Talk:Wikimania bid

Possible venues

Is it too early to start thinking about possible venues if a UK bid is to be created? London is an obvious candidate & Oxford has previously been suggested, however would Bristol be possible? If so I have recently had some communications with the UWE Bristol Exhibition and Conference Centre about another event & asked whether it would meet the criteria set out at requirements for bidding cities. It has several areas (approximate metric measurements and maximum capacities):

• Zone A. 41m x 37m. 1000, theatre style
• Zone B. 63.5m x 37m. 1000, theatre style
• Zone C. 71m x 31.5m. 1000, theatre style
• Zone D. 34.5m x 14m. 800, theatre style
• Zone E. 34.5m x 32m. 800, theatre style

And a variety of smaller rooms + student type accommodation if during vacations. If anyone wants me to follow up or find further information I can make contact with the event manager Kerry Ellery.Rodw 13:37, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Nottingham might also be an option (easy air links). Possibly York (really pretty city & some interesting GLAM opportunities there which I think is neat)... Bristol is an interesting idea, it's a nice place IIRC. So list so far (collated from my memory of everything that has been mentioned to this date)...

• London
• Bristol
• Oxford
• Nottingham
• Manchester
• York

Lots to consider there --ErrantX 14:38, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

I would look a little wider than England too. It might be interesting to consider cities with excellent direct international airport connections such as Glasgow, Belfast and Cardiff. There are very good reasons to take seriously a non-English venue, especially considering the real impact we would have on reenforcing our minority Wikimedia communities in these countries. --Fæ 15:23, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

That's very true. What about Edinburgh? That's one of my favourite cities? I'm adding a list of proposed locations to the main page --ErrantX 10:16, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

We need to remember what else is on in some of these places. If you clash with something big you up your venue costs, your accommodation costs and your risk of being gazumped. Edinburgh has the Fringe in August, and I think parts of the festival overspill into adjacent months. WereSpielChequers 19:25, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

I think we want somewhere that's either within easy reach (there and back in a day) of London, because a lot of people will want to go there (the same reason a trip to Jerusalem was included in Wikimania 2011, even though the conference was in Haifa), or somewhere that's well-known in its own right, has plenty to keep people occupied, and has good travel connections. The only places outside England that really fit that description are probably Glasgow, Edinburgh, and possibly Cardiff. I would go with somewhere in the (English) Midlands, like Birmingham or Nottingham. Both have easy connections to London (an hour/90 minutes) from stations in the centre of town, are big enough in their own rights to keep people entertained, and have nearby international airports (though East Midlands airport is a bit of a trek from Nottingham on public transport because some idiot thought it would be a good idea to build a station four miles away in the middle of nowhere!).

There's London, of course, but the accommodation (at least the low-cost stuff, for those of us who can't afford swanky hotels) is likely to be quite a way from Central London, people might have difficulty navigating on the Tube. Besides, who wants to write directions for six airports and an international station, not to mention the seventeen other domestic terminal stations, and boats, roads, bus routes! ;) HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:13, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

I love Edinburgh, and I like the idea of a Celtic fringe Wikimania. But I think we need to be practical here and I'd like to suggest that we limit ourselves to cities that

1. Are a regular conference venue and market themselves as that - so we can tap into any incentives, publicity program or other resources that that town or city puts into promoting itself as a conference venue. And here I'm thinking packages and free maps more than I'm thinking getting the Mayor to make a welcome speech.
2. We are in their off-season so capacity is there and we aren't paying through the nose. (We can't use Edinburgh during the festival)
3. Have accommodation, train to major airport and venue all within walking distance of each other (Like Brighton)
4. We have at least one local resident on the team overleaf
5. As we expect most Wikimanians to fund their own transport, maximum international accessibility is preferable. One of the big hotels by Heathrow would be good if we do this outside of high season. Canterbury would be great in July (we might even get Eurostar as a sponsor).

