[Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2012: The Visas Issue

[Roan Kattouw]

On Tue, Nov 1, 2011 at 9:20 PM, Mateus Nobre <mateus.nobre at live.co.uk> wrote:
> Last year I was selected to attend Wikimania 2011 at Haifa (the best moments
> ever in my life, btw, would love to support Washington too, ops  :D) and WMF
> contacted me six months before.
> In this ''six months before'' have one problem.
>
> In Brazil (not only, but in the most countries that need the visa) we take 3
> months to schedule (and get some free time - it's vacation in Brazil and the
> people wanna travel) the visit to U.S. Embassy to require the visa. When we
> requite the visa, we take more 3~~4 months to receive the answer of Embassy.
> Over 6 months. And half per cent of the visas are denied. We could appeal,
> and would take more two months.
>
> It would be the biggest problem ever in a Wikimania organization. And
> happens in a really lot of countries which need a visa to enter in U.S.A.
>
> I suggest to announce to the people who live in that countries early.
> Earliest as possible. Maybe 8 or 9 months before... Take a visa to US really
> isn't easy.
>
> What do you think?
>
To clarify: you're talking about selecting scholarship recipients, right?

Roan