Hello,
BDS is telling people that certain people (gaza, west bank) are being excluded or likely to be excluded from wikimania [1]
I'm pretty sure that's not going to be entirely true. I'd like to tell these BDS people off for spreading FUD.
Even so, I'd better be sure I'm telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but ;-)
Is there anyone who currently wants to come to wikimania, but definitely won't be able to come due to issues with permit/visa?
sincerely, Kim Bruning
[1] http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/topics/economy-of-the-occup...
I'm currently traveling so I'll just post a short answer and let someone else from the local team carry this on:
The short answer is that apart from one guy from the Gaza strip who was in contact with us, and for whom we bended over backwards to try to find creative solutions to bring him to Israel, and later (rather quickly) just disappeared off our radars, we have not a single case we can report of anyone from the Middle East wanting to come to Wikimania but being prevented by Israel from doing so. There were some bogus applications like any Wikimania has, nothing that looks like a real participant wanting to join.
BTW all of these discussions were already held in other guises on this list and on wikimania-planning-l and foundation-l in the last summer and autumn - just search the archives :)
Harel Cain Wikimania 2011 local team
On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 20:51, Kim Bruning kim@bruning.xs4all.nl wrote:
Hello,
BDS is telling people that certain people (gaza, west bank) are being excluded or likely to be excluded from wikimania [1]
I'm pretty sure that's not going to be entirely true. I'd like to tell these BDS people off for spreading FUD.
Even so, I'd better be sure I'm telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but ;-)
Is there anyone who currently wants to come to wikimania, but definitely won't be able to come due to issues with permit/visa?
sincerely, Kim Bruning
[1]
http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/topics/economy-of-the-occup...
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On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 10:05:24PM +0300, Harel Cain wrote:
We have not a single case we can report of anyone from the Middle East wanting to come to Wikimania but being prevented by Israel from doing so.
So we'll have plenty of folks from Gaza too? Cool. :-)
BTW all of these discussions were already held in other guises on this list and on wikimania-planning-l and foundation-l in the last summer and autumn - just search the archives :)
I thought I'd caught the gist of that, yeah. I'm just double-checking to be sure I didn't miss something important! :-)
sincerely, Kim Bruning
2011/6/28 Kim Bruning kim@bruning.xs4all.nl
Is there anyone who currently wants to come to wikimania, but definitely won't be able to come due to issues with permit/visa?
Indeed, Palestinians who live in the West Bank or in Gaza Strip have to obtain a permit to enter Israel. This permit is not very different from a Visa that participants from many other countries need to obtain. We are providing a lot of assistance to a great number of people who need Visas, permits, special travel and accommodation arrangements, etc.
We cannot reveal the personal details of any attendee. What I can tell is that until now there was only one serious Palestinian person who asked to attend (not counting the registrations which are bogus beyond any doubt). We sent that person all the needed information about getting the permit and we are in contact with the relevant government authorities about this matter. Unfortunately, we haven't heard from that person since.
Except doing our best to help the Palestinians who actually register to get the needed permits and to arrive, we also did our best to reach out to potential Palestinian attendees: We sent dozens of emails to Palestinian Wikipedians, software developers, activists of free culture and education, etc., and until now we got practically no reply from them, too, but we are still hopeful.
To sum things up: At this time we cannot, unfortunately, be sure that Wikimania 2011 will be bustling with Palestinian Wikipedians, but we also didn't get any complaints from someone who actually registered, applied for a permit and was denied.
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com "We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace." - T. Moore
On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 10:46:38PM +0300, Amir E. Aharoni wrote:
2011/6/28 Kim Bruning kim@bruning.xs4all.nl
Is there anyone who currently wants to come to wikimania, but definitely won't be able to come due to issues with permit/visa?
Except doing our best to help the Palestinians who actually register to get the needed permits and to arrive, we also did our best to reach out to potential Palestinian attendees: We sent dozens of emails to Palestinian Wikipedians, software developers, activists of free culture and education, etc., and until now we got practically no reply from them, too, but we are still hopeful.
So far, there are 0 Palestinians definitely coming ?
sincerely, Kim Bruning
That is one way of putting it. But don't read it as saying "there are hundreds of Palestinian wikimedians out there, who just refuse to make it to Wikimania".
Rather read it as "we looked for Palestinian wikimedians all over the place for over a year; apparently they're not very easy to find".