Things we don't have to have include, local GLAM opportunities - we can arrange that as day trips afterwards. International recognition - this is an opportunity to present an unfamiliar venue. WereSpielChequers 17:08, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, using those criteria, I would say we have: London/Home Counties, Bristol/Bath, Birmingham/Coventry, Manchester/Liverpool, Newcastle, Nottingham/Derby(?), Glasgow(?), possibly Yorkshire (Leeds, Hull, York, hopefully not Sheffield). HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:08, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

No organisers? - should we put this on ice?

Two months after the page started we have a useful group of people who would be willing to help this project. But so far we have not had one person sign up in the section Wikimania_bid#Organisers. I suggest that we put this on ice unless and until we have at least four people sign up in that section. Update, the suggestion is now outdated as we have organisers coming forward. WereSpielChequers 16:44, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

I would suggest a) asking some of the people who have said they're willing to help, and explaining what the organisers will need to do and when it; b) waiting until people are no longer focusing all their attnetion on the charity bid, because that's where most of the effort is being directed at the moment; and c) publicising it more widely than the WMUK wiki, which is not exactly the most visible of locations. We should have an above-average turnout for the London meetup in October, what with it being the 50th and with the EGM, so perhaps bring it up there? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:55, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Good idea. We usually have a breakout for GLAM, I'll suggest a breakout table for wikimania. WereSpielChequers 17:03, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, and hopefully we'll have a few previous wikimanians in attendance, but things tend to progress more quickly in person. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:11, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm up for discussing it at the meetup :) Happy to help organise etc. But I didn't want to be presumptive ;) --ErrantX 13:36, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for not making the meet - I will be at the next one though! (went to Sheffield for a family trip instead. But totally forgot my camera @ Kelham Island museum). --ErrantX 13:12, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

My hope is that the chapter will be able to provide a lot of support to the bid, particularly in the form of the proposed event manager position. If paid staff were available to do a lot of the more tedious work that is required to put on a large conference then I think a lot more people would be interested in volunteering to do the more interesting stuff. --Tango 14:36, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Quality/cost

I know there is a natural desire to hold an amazing high quality event that knocks people's socks off with venue, quality of food and so forth. But we are a charity and most wikimanians will be on quite tight budgets. So can I put in a small plea for keeping this to a tight budget, and remembering that every pound spent on this is a pound entrusted to us for the promotion of knowledge. One of the reasons why I won't be on the committee is that I'd be the boring one lobbying for a set of student dorms and lecture theatres within an hour or two of Heathrow by public transport, and I know that isn't the sort of event that any of the likely organisers intend. WereSpielChequers 14:58, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I totally agree, except that for that reason you should be on the committee. We need to remember that great doesn't always mean expensive. Rich Farmbrough, 19:44, 28 November 2011 (UTC).

Wishlist

Though I don't want extravagance, I'd still want this to amaze people, just in a slightly different way. Things I'd like to see from a 2014 UK bid include:

1. Dates finalised, registration open and bookings accepted several months earlier than previous years - ideally early enough for people to come from countries with quite convoluted visa problems.
2. The UK chapter to offer to sponsor UK visa fees for any serious wikimedian who attends.
3. A cream tea, and not just because I suffer from a low cholesterol level.
4. Fish and chips. A cliché but it will be expected of us.
5. Simulcast and rapid recording and posting of presentations. In the past we've had at least one event that managed to get the event broadcast on the web and one that managed to get it properly recorded and the recordings up. But we could be the first to do both.
6. A relevant keynote speaker who will make the news by speaking at our event.
7. Bed, bar, venue and breakfast all within a 15 minute walk of each other. I'm OK with the party being somewhere that you bus people to and from.
8. The most multilingual wikimania so far. This may not be the first thing you'd think of coming from me or the UK. But as each year we globalise a little more we could and should do this. I'd start by asking people what languages they'd like an event in and which presentations they want covered that way, then lay on translators where there are most requests. Buenos Aires was a bilingual conference where many events were in Spanish or translated. I think that slows down an event, but it would be great to take some of the events that are of most interest to people who speak a particular language and repeat the presentation in that language - these might also be the best events for skype chats and video conferencing participation.
9. Editor helpdesks (advanced). At Wikimania's I've talked people through installing Hotcat and requesting reports in Greek, Hungarian and Indonesian. Wikimania is one of the few occasions when hundreds of our most active editors could quietly ask someone to show them how to do a history merge, create a table or whatever it is that they couldn't quite grasp online. Aside from being useful this would be a great icebreaker - especially when you remember that a large proportion of attendees will be introverts who haven't previously met any other attendees in real life.
10. Sufficient WiFi from the off. Israel was pretty good here, but several hundred Wikimedians means a huge amount of devices trying to access the Internet. Most Wikimanias fail to get sufficient WiFi because they underestimate the need.

