[okfn-discuss] Open Knowledge Festival 2015 - Location Thoughts

Tue Oct 14 12:12:00 UTC 2014

Hi all,

For what it's worth, Wikimedia has many of these same discussions
around Wikimania each year :-). There is a tacit (not sure how
explicit) rotation policy of trying to shift between continents - so
Europe won't get two years in a row, for example - but otherwise
basing it on local bids. We have now had ten (plus one more selected)
- three North America, one South America, two Asia, two Middle East,
three Europe. They've been a mix of major cities (London, Hong Kong,
DC) and a couple of smaller places with good connections (Haifa,
Gdansk) - it's always worth thinking about somewhere other than the
biggest city.

The not-explicitly-ranked criteria are here:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2016_judging_criteria#Selection_Criteria

The best location we found for visas was IIRC Hong Kong, which lets
(almost) everyone in without too much fuss. However, you're always
going to have problems for some number of people. A rotation policy
can help to alleviate visa/travel worries, as can actively seeking the
involvement of the local government and being proactive with things
like letters of invitation.

And, of course, it has to be balanced against travel being practical
for most people - as you say, ideally you wouldn't want it to be
Svalbard! (But I am told it's lovely there, and they have a recently
refurbished university campus, so maybe we're being too harsh...)

Rufus - I don't know if you're in touch with any of the Wikimania
people from London this year, but if not let me know and I'll put you
in contact with them.

Andrew.

On 14 October 2014 11:24, William Waites <ww at eris.okfn.org> wrote:
> On Tue, 14 Oct 2014 09:39:19 +1000, Anna Daniel <a.daniel at griffith.edu.au> said:
>
>     > fyi visa requirements per country:
>     > http://www.projectvisa.com/fullcountrylist.asp
>
> I have half a mind to scrape those web pages to make a queriable
> database... In fact this whole question smells like a possibly
> nonlinear optimisation problem... If we can get a good list of
> criteria like Rufus is asking for, it might be an interesting exercise
> (or at least thought experiment) to use what data we can get and ask
> the computer to tell us the best place...
>
> Brazil does seem to have a "we'll treat you the same way you treat us"
> policy which at least is fair...
>
> Svalbard apparently has no immigration control at all but it's hard to
> get there...
>
> -w
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-- 
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk