[Foundation-l] [Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2008 will happen in Alexandria, Egypt

Fri Oct 12 20:10:12 UTC 2007

David Strauss wrote:
> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>   
>> Mark Williamson wrote:
>>     
>>> Can you guarantee the safety of a male-to-female pre-op transsexual in
>>> Alexandria or Cairo?
>>>       
>> Do you have any data about the number who would otherwise want to attend 
>> Wikimania at an equivalent distance from home and expense?  ... or is 
>> this just a made-up problem?
>>     
> It's quite demeaning to ask people who face discrimination to stand up
> and be counted. It's objectifying, and it's not acceptable to allow
> discrimination even in the presumed absence of the target group. Often,
> a target group will silently watch and exclude itself once it discovers
> that the reluctance to accommodate its needs is being discussed.
>   
I'm certainly not expecting specific individuals to be identified. It's 
still important to know whether we are dealing with a statistically 
significant minority.  If the combined incidence of being transexual or 
transgendered is only 1 in 2000, and the normal attendance at Wikimania 
is 500 then we can expect such a person to attend once in every four 
years.  Similarly, when a child has peanut allergies schools need to 
accommodate this, but don't need to do anything about this when the 
problem doesn't exist  We can imagine all sorts of special groups which 
could require special consideration, but at some point the cost 
effectiveness of all these extraordinary steps needs to be taken into 
account.
> For example, someone might object to having a Confederate flag at a
> party. If the response is asking, "Are there going to be black people?"
> then it's more likely that black people considering coming to the party
> will simply not come rather than object and come to an event where their
> interests are clearly second-class.
>   
The incidence of blacks in the general population is much higher.
> It's probably clear by this point that I'm not a utilitarian. :-)
Indeed.

Ec