Those are the things that I think would make for an amazing UK Wikimania. What would others add? WereSpielChequers 14:58, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

(I'll stick with usernames here because I'm not sure of everyone's preference, but by all means call me Harry). I think the venue itself is important, and while we have to be very mindful of cost, we do want to hold it in a place that's going to impress and not in some of the grey concrete areas that the UK has to offer. Panyd and I are going to Manchester on Friday to investigate potential venues there, and potential venues in London are being explored (I believe Steve has explored or is exploring potential venues in Bristol, but I haven't spoken to him recently). However, I agree with most of the specific points you raise (and we can talk more about it over a pint on Sunday).

1. Yes. Absolutely! I couldn't agree more. Once we're certain we have a venue and places for people to stay and all the logistics worked out, we should think about getting registration open as early as possible.
2. Within reason, yes. If sorting out visa costs would bring a serious editor to Wikimania who might not otherwise have come, I'd be all for it. That said, cost and convolutedness vary hugely from country to country, and I believe it's relatively easy to get into the UK (compared to, for example, the States).
3. I'm sure we can work that in somehow, but planning the menu three years in advance is probably unnecessary! ;)
4. As above. :)
5. This should be easily achievable. ErrantX is handling the technical side of things, but I'll make sure he sees this thread.
6. Yes! I've been advocating this in discussions. I'm a strong believer that we need everything almost literally within spitting distance—the second people start having to commute, the logistics becomes a nightmare and the cost to the movement starts skyrocketing (although we may be able to do something to mitigate that if it comes to it).
7. Interesting. I hadn't thought of this, but I agree it's important to include those who don't speak English or aren't fluent enough to understand the quirks of the spoken English language (of which there are a few, as anyone who has non-native-English-speaking friends will tell you!).
8. Another interesting idea, and one that won't be difficult to set up, either. I'm sure we can find a table or a seminar room or something for that.
9. Absolutely. This is one of the major consideration for venue, not least since the vast majority of attendees are likely going to want to access the Internet (often from more than one device), and editing wikis makes more intensive use of resources than just browsing.

—HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:44, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I've been thinking further about multilingualism. The Wikimanias where I've experienced this so far have done this in a quite top down way with bilingual elements; English plus part or all of the conference in the host country language. I think we could do this in a bottom up fashion, ask the Wikimedians who want to participate but who aren't fluent in English to tell us what languages they speak and what presentations they are interested in, and then work out how best to serve that need. This could be done in multiple ways depending on the presentation and the level of demand. Some chapters might want to have an English speaking member attend Wikimania, talk to a presenter and do a translation of that event back home. Others might need simultaneous translation. or have a skype link with a translation running. The advantages of a bottum up approach are that we only translate where there is need and we potentially address far more needs WereSpielChequers 16:26, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Declarations of interest

Hi, we had a brief update from Panyd at the WM-UK board meeting on Sunday morning (20th November 2011) on the status of the Wikimania bid. The question of potential conflicts of interest was raised during the discussion. A number of the folks helping to put together the bid have very useful professional interests and contacts. This is to be expected, but we ought to ensure that when the bid is under review, there are no questions remaining with regard to undisclosed personal benefit or indirect benefit. I suggest the same process as we use for WM-UK trustees ought to apply, in that there is a brief register of interests so that there are no surprises downstream when someone points out that a contract, partnership or sponsorship deal went to an organization that one of the bid team or host country chapter is related to in some way. If anyone on the team has interests that they would like to discuss off-wiki, I would be happy to talk it over in confidence. If someone would like to suggest a better approach or process, this page would be a good place to do so. Fæ 19:02, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

