Well, my spies have informed me that the Wikimedia Travel and Entertainment Committee has decided to hold the 2008 Wikimania in Alexandria. I objected to the Alexandria bid in 2007 on concerns about GLBT safety, but apparently this factor was not a significant consideration for the "jury" in its deliberations.
I won't be going, not even if someone offers to pay all costs of attendance. Not a chance in hell. And it seems I'm not alone in this. If someone schedules a US/North America alternate event, though, I'll definitely consider going to that.
I won't be going, not even if someone offers to pay all costs of attendance. Not a chance in hell. And it seems I'm not alone in this. If someone schedules a US/North America alternate event, though, I'll definitely consider going to that.
While I sympathize greatly with your concerns (the way Egypt has been treating gay people, as shown by the news articles, is terrible), isn't this effectively a version of the BADSITES policy, only applied to real-world sites instead of Web sites? Should the locations of Wikimania be constrained by political grievances one might have with one or another location... that's not very NPOV, is it? The USA has had plenty of human rights issues itself, including sodomy laws until a fairly recent Supreme Court ruling. I see by your earlier posting last year that you wanted Wikimania to boycott Orlando too, because you object to Disney's copyright policy. Does there need to be a long blacklist of places associated with something objectionable?
ReplyDeleteWhat the hell, dan… WP:NPOV and WP:BADSITES, dealing with how to write an encyclopedia, have nothing to do with where to organize a conference.
ReplyDeleteDude, it's not about "political grievances". It's about not wanting to have to go somewhere for a social event from which one might not come back intact. Egypt simply isn't safe for women, gays, lesbians, or transfolk. Judging by Department of State recommendations, it's not even terribly safe for men. (There are a lot of travel advisories for Egypt.) I'm fond of my personal safety and personal freedom, and going to Wikimania just isn't worth the risk that going to Egypt entails. Obviously any venue is going to be more inviting to some people and less inviting to others; what is clear is that the Travel and Entertainment Committee apparently doesn't consider the safety of female or openly gay participants to be all that important, relative to whatever factors made Alexandria more favorable to them.
ReplyDeleteThat aside, Reinis Ivanovs' comments are spot-on. A community event is not an encyclopedia article. I fully expect the Wikimedia Foundation to embrace certain philosophical ideals, especially in areas related to freedom of expression and freedom of information, because those ideals are directly in line with its core purpose. It is perfectly sensible for me to expect the Foundation to refrain (as much as is reasonable) from doing business with companies -- or countries -- that pursue policies that are contrary to those ideals.
I won't be going either, but an alternate conference somewhere else sounds like a great idea.
ReplyDeleteHey Kelly,
ReplyDeleteWho would have thought? An American not willing to travel outside North America.
Shock! Horror! :)
Seriously though: does Egypt force you to be fingerprinted and photographed just to visit? No. The USA does though. The USA has locked up people without charge or adherence to international law. Torture. Violation of nuclear treaties. Exporting of Christian ideology as a condition of Aid to 3rd world countries etc etc. Treatment of women: pretty good til you need an abortion. Gays: ummn. Outside San Francisco and a couple other liberal cities: it's probably either illegal or likely to get you beaten up. From an insurance view the USA is one of the most expensive places to get travel insurance for: that should tell you something. So yes Egypt might be a shithole, but the USA isn't exactly 100% safe or a nice trustworthy regime to visit. :)
As an aside: The only reason I ever go near the US is because I'm forced to for work. The getting treated like a criminal and added to the big homeland security database is one reason. Also the ignorance of the average US citizen about the rest of the world gets tiring. So keep that in mind too because if this gets more people travelling from the USA it's a good thing for all concerned.
It is not as if anybody will miss you at the Wikimania. You haven't done much Wikipedia-related work in the last couple of years except occasional strident attempts at calling attention to yourself (admittedly, that's been some good entertainment).
ReplyDeleteThe Atlanta bid team is organizing the Wikimedia Conference of the Americas, or COTA. Supposedly it will take place from May 15 to May 18. Sounds promising -- apparently some WMF folks are interested.
ReplyDeleteDan, I know what you mean. As I was gardening the other day I wondered how BADSITES might apply, and if my weeding was a violation of NPOV. Then I thought, Whoa! that's crazy, I must be turning into one of those tedious fundamentalist monomaniacs. Good thing you caught yourself before that happened, huh?
ReplyDeleteIt is dangerous to be a homosexual living in Egypt, no doubt. But you'd be visiting... so, don't fuck someone of your same sex in the streets (then again, doing that in the first place would be a bad idea). You may have to respect someone else's customs for a while... I think you can survive even if you find it a distasteful way to live. And, are LGBT who act in a smart matter really in danger? No. No, they're not. So, it _is_ political. You disagree with the regime, no conference there. But it is not dangerous.
ReplyDeleteKelly,
ReplyDeleteThere's been plenty of furor over it. As for the Atlanta team, any time we tried to bring up the point, we were shouted down and told that we were trolling, or in several cases the Alexandria team refused to answer and instead condemned Atlanta.
While Alexandria clearly won given the scoring mechanism, much foundation-l attention has been devoted to the scoring mechanism being really poor. What kind of scoring ranks "safety" the same as "how close is it to the last wikimania"?
Ha ha ha
ReplyDeleteIt shows how dysfunctional the community is, when even while you're trying to organize an event, people are still being accused of trolling.
Kelly, I sympathize with you on this. It's a difficult issue.
ReplyDeleteIf I recall correctly, the question was asked in the public irc panel discussion and was glossed over - the original question called too rough by the moderators and toned down, then it still wasn't really answered by the Alexandria team.
someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
If the US Government is telling us not to go, I am not going. The Foundation dropped the ball on this one. I will probably be out of the country when COTA happens, but there is more excitement about COTA than is Wikimania 2008.
ReplyDeleteI have many American friends who do travel (outside the US, that is) and as such are culturally flinty-eyed, open and would probably be embarrassed by there herein expressed opinions on why you will not go to Wikimania 2008.
ReplyDeleteComing from advocates of open knowledge and open media, this not only sounds shameful but thoroughly uninformed.
Quoting from an earlier post on your blog "Regrettably, these principles do exclude a significant portion of the world, for a variety of reasons"
A significant portion? How about more than half the world?
"To people who live in areas excluded by these principles, please change your legal and social practices, then reapply."
Are you joking?
More importantly and pertinent to the subject at hand: why deprive countries that are in more in need of attention relevant to issues of freedom of media and information from such opportunities? What is the point then of having such conferences in areas that already enjoy high degrees of freedom in the aforementioned issues? Are you going to promote the free access to knowledge in the “Third World” (another one of those icky words I hate to use) by remote control? Why alienate vast swatches of activists in such areas who would otherwise never have the chance to participate in such events?