One of my persistent suggestions to this dilemma has always been to involve some kind of community endorsement into the selection process.

Crude Methodology:
All applicants from the particular communit(y/ies) may enlist themselves at their community village pump. All active users in that / those communities may or may not support his application. This will be considered as a score point with a suitable weightage among the broad list of criteria by the award committee.


However, this step may have some inherent negative aspects:

1. Identity of applicants (both successful and unsuccessful) will be compromised unless some mechanism is involved to limit access to such endorsement pages.

But then, instead of village pump, it could be an endorsement vote system submitted by community members directly to a destination visible only to the award committee.

2. There is a chance for nepotism, especially working against those serious editors who may be actually doing a good job of adding unbiased neutral content against the wish of a majority with biased editing culture.

What I propose is only an idea in its crude form. We may discuss the feasibility of this at length and with appropriate corrections, incorporate such terms to the next Wikimania onwards.

-User:Viswaprabha



On 20 May 2017 at 23:38, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki@gmail.com> wrote:
Over the years, people have gotten funded to go to Wikimania in the following ways: 
- by the WMF, as staff or board 
- by the WMF, as scholarship recipients 
- by various chapter grant programs 
- by various private special grant programs for scholarships, often administered by chapters or the WMF
- by outside "sister' organizations, like WikiEdu 
- by outside employers, eg academic faculty who use their university travel funding to attend
- out of pocket 

I don't have a sense of what the exact proportions are, but there is always a mix of people funded in all of these ways at all of the Wikimanias, and people do switch back and forth between funding models: for instance, I've never gotten a scholarship, but I was funded by the WMF while I was on the board, and the rest I paid out of pocket or by my university. 

IMO, the scholarship program should balance between taking people working on interesting projects around the globe and long-time participants. It's a really tough job - it's very hard to tell what someone will bring to the conference and bring back from a scholarship application, and there are always many more wonderful applicants than there are funds for (and always applicants we want to have who can't get visas in time, too). 

I'd be glad to hear ideas for how to make a fairer, better process. We've experimented with lots of things over the years, and it sounds like the current committee really tried to be thoughtful. 

best, 
phoebe 


On Sat, May 20, 2017 at 1:55 PM, rupert THURNER <rupert.thurner@gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks for the numbers Mike! Do you have a statistic how many people were paid to attend by other means? How many people did apply and how many edits did they make? Because Risker seems to underestimate the effect of a wikimania to rather new editors. And overestimate the effect on somebody going often even if this person has a great bureaucracy talent and fills out forms and reports nobody reads afterwards...

Rupert 

On May 20, 2017 08:30, "Michael Peel" <email@mikepeel.net> wrote:
To put this into perspective with some numbers: in 2014-17, out of 378 people awarded scholarships, 309 people have been awarded one scholarship, 55 have been awarded two, 14 have been awarded three, and 0 have been awarded four. Caveat that this is solely from the WMF lists on meta, so isn't including other scholarships/funding methods that aren't listed.

Thanks,
Mike

On 20 May 2017, at 04:07, 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?



Praveen Prakash

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