[Foundation-l] Partecipation in Wikimania 2011

[Osama Khalid]

My opinion is simple. Israel is not a good place to have such an
international event as Wikimania. I wouldn't vote for Israel, Saudi
Arabia, Iran, UAE and other countries that are hard for many people to
get into. Having such a conversation isn't the point of Wikimania. The
fact that a team is amazingly active shouldn't be a reason to make
this annual, exciting and useful meeting so complicated and dangerous
for so many people.

I can see why the Wikimedia Foundation may not be so interested in
taking one side in any political/ethical debate outside its main
mission. That's reasonable and understandable. But in my opinion the
whole thing is about picking a place that is a 'good' host.

Whether we can do something to solve the major issues of Wikimania
2011 or not, we should seriously think of adding a standard for
Wikimania hosts: that they need to be generally easily reachable for
the vast majority of the Wikimedia community.

Poland was great. I loved it. I mean I really loved having meetings in
such 'peaceful' countries without such debates. Why not? There are
many of them.

[Historically, the part below was written before the one that's above,
something you may feel and notice! :)]

> This is bullshit. There are always people who for instance never
> take an air flight - should we also complain that they do not have
> an opportunity to travel to Wikimania which is on a different
> continent?

That does not make any sense. Many people cannot, legally and
socially, go to Israel and that's a fact not merely an opinion or a
(legitimate and reasonable) choice.

> Turkey is no problem, Turkish citizens can, may and do visit
> Israel. Also, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, Tunesia, and Mauretania are no
> problem. Algeria I would need to check.

I dunno about Turkey, but no, it's impossible for people from the
other countries to visit Israel for social reasons and these reasons
cannot be ignored.

> it ultimately is a personal decision of whether or not a person
> wants to go.

Sure, it *is* your personal decision to make yourself at risk of
serious consequences. Read below.

> there is no way to get a visa on a separate paper, even if you get a
> stamp from immigration separately that visa in all likelihood is
> going to be there.

That, simply, changes everything.

> As explained on http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Visas, there
> are various ways to attain a visa entry to Israel even if you live
> in a country with no Israeli embassies.

The page doesn't say anything about Visas on a blank paper, but only
the stamps. Also "Passport stamping" talks about "those countries may
also search for Jordanian/Egyptian exit stamps from land borders with
Israel".

-- 
Osama Khalid
English-to-Arabic translator and programmer.
http://osamak.wordpress.com | http://tinyogg.com