WikiCamp Canceled
Yes, you read that right. The WikiCamp that was supposed to be held in about a month in Frankfurt was canceled yesterday.
The camp was originally suggested by Martin Koser to KongressMedia who are organizing the Enterprise 2.0 Summit. I met Martin and Björn Negelmann from KongressMedia back in Spring at the re:publica where we first talked about the WikiCamp idea. From what I understood back then, KongressMedia already had a venue and was looking for a side program to their preconference workshop tracks.
Even after the E20 Summit and with it the WikiCamp had been rescheduled from October to November, I fully supported the idea. I spoke to many people in the Wiki community and asked them to attend. I even announced it in the last DokuWiki newsletter.
Now it was canceled yesterday, just a month before the day. I don't know much, but the announcement talks about “rescheduling” the camp again, even so the E20 Summit will take place as planned. It also mentions that the new venue will be “more cost-efficient […], leaving more budget”.
To me this sounds like KongressMedia simply used the Wiki community to give their expensive business congress some grassroots touch. But when they found out that having an extra bunch of people that don't pay for $$$ tickets, in a frickin 5-star hotel isn't as cheap as they thought, they just dumped them.
Personally I'm really pissed about that attitude and probably will not promote a possible replacement event like I did with WikiCamp, when it will be organized by KongressMedia again. I just don't trust these guys anymore.
Update: WikiCamp is now scheduled for March the 6th, 2010 and will be located at the CeBit Hannover.