Dear Dumisani,
The email from James Alexander makes absolutely no mention of this policy,
and it is doubtful whether it would apply outside a venue nor whether
Wikimania has any jurisdiction in this regard to impose any demands
external to the conference. At no point did any Wikimedia foundation
Am posting my response to James Alexander's email here FYI, and his
original email all below
My name is David Robert Lewis, an independent researcher at
Medialternatives.com.
As an anti-apartheid activist and journalist at several banned publications
taken off the shelves by the apartheid state,
Good Day Robert
I believe that the actual reason you were deregistered was for refusing to
follow the "Friendly space policy" By taking photos and videos of people
without consent, and refusing to stop when you were requested to do so.
I would love to hear about your presentation on Apartheid,
As far as we can see, there was no presentation proposed on that topic.
Coming to a symposium and complaining that a topic isn't being covered,
while you never proposed it in the first place, and expecting it to be put
on the agenda at short notice, is disruptive behavior.
There will be a number
With regard to my deregistration today, I have refuted the allegations that
I attended and disrupted the Tunis Conference, was never there, also was
not admitted to the Decolonising the Internet preconference.
Not sure which is more pathetic an invitation-only, secret "Decolonising
the Internet
Dear all,
as many people have asked me to share the slides I and others presented at
Wikimania, and also as I represented Wikimedia-ZA at the Celtic Knot
conference, I am sharing the online doc where we workshopped before and
right up to the last minute: