On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 11:21 PM, Maysara Omar <[email protected]> wrote: > Harel and Moushira, > > why the rush on closing this thread?!! :) Let us give time and space for a > civilized and purposeful dialogue and deliberation to come to fruition and > realization!
On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 11:30 PM, Maysara Omar <[email protected]> wrote: > Come on Harel, you are a true Wikipedian; you must have seen REAL yelling in > your time before! :) First, let me make it clear that although I speak as a member of the selection committee that chose Haifa, I certainly don't speak on its behalf. I'm not sure why you created this thread, Maysara, since you acknowledge that there's no chance of the venue being moved to another country at this point in time. You're also responsible for over a quarter of the posts in it, most of which are rebuttals to people who are entirely dismissive of your arguments, and now you're basically just egging people on (see quoted text above). Believe it or not, I actually don't dismiss your arguments—you've raised several valid points, in fact. I do want to point out that, as others have suggested, all of these arguments were raised when considering the bids. Haifa won anyway. You think that was a bad decision, and it's your right to think so. I obviously think otherwise. :) Your argument against Israel seems to hinge on visa difficulties, so I just wanted to recap our past venues: 2005: Frankfurt, Germany. Schengen area, a hotbed of immigration dispute (believe me, I'm trying to emigrate there now, and witnessed firsthand both the Dutch and Belgian elections); the default destination for people from North Africa and the Near East, and extremely cautious of people from that region. Many invitation letters were sent; thanks to the hard work of the organizers, most, but not all, resulted in issued visas. 2006: Cambridge, Massachusetts. I think we all know what a hassle it is to get into the USA. My country makes you jump through hoops to get in, but when all was said and done we only had one attendee denied a visa on the basis of merit. 2007: Taipei, Taiwan. Taiwan isn't even recognized as a country by most nations, but almost everyone who wanted to attend was able, including representatives from Hong Kong (PRC). 2008: Alexandria, Egypt. Egypt is, technically speaking, a police state. This said, although a few visas were denied, the organization team made sure that most people—including a few Israelis—were able to attend. 2009: Buenos Aires, Argentina. I actually can't really comment on this one; I believe one or two people were refused visas, but the fact is that there isn't a single country on the planet that allows citizens of all 195 countries (and other jurisdictions) hassle-free entry. 2010: Gdańsk, Poland. Like Frankfurt, in Schengen, but dozens of invitation letters and close cooperation with government authorities ensured that most people could attend. Each Wikimania will see a few people unable or unwilling to attend because, by definition, most of its attendees will be coming from other countries, and countries mean politics. My colleagues and I considered this issue, researched it extensively, and discussed it for literally hours, and came to a decision that still favored Haifa. You're entitled to your opinion, and our respective politics regarding Israel are obviously different. Again, though, I want to ask what you're trying to achieve with this, and suggest that politics alone don't warrant a disruptive mailing list thread. Austin _______________________________________________ Wikimania-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
