Can we please not keep this thread dedicated to the discussion that the subject suggests? What European medias has shown and what any individual's belief for any country of the world could be fun to discuss on social media where more people can join. These kind of personal views can hurt feelings of citizens/residents of those countries.
This thread started with the issues faced in getting visa to this year's Wikimania, let us stick to that please.
Thanks, Dhaval
On 3 Jul 2017 17:18, "DaB." wp@dabpunkt.eu wrote:
Hello, Am 03.07.2017 um 04:41 schrieb Asaf Bartov:
DaB.: Wikimania has already been held in a military dictatorship (Egypt, 2008), without particular problems.
that’s not a reason to repeat the mistake. If you held an event (especially such a big one as the Wikimania) in a dictatorship, you support this dictatorship. You support the suppression of free speech and other human rights.
And cs, just to quote enwp:
“Since May 2014 Thailand has been ruled by a military junta, the National Council for Peace and Order, which has partially repealed the 2007 constitution, declared martial law and nationwide curfew, banned political gatherings, arrested and detained politicians and anti-coup activists, imposed internet censorship and taken control of the media.”
The conflicts of the yellow- and the red-shirt-people were so bad you even got reports in European news-programs on TV, and so was the conflict of the Preah Vihear Temple. So please try not to fool me.
Thailand is surely a great country, but it has many problems (dictatorship, civil uprisings, corruption, police-corruption, high number of deaths on road traffic, and so on) that makes it unsuitable for a conference.
Sincerely, DaB.
_______________________________________________ Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
As per latest update: from India 4 Indian, 3 Armenian and 3/2 African rejected.
Regards,
Jayanta Nath
On Mon, Jul 3, 2017 at 10:34 PM, Dhaval S. Vyas dsvyas@gmail.com wrote:
Can we please not keep this thread dedicated to the discussion that the subject suggests? What European medias has shown and what any individual's belief for any country of the world could be fun to discuss on social media where more people can join. These kind of personal views can hurt feelings of citizens/residents of those countries.
This thread started with the issues faced in getting visa to this year's Wikimania, let us stick to that please.
Thanks, Dhaval
On 3 Jul 2017 17:18, "DaB." wp@dabpunkt.eu wrote:
Hello, Am 03.07.2017 um 04:41 schrieb Asaf Bartov:
DaB.: Wikimania has already been held in a military dictatorship (Egypt, 2008), without particular problems.
that’s not a reason to repeat the mistake. If you held an event (especially such a big one as the Wikimania) in a dictatorship, you support this dictatorship. You support the suppression of free speech and other human rights.
And cs, just to quote enwp:
“Since May 2014 Thailand has been ruled by a military junta, the National Council for Peace and Order, which has partially repealed the 2007 constitution, declared martial law and nationwide curfew, banned political gatherings, arrested and detained politicians and anti-coup activists, imposed internet censorship and taken control of the media.”
The conflicts of the yellow- and the red-shirt-people were so bad you even got reports in European news-programs on TV, and so was the conflict of the Preah Vihear Temple. So please try not to fool me.
Thailand is surely a great country, but it has many problems (dictatorship, civil uprisings, corruption, police-corruption, high number of deaths on road traffic, and so on) that makes it unsuitable for a conference.
Sincerely, DaB.
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
Out of how many people who tried for a visa from those countries?
On Jul 3, 2017 14:09, "Jayanta Nath" jayantanth@gmail.com wrote:
As per latest update: from India 4 Indian, 3 Armenian and 3/2 African rejected.
Regards,
Jayanta Nath
On Mon, Jul 3, 2017 at 10:34 PM, Dhaval S. Vyas dsvyas@gmail.com wrote:
Can we please not keep this thread dedicated to the discussion that the subject suggests? What European medias has shown and what any individual's belief for any country of the world could be fun to discuss on social media where more people can join. These kind of personal views can hurt feelings of citizens/residents of those countries.
This thread started with the issues faced in getting visa to this year's Wikimania, let us stick to that please.
Thanks, Dhaval
On 3 Jul 2017 17:18, "DaB." wp@dabpunkt.eu wrote:
Hello, Am 03.07.2017 um 04:41 schrieb Asaf Bartov:
DaB.: Wikimania has already been held in a military dictatorship (Egypt, 2008), without particular problems.
that’s not a reason to repeat the mistake. If you held an event (especially such a big one as the Wikimania) in a dictatorship, you support this dictatorship. You support the suppression of free speech and other human rights.
And cs, just to quote enwp:
“Since May 2014 Thailand has been ruled by a military junta, the National Council for Peace and Order, which has partially repealed the 2007 constitution, declared martial law and nationwide curfew, banned political gatherings, arrested and detained politicians and anti-coup activists, imposed internet censorship and taken control of the media.”
