It's now been a week since I got back. I enjoyed the actual conference, and meeting everyone in person. However, I have made up my mind that I never want to go to Egypt again, nor the next Wikimania.
First off, the planning for this conference was pretty poor with regards to information. What I mean is, I had to pester people on IRC to get any kind of information regarding how to get to the shuttle, what to do on arrival etc. The schedule the team was supposed to be following wasn't followed. The scholarships were very late indeed, and when I finally received my "I'm sorry, but..." email, I'd already booked.
The fact there was very little info *on the wiki* is atrocious. I had to pester Mido on IRC several times a week, to try and squeeze any information out. It got to about a week before I was due to leave, and still with no answers to basic questions, I sent an email to this list, begging for information. Eventually it was answered, but it was never put on the wiki. I spoke to some people, who don't subscribe to this list, so didn't ever receive this important information.
The whole shuttle thing was a disaster. We should not have needed to sign up - just run a "shuttle" every 4 hours as stated. No where did you mention where the shuttle would be on arrival (until I explicitly asked on the list, even then it was wrong). The shuttle for me on return left at 7:30am when my flight was at 5pm. Why was there not a later shuttle?
On arrival, I was with Charles Matthews, and we spent several hours waiting at the airport, then we realised we were in the wrong hall. So, after meeting with two other Wikimanians, we waited a further two hours for the shuttle, which was very late. We arrived in Alexandria at 1am-ish. I was put in a room that was a different one to the one I had been told I was in.
After a very nutritious breakfast, we went to the first day of the conference bright and early. The schedule changed several times, there was a lack of plugs in the halls, and some of the talks were frankly dull (this applies to all three days).
There was not really anywhere suitable to go for lunch, so we sort of sat around on the floor... not good. How did Alexandria get chosen in this respect - the social areas were basically non existent.
On returning to the dorms, I found that I had to change rooms, again, still not to the one that I was put into originally. The beds were rather hard, no sheets were provided, and there was no toilet paper in the toilets (luckily I had brought my own as I imagined something as basic as that would be left out).
The next two days went similarly I suppose. The end of conference party was done badly again. Why did we have to get a sticker? No one even checked I had one when I got onto the coach. The party was OK, and the food was probably the best I had the entire time I was there.
I left the next day, with Brianmc (sharing a cab). We got to Cairo airport, but the wrong terminal for me. I had to make my own way to Terminal 1, after being tricked by someone into paying money I shouldn't have had to to get there. I was then harrassed by a man who claimed to be an "honest policeman" who charged me £300 EGP for the use of his cab. He wouldn't let me leave, even after I spilt water in his car. I tried to walk away, and he grabbed my arm demanding I paid him. I don't think I'd ever felt so awful in my life. It was the most horrible experience of the conference. Why are people like that allowed to roam about the airport, looking for weak, defenceless (and rich) tourists like myself? It's ridiculous.
I am still struggling to see how Egypt was chosen to host Wikimania. Yes, the people at the conference were nice and friendly, and the conference was enjoyable enough, with a few minor issues, but the country itself is the worst I have ever been to. You cannot cross the road without risking being killed by the mad drivers (who beep at all hours of the day for no apparent reason). They should save painting lanes on the roads, as no one bothers following them. There was a family living in the street, the same street the BA is situated on. Just goes to show what a mix of life there is.
I was so disturbed and put off by my experience of Egpyt, there is no way I'd consider going to Buenos Aires. While I'm sure they are very different places, I don't want to risk anything like the harrassment, the poor hygene, the dangerous roads and the poor organisation again. It'll be way too expensive for me as well, and I doubt I'd get a scholarship. I'd rather go somewhere closer to the UK where I live, or where the culture is more similar to here.
I'm sorry my words are harsh. This is not a dig at anyone, just my honest concerns about how this whole thing turned out. I know for sure others feel the same way I do about a lot of the things I said.
I have to agree with Majorly here. The efforts of our Egyptian hosts were all undone by their mercenary countrymen who view anyone with a fair skin as a walking wallet that needs to be emptied. The Egyptian tourist board needs to get their shit together and clean up Cairo airport. I should not have to fight off vagabonds with no identification who want to take my luggage off me, nor deal with opportunist taxi drivers who tell me that €10 is a good price to get from one terminal to another. I already knew there was a free shuttle, but no bugger would tell me where it was because there was no profit in that.
While at terminal two I met up with a number of German Wikimedians, the fact that they did not even know that the shuttle bus was picking people up at terminal one speaks volumes about the effectiveness of communication regarding this. We fought off taxi drivers who offered to take us to Alexandria for 800 Egyptian pounds and eventually got the shuttle bus to the other airport – terminal one – where we assumed we could relax and wait on the bus to take us to Alexandria. We were not the first Wikimaniacs to get there.
There were already about seven or eight conference attendees at terminal one. Some had been there since a little after 8am, and we got there around 3pm. A bus had been supposed to turn up at 2pm, but had not. Fortunately some of those already at the old airport had phone numbers for local Wikimedians, someone turned up to help us out, and at around 4:30pm a bus turned up to take people to Alexandria. The bus had seven seats, there were around 16 of us. GerardM faced down the bus driver and browbeat him into taking those who had been at the airport the longest, regardless of the precious list of names of people he was supposed to take. The rest of us were left with our Egyptian Wikimedian to figure out how to get from Cairo to Alexandria. That involved a – thankfully airconditioned - coach trip. There were two prolonged stops in Cairo while additional passengers were picked up, so what we were told would be a four hour trip took five and a half. However, I suspect everyone was just relieved to actually be in Alexandria; the issue of getting from the bus station to our accommodation – in my case the dorms - was a minor detail. When its midnight and you’ve been up since 4:30am you tend to be relieved you have somewhere to sleep, although the emails I had been sent about that turned out to be utter fiction.
The conference itself was great, and a significant counter to the trials I had actually gone through to get there. We had WiFi in the dorms, but to be perfectly honest that was a bit of a joke – as was access in the library itself. In the library you could pretty much get a WiFi signal anywhere, the problem was that the pool of available IP addresses was not big enough. If you did not get logged on early enough in the morning you could move around all you liked, get a great signal, but simply not get online because there were no more addresses to give out. I had a number of reports passed to me indicating that only about half of the attendees could get online. It probably did not help that many attendees were using one address for their laptop and another for their iPhone. In the dorms we had one mickey-mouse Linksys box for about 40 people in an old building with thick walls. The signal didn’t reach the end of the corridor where we were… And Cisco were one of the conference sponsors.
The return to Cairo airport was less dramatic, and traumatic. However, as Majorly pointed out, both the limo (i.e cheapest Toyota you can buy with airco) driver and porter were obnoxiously persistent about tips.
Brian McNeil
-----Original Message----- From: wikimania-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimania-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Al Tally Sent: 28 July 2008 16:18 To: Wikimania general list (open subscription) Subject: [Wikimania-l] Comments
It's now been a week since I got back. I enjoyed the actual conference, and meeting everyone in person. However, I have made up my mind that I never want to go to Egypt again, nor the next Wikimania.
First off, the planning for this conference was pretty poor with regards to information. What I mean is, I had to pester people on IRC to get any kind of information regarding how to get to the shuttle, what to do on arrival etc. The schedule the team was supposed to be following wasn't followed. The scholarships were very late indeed, and when I finally received my "I'm sorry, but..." email, I'd already booked.
The fact there was very little info *on the wiki* is atrocious. I had to pester Mido on IRC several times a week, to try and squeeze any information out. It got to about a week before I was due to leave, and still with no answers to basic questions, I sent an email to this list, begging for information. Eventually it was answered, but it was never put on the wiki. I spoke to some people, who don't subscribe to this list, so didn't ever receive this important information.
The whole shuttle thing was a disaster. We should not have needed to sign up - just run a "shuttle" every 4 hours as stated. No where did you mention where the shuttle would be on arrival (until I explicitly asked on the list, even then it was wrong). The shuttle for me on return left at 7:30am when my flight was at 5pm. Why was there not a later shuttle?
On arrival, I was with Charles Matthews, and we spent several hours waiting at the airport, then we realised we were in the wrong hall. So, after meeting with two other Wikimanians, we waited a further two hours for the shuttle, which was very late. We arrived in Alexandria at 1am-ish. I was put in a room that was a different one to the one I had been told I was in.
After a very nutritious breakfast, we went to the first day of the conference bright and early. The schedule changed several times, there was a lack of plugs in the halls, and some of the talks were frankly dull (this applies to all three days).
There was not really anywhere suitable to go for lunch, so we sort of sat around on the floor... not good. How did Alexandria get chosen in this respect - the social areas were basically non existent.
On returning to the dorms, I found that I had to change rooms, again, still not to the one that I was put into originally. The beds were rather hard, no sheets were provided, and there was no toilet paper in the toilets (luckily I had brought my own as I imagined something as basic as that would be left out).
The next two days went similarly I suppose. The end of conference party was done badly again. Why did we have to get a sticker? No one even checked I had one when I got onto the coach. The party was OK, and the food was probably the best I had the entire time I was there.
I left the next day, with Brianmc (sharing a cab). We got to Cairo airport, but the wrong terminal for me. I had to make my own way to Terminal 1, after being tricked by someone into paying money I shouldn't have had to to get there. I was then harrassed by a man who claimed to be an "honest policeman" who charged me £300 EGP for the use of his cab. He wouldn't let me leave, even after I spilt water in his car. I tried to walk away, and he grabbed my arm demanding I paid him. I don't think I'd ever felt so awful in my life. It was the most horrible experience of the conference. Why are people like that allowed to roam about the airport, looking for weak, defenceless (and rich) tourists like myself? It's ridiculous.
I am still struggling to see how Egypt was chosen to host Wikimania. Yes, the people at the conference were nice and friendly, and the conference was enjoyable enough, with a few minor issues, but the country itself is the worst I have ever been to. You cannot cross the road without risking being killed by the mad drivers (who beep at all hours of the day for no apparent reason). They should save painting lanes on the roads, as no one bothers following them. There was a family living in the street, the same street the BA is situated on. Just goes to show what a mix of life there is.
I was so disturbed and put off by my experience of Egpyt, there is no way I'd consider going to Buenos Aires. While I'm sure they are very different places, I don't want to risk anything like the harrassment, the poor hygene, the dangerous roads and the poor organisation again. It'll be way too expensive for me as well, and I doubt I'd get a scholarship. I'd rather go somewhere closer to the UK where I live, or where the culture is more similar to here.
I'm sorry my words are harsh. This is not a dig at anyone, just my honest concerns about how this whole thing turned out. I know for sure others feel the same way I do about a lot of the things I said.
Hey, Al, Brian,
thanks for your comments. Some of them might be useful for next year, most of them (well, as far as local problems such as taxi drivers are concerned) unfortunately less, so that we have to reinvent what the local problems will be in Buenos Aires and who knows where wikimania will bring us.
I hope that especially everybody would post his/her comments regarding things we can fix in the coming years, so that Wikimania can actually get improved, I think everybody would be loving that :) . I myself am for instance very interested in comments regarding the program, regarding the number of lectures vs the number of discussions/workshops, regarding the scientific sessions (which I unfortunately have not been able to attend myself), the quality of the keynote and invited speakers and the number of out-of-community speakers. (such as Eric Johnson and the UNU people) What about the staff presentations, how was the interaction with the local team, if you had a problem, were youhelped as far as reasonably could be expected etc.
