[Wikimania-l] Re: Planning your trip to Singapore for Wikimania 2023

[Mykola Kozlenko]

Hi Mina,

I am sorry, but what gender transition of minors and Covid-19 lockdowns have to 
do with Wikimania?

I don't have problems with people with alt-right views attending Wikimania. I 
have a problem when a discussion of safety at Wikimania turns into a discussion 
about gender transition of minors and Covid-19 lockdowns (both are extremely 
unlikely to happen at Wikimania in Singapore but are very popular discussion 
topics within alt-right groups).

The truth is that bathroom harassment comes way more often not from the fact 
that trans people can go to bathrooms matching their identities, but from 
people who decide to control strangers' gender in bathrooms : 
https://www.vox.com/2016/5/18/11690234/women-bathrooms-harassment

If the problem is harassment, then it should not be tolerated no matter the 
gender in your passport. And I very much hope nobody will have to show their 
passport to access a bathroom because it will just make everybody unsafe.

Mykola (NickK)

29 червня 2023, 10:22:35, від "Mina Theofilatou" < saintfevr...@gmail.com >:

Hi Lodewijk and Claudia and thanks for your replies.

Apologies if I used the wrong word in my original email: I agree with you that 
the situations I am describing are not harassment per se, so I used the word 
"discomfort" in the description of what I meant. Sincere apologies to any list 
members who may feel offended, that was not my intention. I was merely relaying 
the concerns of my friend, to the extent that they sounded reasonable to me.

As for your further comments, which go so far as to name me "transphobic", well 
that is one of the reasons I have distanced myself from the Wikimedia Movement 
at this stage. I had distanced myself in the past too, after an incident at 
Wikimania in 2016 which caused me severe discomfort (seems that "harassment" is 
a sensitive word so I will avoid it, even though it was acknowledged by T 
that it was indeed that. I got an apologetic email in private, even though I 
had specifically requested that any communication be public as was the 
incident. Z, if you're reading, I'm all for public communication when the 
issues being discussed have been initiated in public. To cut a long story 
short, I'm certain that the "Code of Conduct" and "friendly space policy" 
guidelines would command that shouting at and intimidating a fellow Wikipedian 
in a public space in the presence of many Wikipedians and a T staff member is 
not acceptable. Noone stepped in to stop the offender on the spot, not even the 
T employee: they just watched while I was being shouted at. I made a 
complaint and after months of investigation I managed to elicit a response from 
the "investigating" team. I had no choice but to make it public so I uploaded a 
screenshot of the email to Commons. I've linked to the screenshot below to help 
you understand what I am talking about, and why I have little confidence in 
Trust and Safety). I gradually gained back my confidence in the movement and 
participated for another four years, i.e. 2017-2021, but when I realised in 
2022 that NPOV has gone totally out the window I'm through with the Movement.

Back to the "transphobic" name-calling: it seems that anyone who expresses the 
slightest concern about gender policies is easily branded as transphobic. Some 
even go so far as to brand them as "alt right". Blaire White, an extremely 
attractive and happy trans woman who is calling out the pressure being exerted 
on minors to transition at ages when the brain is still developing, is 
"transphobic". Scott Newgent is "transphobic". "What is a Woman '' is a 
documentary for "transphobics". Johanna Olson-Kennedy, who publicly addressed 
parents at a conference saying that "the good thing about double mastectomies 
is that if the girl regrets at a later point in her life, she can go ahead and 
get breasts" is a "hero". Why am I going into such detail? Well because two of 
the participants in this list encouraged me to write an article on Wikipedia 
about it. Have you any idea how difficult it is to express so much as an 
inkling of "the other side of the story" to a "contentious topic"? But isn't 
that what NPOV is supposed to be about? Any attempts I have made to add this 
simple sentence in a neutral manner with a reliable source to Johanna 
Olson-Kennedy's article was met with rapid reverts and even a deletion 
discussion. The result was "keep", but do you really think I am willing to 
expend more time and energy on edit-warring over edits that used to be 
perfectly acceptable? Same for my efforts on John Ioannidis's page: one of the 
most highly cited researchers in the world is being blatantly slandered for his 
objections to lockdowns during the Covid-19 crisis. By whom? By a certain 
globally unimportant doctor who goes by the name of David Gorski. Ever heard of 
him? Oh, but on Wikipedia his blog "Science Based Medicine" seems to be the 
epitome of reliability in anything from Covid to transgender procedures on 

[Wikimania-l] Re: Wikimania 2024 will be hosted in …

[Mykola Kozlenko]

Hi,

I find this a very interesting topic. What I would really like us to achieve is 
not to demolish the Wikimania model before creating a good replacement.

I think the idea of Wikimania is to enable everyone to meet other Wikimedians 
from all over the world and exchange experience. To feel that you belong to the 
same community as people from the other end of the world. To be able to 
spontaneously learn about something cool happening in a completely different 
geography but in a relevant context. Open (at least theoretically) to everyone, 
not people pre-selected by chapters or thematic groups.

Personally I think that this feeling of 'belonging to a global community' and 
'building spontaneous connections' is very hard to get without a Wikimania. 
Before I attended my first Wikimania, I knew a few people from neighbouring 
communities, like Ukrainians knew a few Poles and vice versa. I interacted with 
some users on Meta, but they were just usernames, I did not know them as 
people. I did not know whom to contact to organise an international project 
together. And by that time I was already an admin, have served on an ArbCom and 
was a chapter board member. Still I had no idea how global our movement 
actually was.

What I see now is that besides Wikimania we have three main ways of engagement:

1) Regional events. I think that we are quite successful at building stronger 
regional networks. Still this gives very limited idea about people and 
activities outside your region. There is almost no way of having a spontaneous 
exchange: a person from Thailand will hardly spontaneously learn about a 
project in Uruguay, unless this is THE big thing Iberocoop wants to proactively 
showcase. Users from Zulu Wikipedia will probably not be able to learn about a 
tool on Mongolian Wikipedia unless they meet each other at a Wikimania. It is 
definitely great to encourage people to think regionally, but it should not be 
a remplacement for thinking globally.

2) A limited number of truly international committees. This number is very 
limited and a level of engagement below the collaboration usually stops. Like 
stewards have some interactions as a group, but CheckUsers don't meet except at 
Wikimania or on-wiki/by email. There are (were?) some conversations of 
affiliate chairpersons, but e.g. affiliate treasurers never meet except maybe 
at Wikimania. There are way less people involved in regular interregional 
conversations than the number of attendees of an average Wikimania.

3) Some online international conversations. While it is an option, there are 
quickly two limits: size and engagement. It is hard to have a constructive 
video call for more than a few dozen people. It requires a certain commitment 
to get really engaged in meaningful conversations by meeting only by video (or, 
worse, only on Meta). From my observations, most participants in such 
conversations are either people who attended a lot of global events before the 
pandemics or really committed people who spend a lot of time following these 
global discussions.

I feel like without Wikimania we would lose a powerful source of engagement and 
spontaneous interactions and will be more inclined to keep a status quo. It is 
hard to go to a regional event now if you are not an affiliate member. While we 
see successful global collaborations on popular and well-supported projects 
(like WikiGap), it is way harder when the project is small and less-supported 
(like Wikibooks). It is easier to keep working together with people you have 
met multiple times, rather than start a collaboration with someone you only saw 
in a 100-person video call.

Of course this requires us to think about how we can make Wikimania inclusive 
and equitable for people from all regions, and make sure such global 
interactions actually happen. For example, we should think about people who 
come to Wikimania only to spend time with people from their community, maybe 
because of language or cultural barrier, maybe because they don't feel 
comfortable building new connections. Or we should consider which perspectives 
are missing for a true representation of our global community. It definitely 
would take more effort, but the impact can be higher.

Of course I understand that the world is changing, and I also feel bad about 
flying from Europe to Singapore to use my entir annual carbon budget on a few 
days-long event. But we don't have any comparable alternative, at least yet.

