Praveen, Of course I follow what you are saying. I also agree that now is the time to have this conversation after Wikimania is ended and before the next Wikimania scholarships process begins. For the feedback from scholars, see this link: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Past_Wikimanias Here are 15 reports by earlybirds on their Wikimania productivity: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikimania/Scholarships/Reports/2015
I just reread what Gerard wrote here: https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimania-l/2015-July/006921.html I agree with everything he wrote and I do think there is a huge bias in the scholarships committee towards people who can present well and who can "sell" themselves as productive Wikimanians in English. The sticky question of what makes a "productive Wikimanian" is quite an interesting one and it would be worthwhile to put some time into it. Anything you come up with on the nationality bias would benefit the entire non-US community, not just the Malayalam community.
If one compares the Dutch community to other European communities regarding number of speakers, number of articles in their language-pedia and so on, I think the number of Dutch "productive Wikimanians" has been very high from year to year. That said, it is also true that for many Dutch people under the age of 60, they can read and write English quite fluently. This makes it quite easy for them to present and sell their ideas in English.
Jane
On Fri, Jul 31, 2015 at 6:59 AM, praveenp me.praveen@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
Osmar Valdebenito, No offense was intended :-(. For prominent communities that may be true, but could you check list of users who got scholarship from Malayalam community.
Amir Ladsgroup,
- As you can see there is nothing confidential or personal in Gerards
reply. He just gave a summary of "known" practices. 2) Users are not asking for trophies. They also want to participate Wikimania and share and get the experience. 3) Wikimedia projects are community processes. I simply don't understand how granting scholarship to same persons again and again for five or six years help that process. I also dont understand that communication and sharing of multiple viewpoints, ideas and practices is possible in the above scenario. 4) Yes; If clicking tick marks in translatewiki on some 500 string in 5 minutes before applying for scholarship (as reviewing the translation) is a prominent contribution.
In the beginning every body treated equal, we have multiple participants (with understandable reasons) for Wikimania. It started to shrink later and now people plainly believe granting scholarship is an act of favoritism. I also want to prove I am wrong.
Regards, Praveen. P User:Praveenp
PS: Mail striped because mailman held my previous reply claiming " Message body is too big:"
On Friday 31 July 2015 05:03 AM, Amir Ladsgroup wrote:
There are several issues I want to comment: 1-First of all. Do you have permission from Gerard to publish your conversation? Maybe there is something confidential in it, Did you care to check? 2- Scholarship is not award or trophy, bear that in mind. 3- People are expected to come here and learn, communicate, etc. that's why a same person gets scholarship, 4- No one's wife got scholarship because of being wife of someone. They probably are prominent contributors too. 5- Check my first question and answer that. (Emphasizing)
Best
On Fri, Jul 31, 2015 at 12:05 AM Osmar Valdebenito < b1mbo.wikipedia@gmail.com> wrote:
Sorry, but when I read "No regular Wikimedian get any scholarship", I stopped reading. It is not only a lie, but also very unfair to all the extremely great Wikimedians that attended and made great contributions in Wikimania, and also the volunteers that have helped now and in the past reviewing and evaluated thousand of applications in the Scholarship Committee.
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