Please note that there *will* be a shrt survey soon about Wikimania, but extensive elaboration on what can be improved would be highly welcomed by the Wikimania 2009 organizing team I would guess.
kind regards,
Lodewijk
2008/7/28 Brian McNeil brian.mcneil@wikinewsie.org:
I have to agree with Majorly here. The efforts of our Egyptian hosts were all undone by their mercenary countrymen who view anyone with a fair skin as a walking wallet that needs to be emptied. The Egyptian tourist board needs to get their shit together and clean up Cairo airport. I should not have to fight off vagabonds with no identification who want to take my luggage off me, nor deal with opportunist taxi drivers who tell me that €10 is a good price to get from one terminal to another. I already knew there was a free shuttle, but no bugger would tell me where it was because there was no profit in that.
While at terminal two I met up with a number of German Wikimedians, the fact that they did not even know that the shuttle bus was picking people up at terminal one speaks volumes about the effectiveness of communication regarding this. We fought off taxi drivers who offered to take us to Alexandria for 800 Egyptian pounds and eventually got the shuttle bus to the other airport – terminal one – where we assumed we could relax and wait on the bus to take us to Alexandria. We were not the first Wikimaniacs to get there.
There were already about seven or eight conference attendees at terminal one. Some had been there since a little after 8am, and we got there around 3pm. A bus had been supposed to turn up at 2pm, but had not. Fortunately some of those already at the old airport had phone numbers for local Wikimedians, someone turned up to help us out, and at around 4:30pm a bus turned up to take people to Alexandria. The bus had seven seats, there were around 16 of us. GerardM faced down the bus driver and browbeat him into taking those who had been at the airport the longest, regardless of the precious list of names of people he was supposed to take. The rest of us were left with our Egyptian Wikimedian to figure out how to get from Cairo to Alexandria. That involved a – thankfully airconditioned - coach trip. There were two prolonged stops in Cairo while additional passengers were picked up, so what we were told would be a four hour trip took five and a half. However, I suspect everyone was just relieved to actually be in Alexandria; the issue of getting from the bus station to our accommodation – in my case the dorms - was a minor detail. When its midnight and you've been up since 4:30am you tend to be relieved you have somewhere to sleep, although the emails I had been sent about that turned out to be utter fiction.
The conference itself was great, and a significant counter to the trials I had actually gone through to get there. We had WiFi in the dorms, but to be perfectly honest that was a bit of a joke – as was access in the library itself. In the library you could pretty much get a WiFi signal anywhere, the problem was that the pool of available IP addresses was not big enough. If you did not get logged on early enough in the morning you could move around all you liked, get a great signal, but simply not get online because there were no more addresses to give out. I had a number of reports passed to me indicating that only about half of the attendees could get online. It probably did not help that many attendees were using one address for their laptop and another for their iPhone. In the dorms we had one mickey-mouse Linksys box for about 40 people in an old building with thick walls. The signal didn't reach the end of the corridor where we were… And Cisco were one of the conference sponsors.
The return to Cairo airport was less dramatic, and traumatic. However, as Majorly pointed out, both the limo (i.e cheapest Toyota you can buy with airco) driver and porter were obnoxiously persistent about tips.
Brian McNeil
-----Original Message----- From: wikimania-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimania-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Al Tally Sent: 28 July 2008 16:18 To: Wikimania general list (open subscription) Subject: [Wikimania-l] Comments
It's now been a week since I got back. I enjoyed the actual conference, and meeting everyone in person. However, I have made up my mind that I never want to go to Egypt again, nor the next Wikimania.
First off, the planning for this conference was pretty poor with regards to information. What I mean is, I had to pester people on IRC to get any kind of information regarding how to get to the shuttle, what to do on arrival etc. The schedule the team was supposed to be following wasn't followed. The scholarships were very late indeed, and when I finally received my "I'm sorry, but..." email, I'd already booked.
The fact there was very little info *on the wiki* is atrocious. I had to pester Mido on IRC several times a week, to try and squeeze any information out. It got to about a week before I was due to leave, and still with no answers to basic questions, I sent an email to this list, begging for information. Eventually it was answered, but it was never put on the wiki. I spoke to some people, who don't subscribe to this list, so didn't ever receive this important information.
The whole shuttle thing was a disaster. We should not have needed to sign up
- just run a "shuttle" every 4 hours as stated. No where did you mention
where the shuttle would be on arrival (until I explicitly asked on the list, even then it was wrong). The shuttle for me on return left at 7:30am when my flight was at 5pm. Why was there not a later shuttle?
On arrival, I was with Charles Matthews, and we spent several hours waiting at the airport, then we realised we were in the wrong hall. So, after meeting with two other Wikimanians, we waited a further two hours for the shuttle, which was very late. We arrived in Alexandria at 1am-ish. I was put in a room that was a different one to the one I had been told I was in.
After a very nutritious breakfast, we went to the first day of the conference bright and early. The schedule changed several times, there was a lack of plugs in the halls, and some of the talks were frankly dull (this applies to all three days).
There was not really anywhere suitable to go for lunch, so we sort of sat around on the floor... not good. How did Alexandria get chosen in this respect - the social areas were basically non existent.
On returning to the dorms, I found that I had to change rooms, again, still not to the one that I was put into originally. The beds were rather hard, no sheets were provided, and there was no toilet paper in the toilets (luckily I had brought my own as I imagined something as basic as that would be left out).
The next two days went similarly I suppose. The end of conference party was done badly again. Why did we have to get a sticker? No one even checked I had one when I got onto the coach. The party was OK, and the food was probably the best I had the entire time I was there.
I left the next day, with Brianmc (sharing a cab). We got to Cairo airport, but the wrong terminal for me. I had to make my own way to Terminal 1, after being tricked by someone into paying money I shouldn't have had to to get there. I was then harrassed by a man who claimed to be an "honest policeman" who charged me £300 EGP for the use of his cab. He wouldn't let me leave, even after I spilt water in his car. I tried to walk away, and he grabbed my arm demanding I paid him. I don't think I'd ever felt so awful in my life. It was the most horrible experience of the conference. Why are people like that allowed to roam about the airport, looking for weak, defenceless (and rich) tourists like myself? It's ridiculous.
I am still struggling to see how Egypt was chosen to host Wikimania. Yes, the people at the conference were nice and friendly, and the conference was enjoyable enough, with a few minor issues, but the country itself is the worst I have ever been to. You cannot cross the road without risking being killed by the mad drivers (who beep at all hours of the day for no apparent reason). They should save painting lanes on the roads, as no one bothers following them. There was a family living in the street, the same street the BA is situated on. Just goes to show what a mix of life there is.
I was so disturbed and put off by my experience of Egpyt, there is no way I'd consider going to Buenos Aires. While I'm sure they are very different places, I don't want to risk anything like the harrassment, the poor hygene, the dangerous roads and the poor organisation again. It'll be way too expensive for me as well, and I doubt I'd get a scholarship. I'd rather go somewhere closer to the UK where I live, or where the culture is more similar to here.
I'm sorry my words are harsh. This is not a dig at anyone, just my honest concerns about how this whole thing turned out. I know for sure others feel the same way I do about a lot of the things I said.
-- Al Tally (User:Majorly)
Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
I agree with Effe iets anders, and will appreciate for comments on what we Wikimania organizers will be able to improve.
Not die arme Dachlosen (they are definitely in all past Wikimania cities, not only in Alex, but in also Frankfurt am Main, etc.), not annoying greedy Egyptian people (for those purpose you are welcome to complain Egyptian Tourist policemen you could get anywhere in that country) etc. I agree those are problems and not made me happy either, but complaints on foundation-l won't help them to improve. I could have complained the worst hotel I've ever stayed but I won't, since I know it is not the right place (but if you have a plan to go to Sharm el Shake, please drop me a note!)
Thanks for your pointing out, Majorly, lack of sitting places for lunch and poor coordinated shuttle bus ideas. Thank you, Brian, for wi-fi systems. I either wasn't too much happy with some of these. I personally feel sorry we have no fixed social place in the venue and felt uncomfortable that soft drink service in the venue was not always available. We need to clear the details we require for those things I think, what the social place is, how it is organized, what level of wi-fi system we require etc. Again thanks for your input and pointing out details what didn't satisfy you. I am sure convinced the organizers for WM2009 and bidding teams for WM2010 will take your comments seriously and try to elaborate their organizing plans.
But the whole situation outside of the venue is I think beyond our hands. We as jury for having selecting 2007 venue considered the general situation of hosting country and city, but it was not too much weighed. If we stick on the current criteria, it won't affect too much our selection, I presume. We welcome any suggestions, however, including the change of weighing, but personally I am not sure if the general accommodation and people's "westernization" should be our major criterion to select the venue regarding our mission to spread the knowledge to every single person on this globe.
On Tue, Jul 29, 2008 at 3:05 AM, effe iets anders effeietsanders@gmail.com wrote:
Hey, Al, Brian,
thanks for your comments. Some of them might be useful for next year, most of them (well, as far as local problems such as taxi drivers are concerned) unfortunately less, so that we have to reinvent what the local problems will be in Buenos Aires and who knows where wikimania will bring us.
I hope that especially everybody would post his/her comments regarding things we can fix in the coming years, so that Wikimania can actually get improved, I think everybody would be loving that :) . I myself am for instance very interested in comments regarding the program, regarding the number of lectures vs the number of discussions/workshops, regarding the scientific sessions (which I unfortunately have not been able to attend myself), the quality of the keynote and invited speakers and the number of out-of-community speakers. (such as Eric Johnson and the UNU people) What about the staff presentations, how was the interaction with the local team, if you had a problem, were youhelped as far as reasonably could be expected etc.
Please note that there *will* be a shrt survey soon about Wikimania, but extensive elaboration on what can be improved would be highly welcomed by the Wikimania 2009 organizing team I would guess.
kind regards,
Lodewijk
2008/7/28 Brian McNeil brian.mcneil@wikinewsie.org:
I have to agree with Majorly here. The efforts of our Egyptian hosts were all undone by their mercenary countrymen who view anyone with a fair skin as a walking wallet that needs to be emptied. The Egyptian tourist board needs to get their shit together and clean up Cairo airport. I should not have to fight off vagabonds with no identification who want to take my luggage off me, nor deal with opportunist taxi drivers who tell me that €10 is a good price to get from one terminal to another. I already knew there was a free shuttle, but no bugger would tell me where it was because there was no profit in that.
While at terminal two I met up with a number of German Wikimedians, the fact that they did not even know that the shuttle bus was picking people up at terminal one speaks volumes about the effectiveness of communication regarding this. We fought off taxi drivers who offered to take us to Alexandria for 800 Egyptian pounds and eventually got the shuttle bus to the other airport – terminal one – where we assumed we could relax and wait on the bus to take us to Alexandria. We were not the first Wikimaniacs to get there.
There were already about seven or eight conference attendees at terminal one. Some had been there since a little after 8am, and we got there around 3pm. A bus had been supposed to turn up at 2pm, but had not. Fortunately some of those already at the old airport had phone numbers for local Wikimedians, someone turned up to help us out, and at around 4:30pm a bus turned up to take people to Alexandria. The bus had seven seats, there were around 16 of us. GerardM faced down the bus driver and browbeat him into taking those who had been at the airport the longest, regardless of the precious list of names of people he was supposed to take. The rest of us were left with our Egyptian Wikimedian to figure out how to get from Cairo to Alexandria. That involved a – thankfully airconditioned - coach trip. There were two prolonged stops in Cairo while additional passengers were picked up, so what we were told would be a four hour trip took five and a half. However, I suspect everyone was just relieved to actually be in Alexandria; the issue of getting from the bus station to our accommodation – in my case the dorms - was a minor detail. When its midnight and you've been up since 4:30am you tend to be relieved you have somewhere to sleep, although the emails I had been sent about that turned out to be utter fiction.
