Hi,
transparency on the selection can only work when also the application texts are public
because we have many very active Wikimedians who are not very clear about what they ever
did or actually do, how this is relevant to Wikimania and if they are able to and want to
share this at Wikimania and back in their local communities afterwards. However, if only
the results were published, there could be no useful discussion between the committee and
others without information from the application texts.
But when applications are public, it would make absolutely no sense to have a committee
for the selection because every decision by the committe could be easily be debated. When
the expertise of the committee is questioned, people would be hesitant to participate as
already described in this thread. Hence, only a public selection done by the community as
a replacement for the committee would make sense.
When the community would decide on the applications, we had to define who would be part of
that community: who's eligible to vote on these? should the votes be public? would
large discussions be allowed? etc. As we have lots of experience with public elections, we
can also easily name the disadvantages of these: Popularity contests for only those people
who can stand public criticism, sometimes by few very loud destructive people or even
enemy groups, on everything they every did. Tons of people would be refrain from applying
at all, something we strongy have to face at the moment with elections for adminship or
other committees as pointed out by Risker.
Of course, we had transparency as a result and more public discussions around the
selection, but we would have no safe space for applicants at all (also in terms of
sensitive data like personal living conditions and anonymity). I see no third working
model besides these and my preference would clearly be the committee. But if you like, you
can, of course, seek consensus on the other model. I will raise my concerns there as
pointed out here.
Best,Martin/DerHexer(long-time scholarship committee member and co-organizer)
Von: Jonathan Cardy <werespielchequers(a)gmail.com>
An: Wikimania general list (open subscription) <wikimania-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Gesendet: 9:09 Mittwoch, 19.April 2017
Betreff: Re: [Wikimania-l] WMF Scholarships to attend Wikimania
Risker is right.
You can't publish such a table this year because it would break the promises made to
applicants who were declined.
You could start a discussion on meta, and make a proposal to publish such data for future
Wikimanias. I'd hope you wouldn't get consensus, but if you did we could then
monitor the effect on the 2018 Wikimania. If the requirement to publish details on
unsuccessful applicants as well as successful ones was deterring a significant proportion
of applicants, or deterring certain types of applicants such as applicants from particular
countries, then I'd hope 2019 would revert to the obviously superior system of not
publicly listing the people who applied for scholarships but were declined. I do
appreciate that in the future historians studying Wikipedia would really appreciate this
data, and I can see the point of putting it in a sealed archive and publishing after all
concerned have probably died. I'm not sure I see the point in publishing it now, if
people are concerned about fairness then get someone you trust to run for the scholarship
committee.
Regards
WereSpielChequers
On 19 Apr 2017, at 04:14, Risker <risker.wp(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I would like the Wikimedia Foundation NOT to do that. Our user privacy is to be
respected. People who applied for scholarships had every reason to expect that the WMF
would not publish their names if they were not awarded one, for example. Nobody who
applies is guaranteed a WMF scholarship; however, several other organizations actively
provide scholarships to community members who did not receive a WMF scholarship.
Transparency does not require putting users into embarrassing or awkward situations, and
many users who applied for scholarships may not have done so if they were told that the
names and details of their application would be published. The scholarship committee is
made up largely of volunteers, and they don't deserve the inevitable brickbats that
would be thrown their way if particularly vocal members of the community disagreed with
their decisions. And it's a given that just about every member of the community will
disagree with one or more decision made by the committee. So no, please don't publish
any details of any application, or how any individual candidate was assessed. That's
not transparency.
Risker/Anne
On 18 April 2017 at 22:51, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja <pavanaja(a)vishvakannada.com> wrote:
Hello, I would like WMF to make the list of applicants, their contributions, the weightage
used for each kind of contribution and the final list of scholarship awardees in a table
form. Since WMF is run by the contributions of the volunteers, such a transparency is
definitely needed from WMF. I hope WMF will oblige. Regards,Pavanaja From: Wikimania-l
[mailto:wikimania-l-bounces@
lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Ellie Young
Sent: 19 April 2017 01:23 AM
To: Wikimania general list (open subscription)
Subject: [Wikimania-l] WMF Scholarships to attend Wikimania Everyone who applied for a
scholarship to Wikimania '17 has been notified about the status. If you have not
heard, please check your spam filter, or send email to ask about the status to:
wikimaniascholarships@
wikimedia.org April 18 is the deadline for people who were offered
a scholarship to respond. A final list of everyone who was awarded and able to accept will
be posted to on the wiki in early May. We expect registration for Wikimania '17 to go
live on or before May 1st. -- Ellie YoungEvents ManagerWikimedia
Foundationeyoung(a)wikimedia.org
______________________________ _________________
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l(a)lists.wikimedia. org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/ mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
_______________________________________________
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
_______________________________________________
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l