I just want to say I agree 100% with Risker here. Obviously there are going to be a lot of people unhappy that they didn't get a scholarship, and to some extent the decision about who did and did not receive funding is a purely subjective one. I'm not sure that releasing all this information would necessarily provide any benefit to the movement, as opposed to more fuel for drama and sniping that would help nobody.
Not to mention that it would be grossly unethical at this point to publish the details of applicants if they weren't made fully aware of how and what information would be published when they made their application. I expect many excellent applicants would not apply in the future if we were to start posting information about people's personal situations and the like to satisfy some vague notion of "transparency". Cheers, Craig On 19 April 2017 at 14:02, Risker <risker...@gmail.com> wrote: > Pine, have you noticed how we're seeing fewer and fewer well-qualified > community members actively seeking out the responsibility of various > committee roles? (I'll point out that this is particularly noticeable > amongst women within the community.) It's because they are being > bombarded, more and more, by unreasonable levels of criticism. I can say > this with a fair bit of authority because I've been involved inhigh-profile > committees, task forces, steering groups and responsible roles for 8 years, > and the level of criticism has definitely affected where I'm willing to > invest my volunteer efforts. I turn down 10 attempts to recruit me for > various tasks for every one I accept, and I'm not alone. > > The Wikimania Scholarship Committee does work that will never satisfy > everyone, and all of their decisions will be found wanting by some segment > of the community. It is a very difficult job - there are so many factors > to weigh that, even though there are some basic minimal levels of activity > expected, deciding between a candidate with a few thousand edits who is one > of the most proliferate editors of a small wiki (e.g., the editor mainly > translates high-value articles and posts them in a single edit) against one > who specializes in high quality images (but only uploads 50 a year) against > one who averages 15,000 edits but mainly works in anti-vandalism, against > one who has few on-wiki contributions but has trained and educated dozens > of very productive editors....well, you see the challenge. These are all > valuable contributors - but their contribution to the movement is very > different, and those who value some of those contributions over others will > find personal justification in complaining about the decisions the > committee makes. > > There may be some reasonable arguments about providing some aggregate > information such as the number of applicants from different regions and the > percentage that were successful....but again, there are other routes to > Wikimania including scholarships from large chapters, which often sponsor > community members from other regions, and often select recipients from the > pool of WMF-sponsored scholarship applicants. > > Of course, there is an easier way to affect the outcome of these > discussions. Sign up in late 2017/early 2018 to become a member of the > scholarship committee. > > Risker/Anne > > > > On 18 April 2017 at 23:32, Pine W <wiki.p...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Risker: it seems to me that there are two two different issues. >> >> First, fear of criticism or controversy are not justifications for >> withholding information. >> >> That said, I tend to agree you about the privacy issue for applicants. >> Any information releases should be compliant with what applicants were told >> at the time that they applied, and perhaps in future years there can be >> more specific considerations of what kinds of information should be >> released. Perhaps not much information will be released this year if users >> weren't told that the fact that they applied would be published (and my >> guess is that they weren't), but perhaps in future years this can be done >> along with other information that is not particularly sensitive, e.g. >> public contribution histories and public roles such as board or committee >> memberships. >> >> (Note: I have not applied for a Wikimania scholarship and I don't plan to >> do so in the foreseeable future.) >> >> Pine >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikimania-l mailing list >> Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimania-l mailing list > Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l > >
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