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Wikimania/Scholarships/Selection Criteria

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This is just a very quick page I'm making to gather ideas on what might be good selection criteria for Wikimania scholarships. Later, a proper consensus-oriented process will make actual decisions about what the final selection criteria should be. At this point, I am just curious to solicit some ideas & thinking. Thanks for helping. Sue Gardner 21:37, 26 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Background

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About one in 10 Wikimania scholarship applicants are approved for a scholarship - which means it a fairly competitive process. Given that, it seems reasonable that we would want to 1., have very clear selection criteria, and 2., make the criteria transparent and visible.

Process

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I want to brainstorm here potential selection criteria, as well as comment on/discuss them. Later I am assuming there will be a Wikimania scholarships committee of some sort, with representation from the community and the staff, which will finalize the criteria for Wikimania 2009 and future Wikimanias.

Brainstormed list of proposed criteria

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At this point, I think it's okay if the criteria overlap or contradict each other. For example, we could choose -if we wanted- to have criteria simultaneously encouraging both students and older people.

  • Demonstrated commitment to the values & goals of the Wikimedia projects (assessed by e.g., years of involvement, number of edits made, lines of code written, etc.)
  • OR has demonstrated commitment to the values and goals of Free Software, Free knowledge or education and shows an interest in Wikimedia projects. (Other FLOSS or like-minded organisations, possibility of partnerships and added value)
  • Financial need (e.g., full-time student or other non-FT-working person)
  • Unusually high travel expenses (e.g., people who live in locations remote from the venue)
  • New and promising Wikimedians (people who have not been involved for very long, but are making a particularly good contribution)
  • The presence of the attendee would add value to the conference, ie:
    • Gives a presentation (that covers an important/missing subject)
    • Brings in important opinions in panels / open discussions
    • Is active in the organizing team and help would be useful on site
  • Is interesting to the press
  • Makes the attendees more representative
    • Different regions of the world
    • "Representatives" from at least all major communities
    • Focus on getting editors from small and new communities who show commitment to spread Wikimedia values.
    • Programmers who are willing to develop the code and hardware management we currently have
  • etc.