Wikimania 2011/Bids/New York City/Q&A

Suggestions

Questions

Does your team or its members have any past experience organizing an event?

What kind of event and with how many people?

We have a very great collective experience in event-organising on our team. Just at NYU Law alone, members of our team have organized Wiki-Conference New York 2009 (100+ participants), and the Open Video Conference, a Wikimania-scale event (800+ participants). Our team also has diverse experience with organizing many other Free Culture events. --Pharos 22:23, 9 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Is your team or its members in close contact with organizations also interested in the free and open knowledge?

Are they prepared to cooperate with you in the organization and realization of Wikimania 2011?

Our team has very deep links across the breadth of the free and open knowledge movements. We are also in particular looking forward to working with our partners in Free Culture Alliance NYC on the Wiki World's Fair, Wiki Week, and other aspects. --Pharos 22:30, 9 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Do you plan to implement any ideas to improve the experience of those participants that might not be particularly proficient in English?

The website and all signage will be printed in 4-5 languages, and we will work hard to ensure the program is available in these languages too. The city itself is hospitable to speakers of Spanish, French, German, Mandarin (the subways, for example, have all these languages).

If budgetary resources permit, we are also prepared to hire translators and install translator booths with wireless, UN-style. It can be fairly expensive, so we will explore in-kind opportunities and inquire with our friends at the UN. --Totallynuts

What are your biggest security concerns, and what measures will you be taking to try to avoid them?

Security has not been an extraordinary concern to our previous events organized in NYC. Open Video Conference, for example, was kept orderly by an army of volunteer staff in visible T-shirts. There are also security guards at the front of the building, and a campus police force in place.

Should it be necessary, we are prepared to hire a number of extra security guards. --Totallynuts

Has any member of the organising team attended a past Wikimania

Elizabeth Stark has attended a past Wikimania, and Sandra Ordonez not only attended but actually helped organize Wikimania 2007 in Taipei. --Pharos 22:32, 9 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Involvement of Wikimedia NYC

It is not very clear to me what involvement WM NYC really has in this bid. What kind of support is the chapter ready to provide? I am not even sure that the organizing team members (apart from Pharos, obviously) are involved in Wikimedia NYC. Could you clarify that point? Thank you. notafish }<';> 08:17, 12 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimedia NYC is fully invested in this bid, and our bid has been the subject of all of our recent meetings and board discussions. The team roster should not be considered exhaustive, and at first we consciously drafted it in a way to emphasize the diversity of different team members, and so for example only listed one representative board member from WM NYC and one from FC NYU. This has now been rectified by including several more of our board members active in this area, but this addition is also certainly not exhaustive, as we really expect a very broad participation from Wikimedia NYC members and other supporters of Wikimedia activities in the New York City and Northeast US regions.-Pharos 17:26, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sponsorships

I may be mistaken, but I have not seen any mention of potential sponsors, neither on the bid page, nor on the Wikimania jury mailing list (we understand that some sponsors may wish to remain confidential until the selection is announced). Do you have a status of potential sponsors for this bid? notafish }<';> 09:39, 12 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The team is comfortable with the landscape of potential sponsors. We're fairly well plugged in and are confident in our ability to make the budget work.

We can't report any hard commitments, but our support matrix is comprehensive, and a Wikimedia event on the 10th anniversary Wikipedia—in New York City—is eminently fundable as a result of its high profile.

Have a look at the roster of PDF sponsors, the roster of Free Culture conference sponsors, and the roster of Open Video Conference sponsors (all relationships built by members of the NYC planning team) to get a sense of likely Wikimania sponsors.--Totallynuts 17:39, 14 April 2010 (UTC) --74.72.53.200 17:39, 14 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]