On Fri, Apr 21, 2017 at 5:08 AM, Lodewijk <lodewijk@effeietsanders.org>
wrote:
> (not responding to a person in particular)
> I'm a little bit at a loss here. The proposal is to share a lot of
> information from the application process (whether attempted to anonimize or
> not) beyond statistics. Given the high number of countries and other rather
> specific characteristics, anything vaguely useful will likely contain at
> least some personally identifiable information.
>
PII disclosures can be limited to what users have already disclosed in
public (which, admittedly, may not be entirely current and truthful.)
Aggregated information can be provided as well.
> More likely even, anything you can share without being personally
> identifiable will probably not be very relevant for the application
> consideration. Sure, you could do some gender statistics, but how does that
> tell you why people have been rejected?
>
I anticipate that the level of transparency would be insufficient to
evaluate the Scholarship Committee and WMF decisions about individual
applicants. However, the information that is published may still be useful
and of interest when considering trends and groups.
>
> So I'd like to take a step back: what exactly is the problem you're trying
> to solve? Is publishing a lot of data really the best approach to that
> solution? If you define the problem well, I can imagine a few alternative
> approaches, like asking the scholarship committee to report back with an
> analysis of the problem and how they went about it - or asking an
> independent person/persons to sign an NDA, and go into the data,
> investigate and report back. They could actually go in depth - but it
> requires a good definition of the problem.
>
My impression is that there are disappointments and complaints almost every
year about scholarship awards. I hope that increasing transparency will
result in a decreased number and intensity of complaints about individual
cases, and will also increase the amount of information that is made public
which can be used by anyone and everyone to analyze policies and practices
and to make recommendations for refinements or changes as may seem best.
Also, as a broader theme, I would like to see more transparency about how
WMF funds are used. A change of practice like we're discussing here would
be one step in that direction.
>
> Best,
> Lodewijk
>
> 2017-04-21 13:32 GMT+02:00 Jonathan Cardy <werespielchequers@gmail.com>:
>
>> Hi Pine, I agree with you that partial transparency can be a positive and
>> at least assure people that their region/language/project is getting a fair
>> share even if they were declined. But I'd suggest that can be done with
>> anonymised stats rather than applications with some details redacted or
>> withheld.
>>
>
Let me ask: why shouldn't the usernames of applicants, and whether they
were offered scholarships, be made public in future years if scholarship
applicants are told in advance that this information will be published?
>
>> Trend analysis can be self defeating,
>>
>
How so?
> I've discussed this off wiki with some of the people who have had
>> scholarships in the past, including a couple of people who didn't apply
>> this year because they assumed they would be declined for Montreal after
>> having had scholarships recently.
>>
>> What might save a lot of time on everyone's part would be if there was a
>> simple rule such as we don't give the same person a scholarship for two
>> consecutive Wikimanias. Emphasis on give rather than award as there will be
>> people who were awarded a scholarship but could not get a visa. That would
>> reduce the workload of the scholarship team, and also of the applicants.
>> You could of course balance that by other factors, I'm hoping thatFrench
>> speakers are being given preference for Montreal.
>>
>
I agree with the general sentiment that giving scholarships to the same
person for multiple consecutive Wikimanias should be avoided. If what I'm
told is true that there are thousands of applicants for only a few hundred
scholarship spots, perhaps the bar should be even higher and scholarships
should be awarded to the same person at most once out of every three years.
It would help to have the information that we're discussing in this thread
be made public so that we can have a better-informed conversation about the
policies for scholarship awards. (:
Pine
wrote:
> (not responding to a person in particular)
> I'm a little bit at a loss here. The proposal is to share a lot of
> information from the application process (whether attempted to anonimize or
> not) beyond statistics. Given the high number of countries and other rather
> specific characteristics, anything vaguely useful will likely contain at
> least some personally identifiable information.
>
PII disclosures can be limited to what users have already disclosed in
public (which, admittedly, may not be entirely current and truthful.)
Aggregated information can be provided as well.
> More likely even, anything you can share without being personally
> identifiable will probably not be very relevant for the application
> consideration. Sure, you could do some gender statistics, but how does that
> tell you why people have been rejected?
>
I anticipate that the level of transparency would be insufficient to
evaluate the Scholarship Committee and WMF decisions about individual
applicants. However, the information that is published may still be useful
and of interest when considering trends and groups.
>
> So I'd like to take a step back: what exactly is the problem you're trying
> to solve? Is publishing a lot of data really the best approach to that
> solution? If you define the problem well, I can imagine a few alternative
> approaches, like asking the scholarship committee to report back with an
> analysis of the problem and how they went about it - or asking an
> independent person/persons to sign an NDA, and go into the data,
> investigate and report back. They could actually go in depth - but it
> requires a good definition of the problem.
>
My impression is that there are disappointments and complaints almost every
year about scholarship awards. I hope that increasing transparency will
result in a decreased number and intensity of complaints about individual
cases, and will also increase the amount of information that is made public
which can be used by anyone and everyone to analyze policies and practices
and to make recommendations for refinements or changes as may seem best.
Also, as a broader theme, I would like to see more transparency about how
WMF funds are used. A change of practice like we're discussing here would
be one step in that direction.
>
> Best,
> Lodewijk
>
> 2017-04-21 13:32 GMT+02:00 Jonathan Cardy <werespielchequers@gmail.com>:
>
>> Hi Pine, I agree with you that partial transparency can be a positive and
>> at least assure people that their region/language/project is getting a fair
>> share even if they were declined. But I'd suggest that can be done with
>> anonymised stats rather than applications with some details redacted or
>> withheld.
>>
>
Let me ask: why shouldn't the usernames of applicants, and whether they
were offered scholarships, be made public in future years if scholarship
applicants are told in advance that this information will be published?
>
>> Trend analysis can be self defeating,
>>
>
How so?
> I've discussed this off wiki with some of the people who have had
>> scholarships in the past, including a couple of people who didn't apply
>> this year because they assumed they would be declined for Montreal after
>> having had scholarships recently.
>>
>> What might save a lot of time on everyone's part would be if there was a
>> simple rule such as we don't give the same person a scholarship for two
>> consecutive Wikimanias. Emphasis on give rather than award as there will be
>> people who were awarded a scholarship but could not get a visa. That would
>> reduce the workload of the scholarship team, and also of the applicants.
>> You could of course balance that by other factors, I'm hoping thatFrench
>> speakers are being given preference for Montreal.
>>
>
I agree with the general sentiment that giving scholarships to the same
person for multiple consecutive Wikimanias should be avoided. If what I'm
told is true that there are thousands of applicants for only a few hundred
scholarship spots, perhaps the bar should be even higher and scholarships
should be awarded to the same person at most once out of every three years.
It would help to have the information that we're discussing in this thread
be made public so that we can have a better-informed conversation about the
policies for scholarship awards. (:
Pine