On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 5:07 PM, Maysara Omar <maysara.omar@gmail.com> wrote:

Gerald A wrote:

> However, the Jury is made up of smart people ...

HAHAHAHA! So what?! I am smart too! ;)

I see you snipped the part where I asked.. "Did you ask these questions at that time?"
My intention here was to show that the Jury might have actually already considered the issues you brought forward, asked the bid team tough
questions, weighed the fact that it would be hard for some to attend, and decided to choose Haifa anyways.

> Some presidential elections are repeated/questioned because of irregularities in the voting process. Unless you are questioning the integrity of the jury's selection process, (which I don't believe you are), then your analogy doesn't hold.

No! The purpose of the analogy was to break the stiffness that was shown in refusing the prospect of reconsideration altogether, and not because of the possibility of irregularities in the voting process, THUS, my analogy does hold! In any case, I hereby declare that both the deliberative and decision-making processes of that jury must be subjected to scrutinizing investigation, because, as a matter of fact, the concerns raised now here were actually raised since January 2010 (one year and 8 months before the date of the event!!!), HERE: [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimania_2011/Bids/Haifa]

Well, maybe you aren't as smart as you profess, or maybe you are being deliberately obtuse. In either case, your analogy holds even less with this
bit of information. The talk page is where someone like you, having concerns, should bring them up. Someone, in fact, DID bring up your points, and the
Jury was aware of the issues. So, it seems that the Jury made a decision with knowledge of the difficulties.

My idealism is concerned with the RESULT of the decision making process, while it is you who is idealizing the process itself! If OUR very basic requirements are "beyond the scope of the organizers to address", then THEY shall not be given the responsibility of organization, rather than we abandoning our requirements(.)

Let's be clear here -- _your_ "basic requirements" don't form the jury criteria. Those criteria are available for all to see, and if you are unhappy with them, you should be making an argument to modify them for the next wikimania.

> Any place that the Jury picks will make it difficult or preclude some from attending Wikimania.

I don't believe you!

Please name the utopian spot on earth that any citizen of our big round ball may freely travel to, regardless of age, sex, citizenship, religion, monetary means and a dozen other things. While you can choose to believe whatever you want, we are living in an imperfect world.

Any place that will make it difficult or preclude "some" from attending wikimania shall come second to a place that will not make it difficult for anyone, or will at least make it less difficult. However, how and why a place makes it difficult for "some" to attend must always be carefully considered.

And having been on the answering end of the Jury's questions, and having observed the Jury ask other bidders questions, I am confident that they were, in fact, carefully considered.

Unfortunately, I'm afraid that there is unlikely to be any investigation or reconsideration of the long and careful Jury process. While you can continue to ask, I feel it's more fruitful to deal with the way forward, which is either improving the process or helping the organizers.

Gerald