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Message: 2
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 19:01:29 +0900
From: Aphaia <aphaia@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania-l Digest, Vol 34, Issue 4
To: "Wikimania general list (open subscription)"
	<wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
Message-ID:
	<35be2a710808040301h2bdd2711lbd80e40c0de8543a@mail.gmail.com>
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Hiya,
thanks Muhammad for taking our all criticism positive. I'd like to
quote a Japanese saying
 among Japanese merchants: a criticizing
customer is your treasure; most people complain to their friends and
they'll never show.

Hope our input will help your country, and we'll make a better and
greater visit, if someday we have another chance to get in.

Cheers,

On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 2:53 AM, Muhammad Abdul-Mageed
<mumageed@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I do agree with almost all what you said, Austin. I can understand all the
> complaints and I think our friends who brought such complaints had enjoyed
> the conference and maybe some places they may have visited in Egypt. Also,
I
> guess many of them were trying to help by bringing such things up, rather
> than criticize. After all, we are to do our best to help get the message
> across to everybody and everywhere and in the process we know we will face
> difficulties. Lately, I have been traveling extensively in the US
 and
Europe
> and, even in these first world countries, I have come across some stuff
that
> did not meet our expectations.
>
>      Yesterday, I have been talking to a friend who just came back from a
> charity visit to Mauritania and she has been telling me how poor the
country
> is. She is American and she is rich and she did it out of good well. She
> lost weight and had to sleep on the floor, etc. But she enjoyed it, since
> she felt she was helping people. We Wikipedians, I guess, share the same
> spirit: helping the unprivileged by providing info. for free. It is a good
> thing and I am sure that most of us are ready to offer some sacrifices in
> the way.
>
>       What I will really like is to have some of our local group in Egypt
> summarize the complaints so that we can send them to the BA director. The
> man is enthusiastic and maybe he can get
 these to some minister, media,
etc.
> I know for sure he is aware of many of the problem and I know how
difficult
> change maybe, but I also met many zealous, friendly youngpersons in Egypt
> who made me believe in their power to change. Look what Egyptian activists
> are doing over the Internet to change the country to the better. A
> successful national strike was organize almost exclusively on Facebook,
for
> those those do not know. If such complaints get summarized I will do my
best
> to get to the media, with an intention to improve rather than negatively
> criticize.
> --
> Muhammad Abdul-Mageed,
> PhD Student
> Dept. of Linguistics,
> Indiana University, Bloomington,
> USA
> www.mumageed.blogspot.com
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 2 Aug
 2008 13:33:39 -0500
> From: "Austin Hair" <adhair@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Wikimania-l] Comments
> To: "Wikimania general list (open subscription)"
> 	<wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> 	<e2a50e360808021133m3b135d2aw74b892dc560c9bfd@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> I've been busy all week, so when I finally caught up with this thread
> I found myself marveling at the complaints of
>  inexperienced travelers,
> acknowledging several fair gripes about this year's venue,
> appreciating the more insightful points by some posters, and being
> particularly encouraged by Patricio's post.
>
> As a veteran Wikimania organizer, and having participated in the
> selection process for every Wikimania to date, I could write an essay
> on what I think about our annual conference (which, despite
 the
> inevitable problems, people still attend).  I'll try to be brief here,
> though.
>
> No conference venue is going to be perfect.  One year there won't be
> enough snacks; another venue won't have adequate power ports in
> certain areas; a country might have too many poor people.  (Read up,
> these are actual complaints cited in this thread alone.)  No
> conference venue, period, is going to have adequate WiFi?I do this for
> a living; I taped access points to walls in Frankfurt, and the fact is
> that it's not a perfect technology.
>  (It's not even a particularly
> good one, actually, but we manage.)
>
> Every year those involved learn from the previous year's mistakes, and
> we make new ones.  Because every venue is different, new problems will
> occur that were never anticipated in the past.  What makes Wikimania
> great is just getting
 everyone together in one place, and though I'm
> not going to say "kwitcherbitchin," I will say that some of the
> complaints I've seen simply aren't helpful.  This said, I hope
people
> keep posting, because I'd rather roll my eyes at a noob comment than
> risk missing out on a good point.
>
> I'm looking forward to Wikimania 2009.  Patricio and his team are
> impressively dedicated to doing this right, and have practically
> treated the last two Wikimanias as a case study?and good thing, since
> each one gets harder and harder to top.  I have no doubt we won't be
> disappointed.
>
> Austin
>
> P.S.  Since all we've seen
>  are the unpleasant arrival stories, I want
> to relate mine: I arrived in Cairo at 3:55 a.m., spent a mere 30
> minutes buying a visa and getting through passport control, got a cab
> to the hotel my friends had checked
 into a few hours before, got a key
> from reception, crashed for a few hours, had a leisurely breakfast,
> got a cab to the train station, took a train to Alexandria, and got a
> cab to another hotel.  All it takes is a little prior research and
> planning, and a little bit of savvy.  Yes, along the way I was waylaid
> by unscrupulous cab drivers in the airport, had my driver disrupt a
> wedding, waited an hour in the heat of the Cairo train station, had to
> negotiate a seat swap with another passenger to sit with my friends,
> watched as a cab driver spent five minutes banging on his engine with
> a pair of pliers to get his '72 Lada running again, and overpaid for
> most everything, only to spend the next two nights with
>  three beds
> crammed into a particularly small room of a colonial hotel; although I
> realize not everyone finds this sort of thing fun as I do, you
 have to
> manage your own expectations.  There are no golden carriages in the
> developing world.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimania-l mailing list
> Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
>
>



