Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[Peter Southwood]

At what time would you consider a new thread to be necessary? This seems as 
good a time as any to me. We appear to have a problem, We should try to find 
out it this is really the case, and if so, do something constructive. Wikimania 
is going to happen again, and it would be nice to get it right some time, if we 
are not getting it right already. Maybe this should go off-list, but I think it 
should not be dropped altogether.

Cheers,

Peter

 

From: Wikimania-l [mailto:wikimania-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of 
Isaac Olatunde
Sent: Tuesday, 23 May 2017 10:37 AM
To: Wikimania general list (open subscription)
Subject: Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

 

Greetings,


Thanks for that thoughtful comment, User:Viswaprabha. However, while it's a 
good idea to discontinue this thread, I don't think  new thread on Wikimania 
scholarship is necessary at this time.

Regards,

Isaac.

 

On Tue, May 23, 2017 at 12:16 AM, ViswaPrabha (വിശ്വപ്രഭ) 
<viswapra...@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear all,

Since this thread has gone so long, let me take a bit more freedom to intervene 
yet another time:

I said I am sad for my name was (perhaps) unnecessarily dragged into the list. 
But I have not felt a bit, even for a moment, that Praveen intended any real 
harm or hurt for me. His original intention could have been just that he wanted 
everyone into looking at a genuine generic issue and get it discussed and 
resolved on the long term. 

As I have mentioned earlier, I have great respect to Praveen's contribution 
towards our rather small but a very active and well-knit community. If someone 
asked me to name the most significant users who influenced the positive growth 
of our community, he would be included in the top three or four in the list 
without a doubt. That he was not considered for the scholarship even for once 
is a matter that I too feel sad about, even though he is one among the few whom 
I have never known as a real world person. He has kept his anonymity so very 
well that also makes him continue as a true unbiased warrior of our community. 
I am not sure, but perhaps his self-chosen anonymity could have limited  his 
abilities to participate in off-wiki activities and thus reducing his scores 
counted for a scholarship.

 

In any case, I feel that this thread has grown way beyond its true original 
intended purpose.

May I request all of you to call it a break and stop this thread here and start 
a fresh one just focusing on how to reduce any imperfections if at all, in our 
methodologies to select scholarship winners in even better ways?

Love and smiles to all and hail Wikipedia!

User:Viswaprabha

 

 

On 23 May 2017 at 09:18, praveenp <me.prav...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thank you Kerry for perfect analysis. I had almost lost hope here. :-)

On Monday 22 May 2017 05:38 PM, Isaac Olatunde wrote:

Greetings,


I want to agree with Gnangara that the OP has no intention to attack the user 
who was cited as an example. Saying User:XYZ received a scholarship 
consecutively is not an attack but a statement of fact (if their claim was 
actually correct). To be honest, interpreting OP's concern as an attack, 
jealousy etc. is far close to assuming good faith. However, I don't think I'll 
be interested in a discussion that focus on  "Why was  User:XYZ awarded a 
scholarship and not me?" but would be interested in a discussion that focus on 
how to improve the selection process".


As you can see, it is not easy to convince the problem even with an example. 
Please don't misinterpret this. Attending Wikimania on scholarship is not my 
final intention. Unlike most other users, I am pretty anonymous, it gives me 
more freedom than them. 

Some years back,  there was a huge rift between Wikimedia and Malayalam 
Language community. A large part of community stopped active participation 
after that. In my own case, last year after someone told me that some of my 
contributions were not that important, I didn't want to do that. We really wish 
to avoid such situations. As a small community, every user is important.

I really didn't intend to be rude or bully. English is just not my native 
language.








Regards,

Isaac (who has never received a scholarship or apply for one this year)

 

 

On Mon, May 22, 2017 at 6:12 AM, Peter Southwood <peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> 
wrote:

Fair comment, and actionable suggestions.

P

 

From: Wikimania-l [mailto:wikimania-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of 
Kerry Raymond
Sent: Monday, 22 May 2017 4:57 AM
To: 'Wikimania general list (open subscription)'
Subject: Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

 

This observation has been made by a few people (some of them involved in the 
scholarship decision-making process) is that past recipients often continue to 
out-perform others in terms of the criteria in subsequent years. What hasn’t 
been commented on is why this is so?

Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[Isaac Olatunde]

Greetings,

Thanks for that thoughtful comment, User:Viswaprabha. However, while it's a
good idea to discontinue this thread, I don't think  new thread on
Wikimania scholarship is necessary at this time.

Regards,

Isaac.

On Tue, May 23, 2017 at 12:16 AM, ViswaPrabha (വിശ്വപ്രഭ) <
viswapra...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> Since this thread has gone so long, let me take a bit more freedom to
> intervene yet another time:
>
> I said I am sad for my name was (perhaps) unnecessarily dragged into the
> list. But I have not felt a bit, even for a moment, that Praveen intended
> any real harm or hurt for me. His original intention could have been just
> that he wanted everyone into looking at a genuine generic issue and get it
> discussed and resolved on the long term.
>
> As I have mentioned earlier, I have great respect to Praveen's
> contribution towards our rather small but a very active and well-knit
> community. If someone asked me to name the most significant users who
> influenced the positive growth of our community, he would be included in
> the top three or four in the list without a doubt. That he was not
> considered for the scholarship even for once is a matter that I too feel
> sad about, even though he is one among the few whom I have never known as a
> real world person. He has kept his anonymity so very well that also makes
> him continue as a true unbiased warrior of our community. I am not sure,
> but perhaps his self-chosen anonymity could have limited  his abilities to
> participate in off-wiki activities and thus reducing his scores counted for
> a scholarship.
>
> In any case, I feel that this thread has grown way beyond its true
> original intended purpose.
>
> May I request all of you to call it a break and stop this thread here and
> start a fresh one just focusing on how to reduce any imperfections if at
> all, in our methodologies to select scholarship winners in even better ways?
>
> Love and smiles to all and hail Wikipedia!
>
> User:Viswaprabha
>
>
>
>
> On 23 May 2017 at 09:18, praveenp <me.prav...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Thank you Kerry for perfect analysis. I had almost lost hope here. :-)
>> On Monday 22 May 2017 05:38 PM, Isaac Olatunde wrote:
>>
>> Greetings,
>>
>> I want to agree with Gnangara that the OP has no intention to attack the
>> user who was cited as an example. Saying User:XYZ received a scholarship
>> consecutively is not an attack but a statement of fact (if their claim was
>> actually correct). To be honest, interpreting OP's concern as an attack,
>> jealousy etc. is far close to assuming good faith. However, I don't
>> think I'll be interested in a discussion that focus on  "Why was  User:XYZ
>> awarded a scholarship and not me?" but would be interested in a discussion
>> that focus on how to improve the selection process".
>>
>>
>> As you can see, it is not easy to convince the problem even with an
>> example. Please don't misinterpret this. Attending Wikimania on scholarship
>> is not my final intention. Unlike most other users, I am pretty anonymous,
>> it gives me more freedom than them.
>>
>> Some years back,  there was a huge rift between Wikimedia and Malayalam
>> Language community. A large part of community stopped active participation
>> after that. In my own case, last year after someone told me that some of my
>> contributions were not that important, I didn't want to do that. We really
>> wish to avoid such situations. As a small community, every user is
>> important.
>>
>> I really didn't intend to be rude or bully. English is just not my native
>> language.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Isaac (
>> *who has never received a scholarship or apply for one this year) *
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, May 22, 2017 at 6:12 AM, Peter Southwood <
>> peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Fair comment, and actionable suggestions.
>>>
>>> P
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> *From:* Wikimania-l [mailto:wikimania-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] *On
>>> Behalf Of *Kerry Raymond
>>> *Sent:* Monday, 22 May 2017 4:57 AM
>>> *To:* 'Wikimania general list (open subscription)'
>>> *Subject:* Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every
>>> year
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> This observation has been made by a few people (some of them involved in
>>> the scholarship decision-making process) is that past recipients often
>>> continue to out-perform others in terms of the criteria in subsequent
>>> years. W

Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[വിശ്വപ്രഭ]

Dear all,

Since this thread has gone so long, let me take a bit more freedom to
intervene yet another time:

I said I am sad for my name was (perhaps) unnecessarily dragged into the
list. But I have not felt a bit, even for a moment, that Praveen intended
any real harm or hurt for me. His original intention could have been just
that he wanted everyone into looking at a genuine generic issue and get it
discussed and resolved on the long term.

As I have mentioned earlier, I have great respect to Praveen's contribution
towards our rather small but a very active and well-knit community. If
someone asked me to name the most significant users who influenced the
positive growth of our community, he would be included in the top three or
four in the list without a doubt. That he was not considered for the
scholarship even for once is a matter that I too feel sad about, even
though he is one among the few whom I have never known as a real world
person. He has kept his anonymity so very well that also makes him continue
as a true unbiased warrior of our community. I am not sure, but perhaps his
self-chosen anonymity could have limited  his abilities to participate in
off-wiki activities and thus reducing his scores counted for a scholarship.

In any case, I feel that this thread has grown way beyond its true original
intended purpose.

May I request all of you to call it a break and stop this thread here and
start a fresh one just focusing on how to reduce any imperfections if at
all, in our methodologies to select scholarship winners in even better ways?

Love and smiles to all and hail Wikipedia!

User:Viswaprabha




On 23 May 2017 at 09:18, praveenp <me.prav...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Thank you Kerry for perfect analysis. I had almost lost hope here. :-)
> On Monday 22 May 2017 05:38 PM, Isaac Olatunde wrote:
>
> Greetings,
>
> I want to agree with Gnangara that the OP has no intention to attack the
> user who was cited as an example. Saying User:XYZ received a scholarship
> consecutively is not an attack but a statement of fact (if their claim was
> actually correct). To be honest, interpreting OP's concern as an attack,
> jealousy etc. is far close to assuming good faith. However, I don't think
> I'll be interested in a discussion that focus on  "Why was  User:XYZ
> awarded a scholarship and not me?" but would be interested in a discussion
> that focus on how to improve the selection process".
>
>
> As you can see, it is not easy to convince the problem even with an
> example. Please don't misinterpret this. Attending Wikimania on scholarship
> is not my final intention. Unlike most other users, I am pretty anonymous,
> it gives me more freedom than them.
>
> Some years back,  there was a huge rift between Wikimedia and Malayalam
> Language community. A large part of community stopped active participation
> after that. In my own case, last year after someone told me that some of my
> contributions were not that important, I didn't want to do that. We really
> wish to avoid such situations. As a small community, every user is
> important.
>
> I really didn't intend to be rude or bully. English is just not my native
> language.
>
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Isaac (
> *who has never received a scholarship or apply for one this year) *
>
>
>
> On Mon, May 22, 2017 at 6:12 AM, Peter Southwood <
> peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:
>
>> Fair comment, and actionable suggestions.
>>
>> P
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Wikimania-l [mailto:wikimania-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] *On
>> Behalf Of *Kerry Raymond
>> *Sent:* Monday, 22 May 2017 4:57 AM
>> *To:* 'Wikimania general list (open subscription)'
>> *Subject:* Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every
>> year
>>
>>
>>
>> This observation has been made by a few people (some of them involved in
>> the scholarship decision-making process) is that past recipients often
>> continue to out-perform others in terms of the criteria in subsequent
>> years. What hasn’t been commented on is why this is so?
>>
>>
>>
>> If we believe that an attendee to Wikimania benefits in terms of learning
>> new skills, hearing new ideas, making new contacts, then we should hardly
>> be surprised if an attendee is then in a position to “grow” as a Wikimedian
>> and hence be more able to “out-compete” others who didn’t have the benefit
>> of attending. (And If we don’t believe that attendees benefit or grow from
>> Wikimania attendance, then we should stop running Wikimania). Also the
>> scholarship recipient has an expectation to share with their community what
>> they have learned, even that process of sharing adds to their list of
>> activities that 

Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[praveenp]

Thank you Kerry for perfect analysis. I had almost lost hope here. :-)

On Monday 22 May 2017 05:38 PM, Isaac Olatunde wrote:

Greetings,

I want to agree with Gnangara that the OP has no intention to attack 
the user who was cited as an example. Saying User:XYZ received a 
scholarship consecutively is not an attack but a statement of fact (if 
their claim was actually correct). To be honest, interpreting OP's 
concern as an attack, jealousy etc. is far close to assuming good 
faith. However, I don't think I'll be interested in a discussion that 
focus on  "Why was  User:XYZ awarded a scholarship and not me?" but 
would be interested in a discussion that focus on how to improve the 
selection process".


As you can see, it is not easy to convince the problem even with an 
example. Please don't misinterpret this. Attending Wikimania on 
scholarship is not my final intention. Unlike most other users, I am 
pretty anonymous, it gives me more freedom than them.


Some years back,  there was a huge rift between Wikimedia and Malayalam 
Language community. A large part of community stopped active 
participation after that. In my own case, last year after someone told 
me that some of my contributions were not that important, I didn't want 
to do that. We really wish to avoid such situations. As a small 
community, every user is important.


I really didn't intend to be rude or bully. English is just not my 
native language.





Regards,

Isaac (/who has never received a scholarship or apply for one this year)
/
/

/

On Mon, May 22, 2017 at 6:12 AM, Peter Southwood 
<peter.southw...@telkomsa.net <mailto:peter.southw...@telkomsa.net>> 
wrote:


Fair comment, and actionable suggestions.

P

*From:*Wikimania-l [mailto:wikimania-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org
<mailto:wikimania-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org>] *On Behalf Of
*Kerry Raymond
*Sent:* Monday, 22 May 2017 4:57 AM
*To:* 'Wikimania general list (open subscription)'
*Subject:* Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons
every year

This observation has been made by a few people (some of them
involved in the scholarship decision-making process) is that past
recipients often continue to out-perform others in terms of the
criteria in subsequent years. What hasn’t been commented on is why
this is so?

If we believe that an attendee to Wikimania benefits in terms of
learning new skills, hearing new ideas, making new contacts, then
we should hardly be surprised if an attendee is then in a position
to “grow” as a Wikimedian and hence be more able to “out-compete”
others who didn’t have the benefit of attending. (And If we don’t
believe that attendees benefit or grow from Wikimania attendance,
then we should stop running Wikimania). Also the scholarship
recipient has an expectation to share with their community what
they have learned, even that process of sharing adds to their list
of activities that they can use as evidence as subsequent
scholarship applications.

