On Tue, Jul 05, 2011 at 12:44:22PM -0400, dror1975(a)icqmail.com wrote: This is something I would like to counter, if possible. -- [Non-pgp mail clients may show pgp-signature as attachment] gpg (www.gnupg.org) Fingerprint for key  FEF9DD72 5ED6 E215 73EE AD84 E03A  01C5 94AC 7B0E FEF9 DD72 _______________________________________________ Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

On 07/06/2011 11:13 AM, WereSpielChequers wrote: Slightly OT, but I depending on how you meant this, I disagree. We should make it clear that it's their risk to break the law, but if they are willing to take that risk, I don't have any problem with that and in fact I think in that case we should help them any way we can. It's the Wikimedians who break the law we should protect, not unjust laws themselves. If a Wikimedian feels reasonably safe traveling to Israel, even though it might be illegal, he deserves our support. Of course that doesn't mean that we should talk people into taking risks that they don't want to take (and if that's all you meant to say, I completely agree :)) --Tobias _______________________________________________ Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

On Wed, Jul 06, 2011 at 01:11:09PM +0100, WereSpielChequers wrote: I don't think it's really against the law anywhere, and we haven't heard reports about there being any issues (I did ask explicitly). The problem is that BDS (and others?) are explicitly acting against wikimania. I'd love to hear more reports on this.  I think having a wikimania in haifa is actually going to be beneficial to all parties. :-) For starters I think we need to figure out why palestinians aren't attending. If it's really a small sample, it might simply be because none happen to have time. Could folks ask around on their home wikis ? sincerely,        Kim Bruning -- [Non-pgp mail clients may show pgp-signature as attachment] gpg (www.gnupg.org) Fingerprint for key  FEF9DD72 5ED6 E215 73EE AD84 E03A  01C5 94AC 7B0E FEF9 DD72 _______________________________________________ Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 4:33 AM, Kim Bruning <kim(a)bruning.xs4all.nl> wrote: Strictly speaking, we don't actually know this to be a problem. There is no proof of the BDS campaign having dissuaded large numbers of potential attendees, especially from Arab countries. Any such potential attendees would have been dissuaded by other reasons, already discussed extensively on this and other lists, -- political climate in their countries, personal perception of attendance as implicit support of the Israeli government policy, etc.. By all means go on publicizing WM2011 among Arabic speakers. Once again, the local team has made it clear it is committed to helping anyone who would like to attend. But perhaps it's time to stop pretending it is entirely up to us whether Arabic speakers would be well-represented in this Wikimania or not? Asaf -- Asaf Bartov (personal opinion) _______________________________________________ Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

This is a contact I sent to this list almost a year ago. When I was asked to reach out to anyone and see if there is someone interested in coordinating with the WM11 team. I was told by my Palestinian-American friends that this university and its dean have campuses in East Jerusalem and the WB, making it easy for Israelis to contact. The dean's cv has his phone and email. It would be good if he is contacted to see if he is willing to help. http://sari.alquds.edu/cv_sari.htm http://www.alquds.edu/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Quds_University http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sari_Nusseibeh On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 7:34 AM, Asaf Bartov <abartov(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: -- Best Regards, Muhammad Yahia _______________________________________________ Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

The short answer is that we never contacted Sari Nusseibeh, and we're not very satisfied with this situation. This is for a mixture of reasons, some of them mundane (nobody really picked up this specific suggestion; we were all busy; we forgot about it; we all assumed someone else will do it) and some of them more to the point  - first and foremost because he is perceived, at least in the Israeli public, as a downright political figure, having held formal positions positions on the Palestinian side. Clearly he's perceived as a moderate political figure, but that is totally beside the point - we never meant to make Wikimania political (such as for example inviting politicians to speak before us), and Sari Nusseibeh is very much about politics. Even his affiliation with moderate/leftist organizations on the Israeli side of the political spectrum make this a political move in the inner Israeli political perspective of the conference, and we don't want to make Wikimania political even in this narrow sense. We are not opposed to people trying to contact him, and I hope someone like Dror Kamir on our part might still do it, but we are somewhat reserved about his specific suitability here, because of unmistakeable political involvement.

Harel, this Wikimania is anyway highly influenced by politics, no matter what we want; which includes this thread. If Sari Nusseibeh is willing to help, you should take that help. I am sure that he is a reasonable person, who would try to avoid making possible problems to us. Small Disclaimer here: I don't know the guy personally, I got his name from contacts of contacts. Thus I can't vouch for his willingness to help. I think there is a big chance he will be though.

Again, I'm not sure everyone out there in the world is aware of and familiar with all the political intricacies of the local situation between Israelis and Palestinians and can judge what could easily workout and what would not. Specifically, as I wrote, Sari Nusseibeh was both a kind of embarrassing oversight on our part (his name came up in some single thread of discussion a year ago, and was forgotten about), but also, in our view, not a very good suggestion either, for the reasons I explained (in short: he's a politician). I hope Dror Kamir, who speaks fluent Arabic, will try to engage him in the few weeks we have left, though I don't have very high expectations from this - his name was merely a suggestion, not based on any real promise. Let's see. I'm happy to say we have a couple of young Arab Israeli attendees/volunteers, I hope this small number will expand. We also made our utmost to try to accommodate the very few seemingly-authentic requests for participation we got from the Middle East - from Saudi Arabia and from the Gaza Strip, but these people simply never got back to us after a certain point in time, despite repeated attempts to contact them. I must say, again, that there's just so much we can do to increase participation from among a group of people whose size is totally unknown (apparently, there just aren't many active Wikimedians in the Middle East who would consider going to Wikimania - *any* Wikimania, and very few of them are Palestinian) and their willingness to participate is a mystery. We also have a great confernece to prepare for those ~500 people out there who are going to attend, and we've been working very hard this past year to make sure that's exactly what we'll have. I hope we made a good job at that. Actually, I'm sure we did. Harel Cain Wikimania 2011 local team On Thu, Jul 14, 2011 at 02:48, Muhammad Yahia <shipmaster(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote: -- Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.

Following up on my latest mail, I'm glad to let you know that we drafted a letter to Sari Nusseibeh and after final proofreading we hope to send it out, hopefully today. I'll let you know if something comes out of this. Harel Cain Wikimania 2011 local team On Thu, Jul 14, 2011 at 08:41, Harel Cain <harel.cain(a)gmail.com> wrote: -- Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur. _______________________________________________ Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

Following up on my latest mail, I'm glad to let you know that we drafted a letter to Sari Nusseibeh and after final proofreading we hope to send it out, hopefully today. I'll let you know if something comes out of this.

place_of_residence= (world AND NOT middle_east) OR (israel AND NOT (west_bank OR gaza))

As to whether this is correct or not, we'll know in a couple of weeks. I think it's not 100% correct (read my previous mails, and some things still brewing too), and I think it's mainly unfair to us organizers. You could have drawn the same drawing for previous years and the Middle East part would not look much different at all. Harel Cain Wikimania 2011 local team On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 21:22, Kim Bruning <kim(a)bruning.xs4all.nl> wrote: -- Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.

I think those numbers will be teaching, and will put this discussion in the true perspective it deserves.

Most of them are in the archive of wikimania-l, some in the archive of foundation-l, and even fewer in the archive of wikimania-planning-l. The first two are publicly available. Simple Ctrl-Fing of the threads since about June 2010 will find most of the stuff if not all of it. Harel Cain Wikimania 2011 local team On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 17:29, Kim Bruning <kim(a)bruning.xs4all.nl> wrote: -- Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur. _______________________________________________ Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l