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

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
Where is your risk assessment to come to your conclusions? Mine says that
people that come to Wikimania hardly get into contact with the country they
are going to. Mine says that there is a real or perceived risk in any
country. I do not say there is no risk but i do say that the risk is
mitigated by how people behave when they are at a Wikimania. This gives many
risks less relevance.

When it comes to risk, I had relevant qualifications; I was a CISSP for some
time and consequently had something of a career in security. Now the issue
is what is an acceptable risk. When people act like they have done so far
when visiting Wikimania, the risk is limited. This does not mean there is no
risk, there is a limited risk. This means that the issues that exist are
there but they can be considered as deminished.

When you are talking about "acceptable risks" you do not qualify when risks
are acceptable and when not. When you ask for the cancelation of Wikimania I
fail to perceive what your motivations are, how you come to your conclusion.
In my understanding  you would only feel safe in an environment that does
not have risks for you. This ignores how risk is appreciated by others, or
what risks exist for others. The exclusion of people that want to come to
Wikimania in your country is based on making *you *feel secure and this is a
very profound reason NOT to always have a Wikimania that excludes so many
people.

For your information I am not in the categories that you expect people to be
in.

Where you say that it can be argued that we do not have a Wikimania, I could
not disagree with you more. Let me choose my own "risks" and let me go to
Alexandria for Wikimania 2008.

PS will the WMF refund the people that have already booked their flights
when Alexandria is cancelled ???
Thanks,
   GerardM

On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 4:44 PM, Andrew Whitworth <wknight8111 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 10:07 AM, Gerard Meijssen
> <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> >  My point is not that we should not consider South Africa for next year,
> my
> >  point is that all places have their issues and once you start to
> exclude
> >  countries for what is problematic to some there are few places where we
> can
> >  have our Wikimania. In pandering to special interests we exclude many
> people
> >  and countries and that is both a travesty and a tragedy given what we
> aim to
> >  do.
>
> I think it's a little bit of an oversimplification to suggest that the
> safety of our members is a "special interest". We don't have any
> census data yet, but I would find it hard to believe that the vast
> majority of wikimedians are straight, jew/christian/muslim men. There
> are a lot of places we can go in this world without institutionalized
> bigotry that puts our members at risk to life or liberty. A single
> murder, or a single rape, or a single instance of any other violent
> crime would have a massive chilling effect on Wikimania, and possibly
> all of Wikimedia. We should never run this risk, even if that means we
> have to abandon Wikimania entirely. I don't like that option, but if
> we start arguing about the lesser of two evils, or trying to justify
> the risk that our members will be exposed to, then we aren't focusing
> on the proper priorities, and we aren't making acceptable decisions.
>
> Saying that "the number of rapes in SA is sky high", and then saying
> that this isn't a reason why not to hold a Wikimania there is absurd.
> It's easy for a man to say "Well, i'm not in any danger of being
> raped, so I don't see a problem with it". It's easy for a straight man
> to say "Well, i'm not gay, so I dont need to worry about the way gays
> are treated", or even "Well, gays are just a small minority, and we
> don't need to worry about special interest groups".
>
> I say that Wikimania be canceled. Not moved or rescheduled but
> canceled entirely until we have some sort of assurance that the people
> who are making decisions about it are doing so in a responsible way.
> Dismissing the safety of our members as a "special interest" is simply
> not acceptable.
>
> --Andrew Whitworth
>
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