WikiSymPreWiki

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I've been considering the cost of WikiSym ($450 for me) and its traditional format (present from the pulpit) and have to ask the question "is WikiSymPreWiki?"

It seems to me that the age of wiki is about exploring what happens when people interact in a radically open venue. If we consider "post wiki" as anything that has been informed by the wiki revolution, I wonder if the traditional academic conference with its rigid program and speakers talking to captive audiences is pre wiki? If not, why not? If so, what would a post wiki conference look like?

: OpenSpaceTechnology, of course

WikiMania? 2005 was really good, even if it was not entirely 'open'. See WikiConferenceModel. As a member of the program committee, I have been arguing for a more 'wiki'-like conference, but we are hampered by the fact that for this year we are being sponsored by the ACM, which has regulations and expectations we have to meet. The goal is of course to learn from this first year so that next year will be closer to the mark. -- SunirShah

: That's interesting. What are the ACM regulations? Is there a list of them somewhere on the web? -- BayleShanks

Another answer to the OP: real world items like books and conferences are important as signals for the recognition for Wiki as a phenomenon. It is important that after ten years we enter a new stage of development with (at least) four new books published and (at least) four conferences. Wikis also do not replace books and conferences and openness is not only a solution but also a problem. For a book or a conference paper you have to create a kind of professional quality that is typically not produced in wikis. There are other qualities, of dialogue, creative exploration and response that are unequaled outside of wiki. But there is also a "wait and see" attitude like "why work if I can stay passive and still have all the results?". Often people don't see that only a fraction of value and knowledge goes into the content and perhaps 80% stays in the head of people or is hidden between the lines of public communication that is not really accessible to the readers because they do not share enough context. To take full advantage of wiki, you must be able to access people, not only content. So I think, one has to combine the best of all worlds. I'm pretty sure that WikiSym will be a colorful event, far beyond a rigid and formal conference. There will be a lot of value available only to those that will be there. I hope the ACM will tolerate the "cracy wikizens" as a positive element and not throw us out. -- HelmutLeitner

Another answer to the OP: [Online Deliberation '05] had a reg fee of $150 and a discount fee of $90. The discount was given to [anyone with annual income <$35k] rather than to students only. I think this makes sense. Also, it was a 2.5 day conference, like WikiSym, and there volunteers could get in for free for 3 hrs of labor. Volunteer preference was "to people who have a strong desire to participate, but could not afford to attend the conference otherwise". Rooms were $70/night (Stanford U has a special hotel for affiliated conference-goers -- perhaps this argues in favor of having conferences at universities -- of course a faculty or staff member of some sort at the institution must sponsor in order to get these rates, but I'm not sure).

I think the Online Deliberation conference barely broke even. I think there were about 150 registrants, so I guess that's about $23,000, although there were plenty of students so it was probably less. All conference sessions were in classrooms (I don't know how much Stanford charges for that, if at all; most sessions were in a building next to the office of the organizer, so he wouldn't have had to get keys or anything, maybe he just arranged it informally with the department). There was a fancy catered dinner one night, I think that cost a lot (and could have been omitted). -- BayleShanks

In July 2005, we hosted the OmidyarDotNet members conference near Chicago for less then $40/person. We did it by not including meals or lodging in the conference fee, and by doing it in OpenSpaceTechnology with a nearly volunteer faciliator. We provided the conference facilities for 2 and a half days, snacks, flipcharts and wi-fi and let participants figure out the rest. So it's really hard to understand $150 or $450 for a conference. What the heck are we paying for?

: I expect that ACM (or some subpart of ACM) uses some of the proceeds to support its other activities (i.e. that the conferences are a profit center for ACM). This would make sense because most non-students who go to their conferences have an expense account (either an academic grant or corporate), so people don't care about those fees as much; therefore for ACM, it's a good way for them to suck up those expense accounts (which isn't so bad because people otherwise use those accounts to buy fancy dinners, etc). I know IETF does it this way; but I'm not positive if conferences are a profit center for ACM. -- BayleShanks

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