Talk:Wikimania 2006/Why and why not?
There is much confusion about the process of entering the US from another country, not least because the details online aren't well-documented or kept fresh. (They should all use wikis!) I've summarized some relevant info on the bid's talk page.
To touch on the most frequent misunderstandings: People who have gotten visa waivers in the past will not need visas or biometric passports next year; but will need a machine-readable passport. If your passport has a line of chevrons on the bottom or side of its information page, it is machine readable. --+Sj+
- I should also clear something up. While Canada as a whole is French/English bilingual, calling Toronto a bilingual city is not really correct. All Canadian students study French for several years, and most people in Toronto thus know some of the language. However, there are not many native speakers in Toronto. You're far more likely to run into a native Vietnamese speaker than a francophone. In Wikipedia parlance it's mostly a city of fr-1 speakers. - SimonP 22:12, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
I would list science conferences among the examples of international conferences that are held quite successfully in the US. The Ignobels are not a science conference, per se, and while they are held at Harvard (and attended by many local professors!), they are run on a shoestring by Marc Abrahams, mainly a big party, and not officially a Harvard event. I spoke with him tonight, and he noted that there were no official invitations (say, on Harvard stationery), and the main recipient of the award simply didn't have time to go for a visa appointment or to get a new passport. He also suggested speaking to the AAAS and the annual Neuroscience conference held here every year; as they are huge, with attendees from all over the world. +sj | Translate the Quarto |+
Massachusetts is a good state to have on your side in immigration negotiations; Senator Kennedy's office, which I called today, took immediate interest in the event; Emily Maher there wanted to know the origins of the name Wikipedia, and said "how can you go wrong with that?" She gave me some excellent advice for helping speed the visa process, wanted more information, and said that if there were any rejections, we would immediately speak to her and her office would go about trying to overturn them. +sj | Translate the Quarto |+ 21:47, 21 October 2005 (UTC)