Absolutely if someone does come from a country that has laws against their attending then we should do our best to keep them safe. I hope that my concerns turn out to be overcautious, but I do worry that we have some young, enthusiastic and occasionally naive editors, and we could have a fellow editor attend who for decades to come lives in fear of being exposed as the Wikimedian from his or her country who broke the law against going to Israel. And yes I've heard the argument that some of the countries that have laws against their citizens going to Israel don't currently do much to enforce those laws. But it is that sort of complacency and short termism that makes me genuinely fearful that we could have someone getting into serious trouble because they broke their country's law against attending an event in Israel.
There are fine lines between enabling people to break a law and encouraging or discouraging them from doing so. But regardless of all that the decision was taken many months ago to hold Wikimania in Haifa. The time to debate that decision is long past, what we should concentrate on now is making the event a success and enabling more virtual participation, as in my view that is the biggest opportunity at this stage to increase participation. If people are going to come in person presumably they have already booked. WSC WereSpielChequers WSC On 6 July 2011 11:09, church.of.emacs.ml <[email protected]> wrote: > On 07/06/2011 11:13 AM, WereSpielChequers wrote: >> Encouraging Wikimedians who live in countries where it would be >> illegal to visit Israel to break the laws of the country they live in >> and attend such a public event strikes me as inappropriate and >> unethical (lobbying to change a law is something I see as very >> different encouraging others to break a law). > > Slightly OT, but I depending on how you meant this, I disagree. > > We should make it clear that it's their risk to break the law, but if > they are willing to take that risk, I don't have any problem with that > and in fact I think in that case we should help them any way we can. > It's the Wikimedians who break the law we should protect, not unjust > laws themselves. If a Wikimedian feels reasonably safe traveling to > Israel, even though it might be illegal, he deserves our support. > > Of course that doesn't mean that we should talk people into taking risks > that they don't want to take (and if that's all you meant to say, I > completely agree :)) > > --Tobias > > > _______________________________________________ > 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