The conference itself was great, and a significant counter to the trials I had actually gone through to get there. We had WiFi in the dorms, but to be perfectly honest that was a bit of a joke – as was access in the library itself. In the library you could pretty much get a WiFi signal anywhere, the problem was that the pool of available IP addresses was not big enough. If you did not get logged on early enough in the morning you could move around all you liked, get a great signal, but simply not get online because there were no more addresses to give out. I had a number of reports passed to me indicating that only about half of the attendees could get online. It probably did not help that many attendees were using one address for their laptop and another for their iPhone. In the dorms we had one mickey-mouse Linksys box for about 40 people in an old building with thick walls. The signal didn't reach the end of the corridor where we were… And Cisco were one of the conference sponsors.
The return to Cairo airport was less dramatic, and traumatic. However, as Majorly pointed out, both the limo (i.e cheapest Toyota you can buy with airco) driver and porter were obnoxiously persistent about tips.
Brian McNeil
-----Original Message----- From: wikimania-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimania-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Al Tally Sent: 28 July 2008 16:18 To: Wikimania general list (open subscription) Subject: [Wikimania-l] Comments
It's now been a week since I got back. I enjoyed the actual conference, and meeting everyone in person. However, I have made up my mind that I never want to go to Egypt again, nor the next Wikimania.
First off, the planning for this conference was pretty poor with regards to information. What I mean is, I had to pester people on IRC to get any kind of information regarding how to get to the shuttle, what to do on arrival etc. The schedule the team was supposed to be following wasn't followed. The scholarships were very late indeed, and when I finally received my "I'm sorry, but..." email, I'd already booked.
The fact there was very little info *on the wiki* is atrocious. I had to pester Mido on IRC several times a week, to try and squeeze any information out. It got to about a week before I was due to leave, and still with no answers to basic questions, I sent an email to this list, begging for information. Eventually it was answered, but it was never put on the wiki. I spoke to some people, who don't subscribe to this list, so didn't ever receive this important information.
The whole shuttle thing was a disaster. We should not have needed to sign up
- just run a "shuttle" every 4 hours as stated. No where did you mention
where the shuttle would be on arrival (until I explicitly asked on the list, even then it was wrong). The shuttle for me on return left at 7:30am when my flight was at 5pm. Why was there not a later shuttle?
On arrival, I was with Charles Matthews, and we spent several hours waiting at the airport, then we realised we were in the wrong hall. So, after meeting with two other Wikimanians, we waited a further two hours for the shuttle, which was very late. We arrived in Alexandria at 1am-ish. I was put in a room that was a different one to the one I had been told I was in.
After a very nutritious breakfast, we went to the first day of the conference bright and early. The schedule changed several times, there was a lack of plugs in the halls, and some of the talks were frankly dull (this applies to all three days).
There was not really anywhere suitable to go for lunch, so we sort of sat around on the floor... not good. How did Alexandria get chosen in this respect - the social areas were basically non existent.
On returning to the dorms, I found that I had to change rooms, again, still not to the one that I was put into originally. The beds were rather hard, no sheets were provided, and there was no toilet paper in the toilets (luckily I had brought my own as I imagined something as basic as that would be left out).
The next two days went similarly I suppose. The end of conference party was done badly again. Why did we have to get a sticker? No one even checked I had one when I got onto the coach. The party was OK, and the food was probably the best I had the entire time I was there.
I left the next day, with Brianmc (sharing a cab). We got to Cairo airport, but the wrong terminal for me. I had to make my own way to Terminal 1, after being tricked by someone into paying money I shouldn't have had to to get there. I was then harrassed by a man who claimed to be an "honest policeman" who charged me £300 EGP for the use of his cab. He wouldn't let me leave, even after I spilt water in his car. I tried to walk away, and he grabbed my arm demanding I paid him. I don't think I'd ever felt so awful in my life. It was the most horrible experience of the conference. Why are people like that allowed to roam about the airport, looking for weak, defenceless (and rich) tourists like myself? It's ridiculous.
I am still struggling to see how Egypt was chosen to host Wikimania. Yes, the people at the conference were nice and friendly, and the conference was enjoyable enough, with a few minor issues, but the country itself is the worst I have ever been to. You cannot cross the road without risking being killed by the mad drivers (who beep at all hours of the day for no apparent reason). They should save painting lanes on the roads, as no one bothers following them. There was a family living in the street, the same street the BA is situated on. Just goes to show what a mix of life there is.
I was so disturbed and put off by my experience of Egpyt, there is no way I'd consider going to Buenos Aires. While I'm sure they are very different places, I don't want to risk anything like the harrassment, the poor hygene, the dangerous roads and the poor organisation again. It'll be way too expensive for me as well, and I doubt I'd get a scholarship. I'd rather go somewhere closer to the UK where I live, or where the culture is more similar to here.
I'm sorry my words are harsh. This is not a dig at anyone, just my honest concerns about how this whole thing turned out. I know for sure others feel the same way I do about a lot of the things I said.
-- Al Tally (User:Majorly)
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
Just let me correct one thing :) I did not want to say that complaints about the local situation should not be written (they might be useful for wikitravel or for future conferences by the local team) but I do think we should try to seperate them :)
kr, lodewijk
2008/7/28 Aphaia aphaia@gmail.com:
I agree with Effe iets anders, and will appreciate for comments on what we Wikimania organizers will be able to improve.
Not die arme Dachlosen (they are definitely in all past Wikimania cities, not only in Alex, but in also Frankfurt am Main, etc.), not annoying greedy Egyptian people (for those purpose you are welcome to complain Egyptian Tourist policemen you could get anywhere in that country) etc. I agree those are problems and not made me happy either, but complaints on foundation-l won't help them to improve. I could have complained the worst hotel I've ever stayed but I won't, since I know it is not the right place (but if you have a plan to go to Sharm el Shake, please drop me a note!)
Thanks for your pointing out, Majorly, lack of sitting places for lunch and poor coordinated shuttle bus ideas. Thank you, Brian, for wi-fi systems. I either wasn't too much happy with some of these. I personally feel sorry we have no fixed social place in the venue and felt uncomfortable that soft drink service in the venue was not always available. We need to clear the details we require for those things I think, what the social place is, how it is organized, what level of wi-fi system we require etc. Again thanks for your input and pointing out details what didn't satisfy you. I am sure convinced the organizers for WM2009 and bidding teams for WM2010 will take your comments seriously and try to elaborate their organizing plans.
But the whole situation outside of the venue is I think beyond our hands. We as jury for having selecting 2007 venue considered the general situation of hosting country and city, but it was not too much weighed. If we stick on the current criteria, it won't affect too much our selection, I presume. We welcome any suggestions, however, including the change of weighing, but personally I am not sure if the general accommodation and people's "westernization" should be our major criterion to select the venue regarding our mission to spread the knowledge to every single person on this globe.
On Tue, Jul 29, 2008 at 3:05 AM, effe iets anders effeietsanders@gmail.com wrote:
Hey, Al, Brian,
thanks for your comments. Some of them might be useful for next year, most of them (well, as far as local problems such as taxi drivers are concerned) unfortunately less, so that we have to reinvent what the local problems will be in Buenos Aires and who knows where wikimania will bring us.
I hope that especially everybody would post his/her comments regarding things we can fix in the coming years, so that Wikimania can actually get improved, I think everybody would be loving that :) . I myself am for instance very interested in comments regarding the program, regarding the number of lectures vs the number of discussions/workshops, regarding the scientific sessions (which I unfortunately have not been able to attend myself), the quality of the keynote and invited speakers and the number of out-of-community speakers. (such as Eric Johnson and the UNU people) What about the staff presentations, how was the interaction with the local team, if you had a problem, were youhelped as far as reasonably could be expected etc.
Please note that there *will* be a shrt survey soon about Wikimania, but extensive elaboration on what can be improved would be highly welcomed by the Wikimania 2009 organizing team I would guess.
kind regards,
Lodewijk
2008/7/28 Brian McNeil brian.mcneil@wikinewsie.org:
I have to agree with Majorly here. The efforts of our Egyptian hosts were all undone by their mercenary countrymen who view anyone with a fair skin as a walking wallet that needs to be emptied. The Egyptian tourist board needs to get their shit together and clean up Cairo airport. I should not have to fight off vagabonds with no identification who want to take my luggage off me, nor deal with opportunist taxi drivers who tell me that €10 is a good price to get from one terminal to another. I already knew there was a free shuttle, but no bugger would tell me where it was because there was no profit in that.
While at terminal two I met up with a number of German Wikimedians, the fact that they did not even know that the shuttle bus was picking people up at terminal one speaks volumes about the effectiveness of communication regarding this. We fought off taxi drivers who offered to take us to Alexandria for 800 Egyptian pounds and eventually got the shuttle bus to the other airport – terminal one – where we assumed we could relax and wait on the bus to take us to Alexandria. We were not the first Wikimaniacs to get there.
There were already about seven or eight conference attendees at terminal one. Some had been there since a little after 8am, and we got there around 3pm. A bus had been supposed to turn up at 2pm, but had not. Fortunately some of those already at the old airport had phone numbers for local Wikimedians, someone turned up to help us out, and at around 4:30pm a bus turned up to take people to Alexandria. The bus had seven seats, there were around 16 of us. GerardM faced down the bus driver and browbeat him into taking those who had been at the airport the longest, regardless of the precious list of names of people he was supposed to take. The rest of us were left with our Egyptian Wikimedian to figure out how to get from Cairo to Alexandria. That involved a – thankfully airconditioned - coach trip. There were two prolonged stops in Cairo while additional passengers were picked up, so what we were told would be a four hour trip took five and a half. However, I suspect everyone was just relieved to actually be in Alexandria; the issue of getting from the bus station to our accommodation – in my case the dorms - was a minor detail. When its midnight and you've been up since 4:30am you tend to be relieved you have somewhere to sleep, although the emails I had been sent about that turned out to be utter fiction.
The conference itself was great, and a significant counter to the trials I had actually gone through to get there. We had WiFi in the dorms, but to be perfectly honest that was a bit of a joke – as was access in the library itself. In the library you could pretty much get a WiFi signal anywhere, the problem was that the pool of available IP addresses was not big enough. If you did not get logged on early enough in the morning you could move around all you liked, get a great signal, but simply not get online because there were no more addresses to give out. I had a number of reports passed to me indicating that only about half of the attendees could get online. It probably did not help that many attendees were using one address for their laptop and another for their iPhone. In the dorms we had one mickey-mouse Linksys box for about 40 people in an old building with thick walls. The signal didn't reach the end of the corridor where we were… And Cisco were one of the conference sponsors.
The return to Cairo airport was less dramatic, and traumatic. However, as Majorly pointed out, both the limo (i.e cheapest Toyota you can buy with airco) driver and porter were obnoxiously persistent about tips.
Brian McNeil
-----Original Message----- From: wikimania-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimania-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Al Tally Sent: 28 July 2008 16:18 To: Wikimania general list (open subscription) Subject: [Wikimania-l] Comments
It's now been a week since I got back. I enjoyed the actual conference, and meeting everyone in person. However, I have made up my mind that I never want to go to Egypt again, nor the next Wikimania.
