On Tue, Nov 1, 2011 at 9:20 PM, Mateus Nobre mateus.nobre@live.co.uk wrote:
Last year I was selected to attend Wikimania 2011 at Haifa (the best moments ever in my life, btw, would love to support Washington too, ops :D) and WMF contacted me six months before. In this ''six months before'' have one problem.
In Brazil (not only, but in the most countries that need the visa) we take 3 months to schedule (and get some free time - it's vacation in Brazil and the people wanna travel) the visit to U.S. Embassy to require the visa. When we requite the visa, we take more 3~~4 months to receive the answer of Embassy. Over 6 months. And half per cent of the visas are denied. We could appeal, and would take more two months.
It would be the biggest problem ever in a Wikimania organization. And happens in a really lot of countries which need a visa to enter in U.S.A.
I suggest to announce to the people who live in that countries early. Earliest as possible. Maybe 8 or 9 months before... Take a visa to US really isn't easy.
What do you think?
To clarify: you're talking about selecting scholarship recipients, right?
Roan