The conflicts of the yellow- and the red-shirt-people were so bad you even got reports in European news-programs on TV, and so was the conflict of the Preah Vihear Temple. So please try not to fool me.
Thailand is surely a great country, but it has many problems (dictatorship, civil uprisings, corruption, police-corruption, high number of deaths on road traffic, and so on) that makes it unsuitable for a conference.
Sincerely, DaB.
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
_______________________________________________ Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
If it's ok with everyone, can we update this https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:TPS/Wikimania_scholars#2017_WMF_Wikimania_Scholarships table with visa status (Approved, Rejected, In progress)?
On Tue, Jul 4, 2017 at 5:16 PM, Béria Lima berialima@gmail.com wrote:
Out of how many people who tried for a visa from those countries?
On Jul 3, 2017 14:09, "Jayanta Nath" jayantanth@gmail.com wrote:
As per latest update: from India 4 Indian, 3 Armenian and 3/2 African rejected.
Regards,
Jayanta Nath
On Mon, Jul 3, 2017 at 10:34 PM, Dhaval S. Vyas dsvyas@gmail.com wrote:
Can we please not keep this thread dedicated to the discussion that the subject suggests? What European medias has shown and what any individual's belief for any country of the world could be fun to discuss on social media where more people can join. These kind of personal views can hurt feelings of citizens/residents of those countries.
This thread started with the issues faced in getting visa to this year's Wikimania, let us stick to that please.
Thanks, Dhaval
On 3 Jul 2017 17:18, "DaB." wp@dabpunkt.eu wrote:
Hello, Am 03.07.2017 um 04:41 schrieb Asaf Bartov:
DaB.: Wikimania has already been held in a military dictatorship (Egypt, 2008), without particular problems.
that’s not a reason to repeat the mistake. If you held an event (especially such a big one as the Wikimania) in a dictatorship, you support this dictatorship. You support the suppression of free speech and other human rights.
And cs, just to quote enwp:
“Since May 2014 Thailand has been ruled by a military junta, the National Council for Peace and Order, which has partially repealed the 2007 constitution, declared martial law and nationwide curfew, banned political gatherings, arrested and detained politicians and anti-coup activists, imposed internet censorship and taken control of the media.”
The conflicts of the yellow- and the red-shirt-people were so bad you even got reports in European news-programs on TV, and so was the conflict of the Preah Vihear Temple. So please try not to fool me.
Thailand is surely a great country, but it has many problems (dictatorship, civil uprisings, corruption, police-corruption, high number of deaths on road traffic, and so on) that makes it unsuitable for a conference.
Sincerely, DaB.
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
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
Please don't. This is privacy sensitive information that might actually hurt people in future visa applications (for example, in another country).
If you want to collect such info, I suggest you get someone with the proper privacy clearance with the WMF to collect it, and analyze it.
Lodewijk
On Tue, Jul 4, 2017 at 2:39 PM, Shanmugam Pachamuthu shanmugamp7@gmail.com wrote:
If it's ok with everyone, can we update this https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:TPS/Wikimania_scholars#2017_WMF_Wikimania_Scholarships table with visa status (Approved, Rejected, In progress)?
On Tue, Jul 4, 2017 at 5:16 PM, Béria Lima berialima@gmail.com wrote:
Out of how many people who tried for a visa from those countries?
On Jul 3, 2017 14:09, "Jayanta Nath" jayantanth@gmail.com wrote:
As per latest update: from India 4 Indian, 3 Armenian and 3/2 African rejected.
Regards,
Jayanta Nath
On Mon, Jul 3, 2017 at 10:34 PM, Dhaval S. Vyas dsvyas@gmail.com wrote:
Can we please not keep this thread dedicated to the discussion that the subject suggests? What European medias has shown and what any individual's belief for any country of the world could be fun to discuss on social media where more people can join. These kind of personal views can hurt feelings of citizens/residents of those countries.
This thread started with the issues faced in getting visa to this year's Wikimania, let us stick to that please.
Thanks, Dhaval
On 3 Jul 2017 17:18, "DaB." wp@dabpunkt.eu wrote:
Hello, Am 03.07.2017 um 04:41 schrieb Asaf Bartov:
DaB.: Wikimania has already been held in a military dictatorship
(Egypt,
2008), without particular problems.
that’s not a reason to repeat the mistake. If you held an event (especially such a big one as the Wikimania) in a dictatorship, you support this dictatorship. You support the suppression of free speech and other human rights.
And cs, just to quote enwp:
“Since May 2014 Thailand has been ruled by a military junta, the National Council for Peace and Order, which has partially repealed the 2007 constitution, declared martial law and nationwide curfew, banned political gatherings, arrested and detained politicians and anti-coup activists, imposed internet censorship and taken control of the media.”
The conflicts of the yellow- and the red-shirt-people were so bad you even got reports in European news-programs on TV, and so was the conflict of the Preah Vihear Temple. So please try not to fool me.
