For start I want to thank you for commenting and response.
But I really strongly disagree with decision and reasoning being used.
It seems to me to be an equivalent of banning 20 most active accounts of editors from Poland/Germany/UK to improve diversity statistics.
Having 20 good things from Europe and 1 good thing from Africa is preferable to having 1 good thing from Europe and 1 good thing from Africa. Even if the first one has worse diversity statistics. At least in situation where good things done in Europe are not done at cost of good thing in Africa - but as far as I can see, 2023 STOTM in Kosovo would not harm 2024 STOTM in Africa.
Complete cancellation of STOTM taking place in Europe is not going to magically improve situation in Africa. Announcing from start that next STOTM is going to happen in Africa and other communities should not bother with applying at least makes some sense, as communities allowed to apply would likely put more effort.
Deciding that even the best bid from Europe will be rejected, purely due to location - after 2023 bids were submitted - is really obnoxious and insulting to people who put effort into this, just to be told that their attempt was doomed from start no matter what they did. With “some richer countries in the same continent run this event earlier” as justification.
It is especially weird as with reasonable diversity metrics, Kosovo event would be improving things rather than making it worse.
This entire thing pushes me toward rejecting any quotas and DEI stuff as counterproductive to actual diversity. And even more to actual targets of the project.
Remind me about Goodhart’s law - “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure”
In this case diversity was not improved at all, only one specific metric was improved. At cost of reducing even what was being attempted to be optimized and harming diversity.
And I also want to comment that while diversity is worth something, I see no reason for it to be treated as the most important goal. Assuming that STOTM in general would be a good thing, then yet another STOTM in Europe, even in country that had highest count of STOTM so far would be a good thing. Even if diversity points would not be gained from this.
It is a mapping project, not diversity project. And I still do not get how it helped even with specifically diversity.