[Foundation-l] Concerns for Safety

[Nathan]

You point out new *incidents* that themselves don't point up changed *
circumstances*. The issue of images of Muhammad, in general, is not new and
is predictable. The fact that Egypt is predominantly Muslim, despite a
semblance of official secularity, is not new. This is my point - nothing has
fundamentally changed about Egypt since it was selected. I don't have the
history of the last bid selection - I assumed since no reference was at any
point made to discussions in the bid selection process, that this particular
issue wasn't raised as a major problem. If it was, my bad, but then its even
harder to understand why folks say that its been completely ignored if its
come up before.

It is particularly 1L to see tort law the way you seem to and to think that
there is an opportunity to sue hiding behind each new event. How many cases
without extraordinary circumstances (i.e. gross negligence) can you name
where an *organization* has been sued because it held a conference somewhere
that was the target of an attack or other unpredictable untoward event? Even
a parent isn't required to protect children from 100% of possible harm, and
I think the reasonable interpretation of the duty of a parent is far, far
away from a reasonable interpretation of the duty of the WMF. The legal
angle is simply a non-issue designed to add supposed weight to your
position. It does not. You should be careful not to offer an opinion on the
law presaged by your status as a law student - if someone takes your view as
authoritative, I'm sure you can dream up circumstances under which you could
be sued.

You have a point when you mention that Wikimania is supposed to have a wide
draw (paraphrasing), like Wikipedia, and that excluding a number of people
who feel unsafe to attend can be seen as a conflict with the purpose. There
is some question over whether the Wikimania is primarily intended to attract
regional attendees, or global attendees. I think the answer is both, to the
extent possible. Issues on the ground of the location (on the ground, I
sound like a politician) always exclude some people - thats inevitable. So
maybe what we need is a number - how many people who would otherwise go are
refusing to go to Alexandria because of the security and liberty issues? If
its a lot of people, that would lend support to your argument and be more
persuasive in trying to get the Wikimania moved/canceled.

Nathan