Re: Announcing miniDebConf Montreal 2020 -- August 6th to August 9th 2020
Em 21/02/2020 11:15, Jeremy Stanley escreveu: Further, political exclusivity can be misleading. I work with a nonprofit which puts on some fairly large conferences every year. In recent years we've seen increasing pressure from our attendees to stop considering locations within the USA due to concerns over inability to qualify for entry visas (coupled with no-fly lists and the risk of being turned around at their port of entry), but each time we've held an event in Canada we see a significantly higher proportion of our global attendees who are unable to obtain a visa and/or enter. As it turns out, Canada is actually more picky about who it will let visit than the USA is, it's just not as well-known for that. I saw this in 2017, my visa was denied with two other brazilians. -- Paulo Henrique de Lima Santana (phls) Curitiba - Brasil Debian Developer Diretor do Instituto para Conservação de Tecnologias Livres Site: http://www.phls.com.br GNU/Linux user: 228719 GPG ID: 0443C450
Re: Announcing miniDebConf Montreal 2020 -- August 6th to August 9th 2020
On 2020-02-21 09:11:56 +0100 (+0100), Giovanni Mascellani wrote: [...] > So I believe the best the DebConf organization can do is to try to > rotate the excluded categories as much as possible (depending also on > the available bids). This will never be fair, there always will be > people who are more excluded than others, because this is the reality: > there are people who are more privileged than others (disclaimer: I am > aware I am in the privileged category by basically all point of view; I > am happy of that, but I know it is just luck). DebConf cannot > unfortunately fix this, the best it can do is to mitigate it as I said. [...] Further, political exclusivity can be misleading. I work with a nonprofit which puts on some fairly large conferences every year. In recent years we've seen increasing pressure from our attendees to stop considering locations within the USA due to concerns over inability to qualify for entry visas (coupled with no-fly lists and the risk of being turned around at their port of entry), but each time we've held an event in Canada we see a significantly higher proportion of our global attendees who are unable to obtain a visa and/or enter. As it turns out, Canada is actually more picky about who it will let visit than the USA is, it's just not as well-known for that. -- Jeremy Stanley signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: Announcing miniDebConf Montreal 2020 -- August 6th to August 9th 2020
Hi, Il 20/02/20 10:29, Zlatan Todoric ha scritto: > So, could we avoid in future places that are politically very sensitive? > No country is perfect but some are really not needed to go through when > we have more "calm" choices. I don't think this criterion is too important when evaluation a DebConf bid. Of course you don't want to go to areas with military activity or other risks for the physical security of DebConf attendees, and of course you want to exclude the least possible number of people. But always disqualifying location bids on the ground that it would be exclusive because of reasons not in control of the DebConf organizers would be exclusive as well, I think. It would essentially give a privilege to those countries and people who, by historical legacy, do not find themselves implied in territorial disputes. So I believe the best the DebConf organization can do is to try to rotate the excluded categories as much as possible (depending also on the available bids). This will never be fair, there always will be people who are more excluded than others, because this is the reality: there are people who are more privileged than others (disclaimer: I am aware I am in the privileged category by basically all point of view; I am happy of that, but I know it is just luck). DebConf cannot unfortunately fix this, the best it can do is to mitigate it as I said. Again, I know I am on the winning side here: the time there will be a bid in a place where white male heterosexuals western Europeans are not welcome, I'll be glad to support it. Also, I believe that the concept of "calm" choices is very subjective. To me Kosovo is as much "calm" as India. I think that the average Pakistani would consider Kosovo much "calmer" than India. The word "calm" sounds objective, but our usage of it (and of similar words) is often very subjective. It is hard, but I believe we should try to avoid this mistake, and use subjective expressions when other people could conceivably have different opinions. Thanks, Giovanni. -- Giovanni Mascellani Postdoc researcher - Université Libre de Bruxelles signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Announcing miniDebConf Montreal 2020 -- August 6th to August 9th 2020
On 2/20/20 7:12 PM, Ian Jackson wrote:
Zlatan Todoric writes ("Re: Announcing miniDebConf Montreal 2020 -- August 6th to
August 9th 2020"):
So, could we avoid in future places that are politically very sensitive?
We should consider all the implications of our venue choices,
including political questions.
Sure.
And while I am at that, I will mention one more upcoming bid - Kosovo.
It is part of Serbia, still officially by UN resolution[0],
This whole section of your message is tendentious Serbian imperialism
and very misleading, starting here. But it is also irrelevant to the
Montreal minidebconf so I don't feel the need to rebut it in detail in
this thread.
Honestly, getting this type of message from you is very annoying. I will
try to be polite although you really hit the bar - first of all, did I
lie on any of my comment about it? No, not at all and you can fact check
it easily. I don't care what propaganda you are trying here with such
labeling but I would avoid it if you are able to do so. If you lack
knowledge of geopolitical and historical landscape of some region,
better not to comment it. And it is relevant as now you will likely get
again the political pressure on another DebConf and people should be
surprised about it.