Aside. If you have read the book Freakonomics or followed their
blog, you will be aware

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freakonomics
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freakonomics>

of their study of how professional footballers tend to have their
birthdays clustered in a few months of the year and how this
phenomenon has its roots in spotting football talent in very young
players and then training them. Because junior sport is usually
based around age limits with a specific cut-off day, the children
who just exceed the age limit by a month or two will usually be
less physically developed than those who exceed the age limit by
10 or 11 months. Thus, the older children in the cohort are more
likely to be selected for the team and receive coaching. Next year
(still with a relative age developmental advantage AND with one
year of extra coaching) these older children in the cohort are
again appear the most able and again selected for the team (giving
them yet another year of coaching benefit over those not
selected). This cycle repeats throughout their childhood ensuring
the older ones within the “age year” are disproportionate
represented in both junior sport and then into college and
professional sport, giving rise to the observed clustering of
birthdays in professional footballers.

This is exactly the same phenomenon as we are seeing with
Wikimania scholarships.

How can the playing field of Wikimania scholarships be made a
little fairer? I don’t think the answer lies in deducting some
points from those who have had a scholarship before. I think the
solution lies in having two streams of scholarships, one for the
first timers who compete among themselves on criteria that
assesses their **potential** to “grow” through the Wikimania
expe

Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[Stuart Prior]

Hi,

For my part I chaired Wikimania Scholarships for 2015.

As Adrian points out, it's very competitive. But the idea that it is driven
by personal preferences and politics is an unfair accusation to make to the
volunteers that put in days of work as committee members.

Personally, I found some decisions determining who was "more deserving"
between some applicants near impossible. If I could've allocated more
scholarships I would have.

I am strongly in favour of giving very new people scholarships though, as
has been pointed out to me by recipients, who so galvanised by the welcome
received and their experience of the international community face to fact,
have gone on to become leaders in our movement.
I think our current system does a good job of avoiding too many repeat
scholarships though, as Mike has pointed out with the figures.

Good? Yes.
Perfect? No.
Like Wikipedia...

S


On 22 May 2017 at 13:08, Isaac Olatunde <reachout2is...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Greetings,
>
> I want to agree with Gnangara that the OP has no intention to attack the
> user who was cited as an example. Saying User:XYZ received a scholarship
> consecutively is not an attack but a statement of fact (if their claim was
> actually correct). To be honest, interpreting OP's concern as an attack,
> jealousy etc. is far close to assuming good faith. However, I don't think
> I'll be interested in a discussion that focus on  "Why was  User:XYZ
> awarded a scholarship and not me?" but would be interested in a discussion
> that focus on how to improve the selection process".
>
> Regards,
>
> Isaac (
> *who has never received a scholarship or apply for one this year)*
>
>
>
> On Mon, May 22, 2017 at 6:12 AM, Peter Southwood <
> peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:
>
>> Fair comment, and actionable suggestions.
>>
>> P
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Wikimania-l [mailto:wikimania-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] *On
>> Behalf Of *Kerry Raymond
>> *Sent:* Monday, 22 May 2017 4:57 AM
>> *To:* 'Wikimania general list (open subscription)'
>> *Subject:* Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every
>> year
>>
>>
>>
>> This observation has been made by a few people (some of them involved in
>> the scholarship decision-making process) is that past recipients often
>> continue to out-perform others in terms of the criteria in subsequent
>> years. What hasn’t been commented on is why this is so?
>>
>>
>>
>> If we believe that an attendee to Wikimania benefits in terms of learning
>> new skills, hearing new ideas, making new contacts, then we should hardly
>> be surprised if an attendee is then in a position to “grow” as a Wikimedian
>> and hence be more able to “out-compete” others who didn’t have the benefit
>> of attending. (And If we don’t believe that attendees benefit or grow from
>> Wikimania attendance, then we should stop running Wikimania). Also the
>> scholarship recipient has an expectation to share with their community what
>> they have learned, even that process of sharing adds to their list of
>> activities that they can use as evidence as subsequent scholarship
>> applications.
>>
>>
>>
>> Aside. If you have read the book Freakonomics or followed their blog, you
>> will be aware
>>
>>
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freakonomics
>>
>>
>>
>> of their study of how professional footballers tend to have their
>> birthdays clustered in a few months of the year and how this phenomenon has
>> its roots in spotting football talent in very young players and then
>> training them. Because junior sport is usually based around age limits with
>> a specific cut-off day, the children who just exceed the age limit by a
>> month or two will usually be less physically developed than those who
>> exceed the age limit by 10 or 11 months. Thus, the older children in the
>> cohort are more likely to be selected for the team and receive coaching.
>> Next year (still with a relative age developmental advantage AND with one
>> year of extra coaching) these older children in the cohort are again appear
>> the most able and again selected for the team (giving them yet another year
>> of coaching benefit over those not selected). This cycle repeats throughout
>> their childhood ensuring the older ones within the “age year” are
>> disproportionate represented in both junior sport and then into college and
>> professional sport, giving rise to the observed clustering of birthdays in
>> professional footballers.
>>
>>
>>
>> This is exactly the same phenomenon as we are seeing wit

Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[Isaac Olatunde]

Greetings,

I want to agree with Gnangara that the OP has no intention to attack the
user who was cited as an example. Saying User:XYZ received a scholarship
consecutively is not an attack but a statement of fact (if their claim was
actually correct). To be honest, interpreting OP's concern as an attack,
jealousy etc. is far close to assuming good faith. However, I don't think
I'll be interested in a discussion that focus on  "Why was  User:XYZ
awarded a scholarship and not me?" but would be interested in a discussion
that focus on how to improve the selection process".

Regards,

Isaac (
*who has never received a scholarship or apply for one this year)*



On Mon, May 22, 2017 at 6:12 AM, Peter Southwood <
peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:

> Fair comment, and actionable suggestions.
>
> P
>
>
>
> *From:* Wikimania-l [mailto:wikimania-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] *On
> Behalf Of *Kerry Raymond
> *Sent:* Monday, 22 May 2017 4:57 AM
> *To:* 'Wikimania general list (open subscription)'
> *Subject:* Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every
> year
>
>
>
> This observation has been made by a few people (some of them involved in
> the scholarship decision-making process) is that past recipients often
> continue to out-perform others in terms of the criteria in subsequent
> years. What hasn’t been commented on is why this is so?
>
>
>
> If we believe that an attendee to Wikimania benefits in terms of learning
> new skills, hearing new ideas, making new contacts, then we should hardly
> be surprised if an attendee is then in a position to “grow” as a Wikimedian
> and hence be more able to “out-compete” others who didn’t have the benefit
> of attending. (And If we don’t believe that attendees benefit or grow from
> Wikimania attendance, then we should stop running Wikimania). Also the
> scholarship recipient has an expectation to share with their community what
> they have learned, even that process of sharing adds to their list of
> activities that they can use as evidence as subsequent scholarship
> applications.
>
>
>
> Aside. If you have read the book Freakonomics or followed their blog, you
> will be aware
>
>
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freakonomics
>
>
>
> of their study of how professional footballers tend to have their
> birthdays clustered in a few months of the year and how this phenomenon has
> its roots in spotting football talent in very young players and then
> training them. Because junior sport is usually based around age limits with
> a specific cut-off day, the children who just exceed the age limit by a
> month or two will usually be less physically developed than those who
> exceed the age limit by 10 or 11 months. Thus, the older children in the
> cohort are more likely to be selected for the team and receive coaching.
> Next year (still with a relative age developmental advantage AND with one
> year of extra coaching) these older children in the cohort are again appear
> the most able and again selected for the team (giving them yet another year
> of coaching benefit over those not selected). This cycle repeats throughout
> their childhood ensuring the older ones within the “age year” are
> disproportionate represented in both junior sport and then into college and
> professional sport, giving rise to the observed clustering of birthdays in
> professional footballers.
>
>
>
> This is exactly the same phenomenon as we are seeing with Wikimania
> scholarships.
>
>
>
> How can the playing field of Wikimania scholarships be made a little
> fairer? I don’t think the answer lies in deducting some points from those
> who have had a scholarship before. I think the solution lies in having two
> streams of scholarships, one for the first timers who compete among
> themselves on criteria that assesses their **potential** to “grow”
> through the Wikimania experience and a second set of scholarships for those
> who are applying to come for a second/third/… time with criteria more
> appropriate  to that group, how much did they “grow” and how much did they
> “share” relative to the number of Wikimania opportunities they have had
> (note one might also want to include attendance at Wikimedia Conference and
> other similar movement events in this regard)?
>
>
>
> Note in both streams it is still possible to include factors like the
> Global North/South issue, minority groups, etc in the criteria as
> consistent with the movement’s strategic goals. The key difference is
> whether you are assessing only potential for growth from attending for the
> first-timers as opposed to observed growth from past attending and likely
> potential for further growth from additional attendance for the repeaters

Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[Peter Southwood]

Fair comment, and actionable suggestions.

P

 

From: Wikimania-l [mailto:wikimania-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of 
Kerry Raymond
Sent: Monday, 22 May 2017 4:57 AM
To: 'Wikimania general list (open subscription)'
Subject: Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

 

This observation has been made by a few people (some of them involved in the 
scholarship decision-making process) is that past recipients often continue to 
out-perform others in terms of the criteria in subsequent years. What hasn’t 
been commented on is why this is so?

 

If we believe that an attendee to Wikimania benefits in terms of learning new 
skills, hearing new ideas, making new contacts, then we should hardly be 
surprised if an attendee is then in a position to “grow” as a Wikimedian and 
hence be more able to “out-compete” others who didn’t have the benefit of 
attending. (And If we don’t believe that attendees benefit or grow from 
Wikimania attendance, then we should stop running Wikimania). Also the 
scholarship recipient has an expectation to share with their community what 
they have learned, even that process of sharing adds to their list of 
activities that they can use as evidence as subsequent scholarship applications.

 

Aside. If you have read the book Freakonomics or followed their blog, you will 
be aware 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freakonomics

 

of their study of how professional footballers tend to have their birthdays 
clustered in a few months of the year and how this phenomenon has its roots in 
spotting football talent in very young players and then training them. Because 
junior sport is usually based around age limits with a specific cut-off day, 
the children who just exceed the age limit by a month or two will usually be 
less physically developed than those who exceed the age limit by 10 or 11 
months. Thus, the older children in the cohort are more likely to be selected 
for the team and receive coaching. Next year (still with a relative age 
developmental advantage AND with one year of extra coaching) these older 
children in the cohort are again appear the most able and again selected for 
the team (giving them yet another year of coaching benefit over those not 
selected). This cycle repeats throughout their childhood ensuring the older 
ones within the “age year” are disproportionate represented in both junior 
sport and then into college and professional sport, giving rise to the observed 
clustering of birthdays in professional footballers.

 

This is exactly the same phenomenon as we are seeing with Wikimania 
scholarships.

 

How can the playing field of Wikimania scholarships be made a little fairer? I 
don’t think the answer lies in deducting some points from those who have had a 
scholarship before. I think the solution lies in having two streams of 
scholarships, one for the first timers who compete among themselves on criteria 
that assesses their *potential* to “grow” through the Wikimania experience and 
a second set of scholarships for those who are applying to come for a 
second/third/… time with criteria more appropriate  to that group, how much did 
they “grow” and how much did they “share” relative to the number of Wikimania 
opportunities they have had (note one might also want to include attendance at 
Wikimedia Conference and other similar movement events in this regard)?

 

Note in both streams it is still possible to include factors like the Global 
North/South issue, minority groups, etc in the criteria as consistent with the 
movement’s strategic goals. The key difference is whether you are assessing 
only potential for growth from attending for the first-timers as opposed to 
observed growth from past attending and likely potential for further growth 
from additional attendance for the repeaters.

 

If that approach is taken, then the only question that remains is the relative 
number of scholarships (or amount of funds) available in each of the two 
streams. Obviously there’s a range of possibilities, but I would be tempted to 
operate on a simple pro-rata principle at least in the first year of operation. 
After the weeding out of the ineligible or people who show poorly against the 
criteria (however many phases there are to do that), look at the size of the 
two remaining groups and go pro-rata. That is, if after the preliminary 
cull(s), there are 200 potential first-timers and 100 potential repeaters, then 
allocated twice as many scholarship (or twice as much funding) to the 
first-time group as to the repeater group. If that does not seem to produce a 
good mix of attendees, then tweak it whichever way seems appropriate the next 
year.

 

My key point is to stop comparing a basket of mixed apples and oranges and 
start comparing apples with apples and oranges with oranges. That should give 
you mix of  the best apples and the best oranges.

 

Kerry

 

___
Wikimania-l

Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[Gnangarra]

​English isnt everyone first language if there had there been no name
mentioned the question would have been dismissed as nonsense. Tto quote the
original email "*This is not personal, I am just using personalities and
scholarships familiar to me"  *this made it clear that it was not directed
at the worthiness of the individual but rather a point of entry to start
the discussion about the process with applicants who have received prior
scholarships.

The initial responses were very clear that by raising the issue this had
under lying implications. I found some of the early comments highly
disturbing in that were effectively preventing what should be discussed
were a lot closer to what I would be identifying bullying.

I agree that starting a fresh discussion on Meta may help but that will
miss many people who could have valuable input both as experienced and
inexperienced  with the process.


On a side note hopeful one the goals from the Strategy process for the
movement is bring discussion information to singular points to capture
wider input, and transparency




On 22 May 2017 at 15:51, Risker  wrote:

> I'm sorry, Pine, but I see no way to have a "civil discussion" when the
> initiator makes it about one single other person. If the originator, after
> having been redirected, had stuck to general comments instead of continuing
> to complain about a single user receiving multiple scholarships, I'd have
> given it a pass.  But the same user's name is mentioned repeatedly (a
> second user is also mentioned in one of the posts), and it is clear that at
> least some of the  allegations being made about the user are not true. (The
> initiator of the thread conceded that after being corrected.)  I am very
> sorry that you do not see this as bullying.  I am very serious when I say
> that, because the fact that you and perhaps others aren't seeing this as a
> form of bullying, specifically naming and shaming, is exactly part of the
> problem that the Wikimedia communities are trying to address, often with
> little success.  This entire conversation could have been held without the
> mention of a single user's name.
>
> Now, the more important point is whether or not anyone is putting their
> suggestions for improvement onwiki.  Of course, part of the problem is that
> it's really unclear where these suggestions should go, or for that matter
> which wiki it should go on; the rules for this round of scholarships is on
> the Wikimania wiki, while the list of successful candidates is on Meta.
> So...Scholarship Committee, where do you want suggestions to go?  Link to a
> particular page please.
>
>
> Risker/Anne
>
>
>
> On 22 May 2017 at 03:26, Pine W  wrote:
>
>>
>> On Sun, May 21, 2017 at 5:22 PM, Risker  wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 21 May 2017 at 20:12, Pine W  wrote:
>>>

 On Sun, May 21, 2017 at 3:34 PM, Risker  wrote:

> I'm sorry, Pinebut no.  It's naming and shaming.  If Praveen had
> wanted to highlight the frequency of Wikimedians being granted Wikimania
> scholarsips, they could have done exactly what Mike Peel did - compare the
> relevant lists and highlight the frequency of users receiving one, two or
> three grants over the four years for which data is available.  That would
> have been - and is - a reasonable point of discussion.  It turns out that
> Praveen's information was incomplete at best, and incorrect at worst.
>

 It's possible that I misread something, but the question that I read in
 Praveen's original email was, "Then, what is the advantage of selecting
 same persons again and again for scholarship? Isn't it better to let more
 different people to share and experience global community?" I don't see how
 citing a specific example amounts to naming and shaming. Unless I'm
 overlooking something, there was an honest question of whether current
 system of selecting awardees should be modified and examples of the
 outcomes of the current award system were provided. I think it is risky to
 read negatively into others' motives, and at this point I don't see
 evidence that would support a view that there was malicious intent in the
 examples being provided. The examples may be uncomfortable, but that's a
 very long way from being malicious.

