On Thu, Nov 10, 2011
at 6:11 PM, Ravishankar
<ravidreams@gmail.com> wrote:
Arjuna,
I am not very excited with this idea of a jury for picking noteworthy
Wikimedians.
1. Many noteworthy Wikimedians are serving in Jury, conference
activities, chapter and WMF. Omitting them from the recognition will
not give a real picture to the public.
I hope you understood that the recognition is for contributions till 2010. We had good discussions on the Jury size and the implications. Jury members are also have been consulted on the process and only after their consent, the Jury is finalized. While there are other approaches for taking care if some of the jury members are nominated, in view of the short lead time, we wanted to keep the process simple.
2. Having a jury to pick this seems so Un-Wikipediac. Only in extreme
cases, we have a jury in Wikimedia projects. Usually, the nomination
and approval is done by the community itself.
When we talk of a India wide recognition, community driven process is going to be extremly difficult, as each one of us are not aware of the contributions of Wikimedians outside one's core project.
3.There are tens of noteworthy Wikimedians for each Wikipedia. An
example for Tamil Wikipedia alone at
http://tawp.in/r/1eyn
I can't nominate just one or two as every one's contribution is
valuable and unique. Not good to have a competition sort of thing and
upset a lot of people.
Nominations can be done by one or more wikimedians. You can discuss in your core community and come up with nominations. Every nomination is itself a way of recognising fellow wikimedians who made a difference.
3. What is the point of a citation / certificate in this digital age?
What is the purpose achieved after the event is over?
When you look it as a recognition at Pan India level, even a certificate has value. This can make the noteworthy wikipedians feel that their contributions have been recognised, encourage them to share their experiences in our outreach events, can inspire our community members and strengthen the wikimedia movement.
I would recommend requesting each language community and project to
suggest noteworthy contributions with a mini profile and make a audio
/ visual out of it. These people can be interviewed and the content
can be used in the conference venue and future outreach activities.
This will be a powerful way to motivate and recognize a lot of people.
Agree that there are alternate ways of recognition each with its own advantages and disadvantages in terms of lead time, effort etc. Foundation is attempting what you said and we can certainly leverage the same.