On 11/10/2007, Ilya Haykinson haykinson@gmail.com wrote:
Wikimedia's conferences are not meant to be places where only people who share your particular values attend. There are plenty of people in different parts of the world who would not want to attend conferences in the U.S. due to some commonly held perceptions of its treatment of Muslims or people who look like Arabs, and the risks that this carries to visitors. In fact, there are cases where people try to hide their "Arab look" in order to avoid harassment in the U.S.
I don't think anyone has suggested that Wikimedia's conferences are meant to be places where only people who share your particular values attend. The point is that Wikimedia's conferences are meant to be places where people of many values and lifestyles are free to attend without having to hide themselves.