The claim that Wikimania in Haifa excludes people from joining is just great for political tweets, but nothing more. For many more details you're more than welcome to do a quick search of the foundation-l archives from the second of half of 2010.
BTW regarding those tweets about the East Jerusalem development company: while they are listed as a sponsor on our website, their sponsorship is just free entrance to some of the sites in the Jerusalem tour we're offering (among other tours) on the Sunday just after the conference (they operate the sites and are giving us free tickets). That brings tourists (our Wikimania guests!) to Jerusalem (and to its mostly visited tourist attractions which are in the old part of the city). I think the local (Palestinian) merchants should be very happy with this tourism (they are). Those tweets are just political bashing without any real fact checking.
Harel
On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 22:17, Kim Bruning kim@bruning.xs4all.nl wrote:
On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 10:46:38PM +0300, Amir E. Aharoni wrote:
2011/6/28 Kim Bruning kim@bruning.xs4all.nl
Is there anyone who currently wants to come to wikimania, but
definitely won't be able
to come due to issues with permit/visa?
Except doing our best to help the Palestinians who actually register to get the needed permits and to arrive, we also did our best to reach out to potential Palestinian attendees: We sent dozens of emails to Palestinian Wikipedians, software developers, activists of free culture and education, etc., and until now we got practically no reply from them, too, but we are still hopeful.
So far, there are 0 Palestinians definitely coming ?
sincerely, Kim Bruning
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On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 11:20:11PM +0300, Harel Cain wrote:
Rather read it as "we looked for Palestinian wikimedians all over the place for over a year; apparently they're not very easy to find".
Ok, that's definitely a very different narrative than either BDS's claims, or what I was hoping myself (to wit, that local people just tend to register pretty late, because they don't need to plan ahead as far.)
<scratches head>
Thanks for answering my questions so far!
sincerely, Kim Bruning
I don't remember meeting any Palestinians at the last two Wikimanias either, so if there are no Palestinians coming despite the geography then that is unfortunate. But if we can honestly say that no Palestinians tried to come but were unable to get visas then I am somewhat reassured, and thanks for trying to find some.
However I am worried at the attendance from the wider Islamic world, and of course attendance in general. How does this compare to previous years?
WereSpielChequers
On 28 June 2011 20:53, Kim Bruning kim@bruning.xs4all.nl wrote:
On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 11:20:11PM +0300, Harel Cain wrote:
Rather read it as "we looked for Palestinian wikimedians all over the place for over a year; apparently they're not very easy to find".
Ok, that's definitely a very different narrative than either BDS's claims, or what I was hoping myself (to wit, that local people just tend to register pretty late, because they don't need to plan ahead as far.)
<scratches head>
Thanks for answering my questions so far!
sincerely, Kim Bruning
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Hello,
I don't recall any Arabic participants in Boston, in Taiwan either (they decided not to show from their own reason), many in Alexandria but not so many from outside of Egypt, no Palestinians but two Israelis, one Syrian and one Irani (our steward) ...... iirc there were some Jordanian somewhere, iirc in several Wikimanias but not sure in which ones.
And from time to time, as Transcom member, I heard there were no or very a little Palestinian contributors to Arabic Wikipedia. It is sad we haven't successful to get them in Wikimedia universe, and there will be some reasons but I presume it'll be more complicated than a certain organization hinders or whatever.
Cheers,
On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 6:01 AM, WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:
I don't remember meeting any Palestinians at the last two Wikimanias either, so if there are no Palestinians coming despite the geography then that is unfortunate. But if we can honestly say that no Palestinians tried to come but were unable to get visas then I am somewhat reassured, and thanks for trying to find some.
However I am worried at the attendance from the wider Islamic world, and of course attendance in general. How does this compare to previous years?
WereSpielChequers
On 28 June 2011 20:53, Kim Bruning kim@bruning.xs4all.nl wrote:
On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 11:20:11PM +0300, Harel Cain wrote:
Rather read it as "we looked for Palestinian wikimedians all over the place for over a year; apparently they're not very easy to find".
Ok, that's definitely a very different narrative than either BDS's claims, or what I was hoping myself (to wit, that local people just tend to register pretty late, because they don't need to plan ahead as far.)
