Risker: it seems to me that there are two two different issues.

First, fear of criticism or controversy are not justifications for withholding information.

That said, I tend to agree you about the privacy issue for applicants. Any information releases should be compliant with what applicants were told at the time that they applied, and perhaps in future years there can be more specific considerations of what kinds of information should be released. Perhaps not much information will be released this year if users weren't told that the fact that they applied would be published (and my guess is that they weren't), but perhaps in future years this can be done along with other information that is not particularly sensitive, e.g. public contribution histories and public roles such as board or committee memberships.

(Note: I have not applied for a Wikimania scholarship and I don't plan to do so in the foreseeable future.)

Pine

I just want to say I agree 100% with Risker here. Obviously there are going to be a lot of people unhappy that they didn't get a scholarship, and to some extent the decision about who did and did not receive funding is a purely subjective one. I'm not sure that releasing all this information would necessarily provide any benefit to the movement, as opposed to more fuel for drama and sniping that would help nobody.

Not to mention that it would be grossly unethical at this point to publish the details of applicants if they weren't made fully aware of how and what information would be published when they made their application. I expect many excellent applicants would not apply in the future if we were to start posting information about people's personal situations and the like to satisfy some vague notion of "transparency".

Cheers, Craig

On 19 April 2017 at 14:02, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:

Pine, have you noticed how we're seeing fewer and fewer well-qualified community members actively seeking out the responsibility of various committee roles? (I'll point out that this is particularly noticeable amongst women within the community.) It's because they are being bombarded, more and more, by unreasonable levels of criticism. I can say this with a fair bit of authority because I've been involved inhigh-profile committees, task forces, steering groups and responsible roles for 8 years, and the level of criticism has definitely affected where I'm willing to invest my volunteer efforts. I turn down 10 attempts to recruit me for various tasks for every one I accept, and I'm not alone.

The Wikimania Scholarship Committee does work that will never satisfy everyone, and all of their decisions will be found wanting by some segment of the community. It is a very difficult job - there are so many factors to weigh that, even though there are some basic minimal levels of activity expected, deciding between a candidate with a few thousand edits who is one of the most proliferate editors of a small wiki (e.g., the editor mainly translates high-value articles and posts them in a single edit) against one who specializes in high quality images (but only uploads 50 a year) against one who averages 15,000 edits but mainly works in anti-vandalism, against one who has few on-wiki contributions but has trained and educated dozens of very productive editors....well, you see the challenge. These are all valuable contributors - but their contribution to the movement is very different, and those who value some of those contributions over others will find personal justification in complaining about the decisions the committee makes.

There may be some reasonable arguments about providing some aggregate information such as the number of applicants from different regions and the percentage that were successful....but again, there are other routes to Wikimania including scholarships from large chapters, which often sponsor community members from other regions, and often select recipients from the pool of WMF-sponsored scholarship applicants.

Of course, there is an easier way to affect the outcome of these discussions. Sign up in late 2017/early 2018 to become a member of the scholarship committee.

Risker/Anne

On 18 April 2017 at 23:32, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:

...

Risker: it seems to me that there are two two different issues.

First, fear of criticism or controversy are not justifications for withholding information.

That said, I tend to agree you about the privacy issue for applicants. Any information releases should be compliant with what applicants were told at the time that they applied, and perhaps in future years there can be more specific considerations of what kinds of information should be released. Perhaps not much information will be released this year if users weren't told that the fact that they applied would be published (and my guess is that they weren't), but perhaps in future years this can be done along with other information that is not particularly sensitive, e.g. public contribution histories and public roles such as board or committee memberships.

(Note: I have not applied for a Wikimania scholarship and I don't plan to do so in the foreseeable future.)

Pine

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Hi, transparency on the selection can only work when also the application texts are public because we have many very active Wikimedians who are not very clear about what they ever did or actually do, how this is relevant to Wikimania and if they are able to and want to share this at Wikimania and back in their local communities afterwards. However, if only the results were published, there could be no useful discussion between the committee and others without information from the application texts. But when applications are public, it would make absolutely no sense to have a committee for the selection because every decision by the committe could be easily be debated. When the expertise of the committee is questioned, people would be hesitant to participate as already described in this thread. Hence, only a public selection done by the community as a replacement for the committee would make sense. When the community would decide on the applications, we had to define who would be part of that community: who's eligible to vote on these? should the votes be public? would large discussions be allowed? etc. As we have lots of experience with public elections, we can also easily name the disadvantages of these: Popularity contests for only those people who can stand public criticism, sometimes by few very loud destructive people or even enemy groups, on everything they every did. Tons of people would be refrain from applying at all, something we strongy have to face at the moment with elections for adminship or other committees as pointed out by Risker. Of course, we had transparency as a result and more public discussions around the selection, but we would have no safe space for applicants at all (also in terms of sensitive data like personal living conditions and anonymity). I see no third working model besides these and my preference would clearly be the committee. But if you like, you can, of course, seek consensus on the other model. I will raise my concerns there as pointed out here. Best,Martin/DerHexer(long-time scholarship committee member and co-organizer) Von: Jonathan Cardy werespielchequers@gmail.com An: Wikimania general list (open subscription) wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org Gesendet: 9:09 Mittwoch, 19.April 2017 Betreff: Re: [Wikimania-l] WMF Scholarships to attend Wikimania

Risker is right. You can't publish such a table this year because it would break the promises made to applicants who were declined.  You could start a discussion on meta, and make a proposal to publish such data for future Wikimanias. I'd hope you wouldn't get consensus, but if you did we could then monitor the effect on the 2018 Wikimania. If the requirement to publish details on unsuccessful applicants as well as successful ones was deterring a significant proportion of applicants, or deterring certain types of applicants such as applicants from particular countries, then I'd hope 2019 would revert to the obviously superior system of not publicly listing the people who applied for scholarships but were declined. I do appreciate that in the future historians studying Wikipedia would really appreciate this data, and I can see the point of putting it in a sealed archive and publishing after all concerned have probably died. I'm not sure I see the point in publishing it now, if people are concerned about fairness then get someone you trust to run for the scholarship committee.

Regards WereSpielChequers

On 19 Apr 2017, at 04:14, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:

I would like the Wikimedia Foundation NOT to do that.  Our user privacy is to be respected.  People who applied for scholarships had every reason to expect that the WMF would not publish their names if they were not awarded one, for example. Nobody who applies is guaranteed a WMF scholarship; however, several other organizations actively provide scholarships to community members who did not receive a WMF scholarship.  Transparency does not require putting users into embarrassing or awkward situations, and many users who applied for scholarships may not have done so if they were told that the names and details of their application would be published.   The scholarship committee is made up largely of volunteers, and they don't deserve the inevitable brickbats that would be thrown their way if particularly vocal members of the community disagreed with their decisions. And it's a given that just about every member of the community will disagree with one or more decision made by the committee.  So no, please don't publish any details of any application, or how any individual candidate was assessed.  That's not transparency.

Risker/Anne

On 18 April 2017 at 22:51, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja pavanaja@vishvakannada.com wrote:

Hello, I would like WMF to make the list of applicants, their contributions, the weightage used for each kind of contribution and the final list of scholarship awardees in a table form. Since WMF is run by the contributions of the volunteers, such a transparency is definitely needed from WMF. I hope WMF will oblige. Regards,Pavanaja  From: Wikimania-l [mailto:wikimania-l-bounces@ lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Ellie Young Sent: 19 April 2017 01:23 AM To: Wikimania general list (open subscription) Subject: [Wikimania-l] WMF Scholarships to attend Wikimania Everyone who applied for a scholarship to Wikimania '17 has been notified about the status.   If you have not heard, please check your spam filter, or send email to ask about the status to:   wikimaniascholarships@ wikimedia.org April 18 is the deadline for people who were offered a scholarship to respond. A final list of everyone who was awarded and able to accept will be posted to on the wiki in early May. We expect registration for Wikimania '17 to go live on or before May 1st.   -- Ellie YoungEvents ManagerWikimedia Foundationeyoung@wikimedia.org​   ______________________________ _________________ Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia. org https://lists.wikimedia.org/ mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

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Dear Pine,

You wouldn't get transparency simply by publishing a list of applicants. You would only get transparency by publishing a list of applications, including any other info being used by the scholarship committee. For example if they want to give priority to people who they have previously declined, they could only do that transparently by including previous applications. Otherwise you have list of applicants and when you query why a decision was made to give a scholarship to one person and not another all that people can say is that "judging by the applications we think we made the right choice". OK you could redact some data they hopefully ignore such as real name and exact contact details. But simply publishing part of the information used to make a decision does not enable you to understand how people came to the decisions they did.

