2010/7/15 Keegan Peterzell <keegan.wiki(a)gmail.com>om>:
Okay, this thread has intrigued me and I thought the
answers would pan out
and it seems to have gone in various directions, but it was initiated by
Milos so I'll focus on what I perceive to be his problem: Corruption
(through careerism, nepotism, political functions) and the have versus have
nots.
My reading between the lines is that this has to do with how scholarships
and other financial assistance allowed some to attend Wikimania and "live it
up" as the slang goes, versus those that attended on their own dime and
didn't have the resources to take part in the social, after hours functions
that are the lifeblood of networking. If this is the case, the issue that
is had is allegations of personal rather than professional reasons that some
got to attend and had the resources, based on financing, to party.
Just about the scholarship. As far as I know there were two
scholarships - one provided by WMF and the one combined, provided by
Polish and Russian chapters. The WMF scholarship committee was quite
international, and at least what I heard from one Polish Wikipedian,
who was a member of that committee there were clear and resonable
conditions of choosing the best candidates.
In case of Polish-Russian scholarship we in fact accepted all
candidates who applied and fullfiled basic requirements (language
skills and proved commitement to Wikimedia projects). Polish-Russian
scholarship was open to all, and except Russians and Polish
Wikimedians several Ukrainians and one from Czech Republic took
advatange of them.
--
Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz
http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek
http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/
http://www.ptchem.lodz.pl/en/TomaszGanicz.html