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

[White Cat]

I am divided in this. The second you turn wikimedia conferance to a G8
meeting you fundamentally hurt the goal of 'free encyclopedia'. Then again
being blown up to sub-atomic particles isn't exactly helping the goal of
free encyclopedia. You can't really let terrorists rule your life. New York
is no more 'safe' than Egypt.

Security at the hotels and stuff, now I may agree with that. But I do not
wish wikimedia conference itself to become a military base.

   - White Cat


On Sun, Mar 2, 2008 at 8:54 AM, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:

> It's clear that some of the previous threads about Wikimania drifted
> off-topic and became unproductive. However, 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.
>
> I have two main concerns with Wikimania so far.
>
> First, the coverage of the Jyllands-Posten cartoon controversy and
> images in the Muhammad article on Wikipedia have sparked protest from
> many people, some of whom have made frightening and violent threats of
> reprisal against Wikimedia. These threats become more immediate and
> worthy of concern in a region where there is recent history of
> violence in response to religious controversies. This would be an
> extreme reaction, but I don't think that we can discount the
> possibility. 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. A risk which is
> dismissed is one which is not being mitigated. Every location has some
> risk involved, and there should always be consideration of those
> risks. But I can't find any indication that this is happening here,
> and 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. People are going to choose whether or
> not to go based on what they think is true. If people do not go
> because they think they will not be safe, even if they should have no
> reason to think so, the event is harmed by the failure to address
> their concerns.
>
> So I would like to know:
> What plans are in place to ensure attendees' safety at Wikimania?
> What happens if we get threats of violence at the event?
>
> Cheers
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>