Mykola (NickK)

20 березня 2023, 21:54:52, від "phoebe ayers" :

Hi folks! Thanks for all of these good comments. And Jan-Bart, I might just 
take you up on your offer to facilitate that discussion :)  
For folks who are newer to Wikimania, one core principle we do have is to make 
sure the conference goes to different parts of the world, precisely because we 
have community members everywhere and we don't want it to always be an 
extra-long journey for the same people. Of course rotation by itself 

Re: [Wikimania-l] Support for my UK Transit visa application

[Mykola Kozlenko]

Hi Houcemeddine, 

Having had a problem with a UK visa for London Wikimania, the only help you can 
get is from the UK embassy in the country where you applied.

There is nothing useful that can be done elsewhere, as you have already 
submitted your application and cannot add any supporting documents, and 
applications are managed locally (or in a neighbouring country if the embassy 
in your country is too small). 

The best thing you can do is contacting the local embassy, especially when the 
deadline is approaching. With some luck you will be able to speak to a person 
and not to an answering machine. 

Good luck 
Mykola (NickK) 

1 серпня 2019, 15:39:44, від "Houcemeddine A. Turki" < 
turkiabdelwa...@hotmail.fr >:

Dear all,
I thank you for your efforts. I applied today for my UK transit visa so that I 
can travel to Stockholm through London. They said me that they will answer me 
within 15 working days. However, I will be travelling to attend Wikimania on 
August 15, 2019. I ask if someone can interfere so that my visa application can 
be fastly processed.
Yours Sincerely,
Houcemeddine Turki (he/him)
Medical Student, Faculty of Medicine of Sfax, University of Sfax, Tunisia
Undergraduate Researcher, UR12SP36
GLAM and Education Coordinator, Wikimedia TN User Group
Member, WikiResearch Tunisia
Member, Wiki Project Med
Member, WikiIndaba Steering Committee
Member, Wikimedia and Library User Group Steering Committee
Co-Founder, WikiLingua Maghreb
Founder, TunSci

+21629499418
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Re: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2019 Early Bird Registration is Now Open!

[Mykola Kozlenko]

Hello,
One point on 2018 scholarships: in 2017, a non-negligible number of Wikimedians 
(something between 10 and 20 I think) did not get Canadian visas. WMF decided 
to automatically grant them 2018 scholarships, basically re-using their 
scholarship budget. Removing this outlier, we should be consistently at 110-120 
scholarships per year since 2014 which makes sense.

On the main point of this discussion, 275 USD starts to be somewhat 
prohibiting. Personally in my case I had to fill in in a hurry as I absolutely 
wanted not to pay extra 100 USD for nothing. Yes, this is not that much 
expensive compared to professional conferences that are usually starting from 
1000 USD, but this is mainly a volunteer conference, and we are paying with our 
own money.

I would honestly be interested to know how this sum is spread between different 
budget lines. How much is spent on the venue, how much on lunches, how much on 
parties etc. For instance, I might have wanted not to pay for the party if it 
is worth over 100 USD, or not to pay for lunches if they are at 30 USD etc...

Best regards,
Mykola (NickK)

--- Оригінальне повідомлення ---
Від кого: "Tisza Gergő" 
Дата: 1 червня 2019, 14:41:14

On Sat, Jun 1, 2019 at 1:12 PM effe iets anders  
wrote:
I would even argue that for by far most people, the registration cost will not 
be the limiting factor - other components of the trip would likely be (unless 
they are local to Stockholm, maybe). The travel to Stockholm alone will 
outweigh this fee by a factor of 2, maybe 4 for most, and a week of 
accommodation with the remaining dinners will probably set you back at least 
the same amount (if you go very low budget). 

Those estimates are way off. Most of our volunteer base is in Europe, where 
flight costs are typically below $100; you can find accomodation in the 
immediate vicinity of the conference for $200 (and you can probably go way 
cheaper with hostels, or by being in a more distant part of the city); if you 
actually want to go very low budget and skip on restaurants / pubs / etc, food 
costs are minimal (and obviously people do need to eat outside of Stockholm as 
well, so it's not really an extra spending). So the conference fee would be 
about half of your total costs.
 
