Re: [Wikimania-l] Comments
Thank you, Patricio. To be fair and honest. I'm looking for getting a chance to go to B.A. next year. Back to the Japan, my beloved home country, and the city I've been in my graduate and marriage day, I found here Osaka is hotter than Cairo (so definitely much hotter than Alex but I knew it even before my departure), more humid than Singapore and things cost more than Sharm el Sheik. I feel comfortable in my apartment though, in every return I realize there is no perfect place. And almost in every community park one or two homeless occupy benches during the night. Poor people are not only in developing countries. I saw them in New York (not sure about Boston, since I didn't go to downtown), in Taipei (and then he was completely naked) and in Alex (but I doubt if they were really homeless - some countries we know professional beggars who have their own home and go to the city for their business). And local people and facilities somehow annoyed me in many ways, as said. That is the world, but at the same time, I have great days with my friends both new and old in Alexandria, expectedly as all of you, also I met many good people and things in many place of Egypt. The guide who attended me in Luxor was professional and arranged me a special local tour for visiting local Coptic churches for free, I got treated by a local beduin at the top of Mt. Sinai (how cozy to have tea seeing the morning Sinai from the summit, sitting just beneath of Chapel of S. Trinity), also treated by a local Egyptian family including yummy spicy stewed eggplant ... and Divine Liturgy at the Basilica of S. Transfiguration in the monastery so-called S. Catherine; they were so generous to allow me enter to the Holy of Holies(!) to give venerational kisses to the relics of the Great-martyr Catherine of Alexandria (I know some claim the doubt about her historical existence, but it is another story). After all, not only in the venue, party and accommodation, but also in the entire of the country, its virtues, beauty, riches and generosity cannot be underestimated by its malice, demelit, and all its vices. The monks gave me a ring. It reminded me the peace and tranquility in Sinai, in the monastery. Strangely it was not so much different I have known in my parish, with my friends, of course including in the dorm and in the venue. All seemed natural and dairy, no hidden special things I think. Truly the most precious one is amidst the human - not the place. Mt. Sinai gave me a lesson; there is no special place in this globe but we can change our world and invite to create the place we feel comfortable, in our own labor and diligence. We cannot change everything at once but we can do something in every time - with dignity, in calmness from discretion. Shotly, in love. Through editing, organizing things, contacting the other people - just for the love for knowledge and thus, for our friends and neighborhood. As said, I have found some disappointments in the conf and I won't hesitate to spread these; beware, it could be much bitterer than anyone input ;D But I'll try to keep in the line directly related to the conference and its organizing team's concern. And thanks to Alex team again, and to Patricio and BA team, for your promised serious concerns. On Tue, Jul 29, 2008 at 9:31 AM, Patricio Lorente [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 2008/7/28 Al Tally [EMAIL PROTECTED]: It's now been a week since I got back. I enjoyed the actual conference, and meeting everyone in person. However, I have made up my mind that I never want to go to Egypt again, nor the next Wikimania. [...] I was so disturbed and put off by my experience of Egpyt, there is no way I'd consider going to Buenos Aires. While I'm sure they are very different places, I don't want to risk anything like the harrassment, the poor hygene, the dangerous roads and the poor organisation again. It'll be way too expensive for me as well, and I doubt I'd get a scholarship. I'd rather go somewhere closer to the UK where I live, or where the culture is more similar to here. I'm sorry my words are harsh. This is not a dig at anyone, just my honest concerns about how this whole thing turned out. I know for sure others feel the same way I do about a lot of the things I said. Dear friends: I'm happy to see that this thread turned into a more constructive discussion about things we can do better in next wikimanias. I can't imagine how could the egyptian team change the local taxi drivers' culture just for our comfort. While we (in Argentina) are taking notes on every comment about things to do and things to improve, I'd like to say a few words, about some concepts that didn't sound well to me. I was very happy to be in Egypt. I knew (as every one of you) that the taxi drivers -and other people- would try to cheat me, that transport media would be below european standars -although the train service from Cairo to Alexandria was quite fine-, that traffic would be terrible,
Re: [Wikimania-l] Back home; missing Wikimania already! Regards from Boston...
