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 <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> 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" <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> 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" <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> 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
<[email protected]> 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_scholars/Reviewer%27s_guide
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:TPS/Wikimania_scholars/Reviewer%27s_guide>>).
Regards,
On May 19, 2017 7:56 PM, "Risker"
<[email protected]> 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
<[email protected]> 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
<[email protected]> 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
<[email protected]> wrote:
Hi,
I have sent a similar email on 2015
[1]
<https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimania-l/2015-July/006921.html>,
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
<https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimania-l/2015-July/006921.html>
Praveen Prakash
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President Wikimedia Australia
WMAU:
http://www.wikimedia.org.au/wiki/User:Gnangarra
<http://www.wikimedia.org.au/wiki/User:Gnangarra>
Photo Gallery: http://gnangarra.redbubble.com
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