Wikimania/Scholarships/Selection Criteria

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)

Background

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

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

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.