Dear Moushira and all,

With reference to Moushira's note below, I believe that you and your team really did a wonderful job. Believe me, I have been to four other conferences this last year--2 of them were international--and, in my view, the Wikimania one was better than the four of them in terms of organization, among other things. I and other presenters were not even able to access the wireless network except rarely in one of these. So, good job, and I am sure that those Wikipedians who have seen the Pyramids, Sphinx, and temples in Luxor, etc. have very much enjoyed them. For me, it was a great venue where I met many people who are working on Arabic open source stuff, translation, etc. whom I could never have met elsewhere.

Cheers,

--Muhammad

I just signed up to the list to drop a few lines to the long thread of emails entitled: Re:Comments :). I believe I do not have much to say after all that was said, I can just clarify few points, but first: Majorly, I am sorry to hear that your experience in the country that hosted Wikimania 2008 was that harsh, and I wish you a pleasant experience in the future Wikimanias. I wish the team could have made it better to you by any means, but I am afraid we have no control over Egyptian culture! I am sorry. Hint: The families that you used to see near by BA premises; they do not live or reside there and they are not homeless. They are patients and patients families that make it early to the public hospital that is next doors to the library. They are mostly from country side, travel long miles to reach their early, and they are too many that mostly the hospital does not occupy them. A local debate has long been taking place on the relocation of the hospital, but after all they are patients, they are harmless, and this is mostly how things are in our side of the world..

On Wi-Fi: I am sorry if anyone had problems with getting connected, this is mostly for the uneven distribution of users; the access point of B1 was mostly occupied, while the one on entrance level and the level before had room for plenty of IPs. Relocating could have helped..I am sorry if that was not made clear on site, and I apologize and am sorry if anyone suffered with getting connected.

Effeietsanders: Press Conference video is available along with other sessions herehttp://www.bibalex.org/isis/Frontend/archive/Archive_Movie.aspx

Wishing Patricio and his team all best of luck with Wikimania2009..

Best Regards, Moushira

-- Muhammad Abdul-Mageed, PhD Student Dept. of Linguistics, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA www.mumageed.blogspot.com