Zlatan
Re: Announcing miniDebConf Montreal 2020 -- August 6th to August 9th 2020
Zlatan Todoric writes ("Re: Announcing miniDebConf Montreal 2020 -- August 6th
to August 9th 2020"):
> So, could we avoid in future places that are politically very sensitive?
We should consider all the implications of our venue choices,
including political questions.
> And while I am at that, I will mention one more upcoming bid - Kosovo.
> It is part of Serbia, still officially by UN resolution[0],
This whole section of your message is tendentious Serbian imperialism
and very misleading, starting here. But it is also irrelevant to the
Montreal minidebconf so I don't feel the need to rebut it in detail in
this thread.
Ian.
--
Ian JacksonThese opinions are my own.
If I emailed you from an address @fyvzl.net or @evade.org.uk, that is
a private address which bypasses my fierce spamfilter.
Re: Announcing miniDebConf Montreal 2020 -- August 6th to August 9th 2020
On 2/18/20 6:03 PM, Ian Jackson wrote:
Roberto C. Sánchez writes ("Re: Announcing miniDebConf Montreal 2020 -- August 6th
to August 9th 2020"):
On Sat, Feb 15, 2020 at 12:05:29AM -0500, Jerome Charaoui wrote:
Following the announcement of the DebConf20 location, our desire to
participate became incompatible with our commitment toward the Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign launched by Palestinian civil
society in 2005. Hence, many active Montreal-based Debian developpers,
along with a number of other Debian developpers, have decided not to
travel to Israel in August 2020 for DebConf20.
Would it be possible to not constantly air our personal political
opinions and grievances on Debian lists? Especially as part of
something that goes to an -announce list.
The choice of venue for Debconf is a political act. In this
particular case, it is highly political. It is political in a way
that the people who advocated for this venue, and those who chose this
venue, surely recognised.
Pretending that only the dissenting opinions are political, and then
asking for "political" opinions not to be aired, reframes the debate
in such a way that only the status quo can even be expressed.
It was IMO completely appropriate for the Montreal team to make their
position, and their actual motives, clear.
Ian.
So, could we avoid in future places that are politically very sensitive?
No country is perfect but some are really not needed to go through when
we have more "calm" choices.
And while I am at that, I will mention one more upcoming bid - Kosovo.
It is part of Serbia, still officially by UN resolution[0], after severe
NATO bombing led by USA in 1999. While in 2008 Albanians declared
independence and USA and majority of Western European countries
recognized it, it still isn't independent and Serbian doesn't recognize
it, as well international law doesn't either. I can go more into detail
if needed.
I, personally, would avoid any such highly politically unstable region
(no matter which side you choose or are neutral on it) because we have
plenty of other choices where we will not need to think about such tense
things and end up in such heated debates (as they inherently it will
draw people emotionally even more than rationally).
Zlatan
[0]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_1244
Re: Announcing miniDebConf Montreal 2020 -- August 6th to August 9th 2020
Roberto C. Sánchez writes ("Re: Announcing miniDebConf Montreal 2020 -- August
6th to August 9th 2020"):
> On Sat, Feb 15, 2020 at 12:05:29AM -0500, Jerome Charaoui wrote:
> > Following the announcement of the DebConf20 location, our desire to
> > participate became incompatible with our commitment toward the Boycott,
> > Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign launched by Palestinian civil
> > society in 2005. Hence, many active Montreal-based Debian developpers,
> > along with a number of other Debian developpers, have decided not to
> > travel to Israel in August 2020 for DebConf20.
>
> Would it be possible to not constantly air our personal political
> opinions and grievances on Debian lists? Especially as part of
> something that goes to an -announce list.
The choice of venue for Debconf is a political act. In this
particular case, it is highly political. It is political in a way
that the people who advocated for this venue, and those who chose this
venue, surely recognised.
Pretending that only the dissenting opinions are political, and then
asking for "political" opinions not to be aired, reframes the debate
in such a way that only the status quo can even be expressed.
It was IMO completely appropriate for the Montreal team to make their
position, and their actual motives, clear.
Ian.
--
Ian JacksonThese opinions are my own.
If I emailed you from an address @fyvzl.net or @evade.org.uk, that is
a private address which bypasses my fierce spamfilter.
Re: Announcing miniDebConf Montreal 2020 -- August 6th to August 9th 2020
On Sat, Feb 15, 2020 at 12:05:29AM -0500, Jerome Charaoui wrote: > > Following the announcement of the DebConf20 location, our desire to > participate became incompatible with our commitment toward the Boycott, > Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign launched by Palestinian civil > society in 2005. Hence, many active Montreal-based Debian developpers, > along with a number of other Debian developpers, have decided not to > travel to Israel in August 2020 for DebConf20. > Would it be possible to not constantly air our personal political opinions and grievances on Debian lists? Especially as part of something that goes to an -announce list. If anything, this is harmful to Debian as a project. What would have been so difficult about something like "for those in the Debian community who for whatever reason cannot attend DebConf 2020 in Israel, there will be a mini-DebConf in Montreal" and so-on and so forth? Regards, -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sánchez
