Wikimania:Expressions of Interest/2025/New York City, United States

Expression of interest: New York City, United States

Abstract/description

Statue of Liberty, a gift from France to New York City.

UN Headquarters amid Midtown Manhattan.

Governors Island looking out to Lower Manhattan.

In a few sentences tell us about your submissions. What made you and your community want to host the next Wikimania?

New York City is considered perhaps the world's leading global city, a center of migration with a stunning diversity of cultures and languages, and home of the United Nations. As an urban expression of the cosmopolitanism of our movement, we imagine New York City as the ultimate meeting-place for us to come together as the city marks its 400th anniversary.

In a Wikimedia context, NYC has a long history of both internal-facing WikiConferences, as well as external-facing public outreach events, photo contests, edit-a-thons and translat-a-thons, and we would like to combine these two aspects for our Wiki World's Fair!

After our first picnic-that-anyone-can-edit Wiknic at Central Park in 2007, the local community crystallized in 2009 to form the Wikimedia NYC chapter, and the world's first public edit-a-thons and Wiki Loves X photo contests, as well as our own WikiConference New York. In 2011, we had our one and only Wikimania bid (lost to Haifa!), but we were able to fulfill part of this vision with a Wikimania Takes Manhattan preconference weekend and Governors Island prototype fair, welcoming many international visitors who then joined our wiki-bus to DC for Wikimania 2012.

In 2014, we held the inaugural WikiConference USA here, which has since evolved into WikiConference North America, and the chapter has joined others in supporting the event across the continent over the subsequent years, and more recently virtually. In 2014 and 2015, we saw independent diversity-focused wiki efforts emerge alongside the chapter, in the form of Art+Feminism, AfroCrowd, and Black Lunch Table, as well as other global campaigns. All these efforts have learned much from each other, and we have seen a years-long local, as well as global spike, in edit-a-thons to improve coverage of marginalized knowledge. Our chapter (together with WikiConference North America) reached out to touch the global gathering again with a wiki-train to Montreal for Wikimania 2017, and we have since engaged in a variety of activities, including the first public polyglot translat-a-thons in 2018.

Over the years, we have engaged most of the city's great cultural institutions, museums, libraries, and universities, the world-famous ones and also many serving local communities. Our vision is to bring these and our own wiki traditions together, including the annual Wikipedia Day conference we've celebrated each year since 2010, to deliver a truly cosmopolitan Wikimania to the city and to the world.

Organizers

Wiki World's Fair 2012 on Governors Island.

Prototype fair in action.

Wiki World's Fair 2022 in Queens.

1939 New York World's Fair.

Who is submitting this expression of interest? List individuals or groups.

• Wikimedia New York City would be submitting.
• WikiConference North America will support, consensus is that the collective WCNA effort and energy (that annually supports a large continental conference on its own) will merge into Wikimania that year.

Organizing team:

• Pharos
• Ciell
• Legoktm (especially hackathon/technical things)
• Rhododendrites
• Peaceray
• Rosiestep

Requirements

Interested community groups do not need to have a venue selected, contracts drafted or sponsors lined up. This is why we are starting the process early. Please provide solid information about the points below to help our decision making. We will be taking into account various factors about potential sites and hosts especially the cost, accessibility, security, global rotation of Wikimania, and the strength of the organizing team. We hope to announce the location of the 2024 Wikimania by March, 2023. If you are interested in hosting a Wikimania in 2025 or later, you can submit your expression here as well.

Venue + lodging

• Wikimedia New York City has a strong working history with the area's major universities (Columbia University, New York University, City University of New York, Fordham University, etc), which regularly host large conferences and have held events with us before. Student accommodations would be a priority for lodging.
• We also have exceptional opportunities to connect to United Nations Headquarters, as well as to Galleries, Libraries, Archives & Museums (New York Public Library, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, New-York Historical Society, American Museum of Natural History, etc) for cultural events and edit-a-thons particular to those locations.
• With the city as our campus, we will look to large open spaces (Governors Island, Flushing Meadows in Queens, etc) for external-facing public outreach events truly on the scale befitting a "Wiki World's Fair", with room for the representation of multilingual open knowledge groups and projects from around the globe.

Travel + visas

• 3 major airports: Newark Liberty International Airport, LaGuardia Airport, and John F. Kennedy International Airport.
• Visitors from the northeast United States (and eastern Canada) can also arrive via train on Amtrak
• Within the city, NYC subway and buses can be used
• For visas, see Visa policy of the United States. We will seek support of United Nations Headquarters and the U.S. Department of State.

Facilities + services

• New York City has all of the facilities of a global city, and we commit to making an accessible event for all.
• In addition, we will build linguistic accessibility through connections to diverse local communities.

Safety + security

• The Economist's Safe Cities Index 2021 marks New York City's overall safety for travelers as "Very High", tied for #11 globally with Barcelona.
• New York City has the lowest crime rate in the United States of any big (≥ 0.5 million) city.

Alternate locations

• As well as the diversity of locations within New York City, there are numerous potential locations across the wider metropolitan area, and possibly the northeast United States.

Time

• Month: July or August
• Year: 2025 or 2026, could potentially do 2024

Additional

Any other details that you think would be helpful for the Wikimania Steering Committee.

• Our aim is to embrace an innovative approach to our movement's annual event that will leave a legacy, so that perhaps in the future instead of an upcoming "Wikimania" we will look forward to next year's "Wiki World's Fair".

Update: Wiki World's Fair remix

A mid-2023 update after the selection of Kraków for Wikimania 2024, with further info on the distinctive aspects of the NYC 2025 bid, and how it fits into a larger global vision.