As for whether the community is plateauing or growing, from the stats I monitor or help maintain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Time_Between_Edits, the English Wikipedia community at least has rebounded significantly since the 2014 low. More importantly from the perspective of things like Wikimania, the community seems to be greying and stabilising. Not many editors under 18 attend Wikimania, and several of the roles that Risker talks of are limited to legal adults; so the decline in our number of minors at a time of general growth should mean we have many more people available for such roles or who are likely to attend things like Wikimania.

Regards

WereSpielChequers

On 20 Apr 2017, at 08:31, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:

*I'll respond to Risker and DerHexer in a single email.*

Pine, have you noticed how we're seeing fewer and fewer well-qualified

community members actively seeking out the responsibility of various committee roles?

*While I haven't looked at committees' member applications in some time, it wouldn't surprise me if a dwindling pool of highly qualified applicants is a problem. My understanding from the information that I see from WMF Analytics is that our population has somewhat plateaued. I've been thinking for awhile about how to address this problem, and while I think that there are ways of making incremental progress such as with the Wikipedia in Education Program and the engagement of more enthusiasts for particular subjects like cultural heritage or public health, I have yet to imagine a way to make significant progress. I'd be glad to have an off-list conversation with you about that subject.*

It's because they are being bombarded, more and more, by unreasonable

levels of criticism. I can say this with a fair bit of authority because I've been involved inhigh-profile committees, task forces, steering groups and responsible

roles for 8 years, and the level of criticism has definitely affected

where I'm willing to invest my volunteer efforts. I turn down 10 attempts to recruit me for various tasks for every one I accept, and I'm not alone.

*I don't volunteer for Arbcom for similar reasons: too much stress and conflict, and too little gratitude. WMF is working on some of the civility issues, but that's a long journey. Again, I'd be glad to have an off-list conversation about that sometime.*

The Wikimania Scholarship Committee does work that will never satisfy

everyone, and all of their decisions will be found wanting by some segment of the community. It is a very difficult job - there are so many factors to weigh that,

even though there are some basic minimal levels of activity expected,

deciding between a candidate with a few thousand edits who is one of the most proliferate editors of a small wiki (e.g., the editor mainly translates high-value articles

and posts them in a single edit) against one who specializes in high

quality images (but only uploads 50 a year) against one > who averages 15,000 edits but mainly works in anti-vandalism, against one who has few on-wiki

contributions but has trained and educated dozens of very productive

editors....well, you see the challenge. These are all valuable contributors - but their contribution to the movement is very different, and those who value some of those

contributions over others will find personal justification in complaining

about the decisions the committee makes.

There may be some reasonable arguments about providing some aggregate

information such as the number of applicants from different regions and the percentage that were successful....but again, there are other routes to Wikimania

including scholarships from large chapters, which often sponsor community

members from other regions, and often select recipients from the pool of WMF-sponsored scholarship applicants.

*I think that publishing the usernames of the applicants, the decisions made by the committee, and perhaps some other aggregate information would be a good move in the spirit of transparency, if done in future years when applicants can be told in advance that this will be done. I anticipate that there will be disagreements, but civil discussions are beneficial to inform future work of the Committee as well as community and WMF practices and policies.*

Of course, there is an easier way to affect the outcome of these

discussions. Sign up in late 2017/early 2018 to become a member of the scholarship committee.

*No thank you.*

On Wed, Apr 19, 2017 at 12:41 AM, DerHexer derhexer@wikipedia.de wrote:

Hi,

transparency on the selection can only work when also the application texts are public because we have many very active Wikimedians who are not very clear about what they ever did or actually do, how this is relevant to Wikimania and if they are able to and want to share this at Wikimania and back in their local communities afterwards. However, if only the results were published, there could be no useful discussion between the committee and others without information from the application texts.

*I think that partial information is better than none. However, I think there's room for discussion about what kinds of information should be made public; for example it might be that individual users' countries aren't published in the scholarships announcement if the user hasn't themselves already declared that information publicly. I am mindful of the safety of scholarship applicants who live in countries where their participation in Wikipedia might place them at risk, and I would take that into consideration when designing the reports that are published. Also, I think it's reasonable to withhold the prose application texts that applicants write to the Committee for privacy and safety reasons.*

But when applications are public, it would make absolutely no sense to have a committee for the selection because every decision by the committe could be easily be debated. When the expertise of the committee is questioned, people would be hesitant to participate as already described in this thread. Hence, only a public selection done by the community as a replacement for the committee would make sense.

*Grant applications are public, and we have grants committees, and those committees' decisions are subject to review and occasional debate. It seems to me that the Wikimania Scholarship Committee should align itself with the grants committees in publishing decisions. Discussions and debates, when done civilly, can be informative and lead to better decisions in the future. *

When the community would decide on the applications, we had to define who would be part of that community: who's eligible to vote on these? should the votes be public? would large discussions be allowed? etc. As we have lots of experience with public elections, we can also easily name the disadvantages of these: Popularity contests for only those people who can stand public criticism, sometimes by few very loud destructive people or even enemy groups, on everything they every did. Tons of people would be refrain from applying at all, something we strongy have to face at the moment with elections for adminship or other committees as pointed out by Risker.

*I'm having a little difficulty understanding this paragraph, so please help me understand. Is the concern about electing the members of the Scholarship Committee, or is the concern about direct public votes on individual scholarship applications?*

Of course, we had transparency as a result and more public discussions around the selection, but we would have no safe space for applicants at all (also in terms of sensitive data like personal living conditions and anonymity). I see no third working model besides these and my preference would clearly be the committee. But if you like, you can, of course, seek consensus on the other model. I will raise my concerns there as pointed out here.

*As I stated above, I think that publishing some information to enhance transparency and inform future decisions can be done while withholding other information for the safety and privacy of applicants.* *From my perspective, the purpose of making decisions of the Scholarship Committee more transparent is *not* to foster controversy or debate for their own sake. My hope is that more transparency would foster civil discussion, promote learning, and facilitate improvements in future years for the committee as well as for the WMF and the community in general.*

Pine

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Hi WSC,

Otherwise you have list of applicants and when you query why a decision

was made to give a scholarship to one person and not another all that people can say is that "judging by the applications we think we made the right

choice". OK you could redact some data they hopefully ignore such as real

name and exact contact details. But simply publishing part of the information used to make a decision does not enable you to understand how people

came to the decisions they did.

My view is that partial transparency is better than none. I don't anticipate that redacted applications will be sufficient for people to make appeals of individual decisions, but what could be of public interest and analyzable from partial transparency are patterns of selections, for example if all 10 applicants from Wikimedia Alaska were awarded scholarships while all 20 applicants from Wikimedia User Group Microsoft were denied scholarships. Also, seeing year-to-year trends would be of interest, such as people who are awarded or denied scholarships for multiple consecutive years.

the community seems to be greying and stabilising. Not many editors under

18 attend Wikimania, and several of the roles that Risker talks of are limited to legal adults; so the decline in our number of minors at a time

of general growth should mean we have many more people available for such

roles or who are likely to attend things like Wikimania.

Perhaps WMF will want to research whether it's true that the quality of participants and/or number of applicants to online committee roles is declining. On English Wikipedia, the *Signpost *is currently having a near-death experience https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AWikipedia_Signpost%2FNewsroom&type=revision&diff=776196794&oldid=767858848, which I consider worrisome and disappointing. I share Risker's concern about the "community health" of online organized groups such as grants committees (as well as WikiProjects, arbitration committees, etc), and would be interested in seeing a holistic analysis of the situation of organized Wikimedia community groups that do most of their work via Internet. The scope of this is a bit different from the scope of Wikimania, so perhaps we can continue discussing this topic on-wiki or on a different mailing list.

Pine

On Thu, Apr 20, 2017 at 6:43 AM, WereSpielChequers < werespielchequers@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Pine,

You wouldn't get transparency simply by publishing a list of applicants. You would only get transparency by publishing a list of applications, including any other info being used by the scholarship committee. For example if they want to give priority to people who they have previously declined, they could only do that transparently by including previous applications. Otherwise you have list of applicants and when you query why a decision was made to give a scholarship to one person and not another all that people can say is that "judging by the applications we think we made the right choice". OK you could redact some data they hopefully ignore such as real name and exact contact details. But simply publishing part of the information used to make a decision does not enable you to understand how people came to the decisions they did.

