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Wikimania scholarships

Hi Jimmy — I received an email this morning from the Wikimania 2024 Scholarship Committee, led by K2suvi (talk · global contribs), rejecting my application.

You may have come across my recent RfA, which I link only to establish that my level of participation in Wikimedia projects is not considered borderline by the community here.

From past discussion with other editors, I understand that this outcome is not unusual — the scholarship committee, constrained by a budget that last year permitted them to accept only 16% of applicants, and following a rubric better-suited to affiliate/outreach work than on-wiki editing, routinely rejects even functionaries and other highly respected editors.

In-person conferences provide a valuable opportunity to bring together the different parts of the movement and bridge some of the cultural divides that exist between them. Personally, the connections I have made at WikiConference North America have been invaluable, particularly for my work collaborating with foundation staff to inform the development of features like the Growth team's project on newcomer article creation, which is using my vision for a better Article Wizard as a model. I would have liked to expand and deepen those connections at Wikimania.

I recognize that travel scholarships aren't cheap. However, I find it deeply unfortunate — not just for myself, but for everyone similarly situated and for the resulting opportunity cost to the movement — that the foundation, belying its oft-repeated appreciation for the editor community, has chosen to devote so few of its considerable financial resources to enabling editors to join its flagship conference in person.

Given your own role at Wikimania and influence as a trustee over the foundation's budget, I am interested to hear your thoughts on this topic. Also pinging @Nadzik and @SGrabarczuk (WMF) as the respective Lead and Communications Lead for the conference.

Regards, Sdkb  22:09, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Hey @Sdkb, thank you for your ping.

You are raising an important matter that the Core Organizing Team (and all past COTs) is well aware of and is actively trying to combat. Wikimedia conferences are an important space of celebration and knowledge exchange in our Movement and we wish all of the community members could attend them. As much as we would want to, unfortunately, we don’t have resources to offer a scholarship to all of the deserving volunteers. This year the acceptance rate is 15 times less than the number of Wikimedians who applied for the scholarship, in spite of having increased from 2023 the total number of scholarships granted. For 2024 we have shifted our resources to awarding more partial scholarships to the people in the region (CEE, NWE and MENA), but even then, we still had to reject many well-prepared and worthy applicants.

We are working with the WMF to stretch the resources we were given, so the maximum number of scholars can benefit from the conference. I can already share with you that for 2024 we are looking to send a record number of at least 230 scholars to Wikimania, but even this number (almost double from 2019 and 20% more than in 2023) doesn’t allow us to send everyone we would have loved to see at the conference. The Wikimedia Foundation will continue to subsidize the in person ticket and cover all costs related to the virtual event – it will remain free to attend virtually.

In the next few weeks and months, we will be publishing data about the scholarship process. We would like to publish several “lessons learned”, both for the community and future organizers and useful resources for future applicants (including a few best-scored applications from this year and general comments that should be useful in application preparing for future Wikimanias and other conferences).

If you have any more questions about this year’s process, please watch the page on Wikimania wiki where we will publish more information. Please feel free to reach out to me as well if you’d like.

Cheers, Nadzik (talk) 21:27, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the detailed response. Sounds like the # of scholarships last year was around 200 and this year is around 230, and that a very large # of editors apply. Do you happen to know the total number of applicants last year and this year? Just to get an idea. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:41, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Hey @Novem Linguae!

Last year 1,206 applications were moved to the grading phase. For Wikimania 2024 there were 1,433 applications that the scholarship working group worked on. In addition to that, there were many more (majority) that were discarded in earlier phases or on technical basis (e.g. banned users, unfinished applications, partially blank, single words answers etc), so they were not graded by our team. If you are interested, more detailed information and stats will be published on Wikimania wiki in the next few weeks and months. Nadzik (talk) 13:41, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Great info. Thank you. So this year it was about 230/1433 = 16%, or approximately 1 in 7. Yeah, pretty competitive. –Novem Linguae (talk) 13:46, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

I've left a note at Nadzik's talk page wondering the exact amount allocated for these 230 scholarships for Poland and other questions pertaining to funding conferences. Thanks for this ongoing discussion (had also left a note at Skdb's talk page a few days ago). Is there still time to increase the number of scholarships to the Poland conference? Randy Kryn (talk) 13:24, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

While it would be great if the WMF had infinite resources, I personally think it would be best if the WMF spent less on conferences—and more on things like the community wishlist that benefit readers and editors who don't go to meetups. (t · c) buidhe 19:29, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

I agree that the foundation ought to be spending more on community priorities. Conferences are an opportunity for us to advocate for those priorities and build relationships with foundation staff that bring our priorities into better alignment — but that can only happen if we are present. Sdkb  19:55, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

My experience is that conferences and meetups are very, very important for building community and collaborative relationships.

The technology for editing this website works pretty well. It's the human relationships aspect of the community that is much, much more challenging! This online environment can become quite unpleasant sometimes, and many editors leave as a result.

We really need more scholarships to encourage the editors who are creating quality content. Oliveleaf4 (talk) 15:41, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Bumping thread. Jimbo Wales, I am interested to hear your thoughts on this topic. Sdkb  16:06, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi, @Skdb, I can only say that I'd like to see the budget for scholarships to Wikimania increased. It's an incredibly valuable event and I think it's important that people can come regardless of their personal situation. We'll never be able to bring everyone, of course, but I think it's a very important thing for our movement for people to get together face to face.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:18, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

In case anyone's feeling down about not being selected, I'll disclose that I've been rejected every time I've applied (7 times, I think)? :) I was offered a partial scholarship once, but that omits the most expensive part of the trip (I must've accidentally indicated an interest in a partial scholarship or didn't realize how partial it was). Though it's possible that my particular combination of contributions over the years just aren't sufficiently valuable to the people who run Wikimania or that some of the many people even more active than I am also applied, it's more likely a reflection of a pretty standard expectation for grant-funded conferences: to maximize the number of attendees and number of scholarship recipients distributed from a fixed amount of money. It's not a phenomenon unique to Wikimania that nearby applicants are prioritized (although requiring recipients to share a small hotel room with a stranger isn't something I've seen outside the wiki world, but that may just be a personal bugbear).
If I apply and say "I need lodging and airfare from the other side of the world" and someone else says "I need money for a cab ride and will stay with a relative", I can't imagine it matters too much how involved each of us are or how eloquent our application answers were when deciding who gets the scholarship. They both increase the participation and scholarship numbers by one, which is important to a lot of grantmaking orgs as well as conference organizers.
I know that it's easy to sound cynical when talking about metrics, so to be clear there is a lot to be said for maximizing attendance as well as for using big events to prioritize the local communities over distant contributors. Inviting as many people as possible from in and around Poland this year, for example, could seriously catalyze activities/membership in that area. But I guess I always thought of Wikimania in particular (as opposed to more locally oriented wiki-related events) as intended to be as international and diverse as possible, with as much representation from around the world as possible. In that case I would think that grantees for Wikimania in particular wouldn't be held to the same expectations that most other conferences are. One way to prioritize the international character might be to move the scholarship selection from the Wikimania organizers to affiliates or hubs (plus a pool for people who live in an area with no such body), and then simply tell e.g. Wikimedia Mexico and Wikimedia Sweden that they can each send 3 people using any transparent process that bases selection on some combination of involvement and need (rather than giving them a pot of money to maximize). — Rhododendrites \\ 16:41, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Anyone who has to send you a rejection letter should be cowering in embarrassment, Rhododendrites. A process that does not recognize you as a highly respected, highly active contributor with a ton to offer Wikimania is a blatantly flawed process. Sdkb  17:17, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Wikimania scholarship hotel rooms are solo nowadays. I think the number of scholarships awarded last year was around 200, the highest ever at the time. But I think the problem is that they receive over 1,000 applications. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:14, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