First off, the planning for this conference was pretty poor with regards to information. What I mean is, I had to pester people on IRC to get any kind of information regarding how to get to the shuttle, what to do on arrival etc. The schedule the team was supposed to be following wasn't followed. The scholarships were very late indeed, and when I finally received my "I'm sorry, but..." email, I'd already booked.
The fact there was very little info *on the wiki* is atrocious. I had to pester Mido on IRC several times a week, to try and squeeze any information out. It got to about a week before I was due to leave, and still with no answers to basic questions, I sent an email to this list, begging for information. Eventually it was answered, but it was never put on the wiki. I spoke to some people, who don't subscribe to this list, so didn't ever receive this important information.
The whole shuttle thing was a disaster. We should not have needed to sign up
- just run a "shuttle" every 4 hours as stated. No where did you mention
where the shuttle would be on arrival (until I explicitly asked on the list, even then it was wrong). The shuttle for me on return left at 7:30am when my flight was at 5pm. Why was there not a later shuttle?
On arrival, I was with Charles Matthews, and we spent several hours waiting at the airport, then we realised we were in the wrong hall. So, after meeting with two other Wikimanians, we waited a further two hours for the shuttle, which was very late. We arrived in Alexandria at 1am-ish. I was put in a room that was a different one to the one I had been told I was in.
After a very nutritious breakfast, we went to the first day of the conference bright and early. The schedule changed several times, there was a lack of plugs in the halls, and some of the talks were frankly dull (this applies to all three days).
There was not really anywhere suitable to go for lunch, so we sort of sat around on the floor... not good. How did Alexandria get chosen in this respect - the social areas were basically non existent.
On returning to the dorms, I found that I had to change rooms, again, still not to the one that I was put into originally. The beds were rather hard, no sheets were provided, and there was no toilet paper in the toilets (luckily I had brought my own as I imagined something as basic as that would be left out).
The next two days went similarly I suppose. The end of conference party was done badly again. Why did we have to get a sticker? No one even checked I had one when I got onto the coach. The party was OK, and the food was probably the best I had the entire time I was there.
I left the next day, with Brianmc (sharing a cab). We got to Cairo airport, but the wrong terminal for me. I had to make my own way to Terminal 1, after being tricked by someone into paying money I shouldn't have had to to get there. I was then harrassed by a man who claimed to be an "honest policeman" who charged me £300 EGP for the use of his cab. He wouldn't let me leave, even after I spilt water in his car. I tried to walk away, and he grabbed my arm demanding I paid him. I don't think I'd ever felt so awful in my life. It was the most horrible experience of the conference. Why are people like that allowed to roam about the airport, looking for weak, defenceless (and rich) tourists like myself? It's ridiculous.
I am still struggling to see how Egypt was chosen to host Wikimania. Yes, the people at the conference were nice and friendly, and the conference was enjoyable enough, with a few minor issues, but the country itself is the worst I have ever been to. You cannot cross the road without risking being killed by the mad drivers (who beep at all hours of the day for no apparent reason). They should save painting lanes on the roads, as no one bothers following them. There was a family living in the street, the same street the BA is situated on. Just goes to show what a mix of life there is.
I was so disturbed and put off by my experience of Egpyt, there is no way I'd consider going to Buenos Aires. While I'm sure they are very different places, I don't want to risk anything like the harrassment, the poor hygene, the dangerous roads and the poor organisation again. It'll be way too expensive for me as well, and I doubt I'd get a scholarship. I'd rather go somewhere closer to the UK where I live, or where the culture is more similar to here.
I'm sorry my words are harsh. This is not a dig at anyone, just my honest concerns about how this whole thing turned out. I know for sure others feel the same way I do about a lot of the things I said.
-- Al Tally (User:Majorly)
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
-- KIZU Naoko http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Britty (in Japanese) Quote of the Day (English): http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/WQ:QOTD
Once there, there was no fault to pick with the local Wikimedians. They were friendly, courteous, and helpful.
The keynote given by the suit from IBM was the biggest waste of time, and I wish I'd just had a long lie. This was basically a rehash of some presentation for businessmen and not at all appropriate for the audience.
I was very glad I attended the presentation by Eric Johnson, his talk on use of MediaWiki within U.S. government was most interesting. I covered that on Wikinews, and when all the presentations are up in more accessible formats it is one I would recommend seeking out.
I suppose the key point to take from the gripes Majorly and I have posted is that you need input from people outwith the hosting country. People who have visited the country as tourists and can comment on where and how there will be attempts to take advantage of you.
Brian McNeil
-----Original Message----- From: wikimania-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimania-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of effe iets anders Sent: 28 July 2008 20:06 To: Wikimania general list (open subscription) Subject: Re: [Wikimania-l] Comments
Hey, Al, Brian,
thanks for your comments. Some of them might be useful for next year, most of them (well, as far as local problems such as taxi drivers are concerned) unfortunately less, so that we have to reinvent what the local problems will be in Buenos Aires and who knows where wikimania will bring us.
I hope that especially everybody would post his/her comments regarding things we can fix in the coming years, so that Wikimania can actually get improved, I think everybody would be loving that :) . I myself am for instance very interested in comments regarding the program, regarding the number of lectures vs the number of discussions/workshops, regarding the scientific sessions (which I unfortunately have not been able to attend myself), the quality of the keynote and invited speakers and the number of out-of-community speakers. (such as Eric Johnson and the UNU people) What about the staff presentations, how was the interaction with the local team, if you had a problem, were youhelped as far as reasonably could be expected etc.
Please note that there *will* be a shrt survey soon about Wikimania, but extensive elaboration on what can be improved would be highly welcomed by the Wikimania 2009 organizing team I would guess.
kind regards,
Lodewijk
2008/7/28 Brian McNeil brian.mcneil@wikinewsie.org:
I have to agree with Majorly here. The efforts of our Egyptian hosts were all undone by their mercenary countrymen who view anyone with a fair skin
as
a walking wallet that needs to be emptied. The Egyptian tourist board
needs
to get their shit together and clean up Cairo airport. I should not have
to
fight off vagabonds with no identification who want to take my luggage off me, nor deal with opportunist taxi drivers who tell me that €10 is a good price to get from one terminal to another. I already knew there was a free shuttle, but no bugger would tell me where it was because there was no profit in that.
While at terminal two I met up with a number of German Wikimedians, the
fact
that they did not even know that the shuttle bus was picking people up at terminal one speaks volumes about the effectiveness of communication regarding this. We fought off taxi drivers who offered to take us to Alexandria for 800 Egyptian pounds and eventually got the shuttle bus to
the
other airport – terminal one – where we assumed we could relax and wait on the bus to take us to Alexandria. We were not the first Wikimaniacs to get there.
There were already about seven or eight conference attendees at terminal one. Some had been there since a little after 8am, and we got there around 3pm. A bus had been supposed to turn up at 2pm, but had not. Fortunately some of those already at the old airport had phone numbers for local Wikimedians, someone turned up to help us out, and at around 4:30pm a bus turned up to take people to Alexandria. The bus had seven seats, there
were
around 16 of us. GerardM faced down the bus driver and browbeat him into taking those who had been at the airport the longest, regardless of the precious list of names of people he was supposed to take. The rest of us were left with our Egyptian Wikimedian to figure out how to get from Cairo to Alexandria. That involved a – thankfully airconditioned - coach trip. There were two prolonged stops in Cairo while additional passengers were picked up, so what we were told would be a four hour trip took five and a half. However, I suspect everyone was just relieved to actually be in Alexandria; the issue of getting from the bus station to our accommodation
–
in my case the dorms - was a minor detail. When its midnight and you've
been
up since 4:30am you tend to be relieved you have somewhere to sleep, although the emails I had been sent about that turned out to be utter fiction.
The conference itself was great, and a significant counter to the trials I had actually gone through to get there. We had WiFi in the dorms, but to
be
perfectly honest that was a bit of a joke – as was access in the library itself. In the library you could pretty much get a WiFi signal anywhere,
the
problem was that the pool of available IP addresses was not big enough. If you did not get logged on early enough in the morning you could move
around
all you liked, get a great signal, but simply not get online because there were no more addresses to give out. I had a number of reports passed to me indicating that only about half of the attendees could get online. It probably did not help that many attendees were using one address for their laptop and another for their iPhone. In the dorms we had one mickey-mouse Linksys box for about 40 people in an old building with thick walls. The signal didn't reach the end of the corridor where we were… And Cisco were one of the conference sponsors.
The return to Cairo airport was less dramatic, and traumatic. However, as Majorly pointed out, both the limo (i.e cheapest Toyota you can buy with airco) driver and porter were obnoxiously persistent about tips.
Brian McNeil
-----Original Message----- From: wikimania-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimania-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Al Tally Sent: 28 July 2008 16:18 To: Wikimania general list (open subscription) Subject: [Wikimania-l] Comments
It's now been a week since I got back. I enjoyed the actual conference,
and
meeting everyone in person. However, I have made up my mind that I never want to go to Egypt again, nor the next Wikimania.
First off, the planning for this conference was pretty poor with regards
to
information. What I mean is, I had to pester people on IRC to get any kind of information regarding how to get to the shuttle, what to do on arrival etc. The schedule the team was supposed to be following wasn't followed.
The
scholarships were very late indeed, and when I finally received my "I'm sorry, but..." email, I'd already booked.
The fact there was very little info *on the wiki* is atrocious. I had to pester Mido on IRC several times a week, to try and squeeze any
information
out. It got to about a week before I was due to leave, and still with no answers to basic questions, I sent an email to this list, begging for information. Eventually it was answered, but it was never put on the wiki.
I
spoke to some people, who don't subscribe to this list, so didn't ever receive this important information.
The whole shuttle thing was a disaster. We should not have needed to sign
up
- just run a "shuttle" every 4 hours as stated. No where did you mention
where the shuttle would be on arrival (until I explicitly asked on the
list,
even then it was wrong). The shuttle for me on return left at 7:30am when
my
flight was at 5pm. Why was there not a later shuttle?
On arrival, I was with Charles Matthews, and we spent several hours
waiting
at the airport, then we realised we were in the wrong hall. So, after meeting with two other Wikimanians, we waited a further two hours for the shuttle, which was very late. We arrived in Alexandria at 1am-ish. I was
put
in a room that was a different one to the one I had been told I was in.
After a very nutritious breakfast, we went to the first day of the conference bright and early. The schedule changed several times, there was
a
lack of plugs in the halls, and some of the talks were frankly dull (this applies to all three days).
There was not really anywhere suitable to go for lunch, so we sort of sat around on the floor... not good. How did Alexandria get chosen in this respect - the social areas were basically non existent.
On returning to the dorms, I found that I had to change rooms, again,
still
not to the one that I was put into originally. The beds were rather hard,
no
sheets were provided, and there was no toilet paper in the toilets
(luckily
I had brought my own as I imagined something as basic as that would be
left
out).
The next two days went similarly I suppose. The end of conference party
was
done badly again. Why did we have to get a sticker? No one even checked I had one when I got onto the coach. The party was OK, and the food was probably the best I had the entire time I was there.
I left the next day, with Brianmc (sharing a cab). We got to Cairo
airport,
but the wrong terminal for me. I had to make my own way to Terminal 1,
after
being tricked by someone into paying money I shouldn't have had to to get there. I was then harrassed by a man who claimed to be an "honest
policeman"
who charged me £300 EGP for the use of his cab. He wouldn't let me leave, even after I spilt water in his car. I tried to walk away, and he grabbed
my
arm demanding I paid him. I don't think I'd ever felt so awful in my life. It was the most horrible experience of the conference. Why are people like that allowed to roam about the airport, looking for weak, defenceless (and rich) tourists like myself? It's ridiculous.