-- 
KIZU Naoko
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Britty (in Japanese)
Quote of the Day (English): http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/WQ:QOTD



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Message: 3
Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 22:09:32 +0300
From: "Hani Morsi" <hani.morsi@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Wikimania-l] Comments
To: wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Message-ID:
	<c3a00e5d0808051209j6644715fsccb33ca16a705350@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"

Hi everyone,


 This probably comes WAY too late, but better late than never. This was
 my
first Wikimania, definitely and hopefully not my last. I enjoyed the
sessions and meeting everyone although I had to leave on the morning of the
last day. I would also like to add my thanks to the organizing team and
Bibliotheca Alexandrina staff for the efforts put into this.

I tried to quickly read all of the post-conference mailing list discussion
on the good and the bad of the conference, opinions on Alexandrina, Egypt,
personal experiences and all that's related, and would just like to add my
personal view to what I feel is a healthy and constructive discussion in
which I was glad to see a diversity of opinion, openness in sharing personal
views and experiences as well as a reasoned analysis on how this Wikimania
relates to previous and future Wikimanias. Again, I am dropping in rather
late into this discussion and I do believe that most of whatever I would
have liked to add or share has already been
 said, and which I am in
agreement with, so the need to reiterate many of the points discussed wanes,
as what I might think of as personal opinion might read as perennial
paraphrase.

That said, the impulse to share with you my personal take on some specific
points remains, so you will have to forgive me :). In the interest of being
as brief as possible, I will resist the temptation of writing a drawn-out
essay on everything I would like to address with a "personal take" (I
tend
to do that sometimes:)).

The issues in question are those related to the views shared by some here
about their experiences in Egypt. By "experiences in Egypt" I am
discounting
judgments on the organization of the conference, as I already saw that such
issues (of the organizational efficiency of the conference, that is) were
duly addressed by many contributers, and will continue to be addressed
during the lead-up to the 2010.
 What I am going to address- or rather
comment on ? is the issue of "openness". Yes, it is wildly general
term but
it is also one that you are all very familiar with: open media, open
culture, open access are all topics discussed at this and previous
wikimanias, and which form a discourse that will continue to be addressed in
future wikimanias and other conferences. Most important to the context of
this discussion, these are issues that you all have an interest in by the
mere virtue of being wikipedians.

Caveat lector: Similar to all experiences and opinions expressed here, my
own commentary on these issues is naturally and unavoidably influenced by my
own personal experiences, views and background, and this is starting to read
like it is going to be a drawn-out treatise as opposed to "brief personal
take", so grab some coffee.