• Upping the scholarships to 800 for each worldwide and each regional conference (North American, India, etc.) and fully funding at least one evening "banquet" for the regionals (even if a very good boxed catered affair) with a couple of major speakers and entertainment (a good comedian goes a long way) seems one logical option. Even 800 scholarships seems low to me when looking at it as both a full conference and a celebration of the volunteers. Most individuals think they are giving to Misplaced Pages, not Wikimedia, which most have never heard of, so the elephant in the room is that Wikipedians create the elephant. As for the 2026 25th anniversary conferences, a thousand scholarships is a nice number. Let's find one billionaire who understands the concepts, and who will gladly fund all of these on a yearly basis. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:26, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

  There are more considerations however. More people == more expensive. Organising an event over a 1000 people is really complex and basically requires a year's worth of setup. A money reserve that allows you to cancel that event 2 years in a row (on the day of the event, total loss). You need cities that are easy to travel too (good airports and connections), have active local wiki communities, are relatively safe, without prosecution of minorities, and working visa processes (a shorter list than most ppl think). Venues with lecture halls for that many people (incl. power, wifi, catering, access checks, video setups etc etc) that have plenty of hotels and restaurants nearby. The list of requirements goes on and on. The side effect of making regional conferences the size of wikimania, might just be that they might become unmanageable and have to be cancelled more often than they are held. (Disclosure, I have never been sponsored for wikimania, but attended multiple times on my own. I was sponsored several times for wikimedia developer events up to 2015, after which I decided I would no longer apply). —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:05, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

  Yes, you are describing a real conference, comparable to major conferences of other well-known and respected organizations. If set up a couple years ahead of time (I'll mention my idea again as an example: VivaWikiVegas26 for the 25th anniversary North American conference) would work with orgnizational help from Wikimedia personnel, very likely in-kind donations from a major hotel chain (MGM runs most of the Vegas strip, a phone call or sit down with you, Jimbo, may not only obtain a donation of individual and conference rooms and sites but much more...Vegas is the home port of many major entertainers, some of whom may be willing to both entertain and speak at the conference of how their Misplaced Pages article affects their career), this is both doable and practical. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:21, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

  But we and our event, have no commercial value to almost anyone. And even if a company wants to cover a major part of the costs, they are very likely to get into some sort of argument with our own community. I can already see the signpost articles, helpfully forwarded by Andreas to multiple major newspapers. We (our community) are a brand risk more than we add value unfortunately. You can't sell us stuff, we won't work for them, there's not enough of us and they can't use our name in their commercial activities. Why would you pay millions in a tough financial climate for that? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:49, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

  Why do it? Because volunteers, Wikipedians, create this thing on a second-by-second basis. Misplaced Pages (and by extension, the WMF) is the respected entity which attracts those millions of dollars and keeps WMF personal employed. Respecting the volunteers by recognizing them in this way is maybe the least WMF can do. (Please also read the discussion at the Village Pump WMF page, thanks.) Randy Kryn (talk) 14:13, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

  I was specifically responding to your suggestion of having MGM and other commercial entities pay for it. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:18, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

  Sorry, missed that. MGM donating the rooms, or at least a large portion of the expense, would be both an in-kind tax-deductible donation to a respected non-profit entity but would show corporate respect for what Misplaced Pages has become. We should all be aware that volunteers and paid staff have created something unique in history and unique in volunteer-experimentation, and many more people than us realize it. Some of those people may be among the corporate heads of, for example, MGM, and would be glad to host and donate to such an event in one of their Vegas strip hotels (the strip rather than downtown Vegas seems the place to celebrate the 25th anniversary). Randy Kryn (talk) 14:30, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

  TheDJ and Jimbo Wales, it looks like Kathryn Maher may soon be free of her current job, maybe WMF can ask her at that point to have meetings with some of the billionaires to obtain further funding for both the WMF and Misplaced Pages projects. Proposed Misplaced Pages projects, and the conferences, should be funded to the hilt and then some (over the hilt?). Can you please ping some of the people who are in the position to make these funding decisions, thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:47, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

  I find this very distasteful. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:10, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

  Why? She is a wonderful communicator and would be a great person to have those one-on-one meetings with a few funders. I'm not suggesting that she come on-board again full time, but, if her time does open up a bit, have a few meetings in order to assist WMF and Misplaced Pages with the fundraising for the many projects that Wikipedians have proposed, including the extension of enhanced conferences to include scholarships for many more volunteers. She was the second Wikipedian I met in person, this was at 2017 Montreal conference where I was purposely introduced to her by the first Wikipedian I met in person, and immediately noticed her fine communication skills. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:37, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