Thailand is surely a great country, but it has many problems (dictatorship, civil uprisings, corruption, police-corruption, high number of deaths on road traffic, and so on) that makes it unsuitable for a conference.
Sincerely, DaB.
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
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
-- Thanks & Regards, Shanmugam Pachamuthu.
Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
I support what Lodewijk told. This information may be collected only by WMF staff who signed a contest that this info will not be shared with anyone, otherwise than just statistics without personification. Personal data protection is a very important issue.
Levon
2017-07-04 15:41 GMT+03:00 Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.org:
Please don't. This is privacy sensitive information that might actually hurt people in future visa applications (for example, in another country).
If you want to collect such info, I suggest you get someone with the proper privacy clearance with the WMF to collect it, and analyze it.
Lodewijk
On Tue, Jul 4, 2017 at 2:39 PM, Shanmugam Pachamuthu < shanmugamp7@gmail.com> wrote:
If it's ok with everyone, can we update this https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:TPS/Wikimania_scholars#2017_WMF_Wikimania_Scholarships table with visa status (Approved, Rejected, In progress)?
On Tue, Jul 4, 2017 at 5:16 PM, Béria Lima berialima@gmail.com wrote:
Out of how many people who tried for a visa from those countries?
On Jul 3, 2017 14:09, "Jayanta Nath" jayantanth@gmail.com wrote:
As per latest update: from India 4 Indian, 3 Armenian and 3/2 African rejected.
Regards,
Jayanta Nath
On Mon, Jul 3, 2017 at 10:34 PM, Dhaval S. Vyas dsvyas@gmail.com wrote:
Can we please not keep this thread dedicated to the discussion that the subject suggests? What European medias has shown and what any individual's belief for any country of the world could be fun to discuss on social media where more people can join. These kind of personal views can hurt feelings of citizens/residents of those countries.
This thread started with the issues faced in getting visa to this year's Wikimania, let us stick to that please.
Thanks, Dhaval
On 3 Jul 2017 17:18, "DaB." wp@dabpunkt.eu wrote:
Hello, Am 03.07.2017 um 04:41 schrieb Asaf Bartov:
DaB.: Wikimania has already been held in a military dictatorship
(Egypt,
2008), without particular problems.
that’s not a reason to repeat the mistake. If you held an event (especially such a big one as the Wikimania) in a dictatorship, you support this dictatorship. You support the suppression of free speech and other human rights.
And cs, just to quote enwp:
“Since May 2014 Thailand has been ruled by a military junta, the National Council for Peace and Order, which has partially repealed the 2007 constitution, declared martial law and nationwide curfew, banned political gatherings, arrested and detained politicians and anti-coup activists, imposed internet censorship and taken control of the media.”
The conflicts of the yellow- and the red-shirt-people were so bad you even got reports in European news-programs on TV, and so was the conflict of the Preah Vihear Temple. So please try not to fool me.
Thailand is surely a great country, but it has many problems (dictatorship, civil uprisings, corruption, police-corruption, high number of deaths on road traffic, and so on) that makes it unsuitable for a conference.
Sincerely, DaB.
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
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
-- Thanks & Regards, Shanmugam Pachamuthu.
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 think WMF should already have this information. maybe we can ask them to publish country wise anonymous data or something alike.
I agree that it's privacy sensitive data, maybe not a good idea to publish along with username but for most of the visa applications we have to publish our previous visa rejections, so it might not hurt other country visa applications.
On 04-Jul-2017 6:12 PM, "Lodewijk" lodewijk@effeietsanders.org wrote:
Please don't. This is privacy sensitive information that might actually hurt people in future visa applications (for example, in another country).
If you want to collect such info, I suggest you get someone with the proper privacy clearance with the WMF to collect it, and analyze it.
Lodewijk
On Tue, Jul 4, 2017 at 2:39 PM, Shanmugam Pachamuthu shanmugamp7@gmail.com wrote:
If it's ok with everyone, can we update this https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:TPS/Wikimania_scholars#2017_WMF_Wikimania_Scholarships table with visa status (Approved, Rejected, In progress)?
On Tue, Jul 4, 2017 at 5:16 PM, Béria Lima berialima@gmail.com wrote:
Out of how many people who tried for a visa from those countries?
On Jul 3, 2017 14:09, "Jayanta Nath" jayantanth@gmail.com wrote:
As per latest update: from India 4 Indian, 3 Armenian and 3/2 African rejected.
Regards,
Jayanta Nath
On Mon, Jul 3, 2017 at 10:34 PM, Dhaval S. Vyas dsvyas@gmail.com wrote:
Can we please not keep this thread dedicated to the discussion that the subject suggests? What European medias has shown and what any individual's belief for any country of the world could be fun to discuss on social media where more people can join. These kind of personal views can hurt feelings of citizens/residents of those countries.