As for whether the community is plateauing or growing, from the stats I monitor or help maintain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Time_Between_Edits, the English Wikipedia community at least has rebounded significantly since the 2014 low. More importantly from the perspective of things like Wikimania, the community seems to be greying and stabilising. Not many editors under 18 attend Wikimania, and several of the roles that Risker talks of are limited to legal adults; so the decline in our number of minors at a time of general growth should mean we have many more people available for such roles or who are likely to attend things like Wikimania.

Regards

WereSpielChequers

On 20 Apr 2017, at 08:31, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:

*I'll respond to Risker and DerHexer in a single email.*

...

Pine, have you noticed how we're seeing fewer and fewer well-qualified

community members actively seeking out the responsibility of various committee roles?

*While I haven't looked at committees' member applications in some time, it wouldn't surprise me if a dwindling pool of highly qualified applicants is a problem. My understanding from the information that I see from WMF Analytics is that our population has somewhat plateaued. I've been thinking for awhile about how to address this problem, and while I think that there are ways of making incremental progress such as with the Wikipedia in Education Program and the engagement of more enthusiasts for particular subjects like cultural heritage or public health, I have yet to imagine a way to make significant progress. I'd be glad to have an off-list conversation with you about that subject.*

...

It's because they are being bombarded, more and more, by unreasonable

levels of criticism. I can say this with a fair bit of authority because I've been involved inhigh-profile committees, task forces, steering groups and responsible

...

roles for 8 years, and the level of criticism has definitely affected

where I'm willing to invest my volunteer efforts. I turn down 10 attempts to recruit me for various tasks for every one I accept, and I'm not alone.

*I don't volunteer for Arbcom for similar reasons: too much stress and conflict, and too little gratitude. WMF is working on some of the civility issues, but that's a long journey. Again, I'd be glad to have an off-list conversation about that sometime.*

...

The Wikimania Scholarship Committee does work that will never satisfy

everyone, and all of their decisions will be found wanting by some segment of the community. It is a very difficult job - there are so many factors to weigh that,

...

even though there are some basic minimal levels of activity expected,

deciding between a candidate with a few thousand edits who is one of the most proliferate editors of a small wiki (e.g., the editor mainly translates high-value articles

...

and posts them in a single edit) against one who specializes in high

quality images (but only uploads 50 a year) against one > who averages 15,000 edits but mainly works in anti-vandalism, against one who has few on-wiki

...

contributions but has trained and educated dozens of very productive

editors....well, you see the challenge. These are all valuable contributors - but their contribution to the movement is very different, and those who value some of those

...

contributions over others will find personal justification in

complaining about the decisions the committee makes.

...

There may be some reasonable arguments about providing some aggregate

information such as the number of applicants from different regions and the percentage that were successful....but again, there are other routes to Wikimania

...

including scholarships from large chapters, which often sponsor

community members from other regions, and often select recipients from the pool of WMF-sponsored scholarship applicants.

*I think that publishing the usernames of the applicants, the decisions made by the committee, and perhaps some other aggregate information would be a good move in the spirit of transparency, if done in future years when applicants can be told in advance that this will be done. I anticipate that there will be disagreements, but civil discussions are beneficial to inform future work of the Committee as well as community and WMF practices and policies.*

...

Of course, there is an easier way to affect the outcome of these

discussions. Sign up in late 2017/early 2018 to become a member of the scholarship committee.

*No thank you.*

On Wed, Apr 19, 2017 at 12:41 AM, DerHexer derhexer@wikipedia.de wrote:

...

Hi,

transparency on the selection can only work when also the application texts are public because we have many very active Wikimedians who are not very clear about what they ever did or actually do, how this is relevant to Wikimania and if they are able to and want to share this at Wikimania and back in their local communities afterwards. However, if only the results were published, there could be no useful discussion between the committee and others without information from the application texts.

*I think that partial information is better than none. However, I think there's room for discussion about what kinds of information should be made public; for example it might be that individual users' countries aren't published in the scholarships announcement if the user hasn't themselves already declared that information publicly. I am mindful of the safety of scholarship applicants who live in countries where their participation in Wikipedia might place them at risk, and I would take that into consideration when designing the reports that are published. Also, I think it's reasonable to withhold the prose application texts that applicants write to the Committee for privacy and safety reasons.*

...

But when applications are public, it would make absolutely no sense to have a committee for the selection because every decision by the committe could be easily be debated. When the expertise of the committee is questioned, people would be hesitant to participate as already described in this thread. Hence, only a public selection done by the community as a replacement for the committee would make sense.

*Grant applications are public, and we have grants committees, and those committees' decisions are subject to review and occasional debate. It seems to me that the Wikimania Scholarship Committee should align itself with the grants committees in publishing decisions. Discussions and debates, when done civilly, can be informative and lead to better decisions in the future. *

...

When the community would decide on the applications, we had to define who would be part of that community: who's eligible to vote on these? should the votes be public? would large discussions be allowed? etc. As we have lots of experience with public elections, we can also easily name the disadvantages of these: Popularity contests for only those people who can stand public criticism, sometimes by few very loud destructive people or even enemy groups, on everything they every did. Tons of people would be refrain from applying at all, something we strongy have to face at the moment with elections for adminship or other committees as pointed out by Risker.

*I'm having a little difficulty understanding this paragraph, so please help me understand. Is the concern about electing the members of the Scholarship Committee, or is the concern about direct public votes on individual scholarship applications?*

...

Of course, we had transparency as a result and more public discussions around the selection, but we would have no safe space for applicants at all (also in terms of sensitive data like personal living conditions and anonymity). I see no third working model besides these and my preference would clearly be the committee. But if you like, you can, of course, seek consensus on the other model. I will raise my concerns there as pointed out here.

*As I stated above, I think that publishing some information to enhance transparency and inform future decisions can be done while withholding other information for the safety and privacy of applicants.* *From my perspective, the purpose of making decisions of the Scholarship Committee more transparent is *not* to foster controversy or debate for their own sake. My hope is that more transparency would foster civil discussion, promote learning, and facilitate improvements in future years for the committee as well as for the WMF and the community in general.*

Pine

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---

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(not responding to a person in particular) I'm a little bit at a loss here. The proposal is to share a lot of information from the application process (whether attempted to anonimize or not) beyond statistics. Given the high number of countries and other rather specific characteristics, anything vaguely useful will likely contain at least some personally identifiable information. More likely even, anything you can share without being personally identifiable will probably not be very relevant for the application consideration. Sure, you could do some gender statistics, but how does that tell you why people have been rejected?

So I'd like to take a step back: what exactly is the problem you're trying to solve? Is publishing a lot of data really the best approach to that solution? If you define the problem well, I can imagine a few alternative approaches, like asking the scholarship committee to report back with an analysis of the problem and how they went about it - or asking an independent person/persons to sign an NDA, and go into the data, investigate and report back. They could actually go in depth - but it requires a good definition of the problem.

Best, Lodewijk

2017-04-21 13:32 GMT+02:00 Jonathan Cardy werespielchequers@gmail.com:

Hi Pine, I agree with you that partial transparency can be a positive and at least assure people that their region/language/project is getting a fair share even if they were declined. But I'd suggest that can be done with anonymised stats rather than applications with some details redacted or withheld.

Trend analysis can be self defeating, I've discussed this off wiki with some of the people who have had scholarships in the past, including a couple of people who didn't apply this year because they assumed they would be declined for Montreal after having had scholarships recently.

What might save a lot of time on everyone's part would be if there was a simple rule such as we don't give the same person a scholarship for two consecutive Wikimanias. Emphasis on give rather than award as there will be people who were awarded a scholarship but could not get a visa. That would reduce the workload of the scholarship team, and also of the applicants. You could of course balance that by other factors, I'm hoping thatFrench speakers are being given preference for Montreal.

On 21 April 2017 at 06:14, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:

...

Hi WSC,

...

Otherwise you have list of applicants and when you query why a decision

was made to give a scholarship to one person and not another all that people can say is that "judging by the applications we think we made the right

...

choice". OK you could redact some data they hopefully ignore such as

real name and exact contact details. But simply publishing part of the information used to make a decision does not enable you to understand how people

...

came to the decisions they did.

