Learning patterns/Suggestions on how to complete a scholarship form for Wikimania
What problem does this solve?[edit]
Last year, I was part of the scholarship committee of Wikimania, was a very interesting experience and this got me inspired to write this pattern.
What made me think about writing this pattern was the struggle I was facing to separate the team contribution from personal contribution in some of the applications. There were a lot of applicants who were talking about what their chapter, UG or team have archived but not their role in a specific project. And sometimes because of it, the applicant has a non-successful application.
When you apply for a personal scholarship make sure to write your contribution and be very specific about it. And try to answer these questionsː
- How YOU helped?
- What exactly did YOU do?
- What was the result of your effort?
- What do YOU want to get from this event?
And of course, you should write one sentence or two about what was the overall achievement of a project you took part, but not to use the team work as a personal achievement. When it comes to personal scholarships is ok to talk about YOU. If you're starting all your sentences with WE, check that again, and make sure that its clear what YOU did in the "WE" work.
What is the solution?[edit]
Things to consider[edit]
- DOCUMENT YOUR EVENTS ON WIKI (or else where) but do itǃǃ
- Write down on a document all the projects that you have been involved. Save itǃ
- Write down goals and what was was archived for each one of them. Then remove all the points that you were not involved.
- Copy the questions of the form and start completing them. (See "related pattern" for help with the questions)
- (For event organizers) Do not put too much attention to logistics of the event when you're talking about your contribution. (E.g internet was not working so some people left and the other were not motivated to write anymore... so the goals of the event were not match because of it... We changed the date of the event because was cold/rain/hot, and because of it....)
- Links, links, linksǃ Think about that a team of ~8 people will check at least 700 applications. Its impossible to research of each one of the applications, and to see if a project they claim is real, or if some other project really happened. So please, put links to refer your work, just like you do with Wikipedia articles.
- NameDroping. Please make sure (when its possible) to include also people that could refer your work. Would be great if this person/these people are not related directly to your Chapter/UG.