Human rights is a global problem. http://www.amnestyusa.org/Our_Issues/By_Country/page.do?id=1041024&n1=3… You've got to pick your battles. Persecution of those in the GLBT community is not going to stop in Egypt if we boycott holding Wikimania there because of it. While it's possible to go and rank each country by some factor of abuses, it's more reasonable, and beneficial to the Wikimedia Foundation, to multiply out the common denominator (the worst possible cases notwithstanding). If anything, Egypt needs Wikimania to be there to facilitate the spread of information in order to counter these deeply rooted biases. If you really want to spread information somewhere, the best possible way is a physical presence. On 10/9/07, David Strauss <david(a)fourkitchens.com> wrote:

On 10/9/07, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki(a)gmail.com> wrote: I think I'd understand the decision making process better if each of the criteria classes had a clear explanation of how the criteria would improve the utility of the conference for people who are primarily interested in wikis and the collaborative authorship of reference works. My own experience is that attendance from wiki*p*edians is relatively low at Wikimanias, but perhaps I am incorrect. I think this should be a serious concern and a major consideration. I have heard people characterize Wikimania as simply an excuse to see exotic places. ... It's rude of me to repeat this somewhat insulting criticism, but it's a claim that I can't refute using the material currently available about the selection process. Certainly the track record of selections is far more appealing to *me* as a jetsetter than as a Wikipedian... and as long as we're still looking at airfare well over $1000/person (which wouldn't be the case for me traveling to canada, mexico, or much of western europe), my money would be better spent contributing to other non-profits and traveling to regional Wikipedian events. (And certainly, I don't find Egypt appealing, with its poor track record of intolerance and mistreatment of female travelers who are foolish enough to violate Islamic norms) Hopefully some discussionabout the details of the selection criteria will help improve my understanding and will help me refute criticisms when they arise.

On 10/9/07, David Strauss <david(a)fourkitchens.com> wrote: The human-rights and safety related issues were raised by some people the last time Egypt was in the running in any case.

Brian wrote: In honor of David's concerns, I have decided to make the title of my own talk at Wikimania 2008 "Free knowledge and human rights" and I will use this opportunity to speak out against censorship and other violations of human rights around the world, including examples from Egypt. --Jimbo

On 10/9/07, Brian <Brian.Mingus(a)colorado.edu> wrote: That was my thought. Maybe the USA is more protective of gay rights than some other places, but you can still go to jail for a long time for possession of Viagra without a prescription, or for placing a wager over the telephone, or for growing medical marijuana in your closet. By the way, does anyone have a better source for the story about the kid who got the 17-year sentence? A passing reference in "Gay Times" isn't what I'd consider a neutral reliable source.

One thing I think will be important very important is to have more structured local travel opportunities. I was on my own in Taiwan, after Wikimania, since not enough people signed up for the tours. There were three tours (1-day, 2-day, and 3-day) to sign up for. The tour organizer told me he required 30 to sign up for each, otherwise they were canceled. 30 never signed up. Smaller size groups should have been accommodated. Nonetheless, I was comfortable enough with the culture and felt perfectly safe, to be on my own. For 2008, I think minimum size for groups should be *much* smaller. I look forward to visiting a place with much different culture than my own. This time, I will know more of the language. But, I think the culture is different enough that having someone local guide me and other attendees around would make the experience better. -Aude

On 10/9/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell(a)gmail.com> wrote: Agreed. Is there anything stopping people from organizing an event somewhere that isn't so expensive? I'm all for having Wikimania's in exotic locations every year, and I'm sure the people that go have a great time, but I don't really see myself paying that much to go to a place that has such a bad reputation re gay people... It would be cool to have an actually useful conference. Since so many people that work on Wikipedia, Commons etc are English speaking when the conference is in places like Taipei and Alexandria it seems like it's more for fun than anything worthwhile for me, being primarily interested in enwiki. I know that's not the only goal of course, and I wouldn't want to stop having them in cool places, and places that people in various geographic locations can get to. What I'm saying is, why not have another conference that focuses a little more on the actual population distribution of the people that actually use the sites? Judson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cohesion

On 10/9/07, Dan Rosenthal <swatjester(a)gmail.com> wrote: Yes, well, there were also 69 murders and 156 rapes in the city of San Francisco alone last year [1], where the WMF is moving to soon; yet the fact that many of these killings are racially and sexually motivated and many of the rapes are intensely brutal has not led to calls that the WMF stay away from the big bad city here for moral reasons. My point: having liberal [2] western values does not directly translate into more safety for the resident or casual visitor; I haven't seen statistics about crime for visitors in Egypt yet. -- phoebe 1. http://www.sfgov.org/site/police_index.asp?id=19468 2. I don't mean in the American political sense; rather, liberal freedom of speech, of dress, of religion, of sexual orientation, etc. SF happens to be liberal in both senses.

On 10/9/07, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki(a)gmail.com> wrote: And how many of those murders were honor killings? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_killing)

On 10/10/2007, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell(a)gmail.com> wrote: I doubt you will find figures for that but in the UK we appear to get about a dozen a year: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3829139.stm -- geni

geni wrote: But in the U.K., they're indisputably illegal. That's somewhat debatable in Egypt: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_killing#Honor_killing_in_national_legal_… "The Special Rapporteur indicated that there had been contradictory decisions with regard to the honor defense in [...] Egypt [...]."