On Tue, Jul 29, 2008 at 12:33 PM, effe iets anders [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: you'll find some here: http://news.google.com/news?ned=ar_mepromo=blog_arabichl=arned=ar_meq=wikimaniabtnG=%D8%A8%D8%AD%D8%AB+%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D8%AE%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B1 best regards, Lodewijk ...and if they don't use the English word for Wikimania, they'll probably use the Arabic translation that we've been using: http://news.google.com/news?ned=ar_mepromo=blog_arabichl=arned=ar_meq=%D9%88%D9%8A%D9%83%D9%8A%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%86%D9%8A%D8%A7btnG=%D8%A5%D8%A8%D8%AD%D8%AB! -- Casey Brown Cbrown1023 --- Note: This e-mail address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails sent to this address will probably get lost. ___ Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
Re: [Wikimania-l] Comments
On Tue, Jul 29, 2008 at 02:31, Patricio Lorente [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I was very happy to be in Egypt. I knew (as every one of you) that the taxi drivers -and other people- would try to cheat me, that transport media would be below european standars -although the train service from Cairo to Alexandria was quite fine-, that traffic would be terrible, that poor people would be everywhere. Welcome, my friends, to the South. [snip] We are taking notes and working: you'll find enough plugs in Buenos Aires, and enough wifi, and enough social room and activities... and perhaps you'll find a city that fits with most european standars (please, read [[en:Buenos Aires]] for further reference). But if you walk the city, you'll meet poor people, at night you may find families of waste pickers, you'll see homeless. Sorry about that. We are not able to hide them for you and I think we don't want to do so. So, let's talk about things we can work out. And forgive me if my words sound bitter: I just couldn't help. And having been to all four Wikimanias, you'll never take that one thing away from me. There's nothing like the South when it comes to the heart. Thank you Patricio, indeed. Thank you, Egypt, for reminding us that the world is made of differences. Delphine PS. http://blog.notanendive.org/post/2008/07/24/When-it-comes-to-roots PPS. I'll take your word on the wifi. I have yet to attend ONE geeky conference --anywhere in the world-- where the Wifi works perfectly ;-) -- ~notafish NB. This gmail address is used for mailing lists. For Wikimedia related correspondence, use my dmenard(at)wikimedia(point)org address. Ceci n'est pas une endive - http://blog.notanendive.org ___ Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
Re: [Wikimania-l] Comments
On Tue, Jul 29, 2008 at 1:18 PM, Delphine Ménard [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: PPS. I'll take your word on the wifi. I have yet to attend ONE geeky conference --anywhere in the world-- where the Wifi works perfectly Seconded...SJ ___ Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
Re: [Wikimania-l] Comments
On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 5:17 PM, Al Tally [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It's now been a week since I got back. I enjoyed the actual conference, and meeting everyone in person. Hi. After Wikimania, we (Nina, Jakob, Kurt and me) went to Cairo for a few days. Some of us have since then gone east to Israel (Eilat, Tel Aviv and now Jerusalem). While my health condition had been slowly and unsteadily deteriorating since the second day of Wikimania, it took until yesterday when I got fever (39.5°C / 103°F) and other issues. I am under medication now, hopefully my status goes back to functional before we leave back to Germany. This has been my third Wikimania (after Frankfurt and Taipei) and I have a mixed bag of memories from Alexandria. The conference place was ideal for a conference about knowledge and it was a good decision to go to Egypt for reasons of geographic diversity and political statementary. Our flight from Frankfurt landed in Alexandria Borg el Arab at 2 a.m. and we (roughtly 10 Wikimedians) were picked up by the organisers. Since this airport is rather small, it was impossible to miss each other. Our group of four asked to be in one room, which was confirmed before Wikimania. At the dorms itself, we were told to sleep in seperate rooms (seperated by sex) at least for one night. I experienced the wikimania conference itself to be rather crowded and over-busy. With 20 minutes of a standard presentation, the effective time was usually a little bit less. When I went to the stage for my 20 minutes presentation, it took the - otherwise friendly - staff almost 5 minutes to set up the presentation computer. The Wifi-situation was a little bit annoying. After I figured out to manually set up an IP address and gateway and dns, I was able to access the net with reasonable speed. I missed any place to simply gather around with other Wikimedians. This has already been described and people who claim that Wikimania should happen in a place which offers both conference rooms and dorms in the same location are completely right, imho. It could also help to keep all the rooms open until midnight or something like that. Mathias ___ Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
