Hoi,
To quote a Wikipedia maxim .. "citation needed". It is one thing to say
that something is costly and, it is. It is another to say that Wikimania is
expensive. It is expensive when it does not provide a value relative to
costs.
When you compare with Red Hat, you talk about professional people in
relation to Red Hat. This is not what our community is. They are volunteers
and while some have the money to pay their own way, this is certainly
dependant on where people are from. Given that we suck at supporting the
"global south", I am afraid that your thinking is in terms of money and not
in terms of value and lost sight what our community is.
The comparison with Red Hat and your point is flawed.
Thanks,
GerardM
On 10 February 2016 at 06:06, Samuel Klein <meta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I found this the most interesting part of the recent IdeaLab discussion
> about changing the Wikimania framework.
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Towards_a_New_Wikimania
>
> "*The total spend by WMF for Wikimania 2014 in London and 2015 in Mexico,
> including all travel, accommodations, scholarships, staff support and
> direct conference expenses, was ~$1 million USD*"
>
> This is a pity. Small grants to support a con is one thing, but this is too
> much.
>
> Please let's stop encouraging conferences that do not cover their own
> costs. A good conference series pays for itself, including its scholarship
> pool. There are plenty of communities our size or larger with wonderful,
> regular conferences of hundreds or thousands of people, which break even or
> turn a small profit.
>
> FUDCons are an interesting case in point. As I understand it, there was a
> time when RedHat basically sponsored the events, with scholarships for all
> active contributors and extensive grants. This was ok, but skewed
> participation. Then the lavish sponsorship stopped. Attendance dropped;
> community members felt unloved. Then after a time, this passed, and
> everyone attended again. (Perhaps a core Fedora contributor can describe
> this more accurately!)
>
> SJ
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