  It seems important that Wikipedians should not lessen Maher's accomplishments and potential but, if the occasion arises, ask her to use her talents for a couple of days or weeks to help raise the funds to, specifically, up the conference scholarships to 800 or so per event (both worldwide and North American, etc.). Funds could also go to enlarging and enhancing each conference. These are important meeting places, and WMF should, as much as possible, involve Wikipedians in its funding thought-structure and plans. In any case, if she can't assist in this endeavor, please focus on other solutions to raise or deploy the needed funding which, as pointed out in all funding appeals, is raised by promoting the usefulness and uniqueness of the encyclopedia. It also seems important for English Misplaced Pages, in particular, to explain to critics that Maher (and hopefully she'll also further explain this to funders, the general public, etc.), had very little if any impact of how the volunteer editor base edited or edits articles, and thus almost no impact on the content of Misplaced Pages itself (for example, she has only made one edit to mainspace). Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 22:40, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Jimbo, you may or may not recall our conversation in Montreal at the 2017 conference, a conference which benefitted all attendees. I self-paid my plane and room, not on a scholarship, and meeting my first Wikipedian (with my first words being "I thought you were a bot!") and him introducing me to Kathryn Maher (the second Wikipedian I met in person) who we then engaged in a worthwhile and hopefully project beneficial conversation, was alone worth the expense. Just imagine how much would be accomplished at each conference with at least 800 scholarships to go along with fuller and enhanced programs, programs which would likely attract hundreds of more attendees. North American Conferences, for example, attended by 1000 people, would create intrinsic and real-time value far beyond the use of scholarship funding. In person conversations, as you know, usually accomplish more in five minutes than hours of on-line back and forth discussion, so WMF adding many more scholarships would not only further recognize the work of volunteers, but, as importantly, would benefit the projects immensely. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:31, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

I literally thought of this a couple hours ago, so please excuse my extending this discussion. Editors need to get together and meet in person, to sometimes be among our own kind. Nobody I regularly hang out with has any interest in hearing about editing Misplaced Pages (although I have lunch sometimes with another editor, maybe four times a year). I'd bet a quarter that the majority of long-time editors have similar stories. The brain-changing effect of editing Misplaced Pages is arguably real (which would make a good long-term study), and regular editors are surely not the same person that they were before they started editing. Let's make sure that lots of these good and productive volunteers get to personally experience their peer group, their community. For example, how about asking the Foundation to fund 300 scholarships to October's North American Conference, that doesn't seem unreasonable. Hopefully you will consider attending, which would be fun. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:21, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

User:Lkomdis

Hey Jimmy/Jimbo,

Sorry about the pings from that editor. I told them that this is a clear WP:CIR case, but they seem to be pinging you and random other admins. Sorry about the mishap of pings, I will try and get an admin to remove TPA soon.

Signed, thetechie@enwiki: ~/talk/ $ 01:51, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

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Draft:History of libraries for African Americans

I would be happy to have help with this subject. FloridaArmy (talk) 16:32, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

I think it’s best for this to be at the help desk instead Maestrofin (talk) 05:44, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Oh, to be at the help desk "as well"! FloridaArmy knows that I'm sympathetic and supportive of efforts to expand topics relating to the history of African Americans, and I've done a little bit (less than I wish I had time for) to help before with various articles. It's totally fine to ask me here.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:04, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Complaint about Fandom

Hi!

Recently, Fandom pages have been occasionally, periodically, redirecting my phone to mildly sussy sites. This is extremely annoying and detracts from the already slender respectability of Fandom's overall user experience.

I don't know how closely involved with Fandom you still are, but the very public nature of this forum makes it a good place in my view to air this. RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 04:47, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

That's interesting and doesn't sound great but it's not from anything that Fandom is doing. If you could email me some details using the link here, that'd be great. This really isn't the right forum for this though, so let's carry on in a different venue!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:49, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

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