My view is that partial transparency is better than none. I don't anticipate that redacted applications will be sufficient for people to make appeals of individual decisions, but what could be of public interest and analyzable from partial transparency are patterns of selections, for example if all 10 applicants from Wikimedia Alaska were awarded scholarships while all 20 applicants from Wikimedia User Group Microsoft were denied scholarships. Also, seeing year-to-year trends would be of interest, such as people who are awarded or denied scholarships for multiple consecutive years.

...

the community seems to be greying and stabilising. Not many editors

under 18 attend Wikimania, and several of the roles that Risker talks of are limited to legal adults; so the decline in our number of minors at a time

...

of general growth should mean we have many more people available for

such roles or who are likely to attend things like Wikimania.

Perhaps WMF will want to research whether it's true that the quality of participants and/or number of applicants to online committee roles is declining. On English Wikipedia, the *Signpost *is currently having a near-death experience https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AWikipedia_Signpost%2FNewsroom&type=revision&diff=776196794&oldid=767858848, which I consider worrisome and disappointing. I share Risker's concern about the "community health" of online organized groups such as grants committees (as well as WikiProjects, arbitration committees, etc), and would be interested in seeing a holistic analysis of the situation of organized Wikimedia community groups that do most of their work via Internet. The scope of this is a bit different from the scope of Wikimania, so perhaps we can continue discussing this topic on-wiki or on a different mailing list.

Pine

On Thu, Apr 20, 2017 at 6:43 AM, WereSpielChequers < werespielchequers@gmail.com> wrote:

...

Dear Pine,

You wouldn't get transparency simply by publishing a list of applicants. You would only get transparency by publishing a list of applications, including any other info being used by the scholarship committee. For example if they want to give priority to people who they have previously declined, they could only do that transparently by including previous applications. Otherwise you have list of applicants and when you query why a decision was made to give a scholarship to one person and not another all that people can say is that "judging by the applications we think we made the right choice". OK you could redact some data they hopefully ignore such as real name and exact contact details. But simply publishing part of the information used to make a decision does not enable you to understand how people came to the decisions they did.

As for whether the community is plateauing or growing, from the stats I monitor or help maintain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Time_Between_Edits, the English Wikipedia community at least has rebounded significantly since the 2014 low. More importantly from the perspective of things like Wikimania, the community seems to be greying and stabilising. Not many editors under 18 attend Wikimania, and several of the roles that Risker talks of are limited to legal adults; so the decline in our number of minors at a time of general growth should mean we have many more people available for such roles or who are likely to attend things like Wikimania.

Regards

WereSpielChequers

On 20 Apr 2017, at 08:31, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:

*I'll respond to Risker and DerHexer in a single email.*

...

Pine, have you noticed how we're seeing fewer and fewer well-qualified

community members actively seeking out the responsibility of various committee roles?

*While I haven't looked at committees' member applications in some time, it wouldn't surprise me if a dwindling pool of highly qualified applicants is a problem. My understanding from the information that I see from WMF Analytics is that our population has somewhat plateaued. I've been thinking for awhile about how to address this problem, and while I think that there are ways of making incremental progress such as with the Wikipedia in Education Program and the engagement of more enthusiasts for particular subjects like cultural heritage or public health, I have yet to imagine a way to make significant progress. I'd be glad to have an off-list conversation with you about that subject.*

...

It's because they are being bombarded, more and more, by unreasonable

levels of criticism. I can say this with a fair bit of authority because I've been involved inhigh-profile committees, task forces, steering groups and responsible

...

roles for 8 years, and the level of criticism has definitely affected

where I'm willing to invest my volunteer efforts. I turn down 10 attempts to recruit me for various tasks for every one I accept, and I'm not alone.

*I don't volunteer for Arbcom for similar reasons: too much stress and conflict, and too little gratitude. WMF is working on some of the civility issues, but that's a long journey. Again, I'd be glad to have an off-list conversation about that sometime.*

...

The Wikimania Scholarship Committee does work that will never satisfy

everyone, and all of their decisions will be found wanting by some segment of the community. It is a very difficult job - there are so many factors to weigh that,

...

even though there are some basic minimal levels of activity expected,

deciding between a candidate with a few thousand edits who is one of the most proliferate editors of a small wiki (e.g., the editor mainly translates high-value articles

...

and posts them in a single edit) against one who specializes in high

quality images (but only uploads 50 a year) against one > who averages 15,000 edits but mainly works in anti-vandalism, against one who has few on-wiki

...

contributions but has trained and educated dozens of very productive

editors....well, you see the challenge. These are all valuable contributors - but their contribution to the movement is very different, and those who value some of those

...

contributions over others will find personal justification in

complaining about the decisions the committee makes.

...

There may be some reasonable arguments about providing some aggregate

information such as the number of applicants from different regions and the percentage that were successful....but again, there are other routes to Wikimania

...

including scholarships from large chapters, which often sponsor

community members from other regions, and often select recipients from the pool of WMF-sponsored scholarship applicants.

*I think that publishing the usernames of the applicants, the decisions made by the committee, and perhaps some other aggregate information would be a good move in the spirit of transparency, if done in future years when applicants can be told in advance that this will be done. I anticipate that there will be disagreements, but civil discussions are beneficial to inform future work of the Committee as well as community and WMF practices and policies.*

...

Of course, there is an easier way to affect the outcome of these

discussions. Sign up in late 2017/early 2018 to become a member of the scholarship committee.

*No thank you.*

On Wed, Apr 19, 2017 at 12:41 AM, DerHexer derhexer@wikipedia.de wrote:

...

Hi,

transparency on the selection can only work when also the application texts are public because we have many very active Wikimedians who are not very clear about what they ever did or actually do, how this is relevant to Wikimania and if they are able to and want to share this at Wikimania and back in their local communities afterwards. However, if only the results were published, there could be no useful discussion between the committee and others without information from the application texts.

*I think that partial information is better than none. However, I think there's room for discussion about what kinds of information should be made public; for example it might be that individual users' countries aren't published in the scholarships announcement if the user hasn't themselves already declared that information publicly. I am mindful of the safety of scholarship applicants who live in countries where their participation in Wikipedia might place them at risk, and I would take that into consideration when designing the reports that are published. Also, I think it's reasonable to withhold the prose application texts that applicants write to the Committee for privacy and safety reasons.*

...

But when applications are public, it would make absolutely no sense to have a committee for the selection because every decision by the committe could be easily be debated. When the expertise of the committee is questioned, people would be hesitant to participate as already described in this thread. Hence, only a public selection done by the community as a replacement for the committee would make sense.

*Grant applications are public, and we have grants committees, and those committees' decisions are subject to review and occasional debate. It seems to me that the Wikimania Scholarship Committee should align itself with the grants committees in publishing decisions. Discussions and debates, when done civilly, can be informative and lead to better decisions in the future. *

...

When the community would decide on the applications, we had to define who would be part of that community: who's eligible to vote on these? should the votes be public? would large discussions be allowed? etc. As we have lots of experience with public elections, we can also easily name the disadvantages of these: Popularity contests for only those people who can stand public criticism, sometimes by few very loud destructive people or even enemy groups, on everything they every did. Tons of people would be refrain from applying at all, something we strongy have to face at the moment with elections for adminship or other committees as pointed out by Risker.

*I'm having a little difficulty understanding this paragraph, so please help me understand. Is the concern about electing the members of the Scholarship Committee, or is the concern about direct public votes on individual scholarship applications?*

...

Of course, we had transparency as a result and more public discussions around the selection, but we would have no safe space for applicants at all (also in terms of sensitive data like personal living conditions and anonymity). I see no third working model besides these and my preference would clearly be the committee. But if you like, you can, of course, seek consensus on the other model. I will raise my concerns there as pointed out here.

*As I stated above, I think that publishing some information to enhance transparency and inform future decisions can be done while withholding other information for the safety and privacy of applicants.* *From my perspective, the purpose of making decisions of the Scholarship Committee more transparent is *not* to foster controversy or debate for their own sake. My hope is that more transparency would foster civil discussion, promote learning, and facilitate improvements in future years for the committee as well as for the WMF and the community in general.*

Pine

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(responding inline)

2017-04-22 7:41 GMT+02:00 Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com:

On Fri, Apr 21, 2017 at 5:08 AM, Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.org wrote:

...

