I have a few comments:
1)
We do not know how the Montreal venue was selected for Wikimania. Jean-Philippe said:
"A "Wikimania Montreal Committee", now defunct, was behind the request to WMF to have Wikimania in Montreal and they did not coordinate with the chapter in doing this."
The situation there is obviously more complicated than what is being said so I will not dwell on that. What disturbs me is that the Montreal bid was accepted in absence of the local chapter support. That is not acceptable. Looking back on the success of the Esino Lario event, I believe that strong local chapter and volunteer support is vital for a Wikimania event.
2)
Wikimania should be a world conference of Wikimedians. One very important aspect of a bid should be visa help. Some countries are shall we say "visa-friendly" and some countries are not. If the event is to be held in a country where it is difficult to obtain visas, the organizers must set up a service to facilitate the visa process and obtain help from their local government authorities. In Geneva, for example, the government has set up an office to help foreign delegates get visas for international conferences, both UN conferences and NGO conferences. I have met with them a few times and they are really very helpful.
3)
The scholarships probably need to be awarded a bit sooner so that recipients have enough time to go through the whole visa procedure. Most countries require proof that the visitor has a return flight and that he can cover his food and lodging expenses as well as his emergency medical expenses. It has also been pointed out in this discussion that some embassies are quite fond of old fashioned paper. That means snail mail, pony express and all that. I works fine, it just takes time...

Gabriel

On Fri, Jun 23, 2017 at 8:45 PM, Nurunnaby Hasive <nch@nhasive.com> wrote:
Sorry to know that visa rejection news. As my thought visa process fully depends on the embassy. It's not guaranteed any chapter even WMF to ensure that If they provide invitation letter that means anyone got a visa! 

I may share my last Wikimania Mexico experience at this point. Mexico Embassy not available in Bangladesh and If we need Mexico visa we need to visit India. But It's not good for me to go India for a visa so that I follow different ways. I informed that If I have a valid USA visa then I may enter Mexico. So I go to USA embassy and I submit all documents provided by Wikimedia Mexico. I am lucky enough I got USA visa and attend Wikimania Mexico. In the same time, one of my fellow Wikipedian go to India for Mexico visa and got rejected. After back I suggest him to apply for the USA via using same documents and submits. And finally, we both got USA visa and attend Wikimania Mexico.

What exactly I point that, In my many International conferences attend experience I see, Visa processing fully depend on the particular embassy. Its totally depend on them if they provide visa or not. But the documents may help to get visa easily.

Hasive

On Fri, Jun 23, 2017 at 11:59 PM, Jean-Philippe Béland <jpbeland@wikimedia.ca> wrote:
I suggest you direct your questions to visas@wikimedia.org. Those requests were managed by an international team. You will get better answers than on this mailing list I think.

JP 

On Fri, Jun 23, 2017 at 12:07 PM Jayanta Nath <jayantanth@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi,

I don't understand that how WMCA directed by WMF about the VISA invitation? In visa application, there must have an invitation for Canada, otherwise it would reject. We are applying Visa to Canada, but invitation comes from USA. This is a foolish decision made by WMF.  As per my knowledge in every year, every visa applicant for Wikimania, got their invitation from hosting countries. 

Regards,
Jayanta
_______________________________________________
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

_______________________________________________
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l




--
Nurunnaby Chowdhury (Hasive) :: নুরুন্নবী চৌধুরী (হাছিব)
User: Hasive | GSM/WhatsApp/Viber: +8801712754752
​
Administrator | Bengali Wikipedia

_______________________________________________
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l