I think it would be a good idea to disclose any potential benefits for friends and business partners as well. I have no idea if anybody has any such conflicts of interest, but it would be best that, if there are any, everybody be aware of them before the formal start of the bidding process. For the record, I have no vested interest in the process whatsoever and stand to gain nothing, werever its held. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:08, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

I'll assume that nobody appears to have interests to declare if there is no further comment. I suggest this is noted in the small print of the final bid text. Thanks --Fæ 23:04, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Been thinking about this issue with regards to Bristol and cannot see any conflicts of interest. There are no contractual or financial relationships with any of the groups, organisations or people representing the organisations on the bid page. They/I are known to each other and we are on friendly terms but the relationship is no more than friendly and would be collaborative in the event of Bristol being selected. We speak/meet through a regular monthly networking meeting called First Friday which is open to the public and anyone can attend. Discussions centre around what is new and happening across the city (such as the recent opening of a Science City, £30m museums opening MShed, TedX Bristol etc). Sponsorship for events run by Wikimedia UK (historically) have come from these meetings. Steve Virgin 12:35, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Hong Kong bid

As of the last couple of days Hong Kong now appears to be the firmest contender for 2013 (see the bid page: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2013/Bids/Hong_Kong). --ErrantX 10:03, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Hmm. No venue, no sponsors, no accommodation. It doesn't look like a serious bid from this page. None of the other bid pages I can find seem to be very serious. --Filceolaire 00:45, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I think that's more because it's an early stage bid. Rich Farmbrough, 19:18, 28 November 2011 (UTC).

What's the plan? Which bid do we take forward?

A watchlist notice directed me here, but there doesn't seem to be any kind of plan for how we should decide what to do. I think everyone will agree that we need to decide on one bid to take forward so that we can concentrate our efforts and maximise our chances. I can see three possible ways to decide which one (after some open discussion here, of course):

1. Let the WMUK board decide. The chapter will need to support the bid if it is going to be successful, so perhaps the chapter should decide which bid to support.
2. Put together our own UK jury to choose a bid in a similar way to how the global jury will choose the final venue. Replicating the process that will be used to decide the final venue will give our teams some good practice, and it means a small number of people can dedicate some serious time to making sure they make the best decision (something the WMUK board and the general community probably can't do).
3. Put it to a general vote. This is obviously the most democratic option and will help ensure whichever bid we take forward has the support of the UK community, which it will need if it is going to be successful.

Which option to people prefer? Or does anyone have another option? I'm quite fond of the jury idea, but a general vote has its benefits too (I don't think letting the board decide is a particularly good plan, especially since one of the bids is being lead by a board member and the other isn't). --Tango 23:35, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

I would suggest whoever decides use progressive filtering. Not minimising the difficulty of organising a Wikimania, but I attended Worldcon in Brighton, many years ago and it coped with over 3000 people (the main venue being the Grand I believe), therefore my "feel" is that most significant towns and cities could cater for the physical needs of a Wikimania. Therefore the main filters would be:

1. Transport: while Ben Gurion to Haifa was not onerous for those of us from the UK, some from Brazil had been travelling many hours and the additional transfers might have been better avoided. Also train tickets are expensive - possibly we could provide sensible transfers with a coach company.
2. Cost of accommodation. This is really the main negative for London, unless a suitable educational venue can provide well priced accommodation.
3. Wow factor. What can the location offer that is out of the ordinary? This can include the venue itself, (maybe we could borrow Buckingham Palace?) natural and man made landmarks, historical association, special people.

Budget, of course, is important, but delivering a quality accessible productive event is the key. Rich Farmbrough, 19:39, 28 November 2011 (UTC).

I like the idea of progressive filtering, and Brighton as a conference venue. But Brighton isn't a typical place, along with Blackpool and Bournemouth, Brighton is a resort town known for hosting conferences. We are of course a relatively small conference compared to many that the big conference venues host, so we could choose from many potential venues that couldn't cater for a 1,000 person conference. WereSpielChequers 14:17, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Which year?