This thread started with the issues faced in getting visa to this year's Wikimania, let us stick to that please.
Thanks, Dhaval
On 3 Jul 2017 17:18, "DaB." wp@dabpunkt.eu wrote:
Hello, Am 03.07.2017 um 04:41 schrieb Asaf Bartov:
DaB.: Wikimania has already been held in a military dictatorship
(Egypt,
2008), without particular problems.
that’s not a reason to repeat the mistake. If you held an event (especially such a big one as the Wikimania) in a dictatorship, you support this dictatorship. You support the suppression of free speech and other human rights.
And cs, just to quote enwp:
“Since May 2014 Thailand has been ruled by a military junta, the National Council for Peace and Order, which has partially repealed the 2007 constitution, declared martial law and nationwide curfew, banned political gatherings, arrested and detained politicians and anti-coup activists, imposed internet censorship and taken control of the media.”
The conflicts of the yellow- and the red-shirt-people were so bad you even got reports in European news-programs on TV, and so was the conflict of the Preah Vihear Temple. So please try not to fool me.
Thailand is surely a great country, but it has many problems (dictatorship, civil uprisings, corruption, police-corruption, high number of deaths on road traffic, and so on) that makes it unsuitable for a conference.
Sincerely, DaB.
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
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
-- Thanks & Regards, Shanmugam Pachamuthu.
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
Hello, Am 03.07.2017 um 19:04 schrieb Dhaval S. Vyas:
Can we please not keep this thread dedicated to the discussion that the subject suggests?
it was cs who tried to advertise a unfit country – where were you „please stick to the topic“-mail then?
And sorry that telling the truth COULD hurt some feelings. There is this arabic saying that you can’t carry the torch of truth through a throng without burning some beards.
And no, you don’t need to answer. Learning that some people in the movements support dictatorships was bad enough for this week.
Sincerely, DaB.
It strikes me that it would be helpful to focus on how we can improve the visa process for attendees from (predominantly) African and Asian countries rather than trying to find a utopia that has a very relaxed visa policy *and* a palatable government *and* political stability *and* modern infrastructure/transport links *and* is not excessively expensive for most people to get to. It's certainly not helpful t pounce on people for making good-faith suggestions, even if you think the suggestion is ludicrous.
Dear all,
Regarding mentioned, I have some suggestions on mitigation risks for the future what could be done.
1. Visa support should be an important component for hosting community. Thus, during the bidding process of new location of Wikimania (or other huge event), each proposal of location should be considered not only from the prospective of visa-friendly policy, but on preliminary negotiations between local chapter (community) and local authorities (MFA or whatever). Thus, if let's say community of New Zealand get some positive negotiation's result from MFA of NZ on participant's visa support, it should be considered as a plus for this bid. 2. After the bid was chosen, local team should provide to local authorities the list of all participants who will participate at event and make sure that central authorities will transfer the lists to embassies and this lists will make a sense when decision on visa is made by embassy. Maybe it is not the most interesting thing, but hosting communities should take care on ability of their guests to visit the country, 3. Analysis of history of visa applications of Wiki(m/p)edians. As I understand, we never did such analysis and it could be useful as for passed event, and for future events as well.
Regards, Levon Azizian Wikimedia Ukraine
2017-07-04 15:02 GMT+03:00 Harry Mitchell hjmwiki@gmail.com:
It strikes me that it would be helpful to focus on how we can improve the visa process for attendees from (predominantly) African and Asian countries rather than trying to find a utopia that has a very relaxed visa policy *and* a palatable government *and* political stability *and* modern infrastructure/transport links *and* is not excessively expensive for most people to get to. It's certainly not helpful t pounce on people for making good-faith suggestions, even if you think the suggestion is ludicrous.
Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
Hi Levin,
Of your three points:
1 Is good, but I can remember one winning bid where there was a very strong reassurance at the bid stage which then didn't really work out well during the organisation stage. I'm not going to name the bid, but I will say that people ask questions and not every answer is 100% delivered. If questions have not been asked recently we need to start asking them again ( I don't know if this was looked at during Montreal, I look at lots of Wikimania bids and often ask about visas, I don't remember looking at the Montreal bid).
2 Is a problem, some of the people who are going to have most difficulty getting visas are people who can only afford to come if they get a scholarship. Moving the whole scholarship process forward so we know who is going to come earlier would lose spontaneity of the event for others though it would help some get visas. But there are two things we could do. Firstly we could offer scholarships now to next year's Wikimania to scholarship recipients who couldn't get visas to Montreal (and do that each year - this is not a new problem or an easy one). Secondly we could move the scholarship process forward for people coming from countries where visas are likely to be slow to get for the next Wikimania. That could mean two rounds of scholarship applications, one for one group of countries and a few months later for people from other countries. Not perfect but practical and probably helpful.
