[Foundation-l] Concern for the safety of Wikimanians in Alexandria

[Erik Moeller]

On 3/5/08, John Reaves <johnreaveswp at gmail.com> wrote:
> So is it really worth having the conference there if steps like this are
> necessary?

The Wikimania conference is the annual conference supported and
co-organized by the Wikimedia Foundation, together with the local
team. As such, I believe it should strongly reflect the Foundation's
mission and values. Our vision statement says:

"Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment."

The cause of free knowledge is a global one, not limited to the
corners of the world which we designate safe. Obviously, there's a
threshold of safety when it no longer becomes feasible to hold an
event like Wikimania in a given location - but I see no evidence to
support the hypothesis that Egypt is above that threshold. On the
contrary, the new Library of Alexandria seems like a beautifully
symbolic location to promote free culture as a global movement. And
for the regions where we can't hold conferences, we should still think
about ways to reach people, send wiki-ambassadors, and so on. :-)

The fundamental tension here, IMO, is the notion that there is one big
conference every year, and therefore people try to make it everything.
Whatever choice we make as a community will therefore leave some
people very unhappy. One of the strongest reasons to go to a Wikimania
conference is to meet Wikimedians from many languages and cultures.
But it's not the only reason Wikimedia supports an annual conference.
If that is _the_ reason you want to go to Wikimania, and you find the
choice of Egypt problematic, then the answer is, I think, to have a
more broad and diverse range of events around the world.

Wikimedia is a social movement as much as it is an organization. Don't
look to the Foundation as the only force to bring people together --
do it yourself. That's a better use of your time than arguing on the
Internet. :-)
-- 
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation

Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate