requirements to make provision the key test is "reasonable adjustments" - from this point of view, the availability of loops and the provision of some form of signing or captioning at the keynotes would probably cover the requirements. It would, however, make sense to enquire on the booking form if any requirement exists and tailor provision to that response.

All the best, Rich Farmbrough 08:50 23 April 2013 (GMT).

First off - congrats on winning the bid! Second, I like your answer here (all of this is just my humble opinion). I would personally encourage the host team to ask those questions during registration - and try to get specifics on what languages are needed (if at all) for things like interpreters. I agree that the cost is too prohibitive to just have all languages on hand, but I think those expenses are worth it if you know for certain what languages (again - if any) would be used. I also think an Accessibility wikipage on the WM14 wiki would help encourage communication on this topic. If folks know it's a topic of discussion they may feel more comfortable registering and then the team would have the info they need to make whatever accommodations would be most appropriate and reasonable. My own personal experience with that audience has shown it often takes doing it right 2-3 years in a row to build trust and confidence. However, I think making the investment of time and commitment to issues like this is very true to the movement's view of inclusion. Noting that this is not my area of expertise, but also not wanting to nudge you on an issue and then abandon it, I would also be willing to volunteer to help the team navigate that outreach if it would be helpful to them. Although it appears they already have the right ideas on how to address it. Again, my personal hope is that London leads by example and keeps conversation on this topic going while they have the Wikimania "torch" (so to speak). --Varnent (talk)^(COI) 17:09, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Bid Team Update - April 22nd

Taking into account all the advice and suggestions, we've significantly overhauled and streamlined the bid. The majority of the updates features here:

• Overview: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2014_bids/London
• Budget: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2014_bids/London/Logistics/Financials
• Accommodation and attendees costs: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2014_bids/London/Your_Journey

- James

Thank you for taking the input so far under consideration. –SJ talk  19:19, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Congratulations!

Congratulations on a successful bid! --Another Believer (talk) 19:38, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Official Conglatulation

On behalf of Arusha Bid Team Its my presure to congratulating all of you for getting this opportunity of hosting the Wikimedia International Conference of Wikimania in 2014. I promise to be among of participants of the Conference and allow me to use your page to thank our Jury for a good job they did at all the time of considering with both bids. I real appreciate their decision and promise to bid in 2015, definately I will participate in Hong Kong and London if God wish us, We are together._Manawa|Talk^{Education First}, 23:05, 01 may 2013 (UTC)

Why has this bid been wiped?

I've noticed all the information on the bid plus all sub-pages has been deleted/blanked with just a placeholder page left behind. While it is possible to view the bid details in the history it is rather awkward and this hasn't been done for previous bids, which have been left for the history. Can I also point out that normally the Wikimania YYYY page, this year Wikimania 2014, is updated to link to the conference website. CT Cooper · talk 13:48, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree; the bid content should not be removed - I readded it. I also find it a bit awkward to link to "wikimanialondon.org" and not wikimania2014wiki. --MF-W 01:58, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, this seems to be trying to fix something that isn't broken. I have never seen any evidence of anyone getting confused by old bid pages - however, if this was ever a problem, a notice that the information was historical would work fine. CT Cooper · talk 18:43, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

"Wikimania / Wikifest division is not something we're communicating to partners." Why is that exactly? If its simply no longer applicable fine - then say so and mark the page historical. This decision by a Wikimania 2014 team member to edit war rather than discuss the issue is not very helpful and will ultimately not shine the team in much glory. CT Cooper · talk 17:06, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Okay, so three reverts. No comment by anyone from the bid team on this talk page. No response to the points I have made, and given the speed that the reverts are being made it is quite obvious that this page is on people's watchlist and so this talk page is being read. If this is a sample of how the Wikimania 2014 team intend to communicate with people on wiki, then I'm concerned. It is also rather alarming how the interests of sponsers seems to trump everything else these days and only feeds increasing concerns over the preference sponsors/partners/"VIPs" have been given in recent years. CT Cooper · talk 13:53, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

I was contacted on my talk page, which I copy below. --MF-W 16:55, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

We are in the process of negotiation with partners, and confusing messaging may hurt this process. I understand why you want to show the historical development of the bid, but surely this is secondary compared to the effect on actually producing the event? EdSaperia (talk) 06:20, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

You have here made a proposal to the Wikimania community, represented by the jury, and they have found this bid convincing enough to give Wikimania 2014 to London. It is not convincing at all that you suggest that your partners would have any problems when they read the bid. You can surely explain to them that for them it is important what you tell them, not what you told the community. It does however strikes me as worrisome that you made this bid and are now talking of "What is ultimately written in the contract is what will happen at the event, and it may differ from what's on the bid page". It sounds like the bid was just made up in order to win, and is then dismissed and hidden while you actually do something completely different. In any case, nothing here gives a convincing argument for the removal of the content. If Wikimania will be different than what was described in the bid, it will be (and I'm sure no Wikimania ever matched every detail proposed in their bid). But that's no reason to hide the bid. --MF-W 16:55, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

In response to the above comment by EdSaperia which has been copied from elsewhere: what's wrong with a note at the top of the page noting the situation? You can even have it in big red letters and say something like "ATTENTION POTENTIAL PARTNERS: bla bla bla". No competent person would miss such a note. Also I still don't understand why this hasn't been a problem before - previous Wikimanias have had partners too. I understand that the final product is likely to be different to the bid, but this page is titled "Wikimania 2014 bids/London" which means most people coming to this page expect to see the bid which London submitted to host Wikimania 2014 - not something else. Expecting people to dive into the page history is awkward, particularity over multiple sub-pages, and will only fuel the more cynical side of observers. While it doesn't change my view that any blanking is unnecessary, a possible compromise could be to blank the page temporarily until the partners are agreed then restore to how it was. Also, a point I made earlier which seems have been missed here, is that the correct to give links and details on this Wikimania is Wikimania 2014. Why not put some graphics and links there? CT Cooper · talk 20:33, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

@EdSaperia: Is User:PiRSquared17/Sandbox8 good? PiRSquared17 (talk) 21:33, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

This seems like a reasonable compromise. I do agree that outside partners are not as wiki-savvy or familiar with wikimedia culture as we would like. Personally I think the removal and brief message was fine. The revisions show the bid and they could always repost it later. That said, I would be disappointed if this compromise was not accepted as it seems to address concerns brought up. --Varnent (talk)^(COI) 03:34, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

That is fine with me - can we have __NOINDEX__ on the page as well? EdSaperia (talk) 17:06, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

I wouldn't complain, but I don't think it's necessary since it already has a sort of disclaimer at the top. PiRSquared17 (talk) 17:15, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Enchanting that this problem has been solved! Thanks to all involved. --MF-W 21:30, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

I seem to find that despite the no index tag, the bid page still seems to come up in search for me, and I've had a few people contact me in confusion, not understanding that the bid page is not the conference page. Any idea why this might be happening? EdSaperia (talk) 00:25, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

It also comes up in search for me and is cached to January, which is long after the no index tags were added. I have no idea why this is this case. Perhaps someone with more technical knowledge could help. CT Cooper · talk 17:51, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

This is exactly why I blanked the page in the first place :( If people aren't expecting a bid page, they'll just assume it is the conference page. EdSaperia (talk) 19:38, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Ok well I added a header at the top linking to the new page, until someone can figure out why noindex isn't working... EdSaperia (talk) 19:18, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Hopefully that will work, but if it doesn't I'll reaffirm my earlier suggestion that temporarily blanking the content would be okay with me. CT Cooper · talk 20:54, 11 March 2014 (UTC)