3 I'm pretty sure there has been analysis, at least to the level of number of non attendees due to visa failure per Wikimania. For Privacy reasons we need to be very careful with any more detailed data, but that number should be known and each Wikimania team should be aiming to be low on that list.
Regards
Jonathan
On 4 Jul 2017, at 13:13, Levon Azizian levonazizian@gmail.com wrote:
Dear all,
Regarding mentioned, I have some suggestions on mitigation risks for the future what could be done.
- Visa support should be an important component for hosting community. Thus, during the bidding process of new location of Wikimania (or other huge event), each proposal of location should be considered not only from the prospective of visa-friendly policy, but on preliminary negotiations between local chapter (community) and local authorities (MFA or whatever). Thus, if let's say community of New Zealand get some positive negotiation's result from MFA of NZ on participant's visa support, it should be considered as a plus for this bid.
- After the bid was chosen, local team should provide to local authorities the list of all participants who will participate at event and make sure that central authorities will transfer the lists to embassies and this lists will make a sense when decision on visa is made by embassy. Maybe it is not the most interesting thing, but hosting communities should take care on ability of their guests to visit the country,
- Analysis of history of visa applications of Wiki(m/p)edians. As I understand, we never did such analysis and it could be useful as for passed event, and for future events as well.
Regards, Levon Azizian Wikimedia Ukraine
2017-07-04 15:02 GMT+03:00 Harry Mitchell hjmwiki@gmail.com:
It strikes me that it would be helpful to focus on how we can improve the visa process for attendees from (predominantly) African and Asian countries rather than trying to find a utopia that has a very relaxed visa policy *and* a palatable government *and* political stability *and* modern infrastructure/transport links *and* is not excessively expensive for most people to get to. It's certainly not helpful t pounce on people for making good-faith suggestions, even if you think the suggestion is ludicrous.
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 think there is an impossible task have a country to host a Wikimania with all the ideal conditions. For an example, Canada and Mexico for better or worse share borders with US, and there are many geopolitical factors and mutual agreements derived from States strong advocacy around migration, travel regulations and such conditioning the visa procedures.
Many other factors of rejection unfortunately are strictly personal and not attributable to local organizers or WMF as lack of proving of funds to face an emergency, or evidence of "reasons" to come back to the origin country as jobs, family or schools. Talking with Foreign Affairs officials in Mexico in 2015, I know that they aware about people in the past abused of the attendance to (real or fake) international events to stay legal or illegal in the country which invited them with good faith.
I know that is not the case of any colleague in the movement, but we need to be aware about this strict rules and all the factors to consider around the process and do our best to get people safe and present in Wikimania cities.
Also I'm agree with Jonathan about kind of "next year" policy.
Best,
2017-07-04 10:45 GMT-05:00 Jonathan Cardy werespielchequers@gmail.com:
Hi Levin,
Of your three points:
1 Is good, but I can remember one winning bid where there was a very strong reassurance at the bid stage which then didn't really work out well during the organisation stage. I'm not going to name the bid, but I will say that people ask questions and not every answer is 100% delivered. If questions have not been asked recently we need to start asking them again ( I don't know if this was looked at during Montreal, I look at lots of Wikimania bids and often ask about visas, I don't remember looking at the Montreal bid).
2 Is a problem, some of the people who are going to have most difficulty getting visas are people who can only afford to come if they get a scholarship. Moving the whole scholarship process forward so we know who is going to come earlier would lose spontaneity of the event for others though it would help some get visas. But there are two things we could do. Firstly we could offer scholarships now to next year's Wikimania to scholarship recipients who couldn't get visas to Montreal (and do that each year - this is not a new problem or an easy one). Secondly we could move the scholarship process forward for people coming from countries where visas are likely to be slow to get for the next Wikimania. That could mean two rounds of scholarship applications, one for one group of countries and a few months later for people from other countries. Not perfect but practical and probably helpful.
3 I'm pretty sure there has been analysis, at least to the level of number of non attendees due to visa failure per Wikimania. For Privacy reasons we need to be very careful with any more detailed data, but that number should be known and each Wikimania team should be aiming to be low on that list.
Regards
Jonathan
On 4 Jul 2017, at 13:13, Levon Azizian levonazizian@gmail.com wrote:
Dear all,
Regarding mentioned, I have some suggestions on mitigation risks for the future what could be done.
- Visa support should be an important component for hosting community.
Thus, during the bidding process of new location of Wikimania (or other huge event), each proposal of location should be considered not only from the prospective of visa-friendly policy, but on preliminary negotiations between local chapter (community) and local authorities (MFA or whatever). Thus, if let's say community of New Zealand get some positive negotiation's result from MFA of NZ on participant's visa support, it should be considered as a plus for this bid. 2. After the bid was chosen, local team should provide to local authorities the list of all participants who will participate at event and make sure that central authorities will transfer the lists to embassies and this lists will make a sense when decision on visa is made by embassy. Maybe it is not the most interesting thing, but hosting communities should take care on ability of their guests to visit the country, 3. Analysis of history of visa applications of Wiki(m/p)edians. As I understand, we never did such analysis and it could be useful as for passed event, and for future events as well.