<scratches head>
Thanks for answering my questions so far!
sincerely, Kim Bruning
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Oops I forgot to insert some words. Let me correct:
On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 8:24 AM, KIZU Naoko aphaia@gmail.com wrote:
Hello,
I don't recall any Arabic participants in Boston, in Taiwan either (they decided not to show from their own reason), many in Alexandria but not so many from outside of Egypt, no Palestinians but two Israelis,
in Gdansk, one Syrian and one Irani (our steward) ...... iirc there
were some Jordanian somewhere, iirc in several Wikimanias but not sure in which ones.
And from time to time, as Transcom member, I heard there were no or very a little Palestinian contributors to Arabic Wikipedia. It is sad we haven't successful to get them in Wikimedia universe, and there will be some reasons but I presume it'll be more complicated than a certain organization hinders or whatever.
Cheers,
On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 6:01 AM, WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:
I don't remember meeting any Palestinians at the last two Wikimanias either, so if there are no Palestinians coming despite the geography then that is unfortunate. But if we can honestly say that no Palestinians tried to come but were unable to get visas then I am somewhat reassured, and thanks for trying to find some.
However I am worried at the attendance from the wider Islamic world, and of course attendance in general. How does this compare to previous years?
WereSpielChequers
On 28 June 2011 20:53, Kim Bruning kim@bruning.xs4all.nl wrote:
On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 11:20:11PM +0300, Harel Cain wrote:
Rather read it as "we looked for Palestinian wikimedians all over the place for over a year; apparently they're not very easy to find".
Ok, that's definitely a very different narrative than either BDS's claims, or what I was hoping myself (to wit, that local people just tend to register pretty late, because they don't need to plan ahead as far.)
<scratches head>
Thanks for answering my questions so far!
sincerely, Kim Bruning
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-- KIZU Naoko / 木津尚子 member of Wikimedians in Kansai / 関西ウィキメディアユーザ会 http://kansai.wikimedia.jp
I'm a great believer in the theory that Wikipedia participation in any particular country is in large part a function of the Internet access there. So countries like North Korea that blcck the Internet will be holes in our participation, as will be countries that block Wikipedia. Elsewhere it depends partly on the amount of free and fast access to the Internet as opposed to slow access and people who pay per mb rather than per month; and partly on the local speed of accessing Wikipedia - excellent if you are connected to a part of the Internet that has a good connection to Florida, pretty good if you are close to the squid servers in Amsterdam, very slow in much of the global south.
Which is a very long way of asking if anyone knows what Internet and specifically Wikipedia access is like in Gaza and the Westbank and whether there are any Government filters in place. There is not much point arguing that israel would give visas to Palestinian wikimedians if it turns out that the siege of Gaza or the wall partitioning the West bank included Israeli restrictions on Internet access that prevented their being Palestinian Wikimedians..... conversely if Hamas bans Wikipedia in Gaza then it wouldn't matter whether Wikimania was in Haifa, Mecca or Port Stanley, there still wouldn't be any Wikimedians coming from Gaza.
WereSpielChequers
2011/6/29 KIZU Naoko aphaia@gmail.com:
Oops I forgot to insert some words. Let me correct:
On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 8:24 AM, KIZU Naoko aphaia@gmail.com wrote:
Hello,
I don't recall any Arabic participants in Boston, in Taiwan either (they decided not to show from their own reason), many in Alexandria but not so many from outside of Egypt, no Palestinians but two Israelis,
in Gdansk, one Syrian and one Irani (our steward) ...... iirc there
were some Jordanian somewhere, iirc in several Wikimanias but not sure in which ones.
And from time to time, as Transcom member, I heard there were no or very a little Palestinian contributors to Arabic Wikipedia. It is sad we haven't successful to get them in Wikimedia universe, and there will be some reasons but I presume it'll be more complicated than a certain organization hinders or whatever.
Cheers,
On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 6:01 AM, WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:
I don't remember meeting any Palestinians at the last two Wikimanias either, so if there are no Palestinians coming despite the geography then that is unfortunate. But if we can honestly say that no Palestinians tried to come but were unable to get visas then I am somewhat reassured, and thanks for trying to find some.
However I am worried at the attendance from the wider Islamic world, and of course attendance in general. How does this compare to previous years?