>>>
>>> I think you may have missed some comments from the later part of the
>>> thread.  I found them highly disturbing.  Frankly, they were disturbing
>>> enough that many other Wikimedians I know would have walked away from the
>>> projects entirely; we cannot afford to allow people to be browbeaten for
>>> being able to demonstrate on a repeated basis that they're productive and
>>> valuable members of our community.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> I find it disturbing that there seemed to be an effort to shut down a
>> discussion when someone raised concerns about 

Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[Risker]

I'm sorry, Pine, but I see no way to have a "civil discussion" when the
initiator makes it about one single other person. If the originator, after
having been redirected, had stuck to general comments instead of continuing
to complain about a single user receiving multiple scholarships, I'd have
given it a pass.  But the same user's name is mentioned repeatedly (a
second user is also mentioned in one of the posts), and it is clear that at
least some of the  allegations being made about the user are not true. (The
initiator of the thread conceded that after being corrected.)  I am very
sorry that you do not see this as bullying.  I am very serious when I say
that, because the fact that you and perhaps others aren't seeing this as a
form of bullying, specifically naming and shaming, is exactly part of the
problem that the Wikimedia communities are trying to address, often with
little success.  This entire conversation could have been held without the
mention of a single user's name.

Now, the more important point is whether or not anyone is putting their
suggestions for improvement onwiki.  Of course, part of the problem is that
it's really unclear where these suggestions should go, or for that matter
which wiki it should go on; the rules for this round of scholarships is on
the Wikimania wiki, while the list of successful candidates is on Meta.
So...Scholarship Committee, where do you want suggestions to go?  Link to a
particular page please.


Risker/Anne



On 22 May 2017 at 03:26, Pine W  wrote:

>
> On Sun, May 21, 2017 at 5:22 PM, Risker  wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On 21 May 2017 at 20:12, Pine W  wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> On Sun, May 21, 2017 at 3:34 PM, Risker  wrote:
>>>
 I'm sorry, Pinebut no.  It's naming and shaming.  If Praveen had
 wanted to highlight the frequency of Wikimedians being granted Wikimania
 scholarsips, they could have done exactly what Mike Peel did - compare the
 relevant lists and highlight the frequency of users receiving one, two or
 three grants over the four years for which data is available.  That would
 have been - and is - a reasonable point of discussion.  It turns out that
 Praveen's information was incomplete at best, and incorrect at worst.

>>>
>>> It's possible that I misread something, but the question that I read in
>>> Praveen's original email was, "Then, what is the advantage of selecting
>>> same persons again and again for scholarship? Isn't it better to let more
>>> different people to share and experience global community?" I don't see how
>>> citing a specific example amounts to naming and shaming. Unless I'm
>>> overlooking something, there was an honest question of whether current
>>> system of selecting awardees should be modified and examples of the
>>> outcomes of the current award system were provided. I think it is risky to
>>> read negatively into others' motives, and at this point I don't see
>>> evidence that would support a view that there was malicious intent in the
>>> examples being provided. The examples may be uncomfortable, but that's a
>>> very long way from being malicious.
>>>
>>
>> I think you may have missed some comments from the later part of the
>> thread.  I found them highly disturbing.  Frankly, they were disturbing
>> enough that many other Wikimedians I know would have walked away from the
>> projects entirely; we cannot afford to allow people to be browbeaten for
>> being able to demonstrate on a repeated basis that they're productive and
>> valuable members of our community.
>>
>>
>
>
> I find it disturbing that there seemed to be an effort to shut down a
> discussion when someone raised concerns about how WMF funds are being used.
>
>
>
>>
>>>

 That one specific individual has received more than one of them, and
 someone is implying that the grantee failed to live up to their undertaken
 responsibilities, is not a reasonable way of discussing those points.

>>>
>>> I disagree. If there are examples of grantees not fulfilling their
>>> obligations but being awarded subsequent grants, that would be a problem. I
>>> don't want people to be fearful of being attacked for discussing situations
>>> in which they reasonably think that there may be a problem. I think that an
>>> underlying issue may be the lack of transparency in the awards
>>> applications. If there was more transparency then venerability would be
>>> less of a challenge. I realize that this is a complex problem, and
>>> hopefully there can be constructive discussions about how to address it.
>>>
>>
>> It may be a reason to draw this to the attention of the Wikimania
>> Scholarship Committee, or the WMF Travel and Supports grants staff.  It is
>> not appropriate to start a thread on a mailing list that has thousands of
>> subscribers. As it turns out, there is good reason to doubt a significant
>> amount of what was said anyway.
>>
>> We need 

Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[Pine W]

On Sun, May 21, 2017 at 5:22 PM, Risker  wrote:

>
>
> On 21 May 2017 at 20:12, Pine W  wrote:
>
>>
>> On Sun, May 21, 2017 at 3:34 PM, Risker  wrote:
>>
>>> I'm sorry, Pinebut no.  It's naming and shaming.  If Praveen had
>>> wanted to highlight the frequency of Wikimedians being granted Wikimania
>>> scholarsips, they could have done exactly what Mike Peel did - compare the
>>> relevant lists and highlight the frequency of users receiving one, two or
>>> three grants over the four years for which data is available.  That would
>>> have been - and is - a reasonable point of discussion.  It turns out that
>>> Praveen's information was incomplete at best, and incorrect at worst.
>>>
>>
>> It's possible that I misread something, but the question that I read in
>> Praveen's original email was, "Then, what is the advantage of selecting
>> same persons again and again for scholarship? Isn't it better to let more
>> different people to share and experience global community?" I don't see how
>> citing a specific example amounts to naming and shaming. Unless I'm
>> overlooking something, there was an honest question of whether current
>> system of selecting awardees should be modified and examples of the
>> outcomes of the current award system were provided. I think it is risky to
>> read negatively into others' motives, and at this point I don't see
>> evidence that would support a view that there was malicious intent in the
>> examples being provided. The examples may be uncomfortable, but that's a
>> very long way from being malicious.
>>
>
> I think you may have missed some comments from the later part of the
> thread.  I found them highly disturbing.  Frankly, they were disturbing
> enough that many other Wikimedians I know would have walked away from the
> projects entirely; we cannot afford to allow people to be browbeaten for
> being able to demonstrate on a repeated basis that they're productive and
> valuable members of our community.
>
>


I find it disturbing that there seemed to be an effort to shut down a
discussion when someone raised concerns about how WMF funds are being used.



>
>>
>>>
>>> That one specific individual has received more than one of them, and
>>> someone is implying that the grantee failed to live up to their undertaken
>>> responsibilities, is not a reasonable way of discussing those points.
>>>
>>
>> I disagree. If there are examples of grantees not fulfilling their
>> obligations but being awarded subsequent grants, that would be a problem. I
>> don't want people to be fearful of being attacked for discussing situations
>> in which they reasonably think that there may be a problem. I think that an
>> underlying issue may be the lack of transparency in the awards
>> applications. If there was more transparency then venerability would be
>> less of a challenge. I realize that this is a complex problem, and
>> hopefully there can be constructive discussions about how to address it.
>>
>
> It may be a reason to draw this to the attention of the Wikimania
> Scholarship Committee, or the WMF Travel and Supports grants staff.  It is
> not appropriate to start a thread on a mailing list that has thousands of
> subscribers. As it turns out, there is good reason to doubt a significant
> amount of what was said anyway.
>
> We need to stop enabling behaviour like this.  The Wikimania-L mailing
> list is not an appropriate place to rail against another Wikimedian.  None
> of the Wikimedia-related mailing lists are.  This is an excellent example
> of bullying, and it needs to stop.
>
>
I'm perplexed about how this discussion could be considered bullying. An
uncomfortable discussion is different from bullying. If you have a concrete
example of bullying in this thread (admittedly I may have overlooked one),
I would be appreciative if you would contact me off-list and perhaps we can
have an off-list discussion.

"It is not appropriate to start a thread on a mailing list that has
thousands of subscribers" is a statement of opinion. I feel that it should
be possible to have a civil discussion about this matter in public. There
has been no private information leaked here (at least not that I have
observed). A conversation that is uncomfortable is not necessarily the same
as a conversation that is forbidden. If nonpublic information was being
discussed then yes, that should probably be moved to a different venue.
That is not the case here.

I think it would be fine to move this discussion onto Meta so that thoughts
could be organized in a threaded, more easily understood way. I say that in
hopes of keeping the conversation organized, not in an effort to stop it.

Pine
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Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[Richard Ames]

Now that is a great contribution!  Thanks, Kerry

On 22 May 2017 at 12:57, Kerry Raymond  wrote:

> This observation has been made by a few people (some of them involved in
> the scholarship decision-making process) is that past recipients often
> continue to out-perform others in terms of the criteria in subsequent
> years. What hasn’t been commented on is why this is so?
>

Cut for brevity


> My key point is to stop comparing a basket of mixed apples and oranges and
> start comparing apples with apples and oranges with oranges. That should
> give you mix of  the best apples and the best oranges.
>
>
>
> Kerry
>
>
>
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Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[Kerry Raymond]

This observation has been made by a few people (some of them involved in the 
scholarship decision-making process) is that past recipients often continue to 
out-perform others in terms of the criteria in subsequent years. What hasn’t 
been commented on is why this is so?

 

If we believe that an attendee to Wikimania benefits in terms of learning new 
skills, hearing new ideas, making new contacts, then we should hardly be 
surprised if an attendee is then in a position to “grow” as a Wikimedian and 
hence be more able to “out-compete” others who didn’t have the benefit of 
attending. (And If we don’t believe that attendees benefit or grow from 
Wikimania attendance, then we should stop running Wikimania). Also the 
scholarship recipient has an expectation to share with their community what 
they have learned, even that process of sharing adds to their list of 
activities that they can use as evidence as subsequent scholarship applications.

 

Aside. If you have read the book Freakonomics or followed their blog, you will 
be aware 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freakonomics

 

of their study of how professional footballers tend to have their birthdays 
clustered in a few months of the year and how this phenomenon has its roots in 
spotting football talent in very young players and then training them. Because 
junior sport is usually based around age limits with a specific cut-off day, 
the children who just exceed the age limit by a month or two will usually be 
less physically developed than those who exceed the age limit by 10 or 11 
months. Thus, the older children in the cohort are more likely to be selected 
for the team and receive coaching. Next year (still with a relative age 
developmental advantage AND with one year of extra coaching) these older 
children in the cohort are again appear the most able and again selected for 
the team (giving them yet another year of coaching benefit over those not 
selected). This cycle repeats throughout their childhood ensuring the older 
ones within the “age year” are disproportionate represented in both junior 
sport and then into college and professional sport, giving rise to the observed 
clustering of birthdays in professional footballers.

 

This is exactly the same phenomenon as we are seeing with Wikimania 
scholarships.

 

How can the playing field of Wikimania scholarships be made a little fairer? I 
don’t think the answer lies in deducting some points from those who have had a 
scholarship before. I think the solution lies in having two streams of 
scholarships, one for the first timers who compete among themselves on criteria 
that assesses their *potential* to “grow” through the Wikimania experience and 
a second set of scholarships for those who are applying to come for a 
second/third/… time with criteria more appropriate  to that group, how much did 
they “grow” and how much did they “share” relative to the number of Wikimania 
opportunities they have had (note one might also want to include attendance at 
Wikimedia Conference and other similar movement events in this regard)?

 

Note in both streams it is still possible to include factors like the Global 
North/South issue, minority groups, etc in the criteria as consistent with the 
movement’s strategic goals. The key difference is whether you are assessing 
only potential for growth from attending for the first-timers as opposed to 
observed growth from past attending and likely potential for further growth 
from additional attendance for the repeaters.

 

If that approach is taken, then the only question that remains is the relative 
number of scholarships (or amount of funds) available in each of the two 
streams. Obviously there’s a range of possibilities, but I would be tempted to 
operate on a simple pro-rata principle at least in the first year of operation. 
After the weeding out of the ineligible or people who show poorly against the 
criteria (however many phases there are to do that), look at the size of the 
two remaining groups and go pro-rata. That is, if after the preliminary 
cull(s), there are 200 potential first-timers and 100 potential repeaters, then 
allocated twice as many scholarship (or twice as much funding) to the 
first-time group as to the repeater group. If that does not seem to produce a 
good mix of attendees, then tweak it whichever way seems appropriate the next 
year.

 

My key point is to stop comparing a basket of mixed apples and oranges and 
start comparing apples with apples and oranges with oranges. That should give 
you mix of  the best apples and the best oranges.

 

Kerry

 

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[Gnangarra]

​Global North/Global South is an unrealistic fallacy ​creates a poor
subdivision of resources it'd be better to see support for emerging and
isolated communities, given that including 2017 this will be the 4th
consecutive Wikimania in North America or Europe

Yes the question could have been better framed, but the question remains as
to how what is put in an application is validated especially when it comes
to community work and impact, where there is a local active community are
questions being asked.  For those that have previously received and
reported after being a recipient what validation processes are there, which
does leave people wondering how someone who is very active isnt getting
through the process while others are.  TPS value is in the sharing of
experiences both while there and with the local community afterwards if
that isnt happening then the TPS is just a free holiday. I've also seen
lots of events with apparent zero or near zero return as well.