(not responding to a person in particular) I'm a little bit at a loss here. The proposal is to share a lot of information from the application process (whether attempted to anonimize or not) beyond statistics. Given the high number of countries and other rather specific characteristics, anything vaguely useful will likely contain at least some personally identifiable information.

PII disclosures can be limited to what users have already disclosed in public (which, admittedly, may not be entirely current and truthful.) Aggregated information can be provided as well.

Sure - like I said, probably rather useless depending on the goal you want to actually *do* with the information. And still tricky, aggregated information could be provided to some extent, but probably not to the level of detail you'd want.

...

More likely even, anything you can share without being personally identifiable will probably not be very relevant for the application consideration. Sure, you could do some gender statistics, but how does that tell you why people have been rejected?

I anticipate that the level of transparency would be insufficient to evaluate the Scholarship Committee and WMF decisions about individual applicants. However, the information that is published may still be useful and of interest when considering trends and groups.

OK, so you want to discover 'trends and groups'. Goal 1 identified.

...

So I'd like to take a step back: what exactly is the problem you're trying to solve? Is publishing a lot of data really the best approach to that solution? If you define the problem well, I can imagine a few alternative approaches, like asking the scholarship committee to report back with an analysis of the problem and how they went about it - or asking an independent person/persons to sign an NDA, and go into the data, investigate and report back. They could actually go in depth - but it requires a good definition of the problem.

My impression is that there are disappointments and complaints almost every year about scholarship awards. I hope that increasing transparency will result in a decreased number and intensity of complaints about individual cases, and will also increase the amount of information that is made public which can be used by anyone and everyone to analyze policies and practices and to make recommendations for refinements or changes as may seem best.

Also, as a broader theme, I would like to see more transparency about how WMF funds are used. A change of practice like we're discussing here would be one step in that direction.

Of course there are going to be disappointments and complaints every year. Unless we increase the acceptance rate to 100%, that is bound to happen in a process that always results in some personally disappointing outcomes. Even with perfect transparency and process, people will be disappointed. And a process will never be perfect. I sincerely doubt transparency will decrease the intensity or number of complaints about individual cases - I rather suspect it will increase them. As transparency often does. Which is fine if the transparency brings other benefits - but don't expect it to go down.

Also, identified the second goal: propose recommendations for refinements and changes.

Good! Two valuable goals. Now, just disclosing stuff the best approach to tackling it?

Lodewijk

...

Best, Lodewijk

2017-04-21 13:32 GMT+02:00 Jonathan Cardy werespielchequers@gmail.com:

...

Hi Pine, I agree with you that partial transparency can be a positive and at least assure people that their region/language/project is getting a fair share even if they were declined. But I'd suggest that can be done with anonymised stats rather than applications with some details redacted or withheld.

Let me ask: why shouldn't the usernames of applicants, and whether they were offered scholarships, be made public in future years if scholarship applicants are told in advance that this information will be published?

...

...

Trend analysis can be self defeating,

How so?

...

I've discussed this off wiki with some of the people who have had

...

scholarships in the past, including a couple of people who didn't apply this year because they assumed they would be declined for Montreal after having had scholarships recently.

What might save a lot of time on everyone's part would be if there was a simple rule such as we don't give the same person a scholarship for two consecutive Wikimanias. Emphasis on give rather than award as there will be people who were awarded a scholarship but could not get a visa. That would reduce the workload of the scholarship team, and also of the applicants. You could of course balance that by other factors, I'm hoping thatFrench speakers are being given preference for Montreal.

I agree with the general sentiment that giving scholarships to the same person for multiple consecutive Wikimanias should be avoided. If what I'm told is true that there are thousands of applicants for only a few hundred scholarship spots, perhaps the bar should be even higher and scholarships should be awarded to the same person at most once out of every three years. It would help to have the information that we're discussing in this thread be made public so that we can have a better-informed conversation about the policies for scholarship awards. (:

Pine

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On 22 April 2017 at 07:31, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:

transparency

I'm fortunate enough to have received a full scholarship this time around.

The initial email said:

#~#~# Start quote 1 #~#~#

5. Having your scholarship cover the following expenses:

* Round-trip air travel from your city of residence to Wikimania, arranged by the Wikimedia Foundation

* Shared accommodation at a hotel selected by the Wikimedia Foundation for up to 6 nights (if you plan to attend pre-conference meetings) which includes breakfast and internet connectivity;

* Wikimania conference registration fee (for one person) for the 5 day program, which includes internet connectivity at the conference venue, two dinner receptions/party, lunches and refreshments during the conference program.

* An allowance to cover ground transportation between your home and the airport, and between the airport and the conference venue.

* An allowance for 4 dinners that are not provided as part of the conference registration fee.

* An allowance for filing fees for the Visa application process.

#~#~# End quote 1 #~#~#

The most recent email, sent after acceptance of the offer, said:

#~#~# Start quote 2 #~#~#

We have altered and clarified what is covered in your scholarship. We have had to update the information we sent previously about what expenses your scholarship covers. A full scholarship to Wikimania ’17 does cover:

* Round-trip air travel from your city of residence to Wikimania, arranged by the Wikimedia Foundation (note: if you are requesting air deviations you may be asked to purchase your own ticket and be reimbursed later for the WMF business portion of your ticket.)

* Shared accommodation at a hotel selected by the Wikimedia Foundation for up to 6 nights (if you plan to attend pre-conference meetings) which includes internet connectivity;

* Wikimania conference registration fee (for one person) for the 5 day program, which includes internet connectivity at the conference venue, two dinner receptions, lunches and refreshments every day during the conference program.

Note that the following expenses will not be covered:

* Ground transportation between your home and the airport and between the airport and the conference venue.

* 4 dinners

* Filing fees for the Visa application process.

#~#~# End quote 2 #~#~#

Since no explanation for the changes was offered in that email, could we have one here, please?

So the issue was logistical, not financial?

By way of context, I could probably save the WMF ~GBP500 (~USD 640) by travelling from London Heathrow rather than Birmingham (my local airport), but that would cost me an extra ~50GBP (not to mention the hours) on land travel. I don't think it would be unreasonable to ask for that to be reimbursed.

On 13 May 2017 at 23:51, Ellie Young eyoung@wikimedia.org wrote:

When the initial 'you've got a scholarship' email went out, we had hoped to be able to offer a debit/credit card to all scholarship recipients loaded with enough funds to cover some of the miscellaneous expenses. We found out subsequently that it is not viable. Therefore, we had to go back to offering the benefits that we normally do.

For those of you on this mailing list who are scholarship recipients, please refer to the latest email that he is referencing here that also says that if it would be a financial hardship to cover these extra expenses there is a way to apply to have these covered.

If any of you have further questions about the scholarship process, please email wikimaniascholarships@wikimedia.org.

Thanks,

Ellie WMF Events Manager

P.S. Everyone who received a scholarship offer and subsequently accepted for a full or partial should have received instructions for registering this past week. If you didn't contact the email address above. We will be putting up a list by user name of the scholarship recipients shortly.

On Sat, May 13, 2017 at 5:06 AM, Andy Mabbett andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk wrote:

...

On 22 April 2017 at 07:31, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:

...

transparency

I'm fortunate enough to have received a full scholarship this time around.

The initial email said:

#~#~# Start quote 1 #~#~#

5. Having your scholarship cover the following expenses:

• Round-trip air travel from your city of residence to Wikimania,

arranged by the Wikimedia Foundation

• Shared accommodation at a hotel selected by the Wikimedia Foundation

for up to 6 nights (if you plan to attend pre-conference meetings) which includes breakfast and internet connectivity;

• Wikimania conference registration fee (for one person) for the 5 day

program, which includes internet connectivity at the conference venue, two dinner receptions/party, lunches and refreshments during the conference program.

• An allowance to cover ground transportation between your home and

the airport, and between the airport and the conference venue.

• An allowance for 4 dinners that are not provided as part of the

conference registration fee.

• An allowance for filing fees for the Visa application process.

#~#~# End quote 1 #~#~#

The most recent email, sent after acceptance of the offer, said:

#~#~# Start quote 2 #~#~#

We have altered and clarified what is covered in your scholarship. We have had to update the information we sent previously about what expenses your scholarship covers. A full scholarship to Wikimania ’17 does cover:

• Round-trip air travel from your city of residence to Wikimania,

arranged by the Wikimedia Foundation (note: if you are requesting air deviations you may be asked to purchase your own ticket and be reimbursed later for the WMF business portion of your ticket.)

