Wikimania 2005 - The First International Wikimedia Conference will be held in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, from 4 August 2005 to 8 August 2005. Wikimedia is the non-profit organization operating Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikisource, Wikibooks, Wikinews, Wikiquote, Wikispecies, and the Wikimedia Commons. We are now accepting papers and other submissions (from everyone within and outside the Wikimedia and Wikipedia communities) for presentations, workshops, and discussion groups. We are also accepting nominations for speaker panels and keynote speakers, and suggestions for other activities. Mail all submissions to cfp@wikimedia.org.

Important Dates

  • Apr 15 - Proposal deadline for speaker panels, workshops and tutorials
  • May 10 May 25 - Abstract deadline for panels, papers, posters and presentations
  • May 30 - Submission deadline for research paper drafts
  • late June - Final copy of papers and posters due (for printing and translation).
  • June 30 - Submission deadline for last-minute / breaking-news posters and short presentations.
  • Jul 10 - Final copy of presentation-slides due
  • Aug 4-8 - Wikimania!

Submissions

Everyone within and without the Wikimedia communities are invited to suggest panel discussions they would like to see; submit abstracts for lectures, workshops, and tutorials; and submit abstracts for brief papers or posters they would like to present. Everyone is also welcome to submit a full paper or presentation they would like to give at one of the conference sessions. The audience will consist primarily of active Wikimedia users from all over the world.

Topics

Original research is welcome, but not required. Be bold in your submissions! Wikimania is meant to be both a scientific conference and a social event. Relevant topics include:

  • Wiki research: How do wikis, and the Wikimedia wikis in particular, operate? Which processes scale and which ones don't? What kinds of people or social structures are well-suited to wikis? How does introducing a wiki into existing project groups change group dynamics?
  • Wiki sociology: What motivates Wikimedians and what drives them away? Who are they, anyway? And where do they come from?
  • Wiki critics: Critical positions are welcome: why Wikipedia will never be an encyclopedia, why Wikinews can never substitute newspapers, why amateurs shouldn't be allowed to edit, and so forth.
  • Wiki technology ideas: What can we do to address perceived and real problems, for example, peer review? How can we provide better-nuanced or more immediate user feedback?
  • Wiki software ideas: What cutting edge wiki technology is out there? How can wikis be designed to fit better into corporate, political, legal, or other environments?
  • Wiki community ideas: How can we deal with small-scale and large-scale conflicts? How can we bring the community closer together and build a shared belief in our mission?
  • Wiki project ideas: Which successful projects in your Wikimedia project exist that other languages and projects don't know about? What new projects may we want to start?
  • Wiki content ideas: How could content be distributed to places that do not have Internet access? What other content creators could we cooperate with?
  • Multimedia: How do we get photographers and artists involved? Which existing communities should we tap into?
  • Free knowledge: How far are we from a world of free scientific journals? What can be done to get more existing knowledge under a free license? How can we help to preserve and distribute this knowledge, and provide universal access to it?
  • Collaborative writing: What is the status of collaborative writing outside the wiki world (Everything2, H2G2, etc.)? Do wiki projects raise the writing skill of the people involved?
  • Multilingualism: How can wikis help to bridge the subtle culture gaps across languages? How do other international bodies cope with language diversity? What linguistics uses are there for Wikimedia's multilingual corpus? How should we handle minority languages?

Languages

The official languages of the conference will include English, German, and French. Abstracts and papers may be submitted in any living language, ideally with an accompanying translation into one of those three languages.

Types of Submissions

You may submit any of the following:

  • Paper/Presentation (30 minutes to present and discuss a topic)
  • Short presentation (max. 10 minutes to present a topic)
  • Poster (display of some work related to one of the tracks)
  • Workshop (a lecture with more audience-participation)
  • Tutorial (where the goal is to teach people things)

Submission Details

Each submission should include:

  • an abstract (a 300-word / 1 page outline)
  • the type of submisson (Poster, Short pres, Workshop, Lecture, other)
  • the language(s) of the submission
  • its primary author(s) (you may include hyperlinks and/or wiki usernames)
  • the target audience (any previous knowledge required?)
  • a license (GFDL, CC-by, PD, normal copyright, ...)
  • which days the authors can participate in the conference (NB: you may submit work even if you cannot come to the conference in person)
  • Poster submissions should also include a draft of the poster content (text-only is fine)
  • Full papers and presentations should also include a draft of the paper or slides for your presentation