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

Tue Mar 4 18:56:19 UTC 2008

Hoi,
Safety is not an absolute and it will never be. When you approach safety as
an absolute you will never achieve it. Me and you are more safe in the
Netherlands then we would in the USA and the statistics back me up on this.
This does not mean that a Wikimania in the USA can not be considered to be
safe enough.

When you consider safety you *have *to do a risk assessment. In a risk
assessment you are likely to find that the risk is not the same for
everyone. A person aged 40 runs a different risk then a person aged 20. Risk
typically increases when people are in circumstances that are increasingly
foreign. This makes the notion of what people do and where they do it
relevant. Wikimania is a bubble, a bubble that is relatively safe.

The notion of me talking about "special interests" is something I dismiss.
For Wikimania there are people that run an increased risk when they are
outside of the bubble. As long as they are in the bubble they are safe. When
they move outside the bubble in a group, there is safety in numbers. When
they move from the bubble to and from the airport, the risk is relatively
low.

The problem is that safety as a feeling is something that can not be given.
You either do feel that it is safe to go to Egypt or you do not. There is
not much that can be done about this. The only thing that you can do is give
facts to base such an opinion on. When the Wikimedia Foundation does its
risk analysis it can choose to acknowledge the terrorized feelings of some
to be a factor. On the other hand our Arab Wikipedia is of a significant
importance. When many Americans and Europeans fail to go to Egypt because of
their angst there are enough other people who can come to Egypt in stead.
Paradoxically this will make Wikimania 2008 more safe because less of an
attractive target to a potential terrorist.

I wonder about the ease in which you come to the conclusion that the
organisers do not consider the safety for the people who come to Wikimania.
I find this rather disappointing and you are likely to be wrong.

Thanks,
     GerardM

On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 6:14 PM, Andrew Whitworth <wknight8111 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 11:33 AM, Gerard Meijssen
> <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> >  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.
>
> I'm not saying anything specific about risk. What I'm most upset about
> is your reference to the safety of the Wikimania conference goers as a
> "special interest". Safety should be a primary interest. I don't need
> to say anything about whether Egypt is a proper venue, or whether our
> conference goers will be safe. Enough other people have said those
> things already and there is no sense in my repeating them. People want
> to know that they will be safe, and your dismissal of safety issues as
> "special interests" runs counter to that desire.
>
> >  When you are talking about "acceptable risks" you do not qualify when
> risks
> >  are acceptable and when not.
>
> You are quick to qualify such risks as "special interest", and equally
> quick to dismiss these concerns as just personal concerns of a small
> minority. Many people on this list have expressed concerns for a large
> variety of reasons. It's short-sighted to say that any potential
> problems should be left to individuals to mitigate, when there is the
> potential for so many people to be affected. It's not an individual
> problem, it's a group problem.
>
> > 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.
>
> I'm not going to Wikimania, so my hypothetical safety there isn't an
> issue. For the record, I'm a straight white male who can pretend to be
> a good Christian in a pinch, so safety is not a personal problem for
> me in most places. My motivations here are based on the quick
> dismissals of people's concerns. You and others have been very quick
> to say that risks are personal, and that the attendees should be
> concerned with their own safety issues. Few people are willing to step
> up and say that the organization is going to take these issues
> seriously. My point here is that if the people who are planning
> Wikimania aren't willing to take safety of the group as a whole into
> consideration, then those people likely aren't qualified to be
> planning it and Wikimania should be canceled until a qualified group
> of planners can be found. I want people to say "we as an organization
> have issues regarding safety that must be considered", and to not say
> "the safety of individuals is left strictly to the individuals, and we
> the planners are not going to be concerned with that".
>
> >  This ignores how risk is appreciated by others, or
> >  what risks exist for others.
>
> No. I want risk to be appreciated by all, even if the risk is small,
> even if it only affects one particular minority. We are a group, and
> safety issues should be considered as a group. It's not
> everybody-fends-for-themselves at Wikimania. Group safety should be
> paramount, and I have not yet seen significant evidence on this list
> or anywhere else that it has been given any amount of consideration.
>
> >  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.
>
> I could care less about what your personal demographics are, or what
> your personal risk assessment is. We aren't talking about you, or me,
> or any other individual. We are talking about a very diverse group of
> people with complex issues of race, religion, orientation and
> politics. Some consideration should be given to the safety of all,
> regardless of the particular conference venue, and regardless of your
> personal feelings on the matter. You feel safe enough in Alexandria?
> That's good. Now we need to make the effort to extend that same
> feeling of safety to all the conference goers.
>
> --Andrew Whitworth
>
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