[Air-l] Call for Participation -- Wikimania 2006 -- Aug. 4 - Aug. 6, Cambridge, MA

[Joseph Reagle]

Call for Participation -- Wikimania 2006 -- Aug. 4 - Aug. 6, Cambridge, MA
For more information, see the Wikimania website: 
http://wikimania.wikimedia.org
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About Wikimania

Wikimania is an annual global event devoted to Wikipedia and other
Wikimedia projects. It is both a scientific conference and a community
event, open to the public. Wikimania is a place for users and editors
of the projects to gather from around the globe, to meet each other,
to exchange ideas, and to report on research and projects. This year's
conference will be held from 4-6 August, 2006, on the Harvard Law
School campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

We are accepting submissions for papers, posters, presentations,
workshops, and discussion groups. We are also accepting nominations
for speakers and speaker panels, and suggestions for other activities.
Everyone is welcome to submit abstracts and ideas. Be bold in your
submissions!
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Important dates:

* 30 Mar 2006: Proposal deadline for workshops and tutorials
Notification of acceptance: by April 30
* 15 Apr 2006: Abstracts due for panels, papers, posters and presentations
Notification of acceptance: by May 15
* 4-6 Aug 2006: Wikimania
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Conference Themes

Submissions should address one or more of the following themes:

* Technical infrastructure -- Issues related to Mediawiki development
and extensions; Wikimedia hardware layout; new ideas for development
(including case studies from other wikis or similar projects).

* Wikimedia projects and content -- Presentation of interesting
projects and results; future aims of the projects and types of
distribution; ways to improve content quality. New uses for project
content: in education, journalism, research, &c.

* Free knowledge and access to information -- Present and future free
knowledge initiatives; related library and archival projects around
the world and input from librarians and archivists; ways to gather and
distribute knowledge.

* Wiki social science -- The contributors and users (who are they?
Where do they come from?); reputation and identity issues; conflict
resolution and community dynamics; scaling digital communities.
Languages and cultures and their interactions online; multilingualism
via wikis. Linguistics studies on wiki communities.

* Law and Policy -- Copyleft, collective copyright, special issues
pertaining to communal editing and distribution; other legal areas for
which Wiki[mp]edia is an interesting case study. Policy creation
within individual projects.
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Submissions

Types of Submissions:

* Panels (Suggest a group of 2-5 speakers on a specific subject)
* Workshops (From 30-120 minutes)
* Presentations (10-30 minute presentations/papers)
* Posters (Printed presentations or visual displays that can stand on their 
own)
* BOFs (Birds-of-a-Feather/discussion sessions - 45-60 minutes of
group discussion)

We are also accepting artistic submissions, especially visualizations
or other representations of some aspect of the projects.
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Submission format

* All submissions must include a title and an abstract of 100 to 300
words. They should also list the full name (and wiki name if
appropriate) of the submitter, with contact information and
affiliations. Special requirements for the presentation (equipment for
a workshop or panel) should be noted. The abstracts should be provided
as plain text, and not as file attachments.
* Workshop submissions should include a 1-2pp overview of the areas to
be covered or taught.
* Speaker panel submissions should include short biographies of each
suggested panelist.
* Paper and Presentation submissions may include a link to a draft of
the paper or slides, if available. State clearly whether the
submission concerns a specific wiki project, and whether the
presentation is intended to be a specific length.
* BOF proposals should describe the significance of and community
interest in the topic, and name the proposed discussion leader(s).

To process your submission, please see the Wikimania website -
http://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/Call_for_papers. Send questions or
suggestions to wikimania-cfp <at> wikimedia.org .
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Final Submissions

Final submissions must be provided in an open format (OpenOffice,
LaTeX sources, HTML...) and licensed under a free content license (GFDL
or CC-BY-SA).
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Stipends

A limited number of stipends will be available to those unable to
obtain funding to attend the conference. Accepted presenters are
encouraged to apply if assistance is needed.
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