There are two ways that our movement can try to address this hurdle: one way 
would be to reduce the price even further for everyone, the other is to provide 
help for some people to overcome all these financial hurdles. I personally 
prefer that we spend more on scholarships (travel, accommodation and 
registration) rather than even further subsidizing the registration fee for all 
other participants.

So are we actually spending more on scholarships?
There is no consistent reporting on scholarships (nor any other aspect of 
Wikimania for that matter) but some wiki archeology gives:
- 2012: 87 full + 47 partial per [1]
- 2013: 62 full + 18 partial (which apparently somehow adds up to 86...) per [2]
- 2014: 109 per [3]
- 2015: 110 per [4]
- 2016: 88 full + 35 partial + 6 additional (whatever that means) per [5] ([6] 
claims 99 full)
- 2017: 81 full + 17 partial per [5]
- 2018: 125 full + 16 partial per [5]
- 2019: 96 full + 20 partial per [5]
So it seems like the higher price of the conference was indeed offset somewhat 
by a slightly higher number of scholarships in 2018, but that is not the case 
for 2019. (Granted this is WMF only, and a significant part of scholarships 
tend to come from affiliates, but it's even harder to find data on that.)

[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/Scholarships/2012
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/Scholarships/2013
[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Wikimania_scholars/2014
[4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Wikimania_scholars/2015
[5] 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Wikimania_scholars#2019_WMF_Wikimania_Scholarships
[6] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/Scholarships/2016
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Re: [Wikimania-l] Sad news

[Mykola Kozlenko]

Hi,
I am very sad to see this happen. I think this is a case when we cannot gave a 
win-win implementation of the policy
* On one hand, Romaine *has* to be close to a person he is talking to, 
otherwise he is unable to hear them. I know him, he really is.
* On the other hand, in some cultures standing very close to a person who is 
not a friend can be really impolite. Some people prefer to keep more distance 
when they are talking to someone. (See  
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_space )
* On one hand, entering a room when someone needs an item urgently can be 
normal. A person quite legitimately may want to help as quickly as possible 
when they are asked to.
* On the other hand, a person entering and immediately leaving the room can 
indeed be a significant distraction for a speaker. A speaker may come from a 
culture where such behaviour is considered impolite.

We are all coming from different backgrounds, and what is normal for one person 
might be offensive to another. Looking forward, can we probably assume more 
good faith? We might not be aware what another person's background is, so 
perhaps we should begin with asking them why they are doing that and why you 
are not OK with that.

Best regards,
Mykola (NickK)

--- Оригінальне повідомлення ---
Від кого: "Lodewijk" 
Дата: 20 липня 2018, 10:23:49

Hi all,
while I have much sympathy for Romaine, and cannot comprehend the decision with 
the available information, I do want to guard us to continue discussing this 
further here. We (even Romaine) have only a limited part of the information 
available to us. I trust that Romaine works with the very best intentions, and 
also that the Trust & Safety team has the best intentions in their 
implementation. I also trust that the team will make a full evaluation after 
Wikimania is completed as their default practice. 

As part of this conversation, both here online and offline, I seem to hear 
several people who are unhappy with how the policy is implemented. Let us also 
recognize that it is important to have a friendly space - and that this is a 
Hard Thing to accomplish. Agreeing or disagreeing in public with a decision 
while only having part of the information can only make that job harder and/or 
harm individuals.

If you have beef with the policy and how it is implemented, I suggest that you 
try to set up a meetup with the Trust & Safety team, and you can have a 
conversation with them about the broader policy. They can perhaps share some 
rough broader statistics as part of that. Otherwise, it is probably more 
appropriate to have this online discussion after the conference has concluded, 
based on the policy and practices as a whole, and not an individual case. 

Just my two cents...

Lodewijk

On Fri, Jul 20, 2018 at 10:15 AM Andy Mabbett  wrote:
On 19 July 2018 at 20:30, Romaine Wiki  wrote:

> - People say I have been talking to loud

> Please be aware I have a hearing problem and I do hear myself

> Because of these complaints, it was demanded to step down as a volunteer
> organiser for this year's Wikimania.

As someone with family members who are profoundly hard of hearing and
affected by tinnitus, I am sorry to learn that you have been
discriminated against in this way.

