It's been a few days since I posted on my blog -- since I left Montreal for Taipei and Wikimania 2007. My time has been upside-down and backwards as I've traveled around to the other side of the clock and a day into the future, and I've just been insanely busy with other work.
My flight to Taipei was dreamy. I travelled enough last year to get Air Canada's "silver" frequent-flier level, which earned me a couple of system-wide upgrade certificates. They came in handy, since I bumped up to business class on the leg between Montreal and Vancouver, and then to the "Premier Laurel" class on the EVA Air codeshare between Vancouver and Taipei. That was first class across the Pacific Ocean, and man, it's the only way to fly.
Jimmy Wales was on the same plane (but back in business class...), so we got to chat a bit and we shared a taxi to the conference site. Jimmy's really fun to talk to -- it's always nice talking to another entrepreneur who's passionately dedicated to Free and Open Content.
(We were in line for customs together, too, and I tried to peek at his passport to find out his date of birth, over which there is some confusion. But he had his thumb over the day (intentionally...?), and all I got was "Aug 1966", which everyone agrees on anyways. Dang! My personal theory is that Jimmy was born on 6 June 1966 and uses 8 Aug 1966 instead to avoid the demonic stigma.)
The conference centre we're in is great -- a really big, clean, modern place. It's nice when we're inside, but Taipei in August is muggy and hot like a laundromat in rural Mississippi. I find myself rushing between buildings.
tags: wiki wikimania2007 taipei evaair jimmywales travel
IM IN TAIPEI HACKING UR DAYS
I came in a couple of days early to participate in the Hacking Days event. This is a pre-conference meetup for MediaWiki developers and those who love them. The meetup was really unstructured and fun because of it, although there were a few points of uncomfortable silence when people stopped talking and we all realized we had 14 more hours of meetings and not much left to say.
There's also a real tension between the conference organizers, who've encouraged non-developers to come to Hacking Days, and the core developers who really want to just be left alone and get some work done. This year the 2-day event was split into "Hacking Days" and "Hacking Days Extra", with the first being invite-only and the second being open to all.
I think it's a tension that needs to be resolved -- if outsiders aren't invited to Hacking Days, we just need to say that and live with it. We shouldn't let people think they're going to participate and then cut them out. That's a bait-and-switch tactic and it's unfair. I think that there's a need for an open-attendance MediaWiki conference; I also think that MW is a big enough piece of software that third-party conference organizers would be eager to make an MWCon work. And core developers could get hefty fees for coming to talk!
tags: wiki mediawiki hackingdays wikimania2007
Announcements
I've been having problems sleeping here. I've been falling asleep at the wrong times and waking up at the very wrong time. Last night, I missed the Wikitravel Eat-together because I fell asleep at dinner time and didn't get up for the event. Make mental note: don't miss your favorite wiki's user get-together! Fortunately Jani covered for me and apparently the event was a lot of fun.
Speaking of Jani: this morning he announced a new venture that Maj and I have been helping him with. Wikitravel Press is an independent company that will be publishing a line of printed travel guidebooks (yes, paper books! That you can hold in your hand!) based on Wikitravel content. I think it's a great project and I'm really glad we're going to finally be fulfilling this important goal of the Wikitravel project.
I also think it's going to be a great way to attract a new round of contributors -- people who are more reliant on their paper guidebooks than to a search engine for learning about their destinations. I think that the idea that they can change and improve the books they have will be a really important incentive for these folks.
And like it or not, there are still a lot of people who don't consider digital information "real" in the same way as analog-stored info. So putting Wikitravel guides on paper is like Pinocchio becoming a Real Boy. Thank you, Blue Fairy! More info at the project's announcement and the on-site discussion (Wikitravel:3 August 2007).
tags: wikitravel wikitravelpress guidebooks travel announcements
Called out
This morning's keynote address by the Wikimedia Foundation chairwoman Florence Devouard was informative and interesting. She even talked about ways to bring money into the Foundation... including selling books based on the site content. I was giggling about this with Jani as she moved on to talking about the attention economy, to hear, "For example, Evan is not paying attention right now and talking to his neighbour." D'oh!
Lesson learned: don't mess with User:Anthere!