On 10/9/07, David Strauss <david(a)fourkitchens.com> wrote: One outside the US (and a few inside it...) might reply that the US has been illegally holding terror suspects without trial and torturing some of them, intercepting telecommunications widely both internationally and domestically, and waging illegal war in Iraq. We could hold an even in ... London (no, wait, tube/bus bombings)... Paris (race riots?)... Moscow (organized crime? government oppression?)... Madrid (train bombings?), San Francisco (a few murders, and might all fall down in an earthquake...), Seattle (less murders, but both likely to fall down and be sunk by a Tsunami in a quake, and there's a volcano waiting to spew Lahar all over the southern parts of the city...). Let us be practical. There are moral and practical concerns with about every possible venue we could chose. At least some of those concerns are legitimate in a wider scope. We cannot not chose somewhere to go, or rule out any given place, due to legitimate but not overwhelming concerns. Gay and lesbian tourists from the US go to Egypt all the time without being oppressed; I'm sure some of them are offended by the local treatment of their peers, but they vacation in good health and safety. Westerners visiting Egypt are not, as a rule, bothered by the local political issues. Most of the factions in those agree that bothering western tourists is a bad idea, and though there was a spate of terrorism it seems to have receded and stayed away. Alexandria was also far from the areas which were affected by that. I would oppose any suggestion of a Wikimania in a Sharia Law area, or in a truly dangerous location from participants' health and safety, or freedom of information or civil rights perspective. Rangoon would be bad. Bagdhad would be ... let's just not go there, and I wish any Iraqi Wikipedians the best of luck with recovering your civilization and country. Egypt is "travel advisories" and some topical sensitivity, not "overwhelmingly oppressive" or "bring your Blackwater". Perhaps future standards should increase the civil rights and western-style freedoms issues significance in judging. But Alexandria is a fine choice now. Arguing to change the selection criteria after selection, without having already used the opportunity present to make statements or recommendations before selection, is poor process. -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

George Herbert wrote: We're talking about Egypt, not the United States. Your assertion that few people in the U.S. are critical of U.S. policy is specious at best. What is your standard for "not overwhelming"? I'm quite tired of hearing people justify atrocities on the basis of the atrocities not affecting them. As stated and cited in my original letter, people have been imprisoned for criticizing the government. Does that qualify? The fact that the voters chose to penalize Alexandria lightly for human rights issues only came to light *today*.

On 10/9/07, David Strauss <david(a)fourkitchens.com> wrote: You claimed to have noticed, but not said anything, earlier in the process, because you felt that nobody would possibly vote for Alexandria because the violations were so self-evident and overwhelmingly disqualifying. The time for you to intervene in standards for judging WM2008 selection, and argue against Alexandria on that basis, was then not now. For any reasonable interpretation, you were neglegent in not doing so then if this was such an important issue to you. Many criticize it; a majority are against the war, for example. But few think the US government is now a huge human rights abuser, despite what we have done to a few hundred terror suspects. There is a staunch minority who do, however. I am disturbed to find that you believe I'm trying to justify Egypt's oppression. We live in a real world. Some fraction of that has disturbing, uncivilized tendencies. One can look at that narrowly (Myanmar, Iran's leadership, North Korea) or more widely (East Oakland, Egypt, Guantanamo, etc). Yes, there are things wrong in Egypt. It's functionally a single party government or a dictatorship, and has some severe social and religious uphevals in progress. Anyone following events in the middle east or geopolitics on the wider scale should know that. We just had a vocal heckler tasered a bunch at a political rally in the United States not that long ago. Does that qualify? Do we need to rule Florida out of future Wikimania events? There is a grey area. The line for "Yes, there's a problem" is less than the line for "...and we should cut off all cultural and intellectual exchanges...". Wikimania falls into the latter category. You're arguing, with no opposition, and my agreement, that Egypt is past the first line. You are asserting that it's past the second. I believe that the assertion is unsupported and unreasonably harsh, in a real world context. > > Rangoon would be > > bad. Bagdhad would be ... let's just not go there, and I wish any > > Iraqi Wikipedians the best of luck with recovering your civilization > > and country. Egypt is "travel advisories" and some topical > > sensitivity, not "overwhelmingly oppressive" or "bring your > > Blackwater". > > > > Perhaps future standards should increase the civil rights and > > western-style freedoms issues significance in judging. But Alexandria > > is a fine choice now. Arguing to change the selection criteria after > > selection, without having already used the opportunity present to make > > statements or recommendations before selection, is poor process. > -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

George Herbert wrote: Negligent? You should look up the definition of that word. If anyone would be negligent, it would be someone voting on the locations without being aware of the human rights records. The human rights issues in Egypt have been brought up by others. Are you saying I can't speak because others brought up the issue, just not me? You responded to my objections by stating that the problems don't affect most Wikimania attendees. So, you would agree than anyone involved in picking the Wikimania location would be cognizant of Egypt's human rights record without any help from me. I've never said any place was perfect. In any case, tasering is generally not as severe as years of imprisonment, and blogging is not as threatening as vocal heckling (which can be quite aggressive). I'm still waiting to hear where you do draw the latter line.