Dislosure -

   - I attended Wikimania in 2012 in Washington on a scholarship, learnt
   about QRpedia and started two QR projects here afterwards
   - I attended Wikimania in 2014 in London funded by the WMAU, where I did
   the WMUK training course and spent wikimania sharing the QRpedia experience
   at the village booth.
   - I was invited by the WMF to Mexico in 2015, declined because I had
   committed to working with University students establishing the first
   Indigenous Australian language Wikipedia



On 22 May 2017 at 06:34, Risker  wrote:

> I'm sorry, Pinebut no.  It's naming and shaming.  If Praveen had
> wanted to highlight the frequency of Wikimedians being granted Wikimania
> scholarsips, they could have done exactly what Mike Peel did - compare the
> relevant lists and highlight the frequency of users receiving one, two or
> three grants over the four years for which data is available.  That would
> have been - and is - a reasonable point of discussion.  It turns out that
> Praveen's information was incomplete at best, and incorrect at worst.
>
> It is unfortunate that people have to say "don't trash someone else
> because they got something you didn't".  But that's really what it comes
> down to.  There are a lot of valid discussion points about Wikimania TPS
> grants.  That one specific individual has received more than one of them,
> and someone is implying that the grantee failed to live up to their
> undertaken responsibilities, is not a reasonable way of discussing those
> points.
>
> I'm going to be honest - aside from the issue of multiple grant awards,
> I'm finding that this year's processes are a bit more clear than in
> previous years.  The partial grants, which are worth around 850 USD
> depending on room rates, are a good idea, and allow the recipients to
> select the most suitable means of transportation for them - especially now
> that so many more people are avoiding travel through certain geographic
> locations.[1]
>
> It might be possible, given the number of applicants involved, to provide
> a bit more statistical information; for example, total applicants, number
> who passed Phase 1, number who passed Phase 2 and were ranked, percentage
> of total applicants who received a full or partial grant, etc.  It *might*
> be possible to provide the general information about Global South/Global
> North applicant ratio, but there might be a risk of de-anonymising
> [unsuccessful] applicants when trying to identify number of applications
> and scholarships from each size wiki community.  I think the WMF could
> probably also identify number of people who were awarded grants but could
> not accept them.
>
> Risker/Anne
>
>
> [1] Disclosure - I received a set-dollar partial grant in 2013 - Hong Kong
> - which was supposed to pay for my airfare. However, it took so long to
> confirm the grant that the airfares had doubled from the time they had been
> calculated five months before.I'm still glad I went.
>
> On 21 May 2017 at 17:09, Pine W  wrote:
>
>> Perhaps I have overlooked something, but it seems to me that what has
>> been offered is a specific example, which I would distinguish from "being
>> named and shamed" in the sense that the example is used to illustrate a
>> potential problem -- in this case with the system rather than with an
>> individual, although it's not exactly harassment to report potential
>> misconduct if there was public evidence of such. Let's remember that
>> transparency is something that we value, and keep calm and civil while
>> discussing the situation.
>>
>> Pine
>>
>>
>>
>> ___
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>> Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
>>
>>
>
> ___
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>
>


-- 
GN.
President 

Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[Risker]

On 21 May 2017 at 20:12, Pine W  wrote:

>
> On Sun, May 21, 2017 at 3:34 PM, Risker  wrote:
>
>> I'm sorry, Pinebut no.  It's naming and shaming.  If Praveen had
>> wanted to highlight the frequency of Wikimedians being granted Wikimania
>> scholarsips, they could have done exactly what Mike Peel did - compare the
>> relevant lists and highlight the frequency of users receiving one, two or
>> three grants over the four years for which data is available.  That would
>> have been - and is - a reasonable point of discussion.  It turns out that
>> Praveen's information was incomplete at best, and incorrect at worst.
>>
>
> It's possible that I misread something, but the question that I read in
> Praveen's original email was, "Then, what is the advantage of selecting
> same persons again and again for scholarship? Isn't it better to let more
> different people to share and experience global community?" I don't see how
> citing a specific example amounts to naming and shaming. Unless I'm
> overlooking something, there was an honest question of whether current
> system of selecting awardees should be modified and examples of the
> outcomes of the current award system were provided. I think it is risky to
> read negatively into others' motives, and at this point I don't see
> evidence that would support a view that there was malicious intent in the
> examples being provided. The examples may be uncomfortable, but that's a
> very long way from being malicious.
>

I think you may have missed some comments from the later part of the
thread.  I found them highly disturbing.  Frankly, they were disturbing
enough that many other Wikimedians I know would have walked away from the
projects entirely; we cannot afford to allow people to be browbeaten for
being able to demonstrate on a repeated basis that they're productive and
valuable members of our community.


>
>
>>
>> That one specific individual has received more than one of them, and
>> someone is implying that the grantee failed to live up to their undertaken
>> responsibilities, is not a reasonable way of discussing those points.
>>
>
> I disagree. If there are examples of grantees not fulfilling their
> obligations but being awarded subsequent grants, that would be a problem. I
> don't want people to be fearful of being attacked for discussing situations
> in which they reasonably think that there may be a problem. I think that an
> underlying issue may be the lack of transparency in the awards
> applications. If there was more transparency then venerability would be
> less of a challenge. I realize that this is a complex problem, and
> hopefully there can be constructive discussions about how to address it.
>

It may be a reason to draw this to the attention of the Wikimania
Scholarship Committee, or the WMF Travel and Supports grants staff.  It is
not appropriate to start a thread on a mailing list that has thousands of
subscribers. As it turns out, there is good reason to doubt a significant
amount of what was said anyway.

We need to stop enabling behaviour like this.  The Wikimania-L mailing list
is not an appropriate place to rail against another Wikimedian.  None of
the Wikimedia-related mailing lists are.  This is an excellent example of
bullying, and it needs to stop.


Risker/Anne
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Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[Pine W]

On Sun, May 21, 2017 at 3:34 PM, Risker  wrote:

> I'm sorry, Pinebut no.  It's naming and shaming.  If Praveen had
> wanted to highlight the frequency of Wikimedians being granted Wikimania
> scholarsips, they could have done exactly what Mike Peel did - compare the
> relevant lists and highlight the frequency of users receiving one, two or
> three grants over the four years for which data is available.  That would
> have been - and is - a reasonable point of discussion.  It turns out that
> Praveen's information was incomplete at best, and incorrect at worst.
>

It's possible that I misread something, but the question that I read in
Praveen's original email was, "Then, what is the advantage of selecting
same persons again and again for scholarship? Isn't it better to let more
different people to share and experience global community?" I don't see how
citing a specific example amounts to naming and shaming. Unless I'm
overlooking something, there was an honest question of whether current
system of selecting awardees should be modified and examples of the
outcomes of the current award system were provided. I think it is risky to
read negatively into others' motives, and at this point I don't see
evidence that would support a view that there was malicious intent in the
examples being provided. The examples may be uncomfortable, but that's a
very long way from being malicious.


>
> That one specific individual has received more than one of them, and
> someone is implying that the grantee failed to live up to their undertaken
> responsibilities, is not a reasonable way of discussing those points.
>

I disagree. If there are examples of grantees not fulfilling their
obligations but being awarded subsequent grants, that would be a problem. I
don't want people to be fearful of being attacked for discussing situations
in which they reasonably think that there may be a problem. I think that an
underlying issue may be the lack of transparency in the awards
applications. If there was more transparency then venerability would be
less of a challenge. I realize that this is a complex problem, and
hopefully there can be constructive discussions about how to address it.


> I'm going to be honest - aside from the issue of multiple grant awards,
> I'm finding that this year's processes are a bit more clear than in
> previous years.  The partial grants, which are worth around 850 USD
> depending on room rates, are a good idea, and allow the recipients to
> select the most suitable means of transportation for them - especially now
> that so many more people are avoiding travel through certain geographic
> locations.[1]
>

Sounds good.


>
> It might be possible, given the number of applicants involved, to provide
> a bit more statistical information; for example, total applicants, number
> who passed Phase 1, number who passed Phase 2 and were ranked, percentage
> of total applicants who received a full or partial grant, etc.  It *might*
> be possible to provide the general information about Global South/Global
> North applicant ratio, but there might be a risk of de-anonymising
> [unsuccessful] applicants when trying to identify number of applications
> and scholarships from each size wiki community.  I think the WMF could
> probably also identify number of people who were awarded grants but could
> not accept them.
>

In general I would like the process to be more transparent, and that
includes the usernames of all applicants except for those in situations
where there would be a security reason for withholding that information.
The funds being used are donors' funds, and I would like to have as much
public transparency as possible about how that money is used.

Pine
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Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[Risker]

I'm sorry, Pinebut no.  It's naming and shaming.  If Praveen had wanted
to highlight the frequency of Wikimedians being granted Wikimania
scholarsips, they could have done exactly what Mike Peel did - compare the
relevant lists and highlight the frequency of users receiving one, two or
three grants over the four years for which data is available.  That would
have been - and is - a reasonable point of discussion.  It turns out that
Praveen's information was incomplete at best, and incorrect at worst.

It is unfortunate that people have to say "don't trash someone else because
they got something you didn't".  But that's really what it comes down to.
There are a lot of valid discussion points about Wikimania TPS grants.
That one specific individual has received more than one of them, and
someone is implying that the grantee failed to live up to their undertaken
responsibilities, is not a reasonable way of discussing those points.

I'm going to be honest - aside from the issue of multiple grant awards, I'm
finding that this year's processes are a bit more clear than in previous
years.  The partial grants, which are worth around 850 USD depending on
room rates, are a good idea, and allow the recipients to select the most
suitable means of transportation for them - especially now that so many
more people are avoiding travel through certain geographic locations.[1]

It might be possible, given the number of applicants involved, to provide a
bit more statistical information; for example, total applicants, number who
passed Phase 1, number who passed Phase 2 and were ranked, percentage of
total applicants who received a full or partial grant, etc.  It *might* be
possible to provide the general information about Global South/Global North
applicant ratio, but there might be a risk of de-anonymising [unsuccessful]
applicants when trying to identify number of applications and scholarships
from each size wiki community.  I think the WMF could probably also
identify number of people who were awarded grants but could not accept
them.

Risker/Anne


[1] Disclosure - I received a set-dollar partial grant in 2013 - Hong Kong
- which was supposed to pay for my airfare. However, it took so long to
confirm the grant that the airfares had doubled from the time they had been
calculated five months before.I'm still glad I went.

On 21 May 2017 at 17:09, Pine W  wrote:

> Perhaps I have overlooked something, but it seems to me that what has been
> offered is a specific example, which I would distinguish from "being named
> and shamed" in the sense that the example is used to illustrate a potential
> problem -- in this case with the system rather than with an individual,
> although it's not exactly harassment to report potential misconduct if
> there was public evidence of such. Let's remember that transparency is
> something that we value, and keep calm and civil while discussing the
> situation.
>
> Pine
>
>
>
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Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[Pine W]

Perhaps I have overlooked something, but it seems to me that what has been
offered is a specific example, which I would distinguish from "being named
and shamed" in the sense that the example is used to illustrate a potential
problem -- in this case with the system rather than with an individual,
although it's not exactly harassment to report potential misconduct if
there was public evidence of such. Let's remember that transparency is
something that we value, and keep calm and civil while discussing the
situation.

Pine
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Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[cs]

I think it’s most inappropriate that people are being named and shamed. If this was happening on-Wiki there would be serious issues.Having been on the scholarships selection committee twice, I can confirm that selecting candidates is an exceptionally difficult task. No decision is made by  an individual committee member although some applications get rejected which one member might have accorded and vice versa.Rather than complain, one should be looking at ways to significantly increase the budget for scholarship funding. KudpungOn 20May, 2017, at 13:47, ViswaPrabha (വിശ്വപ്രഭ)  wrote:Dear All,I am not sure if I should respond to this thread. However, it may be important for me to come forward and mention the following points for clarity:1. I have previously attended 2012, 2014 and 2015 Wikimanias (Three in total). I believe I have earnestly deserved those scholarships due to various criteria as demanded by the system. I would not want to boast myself what noteworthy  accomplishments I have been achieving  all these years. 2. I am not an e-mail generator (as referred by an earlier e-mail (2015) by the same user and on the same topic). You may find hardly a dozen or two of e-mails, those too on absolutely essential occasions,  I have ever written to the WM threads since the beginning of cosmos.3. I do not befriend or manipulate anyone inside or outside the awarding committees ever. In fact, I have never even cared or known who are those committee members.4. The person who has raised this point is one of the earliest and consistent users among that particular community. I have great respect to him as an anonymous but highly responsible user.  I also believe that he should have been one of the recipient of Wikimania scholarship at some point of time. However, I do not know him as a person and whether his efforts match with all the selection criteria that the Wikimania adapts regularly.5. Despite my being selected for the scholarships (for three out of probably ten application attempts), I myself had raised this point about measurable selection criteria of scholarship candidates in several physical meet-up occasions. I had also humbly suggested some kind of community endorsement as another score point for the selection.6. I am sad that my name is quoted in a mail like this with such implied meanings that may create untrue impressions about me among the grand and honorable crowd of Wikimedia mission for ever.Thanks and regards,User:Viswaprabha  On 20 May 2017 at 11:38, praveenp  wrote:So, it is easy to escape an issue by stamping it as a personal desperation. People do not want to be known as desperate, jealous or failure. This type of stamping hold back most people from challenging the system.On 20 May 2017 11:06 am, "Adrian Raddatz"  wrote:There is no manipulation. The idea that someone could have befriended all of their reviewers every year for a decade is quite silly.How do we know? You are saying so, others never been there. I'm sorry that you didn't get a scholarship this yearThank you for your sympathy. But I would love to see anybody else other than regular scholarship recievers attending wikimania more than sympathy. Could you read the thread again? , but at this point there is not a useful conversation being had here.If you think there is a problem, volunteer for the scholarship committee next year and help fix it!Sigh :-( Why it is not okay to start from here? Why should I wait until next scholarship committee? On May 19, 2017 10:28 PM, "praveenp"  wrote:From here at local language community, we don't see any "significant contributions" from regular scholarship recievers.  As I said they are not anymore sharing their Wikimania experience to local language community. Scholarship committee may be unbiased, in that case they are vulnerable to manipulation. People are perfectly able to manipulate them because of their massive experience with them.  Or may be they befriended large number people from global community from thier exposure and experience, and thus cause incognizant bias.I really don't want to raise usernames but user:viswaprabha get regular scholarship atleast since last decade (2007?). It is recommendable in no way, when most of other applicants never get the experience and exposure in wikimania.Please don't  add more obscurity to an already dark process by not informing people about their application status after phase 1. As I said earlier, I was able to understand my 2016 application was okay but rejected only because of this notification culture. Such a notification will l help people retire early from planning  and preparation also.Praveen On Saturday, 20 May 2017, Adrian Raddatz  wrote:Hi, I'm Adrian. I was one of the organizers of the scholarship committee this year. Obviously we cannot discuss the merits of specific applications in this forum, but I wanted to clear up a couple 

Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[Nathan]

On Sat, May 20, 2017 at 7:20 PM, Adrian Raddatz  wrote:

> We're concerned with him calling out one person in particular, not with
> the general topic. I've also specifically pointed out how this year's
> committee has already taken action to fix this problem, or at least create
> a more balanced approach to awarding them. Has there been any actual
> discussion of this? Or other specific measures that could be used, beyond
> sweeping allegations of nepotism and complaints against specific recipients?
>

Sweeping allegations of nepotism? I haven't read that in this thread. Other
specific measures? I'm sure there are quite a few - you could limit
scholarship applicants to no more than 2 out of 5 events, or investigate
the value provided to recipients and their home communities to ensure that
some benefit is being received by the latter. Perhaps some threshold for
benefit, with its own point value, should be demonstrated for repeat
recipients.  The scholarships could also be broken out by category, with
some chunk reserved for (1) repeat outstanding recipients (2) first time
attendees (3) representatives of under-represented regions, etc.

