[Wikimediaindia-l] Noteworthy Wikimedian Recognition

[Arjuna Rao Chavala]

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 at 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
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