Some answers ..... As argued by other people, many gays go there on holiday quite safely and Egyot even seems to feature in gay magazines as a travel destination. One would think they have done their research. Offcourse there is always a risk if people go on and try to date local gays. How many years ago did George Michale get busted for this in the United States? There are many many more countries in the world where a gay person is at risk. Even in very gay friendly Thailand you could walk into the wrong people. It is very simple, do not flaunt and do not go on provoking because you feel you have to re-educate your hostcountry and nothing will happen to you becuase really the authorities have many better things to do than go after you. Unless you provoke them offcourse. Apart from that on some "monger" messageboards more and more posts are made about the "scene" in Egypt. Seems that as long as you do not go out yelling what you are looking for it is all possible in Egypt. There are many many countries where there is no such a thing. Many countries in Europe and North America put laws into existance that limit the rights of their citizens and make them jump through all kinds of hoops. Also these countries limit the freedom of travel to their countries from many parts of the world. The so-called free press is usually nothing more but sensationalist (see the blownup story about Madeleine, there is thousands of lost kids out there) and in the hands of big corporations and are only writing stories that further their shareholders agendas and profits. Even media outlets like the BBC seem to make more and more mistakes in their reporting (I noticed this in their recent Thailand stories). Furthermore these are western values. And although I am in favour of them in general, I feel there is to much preaching done on this issue. Violent demonstrations in Paris, Bombings in London and Spain. All of the Western Countries who have send troops to Iraq and Afghanistan are potentially at risk. Now look at the gulfstates, like United Arab Emirates, Qatar and the like. They are even closer to all of these kind countries. Yet all the millionaires of the world seem to have no problem in going there and buying houses there. Many Europeans go on holiday along the Red Sea coast quite safely. Also Israelis go there even though they used to be enemies. If this is your criteria for visiting countries you can go nowhere. And you are even supporting terrorists as you are letting yourself being terrorized by them. Have you ever wondered how terrorists could terrorize us if we told them ....... f*** you, you can bomb us shoot us, kidnap us but you cannot stop us from going anywhere we want to go they would loose their scare-weapon pretty quicklu. And apart from that most people do not really care whether you are American or not. It is just a few fanatics who care about that. And they are everywhere in the world. Many people care about the actions by the American government but do not hold it against individuals. This is a very bad argument. On most wikimania's the goal is not to have half of all wikimedians attending. By the same argument they could have choosen Cape Town btw so it does not fly really. It has always been the case that more than half of the wikimedians would not have been able to afford the trip. If I base my opinion on the Dutch wikipedia participation more than half is under 18 anyway. Even if they had the money would their parents allow them to travel somewhere? There will always be cases where people have to travel from the other side of the globe. Now there are many Wikimedians in Europe. Travelling to Egypt wouldn't cost that much for them if judged by Egypt's popularity as a holiday destination already! And please do not rob a bank ;) Why is this? Now you should make sure that that sure isn't only composed of wikipedians from rich countries! Which it will likely end up being if we go your way. Their will be 5 europeans, 5 north americans and a token African and a token Asian. There will always be people who cannot afford to go somewhere. Now if people go broke to go towikimania that says something about them, not the location. Also there will always be a potential for people getting killed. Say we had a wikimania in Paris during the violence? Or one in London when they are bombing? Or in New York and some wikimedians wander into Harlem ...... Or the plane crashes that people use to go to a wikimania. Unless there is an excessive risk, which I feel is not there in Egypt, there is no reason not to have a wikimania there. So Bogota please put your bid in. But then again after all this I might be the wrong person to weigh in on this. I would even go on a holiday to Afghanistan right now if I would have the money Waerth -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.

Jason Safoutin wrote: Well, actually, no matter where we hold Wikimania in the future, a lot of people will find it a long way to travel. Such is the nature of a global project.