I am still struggling to see how Egypt was chosen to host Wikimania. Yes, the people at the conference were nice and friendly, and the conference
was
enjoyable enough, with a few minor issues, but the country itself is the worst I have ever been to. You cannot cross the road without risking being killed by the mad drivers (who beep at all hours of the day for no
apparent
reason). They should save painting lanes on the roads, as no one bothers following them. There was a family living in the street, the same street
the
BA is situated on. Just goes to show what a mix of life there is.
I was so disturbed and put off by my experience of Egpyt, there is no way I'd consider going to Buenos Aires. While I'm sure they are very different places, I don't want to risk anything like the harrassment, the poor
hygene,
the dangerous roads and the poor organisation again. It'll be way too expensive for me as well, and I doubt I'd get a scholarship. I'd rather go somewhere closer to the UK where I live, or where the culture is more similar to here.
I'm sorry my words are harsh. This is not a dig at anyone, just my honest concerns about how this whole thing turned out. I know for sure others
feel
the same way I do about a lot of the things I said.
-- Al Tally (User:Majorly)
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
2008/7/28 Brian McNeil brian.mcneil@wikinewsie.org:
I suppose the key point to take from the gripes Majorly and I have posted is that you need input from people outwith the hosting country. People who have visited the country as tourists and can comment on where and how there will be attempts to take advantage of you.
Yeah. That's called a travel guide.
--valhallasw
Congratulations, that measured a 0.1 on the sarcasm scale.
I'm 39, on my third passport, and no longer live in the country I was born and grew up in. If you took all the miles I've flown and stitched them together you could probably get to the moon and back.
I know what a travel guide is, and I also know how they sugar-coat things so potential tourists don't run away screaming.
Brian McNeil
-----Original Message----- From: wikimania-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimania-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Merlijn van Deen Sent: 28 July 2008 21:06 To: Wikimania general list (open subscription) Subject: Re: [Wikimania-l] Comments
2008/7/28 Brian McNeil brian.mcneil@wikinewsie.org:
I suppose the key point to take from the gripes Majorly and I have posted
is
that you need input from people outwith the hosting country. People who
have
visited the country as tourists and can comment on where and how there
will
be attempts to take advantage of you.
Yeah. That's called a travel guide.
--valhallasw
_______________________________________________ Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
Sorry, I'll have to agree with Merlijn here, you sound a bit naive.
I have been cheated too. But, heh, we're tourists, we don't speak arabic, we have quite a lot of money compared to the people we had to deal with... you should have expected that !
2008/7/28 Brian McNeil brian.mcneil@wikinewsie.org:
Congratulations, that measured a 0.1 on the sarcasm scale.
I'm 39, on my third passport, and no longer live in the country I was born and grew up in. If you took all the miles I've flown and stitched them together you could probably get to the moon and back.
I know what a travel guide is, and I also know how they sugar-coat things so potential tourists don't run away screaming.
Brian McNeil
-----Original Message----- From: wikimania-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimania-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Merlijn van Deen Sent: 28 July 2008 21:06 To: Wikimania general list (open subscription) Subject: Re: [Wikimania-l] Comments
2008/7/28 Brian McNeil brian.mcneil@wikinewsie.org:
I suppose the key point to take from the gripes Majorly and I have posted
is
that you need input from people outwith the hosting country. People who
have
visited the country as tourists and can comment on where and how there
will
be attempts to take advantage of you.
Yeah. That's called a travel guide.
--valhallasw
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
I certainly was a very lucky woman, since I was *pampered* in terms of hosting and travel. So, I did not share your suffering regarding travel between the two cities.
However, it seems a fair point to say that in the future, we should choose a city where there is an international airport.
With regards to "outside" complaints, yeah, I was also a bit annoyed by the persistence of some people; yeah, I was cheated with regards of money several times (but I expected such thing in Egypt). I was also harassed in an unexpected fashion the last day, and I did not appreciate that at all. Airco was an issue two nights in a row and there was no wifi in hotel (but eh, that's Africa). And yeah, information was often missing. I also regret we were all hosted in many different places, which did not help finding each other.
In terms of "inside" complaints, my biggest one would go to the rather unsufficient "community space" and "food/drinks". People were delocalized on several levels so it was very difficult to find each other. Unsufficient room to sit down for lunch. Worse for me: lunch separated for "vip" and "regular". That was a killer for social interactions, and vips could not go to "lunch meeting" with their lunch box since they had no lunch box. I naturally know why this was done this way. But I still find that a bad idea. I do not think we should artificially separate "vips" and "regulars". Or at least, we should be able to mix. In previous years, the press conf was followed by a lunch in the room. Not this year. Very unfortunate, because for me, it meant... no lunch at all. By the time I got out of interviews, the lunch upstairs was closed. I would suggest sticking to a very light and easy buffet after the press conference.
Last, in Taipei light snacks and drinks were available all day long. This year, only tea and coffee and a few cookies, at fixed times. Often, sessions were late, so by the time one got out of the room, coffee break was over. Only once did I succeed to get an out-of-schedule coffee (the day I missed the coffee in morning, then missed the lunch, then missed the coffee break in the afternoon), but it was really tough. Until I found the source of softdrink for money, I had to drink most of my liquid input during the day from the tap. A miracle I was not sick. Still, the coffee guys were here all the time, but most of the time simply not serving. It escapes me entirely why coffee, tea and bottle water were not served freely during the entire event. Next year, we should try to be sponsored by Starbucks, as we were by CocaCola in Boston (I am SUPER serious here. We'll save huge amount of time not running to the local starbuck...).
Beside this, I found all the local volunteers super useful, helpful, and smiling. A real pleasure. The party was great ! I was also very pleased by the presentation of wiki use by US gov, and really appreciated the presentation about the flaggued revisions from Philip. Rooms were confortable and of the right size (though, yeah, missing plugs), there was all the equipement for the video record, and security was not too heavy ;-) I did not miss the tech sessions... however, I missed Mark.
Every Wikimania has its "very cool" and "not so good" sides. As far as I am concerned, the "very cool" have always outweighted the "not so good".
What made me the saddest this year were all the people being sick during the event. I think more warning regarding food and water could have been helpful. What made me the happiest was to see that the outreach was a success.
A question for the future though will be as to whether Wikimania will focus on the "outreach" or on the "community gathering".
ant
To add to what Florence said, the opening day's press conference was one of the most professionally organised parts of the event. All the stops were pulled out to present the WMF to the press as an established and serious body.
The room used for the press conference should likely have been hijacked for as many sessions as could have been fitted in it. Every desk had its own power point and an RJ45 cable to get connected with. There was a microphone with a push to talk button, and a pair of headphones. The headphones allowed for simultaneous translation from English to Arabic, and vice versa.
The regional press were there in force, you could not have fitted another TV camera into the back row. If I recall correctly, Florence commented in her presentation later in the conference that some of the TV coverage prompted people to turn up at the conference's second and third days to find out more.
Unfortunately, there was quite a bit of the standard fare in the Q&A - the tired old "academics don't trust Wikipedia", and the one Jimmy was quick to step on - conflating the WMF with Wikia. I can't comment on the interviews after the main press conference, unlike Florence I got some lunch on the first day. The mystery pasta dish was delicious, and I looked for it in vain the remaining two days of the conference.
Brian McNeil
-----Original Message----- From: wikimania-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimania-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Florence Devouard Sent: 29 July 2008 00:14 To: Wikimania general list (open subscription) Subject: Re: [Wikimania-l] Comments
I certainly was a very lucky woman, since I was *pampered* in terms of hosting and travel. So, I did not share your suffering regarding travel between the two cities.
However, it seems a fair point to say that in the future, we should choose a city where there is an international airport.
With regards to "outside" complaints, yeah, I was also a bit annoyed by the persistence of some people; yeah, I was cheated with regards of money several times (but I expected such thing in Egypt). I was also harassed in an unexpected fashion the last day, and I did not appreciate that at all. Airco was an issue two nights in a row and there was no wifi in hotel (but eh, that's Africa). And yeah, information was often missing. I also regret we were all hosted in many different places, which did not help finding each other.
In terms of "inside" complaints, my biggest one would go to the rather unsufficient "community space" and "food/drinks". People were delocalized on several levels so it was very difficult to find each other. Unsufficient room to sit down for lunch. Worse for me: lunch separated for "vip" and "regular". That was a killer for social interactions, and vips could not go to "lunch meeting" with their lunch box since they had no lunch box. I naturally know why this was done this way. But I still find that a bad idea. I do not think we should artificially separate "vips" and "regulars". Or at least, we should be able to mix. In previous years, the press conf was followed by a lunch in the room. Not this year. Very unfortunate, because for me, it meant... no lunch at all. By the time I got out of interviews, the lunch upstairs was closed. I would suggest sticking to a very light and easy buffet after the press conference.
Last, in Taipei light snacks and drinks were available all day long. This year, only tea and coffee and a few cookies, at fixed times. Often, sessions were late, so by the time one got out of the room, coffee break was over. Only once did I succeed to get an out-of-schedule coffee (the day I missed the coffee in morning, then missed the lunch, then missed the coffee break in the afternoon), but it was really tough. Until I found the source of softdrink for money, I had to drink most of my liquid input during the day from the tap. A miracle I was not sick. Still, the coffee guys were here all the time, but most of the time simply not serving. It escapes me entirely why coffee, tea and bottle water were not served freely during the entire event. Next year, we should try to be sponsored by Starbucks, as we were by CocaCola in Boston (I am SUPER serious here. We'll save huge amount of time not running to the local starbuck...).
Beside this, I found all the local volunteers super useful, helpful, and smiling. A real pleasure. The party was great ! I was also very pleased by the presentation of wiki use by US gov, and really appreciated the presentation about the flaggued revisions from Philip. Rooms were confortable and of the right size (though, yeah, missing plugs), there was all the equipement for the video record, and security was not too heavy ;-) I did not miss the tech sessions... however, I missed Mark.
Every Wikimania has its "very cool" and "not so good" sides. As far as I am concerned, the "very cool" have always outweighted the "not so good".
What made me the saddest this year were all the people being sick during the event. I think more warning regarding food and water could have been helpful. What made me the happiest was to see that the outreach was a success.
A question for the future though will be as to whether Wikimania will focus on the "outreach" or on the "community gathering".
ant
_______________________________________________ Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
2008/7/28 Al Tally majorly.wiki@googlemail.com:
It's now been a week since I got back. I enjoyed the actual conference, and meeting everyone in person. However, I have made up my mind that I never want to go to Egypt again, nor the next Wikimania.
[...]
I was so disturbed and put off by my experience of Egpyt, there is no way I'd consider going to Buenos Aires. While I'm sure they are very different places, I don't want to risk anything like the harrassment, the poor hygene, the dangerous roads and the poor organisation again. It'll be way too expensive for me as well, and I doubt I'd get a scholarship. I'd rather go somewhere closer to the UK where I live, or where the culture is more similar to here.
I'm sorry my words are harsh. This is not a dig at anyone, just my honest concerns about how this whole thing turned out. I know for sure others feel the same way I do about a lot of the things I said.
Dear friends:
I'm happy to see that this thread turned into a more constructive discussion about things we can do better in next wikimanias. I can't imagine how could the egyptian team change the local taxi drivers' culture just for our comfort.
