I’ve just finished up a week in Beautiful Buenos Aires, Argentina, where Wikimedia held its annual conference, Wikimania. I think the best way to describe it is “Crazy fun”.

Highlights (the sessions)

• Richard Stallman (enough said).
• Finding out some of the stuff Kate and Ævar have been doing on OSM.
• Chatting to Christian about DBpedia, an awesome semantic database produced from the Wikipedia data.
• Finding people unaware of my work on LiquidThreads who have been doing prototyping of their own on discussion improvements.
• Some of the fancy new stuff in the works, as summarised by Brion.
• The awesome work Michael Dale’s been doing on open video at Wikimedia.
• Finding out about the plans the usability folks have for MediaWiki.

Highlights (outside the conference itself)

• The taxi ride from the airport, which was conducted by a driver who (like most drivers here) did not understand the concept of a lane, and found 140 km/h to be a perfectly appropriate speed.
• The Mauseleum at Recoleta, and its colony of feral cats.
• Dancing the Tango with Florence (who described my dancing as “not super elegant”).
• Finishing the closing evening with pizza at 6 am, accompanied by Phoebe, Kat, Mako and others.
• The feeling of inadequacy that comes from being surrounded by people who speak at least 4 languages.
• Deciding with half an hour’s notice to visit Colonia (in Uruguay) with Betsy, Kate and Ævar.
• When out with Ævar, making liberal use of body language to explain the concept of a nightclub to a bemused taxi driver.

Comments about the conference (directed mostly at the organisers)

• The communal areas were great. It was especially good to hang out in our techie basement, although we were a bit separated from everybody else.
• It sucked that the staff hotel was so far from everybody else and was much nicer. It felt hierarchical, which is not how Wikimedia is supposed to work.
• The organisers did a good job of trying to stem the flow of stolen stuff.
• The party was a lot of fun, and very well-organised.
• The hotel was a pretty good choice, the lack of wifi in the rooms was a mixed blessing, drawing everybody out into the lobby to hang out.
• The internet in various parts was a bit flaky, which is a bit weird for a tech conference

See you all in Gdansk next year! And in Sydney the year after!