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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

#231

Post by OfSanguineFire »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #152
pandaman wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you arrive to another country's border you need to state the purpose of your visit to a border control officer. If you say "conference" - you may not be allowed in because your visa is for another purpose, if you say "tourism" you lie to a government officer, which may result in various penalties according to the local laws.

I have a question. How does "break local laws" work? I applied to a tourism Visa in say Netherlands or uk for 2 weeks. After 5 days, I attend a "conference" of say 2 hours or something. Is it like the man in the suit sends a call to the home ministry who sends a Hollywood style swat team or the American ice agents to drag you out of the border ?

In Russia, the FSB monitors all attendees of conferences. If you attend a conference in Russia while on a tourist visa, the police will come up to you and force you to sign a police report that you have done wrong, and possibly pay a fine. I know that from firsthand experience. I would imagine that the situation is similar in China, Vietnam, Egypt, and other authoritarian states.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#232

Post by jlokier »

hsjqllzlfkf wrote: post #223
Semaphor wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much this, some countries are allowed to change visas while in Germany, so you can get married in Denmark, which is an easy affair and doesn’t take much. Then you go to Germany, and the marriage is accepted there, and you can now change it to a spousal visa. Instead, she had to swear 3 times (twice in writing, once in person at the civil registry) that she’s not married either ritually, customary, or by law. A…

What's the significance of Denmark in this context? Why not just get married in Germany?

They have to apply for a visa/license to marry, which can be denied or take a long time or require whatever documents the authorities want, and I have the impression it requires them to leave the country too, before they are able to get married in Germany, but if they can travel and get married in Denmark without such difficulties then Germany automatically accepts the marriage.

Many countries don't allow non-citizens to marry citizens without an onerous administrative obstacle and/or a long time delay, and possible refusal. Unlike business travel visas, in some countries lack of formal permission prevents a marriage from having legal marriage status, so it's not like you can just quietly ignore the requirement.

Occasionally two people who want to marry can't do so by any route in either of their home counties.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#233

Post by Semaphor »

hsjqllzlfkf wrote: post #223
Semaphor wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much this, some countries are allowed to change visas while in Germany, so you can get married in Denmark, which is an easy affair and doesn’t take much. Then you go to Germany, and the marriage is accepted there, and you can now change it to a spousal visa. Instead, she had to swear 3 times (twice in writing, once in person at the civil registry) that she’s not married either ritually, customary, or by law. A…

What's the significance of Denmark in this context? Why not just get married in Germany?

As I wrote:

> so you can get married in Denmark, which is an easy affair and doesn’t take much

Denmark has next to no requirements for the marriage, they even advertise easy marriages. Germany has … a lot ;)

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#234

Post by Semaphor »

jlokier wrote: post #232
hsjqllzlfkf wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the significance of Denmark in this context? Why not just get married in Germany?

They have to apply for a visa/license to marry, which can be denied or take a long time or require whatever documents the authorities want, and I have the impression it requires them to leave the country too, before they are able to get married in Germany, but if they can travel and get married in Denmark without such difficulties then Germany automatically accepts the marriage. Many countries don't allow non-citizen…

It’s less the denial, time it takes, it’s more that Germany requires a lot more documents. My favorite is still "Befreiung von der Beibringung des Ehefähigkeitszeugnisses" (Exemption from providing the certificate of marriageability) just because it’s such a mouthful and sounds crazy ;)

We could have gotten married with her here on a normal tourist visa, that wouldn’t have been an issue. But we didn’t want her to have to go back to change visas afterward, so we got married with a marriage visa (which converts to a spousal visa automatically)

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#235

Post by cuteboy19 »

sofixa wrote: post #229
cuteboy19 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a problem when America invades Cuba but not when Cuba invades Angola? Whataboutism can work both ways

Cuba didn't "invade" Angola, they sent troops to support one of the two factions in the Civil War.

People have used the same justification for invasion since the time of the Roman republic. Let us not take justifications for imperialism at face value

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#237

Post by madcaptenor »

youngtaff wrote: post #207
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Long weekend "city breaks" are pretty common amongst the UK middle classes. In Europe with a 1-3 hour time difference and a 1-4 hour flight, yes. In New York with a 5-hour time difference and an 8-hour flight, not so common. I'm sure that it happens, but it's not at all common. Jetlag alone would make that an athletic event, if your "leaving front door, returning back to front door" time is under 72 hours.

Long weekends in NY aren’t that uncommon from the UK

I remember at one point seeing ads in Boston for Icelandair that pretty clearly implied you might go to Iceland for a long weekend. It seemed a bit preposterous, but I was in Boston for just a couple days from San Francisco, and Iceland is actually closer to Boston than San Francisco is. And in the summer the Boston - Reykjavik time difference is only four hours.

If you google "long weekend in Iceland" there are articles (https://www.travelandleisure.com/weekend-getaways/long-weeke..., https://inspiralized.com/lifestyle/a-long-weekend-trip-to-ic...) that suggest doing this. It actually sounds not unreasonable if you can manage to power through that first day.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#238

Post by dekervin »

probably_wrong wrote: post #216
dekervin wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am also interested if someone can chimenin. What's the current status regarding remote?

I can speak for the ACL conferences (disclaimer: which I volunteered to organize a couple times) Streaming the talks, having questions via chat, putting all papers and posters online, multiple chat rooms, this is all there. Content-wise you can access everything. And since remote participants don't eat, their fee is a bit lower. There are also experiments on making poster sessions more interactive, but no one wants t…

Did something like gather.town had any usefulness or staying power with conference organisers?

I thought its stated goal was to create a virtual environment more conductive to the very useful small talk between presentations.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#239

Post by probably_wrong »

dekervin wrote: post #238
probably_wrong wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can speak for the ACL conferences (disclaimer: which I volunteered to organize a couple times) Streaming the talks, having questions via chat, putting all papers and posters online, multiple chat rooms, this is all there. Content-wise you can access everything. And since remote participants don't eat, their fee is a bit lower. There are also experiments on making poster sessions more interactive, but no one wants t…

Did something like gather.town had any usefulness or staying power with conference organisers? I thought its stated goal was to create a virtual environment more conductive to the very useful small talk between presentations.

Gather.Town is currently being used for virtual poster sessions, and in that respect it works well. I've also seen it used successfully for discussion in small groups.

There are some disadvantages that keep it from going beyond that: you cannot choose who you want to talk with, meaning you need to stay away from other people at the risk of having to talk to a stranger. And since "virtual" means "whenever you feel like it", there's a good chance that the people you want to meet are not there at the same time as you.

Re: Conferences are inadvertently excluding many attendees from foreign countries

#240

Post by filoleg »

paganel wrote: post #226
filoleg wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A pretty bad faith assumption that turned out to be factually incorrect. The OP elaborated in another comment that them and their friends that had issues with visas were from Russia. I am fairly certain that they are more likely than not to pass that "test" you referenced.

Glad to hear that that very-well known problem has been solved by now, thank you for making me learn after you had listened.

Never said it was solved, I just pointed out that the problem you are talking about has nothing to do with the situation that is being discussed.
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