Regards, Levon Azizian Wikimedia Ukraine
2017-07-04 15:02 GMT+03:00 Harry Mitchell hjmwiki@gmail.com:
It strikes me that it would be helpful to focus on how we can improve the visa process for attendees from (predominantly) African and Asian countries rather than trying to find a utopia that has a very relaxed visa policy *and* a palatable government *and* political stability *and* modern infrastructure/transport links *and* is not excessively expensive for most people to get to. It's certainly not helpful t pounce on people for making good-faith suggestions, even if you think the suggestion is ludicrous.
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
Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
Hi Jonathan,
With regard to the point 2, issuing scholarships early, how early is a question. Most countries, if not all, only allows one to apply no more than 3 months prior to their intended date of travel, so notifying recipients 6 months in advance is not going to help them in anyways.
We need to learn the reason provided by visa processing agency for the rejection, which can help others decide what to submit and what to expect. I think in this thread also I have missed that if anyone mentioned the official reason provided to them. I see points made about invitation/sponsorship letter sent from US for Canada visa here but uncertain whether that was officially the reason for rejection.
Regards, Dhaval Vyas
On 4 Jul 2017 16:45, "Jonathan Cardy" werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Levin,
Of your three points:
1 Is good, but I can remember one winning bid where there was a very strong reassurance at the bid stage which then didn't really work out well during the organisation stage. I'm not going to name the bid, but I will say that people ask questions and not every answer is 100% delivered. If questions have not been asked recently we need to start asking them again ( I don't know if this was looked at during Montreal, I look at lots of Wikimania bids and often ask about visas, I don't remember looking at the Montreal bid).
2 Is a problem, some of the people who are going to have most difficulty getting visas are people who can only afford to come if they get a scholarship. Moving the whole scholarship process forward so we know who is going to come earlier would lose spontaneity of the event for others though it would help some get visas. But there are two things we could do. Firstly we could offer scholarships now to next year's Wikimania to scholarship recipients who couldn't get visas to Montreal (and do that each year - this is not a new problem or an easy one). Secondly we could move the scholarship process forward for people coming from countries where visas are likely to be slow to get for the next Wikimania. That could mean two rounds of scholarship applications, one for one group of countries and a few months later for people from other countries. Not perfect but practical and probably helpful.
3 I'm pretty sure there has been analysis, at least to the level of number of non attendees due to visa failure per Wikimania. For Privacy reasons we need to be very careful with any more detailed data, but that number should be known and each Wikimania team should be aiming to be low on that list.
Regards
Jonathan
On 4 Jul 2017, at 13:13, Levon Azizian levonazizian@gmail.com wrote:
Dear all,
Regarding mentioned, I have some suggestions on mitigation risks for the future what could be done.
- Visa support should be an important component for hosting community.
Thus, during the bidding process of new location of Wikimania (or other huge event), each proposal of location should be considered not only from the prospective of visa-friendly policy, but on preliminary negotiations between local chapter (community) and local authorities (MFA or whatever). Thus, if let's say community of New Zealand get some positive negotiation's result from MFA of NZ on participant's visa support, it should be considered as a plus for this bid. 2. After the bid was chosen, local team should provide to local authorities the list of all participants who will participate at event and make sure that central authorities will transfer the lists to embassies and this lists will make a sense when decision on visa is made by embassy. Maybe it is not the most interesting thing, but hosting communities should take care on ability of their guests to visit the country, 3. Analysis of history of visa applications of Wiki(m/p)edians. As I understand, we never did such analysis and it could be useful as for passed event, and for future events as well.
Regards, Levon Azizian Wikimedia Ukraine
2017-07-04 15:02 GMT+03:00 Harry Mitchell hjmwiki@gmail.com:
It strikes me that it would be helpful to focus on how we can improve the visa process for attendees from (predominantly) African and Asian countries rather than trying to find a utopia that has a very relaxed visa policy *and* a palatable government *and* political stability *and* modern infrastructure/transport links *and* is not excessively expensive for most people to get to. It's certainly not helpful t pounce on people for making good-faith suggestions, even if you think the suggestion is ludicrous.
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
Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
I agree with Jonathan that issuing scholarship earlier than three months before event is meaningless. What I see as the most viable solution to this problem is that WMF should leave invitations to host country who is expected to work in tandem with their Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Wikimedia Conference in Berlin is working today not because Germany is Visa-friendly but because of the way WMDE is handling the visa process. It's surprising that WMF is the one inviting people to Canada rather than the host country. I don't know if someone from the foundation will comment on the invitation letter.