I hope that whoever is responsible for our safe spaces policy will
ensure that this does not happen to you - or anyone else - again.

-- 
Andy Mabbett
@pigsonthewing
http://pigsonthewing.org.uk

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Update on Wikimania '18

[Mykola Kozlenko]

Hi,
WMUA board member here. We usually award three scholarships per year, we run 
the program since 2016.

Out of 9 people having received a scholarship, we had 1 board member and 0 
staff members. We do not have any priority to board members, they have to apply 
in the same way as others. At least one applicant each year attended Wikimania 
for the first time.

I am not sure if this is a perfect solution but it is feasible. The fact that 
all our board members are active Wikimedians themselves probably helps to make 
it feasible.

Best regards
Mykola (NickK)
Wikimedia Ukraine

--- Оригінальне повідомлення ---
Від кого: "Luca Martinelli" 
Дата: 1 червня 2018, 15:30:10

2018-05-31 21:31 GMT+02:00 Harry Mitchell :
> Since you raise chapter scholarships, it would be nice to see some of the
> other big chapters (and to some extent the WMF) spending more on
> scholarships for rank-and-file Wikimedians rather than staff and board
> members. That might help with the perception that Wikimania is the same old
> faces year in, year out.

Former WM-IT Board member here. Actually, Wikimedia Italia does host a
scholarship programme since 2011, open to both WM-IT associates and
Italian wikimedians. Depending on the destination, we always granted
every year 6 to 8 scholarships (plus up to 2 places for Board members,
and depending on staff availability, up to 2 places for them). In
2016, we actually handed out 10 full scholarships and 10 partial
scholarships ('cause travel expenses were more easy to cover).

>From my experience, it's difficult to fill up the ranks sometimes with
new people. Our internal rules actually give preference to people who
never attended Wikimania, as well as to women - still, we were
"forced" to award scholarships to the same people sometimes, because
we were lacking other eligible people. In particular, most of the most
active Italian wikipedians DO NOT apply for a WM-IT scholarship (or
WMF, AFAIK).

This is yet another variable we're not considering enough, I think: if
new people do not apply, it's harder to award them a scholarship.

L.

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Update on Wikimania '18

[Mykola Kozlenko]

Hi,

As a disclaimer: I have been in multiple roles, including receiving a WMF 
scholarship (2014, 2017 and 2018), being denied a WMF scholarship, attending 
Wikimania at my own expense and reviewing Wikimania scholarship applications 
for a chapter.


>From this experience I do not agree with the 'law of diminishing returns' or 
>draconian measures. However, there are several trends:


1) First Wikimania is usually extremely motivating for almost everyone. Yet it 
is hard for a first-time Wikimania attendee to clearly explain the value of 
Wikimania for them before attending it. On one hand, these people are very 
likely to become more involved, start new projects, share new ideas etc. On the 
other hand, their scholarship applications will be most likely somewhat vague 
on their plans for Wikimania, and we have to take that into account.


2) Second and following Wikimanias are indeed less likely to bring that much 
additional motivation. However, there is huge added value as these attendees 
already know what to expect from and what to look for at Wikimania and in some 
ways make Wikimania itself more valuable. This includes sharing at Wikimania: 
participating at round tables, making presentations or posters etc. This also 
includes learning from Wikimania: asking the questions their community wants to 
ask, meeting the people who work on the topics they are interested in etc. This 
is not a diminishing return, but this requires to think of the added value you 
can bring to Wikimania.


3) For veteran Wikimedians attending a lot of times, Wikimania is also a place 
to meet people with whom they work online and share experience both ways. For 
example, we know people want to meet stewards to learn more about their work, 
and stewards want to meet users to get some insight on their role. This might 
be a sufficient motivation to attend at own expense if costs are not too 
prohibitive, but if this is the case (I don't think we have stewards in 
Sub-Saharan Africa for example) some of them will probably need scholarships. 
They will bring added value by their experience and role even if they might 
have attended in previous years.


I don't think there is a simple solution but this definitely deserves a 
discussion either here or during the conference.


