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Wikimania 2008 was the fourth Wikimania conference that was held in Alexandria, Egypt from July 17 to 19, 2008. It had 650 attendees from 45 countries. Alexandria was the location of the ancient Library of Alexandria and the venue was the modern library, Bibliotheca Alexandrina.
Three proposed cities were in the running at the end, the other two being Atlanta and Cape Town. Proposals for Karlsruhe, London and Toronto were also submitted, but later withdrew. There was a controversy about the conference, and even a call to boycott Wikimania 2008 because of Egypt's alleged censorship and imprisoning of bloggers during Mubarak's era. Mohamed Ibrahim, a graduate of Alexandria University who worked to bring the conference to Alexandria, told the BBC "I think we have the right to develop and to make freedom of expression on a larger scale." One of his goals was to help grow Arabic Misplaced Pages which he contributes to since early 2005. An Egyptian cabinet minister spoke at the opening ceremonies on Mubarak's behalf.
References
- James Gleick, Wikipedians Leave Cyberspace, Meet in Egypt, Wall Street Journal, August 8, 2008.
- ^ Noam Cohen, Misplaced Pages Goes to Alexandria, Home of Other Great Reference Works, New York Times, July 17, 2008.
- "Is there a boycott of Wikimania 2008?". Los Angeles Times. July 2008.
- "In Egypt, Misplaced Pages is more than hobby". International Herald Tribune. July 21, 2008.
- Spreading the wiki footprint, BBC, July 23, 2008.