Best,
Isaac
On Jul 4, 2017 5:30 PM, "Dhaval S. Vyas" dsvyas@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Jonathan,
With regard to the point 2, issuing scholarships early, how early is a question. Most countries, if not all, only allows one to apply no more than 3 months prior to their intended date of travel, so notifying recipients 6 months in advance is not going to help them in anyways.
We need to learn the reason provided by visa processing agency for the rejection, which can help others decide what to submit and what to expect. I think in this thread also I have missed that if anyone mentioned the official reason provided to them. I see points made about invitation/sponsorship letter sent from US for Canada visa here but uncertain whether that was officially the reason for rejection.
Regards, Dhaval Vyas
On 4 Jul 2017 16:45, "Jonathan Cardy" werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Levin,
Of your three points:
1 Is good, but I can remember one winning bid where there was a very strong reassurance at the bid stage which then didn't really work out well during the organisation stage. I'm not going to name the bid, but I will say that people ask questions and not every answer is 100% delivered. If questions have not been asked recently we need to start asking them again ( I don't know if this was looked at during Montreal, I look at lots of Wikimania bids and often ask about visas, I don't remember looking at the Montreal bid).
2 Is a problem, some of the people who are going to have most difficulty getting visas are people who can only afford to come if they get a scholarship. Moving the whole scholarship process forward so we know who is going to come earlier would lose spontaneity of the event for others though it would help some get visas. But there are two things we could do. Firstly we could offer scholarships now to next year's Wikimania to scholarship recipients who couldn't get visas to Montreal (and do that each year - this is not a new problem or an easy one). Secondly we could move the scholarship process forward for people coming from countries where visas are likely to be slow to get for the next Wikimania. That could mean two rounds of scholarship applications, one for one group of countries and a few months later for people from other countries. Not perfect but practical and probably helpful.
3 I'm pretty sure there has been analysis, at least to the level of number of non attendees due to visa failure per Wikimania. For Privacy reasons we need to be very careful with any more detailed data, but that number should be known and each Wikimania team should be aiming to be low on that list.
Regards
Jonathan
On 4 Jul 2017, at 13:13, Levon Azizian levonazizian@gmail.com wrote:
Dear all,
Regarding mentioned, I have some suggestions on mitigation risks for the future what could be done.
- Visa support should be an important component for hosting community.
Thus, during the bidding process of new location of Wikimania (or other huge event), each proposal of location should be considered not only from the prospective of visa-friendly policy, but on preliminary negotiations between local chapter (community) and local authorities (MFA or whatever). Thus, if let's say community of New Zealand get some positive negotiation's result from MFA of NZ on participant's visa support, it should be considered as a plus for this bid. 2. After the bid was chosen, local team should provide to local authorities the list of all participants who will participate at event and make sure that central authorities will transfer the lists to embassies and this lists will make a sense when decision on visa is made by embassy. Maybe it is not the most interesting thing, but hosting communities should take care on ability of their guests to visit the country, 3. Analysis of history of visa applications of Wiki(m/p)edians. As I understand, we never did such analysis and it could be useful as for passed event, and for future events as well.
Regards, Levon Azizian Wikimedia Ukraine
2017-07-04 15:02 GMT+03:00 Harry Mitchell hjmwiki@gmail.com:
It strikes me that it would be helpful to focus on how we can improve the visa process for attendees from (predominantly) African and Asian countries rather than trying to find a utopia that has a very relaxed visa policy *and* a palatable government *and* political stability *and* modern infrastructure/transport links *and* is not excessively expensive for most people to get to. It's certainly not helpful t pounce on people for making good-faith suggestions, even if you think the suggestion is ludicrous.
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
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
Hey Folks,
I got my passport back today and count me in to the 'rejected party' :) The grounds of rejection are 'Travel History' and 'Purpose of Travel'. Though I have a fair travel history with 3 Schengen, a valid USA visa and some other visas. I guess the guy even didn't bother to check my passport.
Best of luck to all those participating in the Wikimania this year.
Cheers,
Nahid Sultan
User:NahidSultanhttps://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:NahidSultan on all Wikimedia Foundationhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation's public wikis
Secretary, Wikimedia Bangladeshhttps://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Bangladesh
Twitter: @nahidunlimitedhttps://twitter.com/nahidunlimited
Hi,
I got my visa approved. I also have a fairly good travel history (USA, Singapore, Taiwan)
Regards,
Pavanaja
From: Wikimania-l [mailto:wikimania-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Nahid Sultan Sent: 26 July 2017 07:27 PM To: Wikimania general list (open subscription) Subject: Re: [Wikimania-l] Visa rejections
Hey Folks,
I got my passport back today and count me in to the 'rejected party' :) The grounds of rejection are 'Travel History' and 'Purpose of Travel'. Though I have a fair travel history with 3 Schengen, a valid USA visa and some other visas. I guess the guy even didn't bother to check my passport.
