On 5 July 2011 16:35, Harel Cain harel.cain@gmail.com wrote:
It has to be said that If Palestinians don't want to attend (it doesn't have necessarily to be for political reasons, it can be for a multitude of other cultural, economic and sociological reasons), nobody can force them to do so.
While that is certainly true, it is very disappointing. A lot of people raised concerns about Palestinian attendance when you first started bidding. The Q&A page for your bid says "Wikimania in Haifa should be appealing to Palestinian and Jordanian participants[...]"[1]. It seems that has proven incorrect.
In hindsight, some work should probably have been done during the bidding stage to gauge interest from Palestinians. I wonder if the jury would have looked so favourably upon your bid had it been known then that Arab attendance would be so low.
1. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2011/Bids/Haifa/Q%26A#Participants