On 10/10/2007, cohesion <cohesion(a)sleepyhead.org> wrote: "Expensive for me" you mean? Someone always loses out. "Actually useful"? I don't see how the location changes the usefulnes of the conference... As someone else suggested, hosting local Wikimanias is a good option. Why not get behind Atlanta (I assume you live in the US as you agree with Greg's comments) and organise a US Wikimania maybe a couple of weeks before or after the official one. regards, Brianna -- They've just been waiting in a mountain for the right moment: http://modernthings.org/

On 10/9/07, David Strauss <david(a)fourkitchens.com> wrote: You can speak all you want. You are insisting on the right to overturn the completed and announced selection process on your personal judgement and factors, however, which is a completely different story. If this was important, then you should have spoken up earlier, when there was time to factor this into the criteria, or ask Alexandria to withdraw gracefully or prepare a statement on the issue or some such. This is like coming up after the jury aquitted OJ and saying "Oh, Wait, I saw him kill them! I didn't say anything because I was sure you'd find him guilty anyways! Can you retry him and put him in jail now?". There is a little less finality or legality associated with a WMF selection, but it's the same fundamental problem. If you had an issue, then you should have brought it up at the time that selection criteria were being discussed. It's perfectly reasonable to conclude that your silence then has largely mooted the point now. If this were "...but they're really cannibalistic genocidal monsters!..." then I can see overturning anyways, but you're arguing that the jury simply failed to account for critieria in a manner you prefer. I am all for gay rights. I was extremely happy for the lesbian couple who I lived next door to, who got married in San Francisco while it was briefly legal. And I support the law changing to let them re-do it in the future. I am all for freedom of politics and religion, and I agree that Egypt's government is in some important ways oppressive and unfree. But I don't have a problem with vacationing in Egypt, or going to a conference in Alexandria. Neither of those things endorses Egyptian honor killings, abuse of gays/lesbians, or political oppression. I suspect that liberal Egyptians want more western contact, not less. The line you want to draw is all of in the wrong place, for the wrong reasons, and too late. -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

On 10/10/2007, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell(a)gmail.com> wrote: Cohesion said: To me this sounds like he thinks the content of the conference changes depending on where it is held, which is what I was questioning. Perhaps his implication was: hold in English speaking nation => most talks are about English language projects => more "worthwhile" for him. It's not like Taipei had an abundance of talks only about Chinese language projects, so I don't think this holds. What does "directly involved" mean? Don't articles in English only account for 1/4 of the total articles in all Wikipedias, or something like that? I would have thought a local one would attract those who couldn't afford to travel overseas -- separate audiences. Atlanta has done all this organising, why not put it to use if you really feel that the international Wikipedia is too far away. They could make it a "cut-down" event if they really feel there is that much danger (how can we really know until we try?). cheers, Brianna -- They've just been waiting in a mountain for the right moment: http://modernthings.org/

2007/10/10, cohesion <cohesion(a)sleepyhead.org>rg>: Oh, come on! Doesn't exist *the* cheap place.. I'm sorry but Wikimania is not enwiki conference. Perhaps is a moment when we should think of the diversity in our project and in our community. Frieda ___________________________________________ http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utente:Frieda

On 10/10/2007, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki(a)gmail.com> wrote: I return to my proposal to just decree we take Frankfurt in odd years and Boston in even ones and leave it at that. Everyone's evenly annoyed ;-) [okay, for flexibility, we can maybe rotate the European side among Amsterdam and Paris, and the American one with New York or Toronto, but it's the same broad idea...] [ps: I am not entirely joking] -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk

If you replace frankfurt with Amsterdam, the hague or Utrecht, I'm fine with it :) 2007/10/10, Andrew Gray <shimgray(a)gmail.com>om>:

I don't like it. I strongly propose to include Taipei also. /me tries to pretend not to aware how it burdens Taiwanese On 10/10/07, Andrew Gray &lt;shimgray(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: [ps. me either] -- KIZU Naoko Wikiquote <http://wikiquote.org> is a free online project for building collections of quotations, hosted by Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Quote of the Day (English): http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/WQ:QOTD

You've got it all wrong. You need to come to Kourou! There are beaches, tropical rainforests, rivers, lakes, the ocean, and if you get bored you can always tour the space museum and see the Ariane rockets. Hmmm, I wonder if we could plan a Wikimania around an Ariane launch... (Also not entirely joking.) (Much.) --Maria User:Arria Belli On 10/10/07, Aphaia &lt;aphaia(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

On 10/9/07, Gregory Maxwell &lt;gmaxwell(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: What's the goal of Wikimania? Depending on the answer to that, a location away from the larger user clusters might even be seen as a good thing. Considering that there are only about 500 attendees each year out of the millions of people ever involved in the project (and probably tens of thousands of whom would attend if it happened to be located in their city), maximizing the number of attendees certainly doesn't seem to be the goal. The number of attendees is so tiny compared to the number of people who are involved in the project, I really don't think it much matters where to go. But...NO ONE lives in Antarctica (permanently, anyway). There likely wouldn't be any "locals" attending at all. Location would be one of many problems, and there'd be virtually no benefit. As long as "Wikimania proper" gets first dibs on the speakers, and is the one that the board attends, I don't see that happening. I thought Wikimania paid for itself. If the Foundation gave the Atlanta bid team, for instance, permission to hold the conference anyway, at the same time as Wikimania, wouldn't there be enough interested people to make it happen?

One of the factors taken into account was the ease of visitors obtaining visa for entry. Atlanta had a markedly lower score than the other locations. This difference was as great as the local law factor for Alexandria. The United States does not show up well in freedom of travel, which is highly relevant in selecting a location for an international event. David Goodman

On 10/10/07, Frieda Brioschi &lt;ubifrieda(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: No need to apologize, I realize this. That's why I was suggesting an additional conference or get together for those communities. They are the largest in terms of users, and as a community they have no real event. Judson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cohesion

to meet other Wikimedians from so many different places. (Japan, Taiwan, Australia, India, the Middle East, Europe, Canada, the U.S., and many other places) As well, there are positive benefits of cultural exchange, and outreach to Egypt and other nearby countries also has positive benefits. There will always be a certain percentage of attendees that are from the local country or region, who otherwise will not attend. As mentioned already, for whatever reasons, the Arabic Wikipedia is still small (compared to the number of speakers of the language). This is an excellent opportunity to outreach to them and grow the community. Then in 2009, we will have Wikimania in another place (maybe Atlanta or Toronto?), which will draw different people from the local region. Though, I'm sure there will be people from Taiwan and Egypt who will continue to come to Wikimania, regardless of where it is. In my experience of organizing conferences, I find this to be the case. -Aude

One more issues I see people raising the issue that they can't afford to travel to Alexandria. I think this is something that we can help address, through sponsorships and providing scholarships to help Wikimedians attend (who otherwise cannot afford to). I know that the Alexandria team has already thought about sponsorships. I think there is very good opportunity this time for sponsorships. There are organizations out there who support cultural exchange between the U.S. and other countries, and the Middle East, as well as the mission of the Wikimedia Foundation. Enough of my talking here, but I would be more than happy to get started on this and do something. I have some contacts with organizations in Washington, who I think can provide me leads on this. I'm sure there are similar organizations in Europe, Canada, Japan, Australia, etc. Let's be proactive and get working on this. -Aude

Well I life in Bangkok now so would make it a tad difficult for me ;)/ Waerth -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.

On 10/10/07, Muhammad Alsebaey &lt;shipmaster(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: The ironic thing is that suggesting people write Congress... I live in the District of Columbia (the nation's capital, an icon of democracy), but residents here do not have representation in Congress. No Senators for me to write to, and only a non-voting representative in Congress. (her opinion, and my opinion mean nothing). So, I'm not exactly living in a democracy, even though I can walk over to Capitol Hill. This is a double standard in my view, that out government goes around spouting rhetoric about supporting democracy, while right here we are denied basic democratic rights. "Taxation Without Representation" is written my license plates, sums it up. Egypt is just as fine a choice. And, knowing what it takes to organize a conference, the people on the bidding team are well-suited for the task. It's not a simple task, but heck a lot of work. -Aude

On 10/10/07, Oldak Quill &lt;oldakquill(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Details the arrest (and then release without criminal trial and deportation of) a singular Israeli gay tourist who apparently fell into one of the local gay chat room meetup government sting operations in Cairo. I know a number of gay and lesbian individuals and couples who have travelled to Egypt and not encountered any problems. None of them tried to pick up locals, though. -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

On 10/10/07, David Gerard &lt;dgerard(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: I'll get there one of these years... I can't be the only certified mad scientist among the project's more experienced members, however. -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

Hoi, I have looked up LGBT.. great those four letter acronyms.. with the TLD's and add languages and you have a nice muddle. Thanks, GerardM On 10/10/07, Oldak Quill &lt;oldakquill(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

Anthony wrote: It's an opportunity to see the human side of the ogres that you meet on line. It cements relationships among active people. It can draw significant people to a world event when they might not otherwise attend. It gives global exposure to otherwise local ideas. It's good publicity about our world-wide scope. You really should try to attend one. Remember that Frankfurt drew more Europeans; Boston drew more Americans, and Taipei drew more from Hong Kong and Australia. Maybe we don't need to go quite so far south. If a US based Wikimania can happen in Georgia, we should not neglect the possibility that the Antarctic rotation be in South Georgia. :-) I don't see that there needs to be a fork at all. Wikimania would continue as an annual event, but there are 11 other months in the calendar. Local or regional get-togethers don't need to be completely tied to national boundaries. Here in the Vancouver-Seattle-Portland sector of the I-5 corridor I can go anywhere on fairly short notice, and at relatively small expense. The geographical size of Canada and the United States turn national events into major efforts. I don't know how the Aussies view travel between Sydney and Perth.

On 10/10/07, Mark Williamson &lt;node.ue(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: I think what you read about in the media are extreme incidents, but not the norm. Foreigners, including LGBT, are generally not bothered in Egypt. I remember when I have traveled overseas, as well as when I used to live outside the U.S., I heard on the television and in the newspapers about the U.S. I heard about the Virginia Tech massacre, some years ago I heard about the Beltway sniper attacks all over the news, and other such incidents. I even remember during the Beltway sniper attacks, some foreign governments issued travel advisories against travel in the U.S., like the State Department does for some places. And I heard a great deal about the case of Maher Arar. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maher_Arar If I only listen to the media, it sounds like the U.S. is a horribly dangerous place. In reality, those are rare cases, and encourage people to come and visit! Likewise, I think people, including LGBT, will feel safe in Egypt. -Aude

Muhammad Alsebaey wrote: I think that many of us look forward to visiting Alexandria and, if we can make the time, the rest of Egypt. The press tends to blow the occasional criminal or terrorist incident completely out of proportion. The American media in particular attaches a far greater degree of tragedy to the one or two Americans that die in such incidents then the 200 local individuals who also perish. I do not attach a lot of importance to whether a country is "democratic"; that is not something to be decided by outsiders I regret the concerns of the LGBT people, but sometimes it is simply not possible to adjust to all the interests of special interest groups. I did not hear of visa problems at Frankfurt, but it affected many people who would have liked to attend in Boston. AFAIK, unfortunately and ironically, the only people that were kept from Taipei because of visa issues were the Egyptians. I expect that visa issues will continue to be a factor in choosing American hosts at least until after they have had a change of government. Ec

On 10/10/07, Waerth &lt;waerth(a)asianet.co.th&gt; wrote: That would make antartica a serious option ;) As far as I know, no murders last year on Antartica.

On 10/10/07, Bryan Tong Minh &lt;bryan.tongminh(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: But in Antarctica there's always the chance of being attacked by wild penguins, or having our lunch eaten by starving albatrosses. And you never know when a seal may drag you off an ice floe into the frigid waters... There are dangers everywhere, and if people think they will be in danger they won't come. Those who are comfortable attending will attend. As many people can't make it to the USA for distance reasons as people who won't want to come to Egypt for safety reasons; no matter where we go some people will lose out. This is a yearly thing - if people feel unsafe in Egypt this year then they can wait until next year, and maybe it will be somewhere they feel less in danger. -- Ayelie ~Editor at Large

On 10/10/07, SJ Klein &lt;meta.sj(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: One of my coworkers overwintered in Antarctica as a system administrator a few years ago. He didn't have a problem, but they're apparently fairly common. -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

So you're comparing an entire country to........a city in colombia? Does that seem right? -Dan On Oct 10, 2007, at 4:03 PM, Waerth wrote:

Well, the problem is not how WE see them. I have no special problem with people wearing glasses (I wear them myself), but in Red Khmer Cambodia that might have been a problem. Anyway, on reading http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4302213,00.html I noticed a few interesting paragraphs: "23 men were sentenced to between one and five years' imprisonment for "debauchery" (since homosexuality itself is not illegal)." And "This began to change in Egypt with the arrival of the internet. Websites and email lists allowed previously isolated gays to make contact and tell each other about social events. About the same time, the Egyptian police set up a special internet crimes unit. With internet use mainly confined to the country's law-abiding middle classes, there was little real work for them to do, but they needed to show results and spotted a few international dating sites where Egyptian men were seeking to meet other men." Now... it's quite common for bureaucratic branches to find a reason for their existence AFTER they have been created. I wouldn't be surprised if fear to loose on tech-wage was much more relevant than GLBT-fobia, in this peculiar case. Besides... "debauchery" has no special relations with GLBT, as far as I see. One can smoke a joint and be arrested in most countries under the same accusation. As an occasional hashish smoker I'd rather not have Wikimania in countries that cannot warranty my personal security, starting from the US and all European countries but Holland, obviously. What I think is that they'll NEVER want a problem with top site N.9, something that might mean embassies, media, etc digging in the local police dirty laundry, get howled out by wikinews all over the planet and (mostly) turn away from them those radical opinions that are mostly favoring Islam in the West. Why? On the other hand, if you are a GLBT militant, you SHOULD go there and defend your rights. Possibly a good solution would be in contacting the Egyptian Embassy and inform them of the problem. They either are ready to get us all "as we are" OR we move wikimania to Israel and use all the media we can get to explain why we do so... sometimes being direct helps a lot. I still hope we'll go to Alexandria, though. Let alone marketing wikies and seeing a wonderful place, it's nice to tell those guys on the net there that they are not alone. Berto 'd Sera Skype: berto.d.sera Personagi dl'ann 2006 per l'arvista american-a Time (tanme tuti vojaotri) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html -----Original Message----- From: foundation-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Dan Rosenthal Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 12:15 AM To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] [Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2008 will happenin Alexandria, Egypt On Oct 10, 2007, at 3:55 PM, Ray Saintonge wrote: That's the problem. LGBT people should not be viewed as a special interest group, but as people. Just like us, homogenous, no different. -Dan _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Can you guarantee the safety of a male-to-female pre-op transsexual in Alexandria or Cairo? Mark On 10/10/2007, Aude &lt;audevivere(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: -- Refije dirije lanmè yo paske nou posede pwòp bato.

