Hello!
Had a stroll around the neighbourhood and its beautiful park, didn't get killed in traffic and went to the first Hackathon sessions.
Mexikanisches Parkhörnchen (kopfüber)
Right opposite the Hotel there's the Alameda Central Park - "the oldest public park in Latin America". It's kind of smallish but beautifully designed and taken care of. Of course it is very representative and it shows in its numbers o statues and monuments everywhere. Still not sure if a police man at every entrance of park and every corner really helps my personal feeling of security.
What can you do if you want to help?
Went to the first two sessions at the Hackathon. An overview over all the tools, projects and programming where Hackers can engage: from Toolsever over MediaWiki extensions, Bugs and whatnot. Of course in theory I know all of them, but it was inpressive to see all this tools and stuff and wild growth. The infrastructure is very wiki-style and I wonder if anybody on this plant actually has an overview. Best question: “So what’s the difference between a tool and a bot?” The next session – also done neatly by Andrew Klapper – was about Phabricator, the new tool used by Wikimedia to coordinate its software development. And it actually sounded quite cool and neat. Could be used outside of Wikimedia as well.
The beautiful arts
More about Mexico: had a stroll around the neighbourhood which is also the old town and therefor the center of centers of Mexico. Interesting, full, a pedestrian zone and a huge place that was blocked by some kind of digital event (no, not Wikimania). Still at the park there is the Palace Bellas Artes – an opera house but also a museum. Right now as I’ve heard with a Leonard exhibition which means huge, huge queues already at 7AM in the morning. And a beautiful building as well.
High Up in Mexico City but still inside a valley
My mystery roommate has appeared by now. It's either Michail or Andrei (sorry, but I was really sleepy when he arrived..) and on first look he seems to be a really nice and decent guy. Just arrived via Paris and I guess today he will be busy really arriving in Mexico City. About the venue: Could become the Wikimania with the best food ever. Unluckily, the most important item – coffee – is sub par and worse than all the rest.
Traffic ballet
Still didn’t get killed in traffic. Sometimes there are pedestrian lights, but they seem to have more of an advisory role than are really binding. Then sometimes there are police man guiding the traffic – they seem to become more respect than the traffic lights, unluckily I really don’t understand what they are trying to tell me. So right now I’ve settled with “walk when the Mexikcans walk” – it seems to work fine until now.
As this is the first Wikimania in ages where I don't have any talks or any other resposibilities, I used to reflect to my last Wikimania when I was just an attending community member - Haifa. It has become much bigger, much more professional and business style and a bit "grown up". But somehow it's also less new and less exciting . it seems to me I've seen at least half the attendees at some other Wikimanias and it's bit business as usual. But maybe that will change when the real Wikimania begins - right now we are still at the pre-conference.
Still haven't use the gourgouse Hotel pool.
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