[diversity] Hosting RIPE85 in Serbia that is trying to cancel EuroPride 2022

Hi Vesna,

I agree with you here and we will probably have to kinda balance the pros
and cons to various groups.

There are some countries which imo we should absolutely not host RIPE
meetings in, such as those without a functioning democracy and those with
governments that are actively hostile towards LGBTQ+ people.

Serbia is kinda on the edge here, but is certainly far from the worst and
might be acceptable.

One thing that stands out to me though is that from looking at the attendee
list, at the time of writing this, not a single person from Serbia has
registered so far it seems.[1] (as in where the country is "RS")
If we can't get a single person from Serbia to register for a RIPE meeting
in Serbia then I feel like the downsides of hosting it in Serbia outweigh
the benefits as a lot of the benefits go away in my opinion.
Of course we didn't know this before scheduling it in Serbia but it still
makes me think that we should possibly reconsider the pros and cons a bit
better for the future.

Creating a list like Hank suggested might be a good idea to try to evaluate
the best options for future meetings.

Also given how I think a lot of people are paid by their employers to
attend and how any location is likely going to be semi-expensive for people
who don't live there, I feel like the economic parts should have much less
weight than the other factors.
People not being able to travel because it costs money is sad, but people
not being able to travel because they feel unsafe or blocked from entering
due to being LGBTQ+ or just being the "wrong" nationality is way worse imo.

The summary of my take is: We should consider all of these factors but we
need to figure out how important they are, and also figure out where the
red lines are. (as in what the total deal breakers are that simply can't be
accepted regardless of whatever pros there are in other ways)

[1]: https://ripe85.ripe.net/attend/attendee-list/

-Cynthia

On Mon, 29 Aug 2022, 15:28 Vesna Manojlovic, <BECHA at ripe.net> wrote:

> Hi Sascha,
>
> I do feel triggered with this call for a certain "openness",
> I hope you take this reply in a best possible way!
>
> On 28/08/2022 16:45, Sascha Pollok wrote:
> > The in-person meetings should welcome everybody and not
> > force them to make those weird compromises.
>
> ...
>
> > If we want to offer an open meeting, we need to pick the location
> > accordingly.
>
> Theoretically, I agree with you -- but -- some of the locations that are
> considered "open" are only so to certain groups of people...
>
> (e.g. Germany, Holland, Scandinavia... UK!?)
>
> ... and there are still many many people for whom these countries are
> NOT open; people who are disadvantaged by _other_ circumstances:
>
> - people who can not afford to travel to North/West Europe, since the
> hotels & food are too expensive for them
>
> &
>
> - people from "wrong" countries who can not get a visa
>
>
> ... so if we would host meetings only in those countries, RIPE would be
> missing out on many contributions.
>
>
>
> It is a difficult challenge to offer equal opportunities for wide
> variety of particpation... and I am glad that we are now considering
> many of the aspects; I am hoping this will lead to better events, and
> more justice in the world!
>
>
> Vesna
>
>
>
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> https://lists.ripe.net/mailman/listinfo/diversity
>
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