Best regards,
Mykola (NickK)

--- Оригінальне повідомлення ---
Від кого: "Federico Leva (Nemo)" 
Дата: 30 травня 2018, 10:38:09


cs, 30/05/2018 10:16:
> Is there any  other way  of investigating  these issues /without/ 
> mentioning  the names of the scholarship awardees?

Well, in theory we've been publishing the names of people who got a 
scholarship for a few years now, so it should be possible to make a 
complete list of repeat recipients in N years and then talk just about 
the number rather than names.

I agree that repeat scholarships are a bad way to spend donor money, for 
the law of diminishing returns. We can disagree on how big the problem 
is, but we have sufficient evidence that it exists. In the past I've 
proposed and implemented severe penalties, but I'll clearly admit that I 
failed to effectively reform the review process.

I personally agree with more draconian solutions which would set very 
clear expectations. A total ban on a scholarship for those who got one 
the previous year is a possibility. It would be as fair as re-election 
limits in democratic competitions.

Federico

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Transport to the airport

[Mykola Kozlenko]

Hi,


An additional note regarding the 747 bus ticket.

In fact the $10 ticket is the 1-day ticket, which is valid for unlimited travel 
for 24 hours from the validation. If you are not leaving immediately after 
Wikimania, it might be interesting for you to buy it this evening or tomorrow 
morning, visit the city with it during the day, and take the bus with the same 
ticket after it. You can buy it in any ticket booth (coins, notes or credit 
cards accepted).

Mykola (NickK)

--- Оригінальне повідомлення ---
Від кого: "Béria Lima" 
Дата: 13 серпня 2017, 11:18:43


Hi Katie.


How to go to Airport from the hotel by Bus:


After you leave the hotel, walk left on Boulevard René-Lévesque O until Rue 
Peel, you will find a square there, in the bus stop you take the 747 (Aéroport 
Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau). It costs $10 (you can buy the ticket in the bus, but 
only in coins or pay in the totems in the street where you can pay you 
parking). More info here: 
http://www.stm.info/en/info/networks/bus/shuttle/747-aeroport-p-e-trudeau-centre-ville-shuttle


Also, you can go by Taxi (~ $40 dolars) or Uber (~ $25-30).


_
​
Béria L​. de Rodríguez


Imagine um mundo onde é dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter livre 
acesso ao somatório de todo o conhecimento humano. Ajude-nos a construir esse 
sonho.



On 13 August 2017 at 10:54, Katie Chan  wrote:
I don't see any information on how to get to the airport from the hotel/dorms 
on the wiki, only the other way round. Can somenoe point out where it is, or 
give some info on how/where to get tickets, what payment methods are accepted, 
where the stop is etc.?

Thanks,

Katie

-- 
Katie Chan
Any views or opinions presented in this e-mail are solely those of the author 
and do not necessarily represent the view of any organisation the author is 
associated with or employed by.


Sent from my barely functioning tiny netbook while on the road.


Experience is a good school but the fees are high.
     - Heinrich Heine


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Re: [Wikimania-l] Visa rejections

[Mykola Kozlenko]

I would rather say it should not be the only measure. Of course Israel is a 
very special case (and so are countries whose governments ban Israeli citizens 
from entering their countries).

Other than that we have multiple measures of visa-friendliness:
* number of countries whose citizens do not need to apply for a visa
* availability of embassies abroad, particularly in countries that are not 
visa-free (say, Canada has an extensive network of embassies all over the 
world, including countries whose citizens need visas)
* visa application rejection rate
* frequency of denial of entry at border control.