On 10/10/07, Brianna Laugher &lt;brianna.laugher(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: A little bit of both. I would rate usefulness as how relevant the discussion is to things most wikimedia users use. Also, the proportion of the community that can attend the events and generate interesting discussion/topics. I didn't attend in Taipei, were most of the attendees semi-local? I had always assumed so. If they weren't then that only highlights Greg's concerns regarding exotic locations. If they were, but the majority of discussions were about topics that didn't concern them that seems weird too. I guess a clearer way of stating it, since I mostly care about enwiki and commons, *to me* the more people from those communities that can come the more useful/interesting. :) Of course this is all just my opinion, that goes without saying :) Judson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cohesion

On 10/10/07, Mark Williamson &lt;node.ue(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: I'm sorry, I just don't believe there's any evidence on the table that Egyptian authorities care, or bother about, western tourists or visitors who happen to be LGBT. A single documented incident, in which the arrested party was released without trial, and no claims of abuse in prison or during arrest have been presented? I don't want to subject LGBT Wikipedians to an abusive foreign government either... but I don't believe Egypt falls in that category. No evidence has been presented of any abuse of visitors. Gay magazines publish articles on travelling to Egypt (see for example http://www.advocate.com/travel_detail_ektid02481.asp online). People I know have gone there. There is much unhappy murmuring and a tiny wisp of smoke. Crying "fire" in the theater and claiming that we must evacuate the site selection is unjustified by the evidence presented. If you believe Egypt truly is significantly bad for visiting LGBT tourists, there should be ample evidence thereof available. In spite of my friends' and aquaintences personal ancedotal safe trips, I went looking for some evidence of risk when this thread started. I have not found anything of the sort. There's more documented foreign tourist gay bashing in San Francisco (fairly low actual rate, and abhored by the local population as a whole, but there's a persistent low-rate problem from homophobic fringeists) than I can find for Egypt. Where is the actual evidence of any documented credible risk to LGBT tourists? Where are documentations of rumors of actual risk? Put your cards on the table. Show us what's making you think that you have legitimate fears or risks. -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

hmm i see a lack of europe... mark On 10/10/07, Mark Williamson &lt;node.ue(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

On 10/10/07, Mark Williamson &lt;node.ue(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Can you guarantee the safety of anyone anywhere?

On 10/10/2007, Marco Chiesa &lt;chiesa.marco(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Reducing the risk of exposing wikipeidians direct sunlight is probably a plus. -- geni

On 11/10/2007, cohesion &lt;cohesion(a)sleepyhead.org&gt; wrote: It was about half-half I believe. (Your statement reads like "damned if you, damned if you don't." :)) Even if a talk or a topic is a case study of something you're not involved in, listening to it is the perfect opportunity to learn about how a different group of people does something, and pick up some new ideas for ways to do things or things to look out for and avoid. I guess a clearer way of stating it, since I To go to Wikimania and only want to learn about things you already know about seems like a hugely lost opportunity to me. Seriously, why not try and organise something local or regional? cheers, Brianna -- They've just been waiting in a mountain for the right moment: http://modernthings.org/

On 10/10/2007, Jimmy Wales &lt;jwales(a)wikia.com&gt; wrote: I'm not sure that's wise, Jimbo, unless you've already checked with the Egyptian authorities and gotten their approval for it. Egypt have apparently this year arrested quite a few journalists in Egypt investigating stories about violations of human rights in Egypt. For your own personal safety, I suggest you don't do this. ~Mark Ryan

2007/10/11, Ray Saintonge &lt;saintonge(a)telus.net&gt;et>: For the record, in the process of organizing, the WM07 Taipei office dealt with visa issue very carefully. We tried our best to get visas to everyone who wanted to come to Taiwan. Our visa assistance was mainly provided for people from Bangladesh(1), Cape de Verde(1), People's Republic of China(8), Tajikistan(1), Russia(1), India (3), Venezuela(1), Chile(2), Serbia(1), Turkey(1), ect. In these cases, Bangladesh, Tajikistan and Russia attendees used visa on arrival, and others used application visas. And it is quite hard to apply visa document for PRC attendees, but we made it, while TzuChiang signed many Letter of Guarantee. For our Egyptian friends, some of them applied for scholarship, and the scholarship committee decided to give 2 of them scholarships to come to Taipei. And we here prepared with letters of guarantee and also visa on arrival for our Egyptians friends. However, they finally gave up to come, and till today I haven't known the reason. :) Regards, Titan I expect that visa issues will continue to be a factor in choosing

geni wrote: Absolutely! These are gnomes accustomed to living in dark cellars lit only by the light of a computer screen. Ec

David Strauss wrote: Can I read that as a vote for moving Wikimania 2008 to Iran? Not always; those Germans were meticulous record keepers. While I can agree that there can be a strong correlation between poor human rights and poor record keeping, it is inappropriate to impute a causal relationsip between the two. Ec

Mark Ryan wrote: He should say whatever he damn well wants to say. Making a big fuss that prejudges what he is going to say could be more damaging than his actually saying it. That would bring on undue attention. Getting approval from the authorities for a speech against censorship strikes me as somewhat antithetical. I don't know the circumstances of the investigative journalists you mention, but there is more to investigation than simply giving a speech to a gathering of mostly foreigners. Arresting Jimbo for giving such a speech or out of anticipation of such a speech would likely be counterproductive for the Egyptian, given the reverberation that would follow in the blogosphere. Jimbo is a well-seasoned traveller. I'm sure that he knows how to weigh the options for his personal safety.. Ec.