Praveen clearly understands that using individual names to illustrate the
problem isn't a perfect solution, but he used the examples he had personal
knowledge of in the hopes that others would be able to see why he felt that
was necessary and engage with him on the general problem. That's a
reasonable approach, though open to criticism. However, attempting to shout
him down is what is inappropriate.
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Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[Adrian Raddatz]

We're concerned with him calling out one person in particular, not with the
general topic. I've also specifically pointed out how this year's committee
has already taken action to fix this problem, or at least create a more
balanced approach to awarding them. Has there been any actual discussion of
this? Or other specific measures that could be used, beyond sweeping
allegations of nepotism and complaints against specific recipients?

That said, I do disagree with some of the things that have been said here.
I don't think Praveen's comments come from jealousy, nor should he wait for
a year where he doesn't apply to try and fix things. But in order to fix
something, we need to a) have a demonstrated, systemic problem with how
scholarships are awarded, and b) specific institutional changes that would
fix these problems. This thread is largely lacking both a and b. Mike Peel
graciously did the math a few emails up, finding that most people have only
received one scholarship, with a tiny fraction receiving them all three
years examined. Of these, is there a systemic problem with them lying on
their past reports and no longer being active in their communities? Or
maybe is it that their activity is on other projects, through off-wiki
efforts, etc. Or maybe they bring something else to the table, and that is
being evaluated. This is where we need to focus if there is going to be a
productive conversation here, and we need to look for specific ways to fix
this for next year's committee.

Adrian Raddatz

On Sat, May 20, 2017 at 3:02 PM, Nathan  wrote:

> I'm pretty surprised at the number of censors in this thread. It seems
> more people are interested in telling Praveen to be quiet than in
> discussing the facially legitimate questions he has raised. I'm sure
> everyone has great advice - ask passive questions, compliment the
> scholarship committee, wait to raise the topic for a year where you don't
> apply for a scholarship, etc. But one effective way to point to a disparate
> effect of scholarship criteria is to use specific examples, as
> uncomfortable as that might be for some. Praveen may be wrong; it would be
> great if the committee of telling people to be quiet could engage with that
> possibility instead.
>
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Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[Nathan]

I'm pretty surprised at the number of censors in this thread. It seems more
people are interested in telling Praveen to be quiet than in discussing the
facially legitimate questions he has raised. I'm sure everyone has great
advice - ask passive questions, compliment the scholarship committee, wait
to raise the topic for a year where you don't apply for a scholarship, etc.
But one effective way to point to a disparate effect of scholarship
criteria is to use specific examples, as uncomfortable as that might be for
some. Praveen may be wrong; it would be great if the committee of telling
people to be quiet could engage with that possibility instead.
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Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[praveenp]

On Saturday 20 May 2017 10:24 PM, Andy Mabbett wrote:


On 20 May 2017 at 17:39, praveenp > wrote:


I was wrong that [redacted] get scholarship since last decade


You have already been told "It would be incredibly inappropriate to 
discuss a specific person's eligibility in public like this", but 
persist in doing so.


Last decade was 2010! It was just two years. There are people in this 
same thread  trying to make intentional misdirection hinting edit 
counts. Someone implies that my future applications will be 
invalidated.  Why are you not going after them? Why don't you get the 
whole picture? If wikimania mailing list is not the right platform to 
tell that we as a community don't get any advantage from wikimania, 
kindly show us the right place!!


I would love to see some explanation instead of harassment and threats :-(



Without wanting to comment on the merits or otherwise of your general 
points, if you persist in naming individuals in this context - 
especially as you have now admitted making false claims about 
individuals -  then I suggest that your posts should be placed on 
moderation.


--
Andy Mabbett
@pigsonthewing
http://pigsonthewing.org.uk


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Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[വിശ്വപ്രഭ]

One of my persistent suggestions to this dilemma has always been to involve
some kind of community endorsement into the selection process.

Crude Methodology:
All applicants from the particular communit(y/ies) may enlist themselves at
their community village pump. All active users in that / those communities
may or may not support his application. This will be considered as a score
point with a suitable weightage among the broad list of criteria by the
award committee.


However, this step may have some inherent negative aspects:

1. Identity of applicants (both successful and unsuccessful) will be
compromised unless some mechanism is involved to limit access to such
endorsement pages.

But then, instead of village pump, it could be an endorsement vote system
submitted by community members directly to a destination visible only to
the award committee.

2. There is a chance for nepotism, especially working against those serious
editors who may be actually doing a good job of adding unbiased neutral
content against the wish of a majority with biased editing culture.

What I propose is only an idea in its crude form. We may discuss the
feasibility of this at length and with appropriate corrections, incorporate
such terms to the next Wikimania onwards.

-User:Viswaprabha



On 20 May 2017 at 23:38, phoebe ayers  wrote:

> Over the years, people have gotten funded to go to Wikimania in the
> following ways:
> - by the WMF, as staff or board
> - by the WMF, as scholarship recipients
> - by various chapter grant programs
> - by various private special grant programs for scholarships, often
> administered by chapters or the WMF
> - by outside "sister' organizations, like WikiEdu
> - by outside employers, eg academic faculty who use their university
> travel funding to attend
> - out of pocket
>
> I don't have a sense of what the exact proportions are, but there is
> always a mix of people funded in all of these ways at all of the
> Wikimanias, and people do switch back and forth between funding models: for
> instance, I've never gotten a scholarship, but I was funded by the WMF
> while I was on the board, and the rest I paid out of pocket or by my
> university.
>
> IMO, the scholarship program should balance between taking people working
> on interesting projects around the globe and long-time participants. It's a
> really tough job - it's very hard to tell what someone will bring to the
> conference and bring back from a scholarship application, and there are
> always many more wonderful applicants than there are funds for (and always
> applicants we want to have who can't get visas in time, too).
>
> I'd be glad to hear ideas for how to make a fairer, better process. We've
> experimented with lots of things over the years, and it sounds like the
> current committee really tried to be thoughtful.
>
> best,
> phoebe
>
>
> On Sat, May 20, 2017 at 1:55 PM, rupert THURNER 
> wrote:
>
>> Thanks for the numbers Mike! Do you have a statistic how many people were
>> paid to attend by other means? How many people did apply and how many edits
>> did they make? Because Risker seems to underestimate the effect of a
>> wikimania to rather new editors. And overestimate the effect on somebody
>> going often even if this person has a great bureaucracy talent and fills
>> out forms and reports nobody reads afterwards...
>>
>> Rupert
>>
>> On May 20, 2017 08:30, "Michael Peel"  wrote:
>>
>> To put this into perspective with some numbers: in 2014-17, out of 378
>> people awarded scholarships, 309 people have been awarded one scholarship,
>> 55 have been awarded two, 14 have been awarded three, and 0 have been
>> awarded four. Caveat that this is solely from the WMF lists on meta, so
>> isn't including other scholarships/funding methods that aren't listed.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Mike
>>
>> On 20 May 2017, at 04:07, Adrian Raddatz  wrote:
>>
>> Hi, I'm Adrian. I was one of the organizers of the scholarship committee
>> this year. Obviously we cannot discuss the merits of specific applications
>> in this forum, but I wanted to clear up a couple of things.
>>
>> First, what Risker said is largely true. Those who are repeatedly funded
>> tend to bring something to the table, and need to prove to the reviewers
>> that they have shared their past Wikimania experiences with their
>> communities. If people are being repeatedly funded, then there is usually a
>> reason for it. The scholarship committee is made up of mainly new people
>> every year, and each application is reviewed by a minimum of three people.
>> There isn't much room for unfairness or intentional bias in those
>> circumstances. The people who are repeatedly funded tend to be highly
>> active with the movement both on and off wiki, and write exceptional
>> applications for their scholarships.
>>
>> That said, repeated funding of the same people is a concern. This year,
>> we introduced a 

Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[phoebe ayers]

(Also, one big way to increase scholarship availability is to raise money
for scholarships from outside donors -- every Wikimania could use more
people to help with fundraising and sponsorship efforts, both locally and
around the globe. We've had luck in the past with raising special
scholarship funds, but it takes a lot of work.).

-- phoebe

On Sat, May 20, 2017 at 2:08 PM, phoebe ayers  wrote:

> Over the years, people have gotten funded to go to Wikimania in the
> following ways:
> - by the WMF, as staff or board
> - by the WMF, as scholarship recipients
> - by various chapter grant programs
> - by various private special grant programs for scholarships, often
> administered by chapters or the WMF
> - by outside "sister' organizations, like WikiEdu
> - by outside employers, eg academic faculty who use their university
> travel funding to attend
> - out of pocket
>
> I don't have a sense of what the exact proportions are, but there is
> always a mix of people funded in all of these ways at all of the
> Wikimanias, and people do switch back and forth between funding models: for
> instance, I've never gotten a scholarship, but I was funded by the WMF
> while I was on the board, and the rest I paid out of pocket or by my
> university.
>
> IMO, the scholarship program should balance between taking people working
> on interesting projects around the globe and long-time participants. It's a
> really tough job - it's very hard to tell what someone will bring to the
> conference and bring back from a scholarship application, and there are
> always many more wonderful applicants than there are funds for (and always
> applicants we want to have who can't get visas in time, too).
>
> I'd be glad to hear ideas for how to make a fairer, better process. We've
> experimented with lots of things over the years, and it sounds like the
> current committee really tried to be thoughtful.
>
> best,
> phoebe
>
>
> On Sat, May 20, 2017 at 1:55 PM, rupert THURNER 
> wrote:
>
>> Thanks for the numbers Mike! Do you have a statistic how many people were
>> paid to attend by other means? How many people did apply and how many edits
>> did they make? Because Risker seems to underestimate the effect of a
>> wikimania to rather new editors. And overestimate the effect on somebody
>> going often even if this person has a great bureaucracy talent and fills
>> out forms and reports nobody reads afterwards...
>>
>> Rupert
>>
>> On May 20, 2017 08:30, "Michael Peel"  wrote:
>>
>> To put this into perspective with some numbers: in 2014-17, out of 378
>> people awarded scholarships, 309 people have been awarded one scholarship,
>> 55 have been awarded two, 14 have been awarded three, and 0 have been
>> awarded four. Caveat that this is solely from the WMF lists on meta, so
>> isn't including other scholarships/funding methods that aren't listed.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Mike
>>
>> On 20 May 2017, at 04:07, Adrian Raddatz  wrote:
>>
>> Hi, I'm Adrian. I was one of the organizers of the scholarship committee
>> this year. Obviously we cannot discuss the merits of specific applications
>> in this forum, but I wanted to clear up a couple of things.
>>
>> First, what Risker said is largely true. Those who are repeatedly funded
>> tend to bring something to the table, and need to prove to the reviewers
>> that they have shared their past Wikimania experiences with their
>> communities. If people are being repeatedly funded, then there is usually a
>> reason for it. The scholarship committee is made up of mainly new people
>> every year, and each application is reviewed by a minimum of three people.
>> There isn't much room for unfairness or intentional bias in those
>> circumstances. The people who are repeatedly funded tend to be highly
>> active with the movement both on and off wiki, and write exceptional
>> applications for their scholarships.
>>
>> That said, repeated funding of the same people is a concern. This year,
>> we introduced a rule where those who had been funded in the past year would
>> receive a point deduction on their score this year. This has leveled the
>> playing field a bit, and may be magnified a bit next year, though I won't
>> be one of the people making that decision. If you are very concerned with
>> this, I would recommend doing your own calculation of the percentage of
>> repeat winners each year, seeing if that has gone down this year, and then
>> use those concrete numbers to express a problem rather than comparing
>> yourself to someone who has received a scholarship.
>>
>> Wikimania scholarships are highly competitive. Only one is awarded for
>> every 5-6 people that make it to phase 2, and every one of those
>> applications is a serious one. Don't be discouraged if you aren't selected
>> in any given year - there's always next year. Take a look at the reviewer's
>> guide to see specifically how these are marked (<
>> 

Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[phoebe ayers]

Over the years, people have gotten funded to go to Wikimania in the
following ways:
- by the WMF, as staff or board
- by the WMF, as scholarship recipients
- by various chapter grant programs
- by various private special grant programs for scholarships, often
administered by chapters or the WMF
- by outside "sister' organizations, like WikiEdu
- by outside employers, eg academic faculty who use their university travel
funding to attend
- out of pocket

I don't have a sense of what the exact proportions are, but there is always
a mix of people funded in all of these ways at all of the Wikimanias, and
people do switch back and forth between funding models: for instance, I've
never gotten a scholarship, but I was funded by the WMF while I was on the
board, and the rest I paid out of pocket or by my university.

IMO, the scholarship program should balance between taking people working
on interesting projects around the globe and long-time participants. It's a
really tough job - it's very hard to tell what someone will bring to the
conference and bring back from a scholarship application, and there are
always many more wonderful applicants than there are funds for (and always
applicants we want to have who can't get visas in time, too).