I do not intend to promote any country, I just want everyone to be fair and do 
not call a country "visa-friendly" if in reality more than half of countries 
need visas there, and vice versa.
* A visa-friendly country looks like this: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_policy_of_Maldives
* A country that is not visa-friendly looks like this: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_policy_of_North_Korea


Mykola (NickK)
--- Оригінальне повідомлення ---
Від кого: "Amir Ladsgroup" <ladsgr...@gmail.com>
Дата: 3 липня 2017, 00:17:31


Number of countries that can enter a country without visa is not a good 
measurement for a country being visa-friendly. Let's use your example. Per what 
you said it seems Israel is a more visa friendly country than Italy which is 
not correct. It's correct Israel allows more people to visit without visa but 
1- For a handful number of countries visiting Israel is not an option at all 
(like mine which has twenty years in jail when I come back) 2- if we pass that 
point, they are really difficult on giving visa to Muslim/Arab countries 
passport holders. 3- The border control is very harsh and can deny entry on 
strange reasons even with valid visa or passport of a not-visa-needed country. 
What you just need is to look slightly non-Western and they give you hell in 
border. It happened in a recent Wikimedia event.

Best


On Mon, Jul 3, 2017 at 2:33 AM Mykola Kozlenko <mycol...@ukr.net> wrote:

Hi,

For the sake of the discussion on "it's way better in my country", please look 
what your country's visa policy really is. For instance, check 
https://www.passportindex.org/byWelcomingRank.php or relative (English) 
Wikipedia articles. The former gives the following figures:
(Five latest Wikimania hosts)
* Canada: 51 country can enter visa-free, visa on arrival, ETA or equivalent
* Mexico: 67
* UK: 91
* Italy: 93
* Hong Kong: 144
(Some other countries mentioned here)
* Australia: 34
* Thailand: 78
* Israel: 96


Yes, that means that Canada is the least visa-friendly Wikimania host in the 
last 5 years. And yes, Thailand is less visa-friendly than the UK. And yes, 
Australia is the least visa-friendly country with an established Wikimedia 
chapter.


Thus please do refer to facts when qualifying a country as a visa-friendly or 
not, and not to your own perception of a country's visa policy.


Thanks
Mykola (NickK)

--- Оригінальне повідомлення ---
Від кого: "DaB." <w...@dabpunkt.eu>
Дата: 2 липня 2017, 23:19:44




Hello,
Am 02.07.2017 um 13:37 schrieb cs:
>  a country like  Thailand where I  live

you mean a country which is currently a military dictatorship (for the
second time in 10 years)? A country that was THIS close to a open civil
war? And if not a civil war, maybe a real war with Cambodia?

Visa problems are problematic, but it is 10 times better than to give
the Wikimania to an instable country – we are not the FIFA.

Sincerely,
DaB.


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Re: [Wikimania-l] Visa rejections

[Mykola Kozlenko]

Hi,

For the sake of the discussion on "it's way better in my country", please look 
what your country's visa policy really is. For instance, check 
https://www.passportindex.org/byWelcomingRank.php or relative (English) 
Wikipedia articles. The former gives the following figures:
(Five latest Wikimania hosts)
* Canada: 51 country can enter visa-free, visa on arrival, ETA or equivalent
* Mexico: 67
* UK: 91
* Italy: 93
* Hong Kong: 144
(Some other countries mentioned here)
* Australia: 34
* Thailand: 78
* Israel: 96


Yes, that means that Canada is the least visa-friendly Wikimania host in the 
last 5 years. And yes, Thailand is less visa-friendly than the UK. And yes, 
Australia is the least visa-friendly country with an established Wikimedia 
chapter.


Thus please do refer to facts when qualifying a country as a visa-friendly or 
not, and not to your own perception of a country's visa policy.


Thanks
Mykola (NickK)

--- Оригінальне повідомлення ---
Від кого: "DaB." 
Дата: 2 липня 2017, 23:19:44


Hello,
Am 02.07.2017 um 13:37 schrieb cs:
>  a country like  Thailand where I  live

you mean a country which is currently a military dictatorship (for the
second time in 10 years)? A country that was THIS close to a open civil
war? And if not a civil war, maybe a real war with Cambodia?

Visa problems are problematic, but it is 10 times better than to give
the Wikimania to an instable country – we are not the FIFA.

Sincerely,
DaB.


-- 
Benutzerseite: [[:w:de:User:DaB.]]
PGP: 0x7CD1E35FD2A3A158 (pka funktioniert)


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Re: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania - annually, with South Africa in 2018?