WereSpielChequers
On 28 June 2011 20:53, Kim Bruning kim@bruning.xs4all.nl wrote:
On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 11:20:11PM +0300, Harel Cain wrote:
Rather read it as "we looked for Palestinian wikimedians all over the place for over a year; apparently they're not very easy to find".
Ok, that's definitely a very different narrative than either BDS's claims, or what I was hoping myself (to wit, that local people just tend to register pretty late, because they don't need to plan ahead as far.)
<scratches head>
Thanks for answering my questions so far!
sincerely, Kim Bruning
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-- KIZU Naoko / 木津尚子 member of Wikimedians in Kansai / 関西ウィキメディアユーザ会 http://kansai.wikimedia.jp
-- KIZU Naoko / 木津尚子 member of Wikimedians in Kansai / 関西ウィキメディアユーザ会 http://kansai.wikimedia.jp
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2011/6/29 WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@gmail.com:
Which is a very long way of asking if anyone knows what Internet and specifically Wikipedia access is like in Gaza and the Westbank and whether there are any Government filters in place.
No, and i even have a source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6176691.stm (It's from 2006, but to the best of my knowledge not much changed since then.)
I don't have precise details about the Palestinian Internet infrastructure, but my wild guess would be that it is more or less shared with the Israeli one. FWIW, the Twitter hashtags #paltweets and #palgeeks (!) are very frequently used. So i daresay that in terms of Internet access, Palestine is no North Korea.
I don't have precise measurements of popularity of Palestinians' Wikipedia participation. It's not zero - there is a considerable number of user pages in the Arab Wikipedia with userboxes that say "this user lives in Israel" or "this user lives in Palestine"; at least some of them actually demonstrated it in their edits (i can read Arabic a little). I emailed all of them and got no reply.
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com "We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace." - T. Moore
On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 5:23 PM, Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il wrote:
2011/6/29 WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@gmail.com:
Which is a very long way of asking if anyone knows what Internet and specifically Wikipedia access is like in Gaza and the Westbank and whether there are any Government filters in place.
No, and i even have a source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6176691.stm (It's from 2006, but to the best of my knowledge not much changed since then.)
I don't have precise details about the Palestinian Internet infrastructure, but my wild guess would be that it is more or less shared with the Israeli one.
There is no article [[Internet in Palestine]]. ;-( see navbox on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Israel#Other
FWIW, the Twitter hashtags #paltweets and #palgeeks (!) are very frequently used. So i daresay that in terms of Internet access, Palestine is no North Korea.
It is listed under
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_by_country#Substantial_cens...
but even that says it is unfiltered.
I don't have precise measurements of popularity of Palestinians' Wikipedia participation. It's not zero - there is a considerable number of user pages in the Arab Wikipedia with userboxes that say "this user lives in Israel" or "this user lives in Palestine"; at least some of them actually demonstrated it in their edits (i can read Arabic a little). I emailed all of them and got no reply.
Have you try reaching the people in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedians_in_Palestine
?
2011/6/29 John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com:
I don't have precise measurements of popularity of Palestinians' Wikipedia participation. It's not zero - there is a considerable number of user pages in the Arab Wikipedia with userboxes that say "this user lives in Israel" or "this user lives in Palestine"; at least some of them actually demonstrated it in their edits (i can read Arabic a little). I emailed all of them and got no reply.
Have you try reaching the people in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedians_in_Palestine
?
Yes, some of them, but i'll try a few more. Thanks for poking.
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com "We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace." - T. Moore
Following up on ...:
On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 11:14:06AM +0300, Amir E. Aharoni wrote:
2011/6/29 John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com:
Have you try reaching the people in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedians_in_Palestine
?
Yes, some of them, but i'll try a few more. Thanks for poking.
Any Luck? Need any help? :)
read you soon, Kim Bruning
Wikimania has been advertised in so many different ways till now, and for so long, that I find it a little weird to actively pursue any group of Wikipedians in person to attend the conference. Any reasonably active Wikipedian will have known by now that it's taking place in August in Haifa. The conference site and the registration form all have full Arab versions, and we posted on the ar.wp village pump (I think more than once). What more can be done within reason?
It has to be said that If Palestinians don't want to attend (it doesn't have necessarily to be for political reasons, it can be for a multitude of other cultural, economic and sociological reasons), nobody can force them to do so.
Again, in previous Wikimanias the representation from the Arab world was low to very low (in relation to the size of the Arab world), as others already noted on this thread. There are many underrepresented demographic groups in our movement.
Harel Cain Wikimania 2011 local team
On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 17:40, Kim Bruning kim@bruning.xs4all.nl wrote:
Following up on ...:
On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 11:14:06AM +0300, Amir E. Aharoni wrote:
2011/6/29 John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com:
Have you try reaching the people in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedians_in_Palestine
?
Yes, some of them, but i'll try a few more. Thanks for poking.
Any Luck? Need any help? :)
read you soon, Kim Bruning
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It was always my opinion that for under-privileged communities, like Egypt and Palestine and any third-world country, Wikimania serves a double purpose, the first is for wikipedians to meet and exchange ideas etc. The other is to increase awareness about the role Wikipedia plays in making knowledge accessible to everyone. People with internet access in those areas are not necessarily tech-savvy enough to find that out on their own. A lot of students in Egypt only use the internet for very basic functions because they were never trained for more or they have a language barrier. That's why, for WM Alexandria, we tried as much as possible to reach this audience ourselves, by advertising, pre-conference introductory sessions in colleges, posters, etc. The result was good in terms of attendance and in terms of users who joined after WM.
It was my hope that the same would be possible for Palestine. In our previous conversations, I tried to search for someone willing to cooperate, and I gave you guys the name of a dean of a university in the WB that my contacts said would be interested, did you guys ever contact that guy? If so what was the outcome?
I guess what I am trying to say is that to answer the question 'Why wouldn't there be any Palestinian in WM Haifa?' the answer 'Because no one wanted to come and was turned away' lacks the whole aspect of promoting WM actively in under-served communities. No one knows what WM is in most of those communities to be interested in coming, isn't that one of the reasons we hold WM in a different part of the world every year?
On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 8:35 AM, Harel Cain harel.cain@gmail.com wrote:
Wikimania has been advertised in so many different ways till now, and for so long, that I find it a little weird to actively pursue any group of Wikipedians in person to attend the conference. Any reasonably active Wikipedian will have known by now that it's taking place in August in Haifa. The conference site and the registration form all have full Arab versions, and we posted on the ar.wp village pump (I think more than once). What more can be done within reason?
It has to be said that If Palestinians don't want to attend (it doesn't have necessarily to be for political reasons, it can be for a multitude of other cultural, economic and sociological reasons), nobody can force them to do so.
Again, in previous Wikimanias the representation from the Arab world was low to very low (in relation to the size of the Arab world), as others already noted on this thread. There are many underrepresented demographic groups in our movement.
Harel Cain Wikimania 2011 local team
On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 17:40, Kim Bruning kim@bruning.xs4all.nl wrote:
Following up on ...:
On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 11:14:06AM +0300, Amir E. Aharoni wrote:
2011/6/29 John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com:
Have you try reaching the people in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedians_in_Palestine
?
Yes, some of them, but i'll try a few more. Thanks for poking.
Any Luck? Need any help? :)
read you soon, Kim Bruning
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On 5 July 2011 16:35, Harel Cain harel.cain@gmail.com wrote:
It has to be said that If Palestinians don't want to attend (it doesn't have necessarily to be for political reasons, it can be for a multitude of other cultural, economic and sociological reasons), nobody can force them to do so.
While that is certainly true, it is very disappointing. A lot of people raised concerns about Palestinian attendance when you first started bidding. The Q&A page for your bid says "Wikimania in Haifa should be appealing to Palestinian and Jordanian participants[...]"[1]. It seems that has proven incorrect.
In hindsight, some work should probably have been done during the bidding stage to gauge interest from Palestinians. I wonder if the jury would have looked so favourably upon your bid had it been known then that Arab attendance would be so low.
1. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2011/Bids/Haifa/Q%26A#Participants
Dear Thomas,
I think everyone is disappointed about a lower than hoped for attendance from people with these cultural backgrounds but the tone in your email is uncalled for. I am not sure what you hope to achieve by this tone or the implication.
I have had the good fortune to be able to attend all the wikimania's held. Every single one of them featured a team of volunteers trying to balance all kinds of different interests and activities to make it the greatest conference ever. Every wikimania has had positive surprises and every wikimania has had aspects which did not work as well out as planned. I am sure that the Israeli team is trying as hard as possible to make this Wikimania a success.