I'd be glad to hear ideas for how to make a fairer, better process. We've
experimented with lots of things over the years, and it sounds like the
current committee really tried to be thoughtful.

best,
phoebe


On Sat, May 20, 2017 at 1:55 PM, rupert THURNER 
wrote:

> Thanks for the numbers Mike! Do you have a statistic how many people were
> paid to attend by other means? How many people did apply and how many edits
> did they make? Because Risker seems to underestimate the effect of a
> wikimania to rather new editors. And overestimate the effect on somebody
> going often even if this person has a great bureaucracy talent and fills
> out forms and reports nobody reads afterwards...
>
> Rupert
>
> On May 20, 2017 08:30, "Michael Peel"  wrote:
>
> To put this into perspective with some numbers: in 2014-17, out of 378
> people awarded scholarships, 309 people have been awarded one scholarship,
> 55 have been awarded two, 14 have been awarded three, and 0 have been
> awarded four. Caveat that this is solely from the WMF lists on meta, so
> isn't including other scholarships/funding methods that aren't listed.
>
> Thanks,
> Mike
>
> On 20 May 2017, at 04:07, Adrian Raddatz  wrote:
>
> Hi, I'm Adrian. I was one of the organizers of the scholarship committee
> this year. Obviously we cannot discuss the merits of specific applications
> in this forum, but I wanted to clear up a couple of things.
>
> First, what Risker said is largely true. Those who are repeatedly funded
> tend to bring something to the table, and need to prove to the reviewers
> that they have shared their past Wikimania experiences with their
> communities. If people are being repeatedly funded, then there is usually a
> reason for it. The scholarship committee is made up of mainly new people
> every year, and each application is reviewed by a minimum of three people.
> There isn't much room for unfairness or intentional bias in those
> circumstances. The people who are repeatedly funded tend to be highly
> active with the movement both on and off wiki, and write exceptional
> applications for their scholarships.
>
> That said, repeated funding of the same people is a concern. This year, we
> introduced a rule where those who had been funded in the past year would
> receive a point deduction on their score this year. This has leveled the
> playing field a bit, and may be magnified a bit next year, though I won't
> be one of the people making that decision. If you are very concerned with
> this, I would recommend doing your own calculation of the percentage of
> repeat winners each year, seeing if that has gone down this year, and then
> use those concrete numbers to express a problem rather than comparing
> yourself to someone who has received a scholarship.
>
> Wikimania scholarships are highly competitive. Only one is awarded for
> every 5-6 people that make it to phase 2, and every one of those
> applications is a serious one. Don't be discouraged if you aren't selected
> in any given year - there's always next year. Take a look at the reviewer's
> guide to see specifically how these are marked (<
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:TPS/Wikimania_schol
> ars/Reviewer%27s_guide>).
>
> Regards,
>
> On May 19, 2017 7:56 PM, "Risker"  wrote:
>
>> Gnangarra, you missed some possible reasons for repeated scholarships:
>>
>>- the successful repeat applicants are performing at a higher
>>standard than others, year after year (I have seen people who make maybe
>>300 edits in a year complain that they weren't selected over someone who's
>>made 10,000 on multiple projects during that same year)
>>- the 

Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[rupert THURNER]

Thanks for the numbers Mike! Do you have a statistic how many people were
paid to attend by other means? How many people did apply and how many edits
did they make? Because Risker seems to underestimate the effect of a
wikimania to rather new editors. And overestimate the effect on somebody
going often even if this person has a great bureaucracy talent and fills
out forms and reports nobody reads afterwards...

Rupert

On May 20, 2017 08:30, "Michael Peel"  wrote:

To put this into perspective with some numbers: in 2014-17, out of 378
people awarded scholarships, 309 people have been awarded one scholarship,
55 have been awarded two, 14 have been awarded three, and 0 have been
awarded four. Caveat that this is solely from the WMF lists on meta, so
isn't including other scholarships/funding methods that aren't listed.

Thanks,
Mike

On 20 May 2017, at 04:07, Adrian Raddatz  wrote:

Hi, I'm Adrian. I was one of the organizers of the scholarship committee
this year. Obviously we cannot discuss the merits of specific applications
in this forum, but I wanted to clear up a couple of things.

First, what Risker said is largely true. Those who are repeatedly funded
tend to bring something to the table, and need to prove to the reviewers
that they have shared their past Wikimania experiences with their
communities. If people are being repeatedly funded, then there is usually a
reason for it. The scholarship committee is made up of mainly new people
every year, and each application is reviewed by a minimum of three people.
There isn't much room for unfairness or intentional bias in those
circumstances. The people who are repeatedly funded tend to be highly
active with the movement both on and off wiki, and write exceptional
applications for their scholarships.

That said, repeated funding of the same people is a concern. This year, we
introduced a rule where those who had been funded in the past year would
receive a point deduction on their score this year. This has leveled the
playing field a bit, and may be magnified a bit next year, though I won't
be one of the people making that decision. If you are very concerned with
this, I would recommend doing your own calculation of the percentage of
repeat winners each year, seeing if that has gone down this year, and then
use those concrete numbers to express a problem rather than comparing
yourself to someone who has received a scholarship.

Wikimania scholarships are highly competitive. Only one is awarded for
every 5-6 people that make it to phase 2, and every one of those
applications is a serious one. Don't be discouraged if you aren't selected
in any given year - there's always next year. Take a look at the reviewer's
guide to see specifically how these are marked ().

Regards,

On May 19, 2017 7:56 PM, "Risker"  wrote:

> Gnangarra, you missed some possible reasons for repeated scholarships:
>
>- the successful repeat applicants are performing at a higher standard
>than others, year after year (I have seen people who make maybe 300 edits
>in a year complain that they weren't selected over someone who's made
>10,000 on multiple projects during that same year)
>- the successful repeat applicants are identified with one or more
>specific demographics that otherwise have significant difficulty in
>attending (geographic, gender, sexual orientation, language group, etc.)
>- the successful repeat applicants are bringing something specific to
>Wikimania, such as excellent and well-attended presentations, knowledge of
>some specific area of interest (e.g., one or more sister projects,
>Wikidata), etc.
>
>
> Let's not assume that people who have received scholarships more than once
> have somehow gamed the system, or that there is a systemic error if someone
> gets a scholarship more than once.
>
>
> Risker/Anne (who received a partial scholarship once, long ago)
>
> On 19 May 2017 at 22:35, Gnangarra  wrote:
>
>> If there is a general opinion based on facts that the some individuals
>> are the recipients of a regular scholarship, then that is something that
>> needs to be discussed.  Unfortunately  to prove the hypothesis that this is
>> happening there does need to be some presentation of what the basis for
>> that theory is and that means actually naming individuals otherwise it gets
>> dismissed as nonsense but in naming, providing the basis the person gets
>> told  *"**sending emails like this one would certainly in-and-of-itself
>> be a reason against."  *ensures that no one ever questions the
>> processes.  Well I really dont care anymore if I dont get to go to another
>> Wikimania I'm going to challenge the process because its seen as having
>> flaws and that to me needs to addressed.
>>
>> What I see as the potential reasons for repeated scholarships for the

Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[Andy Mabbett]

On 20 May 2017 at 17:39, praveenp  wrote:


> I was wrong that [redacted] get scholarship since last decade
>

You have already been told "It would be incredibly inappropriate to discuss
a specific person's eligibility in public like this", but persist in doing
so.

Without wanting to comment on the merits or otherwise of your general
points, if you persist in naming individuals in this context - especially
as you have now admitted making false claims about individuals -  then I
suggest that your posts should be placed on moderation.

-- 
Andy Mabbett
@pigsonthewing
http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
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Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[praveenp]

I was wrong that viswaprabha get scholarship since last decade, I didn't 
check the statement personally. But he got 4 scholarship (including this 
time) since 2012. Someone else doubted above in this thread that this 
might be a case of 1 edits vs 300 edits disproportion issue, edit 
counters says it is not. He himself claiming that he is rarely sending 
emails. To local language community, no body shares their experience 
from Wikimania. Active users always feel they are avoided and kept in dark.


All kind of discouraging arguments including, threat of rejection from 
next scholarship arises, when someone complain (that happened last year, 
this year someone said it openly).  In a friendly conversation, I was 
even told last year that my translatewiki contributions to mediawiki 
were not that important because I was translating  to  "Malayalam 
language". Even here I cannot give examples of other users because they 
don't want to be portrayed as incompetent or desperate.


I hope this system will be changed and different users will get 
scholarship in different years so that diversity can prosper.


Regards,

Praveen


On Saturday 20 May 2017 12:17 PM, ViswaPrabha (വിശ്വപ്രഭ) wrote:

Dear All,

I am not sure if I should respond to this thread. However, it may be 
important for me to come forward and mention the following points for 
clarity:


1. I have previously attended 2012, 2014 and 2015 Wikimanias (Three in 
total). I believe I have earnestly deserved those scholarships due to 
various criteria as demanded by the system. I would not want to boast 
myself what noteworthy  accomplishments I have been achieving  all 
these years.
2. I am not an e-mail generator (as referred by an earlier e-mail 
(2015) by the same user and on the same topic). You may find hardly a 
dozen or two of e-mails, those too on absolutely essential occasions,  
I have ever written to the WM threads since the beginning of cosmos.
3. I do not befriend or manipulate anyone inside or outside the 
awarding committees ever. In fact, I have never even cared or known 
who are those committee members.
4. The person who has raised this point is one of the earliest and 
consistent users among that particular community. I have great respect 
to him as an anonymous but highly responsible user.  I also believe 
that he should have been one of the recipient of Wikimania scholarship 
at some point of time. However, I do not know him as a person and 
whether his efforts match with all the selection criteria that the 
Wikimania adapts regularly.
5. Despite my being selected for the scholarships (for three out of 
probably ten application attempts), I myself had raised this point 
about measurable selection criteria of scholarship candidates in 
several physical meet-up occasions. I had also humbly suggested some 
kind of community endorsement as another score point for the selection.
6. I am sad that my name is quoted in a mail like this with such 
implied meanings that may create untrue impressions about me among the 
grand and honorable crowd of Wikimedia mission for ever.


Thanks and regards,
User:Viswaprabha


On 20 May 2017 at 11:38, praveenp > wrote:


So, it is easy to escape an issue by stamping it as a personal
desperation. People do not want to be known as desperate, jealous
or failure. This type of stamping hold back most people from
challenging the system.

On 20 May 2017 11:06 am, "Adrian Raddatz" > wrote:

There is no manipulation. The idea that someone could have
befriended all of their reviewers every year for a decade is
quite silly.


How do we know? You are saying so, others never been there.

I'm sorry that you didn't get a scholarship this year


Thank you for your sympathy. But I would love to see anybody else
other than regular scholarship recievers attending wikimania more
than sympathy. Could you read the thread again?


, but at this point there is not a useful conversation being
had here.


If you think there is a problem, volunteer for the scholarship
committee next year and help fix it!


Sigh :-( Why it is not okay to start from here? Why should I wait
until next scholarship committee?


On May 19, 2017 10:28 PM, "praveenp" > wrote:

From here at local language community, we don't see any
"significant contributions" from regular scholarship
recievers.  As I said they are not anymore sharing their
Wikimania experience to local language community.
Scholarship committee may be unbiased, in that case they
are vulnerable to manipulation. People are perfectly able
to manipulate them because of their massive experience
with them. Or may be they 

Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[വിശ്വപ്രഭ]

Dear All,

I am not sure if I should respond to this thread. However, it may be
important for me to come forward and mention the following points for
clarity:

1. I have previously attended 2012, 2014 and 2015 Wikimanias (Three in
total). I believe I have earnestly deserved those scholarships due to
various criteria as demanded by the system. I would not want to boast
myself what noteworthy  accomplishments I have been achieving  all these
years.
2. I am not an e-mail generator (as referred by an earlier e-mail (2015) by
the same user and on the same topic). You may find hardly a dozen or two of
e-mails, those too on absolutely essential occasions,  I have ever written
to the WM threads since the beginning of cosmos.
3. I do not befriend or manipulate anyone inside or outside the awarding
committees ever. In fact, I have never even cared or known who are those
committee members.
4. The person who has raised this point is one of the earliest and
consistent users among that particular community. I have great respect to
him as an anonymous but highly responsible user.  I also believe that he
should have been one of the recipient of Wikimania scholarship at some
point of time. However, I do not know him as a person and whether his
efforts match with all the selection criteria that the Wikimania adapts
regularly.
5. Despite my being selected for the scholarships (for three out of
probably ten application attempts), I myself had raised this point about
measurable selection criteria of scholarship candidates in several physical
meet-up occasions. I had also humbly suggested some kind of community
endorsement as another score point for the selection.
6. I am sad that my name is quoted in a mail like this with such implied
meanings that may create untrue impressions about me among the grand and
honorable crowd of Wikimedia mission for ever.

Thanks and regards,
User:Viswaprabha


On 20 May 2017 at 11:38, praveenp  wrote:

> So, it is easy to escape an issue by stamping it as a personal
> desperation. People do not want to be known as desperate, jealous or
> failure. This type of stamping hold back most people from challenging the
> system.
>
> On 20 May 2017 11:06 am, "Adrian Raddatz"  wrote:
>
> There is no manipulation. The idea that someone could have befriended all
> of their reviewers every year for a decade is quite silly.
>
>
> How do we know? You are saying so, others never been there.
>
> I'm sorry that you didn't get a scholarship this year
>
>
> Thank you for your sympathy. But I would love to see anybody else other
> than regular scholarship recievers attending wikimania more than sympathy.
> Could you read the thread again?
>
>
> , but at this point there is not a useful conversation being had here.
>
>
> If you think there is a problem, volunteer for the scholarship committee
> next year and help fix it!
>
>
> Sigh :-( Why it is not okay to start from here? Why should I wait until
> next scholarship committee?
>
>
> On May 19, 2017 10:28 PM, "praveenp"  wrote:
>
>> From here at local language community, we don't see any "significant
>> contributions" from regular scholarship recievers.  As I said they are not
>> anymore sharing their Wikimania experience to local language community.
>> Scholarship committee may be unbiased, in that case they are vulnerable to
>> manipulation. People are perfectly able to manipulate them because of their
>> massive experience with them.  Or may be they befriended large number
>> people from global community from thier exposure and experience, and thus
>> cause incognizant bias.
>>
>> I really don't want to raise usernames but user:viswaprabha get regular
>> scholarship atleast since last decade (2007?). It is recommendable in no
>> way, when most of other applicants never get the experience and exposure in
>> wikimania.
>>
>> Please don't  add more obscurity to an already dark process by
>> not informing people about their application status after phase 1. As I
>> said earlier, I was able to understand my 2016 application was okay but
>> rejected only because of this notification culture. Such a notification
>> will l help people retire early from planning  and preparation also.
>>
>> Praveen
>>
>>
>> On Saturday, 20 May 2017, Adrian Raddatz  wrote:
>>
>>> Hi, I'm Adrian. I was one of the organizers of the scholarship committee
>>> this year. Obviously we cannot discuss the merits of specific applications
>>> in this forum, but I wanted to clear up a couple of things.
>>>
>>> First, what Risker said is largely true. Those who are repeatedly funded
>>> tend to bring something to the table, and need to prove to the reviewers
>>> that they have shared their past Wikimania experiences with their
>>> communities. If people are being repeatedly funded, then there is usually a
>>> reason for it. The scholarship committee is made up of mainly new people
>>> every year, and each application 

Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[Michael Peel]

To put this into perspective with some numbers: in 2014-17, out of 378 people 
awarded scholarships, 309 people have been awarded one scholarship, 55 have 
been awarded two, 14 have been awarded three, and 0 have been awarded four. 
Caveat that this is solely from the WMF lists on meta, so isn't including other 
scholarships/funding methods that aren't listed.

