There have also been threads on Meta
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimania_2011/Bids/Haifa
However rather than rehashing the decision to hold Wikimania in Israel
during Ramadan, or even trying to send out some last minute
invitations, may I suggest that we start focussing in on some of the
lessons to be learned from this?
I'd particularly like to see a commitment that future Wikimanias won't
clash with Ramadan or certain other "culturally sensitive" dates. It
will be difficult to list which ones we can't clash with and which we
can accommodate by having two hours break in a sports bar (Gdansk
clashed with some sort of sporting event). But we should at least try.
Oh and I think there is still time to get more virtual involvement.
WereSpielChequers
On 20 July 2011 16:17, Harel Cain <harel.cain(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Most of them are in the archive of wikimania-l, some in the archive of
> foundation-l, and even fewer in the archive of wikimania-planning-l.
> The first two are publicly available. Simple Ctrl-Fing of the threads since
> about June 2010 will find most of the stuff if not all of it.
>
>
> Harel Cain
> Wikimania 2011 local team
>
> On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 17:29, Kim Bruning <kim(a)bruning.xs4all.nl> wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 10:39:59PM +0300, Harel Cain wrote:
>> > I think those numbers will be teaching, and will put this discussion in
>> > the
>> > true perspective it deserves.
>>
>>
>> Speaking of putting things in perspective, I've been told off-channel
>> that there have been several previous debates on this topic.
>>
>> For the record, could someone link me to (some of) these old debates? It's
>> probably more efficient for me to RTFArchive and come back with any
>> remaining questions.
>>
>> sincerely,
>> Kim Bruning
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>> Wikimania-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
>
>
>
> --
> Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.
>
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>
>
Wikimedia has indeed an outreach problem in Arab countries and communities. This was a major consideration for having Wikimania 2008 in Alexandria, Egypt. I remember there were two or three great bids, so this outreach issue became rather prominent, namely where in the world Wikimania would be more effective in terms of outreach. The Egyptian community of Wikipedians benefited indeed from the effect of Wikimania 2008, but I didn't see much effect on other parts of the Arab world.
I was interviewed about Wikipedia earlier this year by BBC Arabic (despite its UK affiliation, most reporters and editors there are from Arab countries). The result was not too flattering to Wikipedia, and believe me, it wasn't because something I said. Furthermore, while I was interviewed (in Arabic) as an Israeli Wikimedian, my Palestinian counterpart was not a Wikipedian, but rather head of a Palestinian bloggers' society. Generally speaking, Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects are popular among Israeli Jews at least as much as in Western Europe, and many of them contribute in more than one language. This is evident from the size of he-wp which is quite amazing considering it is a language of some 4 million native speakers in one country. On the other hand, Israeli Arabs, Palestinians, Jordanians and other Arab-speaking communities in the region are much less acquainted with Wikimedia, or alternatively are a bit suspicious toward these projects. There are a lot of explanations to that, and I'm not going to get into it here.
Haifa was chosen for various reasons, outreach in the Middle East was not one of the major considerations, as far as I know. We knew there were going to be some difficulties for Egyptians (for example) but the 25-January events were not expected, and they created further unforeseen difficulties. On the other hand, Palestinians and Jordanians can reach Haifa these days quite easily, much more easily than other places in the Middle East and worldwide, so we indeed hoped to see more of them registering. The entire website, including the landing page and the registration form are available in Arabic. The call to attend the special locally-oriented track is also translated into Arabic. Arab cultural institutes in Israel and the Palestinian Territories were notified several times about the event. Specific individuals who might be interested were asked to spread the word. That is about the best we can do.
Dror K
Hi all,
I am arriving next Thursday, July 28th in Haifa.
To make the most out of the days until Wikimania I rented a car for July
29th to August 1st.
If someone is interested in spending time together, seeing the country
(one of my plans is to see the Dead Sea) then contact me.
Regards,
Manuel
--
Regards
Manuel Schneider
Wikimedia CH - Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
Wikimedia CH - Association for the advancement of free knowledge
www.wikimedia.ch
Israel likes to control everything... See what happened to these people in
Greece with the freedom boats? It's a great time to pull back your support
from Wikimania...
Hmmm... That's interesting. According to the criterion Deryck Chan mentioned, I'm he-5, en-5, ar-5, fr-3 and es-2. In various occasions I was a teacher of he, en and ar, but I always write ar-3 because I can read and write quite easily though my speech fluency needs some improvement...
But back to the problem itself - Is it just standard templates that are missing from the Wikimania 2011 website?
Dror K
Alternatively, en-5 may be used to describe someone like me whose mother
tongue isn't actually English (I was brought up in Hong Kong speaking
Cantonese), but speaks with native fluency and a professional application (I
teach Chinese immigrants English - a language teacher is a "typical" level-5
description, according to the Babel documentation). In some ways this is a
wholly different definition of en-5: I only speak fluently two dialects of
English (RP and Hong Kong), and can only understand a select few others.
Level-5 templates do mess up the system when used by someone like Kim, a
native speaker who wants to highlight one's professional language skills,
though.
On Jul 11, 2011 3:22 PM, "WereSpielChequers" <werespielchequers(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
I couldn't actually enter my language matrix properly , so I've just set mother langauge to english (because it requires me to set
SOMETHING) and left it at that. Also, there's not enough boxes.
My actual matrix is nl5, en5, de3, fr1, la1 ... not even that atypical for a wikimedian!
sincerely,
Kim Bruning
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Hello,
BDS is telling people that certain people (gaza, west bank) are being excluded or likely to be excluded from wikimania [1]
I'm pretty sure that's not going to be entirely true. I'd like to tell these BDS
people off for spreading FUD.
Even so, I'd better be sure I'm telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
;-)
Is there anyone who currently wants to come to wikimania, but definitely won't be able
to come due to issues with permit/visa?
sincerely,
Kim Bruning
[1]
http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/topics/economy-of-the-occu…
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Hello Thomas,
In terms of accessibility, Israel is much more accessible to Palestinians and Jordanians than any other location suggested for Wikimania 2011.
It is even more accessible to them than Alexandria, Egypt, the venue of Wikimania 2008, and I say it after I checked this matter with the relevant people.
When Wikimania was last held in the Middle East, namely in Egypt, there was only one Palestinian who wished to participate, and he couldn't get a visa to Egypt from the Egyptian authorities.
The EG authorities probably had their reasons, and I don't mention it in an attempt to blame someone, not at all.
I just wanted to note, that even then, when Wikimania was held in an Arab country, not far away from the Palestinian Territories, the interest in the event within this community was extremely low.
Many Palestinians can come to Haifa without our help. They can simply take a bus, as they do every day when they come to work in Israel. For some Palestinians the process is somewhat more complicated, but something that can certainly be handled, especially with the help of the organizers.
As for Jordan, there were three Jordanians in Wikimania 2007 in Taipei. I met two of them also in Alexandria in 2008. I'm not sure whether there were more Jordanians in 2008. I didn't see any in Buenos Aires 2009. For a Jordanian, obtaining a visa requires some form filling at the embassy in Amman. After having the visa, s/he can simply take a bus to the border crossing, and then another bus to Haifa. Many Jordanians have families in northern Israel, so some of them don't even need accommodations. And yet they need to have interest in this event.
One can lead the horse to the water, but one cannot make it drink.
Dror K