While we (in Argentina) are taking notes on every comment about things to do and things to improve, I'd like to say a few words, about some concepts that didn't sound well to me.
I was very happy to be in Egypt. I knew (as every one of you) that the taxi drivers -and other people- would try to cheat me, that transport media would be below european standars -although the train service from Cairo to Alexandria was quite fine-, that traffic would be terrible, that poor people would be everywhere. Welcome, my friends, to the South.
And I was very happy not only for the great job and friendship of the egyptian team, not only for an outstanding conference venue, but also because when we say: "a world in which every human being..." we are also talking about this people. We are talking *most of all* about this people.
Of course, nobody is forced to go anywhere if is going to be uncomfortable. But you can't go to Egypt (or to South America) and complain because you didn't find the services of a Nordic country.
We are taking notes and working: you'll find enough plugs in Buenos Aires, and enough wifi, and enough social room and activities... and perhaps you'll find a city that fits with most european standars (please, read [[en:Buenos Aires]] for further reference). But if you walk the city, you'll meet poor people, at night you may find families of waste pickers, you'll see homeless. Sorry about that. We are not able to hide them for you and I think we don't want to do so.
So, let's talk about things we can work out. And forgive me if my words sound bitter: I just couldn't help.
Patricio
On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 5:31 PM, Patricio Lorente patricio.lorente@gmail.com wrote:
2008/7/28 Al Tally majorly.wiki@googlemail.com:
It's now been a week since I got back. I enjoyed the actual conference, and meeting everyone in person. However, I have made up my mind that I never want to go to Egypt again, nor the next Wikimania.
[...]
I was so disturbed and put off by my experience of Egpyt, there is no way I'd consider going to Buenos Aires. While I'm sure they are very different places, I don't want to risk anything like the harrassment, the poor hygene, the dangerous roads and the poor organisation again. It'll be way too expensive for me as well, and I doubt I'd get a scholarship. I'd rather go somewhere closer to the UK where I live, or where the culture is more similar to here.
I'm sorry my words are harsh. This is not a dig at anyone, just my honest concerns about how this whole thing turned out. I know for sure others feel the same way I do about a lot of the things I said.
Dear friends:
I'm happy to see that this thread turned into a more constructive discussion about things we can do better in next wikimanias. I can't imagine how could the egyptian team change the local taxi drivers' culture just for our comfort.
While we (in Argentina) are taking notes on every comment about things to do and things to improve, I'd like to say a few words, about some concepts that didn't sound well to me.
I was very happy to be in Egypt. I knew (as every one of you) that the taxi drivers -and other people- would try to cheat me, that transport media would be below european standars -although the train service from Cairo to Alexandria was quite fine-, that traffic would be terrible, that poor people would be everywhere. Welcome, my friends, to the South.
And I was very happy not only for the great job and friendship of the egyptian team, not only for an outstanding conference venue, but also because when we say: "a world in which every human being..." we are also talking about this people. We are talking *most of all* about this people.
Of course, nobody is forced to go anywhere if is going to be uncomfortable. But you can't go to Egypt (or to South America) and complain because you didn't find the services of a Nordic country.
We are taking notes and working: you'll find enough plugs in Buenos Aires, and enough wifi, and enough social room and activities... and perhaps you'll find a city that fits with most european standars (please, read [[en:Buenos Aires]] for further reference). But if you walk the city, you'll meet poor people, at night you may find families of waste pickers, you'll see homeless. Sorry about that. We are not able to hide them for you and I think we don't want to do so.
So, let's talk about things we can work out. And forgive me if my words sound bitter: I just couldn't help.
Patricio
Thank you, Patricio.
-- Phoebe
Thank you, Patricio. To be fair and honest. I'm looking for getting a chance to go to B.A. next year.
Back to the Japan, my beloved home country, and the city I've been in my graduate and marriage day, I found here Osaka is hotter than Cairo (so definitely much hotter than Alex but I knew it even before my departure), more humid than Singapore and things cost more than Sharm el Sheik. I feel comfortable in my apartment though, in every return I realize there is no perfect place. And almost in every community park one or two homeless occupy benches during the night. Poor people are not only in developing countries. I saw them in New York (not sure about Boston, since I didn't go to downtown), in Taipei (and then he was completely naked) and in Alex (but I doubt if they were really homeless - some countries we know "professional beggars" who have their own home and go to the city for their "business"). And local people and facilities somehow annoyed me in many ways, as said.
That is the world, but at the same time, I have great days with my friends both new and old in Alexandria, expectedly as all of you, also I met many good people and things in many place of Egypt. The guide who attended me in Luxor was professional and arranged me a special local tour for visiting local Coptic churches for free, I got treated by a local beduin at the top of Mt. Sinai (how cozy to have tea seeing the morning Sinai from the summit, sitting just beneath of Chapel of S. Trinity), also treated by a local Egyptian family including yummy spicy stewed eggplant ... and Divine Liturgy at the Basilica of S. Transfiguration in the monastery so-called S. Catherine; they were so generous to allow me enter to the Holy of Holies(!) to give venerational kisses to the relics of the Great-martyr Catherine of Alexandria (I know some claim the doubt about her historical existence, but it is another story). After all, not only in the venue, party and accommodation, but also in the entire of the country, its virtues, beauty, riches and generosity cannot be underestimated by its malice, demelit, and all its vices.
The monks gave me a ring. It reminded me the peace and tranquility in Sinai, in the monastery. Strangely it was not so much different I have known in my parish, with my friends, of course including in the dorm and in the venue. All seemed natural and dairy, no hidden special things I think. Truly the most precious one is amidst the human - not the place. Mt. Sinai gave me a lesson; there is no special place in this globe but we can change our world and invite to create the place we feel comfortable, in our own labor and diligence. We cannot change everything at once but we can do something in every time - with dignity, in calmness from discretion. Shotly, in love. Through editing, organizing things, contacting the other people - just for the love for knowledge and thus, for our friends and neighborhood.
As said, I have found some disappointments in the conf and I won't hesitate to spread these; beware, it could be much bitterer than anyone input ;D But I'll try to keep in the line directly related to the conference and its organizing team's concern. And thanks to Alex team again, and to Patricio and BA team, for your promised serious concerns.
On Tue, Jul 29, 2008 at 9:31 AM, Patricio Lorente patricio.lorente@gmail.com wrote:
2008/7/28 Al Tally majorly.wiki@googlemail.com:
It's now been a week since I got back. I enjoyed the actual conference, and meeting everyone in person. However, I have made up my mind that I never want to go to Egypt again, nor the next Wikimania.
[...]
I was so disturbed and put off by my experience of Egpyt, there is no way I'd consider going to Buenos Aires. While I'm sure they are very different places, I don't want to risk anything like the harrassment, the poor hygene, the dangerous roads and the poor organisation again. It'll be way too expensive for me as well, and I doubt I'd get a scholarship. I'd rather go somewhere closer to the UK where I live, or where the culture is more similar to here.
I'm sorry my words are harsh. This is not a dig at anyone, just my honest concerns about how this whole thing turned out. I know for sure others feel the same way I do about a lot of the things I said.
Dear friends:
I'm happy to see that this thread turned into a more constructive discussion about things we can do better in next wikimanias. I can't imagine how could the egyptian team change the local taxi drivers' culture just for our comfort.
While we (in Argentina) are taking notes on every comment about things to do and things to improve, I'd like to say a few words, about some concepts that didn't sound well to me.
I was very happy to be in Egypt. I knew (as every one of you) that the taxi drivers -and other people- would try to cheat me, that transport media would be below european standars -although the train service from Cairo to Alexandria was quite fine-, that traffic would be terrible, that poor people would be everywhere. Welcome, my friends, to the South.
And I was very happy not only for the great job and friendship of the egyptian team, not only for an outstanding conference venue, but also because when we say: "a world in which every human being..." we are also talking about this people. We are talking *most of all* about this people.
Of course, nobody is forced to go anywhere if is going to be uncomfortable. But you can't go to Egypt (or to South America) and complain because you didn't find the services of a Nordic country.
We are taking notes and working: you'll find enough plugs in Buenos Aires, and enough wifi, and enough social room and activities... and perhaps you'll find a city that fits with most european standars (please, read [[en:Buenos Aires]] for further reference). But if you walk the city, you'll meet poor people, at night you may find families of waste pickers, you'll see homeless. Sorry about that. We are not able to hide them for you and I think we don't want to do so.
So, let's talk about things we can work out. And forgive me if my words sound bitter: I just couldn't help.
Patricio
Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
On Tue, Jul 29, 2008 at 02:31, Patricio Lorente patricio.lorente@gmail.com wrote:
I was very happy to be in Egypt. I knew (as every one of you) that the taxi drivers -and other people- would try to cheat me, that transport media would be below european standars -although the train service from Cairo to Alexandria was quite fine-, that traffic would be terrible, that poor people would be everywhere. Welcome, my friends, to the South.
[snip]
We are taking notes and working: you'll find enough plugs in Buenos Aires, and enough wifi, and enough social room and activities... and perhaps you'll find a city that fits with most european standars (please, read [[en:Buenos Aires]] for further reference). But if you walk the city, you'll meet poor people, at night you may find families of waste pickers, you'll see homeless. Sorry about that. We are not able to hide them for you and I think we don't want to do so.
So, let's talk about things we can work out. And forgive me if my words sound bitter: I just couldn't help.
And having been to all four Wikimanias, you'll never take that one thing away from me. There's nothing like the South when it comes to the heart.
Thank you Patricio, indeed. Thank you, Egypt, for reminding us that the world is made of differences.
Delphine PS. http://blog.notanendive.org/post/2008/07/24/When-it-comes-to-roots PPS. I'll take your word on the wifi. I have yet to attend ONE geeky conference --anywhere in the world-- where the Wifi works perfectly ;-)
On Tue, Jul 29, 2008 at 1:18 PM, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.comwrote:
PPS. I'll take your word on the wifi. I have yet to attend ONE geeky conference --anywhere in the world-- where the Wifi works perfectly
Seconded... SJ
is there a video recording available of the press conf as well?
lodewijk
2008/7/29 Brian McNeil brian.mcneil@wikinewsie.org:
To add to what Florence said, the opening day's press conference was one of the most professionally organised parts of the event. All the stops were pulled out to present the WMF to the press as an established and serious body.
The room used for the press conference should likely have been hijacked for as many sessions as could have been fitted in it. Every desk had its own power point and an RJ45 cable to get connected with. There was a microphone with a push to talk button, and a pair of headphones. The headphones allowed for simultaneous translation from English to Arabic, and vice versa.
The regional press were there in force, you could not have fitted another TV camera into the back row. If I recall correctly, Florence commented in her presentation later in the conference that some of the TV coverage prompted people to turn up at the conference's second and third days to find out more.
Unfortunately, there was quite a bit of the standard fare in the Q&A - the tired old "academics don't trust Wikipedia", and the one Jimmy was quick to step on - conflating the WMF with Wikia. I can't comment on the interviews after the main press conference, unlike Florence I got some lunch on the first day. The mystery pasta dish was delicious, and I looked for it in vain the remaining two days of the conference.
Brian McNeil
-----Original Message----- From: wikimania-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimania-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Florence Devouard Sent: 29 July 2008 00:14 To: Wikimania general list (open subscription) Subject: Re: [Wikimania-l] Comments
I certainly was a very lucky woman, since I was *pampered* in terms of hosting and travel. So, I did not share your suffering regarding travel between the two cities.
However, it seems a fair point to say that in the future, we should choose a city where there is an international airport.
