I was wrong that viswaprabha get scholarship since last decade, I didn't check the statement personally. But he got 4 scholarship (including this time) since 2012. Someone else doubted above in this thread that this might be a case of 10000 edits vs 300 edits disproportion issue, edit counters says it is not. He himself claiming that he is rarely sending emails. To local language community, no body shares their experience from Wikimania. Active users always feel they are avoided and kept in dark.

All kind of discouraging arguments including, threat of rejection from next scholarship arises, when someone complain (that happened last year, this year someone said it openly).  In a friendly conversation, I was even told last year that my translatewiki contributions to mediawiki were not that important because I was translating  to  "Malayalam language". Even here I cannot give examples of other users because they don't want to be portrayed as incompetent or desperate.

I hope this system will be changed and different users will get scholarship in different years so that diversity can prosper.

Regards,

Praveen

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 <me.praveen@gmail.com> 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" <ajraddatz@gmail.com> 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" <me.praveen@gmail.com> 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 <ajraddatz@gmail.com> 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>).

Regards,

On May 19, 2017 7:56 PM, "Risker" <risker.wp@gmail.com> 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 <gnangarra@gmail.com> 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 <me.praveen@gmail.com> 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 <me.praveen@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi,

I have sent a similar email on 2015 [1], 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

Praveen Prakash

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