Can you come to an Alaveteli event in April?

We are planning a
Alaveteli mini-conference
including an
installation and setup workshop
on
Monday 2 April – Tuesday 3 April
in Oxford, England
So please fill out our
Alaveteli event pre-registration form
now!

With the recent launch of PravoDaZnam (“RightToKnow”) in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and ongoing development on Alaveteli websites for Spain, Czech Republic, Australia and Hungary, we can expect to see at least 10 Alaveteli websites to be running worldwide by the summer.  That’s a great achievement, but what next?

A key concept for the project has always been collaboration.  The source code is Open Source, which means that in theory developers from around the world can benefit from each others’ bug fixes and new features.  The administrative issues faced by site moderators are very similar in different jurisdictions, which means that in theory Alaveteli website administrators can share ideas and policies and work with a common voice on international issues.  The problems faced by ordinary users are also similar — how can they best word their requests? where should their requests be addressed? — so in theory, they too can benefit from international collaboration.

In practice, it’s hard to collaborate when your time is limited and you don’t know who you can collaborate with. The obvious next step, therefore, is to get Alaveteli users together face-to-face, to make plans, discuss common problems, have fun, and get to know each other better.

We can also use the opportunity to show potential Alaveteli users how to get started.  Therefore, I’ll promise that I’ll help anyone who is interested in getting an Alaveteli website running in their own jurisdiction: they will leave the event with a working version that they can start using straight away.

The provisional details are at the top of this post. Please fill out the pre-registration feedback form if you might be able to come. In fact, please fill it out if you don’t think you can come, either — all feedback is useful!  And we’re working on getting funding for a travel fund, so if costs are the only problem, don’t write it off just yet — let us know in the pre-registration form.