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

[Nathan]

Must be Salt Lake City. MSA, for those who don't know (which could be
nobody) is "metropolitan statistical area." I only know that, not because I
know things, but because Medicare is a statistically significant pain in my
ass.

More importantly, I agree that there is a difference between the danger of
random violence in most Western cities and the danger of specifically
targeted violence in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East. However, the
danger is unmeasured at this point (and to some degree, of course,
unmeasurable) and those who are aware of the potential and choose to go
should know that they are taking risks that the Foundation simply cannot
remove. I don't think the Alexandria Wikimania should be removed - if few
attend because of safety concerns, then in the future Wikimanias will be
scheduled with that in mind. Those who are minded to attend know the risks,
and hopefully Sue's report will outline what specifically can be done in
addition to what attendees must do for themselves. I'd be interested if
someone had some detailed knowledge of the IOC selection process (aside from
venues and facilities and traffic considerations, how do they deal with
political problems and the threat of violence?). We should consider echoing
them. Heck, we could even follow their schedule and have Wikimedia
conferences in the same places.

Nathan

Nathan

On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 5:04 PM, Robert Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net>
wrote:

> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> > 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.
> >
>
> I don't know how you are massaging these statistics or what Hollywood
> movies are giving you the impression that America, as a country, is more
> dangerous or less dangerous than Europe.  America is a big place, and
> yes, there are some places I wouldn't travel without an armed escort.
> But the comparison should be more like trying to compare the Netherlands
> and Connecticut than all of America.
>
> BTW, the worst personal threat to my own life actually came from the
> Netherlands... on a matter won't go into here.  And I've been in some
> pretty tough neighborhoods over the years, even though my current
> residence happens to be in the #1 safest MSA for America, in terms of
> criminal statistics.
>
> I don't know of any specific group of individuals who might be targeted
> because of their ethnicity or even political viewpoints here in America
> by armed terrorists.  You might have some protests over the issue of the
> Wikipedia images of Mohammed, but those would be peaceful and have
> active involvement of local police officials if that happened.  I think
> the concerns that the local government in Egypt not protecting
> foreigners, particularly Jews and Christians (aka "non-believers" from a
> Muslem viewpoint) is something worth consideration, unless there are
> leaders from the Islamic community of Egypt who are actively condemning
> these sort statements and anti-Christian/Jewish rhetoric.  Particularly
> in light of this whole flame war over the use of images of early Islamic
> leaders  (heaven forbid an image of "Allah" himself) there are very
> legitimate concerns about radical groups of Islamic society would react
> to a conference like Wikimania.
>
> These concerns are very well founded, and I hope they are addressed
> somehow, including something coming from the local law enforcement
> community in Alexandria that is more or less official in terms of what
> level of protection they will be providing to Wikimania participants.
> Even "we won't do anything to help out" is at least something from the
> local police, and I haven't heard about that.  I think this is a
> legitimate issue to raise on this level.
>
> -- Robert Horning
>
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