Hi Ravi, I really appreciate your views on the new initiative. I thought I may also share on how I view the whole process,... these comments are my personal views and not necessarily as an Executive Committee Member of the Wikimedia India chapter.

You had already seen that Wikimania/ Wikimedia Foundation started "Wikipedian of the Year" this year.

Having said that, this is an humble effort to recognize at least a few of our really outstanding contributors of the Wikimedia Movement in India.

When we thought about this initiative , we wanted to make sure the process is very OPEN and TRANSPARENT, although we were fully aware of the very short time we have in hand before the Wiki-conference. We wanted it to be selected by a Jury that is highly respected and qualified. We wanted to it be announced to all in advance so that everybody gets a fair chance. We are fully aware that there are some good candidates on the chapter EC, jury and foundation staff. But again, wouldn't it be more transparent and ethical if we could free the jury on any kind of conflict of interest ?

The result of this doesn't mean that anyone who didn't get the annual "Noteworthy Wikimedian Recognition" is any less good. Who knows there are more than one Noteworthy Wikimedians to be recognized ? Make the selection difficult for the jury ! May be Jury will be forced to recognize at least a handful of Wikipedians ! :)

There are many reasons of attempting this : How many of you know all the remarkable contributors in other languages ? Do you know all the outstanding contributors in your own language Wikipedia since its creation?

I may know some, you may know some.. Let everybody know them !

Nominate others, recognize their efforts, if you know that they have made some outstanding contributions to the Movement !

Since this is the first time, the contributions are considered from 2001-2010, because we didn't want of ignore all those who have contributed from the start of the project. Next year , probably it might be a fixed time frame like Jan - Dec 2011.

Thank you for listing some of the great contributors of Tamil Wikipedia. Honestly, I didn't know most of them. And possibly many on the list too .. That is exactly the intention of this effort. This is just such an effort to find the real gems of the Wikipedia and recognize them !

Please note that *this is NOT a competition* and the best you can do is to nominate all of them.

Being a sysop. b'crat or steward is NOT an achievement or consideration for noteworthy Wikipedian. The contributions as an individual Wikipedian is important. It is not even edit counts or even number of articles. Not everyone is a great article writer, but have contributed in 1001 ways, copy editing, vandal fighting, removing copy vio, uploading images, organizing events , meet-ups and academies, evangelizing Wikimedia to others, the ways to contribute are countless.

And should we not recognize anyone because we are not sure they are the only best ? No. So should we just ignore the contributions of everyone ? No. Even Nobel Prize is based on nominations . We don't even know if we have missed lots of deserving people for the Nobel nominations. But still, are we not giving Nobel Prizes every year?

We may not be able to find all those who have made great contributions, but at-least we could find some and recognize them. Trust me, it will be a great motivation and encouraging for them. And an inspiration for lot others !

Do notice that we had intentionally named it as "Noteworthy Wikimedian" and not "Best Wikimedian" !

So what could you and everyone do ? Find them, nominate and recognize them.

Just a gentle reminder that the last date of nomination is Nov 13. http://wiki.wikimedia.in/NWR_2011

Regards Tinu Cherian

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.

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.

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.

3. What is the point of a citation / certificate in this digital age?

What is the purpose achieved after the event is over?

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.

Ravi

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On Thu, Nov 10, 2011 at 6:11 PM, Ravishankar ravidreams@gmail.com wrote:

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.

Not sure a jury is so un-wikipediac. Juries usually pick the venue for

each wikimania, on clear and transparent criteria.

Another way to think of a jury is as a committee - or a smaller group of people, who convene to make something specific happen. And there are many of these: ChapCom (Chapters Committee), NomCom (Nominations Committee), CommCom (Communications Committee), to name a few.

And, of course, there are more than 11 committees that are part of WikiConference India 2011.

Also, in this specific case, the jury is charged to pick noteworthy wikipedians from among those nominated by different communities. So it is not like the jury is separately nominating and deciding on its own, but from a pool nominated by a larger community. (So it's a smaller subset of the former, in a sense).

Best, Bishakha

Hi Ravi,

Thanks for your email. Tinu's response has captured some keypoints behind the initiative, which was discussed with EC and other stakeholders, so I will be brief. Additional responses inline..

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.

We look forward to active participation from all in making this initiative a success.

Cheers Arjun