Hi Tito,
I would to add to what Pavan and Ashwin said. Firstly I agree with both of
them, stressing the fact that community-based selection process is not
ideal for all the communities. This is for several reasons;
- There may be users who are only contributing to the main spaces
without much interaction with other contributors (comparatively new users).
In such cases, these users can be good potential participants for such
training, but eliminating them on the basis that they are not able to start
a discussion on village pump is not fair.
- *Comparatively *new users would be hesitant to start such discussion.
Also there may be users who haven't ever been to a real life Wiki-event,
and such mandates will only worsen and dampen their interest and changes to
interact with the broader community.
- Not every user is comfortable to participate in discussions of this
sort (non-content related). I have come across a lot of users who actively
participate in content related discussions, but never in this kind of
stuff. Now starting such discussions and they being main subject of that
will be a big no-no for them.
- As Pavan said, there is also a factor community health. Not all
communities in India are neutral towards all users. We have witnessed
disrupted power dynamics, and these conversations will worsen them.
With all these points, I am not advocating that community
discussions/endorsements are not important, they are, but not in this case.
When a major project is being planned it comes up to the relevant
communities, and discussions take place. But for an individual to
participate in a training, such stuff give unnecessary burden.
I remember this conversation coming up when we hosted TTT 2019 in
Visakhapatnam. It was decided that we will have a place for this in the
form, but not make it mandatory.
I would like to conclude saying that this is a not the best way to do it,
and making it mandatory is not at all fair.
Best,
Krishna Chaitanya
On Sat, Sep 7, 2019 at 10:29 AM Tito Dutta wrote:
> Hello,
> There are various opinion on this. On one hand, we have received feedback
> not supporting community selection on village pump. On the other hand, we
> have also got a several feedback and suggestions.
> Thanks for adding your input on this. We have noted these. Additional
> comment from other Wikimedians are welcome.
>
>
> Thanks
> Tito Dutta
> Note: If I don't reply to your email in 2 days, please feel free to remind
> me over email or phone call.
>
>
> On Sat, 7 Sep 2019 at 08:10, Ashwin Baindur
> wrote:
>
>> Pavan, thanks for your input. You do make a valid point. Selection by
>> community where the community spirit is absent is likely to throw up
>> unsuitable candidates because the selection is now based on group dynamics
>> and we have all seen how wrong that can go.
>>
>> If CIS A2K is providing Advanced Wikisource workshop, it is good for
>> asking help from prospective host communities to host the event, but not
>> selection of suitable candidates. That is the prerogative and
>> responsibility of CIS A2K. The easiest way for a program to go downhill is
>> to choose less suitable candidates over more deserving ones. That process
>> necessarily must have both subjective and objective inputs. The objective
>> inputs can come from the demonstrated body of work, the subjective has to
>> be based on long term interaction with editors and get the community inputs.
>>
>> Please note there is a difference between community inputs vs asking
>> community to select.
>>
>> I urge that this aspect be rethought out and taken into consideration.
>> Since our WikiSource community is essentially small, our resources limited
>> and WikiSource is volunteer effort driven, it is imperative that the most
>> suitable candidates be chosen.
>>
>> On Fri, Sep 6, 2019, 8:52 PM pavan santhosh
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hello Jayanta,
>>>
>>> I would like to appreciate you and team for planning and rolling out
>>> this training. Along with that, I would also like to raise a major concern
>>> which is unrelated to bidding but is more about program design.
>>>
>>> Meta page about this event says that "The selection [of participants]
>>> will be done by each Indic Wikisource community.". Apart from all good
>>> intentions behind this process, I would like to point out that in many
>>> cases this is likely to create barriers for participation.
>>>
>>>- *Communities with community health issues: *For some communities
>>>which are having community health issues, this will only result in
>>> further
>>>damage.
>>>- *Even for remaining healthy communities:* Even in those
>>>communities, I would like to point out to you that there are still
>>> several
>>>community members who never felt comfortable in commenting or posting
>>>anything in their respective village pumps, in almost all languages.
>>>
>>> At large, this approach is going to be counter productive to co
