Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2018-06-29/News and notes

Discuss this story

I'm a little confused by the opening sentence: "The announcement of Wikimania scholarships for 2018 provoked complaints on a Foundation mailing list." The linked mailing list thread, while very relevant and interesting, was a May 2017 thread discussing the scholarships to Wikimania 2017 in Montreal. Is there a more recent thread discussing scholarships to Wikimania 2018 in Cape Town? Noting the contrast between the way Wikipedians apply for "scholarships" and adminship and ArbCom, and the accusations of bullying in that mailing list thread. Perhaps we could apply for scholarships by some community-driven process that was some variant of how we apply for adminship and ArbCom. Of course, applicants for those positions never are bullied during the process. LOL. wbm1058 (talk) 03:44, 2 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm also confused with this. BTW, last year I counted repeat scholarships, and found "out of 378 people awarded scholarships, 309 people have been awarded one scholarship, 55 have been awarded two, 14 have been awarded three, and 0 have been awarded four". The updated numbers for 2014-2018 are 500 people awarded scholarships, 413 awarded one scholarship, 73 awarded two, 14 awarded three, and 0 awarded four. Draw conclusions from that as you want. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:06, 2 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There was a May 2018 thread as well, similar to the May 2017 thread. It can be found here: https://lists.gt.net/wiki/foundation/887233. Note that there is something of a conflict of interest here perhaps that isn't disclosed, as Signpost editor Kudpung was probably the most engaged critic of the scholarship process in this thread. Nathan^T 22:35, 2 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You make it sound as if that email list is private and that Signpost editors are guilty of leaking information, and that they are forbidden to research their areas of interest and/or specialisation. Or does AfG not count in this comments section? Probably not Nathan, this is journalism. However, I did not begin the very short News & Notes item, but FWIW, yes, I am indeed very critical about several aspects of the way Wikimedia is organised - I've attended several of them. Anyway, you'll have plenty to complain about in next month's issue - stay tuned. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:44, 3 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Kudpung: "that email list is private and that Signpost editors are guilty of leaking information" ... that's not how I read Nathan's comment. I assume that by "AfG" you mean "assume faith good"... please correct me if I'm wrong. wbm1058 (talk) 19:41, 3 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No, it just seems that if the Signpost attempts to adhere to some standard of journalistic ethics it might be a good idea to report not just that "complaints were raised" but that they were raised specifically by the reporter himself. The appearance is that the Signpost brief is reporting, but because it is reporting your own beliefs it becomes advocacy and opinion writing and not journalism. I'm not normally a Signpost critic, so I'm not sure why you would anticipate that I would "complain" next month. Unless you plan to post more position advocacy under the guise of journalism? Advocacy and opinion is totally fine, it should just be clearly described as such and hopefully you will choose to do so. Nathan^T 14:31, 7 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Nathan, I see no advocacy, and I do not see a lack of good faith coming from my quarter. The 'brief' item above was totally objective and carried no opinion. In the meantime, if Wikimania is your concern and you have something to contribute to this month's coming article about it from your own experience, and if you want to offer a better quality of journalism, the newsroom is thataway, and there are plenty of positions vacant, including that of E-in-C. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:57, 9 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]