On Wed, Aug 11, 2010 at 2:40 PM, Maysara Omar <maysara.omar(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote:
I believe that Israel is not an appropriate place in which to hold a
conference such as wikimania for all the reasons mentioned above, and i
believe that it is fair to reconsider the decision, and i hope that we,
along with the wikimedia foundation, and along with the israeli participants
too, will find reason to address the issue with view to fairness and
practicality.
While you are entitled to your opinions and beliefs, I don't believe this
is the proper forum for them. There was a bidding process for hosting
Wikimania, and Haifa was the best of the entries.
What you are doing here is second guessing the Wikimania Jury, which I
believe is unfair. If your concerns were valid, I'm sure they would have
been raised and addressed in the bidding process. That actually would have
been the right time to raise such questions, when no decisions had yet been
made.
Now, there are impediments that might prevent people from attending, but all
of
the concerns you raise are beyond the scope of the organizers to address. If
you wish to be constructive, I would welcome your thoughts and ideas for
ways to allow more Wikimedians to attend Haifa, or to reform the selection
procedure so that these issues are brought up during that process.
From a former member of the Toronto Wikimania bid team
(who lost to
Haifa)...
Gerald