Hi,
As a disclaimer: I have been in multiple roles, including receiving a WMF scholarship
(2014, 2017 and 2018), being denied a WMF scholarship, attending Wikimania at my own
expense and reviewing Wikimania scholarship applications for a chapter.
From this experience I do not agree with the 'law
of diminishing returns' or draconian measures. However, there are several trends:
1) First Wikimania is usually extremely motivating for almost everyone. Yet it is hard for
a first-time Wikimania attendee to clearly explain the value of Wikimania for them before
attending it. On one hand, these people are very likely to become more involved, start new
projects, share new ideas etc. On the other hand, their scholarship applications will be
most likely somewhat vague on their plans for Wikimania, and we have to take that into
account.
2) Second and following Wikimanias are indeed less likely to bring that much additional
motivation. However, there is huge added value as these attendees already know what to
expect from and what to look for at Wikimania and in some ways make Wikimania itself more
valuable. This includes sharing at Wikimania: participating at round tables, making
presentations or posters etc. This also includes learning from Wikimania: asking the
questions their community wants to ask, meeting the people who work on the topics they are
interested in etc. This is not a diminishing return, but this requires to think of the
added value you can bring to Wikimania.
3) For veteran Wikimedians attending a lot of times, Wikimania is also a place to meet
people with whom they work online and share experience both ways. For example, we know
people want to meet stewards to learn more about their work, and stewards want to meet
users to get some insight on their role. This might be a sufficient motivation to attend
at own expense if costs are not too prohibitive, but if this is the case (I don't
think we have stewards in Sub-Saharan Africa for example) some of them will probably need
scholarships. They will bring added value by their experience and role even if they might
have attended in previous years.
I don't think there is a simple solution but this definitely deserves a discussion
either here or during the conference.
Best regards,
Mykola (NickK)
--- Оригінальне повідомлення ---
Від кого: "Federico Leva (Nemo)" <nemowiki(a)gmail.com>
Дата: 30 травня 2018, 10:38:09
cs, 30/05/2018 10:16:
Is there any other way of investigating these
issues /without/
mentioning the names of the scholarship awardees?
Well, in theory we've been publishing the names of people who got a
scholarship for a few years now, so it should be possible to make a
complete list of repeat recipients in N years and then talk just about
the number rather than names.
I agree that repeat scholarships are a bad way to spend donor money, for
the law of diminishing returns. We can disagree on how big the problem
is, but we have sufficient evidence that it exists. In the past I've
proposed and implemented severe penalties, but I'll clearly admit that I
failed to effectively reform the review process.
I personally agree with more draconian solutions which would set very
clear expectations. A total ban on a scholarship for those who got one
the previous year is a possibility. It would be as fair as re-election
limits in democratic competitions.
Federico
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