[Wikimania-l] Comments

[Filip Maljkovic]

Hani Morsi wrote:
[a lot of things]

I completely agree with your whole email and applaud to it!

But I have to quote this passage, as I think it's the essence of this 
message:
>
> What you make of this value is up to you, but to me it is often a form 
> of incremental personal enlightenment, on a very small level, that 
> must be valued and embraced, rather than shunned and avoided. We, as 
> wikipedians and self-proclaimed "advocates of openness", took up a 
> slightly larger share of an oft-discussed but frequently practically 
> abandoned global responsibility to value and promote diversity, 
> cultural awareness and sensitivity, and receptivity to the new and 
> different even if it means that we have to forsake – for even the 
> shortest of times – our respective comfort zones. What I took the 
> liberty to very generically term as "openness" here has multiple, 
> varied but still connected and related definitions. To me, it can 
> border on the hypocritical to claim that I am an advocate of open 
> knowledge if I am myself not open or receptive to a different culture 
> that might starkly contrast to my own.
>
Just to briefly add my two piasters to the table:
I was, too, ripped off several times by several people, like most of the 
visitors at one point or another. We all experienced the chaotic 
Egyptian traffic. There were some other minor inconveniences, but if I 
sum it all up, I don't mind them. After the conference, I traveled a lot 
with some Wikimedians; we visited the pyramids of Giza, I rode a camel, 
we saw the way the people in Cairo and Alex really live (outside of the 
travelers' paths), we went to Luxor and saw wonders... All in all, I 
think this was one of my best trips: seeing and experiencing the best 
and the worst of a country makes you really appreciate it. And, at least 
in my book, the good things pretty much outweigh the bad things. And I'm 
sure most people would agree.

But we're talking about cultures and geography. The conference itself 
was done very well, IMHO, and it was more or less as good as the last 
years'. I sure hope I'll be able to attend the next one (although I wish 
the conference be set as early in August as possible).

Cheers,
Filip