On Mon, Jan 13, 2014 at 12:06 AM, Philippe Beaudette <philippe@wikimedia.org
wrote:
On Sun, Jan 12, 2014 at 7:35 PM, Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
I too am concerned that the current scholarship process tends to polarize the community, and too often simply rewards long-time community members, or those who are connected to large movement entities, with free travel: rather than increasing the diversity of new voices and faces at global events.
Do we have any statistics to back up this claim?
I share a concern; it would be welcome to find it unwarranted.
The public statistics I know of are these reports: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/Scholarships/2013 That level of detail does not address either of the two stated concerns: that some recipients are not so active, and that there is limited rotation.
It would be welcome to see a count of the # of recipients who attended Wikimania for the first time; the # who received a travel scholarship for the first time; the # who were active contributors and to which {clusters of} projects. I also find Nemo's version of transparency compelling: In cases where scholarships are presented as an honor, the recipients are named, which also seems in the wiki-spirit.
SJ