• Shared accommodation at a hotel selected by the Wikimedia Foundation

for up to 6 nights (if you plan to attend pre-conference meetings) which includes internet connectivity;

• Wikimania conference registration fee (for one person) for the 5 day

program, which includes internet connectivity at the conference venue, two dinner receptions, lunches and refreshments every day during the conference program.

Note that the following expenses will not be covered:

• Ground transportation between your home and the airport and between

the airport and the conference venue.

• 4 dinners

• Filing fees for the Visa application process.

#~#~# End quote 2 #~#~#

Since no explanation for the changes was offered in that email, could we have one here, please?

-- Andy Mabbett @pigsonthewing http://pigsonthewing.org.uk

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On 13 May 2017 at 13:06, Andy Mabbett andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk wrote:

Shared accommodation at a hotel selected by the Wikimedia Foundation for up to 6 nights (if you plan to attend pre-conference meetings) which includes breakfast and internet connectivity

I recently received my confirmation email from the hotel. I note that it incudes a list of facilities, one of which is:

Wi-fi Internet For A Fee

On 30 May 2017 at 14:05, Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.org wrote:

If you got the same confirmation as I did, somewhere else in the same confirmation it should say 'wifi included' but it's printed in light grey so may be easily overlooked.

Ah yes; missed because I searched for "wi-fi", with a hyphen!

Even though it may be healthy for some of us, to be for a few hours without wifi.

*shudder*

Contributions is such wide term are you talking about edits in projects or work on the ground in assisting others, what about the unseen work like supporting an affiliate to be successful or a GLAM to open up its resources

When talking about edits is a photo uploaded to commons worth more because its used in multiple projects than some one who starts an article in one language, does an english wp edit have a greater weigh over a french wp edit because it has more potential viewers or does a noongar wp edit in the incubator which is opening access to a whole new culture and language to the movement have greater value.

Issue around the fair balance across communities of access to Wikimania is also a question does a country with well financed chapter have less to contribute compared to a country closer but limited finanaces, does a counrty where it'll cost 5-10,000 US$ for each attendee deserve greater numbers supported because its not possible for people to attend over a country that the cost is less than US$1000, would 10 people attending be better than 1 person attending.

Does a country with 20 million people deserve to 1/10th the amount of attendees of a country with 200million people. Every one contributes in the way they feel most comfortable and safe. For some time is unlimited for others time contributing is a constant risk there is no way we as community can openly value these, the committee does the best it can with the knowledge presented to them by the candidates.... Whether we agree with the decisions of the committee or not the individuals should not be subject to the vitriol that the community can and does hand out regularly nor should they be put at excessive risk for what they have done.

A list of everyone who accepts a scholarship enables transparency in ensuring reporting from those people, but even that can carry a risk for them. Putting contributions how ever its defined increases the risk of harm both from within the community and from outside, doing harm to satisfy curiosity isnt acceptable

On 19 April 2017 at 10:51, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja pavanaja@vishvakannada.com wrote:

Hello,

I would like WMF to make the list of applicants, their contributions, the weightage used for each kind of contribution and the final list of scholarship awardees in a table form. Since WMF is run by the contributions of the volunteers, such a transparency is definitely needed from WMF. I hope WMF will oblige.

Regards,

Pavanaja

*From:* Wikimania-l [mailto:wikimania-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] *On Behalf Of *Ellie Young *Sent:* 19 April 2017 01:23 AM *To:* Wikimania general list (open subscription) *Subject:* [Wikimania-l] WMF Scholarships to attend Wikimania

Everyone who applied for a scholarship to Wikimania '17 has been notified about the status. If you have not heard, please check your spam filter, or send email to ask about the status to: wikimaniascholarships@ wikimedia.org

April 18 is the deadline for people who were offered a scholarship to respond.

A final list of everyone who was awarded and able to accept will be posted to on the wiki in early May.

We expect registration for Wikimania '17 to go live on or before May 1st.

--

Ellie Young

Events Manager

Wikimedia Foundation

eyoung@wikimedia.org

​

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<QUOTE>

I don't think that publishing a list of the committee's decisions is a high-risk decision. Grants committees publish their decisions, and I don't see why there should be a different standard for the Wikimania scholarship committee.

</QUOTE>

I fully agree.

Regards,

Pavanaja

From: Wikimania-l [mailto:wikimania-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Pine W Sent: 19 April 2017 09:24 AM To: Wikimania general list (open subscription) Subject: Re: [Wikimania-l] WMF Scholarships to attend Wikimania

I agree that the committee is likely to consider many nonpublic factors in making their decisions.

"Whether we agree with the decisions of the committee or not the individuals should not be subject to the vitriol that the community can and does hand out regularly nor should they be put at excessive risk for what they have done."

I don't think that publishing a list of the committee's decisions is a high-risk decision. Grants committees publish their decisions, and I don't see why there should be a different standard for the Wikimania scholarship committee.

"Putting contributions how ever its defined increases the risk of harm both from within the community and from outside, doing harm to satisfy curiosity isnt acceptable"

Transparency is one of Wikimedia's values, and people who make decisions about Wikimedia resources should generally be transparent with those decisions. The nature and degree of that transparency have some variations, but I expect the default to be transparency rather than hiding information, particularly when the primary justification for hiding information is because it might be controversial or receive criticism. The default position should be transparency.

Pine

On Tue, Apr 18, 2017 at 8:42 PM, Gnangarra gnangarra@gmail.com wrote:

Contributions is such wide term are you talking about edits in projects or work on the ground in assisting others, what about the unseen work like supporting an affiliate to be successful or a GLAM to open up its resources

When talking about edits is a photo uploaded to commons worth more because its used in multiple projects than some one who starts an article in one language, does an english wp edit have a greater weigh over a french wp edit because it has more potential viewers or does a noongar wp edit in the incubator which is opening access to a whole new culture and language to the movement have greater value.

Issue around the fair balance across communities of access to Wikimania is also a question does a country with well financed chapter have less to contribute compared to a country closer but limited finanaces, does a counrty where it'll cost 5-10,000 US$ for each attendee deserve greater numbers supported because its not possible for people to attend over a country that the cost is less than US$1000, would 10 people attending be better than 1 person attending.

Does a country with 20 million people deserve to 1/10th the amount of attendees of a country with 200million people. Every one contributes in the way they feel most comfortable and safe. For some time is unlimited for others time contributing is a constant risk there is no way we as community can openly value these, the committee does the best it can with the knowledge presented to them by the candidates.... Whether we agree with the decisions of the committee or not the individuals should not be subject to the vitriol that the community can and does hand out regularly nor should they be put at excessive risk for what they have done.

A list of everyone who accepts a scholarship enables transparency in ensuring reporting from those people, but even that can carry a risk for them. Putting contributions how ever its defined increases the risk of harm both from within the community and from outside, doing harm to satisfy curiosity isnt acceptable

On 19 April 2017 at 10:51, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja pavanaja@vishvakannada.com wrote:

Hello,

I would like WMF to make the list of applicants, their contributions, the weightage used for each kind of contribution and the final list of scholarship awardees in a table form. Since WMF is run by the contributions of the volunteers, such a transparency is definitely needed from WMF. I hope WMF will oblige.

Regards,

Pavanaja

From: Wikimania-l [mailto:wikimania-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Ellie Young Sent: 19 April 2017 01:23 AM To: Wikimania general list (open subscription) Subject: [Wikimania-l] WMF Scholarships to attend Wikimania

Everyone who applied for a scholarship to Wikimania '17 has been notified about the status. If you have not heard, please check your spam filter, or send email to ask about the status to: wikimaniascholarships@wikimedia.org

April 18 is the deadline for people who were offered a scholarship to respond.

A final list of everyone who was awarded and able to accept will be posted to on the wiki in early May.

We expect registration for Wikimania '17 to go live on or before May 1st.

Wikimedia contributions are public numbers. If username is known, all contributions can be found out. What is secrecy in that? Only thing not disclosed is how the evaluations are done. This should be made public, since the entire movement is run by public funding.

Regards,

Pavanaja

From: Wikimania-l [mailto:wikimania-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Gnangarra Sent: 19 April 2017 09:12 AM To: Wikimania general list (open subscription) Subject: Re: [Wikimania-l] WMF Scholarships to attend Wikimania

Contributions is such wide term are you talking about edits in projects or work on the ground in assisting others, what about the unseen work like supporting an affiliate to be successful or a GLAM to open up its resources

When talking about edits is a photo uploaded to commons worth more because its used in multiple projects than some one who starts an article in one language, does an english wp edit have a greater weigh over a french wp edit because it has more potential viewers or does a noongar wp edit in the incubator which is opening access to a whole new culture and language to the movement have greater value.

