Talk:Wikimania 2022/Scholarships/Wikimeetup of Wikimedians in Bangladesh during Wikimania

Hello Applicant, Thank you very much for applying for the Wikimania 2022 Affiliate Grant. There are some questions about your proposal. At the moment the transportation for participants is not covered - will you consider it?--Venuslui (talk) 9 June 2022 (UTC)

@Venuslui: Thank you for your suggestion. Travel expense added.--Rocky Masum (talk) 15:54, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Approval of Scholarship

Hello @Venuslui:,

Can you please tell us when we can expect a decision? From past experiences, we know that it takes 15-20 days to reach us after the grants get approved. On the other hand, we are planning to accommodate 50 participants. It will require going through a registration and selection process, which we estimate needs 15 days (10 days for registration, 5 days for selection). There is a lot of offline work involved, like; getting a booking for the venue, getting confirmation on catering services, designing and placing orders for swags, distributing the data scholarships, processing travel scholarships, etc. As all of us are volunteers, there are other constraints present like the availability of volunteers for voluntary works. If we do not get a decision by July 12, which will allow us only 30 days to prepare for the event, it will be very challenging for us to organize it.

Please help us to get a decision before July 12, if possible.

Regards, Rocky Masum (talk) 11:47, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Hello @RockyMasum,

Thank you for your message. At the moment, the COT has approved the proposal, and the Grants Admin team is working on the eligibility checks for your application. It takes time to go through the whole process. We will inform you the result as soon as possible.

Venuslui (talk) 11:26, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Inclusion where?

Prior to discovering this, I had the impression that the wikimedia movement was an inclusive, friendly, and open community, as stated in the movement strategy 2030 and in the theme of wikimania 2022. I just now discovered the fact, and I don't believe this rules will retain even the slightest inclusion in this year’s Wikimania Bangladesh. At least five new wikimedians got in touch with me and expressed their disappointment at being excluded.

According to the rules, people must first submit their applications in order to participate in this year's Wikimania Bangladesh. After that, they will go through a primary screening, where one of the screening criteria specifies that the participant's account must be at least 6 months old and another specifies that their most recent year of edit history will be taken into account.

In terms of inclusion, account age and Wikipedia edit history are terrible. Alternatives to this that are widely utilized in the movement include open-ended questions to evaluate past contributions to the overall movement which could be easily used here.

The event appears to be open to everyone from the public descriptions. But it's not!

It's not wrong to plan restricted events, but it's wrong to advertise an event as "open" while restricting it on the inside. Then the community's elites eventually take over as a whole.

I fear that these types of regulations will turn the local wikimedia projects (like this year's wikimania, of course) into a “picnic” of the same old players, continuing the years-long silent process of eliminating inclusivity, suppressing new leadership and elevating the supremacy of selected particular groups in the local movement.

@Venuslui:, It would have been better if the core organizing team had checked the inclusiveness of the event earlier. – BIDROHI ^Hello.. 19:36, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

There has been no response to the concern I had highlighted despite a full month having elapsed which is frustrating. After the event finished, I tried to dig down a bit and now I can name more than 10 new wikimedians who have been rejected. I will introduce them to only professionals with an obligation to ensure their safety (of course after taking the permission from the new wikimedians). Because I don’t want them to become the victim of target bullying which have been practiced for years in the community against whoever steps ahead to speak against the elitism.

Can I ask you a few questions? I no longer even hope to receive a response to these queries. The history of the elitism in this region should be documented for the future wikimedian who will strive in the future to ensure equity and inclusion in the local movement and I think, this messages will at least document the whole scenario.

“We will engage volunteers from the Bangla Wikipedia community, with their collaboration we will finalize the criteria that will be used to de determine eligibility for the participants”, the grantee organization said in their proposal. How did you ”engage” “volunteers from the community” and how did you “finalize the criteria”? There are three ways to notify the community - the village pump of bnwiki, bnwiki mailing list and wikimedia-bd mailing list. I don’t see any public message anywhere. Either there’s not the least community engagement or I, along with the rejected young wikimedians have been excluded from “the community”.

I fear, you created some “obedient puppets” and tagged them as “the community”, please don’t do that.

“We will be arranging an in-person meetup for 50 participants including Wikimedians and a few open knowledge like minded stakeholders.” Who are those “like minded stakeholders” who are not involved in the movement? What’s the relation between the organizers and the “like minded stakeholders”? Non-wikimedian “like minded stakeholders” have the right to attend an “open” conference but new enthusiastic wikimedians aren’t allowed?!

An entire month went by with no replies, no expressions of sympathy, and no inquiries as to what had truly happened or why we were uneasy. This ignorance and humiliation may be a result of "the elites" being aware that their "playground" has never been successfully taken and will never be also. Nobody cares, nobody even cared … … – BIDROHI ^Hello.. 15:10, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

two months and still counting; hope @User:DSaroyan (WMF) or User:THasan (WMF) or whoever from the community resources team is/are handling the resource distribution in this area, will keep this in mind in their future resource distribution process. We don't want our movement resources to be used for sustaining any monopoly. -- BIDROHI ^Hello.. 18:36, 10 October 2022 (UTC)