Have we made a final decision that we should go for 2013 rather than 2014 as we had been talking about? I've said it before and I'll say it again, I really think 2014 is the better choice. It gives us more time to prepare, it will be the 10th Wikimania which would be a really nice milestone to be involved in, and the continental rotation means Wikimania shouldn't really be back in Europe until 2014. --Tango 23:37, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Till now the sequence is Frankfurt (Europe), Boston (Americas), Taipei (East Asia), Alexandria (Africa/Middle East), Buenos Aires (Americas), Gdansk (Europe), Haifa (Middle East/Asia), Washington (Americas)

From this it would seem to be the turn of East Asia so Hong Kong or Manila. If Haifa counts as Asia though then 2012 is Europe's turn. Washington is English speaking however and the English language already dominates the Wikimedia projects. 2 English speaking countries in a row could be a problem. Maybe we should try to emphasise the number of UK based editors on other language wikis. --Filceolaire 01:08, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Haifa had a Hebrew channel in one auditorium. We could certainly put together something on the other native tongues of these isles. There are about 120 languages spoken in London, I guess Bristol would have a smaller but still large number. We could look at simultaneous translation, but what the source and target languages would be I have no idea. Maybe we should simply offer the facility to deliver in non-English languages in one or more tracks, and provide translation accordingly. It might be good to look at other approaches to providing non-English content too. For example if the text of a presentation is fixed in advance, and translation requests have been made, then we could potentially provide pseudo-live subtitling. Post-hoc the transcriptions mentioned elsewhere can be put up for crowd translation. Rich Farmbrough, 19:17, 28 November 2011 (UTC).

I had an action to create some criteria for judging bids which I was doing by email to the board. I was told there may be COI issues and even if not we should be squeaky clean so we are doing it on the wiki here. We'll take the draft off when they are complete. Yes! please correct spelling errors but no substantive changes please Victuallers 22:58, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Banner ad

This page is still being linked to by a banner ad on Wikipedia watchlists. Should we make it more up to date and inviting? Or maybe we should only direct people to the London and Bristol pages... they seem more up to date... Yaris678 20:31, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Right, time to make a decision

Ok, this competing bids thing has gone on long enough. We need to decide - Bristol or London? We are wasting resources continuing to work on two bids when one of them definitely isn't going to happen and, more importantly, if we don't get our acts together we'll be too late and neither bid will be able to go forward. The deadline for announcing an official bid is 28 January 2012 (see meta:Wikimania 2013). Unless we want to game the system and announce two bids with the intention of one of the withdrawing (which I think would make us look very disorganised - not a quality you want in conference organisers), we need to make a decision by then. I propose the following timeline:

Sunday 15 January Deadline for telling the board if you want to be on the UK jury (we don't have time for a general vote any more, so let's go with a jury)

Tuesday 17 January Bids finalised (further changes can be made before the global deadline, obviously, but everything the bid teams want to be considered in the decision about which bid we go forward with should be submitted by then)

Tuesday 17 January Board announces jury made up of board members and UK wikimedians that are not affiliated with either bid. If the board is not willing to support either bid should it win, this is their last chance to say so and abort the process. Jury members read bids and begin deliberations, asking questions of bid teams as they go.

Monday 23 January Final Q&A session on IRC between jury and bid teams

Thursday 26 January Jury announces its decision and the winning bid is transferred to meta.

