[Foundation-l] Concern for the safety of Wikimedians at Wikimania in Alexandria.

[Samuel Klein]

Greg,

Thank you for posing your concerns clearly and without rancor.

On Sun, Mar 2, 2008 at 1:54 AM, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
< I think that several
>  serious concerns got lost in the noise, and that we cannot drop the
>  topic from the list without addressing them, especially as people are
>  starting to plan their travel. If we can be assured that safety
>  concerns are being taken seriously by the WMF and the Wikimania
>  organizers and are not being dismissed or ignored, this would go a
>  long way toward improving the tone of discussion on the list.

Yes.

>  I have two main concerns with Wikimania so far.
[...]
<  [Firstly] It only takes a few extreme voices to cause a serious
>  issue, and we need to be aware that this may happen and have a plan to
>  ensure that attendees are not put in danger.
>
>  Secondly, I am also concerned that the local organizing team has not
<  been sufficiently responsive to concerns about safety.... Every
location has some
<  risk involved... I would like to know that someone is considering
it and taking
>  reasonable steps to mitigate it.
>
>  Even if the safety concerns were completely without merit, perception
>  of risk is important to an event which can only be successful if a
>  diverse crowd of people attend.

Aren't these really the same point?  You would like to see a plan for ensuring
safety, taking into account known risks (getting lost, stolen belongings, being
a tourist in nearby places / at night, unknowingly violating local
laws).  And you
would like to see a contingency plan that covers the possibility of
threats of or
actual violence (local police and fire contacts, security detail).

>  What plans are in place to ensure attendees' safety at Wikimania?
>  What happens if we get threats of violence at the event?

These considerations are not special to Alexandria, of course.  Any
time there is
vocal concern from potential attendees, they should receive special
attention; but
they should always receive attention.  In my experience, Wikimania Boston was
required to plan for various contingencies by Harvard's own safety
policies.  We
didn't publicize the details too vocally.  And we could have planned
more explicitly
for taking care of people's belongings, for instance -- a few bags
were lost and
never found, perhaps stolen.  We did discuss the possibility of
physical threats,
and had a security detail (as any event larger than a certain size
must). Again,
that process could have been more public and better shared with the (potential)
attendees.

SJ