With regards to "outside" complaints, yeah, I was also a bit annoyed by the persistence of some people; yeah, I was cheated with regards of money several times (but I expected such thing in Egypt). I was also harassed in an unexpected fashion the last day, and I did not appreciate that at all. Airco was an issue two nights in a row and there was no wifi in hotel (but eh, that's Africa). And yeah, information was often missing. I also regret we were all hosted in many different places, which did not help finding each other.
In terms of "inside" complaints, my biggest one would go to the rather unsufficient "community space" and "food/drinks". People were delocalized on several levels so it was very difficult to find each other. Unsufficient room to sit down for lunch. Worse for me: lunch separated for "vip" and "regular". That was a killer for social interactions, and vips could not go to "lunch meeting" with their lunch box since they had no lunch box. I naturally know why this was done this way. But I still find that a bad idea. I do not think we should artificially separate "vips" and "regulars". Or at least, we should be able to mix. In previous years, the press conf was followed by a lunch in the room. Not this year. Very unfortunate, because for me, it meant... no lunch at all. By the time I got out of interviews, the lunch upstairs was closed. I would suggest sticking to a very light and easy buffet after the press conference.
Last, in Taipei light snacks and drinks were available all day long. This year, only tea and coffee and a few cookies, at fixed times. Often, sessions were late, so by the time one got out of the room, coffee break was over. Only once did I succeed to get an out-of-schedule coffee (the day I missed the coffee in morning, then missed the lunch, then missed the coffee break in the afternoon), but it was really tough. Until I found the source of softdrink for money, I had to drink most of my liquid input during the day from the tap. A miracle I was not sick. Still, the coffee guys were here all the time, but most of the time simply not serving. It escapes me entirely why coffee, tea and bottle water were not served freely during the entire event. Next year, we should try to be sponsored by Starbucks, as we were by CocaCola in Boston (I am SUPER serious here. We'll save huge amount of time not running to the local starbuck...).
Beside this, I found all the local volunteers super useful, helpful, and smiling. A real pleasure. The party was great ! I was also very pleased by the presentation of wiki use by US gov, and really appreciated the presentation about the flaggued revisions from Philip. Rooms were confortable and of the right size (though, yeah, missing plugs), there was all the equipement for the video record, and security was not too heavy ;-) I did not miss the tech sessions... however, I missed Mark.
Every Wikimania has its "very cool" and "not so good" sides. As far as I am concerned, the "very cool" have always outweighted the "not so good".
What made me the saddest this year were all the people being sick during the event. I think more warning regarding food and water could have been helpful. What made me the happiest was to see that the outreach was a success.
A question for the future though will be as to whether Wikimania will focus on the "outreach" or on the "community gathering".
ant
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
Florence Devouard wrote:
However, it seems a fair point to say that in the future, we should choose a city where there is an international airport.
I would not treat this as an absolute requirement, but if we must travel a significant distance from the city with the primary international airport, the difficulties of getting people to the other city need to be addressed.
In terms of "inside" complaints, my biggest one would go to the rather unsufficient "community space" and "food/drinks". People were delocalized on several levels so it was very difficult to find each other. Unsufficient room to sit down for lunch. Worse for me: lunch separated for "vip" and "regular". That was a killer for social interactions, and vips could not go to "lunch meeting" with their lunch box since they had no lunch box. I naturally know why this was done this way. But I still find that a bad idea. I do not think we should artificially separate "vips" and "regulars". Or at least, we should be able to mix. In previous years, the press conf was followed by a lunch in the room. Not this year. Very unfortunate, because for me, it meant... no lunch at all. By the time I got out of interviews, the lunch upstairs was closed. I would suggest sticking to a very light and easy buffet after the press conference.
Having a hot noon meal is probably important too because of the nourishment stability that it adds to our personal daily schedules. While we would still be free to fend for ourselves for the evening meals, there can still be an adventure in finding appropriate restaurants.
Last, in Taipei light snacks and drinks were available all day long. This year, only tea and coffee and a few cookies, at fixed times. Often, sessions were late, so by the time one got out of the room, coffee break was over. Only once did I succeed to get an out-of-schedule coffee (the day I missed the coffee in morning, then missed the lunch, then missed the coffee break in the afternoon), but it was really tough. Until I found the source of softdrink for money, I had to drink most of my liquid input during the day from the tap. A miracle I was not sick. Still, the coffee guys were here all the time, but most of the time simply not serving. It escapes me entirely why coffee, tea and bottle water were not served freely during the entire event. Next year, we should try to be sponsored by Starbucks, as we were by CocaCola in Boston (I am SUPER serious here. We'll save huge amount of time not running to the local starbuck...).
This is especially important when Wikimania is in a hot climate.
Every Wikimania has its "very cool" and "not so good" sides. As far as I am concerned, the "very cool" have always outweighted the "not so good".
What made me the saddest this year were all the people being sick during the event. I think more warning regarding food and water could have been helpful. What made me the happiest was to see that the outreach was a success.
I think that the only way to avoid this is complete control of food services, and I can't imagine that being possible. Since I got back home my doctor has prescribed an antibiotic; I should have known better and been more careful, but I have only myself to blame.
A question for the future though will be as to whether Wikimania will focus on the "outreach" or on the "community gathering".
I think we need to continue doing both. The programme probably needs to be adjusted to better accommodate this, but both paths are vital to keeping the mission alive.
Ec
Florence Devouard wrote:
However, it seems a fair point to say that in the future, we should choose a city where there is an international airport.
I would not treat this as an absolute requirement, but if we must travel a significant distance from the city with the primary international airport, the difficulties of getting people to the other city need to be addressed.
Please *don't* discount cities without international airports. We are currently working on a bid for Oxford, that does not have an international airport, but excellent links to London ones. The problem with Alexandria was that while the links are good from Cairo, we relied too much on the free shuttle provided by the team, but they were, to be honest, pretty hopeless. Besides, I wouldn't want Oxford to lose out for that one detail, as the airports aren't more than 2 hours by road away, and even less by train.
Further to Al's comments: It's worth noting that it's often just as hard to get from a city's airport into that city's centre as it is to get from that airport to other cities. Since airports are only rarely actually in the city centre significant public transport is almost always needed, which is always in danger of being confusing when you are in a foreign country and signs are not in your native language. Furthermore even when you arrive in the city centre you often have a considerable journey ahead of you to get to your accommodation, something which is much less of a problem in small cities (which are usually the ones without airports).
The issue for Wikimania is not the distance, it's effective communication and help for those journeying that distance.
Tom
From: wikimania-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimania-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Al Tally Sent: 02 August 2008 15:07 To: Wikimania general list (open subscription) Subject: Re: [Wikimania-l] Comments
Florence Devouard wrote:
However, it seems a fair point to say that in the future, we should choose a city where there is an international airport.
I would not treat this as an absolute requirement, but if we must travel a significant distance from the city with the primary international airport, the difficulties of getting people to the other city need to be addressed.
Please *don't* discount cities without international airports. We are currently working on a bid for Oxford, that does not have an international airport, but excellent links to London ones. The problem with Alexandria was that while the links are good from Cairo, we relied too much on the free shuttle provided by the team, but they were, to be honest, pretty hopeless. Besides, I wouldn't want Oxford to lose out for that one detail, as the airports aren't more than 2 hours by road away, and even less by train.
Brian McNeil wrote:
I suppose the key point to take from the gripes Majorly and I have posted is that you need input from people outwith the hosting country. People who have visited the country as tourists and can comment on where and how there will be attempts to take advantage of you.
True enough, though I think that much of the problem related to an inattention to details. Residents of a country tend to take their way of doing things for granted, and this includes any number of practices that are completely foreign to us foreigners. It takes a great deal of foresight to anticipate the kinds of problems we foreigners may encounter. The website for the Cairo International Airport does include information to the effect that there are two commercial companies providing bus service to Alexandria, but says nothing about where in the airport one might find these services, not even in which of the two terminals. This inattention to detail, or lack of specificity may be endemic in Egyptian society, and is not limited to our own organisers. What is needed is detailed specific instructions from the time we leave the airplane until we arrive safely in the hands of the conference organizers.
Some of us who may arrive a couple of days early to offset jetlag need to know where we can meet other earlybirds. Setting up an early information desk to deal with this is very helpful.
Ec
On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 5:17 PM, Al Tally majorly.wiki@googlemail.com wrote:
It's now been a week since I got back. I enjoyed the actual conference, and meeting everyone in person.
Hi. After Wikimania, we (Nina, Jakob, Kurt and me) went to Cairo for a few days. Some of us have since then gone east to Israel (Eilat, Tel Aviv and now Jerusalem). While my health condition had been slowly and unsteadily deteriorating since the second day of Wikimania, it took until yesterday when I got fever (39.5°C / 103°F) and other issues. I am under medication now, hopefully my status goes back to functional before we leave back to Germany.
This has been my third Wikimania (after Frankfurt and Taipei) and I have a mixed bag of memories from Alexandria. The conference place was ideal for a conference about knowledge and it was a good decision to go to Egypt for reasons of geographic diversity and political statementary.
Our flight from Frankfurt landed in Alexandria Borg el Arab at 2 a.m. and we (roughtly 10 Wikimedians) were picked up by the organisers. Since this airport is rather small, it was impossible to miss each other. Our group of four asked to be in one room, which was confirmed before Wikimania. At the dorms itself, we were told to sleep in seperate rooms (seperated by sex) at least for one night.
I experienced the wikimania conference itself to be rather crowded and over-busy. With 20 minutes of a standard presentation, the effective time was usually a little bit less. When I went to the stage for my 20 minutes presentation, it took the - otherwise friendly - staff almost 5 minutes to set up the presentation computer.
The Wifi-situation was a little bit annoying. After I figured out to manually set up an IP address and gateway and dns, I was able to access the net with reasonable speed.
I missed any place to simply gather around with other Wikimedians. This has already been described and people who claim that Wikimania should happen in a place which offers both conference rooms and dorms in the same location are completely right, imho. It could also help to keep all the rooms open until midnight or something like that.
Mathias
Hi there
It my first mail to this list, and needless to say i am very late :) (and that's probably because one of major downsides Majorely told about, lack of info on the wiki). But i have few things to say on this thread.
First of all, i want to thank Majorely for his frank and clear criticism, that lead to this constructive discussion that should make a lot.
Many of the mentioned problems could be avoided by the local volunteers team i think, things like infos regarding shuttle schedule for example. Actually i am an alexandrian (and somehow i am proude to be), but unfortunately i wasn't able to help organizing the conference because of my conscription status (think about me as a part time prisoner), and most likely if i were within the volunteers i couldn't make a difference, i think the staff were exelant just as volunteers, but none of theme was really proffessional, and they couldn't expect all possible situations, but something like this i guess should be expected for wikimedians (the largest contribution driven community), but that doesn't change the fact that there shalt be more work on wiki, or by early promotion of communication mediums like the irc channel and this mailing list where all of us could share infos, i would clarify that most of Egyptian attendees were more than ready to help about anything involving info about the conference or even any help needed about Alexandria, Cairo or arabic translation, actually most of them would be gratefull to provide help.
Unfortunately, most aspects and downside couldn't be avoided by organizers, as you can say these points are defects by design,that's what the mix of popular ignorance, poverty, social disorder led by administrative corruption can do, a corrupt policeman could illustrate all the scene, these strange picture in your memory with all its contrasts, you can call it Egypt in decadence. But i would like to affirm you that your comments are highly regarded, I know it is not the appropriate place to talk about politics, but most deffects might never changes with only goodwill, i can't give you a schedul, but come back few years latter and i hope some changes will be done, some are already under the way, but we [egyptians] have to wake up from our nightmare, because however you unliked the current state of Egypt, Egyptians suffer the most.