Brian, ROTFL You should read the articles until the end :) "Sun experienced a similar episode in Taiwan seven years ago when a man charged onto the stage during her album signing event, firing a shot with a toy gun. Police later said the man had intended to kidnap her for ransom." Do we also retroactively cancel last wikimania to protect people's safety? Berto 'd Sera Skype: berto.d.sera Personagi dl'ann 2006 per l'arvista american-a Time (tanme tuti vojaotri) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html -----Original Message----- From: foundation-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Brian McNeil Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 11:22 AM To: 'Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List' Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] [Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2008 will happeninAlexandria, Egypt Ted (Hsiang-Tai) Chien wrote: "From my understanding, the Egypt government is serious on the safety of foreign people because the Egypt economy is based on tourism. If any foreign people were been threatened or feel unsafe in their country, it would affect their economy a lot. Maybe what I know is wrong, but that's what I learnt from the Taiwan singer issue in Egypt this May." Is this what you're referring to? http://www.chinapost.com.tw/news/archives/taiwan/2007228/103436.htm _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

On 10/10/07, David Strauss &lt;david(a)fourkitchens.com&gt; wrote: Where did I mention official records? I want you to point to western sources, *anything* that has actual "this happened to someone in Egypt" statements that justify your claim that there's a legit problem for LGBT visitors in Egypt. There are myriad gay travel websites and blogs. As far as I can tell they have no specific warnings about Egypt. A number of them report on visits there... and nobody reports anything other than being a little wary of the situation. If there's a legit threat you should be able to point me to someone out there in the west who has documented it. If there's a legit threat, I would expect to have found it already. I believe you (and the documented reports, and stuff I've heard about and read about going back a number of years) about internal moderate oppression of LGBT in Egypt. I do not believe you, *because you have provided zero documentation and I have found none elsewhere in my searches*, that Egypt's government or law enforcement present a general or specific threat to health and safety of LGBT visitors. -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

People keep mentioning gay travellers; someone even said to shut up and not flaunt it and the gays will be fine. Besides that being very, very, very offensive... (ask any gay person what their feelings are when someone says they are "flaunting" their orientation, it is an offensive suggestion) I realize that GLB people can remain celibate while in Egypt and they are likely to be fine. The fact that they may be safer pretending to be something they are not is a bit disconcerting, but that is not my primary concern. My primary concern is the safety of potential transgendered and transsexual conference attendees. Someone earlier asked me if I have a study about the number of people who will or who will not attend Wikimania due to such concerns... well... we have voluntary listings and we have userboxes for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered Wikimedians. My guess is that there will be few to no transgendered and transsexual attendees, not because there are no T people who wish to attend but because there are not many T people who feel comfortable in El Iskandariyyah. I'm not naming names here because it is their own business, but I do know of several prominent T Wikimedians and I have seen in blog comments and the like that they are not planning to go because they fear for their safety. That we have a whole demographic of people who are not going to go because they fear for their safety is appalling to me. What is even more appalling is that really, nobody seems to care. Lots of you have said you have had LGBT/GLBT friends go to Egypt and be fine. My guess is that your friends have only been gay, lesbian, and bisexual... have you had trans friends go to Egypt and say they felt safe there? I think I already know the answer. Mark On 11/10/2007, Mark Ryan &lt;ultrablue(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: -- Refije dirije lanmè yo paske nou posede pwòp bato.

Celibacy isn't required, they just need to avoid overt "public displays of affection". (And it might be wise to avoid requesting a double hotel room...) It's not really that different to women wearing a headscarf when going to look around a mosque - whether you agree with other people's beliefs or not, you go along with them when in their country/building. And what are the grounds for this concern? I haven't seen an answer to that question yet.

On 11/10/2007, Thomas Dalton &lt;thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: But why should Wikimedians have to worry about sharing a double room with their partner at a Wikimania conference? If I wanted to go to Egypt, I'd book a flight there on my own. I want to attend Wikimania. If I cannot attend Wikimania as myself (without undue worry), with whomever I wish to bring, I do not feel welcome and do not wish to come. -- Oldak Quill (oldakquill(a)gmail.com)

To avoid offending the locals. We may not agree with their beliefs, but to avoid trouble, it's often best just to go along with them. Is it really a big enough issue to prevent us going to Egypt?

AFAIK it is perfectly fine to share a double/triple (hexa room? :)) room. Thats not an excuse not to come :P. --user:alnokta

I said "might" - I know very little on the subject. Nevertheless, I wasn't suggesting staying separately - I meant a double room as opposed to a twin room, not two separate rooms.