Best of luck to all those participating in the Wikimania this year.
Cheers,
Nahid Sultan
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:NahidSultan User:NahidSultan on all https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation Wikimedia Foundation's public wikis
Secretary, Wikimedia Bangladesh https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Bangladesh
Twitter: @nahidunlimited https://twitter.com/nahidunlimited
On Tue, Jul 4, 2017 at 1:37 PM, Isaac Olatunde reachout2isaac@gmail.com wrote:
I agree with Jonathan that issuing scholarship earlier than three months before event is meaningless. What I see as the most viable solution to this problem is that WMF should leave invitations to host country who is expected to work in tandem with their Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
I would like to point out that WMF normally does work with the above, but with Canada their processes did not allow for this option....
The Steering Committee and Foundation will no doubt revisit the location issue for Wikimania. We do mostly go to "visa-friendly" countries but once every 5 years or so the conference is located in Canada or USA which has these challenges.
The Wikimedia Conference in Berlin is working today not because Germany is Visa-friendly but because of the way WMDE is handling the visa process. It's surprising that WMF is the one inviting people to Canada rather than the host country. I don't know if someone from the foundation will comment on the invitation letter.
Best,
Isaac
On Jul 4, 2017 5:30 PM, "Dhaval S. Vyas" dsvyas@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Jonathan,
With regard to the point 2, issuing scholarships early, how early is a question. Most countries, if not all, only allows one to apply no more than 3 months prior to their intended date of travel, so notifying recipients 6 months in advance is not going to help them in anyways.
We need to learn the reason provided by visa processing agency for the rejection, which can help others decide what to submit and what to expect. I think in this thread also I have missed that if anyone mentioned the official reason provided to them. I see points made about invitation/sponsorship letter sent from US for Canada visa here but uncertain whether that was officially the reason for rejection.
Regards, Dhaval Vyas
On 4 Jul 2017 16:45, "Jonathan Cardy" werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Levin,
Of your three points:
1 Is good, but I can remember one winning bid where there was a very strong reassurance at the bid stage which then didn't really work out well during the organisation stage. I'm not going to name the bid, but I will say that people ask questions and not every answer is 100% delivered. If questions have not been asked recently we need to start asking them again ( I don't know if this was looked at during Montreal, I look at lots of Wikimania bids and often ask about visas, I don't remember looking at the Montreal bid).
2 Is a problem, some of the people who are going to have most difficulty getting visas are people who can only afford to come if they get a scholarship. Moving the whole scholarship process forward so we know who is going to come earlier would lose spontaneity of the event for others though it would help some get visas. But there are two things we could do. Firstly we could offer scholarships now to next year's Wikimania to scholarship recipients who couldn't get visas to Montreal (and do that each year - this is not a new problem or an easy one). Secondly we could move the scholarship process forward for people coming from countries where visas are likely to be slow to get for the next Wikimania. That could mean two rounds of scholarship applications, one for one group of countries and a few months later for people from other countries. Not perfect but practical and probably helpful.
3 I'm pretty sure there has been analysis, at least to the level of number of non attendees due to visa failure per Wikimania. For Privacy reasons we need to be very careful with any more detailed data, but that number should be known and each Wikimania team should be aiming to be low on that list.
Regards
Jonathan
On 4 Jul 2017, at 13:13, Levon Azizian levonazizian@gmail.com wrote:
Dear all,
Regarding mentioned, I have some suggestions on mitigation risks for the future what could be done.
- Visa support should be an important component for hosting community.
Thus, during the bidding process of new location of Wikimania (or other huge event), each proposal of location should be considered not only from the prospective of visa-friendly policy, but on preliminary negotiations between local chapter (community) and local authorities (MFA or whatever). Thus, if let's say community of New Zealand get some positive negotiation's result from MFA of NZ on participant's visa support, it should be considered as a plus for this bid. 2. After the bid was chosen, local team should provide to local authorities the list of all participants who will participate at event and make sure that central authorities will transfer the lists to embassies and this lists will make a sense when decision on visa is made by embassy. Maybe it is not the most interesting thing, but hosting communities should take care on ability of their guests to visit the country, 3. Analysis of history of visa applications of Wiki(m/p)edians. As I understand, we never did such analysis and it could be useful as for passed event, and for future events as well.
Regards, Levon Azizian Wikimedia Ukraine
2017-07-04 15:02 GMT+03:00 Harry Mitchell hjmwiki@gmail.com:
It strikes me that it would be helpful to focus on how we can improve the visa process for attendees from (predominantly) African and Asian countries rather than trying to find a utopia that has a very relaxed visa policy *and* a palatable government *and* political stability *and* modern infrastructure/transport links *and* is not excessively expensive for most people to get to. It's certainly not helpful t pounce on people for making good-faith suggestions, even if you think the suggestion is ludicrous.
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
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
Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org