I've intentionally given us 2 days to spare in order to allow for any emergencies, but let's try and avoid needing them. If anyone objects to this timeline, please say so ASAP. I recommend the board consider this timeline to have community consent if there are no major objections within 48 hours. --Tango 18:38, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Personally I won't be on the jury or either bid team as I consider that Wikimania is a bit like the Olympics or Eurovision, an expensive "honour" to the host. If there is to be a 2013 bid then this schedule seems reasonable. However this limits the jury to one of two choices, London 2013 or Bristol 2013. I appear to have blinked and missed the 2013/2014 debate resuming and us flipping back to 2013, but I would suggest that the Jury also have the option of saying that they don't think that either bid is ready for 2013 (and no that doesn't necessarily mean I currently think that, I just think the jury needs that option). Also if either bid needs WMUK as sponsor or guarantor then we need to put a step in the process for WMUK to say if they are prepared to back either or both bids. WereSpielChequers 19:11, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I prefer a 2014 bid too, but I didn't seem to be able to halt the momentum of these two bids. I don't think a jury ruling "None of the above" at this late point would go down very well. If we put a bid in for 2013 and fail, 2014 is still an option. If we put a bid in for 2013 and succeed, then we'll just have a hell of a lot of work to do. The WMUK board giving or denying their support is already in my timeline - it's mentioned in the bit about announcing the jury. --Tango 19:28, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, yes you did, I suppose in reality the board has a third option of conditional approval - resolve x or y issue before it goes to meta. As for saying no at this stage, well that depends on fine analysis of the bids, but if the jury finds good reason not to support either then they need to feel empowered to say so. WereSpielChequers 19:40, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the board could impose conditions rather than saying "no" outright, that is true. Under what circumstance would you say the jury should refuse to support either bid? I can see two options - they could reject the bids because they don't think either of them could host a successful conference or they could reject them because they don't think they have a chance of winning the main bid. Do you think our jury should reject both bids if they think at least one of them could hold a successful conference but they don't think it stands a chance of winning? --Tango 20:07, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Is there any reason they can't both go forward to meta, on the basis that the UK community is having trouble picking between them? The chapter board could agree to support whichever one (if either) is successful. 78.146.239.231 20:42, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

The UK community hasn't really tried to pick between them yet, so I don't think it's fair to say we're having trouble. They could both go forward to meta, but I think we can maximise our chances of winning and reduce the cost (in time, money, good-will, etc.) of doing so by focusing on one. I also think it would look bad if we can't even decide on a city, which could reduce our chances. --Tango 21:54, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

@Tango. I agree that we shouldn't preempt the main Wikimania jury - if we think a bid is credible but unlikely to be the most credible then we shouldn't stop it going in. Better to point out what we perceive as a flaw and give them a chance to respond before the jury deliberates. But we should stop a bid from going to Meta if:

1. Those of us who think that hosting Wikimania is more trouble than its worth turn out to be the majority among UK Wikimedians and we decide not to bid. As someone who does hold this position I'm not currently claiming to be other than a small minority.
2. The UK jury detects flaws in either bid that are likely to lead to it falling apart and having to be organisationally or financially bailed out by the UK chapter. So from a global perspective we would still have had a successful wikimania, but at a cost to the UK that we wouldn't have agreed to.

That said I accept we should also let the UK Jury also decide that both bids are credible and should go to Meta, not least because the two bids are currently looking so different that I don't think that a forced merger would be as strong as either bid is currently. In fact given the current timescales if we told either bid to incorporate significant elements of the other they might well spend much of the next few weeks doing that rather than getting their bid ready. WereSpielChequers 09:14, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi all. Tom asked me (presumably as convenor/moderator of the 2013 Jury) to drop you a line re. whether to have two bids or one on meta. Personally, I cannot see it as a major problem if both bids were to go forward from our point of view - they would be judged the same (compare, for example, there being multiple bids from India this time around, or from the US in previous years). However, as a community you might be more comfortable backing a single bid. It's up to you.

Jdforrester 22:19, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for responding so quickly! I was actually asking you as our resident expert on all things Wikimania. --Tango 22:35, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

This whole city thing has been extremely silly. Why has this all been so ridiculously bureaucratic? The board particularly have unnecessarily faffed over this. If two teams wish to bid then so be it. We are wasting valuable time. Even by this timetable we would put ourselves at a major disadvantage. This has gone on long enough. Seddon 02:02, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Given the very limited time left before bids have to be submitted, I agree with James that putting in two bids should be okay, given that both have things going for them. CT Cooper · talk 21:21, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Put both in; they offer differing things that might tempt the jury (a more commercial style London conference or an academic feel Bristol venue). Reading over everything that has been said so far on Meta, mailing lists, etc. I think that one of the bids in particular has a good chance of success. If both teams are committed and the Wikimania judging panel are happy with seeing two UK bids then it simply cannot hurt. Whether one or two proposals go in, only one can win and so we have to expend the same organisational effort in any case. Eggs. Basket :) --ErrantX 00:28, 15 January 2012 (UTC)