Thanks,
Mike

> On 20 May 2017, at 04:07, Adrian Raddatz  wrote:
> 
> Hi, I'm Adrian. I was one of the organizers of the scholarship committee this 
> year. Obviously we cannot discuss the merits of specific applications in this 
> forum, but I wanted to clear up a couple of things.
> 
> First, what Risker said is largely true. Those who are repeatedly funded tend 
> to bring something to the table, and need to prove to the reviewers that they 
> have shared their past Wikimania experiences with their communities. If 
> people are being repeatedly funded, then there is usually a reason for it. 
> The scholarship committee is made up of mainly new people every year, and 
> each application is reviewed by a minimum of three people. There isn't much 
> room for unfairness or intentional bias in those circumstances. The people 
> who are repeatedly funded tend to be highly active with the movement both on 
> and off wiki, and write exceptional applications for their scholarships.
> 
> That said, repeated funding of the same people is a concern. This year, we 
> introduced a rule where those who had been funded in the past year would 
> receive a point deduction on their score this year. This has leveled the 
> playing field a bit, and may be magnified a bit next year, though I won't be 
> one of the people making that decision. If you are very concerned with this, 
> I would recommend doing your own calculation of the percentage of repeat 
> winners each year, seeing if that has gone down this year, and then use those 
> concrete numbers to express a problem rather than comparing yourself to 
> someone who has received a scholarship.
> 
> Wikimania scholarships are highly competitive. Only one is awarded for every 
> 5-6 people that make it to phase 2, and every one of those applications is a 
> serious one. Don't be discouraged if you aren't selected in any given year - 
> there's always next year. Take a look at the reviewer's guide to see 
> specifically how these are marked 
> (  
> >).
> 
> Regards,
> 
> On May 19, 2017 7:56 PM, "Risker"  > wrote:
> Gnangarra, you missed some possible reasons for repeated scholarships:
> the successful repeat applicants are performing at a higher standard than 
> others, year after year (I have seen people who make maybe 300 edits in a 
> year complain that they weren't selected over someone who's made 10,000 on 
> multiple projects during that same year)
> the successful repeat applicants are identified with one or more specific 
> demographics that otherwise have significant difficulty in attending 
> (geographic, gender, sexual orientation, language group, etc.)
> the successful repeat applicants are bringing something specific to 
> Wikimania, such as excellent and well-attended presentations, knowledge of 
> some specific area of interest (e.g., one or more sister projects, Wikidata), 
> etc.
> 
> 
> Let's not assume that people who have received scholarships more than once 
> have somehow gamed the system, or that there is a systemic error if someone 
> gets a scholarship more than once.  
> 
> 
> 
> Risker/Anne (who received a partial scholarship once, long ago)
> 
> 
> On 19 May 2017 at 22:35, Gnangarra  > wrote:
> If there is a general opinion based on facts that the some individuals are 
> the recipients of a regular scholarship, then that is something that needs to 
> be discussed.  Unfortunately  to prove the hypothesis that this is happening 
> there does need to be some presentation of what the basis for that theory is 
> and that means actually naming individuals otherwise it gets dismissed as 
> nonsense but in naming, providing the basis the person gets told  "sending 
> emails like this one would certainly in-and-of-itself be a reason against."  
> ensures that no one ever questions the processes.  Well I really dont care 
> anymore if I dont get to go to another Wikimania I'm going to challenge the 
> process because its seen as having flaws and that to me needs to addressed.  
> 
> What I see as the potential reasons for repeated scholarships for the same 
> person is that 
> they are active, they apply every year
> they are good communicators and self promoters
> they have the time capacity to attend every year
> previous years application arent tested against current applications for 
> repetitions  
> each 

Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[praveenp]

So, it is easy to escape an issue by stamping it as a personal desperation.
People do not want to be known as desperate, jealous or failure. This type
of stamping hold back most people from challenging the system.

On 20 May 2017 11:06 am, "Adrian Raddatz"  wrote:

There is no manipulation. The idea that someone could have befriended all
of their reviewers every year for a decade is quite silly.


How do we know? You are saying so, others never been there.

I'm sorry that you didn't get a scholarship this year


Thank you for your sympathy. But I would love to see anybody else other
than regular scholarship recievers attending wikimania more than sympathy.
Could you read the thread again?


, but at this point there is not a useful conversation being had here.


If you think there is a problem, volunteer for the scholarship committee
next year and help fix it!


Sigh :-( Why it is not okay to start from here? Why should I wait until
next scholarship committee?


On May 19, 2017 10:28 PM, "praveenp"  wrote:

> From here at local language community, we don't see any "significant
> contributions" from regular scholarship recievers.  As I said they are not
> anymore sharing their Wikimania experience to local language community.
> Scholarship committee may be unbiased, in that case they are vulnerable to
> manipulation. People are perfectly able to manipulate them because of their
> massive experience with them.  Or may be they befriended large number
> people from global community from thier exposure and experience, and thus
> cause incognizant bias.
>
> I really don't want to raise usernames but user:viswaprabha get regular
> scholarship atleast since last decade (2007?). It is recommendable in no
> way, when most of other applicants never get the experience and exposure in
> wikimania.
>
> Please don't  add more obscurity to an already dark process by
> not informing people about their application status after phase 1. As I
> said earlier, I was able to understand my 2016 application was okay but
> rejected only because of this notification culture. Such a notification
> will l help people retire early from planning  and preparation also.
>
> Praveen
>
>
> On Saturday, 20 May 2017, Adrian Raddatz  wrote:
>
>> Hi, I'm Adrian. I was one of the organizers of the scholarship committee
>> this year. Obviously we cannot discuss the merits of specific applications
>> in this forum, but I wanted to clear up a couple of things.
>>
>> First, what Risker said is largely true. Those who are repeatedly funded
>> tend to bring something to the table, and need to prove to the reviewers
>> that they have shared their past Wikimania experiences with their
>> communities. If people are being repeatedly funded, then there is usually a
>> reason for it. The scholarship committee is made up of mainly new people
>> every year, and each application is reviewed by a minimum of three people.
>> There isn't much room for unfairness or intentional bias in those
>> circumstances. The people who are repeatedly funded tend to be highly
>> active with the movement both on and off wiki, and write exceptional
>> applications for their scholarships.
>>
>> That said, repeated funding of the same people is a concern. This year,
>> we introduced a rule where those who had been funded in the past year would
>> receive a point deduction on their score this year. This has leveled the
>> playing field a bit, and may be magnified a bit next year, though I won't
>> be one of the people making that decision. If you are very concerned with
>> this, I would recommend doing your own calculation of the percentage of
>> repeat winners each year, seeing if that has gone down this year, and then
>> use those concrete numbers to express a problem rather than comparing
>> yourself to someone who has received a scholarship.
>>
>> Wikimania scholarships are highly competitive. Only one is awarded for
>> every 5-6 people that make it to phase 2, and every one of those
>> applications is a serious one. Don't be discouraged if you aren't selected
>> in any given year - there's always next year. Take a look at the reviewer's
>> guide to see specifically how these are marked (<
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:TPS/Wikimania_schol
>> ars/Reviewer%27s_guide>).
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> On May 19, 2017 7:56 PM, "Risker"  wrote:
>>
>>> Gnangarra, you missed some possible reasons for repeated scholarships:
>>>
>>>- the successful repeat applicants are performing at a higher
>>>standard than others, year after year (I have seen people who make maybe
>>>300 edits in a year complain that they weren't selected over someone 
>>> who's
>>>made 10,000 on multiple projects during that same year)
>>>- the successful repeat applicants are identified with one or more
>>>specific demographics that otherwise have significant difficulty in
>>>attending (geographic, 

Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[Stephan Schulz]

> On 20 May 2017, at 07:36, Adrian Raddatz  wrote:
> 
> There is no manipulation. The idea that someone could have befriended all of 
> their reviewers every year for a decade is quite silly. I'm sorry that you 
> didn't get a scholarship this year, but at this point there is not a useful 
> conversation being had here.
> 
> If you think there is a problem, volunteer for the scholarship committee next 
> year and help fix it!

There is, of course, a legitimate question if each committee blindly choses from
the current pool of applicant without looking into history, or if there is some
institutional memory that will ensure a wider spread of accepted applications.

In the first case, it is not unlikely that someone who wrote a good application 
once
and who otherwise fits the criteria will have a good chance one year later.

In the second case, one could give bonus points for first-time applicants, or 
forbid
application immediately after one success, or have an arbitrarily complex 
system of
awarding handicap scores based on recent successful applications.

I’m personally on the fence - a scholarship may be the only chance for some 
people
to attend, so spreading them widely seems to be fair. On the other hand, repeat
visits help to build more lasting relationships.

But I do think this is a question that should have an explicit answer either 
way.

Bye,

Stephan

--
-- It can be done! -
  Please email me as sch...@eprover.org (Stephan Schulz)











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Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[Adrian Raddatz]

There is no manipulation. The idea that someone could have befriended all
of their reviewers every year for a decade is quite silly. I'm sorry that
you didn't get a scholarship this year, but at this point there is not a
useful conversation being had here.

If you think there is a problem, volunteer for the scholarship committee
next year and help fix it!

On May 19, 2017 10:28 PM, "praveenp"  wrote:

> From here at local language community, we don't see any "significant
> contributions" from regular scholarship recievers.  As I said they are not
> anymore sharing their Wikimania experience to local language community.
> Scholarship committee may be unbiased, in that case they are vulnerable to
> manipulation. People are perfectly able to manipulate them because of their
> massive experience with them.  Or may be they befriended large number
> people from global community from thier exposure and experience, and thus
> cause incognizant bias.
>
> I really don't want to raise usernames but user:viswaprabha get regular
> scholarship atleast since last decade (2007?). It is recommendable in no
> way, when most of other applicants never get the experience and exposure in
> wikimania.
>
> Please don't  add more obscurity to an already dark process by
> not informing people about their application status after phase 1. As I
> said earlier, I was able to understand my 2016 application was okay but
> rejected only because of this notification culture. Such a notification
> will l help people retire early from planning  and preparation also.
>
> Praveen
>
>
> On Saturday, 20 May 2017, Adrian Raddatz  wrote:
>
>> Hi, I'm Adrian. I was one of the organizers of the scholarship committee
>> this year. Obviously we cannot discuss the merits of specific applications
>> in this forum, but I wanted to clear up a couple of things.
>>
>> First, what Risker said is largely true. Those who are repeatedly funded
>> tend to bring something to the table, and need to prove to the reviewers
>> that they have shared their past Wikimania experiences with their
>> communities. If people are being repeatedly funded, then there is usually a
>> reason for it. The scholarship committee is made up of mainly new people
>> every year, and each application is reviewed by a minimum of three people.
>> There isn't much room for unfairness or intentional bias in those
>> circumstances. The people who are repeatedly funded tend to be highly
>> active with the movement both on and off wiki, and write exceptional
>> applications for their scholarships.
>>
>> That said, repeated funding of the same people is a concern. This year,
>> we introduced a rule where those who had been funded in the past year would
>> receive a point deduction on their score this year. This has leveled the
>> playing field a bit, and may be magnified a bit next year, though I won't
>> be one of the people making that decision. If you are very concerned with
>> this, I would recommend doing your own calculation of the percentage of
>> repeat winners each year, seeing if that has gone down this year, and then
>> use those concrete numbers to express a problem rather than comparing
>> yourself to someone who has received a scholarship.
>>
>> Wikimania scholarships are highly competitive. Only one is awarded for
>> every 5-6 people that make it to phase 2, and every one of those
>> applications is a serious one. Don't be discouraged if you aren't selected
>> in any given year - there's always next year. Take a look at the reviewer's
>> guide to see specifically how these are marked (<
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:TPS/Wikimania_schol
>> ars/Reviewer%27s_guide>).
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> On May 19, 2017 7:56 PM, "Risker"  wrote:
>>
>>> Gnangarra, you missed some possible reasons for repeated scholarships:
>>>
>>>- the successful repeat applicants are performing at a higher
>>>standard than others, year after year (I have seen people who make maybe
>>>300 edits in a year complain that they weren't selected over someone 
>>> who's
>>>made 10,000 on multiple projects during that same year)
>>>- the successful repeat applicants are identified with one or more
>>>specific demographics that otherwise have significant difficulty in
>>>attending (geographic, gender, sexual orientation, language group, etc.)
>>>- the successful repeat applicants are bringing something specific
>>>to Wikimania, such as excellent and well-attended presentations, 
>>> knowledge
>>>of some specific area of interest (e.g., one or more sister projects,
>>>Wikidata), etc.
>>>
>>>
>>> Let's not assume that people who have received scholarships more than
>>> once have somehow gamed the system, or that there is a systemic error if
>>> someone gets a scholarship more than once.
>>>
>>>
>>> Risker/Anne (who received a partial scholarship once, long ago)
>>>
>>> On 19 May 2017 at 22:35, Gnangarra 

Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[Risker]

Gnangarra, you missed some possible reasons for repeated scholarships:

   - the successful repeat applicants are performing at a higher standard
   than others, year after year (I have seen people who make maybe 300 edits
   in a year complain that they weren't selected over someone who's made
   10,000 on multiple projects during that same year)
   - the successful repeat applicants are identified with one or more
   specific demographics that otherwise have significant difficulty in
   attending (geographic, gender, sexual orientation, language group, etc.)
   - the successful repeat applicants are bringing something specific to
   Wikimania, such as excellent and well-attended presentations, knowledge of
   some specific area of interest (e.g., one or more sister projects,
   Wikidata), etc.