[Mykola Kozlenko]

Hi, 
I think that switching to regional conferences model will not reduce but 
increase local organisers involvement. In fact, any conference means that local 
organisers must arrange: * Programme (either local organisers manage themselves 
or they have to set up and work with an international programme committee) * 
Scholarships (or set up an international scholarship committee but still have 
to manage scholarship budget) * Venue + catering + insurance etc.  * 
Accommodation * Travel and visa support (WMF does it for WMF scholars at 
Wikimania so far) * Post-conference support (surveys , documentation, 
implementing next steps) etc. 
The amount of volunteer time needed for each of these lines is not linearly 
related with number of attendees, i.e. managing 5 conferences for 200 people 
each will require more volunteer time and efforts than managing 1 conference 
for 1,000 people, as this will mean designing five separate programmes, making 
arrangement with 5 different venues and so on. 
On the other hand, we can indeed save costs by switching to regional events, 
especially on travel (bringing 200 Europeans to Esino Lario is cheaper than 
bringing them to Mexico City) and on venue/accommodation/catering (many 
countries outside Europe and North America will have cheaper options but may be 
unable to accommodate large crowds). 
It would be indeed interesting to discuss how we can reduce local volunteer 
involvement as this seems to be indeed the most important limitation. 
Mykola (NickK) 
Wikimedia Ukraine 

10 липня 2016, 16:24:36, від "Dariusz Jemielniak" < dar...@alk.edu.pl >: 

my two cents (please, forgive me if I'm stating the obvious, or if I'm 
repeating things that were said elsewhere or already addressed):  
First, I don't think that an event every four years will have the mobilizing 
and motivating role that an annual one does. Four years is longer than a 
typical tenure of an editor (more or less, I'm just recollecting). I understand 
that Christophe is referring to a 4-year event  rhetorically, but just saying. 
I see tremendous value in a global Wikimania every year. 
In the same time, I've seen the following problems over the years, not directly 
linked to the financial cost (which in the face of our relative financial 
stability can be justified by the benefits, depending on how we define them): - 
huge WMF staff involvement (most Wikimanias run smoothly also thanks to 
countless hours put in by the staff), - huge volunteer local organizers 
involvement (in fact, my observation is that many chapters organizing 
WIkimanias suffer from a motivation crisis afterward).  
Surely, we can have different surveys and other questionnaires. I doubt if they 
will show anything else than that Wikimania is an incredibly valuable event 
that comes at huge financial and human cost, though.  
While we can get the money (at least for now), the human involvement cost is 
something I would not dare to dismiss just by emphasizing the benefits of 
Wikimania for the movement.  
I'd be probably more interested in thinking out loud about how we can change 
the format so that we reduce the human and money costs while keeping the 
benefits. My understanding is that the proposal to have a global WIkimania 
every two years and local events in between is actually one attempt to address 
that. There can be others (and some have been discussed in this thread, we also 
have some sensible benchmarks from other organizations). 
My concern is that we may end up with losing a lot of Wikimania benefits, while 
not necessarily decreasing human or financial costs, but this is something that 
we definitely need to discuss and consider carefully.  
Instead of discussing whether we should have a Wikimania every year or not, 
perhaps we should try to list and discuss the reasons why it is such a big 
strain? If it is clear  that we can't afford it every year (because of the 
human cost, probably more importantly than the finances), the decision to break 
with the annual format will be a natural consequence of such an analysis.  
It could be useful to first have a really sensible and systematic list of 
alternative paths. 

best, 
Dariusz Jemielniak ("pundit", a current Trustee). 







On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 7:37 AM, Christophe Henner < chen...@wikimedia.org > 
wrote: 
One goal :) you always side effects. If the goal is to be a community event why 
don't we don't we do a huge event every 4 years where we fly in every single 
editors? Instead of doing 4 Wikimanias. That is why setting expections and goal 
is key, so then we can make decisions. We're talking about financial ressources 
what about the time spent by volunteers? My point being, Wikimania is a great 
event and has costs and setting expectations will allow us to make better 
decisions. Perhaps, as Andrew says, will end up saying we should spend twice 
what we're spending because it is key or perhaps half of what we're spending. 
​ Is it a community event? Is it a