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

[Robert Horning]

Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Nathan wrote:
>   
>> 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.
>>
>> 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.
>>     
> It's interesting that you should make this suggestion in the same 
> message that talks about Salt Lake City.  The way that the games were 
> awarded to SLC inspired some changes in the procedure, not that we could 
> afford the kind of politicking that went on there.
>
> That said, I have visited Salt Lake City and have always felt very safe 
> there
>
> Ec
>   

One thing that should be noted about the Olympic selection process is 
that getting the Olympics into your city represents well over several 
billion dollars in tourism revenue or even more.  The summer games more 
than the winter games (such as happened in Salt Lake City).  In the case 
of the SLC 2002 Winter Olympics, well over $1 billion was spent in terms 
of local infrastructure improvements such as the development of a light 
rail system through downtown Salt Lake and the near complete rebuilding 
of all of the interstate highways throughout the Salt Lake metro area.  
This likely would have happened anyway, but getting the Olympics did 
move up the time table and gave some extra political capital to the Utah 
congressional delegation in terms of justifiying federal budgets for 
these items.  That is politics written on a large scale.

As far as the reforms in the selection process... let's just say that I 
believe this was a product of having a free media that aggressively 
searches out for corruption and a local citizenry that rejects 
corruption.  It didn't come from something internal to the IOC that 
started the reform process until international political pressure forced 
the changes.

I don't know exactly how much money landing a Wikimania conference 
represents in terms of tourism dollars of the participants, but this is 
something to point out when working with local officials, and something 
that most communities that cater to these events are keenly aware of, 
including the justification for allocating a certain level of police 
protection to a certain event.  There is certainly a level of prestige 
granted on a city that holds these events as well, and that is something 
that further translates into local politics that can be favorable used 
by event organizers to get local government participation.  I've heard 
even smaller convention groups suggest smaller figures, in the millions 
of dollars, for events the size of Wikimania.  For 1000 participants 
spending $1000 each, that is a million dollars right off the top, and 
something that can be directly calculated.  I am talking local spending 
such as hotel costs, restaurants, transportation services, and other 
expenses each participant will have that is above and beyond even the 
conference itself.

Again going back to the Olympics, particularly in light of the fact it 
happened so soon after the Sept. 11th, 2001 attacks, President Bush 
practically mobilized the U.S. Marine Corp to protect Utah.  The FBI, 
Secret Service, ATF, and every other acronym federal law enforcement 
agency had some significant hand in what happened there, including a 
major "upgrade" in the security systems at the Salt Lake International 
Airport organized by the newly minted U.S. Department of Homeland 
Security.  During the Olympic events themselves, there was hardly a 
single law enforcement officer in Utah that didn't put in some 
significant overtime.  There was one "terrorist" incident during the 
games which turned out to be a power substation that blew up and knocked 
out the electricity to half of Salt Lake valley.  As to who or what 
caused the incident depends on how much you are into conspiracy theories.

But getting back to Wikimania, I think it would be reasonable to point 
out to local officials in whatever city it is held in both the number of 
people involved, projected revenue for the city, and specific "threats" 
that may or may not be significant such as potential protests over the 
use of images of the prophet Mohammed on the English-language 
Wikipedia.  This can and should be a part of the planning process, and 
it really begins by simply going down to the local police station as one 
of the organizers and starting a dialog with the local law enforcement 
community.  My question is this.... has something like this been done?  
Rather than speculating about it all, consulting with some genuine 
experts that deal with maintaining social order and familiar with the 
local laws and cultural issues related to an international conference 
like this would be a good start.  And I can't imagine any police captain 
turning down a request to discuss security arrangements for an event 
like Wikimania as long as you deal with the issue well in advance of the 
event.

The concerns here are legitimate, and in terms of a recommended 
"checklist" for organizers, contacting the local law enforcement 
community ought to be quite high on the list.  Somebody responding on 
this list saying "yes, we've been working with the local law enforcement 
agencies in Alexanderia, and they consider a threat to Wikimania to be 
minimal" goes a long way to killing this thread as a resolved issue.  
That hasn't happened yet, as far as I know, and why this thread keep 
going here.

-- Robert Horning