On Sat, Jul 31, 2010 at 5:34 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dal...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 31 July 2010 16:27, David Gerard <dger...@gmail.com> wrote: >> On 31 July 2010 16:21, Amir E. Aharoni <amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il> wrote: >> >>> But all of the above are nice dreams about the future. Is there any >>> proven experience from the past that demonstrates why personal >>> meetings between Wikimedians are not just fun for them, but actually >>> beneficial to the Wikimedia community, the Internet, the Humanity? Can >>> anyone here give me solid examples of successful projects that were >>> born thanks to past Wikimanias? >> >> >> Most of the chapters. > > Are you sure? Don't chapters come out of local meetups more than > Wikimanias? Three chapters pre-date the first Wikimania and one was > founded a week after (so I don't think Wikimania can take credit for > that). Can you give some examples of chapters you know were founded as > a result of a Wikimania? I can imagine some people being inspired to > form chapters after meeting people from other chapters, but I don't > know any definite examples of it actually happening.
Israel, to name just one. Not to call them out, but I remember sitting at the chapters meeting at Wikimania 2006 and hearing out some rather vocal arguments against a Wikimedia chapter in Israel. (Seriously, I think we were almost at fisticuffs.) We had extensive discussions during and after the conference, and clarified a lot of misunderstandings. A few months later, an exploratory committee was founded to investigate creating an Israeli organization, which resulted in what's now one of our most successful chapters. We get a few chapters a year out of Wikimania, not because locals can't meet with each other by themselves, but because a personal connection is made with other people involved with chapters and they see what it's all about. I know that I, personally, spend a few hours a day during Wikimania talking about nothing but chapters. To answer the original post, many projects have resulted from random talks at dinners during Wikimania, five-minute chats between sessions, and people just getting to know each other. I wish I could take the time to make a more complete list—I think it would be great if other people would weigh in on this thread, though. Austin _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l