Re: [Wikimania-l] Comments
Hi there It my first mail to this list, and needless to say i am very late :) (and that's probably because one of major downsides Majorely told about, lack of info on the wiki). But i have few things to say on this thread. First of all, i want to thank Majorely for his frank and clear criticism, that lead to this constructive discussion that should make a lot. Many of the mentioned problems could be avoided by the local volunteers team i think, things like infos regarding shuttle schedule for example. Actually i am an alexandrian (and somehow i am proude to be), but unfortunately i wasn't able to help organizing the conference because of my conscription status (think about me as a part time prisoner), and most likely if i were within the volunteers i couldn't make a difference, i think the staff were exelant just as volunteers, but none of theme was really proffessional, and they couldn't expect all possible situations, but something like this i guess should be expected for wikimedians (the largest contribution driven community), but that doesn't change the fact that there shalt be more work on wiki, or by early promotion of communication mediums like the irc channel and this mailing list where all of us could share infos, i would clarify that most of Egyptian attendees were more than ready to help about anything involving info about the conference or even any help needed about Alexandria, Cairo or arabic translation, actually most of them would be gratefull to provide help. Unfortunately, most aspects and downside couldn't be avoided by organizers, as you can say these points are defects by design,that's what the mix of popular ignorance, poverty, social disorder led by administrative corruption can do, a corrupt policeman could illustrate all the scene, these strange picture in your memory with all its contrasts, you can call it Egypt in decadence. But i would like to affirm you that your comments are highly regarded, I know it is not the appropriate place to talk about politics, but most deffects might never changes with only goodwill, i can't give you a schedul, but come back few years latter and i hope some changes will be done, some are already under the way, but we [egyptians] have to wake up from our nightmare, because however you unliked the current state of Egypt, Egyptians suffer the most. I like Kizo Naoko's word: Mt. Sinai gave me a lesson; there is no special place in this globe but we can change our world and invite to create the place we feel comfortable, in our own labor and diligence. Next time anyone want to visit Egypt, please contact your friends, friend of friend, or anyone you can trust here, or at least someone already visited Egypt, for Egyptians friends you can ask him/her for guidance and companion in their cities. Another point of view, which is already discussed, there is no mean to keep the monopoly between the first world, specially when it comes to Wikimedia, i bet i benefit from Wikipedia for example more than you :) i am not joking, i mean projects like this and like Wikiversity, Wikibooks are more valuable where education is corrupt and/or expensive, that's clear i think, and that's why i am more loyal to Wikimedia than most of you ;D even if i have less to contribute. The most flourish part in this thread IMHO, is Ptricio's mail, which promise a lot for next Wikimania i hope (and expect) it will be much better, though some points may remain: But if you walk the city, you'll meet poor people, at night you may find families of waste pickers, you'll see homeless. Sorry about that. We are not able to hide them for you and I think we don't want to do so. they are not the organizers responsability, but i am sorry to say, poverty is the responsability of all of us, all this planet residents, i am not just talking in the flow, but i know there is something to be done, and i know Wikimedia took it seriously by launching projects like Moulin, WikiAfrica and the more to go. I hope if i can attend Wikimania2009 (visiting Argentina is an aim by its own), though most probably i will not, but that is not the end of the world for me, and hopefully i may attend some years latter, but for now, i will try to keep active on wikipedia during my conscription. I will revise. -- Khaled Khalil ___ Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