Issue around the fair balance across communities of access to Wikimania is also a question does a country with well financed chapter have less to contribute compared to a country closer but limited finanaces, does a counrty where it'll cost 5-10,000 US$ for each attendee deserve greater numbers supported because its not possible for people to attend over a country that the cost is less than US$1000, would 10 people attending be better than 1 person attending.

Does a country with 20 million people deserve to 1/10th the amount of attendees of a country with 200million people. Every one contributes in the way they feel most comfortable and safe. For some time is unlimited for others time contributing is a constant risk there is no way we as community can openly value these, the committee does the best it can with the knowledge presented to them by the candidates.... Whether we agree with the decisions of the committee or not the individuals should not be subject to the vitriol that the community can and does hand out regularly nor should they be put at excessive risk for what they have done.

A list of everyone who accepts a scholarship enables transparency in ensuring reporting from those people, but even that can carry a risk for them. Putting contributions how ever its defined increases the risk of harm both from within the community and from outside, doing harm to satisfy curiosity isnt acceptable

On 19 April 2017 at 10:51, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja pavanaja@vishvakannada.com wrote:

Hello,

I would like WMF to make the list of applicants, their contributions, the weightage used for each kind of contribution and the final list of scholarship awardees in a table form. Since WMF is run by the contributions of the volunteers, such a transparency is definitely needed from WMF. I hope WMF will oblige.

Regards,

Pavanaja

From: Wikimania-l [mailto:wikimania-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Ellie Young Sent: 19 April 2017 01:23 AM To: Wikimania general list (open subscription) Subject: [Wikimania-l] WMF Scholarships to attend Wikimania

Everyone who applied for a scholarship to Wikimania '17 has been notified about the status. If you have not heard, please check your spam filter, or send email to ask about the status to: wikimaniascholarships@wikimedia.org

April 18 is the deadline for people who were offered a scholarship to respond.

A final list of everyone who was awarded and able to accept will be posted to on the wiki in early May.

We expect registration for Wikimania '17 to go live on or before May 1st.

Pavajana, it's the user names that are confidential in this case. Nothing stops unsuccessful candidates from publishing their own names, if they wish. How many do you think will do that?

Risker/Anne

On 18 April 2017 at 23:56, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja pavanaja@vishvakannada.com wrote:

Wikimedia contributions are public numbers. If username is known, all contributions can be found out. What is secrecy in that? Only thing not disclosed is how the evaluations are done. This should be made public, since the entire movement is run by public funding.

Regards,

Pavanaja

*From:* Wikimania-l [mailto:wikimania-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] *On Behalf Of *Gnangarra *Sent:* 19 April 2017 09:12 AM *To:* Wikimania general list (open subscription) *Subject:* Re: [Wikimania-l] WMF Scholarships to attend Wikimania

Contributions is such wide term are you talking about edits in projects or work on the ground in assisting others, what about the unseen work like supporting an affiliate to be successful or a GLAM to open up its resources

When talking about edits is a photo uploaded to commons worth more because its used in multiple projects than some one who starts an article in one language, does an english wp edit have a greater weigh over a french wp edit because it has more potential viewers or does a noongar wp edit in the incubator which is opening access to a whole new culture and language to the movement have greater value.

Issue around the fair balance across communities of access to Wikimania is also a question does a country with well financed chapter have less to contribute compared to a country closer but limited finanaces, does a counrty where it'll cost 5-10,000 US$ for each attendee deserve greater numbers supported because its not possible for people to attend over a country that the cost is less than US$1000, would 10 people attending be better than 1 person attending.

Does a country with 20 million people deserve to 1/10th the amount of attendees of a country with 200million people. Every one contributes in the way they feel most comfortable and safe. For some time is unlimited for others time contributing is a constant risk there is no way we as community can openly value these, the committee does the best it can with the knowledge presented to them by the candidates.... Whether we agree with the decisions of the committee or not the individuals should not be subject to the vitriol that the community can and does hand out regularly nor should they be put at excessive risk for what they have done.

A list of everyone who accepts a scholarship enables transparency in ensuring reporting from those people, but even that can carry a risk for them. Putting contributions how ever its defined increases the risk of harm both from within the community and from outside, doing harm to satisfy curiosity isnt acceptable

On 19 April 2017 at 10:51, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja pavanaja@vishvakannada.com wrote:

Hello,

I would like WMF to make the list of applicants, their contributions, the weightage used for each kind of contribution and the final list of scholarship awardees in a table form. Since WMF is run by the contributions of the volunteers, such a transparency is definitely needed from WMF. I hope WMF will oblige.

Regards,

Pavanaja

*From:* Wikimania-l [mailto:wikimania-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] *On Behalf Of *Ellie Young *Sent:* 19 April 2017 01:23 AM *To:* Wikimania general list (open subscription) *Subject:* [Wikimania-l] WMF Scholarships to attend Wikimania

Everyone who applied for a scholarship to Wikimania '17 has been notified about the status. If you have not heard, please check your spam filter, or send email to ask about the status to: wikimaniascholarships@ wikimedia.org

April 18 is the deadline for people who were offered a scholarship to respond.

A final list of everyone who was awarded and able to accept will be posted to on the wiki in early May.

We expect registration for Wikimania '17 to go live on or before May 1st.

--

Ellie Young

Events Manager

Wikimedia Foundation

eyoung@wikimedia.org

​

---

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I too can't agree with Risker more on the privacy aspects. Also, it's important to respect those handful of community members that were part of the scholarship committee would have spent hours evaluating a few thousand applications, and the WMF staff who were part of it. If I can summarize what a former committee member shared on Facebook some time ago - a lot of deserving Wikimedians do not get a scholarship. But it's almost impossible for the committee to make everything right. Also many deserving applicants miss out communicating their contribution clearly which doesn't leave the committee to evaluate their applications with a full knowledge of those applicants' contribution. Being a great contributor is one thing, and being able to communicate one's contribution with context to someone less familiar with a contributor's home community is another thing. When this situation can be made better by creating learning patterns and other learning documents so that many contributors, especially those whose native language is not English can be benefited, it is NOT OK to share awarded/rejected application details. Wikimedians and many others that are trying to do the right thing by sharing knowledge are already in risk because of their public writing. It will be insane to put them in more risk. A former colleague and a fellow Wikimedian and I received legal threats once from someone who was failing to retain a Wikipedia article, and it made me scared even though I was working in an organization full of lawyers.

Let's assume some good faith here, and better the resources that would be useful for many applicants for the coming years.

Subhashish

On 19-Apr-2017, at 9:42 AM, Adrian Raddatz ajraddatz@gmail.com wrote:

Agree with what Risker said above, that it's hard to get community members to volunteer for these committees. That's the easiest way to get involved if you don't think the process is going well.

Adrian Raddatz

...

On Tue, Apr 18, 2017 at 9:04 PM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote: Pavajana, it's the user names that are confidential in this case. Nothing stops unsuccessful candidates from publishing their own names, if they wish. How many do you think will do that?

Risker/Anne

...

On 18 April 2017 at 23:56, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja pavanaja@vishvakannada.com wrote: Wikimedia contributions are public numbers. If username is known, all contributions can be found out. What is secrecy in that? Only thing not disclosed is how the evaluations are done. This should be made public, since the entire movement is run by public funding.

Regards,

Pavanaja

From: Wikimania-l [mailto:wikimania-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Gnangarra Sent: 19 April 2017 09:12 AM To: Wikimania general list (open subscription) Subject: Re: [Wikimania-l] WMF Scholarships to attend Wikimania

Contributions is such wide term are you talking about edits in projects or work on the ground in assisting others, what about the unseen work like supporting an affiliate to be successful or a GLAM to open up its resources

When talking about edits is a photo uploaded to commons worth more because its used in multiple projects than some one who starts an article in one language, does an english wp edit have a greater weigh over a french wp edit because it has more potential viewers or does a noongar wp edit in the incubator which is opening access to a whole new culture and language to the movement have greater value.