(Just kidding)

I as I started catching up on reading the mailing list
 messages, I came
across what Majorly wrote on his experience in Egypt. I was not surprised at
the "only negative" experience described, as I am aware of where it
comes
from, I acknowledge many of the unfortunate situations that conspired to
construct such a negative experience (which definitely saddens me as a
native of Egypt), and surely understand that the extent to which we can step
outside our personal "comfort zones" - formed by our own cultures,
communities and environments ? is liable to a very wide spectrum of
variation. However, what I have difficulty coming to terms with - and I do
believe some would concur given the majority of opinions expressed here- is
how some would be so absolutist in their conclusions in such a way to
express things with such finality (to which they are entitled to in every
way of course, but that is not the point). For example, Majorly has made up
his mind that he "never
 want[s] to go to Egypt again, nor the next
Wikimania", he adds that "there is no way I'd consider going to
Buenos
Aires". Wow.

Now, before the point I am attempting to get across gets misinterpreted, let
me get this out of the way: It's a free world! (well, some of it, at
least).
Where Majorly ? and others ? decide to go or not go is entirely their own
business. Nevertheless, since we (by "we" I mean people who have at
least a
somewhat expanded understanding of the general notion of "openness",
and
given the context of our general collective interests being in the realm of
freedom of knowledge, information and expression) are sharing experiences
and views, and then expressing opinions on such experiences and views, I
feel compelled to share how I feel about such a sentiment.

I have been fortunate enough to do a fair share of continent-hopping over
the course of the past few years, and I am glad
 I was able to see a pretty
good chunk of the world at a relatively young age. I am not going to wax
lyrical on the merits and virtues of travel, as chances are that many or
most of you are already avid travelers. What I would like to emphasize,
however, is the one thing that fascinates me most about going somewhere new:
the different. I say the "different" minus any value judgment which
we
inevitably, oftentimes validly and sometimes inaccurately make consciously
or unconscionably on what is, or what initially appears to be, alien to us,
because I do think that the different ? be it positive or negative - holds
intrinsic value insofar as it can add to (or change) us as individuals, and
the subsequent aggregate ? and hopefully positive - effect on our
understanding of others.

What you make of this value is up to you, but to me it is often a form of
incremental personal enlightenment, on a very small level,
 that must be
valued and embraced, rather than shunned and avoided. We, as wikipedians and
self-proclaimed "advocates of openness", took up a slightly larger
share of
an oft-discussed but frequently practically abandoned global responsibility
to value and promote diversity, cultural awareness and sensitivity, and
receptivity to the new and different even if it means that we have to
forsake ? for even the shortest of times ? our respective comfort zones.
What I took the liberty to very generically term as "openness" here
has
multiple, varied but still connected and related definitions. To me, it can
border on the hypocritical to claim that I am an advocate of open knowledge
if I am myself not open or receptive to a different culture that might
starkly contrast to my own.

Those of you in the "First world" are living where innovation, access
and
decent standards of living are already existent, and most
 politicians are
already doing a pretty good job of messing up the world, so what openness do
you speak of if cultural bridges are not built at the grassroots level? Why
would we let our personal biases, ethnocentrism and fears of the different
or uncomfortable cloud our visions of amazing opportunities for the
promotion of potential platforms of global understanding? You can edit and
read wikipedia all you like, you can be an open knowledge activist, or an
arm chair promoter of openness, but if you shy away from going out and
bumping your head against another culture/people/environment, dealing with,
absorbing and learning from whatever is different in the process, then you
should ask yourself if whatever you are doing is really meaningful. It is
very simple really, you either go or you don't, but you will never really
know unless you go. The way I see it, talk all you like about promotion of
openness, freedom and
 access in conferences in the "First World", but
if
you're serious about it, go where it really matters now, go to the
South/Third World/developing world...whatever you would like to call it. If
you feel that uncomfortable with it, that is understandable and you should
stay home or go somewhere similar to home, just don't call yourself and
advocate of openness. To you, it is probably just it's just a hobby :),
which is still fine by me.

Chaos, unpredictability, poor hygiene are constants when you travel in
developing countries. Dishonest people, dangerous areas and general
travel-related risks are constants anywhere you travel. Degrees of these
hazards vary, but if you can't deal with it, stay home. It is that simple.
It is just unfortunate, though, that you are going to miss quiet a lot in
what little time you've got on this Earth.

I said I tend to write more than I originally intended to and I did
 just
that, but I also did forewarn :), and apologies if I digressed or lacked
clarity, but I do hope I was able to get my thoughts across.


Cheers,

Hani Morsi
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