@Ipstenu - Well, to be fair, they did ask at the Manchester WordCamp and, for whatever reason, they ended up thinking it was necessary to rebrand their single annual event to include the city name, even though that was supposedly not necessary.

Taryn, the organizer of the WPScotland group, has mentioned above that they would like to hold a WordCamp in 2012 "if our bid is successful" - are applicants going to feel that, regardless of the stated guidelines, bids that play it safe and opt for city name branding, even when country name would supposedly be permissible, are more likely to be accepted?

I agree that diversity is good and I would just like to see more user-driven WordPress events, whether they be officially sanctioned or not - it is astonishing that it has taken until late 2011 for there to be one in Scotland, a technologically advanced country with a population of over five million educated people and only some of them drunk out of their minds.

Without a doubt, the existence of independent WordPress events will be good for WordPress and healthy for the WordCamp movement too.