Issue around the fair balance across communities of access to Wikimania is also a question does a country with well financed chapter have less to contribute compared to a country closer but limited finanaces, does a counrty where it'll cost 5-10,000 US$ for each attendee deserve greater numbers supported because its not possible for people to attend over a country that the cost is less than US$1000, would 10 people attending be better than 1 person attending.

Does a country with 20 million people deserve to 1/10th the amount of attendees of a country with 200million people. Every one contributes in the way they feel most comfortable and safe. For some time is unlimited for others time contributing is a constant risk there is no way we as community can openly value these, the committee does the best it can with the knowledge presented to them by the candidates.... Whether we agree with the decisions of the committee or not the individuals should not be subject to the vitriol that the community can and does hand out regularly nor should they be put at excessive risk for what they have done.

A list of everyone who accepts a scholarship enables transparency in ensuring reporting from those people, but even that can carry a risk for them. Putting contributions how ever its defined increases the risk of harm both from within the community and from outside, doing harm to satisfy curiosity isnt acceptable

On 19 April 2017 at 10:51, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja pavanaja@vishvakannada.com wrote:

Hello,

I would like WMF to make the list of applicants, their contributions, the weightage used for each kind of contribution and the final list of scholarship awardees in a table form. Since WMF is run by the contributions of the volunteers, such a transparency is definitely needed from WMF. I hope WMF will oblige.

Regards,

Pavanaja

From: Wikimania-l [mailto:wikimania-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Ellie Young Sent: 19 April 2017 01:23 AM To: Wikimania general list (open subscription) Subject: [Wikimania-l] WMF Scholarships to attend Wikimania

Everyone who applied for a scholarship to Wikimania '17 has been notified about the status. If you have not heard, please check your spam filter, or send email to ask about the status to: wikimaniascholarships@wikimedia.org

April 18 is the deadline for people who were offered a scholarship to respond.

A final list of everyone who was awarded and able to accept will be posted to on the wiki in early May.

We expect registration for Wikimania '17 to go live on or before May 1st.

--

Ellie Young

Events Manager

Wikimedia Foundation

eyoung@wikimedia.org

​

---

Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

--

GN. President Wikimedia Australia WMAU: http://www.wikimedia.org.au/wiki/User:Gnangarra Photo Gallery: http://gnangarra.redbubble.com

---

Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

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Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

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Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

This has already drawn a lot of opinions but it has yet to actually provide any substantive reasonings for how releasing details with links to individuals improve transparency.

The process, reasonings, and results could be released without identifiers to enable a review of the process at time later in the year to help people play with the modeling but putting private details in the public realm doesnt make the process more transparent nor improve it. The greater personal detail the WMF publishes the less likely individuals are going to be able to participate, especially those in already minority and displaced segments of society.

every contribution matters, ever contribution is valuable, and every contribution is different

On 19 April 2017 at 13:15, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja pavanaja@vishvakannada.com wrote:

Dear Subhashish,

According to you, making noise about your contributions is more important than actually doing the things. I have been saying this for quite some time – it is always the talkers who get noticed and get credited while doers keep doing silently. So one has to be more active in social media, writing blogs, getting mentioned in English media, etc. Thanks for enlightening.

Regards,

Pavanaja

*From:* Wikimania-l [mailto:wikimania-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] *On Behalf Of *Subhashish Panigrahi *Sent:* 19 April 2017 10:26 AM

*To:* Wikimania general list (open subscription) *Subject:* Re: [Wikimania-l] WMF Scholarships to attend Wikimania

I too can't agree with Risker more on the privacy aspects. Also, it's important to respect those handful of community members that were part of the scholarship committee would have spent hours evaluating a few thousand applications, and the WMF staff who were part of it. If I can summarize what a former committee member shared on Facebook some time ago - a lot of deserving Wikimedians do not get a scholarship. But it's almost impossible for the committee to make everything right. Also many deserving applicants miss out communicating their contribution clearly which doesn't leave the committee to evaluate their applications with a full knowledge of those applicants' contribution. Being a great contributor is one thing, and being able to communicate one's contribution with context to someone less familiar with a contributor's home community is another thing. When this situation can be made better by creating learning patterns and other learning documents so that many contributors, especially those whose native language is not English can be benefited, it is NOT OK to share awarded/rejected application details. Wikimedians and many others that are trying to do the right thing by sharing knowledge are already in risk because of their public writing. It will be insane to put them in more risk. A former colleague and a fellow Wikimedian and I received legal threats once from someone who was failing to retain a Wikipedia article, and it made me scared even though I was working in an organization full of lawyers.

Let's assume some good faith here, and better the resources that would be useful for many applicants for the coming years.

Subhashish

On 19-Apr-2017, at 9:42 AM, Adrian Raddatz ajraddatz@gmail.com wrote:

Agree with what Risker said above, that it's hard to get community members to volunteer for these committees. That's the easiest way to get involved if you don't think the process is going well.

Adrian Raddatz

On Tue, Apr 18, 2017 at 9:04 PM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:

Pavajana, it's the user names that are confidential in this case. Nothing stops unsuccessful candidates from publishing their own names, if they wish. How many do you think will do that?

Risker/Anne

On 18 April 2017 at 23:56, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja pavanaja@vishvakannada.com wrote:

Wikimedia contributions are public numbers. If username is known, all contributions can be found out. What is secrecy in that? Only thing not disclosed is how the evaluations are done. This should be made public, since the entire movement is run by public funding.

Regards,

Pavanaja

*From:* Wikimania-l [mailto:wikimania-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] *On Behalf Of *Gnangarra *Sent:* 19 April 2017 09:12 AM *To:* Wikimania general list (open subscription) *Subject:* Re: [Wikimania-l] WMF Scholarships to attend Wikimania

Contributions is such wide term are you talking about edits in projects or work on the ground in assisting others, what about the unseen work like supporting an affiliate to be successful or a GLAM to open up its resources

When talking about edits is a photo uploaded to commons worth more because its used in multiple projects than some one who starts an article in one language, does an english wp edit have a greater weigh over a french wp edit because it has more potential viewers or does a noongar wp edit in the incubator which is opening access to a whole new culture and language to the movement have greater value.

Issue around the fair balance across communities of access to Wikimania is also a question does a country with well financed chapter have less to contribute compared to a country closer but limited finanaces, does a counrty where it'll cost 5-10,000 US$ for each attendee deserve greater numbers supported because its not possible for people to attend over a country that the cost is less than US$1000, would 10 people attending be better than 1 person attending.

Does a country with 20 million people deserve to 1/10th the amount of attendees of a country with 200million people. Every one contributes in the way they feel most comfortable and safe. For some time is unlimited for others time contributing is a constant risk there is no way we as community can openly value these, the committee does the best it can with the knowledge presented to them by the candidates.... Whether we agree with the decisions of the committee or not the individuals should not be subject to the vitriol that the community can and does hand out regularly nor should they be put at excessive risk for what they have done.

A list of everyone who accepts a scholarship enables transparency in ensuring reporting from those people, but even that can carry a risk for them. Putting contributions how ever its defined increases the risk of harm both from within the community and from outside, doing harm to satisfy curiosity isnt acceptable

On 19 April 2017 at 10:51, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja pavanaja@vishvakannada.com wrote:

Hello,

I would like WMF to make the list of applicants, their contributions, the weightage used for each kind of contribution and the final list of scholarship awardees in a table form. Since WMF is run by the contributions of the volunteers, such a transparency is definitely needed from WMF. I hope WMF will oblige.

Regards,

Pavanaja

*From:* Wikimania-l [mailto:wikimania-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] *On Behalf Of *Ellie Young *Sent:* 19 April 2017 01:23 AM *To:* Wikimania general list (open subscription) *Subject:* [Wikimania-l] WMF Scholarships to attend Wikimania

Everyone who applied for a scholarship to Wikimania '17 has been notified about the status. If you have not heard, please check your spam filter, or send email to ask about the status to: wikimaniascholarships@ wikimedia.org

April 18 is the deadline for people who were offered a scholarship to respond.

A final list of everyone who was awarded and able to accept will be posted to on the wiki in early May.

We expect registration for Wikimania '17 to go live on or before May 1st.

--

Ellie Young

Events Manager

Wikimedia Foundation

eyoung@wikimedia.org

​

---

Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

--

GN. President Wikimedia Australia WMAU: http://www.wikimedia.org.au/wiki/User:Gnangarra Photo Gallery: http://gnangarra.redbubble.com

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Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

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Wikimania-l mailing list Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

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