This August, hundreds of Wikipedians from around the world will gather in Cambridge, Massachusetts – along with academics, teachers, technologists, and archivists – for a global meetup and Wikimedia conference. This will be the largest meetup to date, hosted on the Harvard and MIT campuses. The Signpost will cover issues relating to the conference in a series on meetups and international Wikimedia gatherings.

This week, the Signpost begins a series on Meetups and Newsworthy International Assemblages (M.A.N.I.A.) documenting preparations for Wikimania 2006, the second annual international Wikimedia Conference. The series will look back on last year's inaugural Wikimania, and ahead to this year's events, attendees and speakers; culminating in August with detailed reports from the event. It will also provide context for the event, documenting other international gatherings, related wikiprojects, and Wikipedia meetups since the project's inception.

Wikimania will be held in Cambridge from 4 August to 6 August. Presentations and events will be held primarily at Harvard Law School, with outings into Boston and the surrounding area. In the three days leading up to the conference, there will be a smaller Hacking Days event for developers, at the MIT Media Lab.

More information about the event may be found on the planning pages on Meta, and the still-developing conference website and FAQ. There is also a Wikimania discussion list; it is currently low-volume, with a few emails a week.

The Wikimania program will consist primarily of workshops, tutorials, panels, poster displays, and presentations submitted by community members. This is the last week to submit a proposal for a tutorial or workshop. Submitting a proposal for a session involves registering with the conference software, and describing the proposed session in a few hundred words.

To get involved with Wikimania in other ways, one can sign up to volunteer on-site or remotely. The first IRC volunteer meeting will be held this weekend.

The Signpost hopes that this series will help the Wikipedia community become more aware of meetups around the world, and the joys of in-person gatherings and events, as well as the events planned for Wikimania itself.

Next week — The history of Wikipedia meetups.