I like Kizo Naoko's word:
Mt. Sinai gave me a lesson; there is no special place in
this globe but we can change our world and invite to create the place
we feel comfortable, in our own labor and diligence.
Next time anyone want to visit Egypt, please contact your friends, friend of friend, or anyone you can trust here, or at least someone already visited Egypt, for Egyptians friends you can ask him/her for guidance and companion in their cities.
Another point of view, which is already discussed, there is no mean to keep the monopoly between the first world, specially when it comes to Wikimedia, i bet i benefit from Wikipedia for example more than you :) i am not joking, i mean projects like this and like Wikiversity, Wikibooks are more valuable where education is corrupt and/or expensive, that's clear i think, and that's why i am more loyal to Wikimedia than most of you ;D even if i have less to contribute.
The most flourish part in this thread IMHO, is Ptricio's mail, which promise a lot for next Wikimania i hope (and expect) it will be much better, though some points may remain:
But if you walk the city, you'll meet poor people, at night you may find families
of waste pickers, you'll see homeless. Sorry about that. We are not
able to hide them for you and I think we don't want to do so.
they are not the organizers responsability, but i am sorry to say, poverty is the responsability of all of us, all this planet residents, i am not just talking in the flow, but i know there is something to be done, and i know Wikimedia took it seriously by launching projects like Moulin, WikiAfrica and the more to go.
I hope if i can attend Wikimania2009 (visiting Argentina is an aim by its own), though most probably i will not, but that is not the end of the world for me, and hopefully i may attend some years latter, but for now, i will try to keep active on wikipedia during my conscription. I will revise.
-- Khaled Khalil
Salam Khaled, Can you please send me your MObile number so I can contact you better than the emails.
here is mine : 0105642546
thanks.
On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 6:15 AM, Khaled Khalil khaled.khalil@gmail.comwrote:
Hi there
It my first mail to this list, and needless to say i am very late :) (and that's probably because one of major downsides Majorely told about, lack of info on the wiki). But i have few things to say on this thread.
First of all, i want to thank Majorely for his frank and clear criticism, that lead to this constructive discussion that should make a lot.
Many of the mentioned problems could be avoided by the local volunteers team i think, things like infos regarding shuttle schedule for example. Actually i am an alexandrian (and somehow i am proude to be), but unfortunately i wasn't able to help organizing the conference because of my conscription status (think about me as a part time prisoner), and most likely if i were within the volunteers i couldn't make a difference, i think the staff were exelant just as volunteers, but none of theme was really proffessional, and they couldn't expect all possible situations, but something like this i guess should be expected for wikimedians (the largest contribution driven community), but that doesn't change the fact that there shalt be more work on wiki, or by early promotion of communication mediums like the irc channel and this mailing list where all of us could share infos, i would clarify that most of Egyptian attendees were more than ready to help about anything involving info about the conference or even any help needed about Alexandria, Cairo or arabic translation, actually most of them would be gratefull to provide help.
Unfortunately, most aspects and downside couldn't be avoided by organizers, as you can say these points are defects by design,that's what the mix of popular ignorance, poverty, social disorder led by administrative corruption can do, a corrupt policeman could illustrate all the scene, these strange picture in your memory with all its contrasts, you can call it Egypt in decadence. But i would like to affirm you that your comments are highly regarded, I know it is not the appropriate place to talk about politics, but most deffects might never changes with only goodwill, i can't give you a schedul, but come back few years latter and i hope some changes will be done, some are already under the way, but we [egyptians] have to wake up from our nightmare, because however you unliked the current state of Egypt, Egyptians suffer the most.
I like Kizo Naoko's word:
Mt. Sinai gave me a lesson; there is no special place in
this globe but we can change our world and invite to create the place
we feel comfortable, in our own labor and diligence.
Next time anyone want to visit Egypt, please contact your friends, friend of friend, or anyone you can trust here, or at least someone already visited Egypt, for Egyptians friends you can ask him/her for guidance and companion in their cities.
Another point of view, which is already discussed, there is no mean to keep the monopoly between the first world, specially when it comes to Wikimedia, i bet i benefit from Wikipedia for example more than you :) i am not joking, i mean projects like this and like Wikiversity, Wikibooks are more valuable where education is corrupt and/or expensive, that's clear i think, and that's why i am more loyal to Wikimedia than most of you ;D even if i have less to contribute.
The most flourish part in this thread IMHO, is Ptricio's mail, which promise a lot for next Wikimania i hope (and expect) it will be much better, though some points may remain:
But if you walk the city, you'll meet poor people, at night you may find families
of waste pickers, you'll see homeless. Sorry about that. We are not
able to hide them for you and I think we don't want to do so.
they are not the organizers responsability, but i am sorry to say, poverty is the responsability of all of us, all this planet residents, i am not just talking in the flow, but i know there is something to be done, and i know Wikimedia took it seriously by launching projects like Moulin, WikiAfrica and the more to go.
I hope if i can attend Wikimania2009 (visiting Argentina is an aim by its own), though most probably i will not, but that is not the end of the world for me, and hopefully i may attend some years latter, but for now, i will try to keep active on wikipedia during my conscription. I will revise.
-- Khaled Khalil
Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
so sorry, my last email shouldn't be here at all. excuse me.
@Khaled, you are not the one I meant to talk to, sorry again. and just neglect this msg
On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 10:01 AM, Mohamed Sanad mohameds.sanad@gmail.comwrote:
Salam Khaled, Can you please send me your MObile number so I can contact you better than the emails.
here is mine : 0105642546
thanks.
On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 6:15 AM, Khaled Khalil khaled.khalil@gmail.comwrote:
Hi there
It my first mail to this list, and needless to say i am very late :) (and that's probably because one of major downsides Majorely told about, lack of info on the wiki). But i have few things to say on this thread.
First of all, i want to thank Majorely for his frank and clear criticism, that lead to this constructive discussion that should make a lot.
Many of the mentioned problems could be avoided by the local volunteers team i think, things like infos regarding shuttle schedule for example. Actually i am an alexandrian (and somehow i am proude to be), but unfortunately i wasn't able to help organizing the conference because of my conscription status (think about me as a part time prisoner), and most likely if i were within the volunteers i couldn't make a difference, i think the staff were exelant just as volunteers, but none of theme was really proffessional, and they couldn't expect all possible situations, but something like this i guess should be expected for wikimedians (the largest contribution driven community), but that doesn't change the fact that there shalt be more work on wiki, or by early promotion of communication mediums like the irc channel and this mailing list where all of us could share infos, i would clarify that most of Egyptian attendees were more than ready to help about anything involving info about the conference or even any help needed about Alexandria, Cairo or arabic translation, actually most of them would be gratefull to provide help.
Unfortunately, most aspects and downside couldn't be avoided by organizers, as you can say these points are defects by design,that's what the mix of popular ignorance, poverty, social disorder led by administrative corruption can do, a corrupt policeman could illustrate all the scene, these strange picture in your memory with all its contrasts, you can call it Egypt in decadence. But i would like to affirm you that your comments are highly regarded, I know it is not the appropriate place to talk about politics, but most deffects might never changes with only goodwill, i can't give you a schedul, but come back few years latter and i hope some changes will be done, some are already under the way, but we [egyptians] have to wake up from our nightmare, because however you unliked the current state of Egypt, Egyptians suffer the most.
I like Kizo Naoko's word:
Mt. Sinai gave me a lesson; there is no special place in
this globe but we can change our world and invite to create the place
we feel comfortable, in our own labor and diligence.
Next time anyone want to visit Egypt, please contact your friends, friend of friend, or anyone you can trust here, or at least someone already visited Egypt, for Egyptians friends you can ask him/her for guidance and companion in their cities.
Another point of view, which is already discussed, there is no mean to keep the monopoly between the first world, specially when it comes to Wikimedia, i bet i benefit from Wikipedia for example more than you :) i am not joking, i mean projects like this and like Wikiversity, Wikibooks are more valuable where education is corrupt and/or expensive, that's clear i think, and that's why i am more loyal to Wikimedia than most of you ;D even if i have less to contribute.
The most flourish part in this thread IMHO, is Ptricio's mail, which promise a lot for next Wikimania i hope (and expect) it will be much better, though some points may remain:
But if you walk the city, you'll meet poor people, at night you may find families
of waste pickers, you'll see homeless. Sorry about that. We are not
able to hide them for you and I think we don't want to do so.
they are not the organizers responsability, but i am sorry to say, poverty is the responsability of all of us, all this planet residents, i am not just talking in the flow, but i know there is something to be done, and i know Wikimedia took it seriously by launching projects like Moulin, WikiAfrica and the more to go.
I hope if i can attend Wikimania2009 (visiting Argentina is an aim by its own), though most probably i will not, but that is not the end of the world for me, and hopefully i may attend some years latter, but for now, i will try to keep active on wikipedia during my conscription. I will revise.
-- Khaled Khalil
Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
I've been busy all week, so when I finally caught up with this thread I found myself marveling at the complaints of inexperienced travelers, acknowledging several fair gripes about this year's venue, appreciating the more insightful points by some posters, and being particularly encouraged by Patricio's post.
As a veteran Wikimania organizer, and having participated in the selection process for every Wikimania to date, I could write an essay on what I think about our annual conference (which, despite the inevitable problems, people still attend). I'll try to be brief here, though.
No conference venue is going to be perfect. One year there won't be enough snacks; another venue won't have adequate power ports in certain areas; a country might have too many poor people. (Read up, these are actual complaints cited in this thread alone.) No conference venue, period, is going to have adequate WiFi—I do this for a living; I taped access points to walls in Frankfurt, and the fact is that it's not a perfect technology. (It's not even a particularly good one, actually, but we manage.)
Every year those involved learn from the previous year's mistakes, and we make new ones. Because every venue is different, new problems will occur that were never anticipated in the past. What makes Wikimania great is just getting everyone together in one place, and though I'm not going to say "kwitcherbitchin," I will say that some of the complaints I've seen simply aren't helpful. This said, I hope people keep posting, because I'd rather roll my eyes at a noob comment than risk missing out on a good point.
I'm looking forward to Wikimania 2009. Patricio and his team are impressively dedicated to doing this right, and have practically treated the last two Wikimanias as a case study—and good thing, since each one gets harder and harder to top. I have no doubt we won't be disappointed.
Austin
P.S. Since all we've seen are the unpleasant arrival stories, I want to relate mine: I arrived in Cairo at 3:55 a.m., spent a mere 30 minutes buying a visa and getting through passport control, got a cab to the hotel my friends had checked into a few hours before, got a key from reception, crashed for a few hours, had a leisurely breakfast, got a cab to the train station, took a train to Alexandria, and got a cab to another hotel. All it takes is a little prior research and planning, and a little bit of savvy. Yes, along the way I was waylaid by unscrupulous cab drivers in the airport, had my driver disrupt a wedding, waited an hour in the heat of the Cairo train station, had to negotiate a seat swap with another passenger to sit with my friends, watched as a cab driver spent five minutes banging on his engine with a pair of pliers to get his '72 Lada running again, and overpaid for most everything, only to spend the next two nights with three beds crammed into a particularly small room of a colonial hotel; although I realize not everyone finds this sort of thing fun as I do, you have to manage your own expectations. There are no golden carriages in the developing world.
wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org