I'm a great believer in the theory that Wikipedia participation in any particular country is in large part a function of the Internet access there. So countries like North Korea that blcck the Internet will be holes in our participation, as will be countries that block Wikipedia. Elsewhere it depends partly on the amount of free and fast access to the Internet as opposed to slow access and people who pay per mb rather than per month; and partly on the local speed of accessing Wikipedia - excellent if you are connected to a part of the Internet that has a good connection to Florida, pretty good if you are close to the squid servers in Amsterdam, very slow in much of the global south.
Which is a very long way of asking if anyone knows what Internet and specifically Wikipedia access is like in Gaza and the Westbank and whether there are any Government filters in place. There is not much point arguing that israel would give visas to Palestinian wikimedians if it turns out that the siege of Gaza or the wall partitioning the West bank included Israeli restrictions on Internet access that prevented their being Palestinian Wikimedians..... conversely if Hamas bans Wikipedia in Gaza then it wouldn't matter whether Wikimania was in Haifa, Mecca or Port Stanley, there still wouldn't be any Wikimedians coming from Gaza. WereSpielChequers 2011/6/29 KIZU Naoko <[email protected]>: > Oops I forgot to insert some words. Let me correct: > > On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 8:24 AM, KIZU Naoko <[email protected]> wrote: >> Hello, >> >> I don't recall any Arabic participants in Boston, in Taiwan either >> (they decided not to show from their own reason), many in Alexandria >> but not so many from outside of Egypt, no Palestinians but two >> Israelis, > in Gdansk, > one Syrian and one Irani (our steward) ...... iirc there >> were some Jordanian somewhere, iirc in several Wikimanias but not sure >> in which ones. >> >> And from time to time, as Transcom member, I heard there were no or >> very a little Palestinian contributors to Arabic Wikipedia. It is sad >> we haven't successful to get them in Wikimedia universe, and there >> will be some reasons but I presume it'll be more complicated than a >> certain organization hinders or whatever. >> >> Cheers, >> >> On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 6:01 AM, WereSpielChequers >> <[email protected]> wrote: >>> I don't remember meeting any Palestinians at the last two Wikimanias >>> either, so if there are no Palestinians coming despite the geography >>> then that is unfortunate. But if we can honestly say that no >>> Palestinians tried to come but were unable to get visas then I am >>> somewhat reassured, and thanks for trying to find some. >>> >>> However I am worried at the attendance from the wider Islamic world, >>> and of course attendance in general. How does this compare to previous >>> years? >>> >>> WereSpielChequers >>> >>> >>> On 28 June 2011 20:53, Kim Bruning <[email protected]> wrote: >>>> On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 11:20:11PM +0300, Harel Cain wrote: >>>>> Rather read it as "we looked for Palestinian wikimedians all over the >>>>> place >>>>> for over a year; apparently they're not very easy to find". >>>> >>>> Ok, that's definitely a very different narrative than either BDS's claims, >>>> or what I was hoping myself (to wit, that local people just tend to >>>> register pretty >>>> late, because they don't need to plan ahead as far.) >>>> >>>> <scratches head> >>>> >>>> Thanks for answering my questions so far! >>>> >>>> sincerely, >>>> Kim Bruning >>>> >>>> -- >>>> [Non-pgp mail clients may show pgp-signature as attachment] >>>> gpg (www.gnupg.org) Fingerprint for key FEF9DD72 >>>> 5ED6 E215 73EE AD84 E03A 01C5 94AC 7B0E FEF9 DD72 >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Wikimania-l mailing list >>>> [email protected] >>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l >>>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Wikimania-l mailing list >>> [email protected] >>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l >>> >> >> >> >> -- >> KIZU Naoko / 木津尚子 >> member of Wikimedians in Kansai / 関西ウィキメディアユーザ会 http://kansai.wikimedia.jp >> > > > > -- > KIZU Naoko / 木津尚子 > member of Wikimedians in Kansai / 関西ウィキメディアユーザ会 http://kansai.wikimedia.jp > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimania-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l > _______________________________________________ Wikimania-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
