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

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
Giving up the global reach and approach is completely contrary to what the
Wikimedia Foundation is and does. Even the people working in the
organisation reflect this. Without a global meeting of Wikimedians the
provincial attitudes will only become more dominant. Bending Wikimania in
order to be as close to where our community is .... Considering that the
number of articles is slowly becoming more balanced and considering that
even the English Wikipedia has contributors all over the world, there is no
such thing as an "obvious" location to choose from.
Thanks,
    GerardM

On Fri, Mar 7, 2008 at 10:37 AM, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:

> Erik Moeller wrote:
> > 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.
>
> A major problem is that hosting a sizable conference and bringing people
> from around the world together takes a significant amount of money, and
> an event not officially blessed by the Wikimedia Foundation is just not
> going to get anywhere near the same level of sponsorship (and it's not
> like Wikimania itself is rolling in huge piles of cash to begin with).
> So it becomes difficult to pull off an event with low registration fees
> and subsidized travel, in order to put on something that isn't only
> attended by people who are either relatively well off or in jobs that
> will reimburse them for travel expenses. One solution to that, which is
> commonly adopted, is to give up the goal of global participation and
> organize regional events. Or try to bend Wikimania to be as close to a
> functioning global meetup as possible.
>
> -Mark
>
>
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