A little "assume good faith" would be in place here.
Jan-Bart
PS: just to make sure: I am not speaking as a board member in this case!
On Jul 5, 2011, at 7:25 PM, Thomas Dalton wrote:
On 5 July 2011 16:35, Harel Cain harel.cain@gmail.com wrote:
It has to be said that If Palestinians don't want to attend (it doesn't have necessarily to be for political reasons, it can be for a multitude of other cultural, economic and sociological reasons), nobody can force them to do so.
While that is certainly true, it is very disappointing. A lot of people raised concerns about Palestinian attendance when you first started bidding. The Q&A page for your bid says "Wikimania in Haifa should be appealing to Palestinian and Jordanian participants[...]"[1]. It seems that has proven incorrect.
In hindsight, some work should probably have been done during the bidding stage to gauge interest from Palestinians. I wonder if the jury would have looked so favourably upon your bid had it been known then that Arab attendance would be so low.
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Hello, can we see each other in Haifa again? Just curious.
And as others said, Palestinians have Internet access. I can assure you from my personal experiences ... After Wikimania2007 I met a group of pilgrims from Palestine. They spoke Arabic and were Eastern orthodox faithfuls. They called themselves "Isreaeli", when I asked them who they were. Unfortunately I failed the actual chance, we had promised to exchange email addresses on our pilgrimage to the summit of Mt. Sinai and they had knew Wikipedia.
Cheers,
2011/6/29 WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@gmail.com:
I'm a great believer in the theory that Wikipedia participation in any particular country is in large part a function of the Internet access there. So countries like North Korea that blcck the Internet will be holes in our participation, as will be countries that block Wikipedia. Elsewhere it depends partly on the amount of free and fast access to the Internet as opposed to slow access and people who pay per mb rather than per month; and partly on the local speed of accessing Wikipedia - excellent if you are connected to a part of the Internet that has a good connection to Florida, pretty good if you are close to the squid servers in Amsterdam, very slow in much of the global south.
Which is a very long way of asking if anyone knows what Internet and specifically Wikipedia access is like in Gaza and the Westbank and whether there are any Government filters in place. There is not much point arguing that israel would give visas to Palestinian wikimedians if it turns out that the siege of Gaza or the wall partitioning the West bank included Israeli restrictions on Internet access that prevented their being Palestinian Wikimedians..... conversely if Hamas bans Wikipedia in Gaza then it wouldn't matter whether Wikimania was in Haifa, Mecca or Port Stanley, there still wouldn't be any Wikimedians coming from Gaza.
WereSpielChequers
2011/6/29 KIZU Naoko aphaia@gmail.com:
Oops I forgot to insert some words. Let me correct:
On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 8:24 AM, KIZU Naoko aphaia@gmail.com wrote:
Hello,
I don't recall any Arabic participants in Boston, in Taiwan either (they decided not to show from their own reason), many in Alexandria but not so many from outside of Egypt, no Palestinians but two Israelis,
in Gdansk, one Syrian and one Irani (our steward) ...... iirc there
were some Jordanian somewhere, iirc in several Wikimanias but not sure in which ones.
And from time to time, as Transcom member, I heard there were no or very a little Palestinian contributors to Arabic Wikipedia. It is sad we haven't successful to get them in Wikimedia universe, and there will be some reasons but I presume it'll be more complicated than a certain organization hinders or whatever.
Cheers,
On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 6:01 AM, WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:
I don't remember meeting any Palestinians at the last two Wikimanias either, so if there are no Palestinians coming despite the geography then that is unfortunate. But if we can honestly say that no Palestinians tried to come but were unable to get visas then I am somewhat reassured, and thanks for trying to find some.
However I am worried at the attendance from the wider Islamic world, and of course attendance in general. How does this compare to previous years?
WereSpielChequers
On 28 June 2011 20:53, Kim Bruning kim@bruning.xs4all.nl wrote:
On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 11:20:11PM +0300, Harel Cain wrote:
Rather read it as "we looked for Palestinian wikimedians all over the place for over a year; apparently they're not very easy to find".
Ok, that's definitely a very different narrative than either BDS's claims, or what I was hoping myself (to wit, that local people just tend to register pretty late, because they don't need to plan ahead as far.)
<scratches head>
Thanks for answering my questions so far!
sincerely, Kim Bruning
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