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Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

arunraghavan.net

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Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#91

Post by brightball »

i_no_can_eat wrote: post #84
nirbheek wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very strange that this is your experience, because IME as an Indian who has to apply for Schengen visas 4-5 times a year it's actually easier to get a visa for tourism than to attend a conference or for business. You need to supply fewer documents for a tourist visa, there's lesser scrutiny, and in many countries you're more likely to get a longer-duration visa (6 months rather than exact duration) for tourism than f…

Very interesting to know, thanks. Let me then ask: if getting a tourist visa is simpler, is there any problem in asking for a tourist visa even if your intention is attending a conference?

This was my first question

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#92

Post by thaumasiotes »

i_no_can_eat wrote: post #84
nirbheek wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very strange that this is your experience, because IME as an Indian who has to apply for Schengen visas 4-5 times a year it's actually easier to get a visa for tourism than to attend a conference or for business. You need to supply fewer documents for a tourist visa, there's lesser scrutiny, and in many countries you're more likely to get a longer-duration visa (6 months rather than exact duration) for tourism than f…

Very interesting to know, thanks. Let me then ask: if getting a tourist visa is simpler, is there any problem in asking for a tourist visa even if your intention is attending a conference?

On the basis of almost zero relevant knowledge, I would guess that if the conference is paying you to speak (or to do anything else), you'll be in violation of local law, but otherwise you're fine.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#93

Post by xg15 »

reshlo wrote: post #81
ghaff wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general (it's complicated and it's not as simple as have a video camera in every session) tech conferences are doing a pretty good job of getting session content online these days. And, yes, Apple invests at least as much as anyone. It's not really a replacement for attending a conference live but it's a mostly inexpensive (money and time) way to get exposed to a lot of the formal content of a conference.

> It's not really a replacement for attending a conference live but it's a mostly inexpensive (money and time) way to get exposed to a lot of the formal content of a conference. This is something that has troubled me about in-person conferences for a while: they are inegalitarian. If they’re not really about the content, the only people who get the true benefit are those already privileged enough to be able to attend…

If you follow that thinking through though, it would mean that almost any "real world" interaction would further inequality, and that any kind of significant exchange of knowledge should be restricted to online spaces - so effectively going back to pandemic living, at least as far as meetups and conferences are concerned.

You could certainly do that but it's not a world that I'd personally would want to live in.

Maybe an alternative would be "distributed" events like e.g. Global Game Jam: Have not one venue but multiple, in different countries or "visa spaces", then link them all up online.

Also more focus on "hybrid" conferences: Make online attendance less second-class by e.g. allowing remote speakers with an in-venue audience, and local speakers with a partially remote audience; also let the remote audience ask questions and participate in discussions via zoom etc.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#94

Post by Nextgrid »

light_hue_1 wrote: post #49
ggm wrote: post #17

If you're an American university with a teaching or research Reactor, make sure your conference organisers know attendees from China, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, Syria may be required not to be within a statutory minimum distance. It's hugely confronting and embarrassing for invited speakers, paper authors to arrive and then get excluded and escorted off campus.

I worked in a building with a research reactor for years. In my office I had other students from China. A student from Iran worked on the reactor. We all went in tours together. This is not a federal rule. No one was required to be any distance away from the reactor based on their nationality. No one checked passports at the entrance to our building. The doors were just open. That's why you can't find this rule onlin…

> No one was required to be any distance away from the reactor based on their nationality. No one checked passports at the entrance to our building.

Just because nobody enforces the rule doesn't mean it doesn't exist? It could be that the people who were supposed to enforce it correctly determined that the whole idea is BS and decided to save time.

It doesn't mean the rule doesn't exist and it can come back at anytime someone uninformed of this informal arrangement comes into the picture or goes on a power trip.

Unfortunately this kind of rule does sound absolutely plausible for politicians and administrative busybodies as a way to show that they’re “doing something” without actually evaluating the real risk or whether the proposed solution actually reduces said risk.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#95

Post by nirbheek »

i_no_can_eat wrote: post #84
nirbheek wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very strange that this is your experience, because IME as an Indian who has to apply for Schengen visas 4-5 times a year it's actually easier to get a visa for tourism than to attend a conference or for business. You need to supply fewer documents for a tourist visa, there's lesser scrutiny, and in many countries you're more likely to get a longer-duration visa (6 months rather than exact duration) for tourism than f…

Very interesting to know, thanks. Let me then ask: if getting a tourist visa is simpler, is there any problem in asking for a tourist visa even if your intention is attending a conference?

