On Mon, Jan 13, 2014 at 12:58 PM, Jessie Wild <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hi! I have a lot of Wikimania Scholarship statistics - obviously what is
> in the report on wiki only highlights a piece of them. As always, comments
> on meta reports are always helpful (there are none).
>

That report has been wonderful the last two years, by the way.

>
>
> Metacommented: I've copied the stats suggestion there, and some of the
other philosophical and practical questions from this thread.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimania/Scholarships/2013


>    - *85% *of 2013 Scholars *did not receive scholarship *in 2012 or
>    received a scholarship but were unable to attend in 2012
>    - *5% *of 2013 Scholars received a partial scholarship in 2012
>    - 10% of 2013 scholars were also scholars in 2012
>
> Thank you!


> Those are for WMF scholarships. It is important to note that about 40-50%
> of attendees at Wikimania who arrive on scholarships are actually sponsored
> directly by *chapter* rather than WMF. It is possible that this group of
> people are repeat attendees/scholars (I don't know).
>

Also, as long as this is an application-based process, with no sense of
nomination-for-recognition (in contrast to a purely achievement-based
scholarship process) this will have a bias towards those who are good at
writing a scholarship application.  Which is probably a much smaller pool
than the set of amazing people who would meld well with other maniacs.


> It is also true that many chapters send board representatives and/or staff
> to Wikimania. Again, this may contribute to the feeling that the same
> people are always attending. (Note: the same is true for WMF and WMF board.)
>

Yes.  The presence of institutional staff and governance at Wikimania has
grown, including sponsored attendees and the # of plenary spots in the
program dedicated to it.  This has shifted the focus of the events a bit,
perhaps away from creation and curation... (Are we becoming a movement of
institution builders and grantors?)

This accounts for O(100) people - including yours truly - who attend by
virtue of their staff or governance role, paid for by the movement.  I have
mixed feelings about this, as you know.  While not always the same people,
these are consistent roles over time.  But this is a different topic worthy
of its own discussion - and now has its own section on the talk page above.



> One specific example of this is a former scholar from the Kyrgyz
> Wikipedia. On first glance, it looked like her aggregate edit count was
> low, but on further digging the committee realized she had only been
> editing for a year, and was already a top 5 contributor on that wiki!
>

:-)  Despite posting some concerns in this thread, the overall selection
process attracts a much wider pool, and is more thorough, than it was when
I had anything to do with it.  (those concerns were on the table years ago
as well: if you have a purely contribution-based set of criteria, and the
same people apply every year, you'll choose many of the same people every
year.)


> I have lots of comments on the various topics that are getting throw
> around  -- partial scholarships, needs-based scholarships, disclosing of
> scholars names, data collection ... but I don't feel this is the best forum
> for discussion. If someone has a wiki page with these topics sectioned off,
> we should tackle a few together!
>

++ well said.  I will take all further comments to the wiki page.

Warmly,
SJ
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