Dave Winer has posted a "modest proposal" of a weblogging conference. I like the ideas he's put forth, though I'm less enthusiastic about the working title ("Weblogs in Meatspace").
Shelley Powers notes that the cost of attending such things is often a deal-breaker, especially for the less-heard voices (women, minorities, lower-income). Interestingly, that's exactly the sort of thing that NSF is most interested in these days...how to get underrepresented populations more involved in sci-tech activities.
So, I see some room for cooperation here. Perhaps a conference like Dave's describing could have partial funding from NSF. We could build either the conference itself, or participation in the conference (and "scholarships" for it focused on underrepresented groups) into the grant proposal.
I e-mailed Dave about it, and he's interested...what do y'all think?
I've been interested in assembling a conference for a while now. I was planning on doing a pre- or post-conference for the Association of Internet Researchers conference, which will be in Toronto this year. I was thinking we would either do it in Toronto (most likely) or in Niagara Falls. The advantage here is that we would have a number of people who would already be attending internationally. Thoughts?
Posted by: halavais on December 11, 2002 03:44 PMThomas Burg is currently organizing an international "Weblog Event" in Vienna, Austria, in May 2003. There will be a call for papers in the near future.
Sebastian
Posted by: Sebastian on December 11, 2002 07:22 PMI'm not sure any of this has to be either/or...a lot of the discussion thus far on various blogs (esp. Shelley Powers' has included the concept of multiple simultaneous gatherings, to help address the travel costs issue that often prevents already marginalized voices from participating...
Posted by: Liz on December 11, 2002 07:52 PMLiz, of course I don't see this topic as "either/or". Just wanted to put the Austrian Weblog Event on the screen...
Posted by: Sebastian on December 12, 2002 06:48 PMhttp://www.tc.umn.edu/~ratl0016/GenderBlogging.htm
Could this perhaps be in the conference? I'd like to know what all of you think of it. I've posted it on my blog, http://cyborgwoman.blogspot.com if you want to comment on it there. Thanks a lot.
Posted by: Clancy on December 17, 2002 01:45 PM