[Foundation-l] Concerns for Safety

[Dan Rosenthal]

Andrew,  that's precisely my point. We should be concentrating on  
ensuring that things DON'T go wrong, and that involves a serious  
questioning in whether we hold Wikimania in Alexandria.  I could care  
less if this is viewed as traditional Americanism. I'm an American,  
and the foundation is headquartered in America. The foundation is  
ultimately responsible to the laws of America.

Nathan, you can make fun of first year law students all you want, but  
I'm simply pointing out that the Foundation has a duty. You may not  
want to accept it, you may disagree with it, but that's how it is.  
They need to factor that into their risk assessment as to whether it's  
a good idea for them to continue with Wikimania in Alexandria despite  
the objections. If nothing goes wrong, great. But if something does,   
there is a problem. And as you mentioned, it is fundamentally American  
to sue over everything. You make these common sense arguments about  
parents protecting children and such, but in fact parents do have a  
legal duty to protect their children from 3rd party criminal acts  
under the exact same principle of common law that the foundation does  
(it's codified in the Restatement (second) of torts §314A and further  
in §324A.)

My broader point here is that there are so many reasons why Alexandria  
is a bad idea: discrimination, censorship, threats of violence,  
negative publicity from demonstrations, possible interference or  
monitoring from the government, liability issues, difficulty of  
location, etc. that each new one piled on top is yet MORE reason why  
it's just not worth it for us to have Wikimania there. It's not about  
any one issue, it's about ALL of the issues combined that outweigh any  
benefits that Alexandria has. It's about the fact that the bid team  
refuses to give them any due consideration. In the last meeting, for  
instance, there was whining and complaining about even bringing the  
security issues up. They were discussed for all of 10 minutes, during  
which time no substantive points were addressed or raised. The bid  
team is completely indifferent to the security concerns, and when the  
jury selected the bid, the situation was much more stable than it is  
now. But yet, some members of the community feel locked in to  
Alexandria, despite plenty of evidence to suggest that it could be a  
bad idea, despite that even the foundation is having second thoughts  
about it. We are a freaking Wiki-based organization for crying out  
loud, we don't have to be locked into things. Wikis are all about  
changes. Why is it that some people here are so resistant to changes?

-DAn


On Mar 7, 2008, at 11:17 AM, Andrew Gray wrote:

> On 07/03/2008, Dan Rosenthal <swatjester at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> But the difficulties that you claim
>> are not there. The foundation is a US organization, and thus could be
>> sued by a US citizen for negligence in planning that occurred in the
>> US. Who knows whether that would win on the merits, but the
>> possibility does exist.
>
> I really cannot see this constant talk of lawsuits as desperately  
> helpful.
>
> Yes, the Foundation could be sued if something goes horribly wrong.
> But if something goes horribly wrong, *we've failed already*, and
> whether or not we get sued over it is almost irrelevant - things have
> gone horribly wrong, after all!
>
> We should be concentrating on things not going horribly wrong, not
> concentrating on not getting sued when they do. Approaching it from
> this angle just seems, well, not right.
>
> -- 
> - Andrew Gray
>  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l