This year Wikimedia UK is partnering with the Open Knowledge Foundation in the organisation of the 2010 Open Knowledge Conference (“OKCon”), an interdisciplinary conference that brings together individuals from across the open knowledge spectrum for a day of presentations and workshops.

At this year’s conference, Wikimedia UK will be supporting and organising a track dedicated to the projects and communities central to Wikimedia.

We need your help to create an exciting and interesting track that will inspire and challenge Wikimedians and others alike. Could you give a presentation or host a discussion on a Wikimedia theme? Any subject relevant to the Wikimedia communities, free content or Wikimedia UK are welcome.

Timeline

• February 25 (Thursday): Submissions will open
• March 28 (Sunday) 23:59 UTC: Closure of submission dates
• April 7 (Wednesday): Notification of acceptance of submission
• April 24 (Saturday): Open Knowledge Conference 2010

If you wish to participate but with good reason cannot meet one of the above deadlines please email conferenceswikimedia.org.uk before the deadline as it may be possible to accomodate late submissions

Themes

Submissions should address one or more of the following themes:

• Wikimedia Communities – Interesting projects and characteristics within the communities; policy creation; conflict resolution and community dynamics; reputation and identity; multilingualism, languages and cultures; the development of Wikimedia UK.

• Free Content – Open access to information; ways to gather and distribute free knowledge, usage of the Wikimedia projects in education, journalism, research; ways to improve content quality and usability; copyright laws and their interaction with Wikimedia projects.

• Culture and Heritage – Ideas for potential partnerships, building on previous partnerships and the legal, technical and resource issues that are barriers to such partnerships.

• Technical infrastructure – Issues related to MediaWiki development and extensions; Wikimedia hardware layout; the Toolserver; the Usability Project; new ideas for development (including Usability case studies from other wikis or similar projects).

Submission Guidelines

Please email submissions to conferenceswikimedia.org.uk.

Please email the following details, all in English:

• Title:
• Theme: Closest category from above for your submission.
• Abstract: 50-100 words summarising the topic
• Summary: Detailed description of the topic – 300 words or more. May contain a link to a more details.
• Contact information: Email/Telephone and whether we may publish these details
• Additional Information:

• 1-3 sentence biography of the author(s).
• any special requirements (e.g. flipchart; OHP. A digital presentation will be assumed as standard)
• whether you will attend the 2010 Open Knowledge Conference (a) definitely, (b) probably, (c) only if your submission is accepted.

The Wikimedia UK board has been putting together a budget for the next year (You can see this, and help with its development, here) and we have some money left over. We are looking for proposals for projects/iniatives with budget requirements in the range of £100-£3000 (GBP). These projects can be either online or offline, but they should be primarily focused on the UK and they must further the objects of Wikimedia UK (broadly, to collate/develop/spread freely licensed material).

The deadline for proposals is the end of this month (i.e. 0:00 UTC on 1 March 2010). You can submit proposals on our wiki.

The information we need to know is:
- What the project would be, in a paragraph of two
- What the benefits would be, again in a paragraph or two
- What requirements it has, in terms of a financial budget and any other resources. The budget should give a rough breakdown of what the money would be spent on.
- What volunteer time it requires, and how much time you can spend on the project. You would be expected to take an active role in implementing the project.
- Contact details – you should have a registered account on our wiki that we can send emails to (note that single-user login is enabled, so your wikipedia account will work).

You do not have to be a member of Wikimedia UK to submit a proposal, although that would be preferable (membership is open to all, so you can always join – particularly if your proposal goes forward. ). Preference will also be given to active Wikimedians, although that is not a requirement.

We plan to set aside a budget for smaller grants (<£100), which we will be calling for proposals for later this year.

Please get in touch if you have any questions, and please share this with anyone else that you think might be interested.