Let's not assume that people who have received scholarships more than once
have somehow gamed the system, or that there is a systemic error if someone
gets a scholarship more than once.


Risker/Anne (who received a partial scholarship once, long ago)

On 19 May 2017 at 22:35, Gnangarra  wrote:

> If there is a general opinion based on facts that the some individuals are
> the recipients of a regular scholarship, then that is something that needs
> to be discussed.  Unfortunately  to prove the hypothesis that this is
> happening there does need to be some presentation of what the basis for
> that theory is and that means actually naming individuals otherwise it gets
> dismissed as nonsense but in naming, providing the basis the person gets
> told  *"**sending emails like this one would certainly in-and-of-itself
> be a reason against."  *ensures that no one ever questions the
> processes.  Well I really dont care anymore if I dont get to go to another
> Wikimania I'm going to challenge the process because its seen as having
> flaws and that to me needs to addressed.
>
> What I see as the potential reasons for repeated scholarships for the same
> person is that
>
>- they are active, they apply every year
>- they are good communicators and self promoters
>- they have the time capacity to attend every year
>- previous years application arent tested against current
>applications for repetitions
>- each year the applications are judged in isolation that year,...
>- theres no validation of what was claimed in previous reporting to
>actual outcomes
>- the same core group of people put their hand up to make the
>selections every year
>- the criteria isnt sufficiently dynamic between each wikimania to
>draw new applicants to the top
>
>
> We can dismiss it as jealousy or sour grapes or some other type of gripe.
> Alternatively we can ask the questions, is there a basis for the perception
> can we do things better...
>
> On 20 May 2017 at 09:48, praveenp  wrote:
>
>> So it is incredibly appropriate to grant scholarship to same person again
>> and again? Usually applicant do not complain about this disparity because
>> it would immediately branded as their desperation. If we could not speak
>> about this, how could we ensure diversity and equality?
>> On Saturday 20 May 2017 01:53 AM, LFaraone wrote:
>>
>> It would be incredibly inappropriate to discuss a specific person's
>> eligibility in public like this.
>>
>> Simply put: people who get scholarships do so according to the published
>> selection criteria. People who do not, did not qualify.
>>
>>
>> In my opinion, sending emails like this one would
>> certainly in-and-of-itself be a reason against.
>>
>>
>> As a community, if questioning a process leads to disqualification, is
>> not a good tendency.  I was the only one sent mails in 2015. Why none of
>> the other applicant gets scholarship?
>>
>> While discussing this without any name, it immediately rebutted as false
>> argument. If we use any names, it is inappropriate!
>>
>>
>> On 19 May 2017 at 18:36, praveenp  wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I have sent a similar email on 2015 [1]
>>> ,
>>> but I haven't got a clear answer there yet. I simply asked why certain
>>> people get Wikimania Scholarship each year, while other applicants rejected
>>> repeatedly. I have used a comparison of User:Viswaprabha and myself
>>> (User:Praveenp) there.
>>>
>>> Please note that this email is not about someone going to Wikimanias
>>> again and again, it is about granting Wikimania scholarships to same
>>> persons again and again. This is not personal, I am just using
>>> personalities and scholarships familiar to me. I am sure that, atleast
>>> other Indian language communities facing similar problem. I occasionally
>>> hear people from other communities mentioning scholarship by terms like
>>> "Winkimania Scholarship" or "Wikimania Permanent  Scholarship".
>>>
>>> From my home wiki community (Malayalam Language Community), only year I
>>> remember that 

Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[cs]

I don’t believe it is a  to inform people that their scholarship application 
has passed Phase 1. 
It raises false hopes and gets some people working hard to develop a 
presentation or workshop they intended to make and making preliminary tentative 
arrangements to comply with their domestic and professional commitments - for 
some people a Wikimania is a journey half around the world incurring a total 
absence from home of many more days than the duration of the conference. It’s 
not a pleasure trip.

Kudpung

> On 19May, 2017, at 23:36, praveenp  wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I have sent a similar email on 2015 [1] 
> , 
> but I haven't got a clear answer there yet. I simply asked why certain people 
> get Wikimania Scholarship each year, while other applicants rejected 
> repeatedly. I have used a comparison of User:Viswaprabha and myself 
> (User:Praveenp) there.
> 
> Please note that this email is not about someone going to Wikimanias again 
> and again, it is about granting Wikimania scholarships to same persons again 
> and again. This is not personal, I am just using personalities and 
> scholarships familiar to me. I am sure that, atleast other Indian language 
> communities facing similar problem. I occasionally hear people from other 
> communities mentioning scholarship by terms like   "Winkimania Scholarship" 
> or "Wikimania Permanent  Scholarship".
> 
> From my home wiki community (Malayalam Language Community), only year I 
> remember that User:Viswaprabha didn't recieve the Wikimania scholarship was 
> 2016. I assume that was just because of the thread regarding this issue in 
> 2015. User:Netha Hussain, another user from our premises also get repeating 
> scholarships (not this year), but I am not sure that whether she represents 
> Malayalam Language Community. Frankly, I haven't seen any of these 
> scholarship receivers sharing anything to community in recent years. Then, 
> what is the advantage of selecting same persons again and again for 
> scholarship? Isn't it better to let more different people to share and 
> experience global community?
> 
> I also wish to share a personal experience of intolerance. I raised the issue 
> in 2015 and then in 2016 I applied scholarship. I didn't even pass "Selection 
> Phase 1"  yesteryear. According to Phase 1 criteria, every serious 
> application must pass to Phase 2. I asked about this to Ellie Young in a 
> reply, which I didn't get a response yet. Ironically, a very similar 
> application by me entered Phase 2 this year!
> 
> Could someone clarify?
> 
> [1] - https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimania-l/2015-July/006921.html 
> 
> 
> 
> Praveen Prakash
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Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[Gnangarra]

If there is a general opinion based on facts that the some individuals are
the recipients of a regular scholarship, then that is something that needs
to be discussed.  Unfortunately  to prove the hypothesis that this is
happening there does need to be some presentation of what the basis for
that theory is and that means actually naming individuals otherwise it gets
dismissed as nonsense but in naming, providing the basis the person gets
told  *"**sending emails like this one would certainly in-and-of-itself be
a reason against."  *ensures that no one ever questions the processes.
Well I really dont care anymore if I dont get to go to another Wikimania
I'm going to challenge the process because its seen as having flaws and
that to me needs to addressed.

What I see as the potential reasons for repeated scholarships for the same
person is that

   - they are active, they apply every year
   - they are good communicators and self promoters
   - they have the time capacity to attend every year
   - previous years application arent tested against current
   applications for repetitions
   - each year the applications are judged in isolation that year,...
   - theres no validation of what was claimed in previous reporting to
   actual outcomes
   - the same core group of people put their hand up to make the selections
   every year
   - the criteria isnt sufficiently dynamic between each wikimania to draw
   new applicants to the top


We can dismiss it as jealousy or sour grapes or some other type of gripe.
Alternatively we can ask the questions, is there a basis for the perception
can we do things better...

On 20 May 2017 at 09:48, praveenp  wrote:

> So it is incredibly appropriate to grant scholarship to same person again
> and again? Usually applicant do not complain about this disparity because
> it would immediately branded as their desperation. If we could not speak
> about this, how could we ensure diversity and equality?
> On Saturday 20 May 2017 01:53 AM, LFaraone wrote:
>
> It would be incredibly inappropriate to discuss a specific person's
> eligibility in public like this.
>
> Simply put: people who get scholarships do so according to the published
> selection criteria. People who do not, did not qualify.
>
>
> In my opinion, sending emails like this one would
> certainly in-and-of-itself be a reason against.
>
>
> As a community, if questioning a process leads to disqualification, is not
> a good tendency.  I was the only one sent mails in 2015. Why none of the
> other applicant gets scholarship?
>
> While discussing this without any name, it immediately rebutted as false
> argument. If we use any names, it is inappropriate!
>
>
> On 19 May 2017 at 18:36, praveenp  wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I have sent a similar email on 2015 [1]
>> ,
>> but I haven't got a clear answer there yet. I simply asked why certain
>> people get Wikimania Scholarship each year, while other applicants rejected
>> repeatedly. I have used a comparison of User:Viswaprabha and myself
>> (User:Praveenp) there.
>>
>> Please note that this email is not about someone going to Wikimanias
>> again and again, it is about granting Wikimania scholarships to same
>> persons again and again. This is not personal, I am just using
>> personalities and scholarships familiar to me. I am sure that, atleast
>> other Indian language communities facing similar problem. I occasionally
>> hear people from other communities mentioning scholarship by terms like
>> "Winkimania Scholarship" or "Wikimania Permanent  Scholarship".
>>
>> From my home wiki community (Malayalam Language Community), only year I
>> remember that User:Viswaprabha didn't recieve the Wikimania scholarship was
>> 2016. I assume that was just because of the thread regarding this issue in
>> 2015. User:Netha Hussain, another user from our premises also get repeating
>> scholarships (not this year), but I am not sure that whether she represents
>> Malayalam Language Community. Frankly, I haven't seen any of these
>> scholarship receivers sharing anything to community in recent years. Then,
>> what is the advantage of selecting same persons again and again for
>> scholarship? Isn't it better to let more different people to share and
>> experience global community?
>>
>> I also wish to share a personal experience of intolerance. I raised the
>> issue in 2015 and then in 2016 I applied scholarship. I didn't even pass
>> "Selection Phase 1"  yesteryear. According to Phase 1 criteria, every
>> serious application must pass to Phase 2. I asked about this to Ellie Young
>> in a reply, which I didn't get a response yet. Ironically, a very similar
>> application by me entered Phase 2 this year!
>>
>> Could someone clarify?
>>
>> [1] - https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimania-l/2015-Jul
>> y/006921.html
>>
>>
>> Praveen Prakash
>>
>> 

Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[Zana Strkovska]

The same questions every year :)

Regards,
Zana

2017-05-19 22:25 GMT+02:00 Samat :

> On Fri, May 19, 2017 at 10:23 PM, LFaraone  wrote:
>
>> It would be incredibly inappropriate to discuss a specific person's
>> eligibility in public like this.
>>
>> Simply put: people who get scholarships do so according to the published
>> selection criteria. People who do not, did not qualify.
>>
>
> I agree.
>
> Best,
> Samat
>
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>
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Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[Samat]

On Fri, May 19, 2017 at 10:23 PM, LFaraone  wrote:

> It would be incredibly inappropriate to discuss a specific person's
> eligibility in public like this.
>
> Simply put: people who get scholarships do so according to the published
> selection criteria. People who do not, did not qualify.
>

I agree.

Best,
Samat
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Re: [Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[LFaraone]

It would be incredibly inappropriate to discuss a specific person's
eligibility in public like this.

Simply put: people who get scholarships do so according to the published
selection criteria. People who do not, did not qualify.

In my opinion, sending emails like this one would
certainly in-and-of-itself be a reason against.

On 19 May 2017 at 18:36, praveenp  wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I have sent a similar email on 2015 [1]
> ,
> but I haven't got a clear answer there yet. I simply asked why certain
> people get Wikimania Scholarship each year, while other applicants rejected
> repeatedly. I have used a comparison of User:Viswaprabha and myself
> (User:Praveenp) there.
>
> Please note that this email is not about someone going to Wikimanias again
> and again, it is about granting Wikimania scholarships to same persons
> again and again. This is not personal, I am just using personalities and
> scholarships familiar to me. I am sure that, atleast other Indian language
> communities facing similar problem. I occasionally hear people from other
> communities mentioning scholarship by terms like   "Winkimania Scholarship"
> or "Wikimania Permanent  Scholarship".
>
> From my home wiki community (Malayalam Language Community), only year I
> remember that User:Viswaprabha didn't recieve the Wikimania scholarship was
> 2016. I assume that was just because of the thread regarding this issue in
> 2015. User:Netha Hussain, another user from our premises also get repeating
> scholarships (not this year), but I am not sure that whether she represents
> Malayalam Language Community. Frankly, I haven't seen any of these
> scholarship receivers sharing anything to community in recent years. Then,
> what is the advantage of selecting same persons again and again for
> scholarship? Isn't it better to let more different people to share and
> experience global community?
>
> I also wish to share a personal experience of intolerance. I raised the
> issue in 2015 and then in 2016 I applied scholarship. I didn't even pass
> "Selection Phase 1"  yesteryear. According to Phase 1 criteria, every
> serious application must pass to Phase 2. I asked about this to Ellie Young
> in a reply, which I didn't get a response yet. Ironically, a very similar
> application by me entered Phase 2 this year!
>
> Could someone clarify?
>
> [1] - https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimania-l/2015-Jul
> y/006921.html
>
>
> Praveen Prakash
>
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>


-- 
  -- Luke // LFaraone
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[Wikimania-l] Granting Scholarship to same persons every year

[praveenp]

Hi,

I have sent a similar email on 2015 [1]
,
but I haven't got a clear answer there yet. I simply asked why certain
people get Wikimania Scholarship each year, while other applicants rejected
repeatedly. I have used a comparison of User:Viswaprabha and myself
(User:Praveenp) there.

Please note that this email is not about someone going to Wikimanias again
and again, it is about granting Wikimania scholarships to same persons
again and again. This is not personal, I am just using personalities and
scholarships familiar to me. I am sure that, atleast other Indian language
communities facing similar problem. I occasionally hear people from other
communities mentioning scholarship by terms like   "Winkimania Scholarship"
or "Wikimania Permanent  Scholarship".

>From my home wiki community (Malayalam Language Community), only year I
remember that User:Viswaprabha didn't recieve the Wikimania scholarship was
2016. I assume that was just because of the thread regarding this issue in
2015. User:Netha Hussain, another user from our premises also get repeating
scholarships (not this year), but I am not sure that whether she represents
Malayalam Language Community. Frankly, I haven't seen any of these
scholarship receivers sharing anything to community in recent years. Then,
what is the advantage of selecting same persons again and again for
scholarship? Isn't it better to let more different people to share and
experience global community?

I also wish to share a personal experience of intolerance. I raised the
issue in 2015 and then in 2016 I applied scholarship. I didn't even pass
"Selection Phase 1"  yesteryear. According to Phase 1 criteria, every
serious application must pass to Phase 2. I asked about this to Ellie Young
in a reply, which I didn't get a response yet. Ironically, a very similar
application by me entered Phase 2 this year!

Could someone clarify?

[1] -
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimania-l/2015-July/006921.html


Praveen Prakash
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