It's weird to say that, but "Godwin point" folks. I think everyone understood what you to say. And juror now know, there's few you can do. It was an intersting discussion on the beginning but now... come on. It's over, you're no longer discussing, at best you're arguing and barely listening to each others. In any country in the world we can find stuff to say. If we just take the finalist, we could say we don't want have it in South Africa because of the "race riot" they had, and we can't have it in US because of death penalty going against human rights. At a moment there's a chice to make, you don't agree, ok. You explained why, ok again. You started a discussion, so this is a stronger criteria, once again ok. But now after hundreds of mail, you should move on :) Have a nice day and week end ;) On 12/10/2007, David Strauss &lt;david(a)fourkitchens.com&gt; wrote: -- schiste

Ray Saintonge wrote: It's quite demeaning to ask people who face discrimination to stand up and be counted. It's objectifying, and it's not acceptable to allow discrimination even in the presumed absence of the target group. Often, a target group will silently watch and exclude itself once it discovers that the reluctance to accommodate its needs is being discussed. For example, someone might object to having a Confederate flag at a party. If the response is asking, "Are there going to be black people?" then it's more likely that black people considering coming to the party will simply not come rather than object and come to an event where their interests are clearly second-class. It's probably clear by this point that I'm not a utilitarian. :-)

Mark Williamson wrote: What you forget is that many people find any flaunting of sexuality offensive. This includes to heterosexual flaunting. Ec

On 11/10/2007, Delirium &lt;delirium(a)hackish.org&gt; wrote: I'm surprised at the latter two - my gut instinct is that the accessibility from Europe for Alexandria should outweigh the accessibility bonus for the Far Eastern users going to Taiwan. Was it close? (This is probably me systematically underestimating our usership figures, again...) -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk

Hoi, Another beautiful proclamation from GerardM that is as nonsequiter and irrelevant as it is asinine. On Oct 12, 2007, at 5:16 AM, GerardM wrote: Nobody ever said there was. Why hello Mr. Strawman? They can't do that from jail, or from a hospital can they? So it's the message, rather than the convention attendees' safety, that is the priority? I'm sure the WMF doesn't agree with that. Please don't imply that is the way that they think. It is not a matter of whether women and gays feel comfortable there. It's a matter of whether they can be safe there and not imprisoned, harassed, or assaulted. Apparently you missed the part of where people are upset about the way the decision was made. Also, please note that several people addressed the safety and LGBT concerns DURING the bid process and were told that they were trolling, or told to stop asking questions. In one case, instead of responding to a direct question about Alexandria's safety concerns, their bid team completely ignored the subject and instead attacked Atlanta. The fact that this whole argument was never even given due weight is why we are bringing it up. Bullshit. We've sourced our arguments with valid sources. I believe I sent out an email with 5 or 6 of them, a few days ago. If you choose to ignore them that is your choice; do not deign to look down upon us mortals and call us silly little trolls. Thanks, Dan

Andrew Gray wrote: I guess it's probably close, and it might be fair to say Alexandria and Taipei are about equally accessible/inaccessible depending on what you care about. Both are clearly much less accessible than the two previous locations, though. It also partly depends on whether you weight by typical attendees, or by the possibility of attracting new attendees (e.g. the Japanese Wikipedia is a top-5 by size, but underrepresented at our events). For cheap (under US$500): -- Frankfurt: Nearly all of Europe, much of North Africa, some of the Middle East -- Boston: Nearly all of the U.S., much of Canada, most of the Carribbean, much of Central America -- Taipei: Hong Kong, maybe some other nearby places if you're lucky (Malaysia, Japan, etc.) -- Alexandria: North Africa and the Middle East For semi-cheap (US$500-1000): -- Frankfurt: Much of the rest of Africa and the Middle East, parts of the U.S. east coast if you're lucky -- Boston: Most of the rest of North, Central, and South America, and a few European cities if you're lucky -- Taipei: Most of the rest of eastern Asia, a few U.S. west coast cities if you're lucky (e.g. Los Angeles) -- Alexandria: Most of Europe, a handful of African cities if you're lucky (e.g. Nairobi) A major problem with Alexandria's accessibility seems to be that, due to the way airline markets are structured, it's actually *less* accessible from most of Africa than Europe is, despite being on the African continent. But of course Phoebe has a point that this isn't really the selection committee's fault. Europe seems to have the best overall accessibility, but we can't pick a European city if no European cities submit bids. =] -Mark

on 10/12/07 5:01 PM, Ray Saintonge at saintonge(a)telus.net wrote: A "shrink's" nirvana. :-) Marc

Mark Ryan wrote: Just to clarify a few points... 1. I don't think it is a political event, except in the broad sense that Wikipedia itself is "political" in terms of being a statement that every thoughtful and kind individual has a fundamental human right to participate in the creation of knowledge. 2. I didn't say anything about why it was chosen, because I had nothing to do with the selection... not even on the committee, didn't have a vote, didn't make any public comments, etc. I was just an observer like everyone else. 3. I doubt very much if this event alone will bring about any positive changes in Egypt or anywhere else. But I am certain that Wikipedia itself is already making positive changes all over the world, and this event supports Wikipedia. 4. I am very supportive of those who have concerns about holding Wikimania in problematic places, wherever those might be. I am torn between the idea that we should always avoid them, versus the idea that we should deliberately seek them out. There are merits to both positions I think... within limits. --Jimbo

Thanks for the reply, Jimbo. I misunderstood what you had meant in your earlier emails. ~Mark Ryan

Thanks for the original insight, Brian. On 06/03/2008, Brian &lt;Brian.Mingus(a)colorado.edu&gt; wrote: -- Refije dirije lanmè yo paske nou posede pwòp bato.