This observation has been made by a few people (some of them involved in the scholarship
decision-making process) is that past recipients often continue to out-perform others in
terms of the criteria in subsequent years. What hasn’t been commented on is why this is
so?
If we believe that an attendee to Wikimania benefits in terms of learning new skills,
hearing new ideas, making new contacts, then we should hardly be surprised if an attendee
is then in a position to “grow” as a Wikimedian and hence be more able to “out-compete”
others who didn’t have the benefit of attending. (And If we don’t believe that attendees
benefit or grow from Wikimania attendance, then we should stop running Wikimania). Also
the scholarship recipient has an expectation to share with their community what they have
learned, even that process of sharing adds to their list of activities that they can use
as evidence as subsequent scholarship applications.
Aside. If you have read the book Freakonomics or followed their blog, you will be aware
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freakonomics
of their study of how professional footballers tend to have their birthdays clustered in a
few months of the year and how this phenomenon has its roots in spotting football talent
in very young players and then training them. Because junior sport is usually based around
age limits with a specific cut-off day, the children who just exceed the age limit by a
month or two will usually be less physically developed than those who exceed the age limit
by 10 or 11 months. Thus, the older children in the cohort are more likely to be selected
for the team and receive coaching. Next year (still with a relative age developmental
advantage AND with one year of extra coaching) these older children in the cohort are
again appear the most able and again selected for the team (giving them yet another year
of coaching benefit over those not selected). This cycle repeats throughout their
childhood ensuring the older ones within the “age year” are disproportionate represented
in both junior sport and then into college and professional sport, giving rise to the
observed clustering of birthdays in professional footballers.
This is exactly the same phenomenon as we are seeing with Wikimania scholarships.
How can the playing field of Wikimania scholarships be made a little fairer? I don’t think
the answer lies in deducting some points from those who have had a scholarship before. I
think the solution lies in having two streams of scholarships, one for the first timers
who compete among themselves on criteria that assesses their *potential* to “grow” through
the Wikimania experience and a second set of scholarships for those who are applying to
come for a second/third/… time with criteria more appropriate to that group, how much did
they “grow” and how much did they “share” relative to the number of Wikimania
opportunities they have had (note one might also want to include attendance at Wikimedia
Conference and other similar movement events in this regard)?
Note in both streams it is still possible to include factors like the Global North/South
issue, minority groups, etc in the criteria as consistent with the movement’s strategic
goals. The key difference is whether you are assessing only potential for growth from
attending for the first-timers as opposed to observed growth from past attending and
likely potential for further growth from additional attendance for the repeaters.
If that approach is taken, then the only question that remains is the relative number of
scholarships (or amount of funds) available in each of the two streams. Obviously there’s
a range of possibilities, but I would be tempted to operate on a simple pro-rata principle
at least in the first year of operation. After the weeding out of the ineligible or people
who show poorly against the criteria (however many phases there are to do that), look at
the size of the two remaining groups and go pro-rata. That is, if after the preliminary
cull(s), there are 200 potential first-timers and 100 potential repeaters, then allocated
twice as many scholarship (or twice as much funding) to the first-time group as to the
repeater group. If that does not seem to produce a good mix of attendees, then tweak it
whichever way seems appropriate the next year.
My key point is to stop comparing a basket of mixed apples and oranges and start comparing
apples with apples and oranges with oranges. That should give you mix of the best apples
and the best oranges.
Kerry