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

[Delirium]

Andrew Whitworth 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.
>   

But whether Alexandria has higher than normal safety risks to Wikimedia 
conference goers is precisely the point being disputed. Well, one of 
them, anyway. Have you seen the crime statistics for Boston, for 
example? No doubt the risks between Boston and Alexandria are different, 
and different groups are at different levels of risk in each place, but 
nobody seems to have attempted to quantify any of them, or even provide 
a useful qualitative survey beyond some anecdotal headline-type stuff.

-Mark