Yes, there are two problems:

1. You are misrepresenting the purpose of your visit and you can get deported and/or barred from entering the country. For example, you can be stopped and asked for your passport at any time (this has happened to me multiple times, even though technically it's against Schengen rules).

2. Visiting for 2-3 days makes sense for a conference, but it makes no sense for a vacation and you will raise flags. This would lead to a request for more information from the consulate plus a delay then a rejection, or just a straight rejection.

The dumbest thing is that all this friction is completely unnecessary. The EU can copy the homework of other countries mentioned by the author of the post, but are unable to for unfathomable bureaucratic reasons.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#96

Post by ghaff »

i_no_can_eat wrote: post #84
nirbheek wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very strange that this is your experience, because IME as an Indian who has to apply for Schengen visas 4-5 times a year it's actually easier to get a visa for tourism than to attend a conference or for business. You need to supply fewer documents for a tourist visa, there's lesser scrutiny, and in many countries you're more likely to get a longer-duration visa (6 months rather than exact duration) for tourism than f…

Very interesting to know, thanks. Let me then ask: if getting a tourist visa is simpler, is there any problem in asking for a tourist visa even if your intention is attending a conference?

Assuming the country in question requires an explicit business visa for you as an $X citizen to attend a conference, it's probably not a good idea to lie--even though you also probably won't get caught. (Many countries don't draw a distinction between tourism and a routine business trip or some combination thereof for at least some passports however.)

(And as the sibling comment notes, if you're just dropping in for a quick conference and heading home again, that probably is suspicious as a tourist.)

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#97

Post by grotorea »

reshlo wrote: post #81
ghaff wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general (it's complicated and it's not as simple as have a video camera in every session) tech conferences are doing a pretty good job of getting session content online these days. And, yes, Apple invests at least as much as anyone. It's not really a replacement for attending a conference live but it's a mostly inexpensive (money and time) way to get exposed to a lot of the formal content of a conference.

> It's not really a replacement for attending a conference live but it's a mostly inexpensive (money and time) way to get exposed to a lot of the formal content of a conference. This is something that has troubled me about in-person conferences for a while: they are inegalitarian. If they’re not really about the content, the only people who get the true benefit are those already privileged enough to be able to attend…

But doesn't society also benefit from both the formal and informal part of the conference? Is it worth levelling down?

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#98

Post by thaumasiotes »

Semaphor wrote: post #68

It’s very easy to forget how annoying Visas can be, if you are from a privileged country. I’m a German married to a South African, but before that we were long-distance dating. Me visiting her was effortless. Fly there, stand in line, get my stamps, done. Her visiting Germany? A lot of paperwork and appointments in both countries and usually paying for a 36h document courier to get her all the documents in time becau…

> And that’s not even talking about them marriage itself as SA is not one of those countries where you can (ab)use easy Danish marriages

What is this about? I'm not sure whatever phenomena you're referring to are well known outside of Germany.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#99

Post by lozenge »

mongol wrote: post #15
sampo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Side note: EU is planning to retaliate, and just as US is requiring ESTA from EU citizens traveling to US, in 2024 EU will start to require a similar application caller ETIAS, from US citizens traveling to EU. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Travel_Information_an...

Should it be seen as retaliation, or just rational decision to prevent illegal or unwanted migration?

Retaliation is basically the default for visas. The data obtained from the ETIAS is no better than what they get from the airlines (APN) or scanning passports at the border.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#100

Post by ghaff »

xg15 wrote: post #93
reshlo wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not really a replacement for attending a conference live but it's a mostly inexpensive (money and time) way to get exposed to a lot of the formal content of a conference. This is something that has troubled me about in-person conferences for a while: they are inegalitarian. If they’re not really about the content, the only people who get the true benefit are those already privileged enough to be able to attend…

If you follow that thinking through though, it would mean that almost any "real world" interaction would further inequality, and that any kind of significant exchange of knowledge should be restricted to online spaces - so effectively going back to pandemic living, at least as far as meetups and conferences are concerned. You could certainly do that but it's not a world that I'd personally would want to live in. Mayb…

In general, I agree. I also found that "let the remote audience ask questions and participate in discussions via zoom etc." pretty much didn't work except for some smaller events. Yes, they could load questions into a queue which is something but, then, Q&A in a large conference session isn't great under the best of circumstances. "More a comment than a question" :-/
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