Wikipedia:Education noticeboard
Welcome to the education noticeboard | ||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ||||||||||||||||||||
Index 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 |
Sections older than 7 days may be automatically archived by ClueBot III. |
Course coordinator currently involved in an ArbCom case relating to a course they are teaching[edit]
There will likely be an ArbCom case (Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Holocaust in Poland) relating to User:Chapmansh. To rehash the drama, Chapmansh/Shira Klein recently published an article in an academic journal [1] accusing several Wikipedia editors of coordinating offsite to distort facts relating to the Holocaust. This has prompted ArbCom to propose a case in which Chapmansh may be made a party. Needless to say, this is going to be a big case especially given that it involves Icewhiz.
The reason why I'm posting this to the education notice board is because User:Chapmansh is teaching the course Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/Chapman University/Jewish Life from Napoleon to Hitler (Spring 2023). In past iterations of this course,[2] students have edited in the Holocaust topic area.
I would say that if Chapmansh coordinates editing offsite in the Holocaust topic area during this ArbCom case it will probably not be an enjoyable experience for the student editors. Regardless of whether there is a conflict of interest, the students will probably be under a microscope the entire time given how many people are involved in this case. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}}
on reply) 16:58, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- Oy. Well, at least given that the class clearly includes a lot of historical scope prior to the Holocaust, we could presumably direct Klein and her students to stick to the non-Holocaust stuff, at least for this semester? signed, Rosguill talk 17:07, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Rosguill: That's what I would imagine is the best choice here onwiki (as well as to avoid Poland). I'll ping User:Brianda (Wiki Ed) who is the Wiki Ed expert assigned to that course. Chess (talk) (please use
{{reply to|Chess}}
on reply) 17:21, 14 February 2023 (UTC)- Pardon me for butting in, I saw this mentioned at WP:ARC and thought I could help by clarifying a few things. The topic area of the Arbcom case, and the journal article, is not "Holocaust", but "Holocaust in Poland". In Wikispeak, that's part of WP:APL. WP:APL has, since May 2020, been covered by (what we now call) WP:ARBECR, which means that non-extended-confirmed editors can't edit in that topic area. If you look at the "past iterations of this course" link by Chess above, none of the students listed are extended-confirmed, and none of them edited in the WP:APL topic area--all those articles are outside of WP:APL. In sum: apparently WikiEd students already stay out of the topic area, and have for a couple years. Levivich (talk) 17:58, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Levivich: That's true, though keep in mind offwiki coordination by Klein has come up during the ArbCom case. There's nothing wrong with student editors contributing to our coverage of the Holocaust, but the perception that Klein is trying to influence Wikipedia's coverage of certain topics by using her position is something that could be discussed during the case.
- Regardless of whether or not this is true, student editors could very easily wander into a minefield they aren't remotely prepared for. Your claim that
none of them edited in the WP:APL topic area
isn't actually true. ZyerAbdullah123 appears to have removed someone else's talk page comment on Polish death camps during the 2021 course. [3] - While I doubt that was intentional and is very minor (not even worthy of anything beyond a gentle reminder), people have a habit of assuming bad faith during very controversial ArbCom cases. Chess (talk) (please use
{{reply to|Chess}}
on reply) 19:16, 14 February 2023 (UTC)- An unsupported claim of offwiki coordination was made by an involved party, it should not be repeated and has no bearing here. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:22, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- Accidentally removing a talk page comment does not constitute editing in the topic area. And you say "trying to influence Wikipedia's coverage" as if it's a bad thing. I welcome scholars trying to "influence Wikipedia's coverage" by pointing out problems in that coverage. I welcome teachers trying to "influence Wikipedia's coverage" by teaching students how to edit. Levivich (talk) 19:35, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- Although an accidental removal is not topic area editing, I think the point is that these things attract excessive attention during controversial ArbCom cases, and it does no service to students, or to the students' educational experience, to unwittingly find themselves in the middle of that. It's not about whether or not the students do anything wrong, but rather, about trying to keep the students from getting needlessly caught up in wiki-drama. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:38, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- I think Levivich makes a valid point that due to not being e-confirmed, the students can't edit this area much even if they wanted to. On the other hand, there are still many minor articles related to this topic area which don't have the right protection level slapped in, I believe, so as Chess' correctly notes with their example, they may occasionally stumble into the "minefield". To add another example: in the companion piece that the authors published in a Polish newspaper a few days ago [4], they actually mentioned that Klein became interested in the Wiki-side of the narrative after one of her students editing the History_of_the_Jews_in_Poland article (which is now e-c portended but wasn't back in 2018) got into a dispute with an editor who told him not to cite historian Jan T. Gross (the authors erroneously claimed that editor was myself, while in fact that editor who criticized Gross was Xx236; meanwhile I defended Gross and helped the student, for which Klein thanked me - see Talk:History_of_the_Jews_in_Poland/Archive_4#Postwar_Antisemitism; that misattribution error confusing me with Xx236 already got fixed in the Polish news article which now sports a small correction note - one error down, dozens more to go, sigh). Anyway, the point I am making is that it is possible the students will occasionally run into issues, but I wouldn't worry to much about it, those have been and likely will be isolated incidents. Teaching experience on all sides, really. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:04, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- Pardon me for butting in, I saw this mentioned at WP:ARC and thought I could help by clarifying a few things. The topic area of the Arbcom case, and the journal article, is not "Holocaust", but "Holocaust in Poland". In Wikispeak, that's part of WP:APL. WP:APL has, since May 2020, been covered by (what we now call) WP:ARBECR, which means that non-extended-confirmed editors can't edit in that topic area. If you look at the "past iterations of this course" link by Chess above, none of the students listed are extended-confirmed, and none of them edited in the WP:APL topic area--all those articles are outside of WP:APL. In sum: apparently WikiEd students already stay out of the topic area, and have for a couple years. Levivich (talk) 17:58, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Rosguill: That's what I would imagine is the best choice here onwiki (as well as to avoid Poland). I'll ping User:Brianda (Wiki Ed) who is the Wiki Ed expert assigned to that course. Chess (talk) (please use
- To be clear, nobody should be going around to stalk/hound these students' edits in the absence of clear evidence of (a) bad faith, or (b) significant policy violations. Their professor writing an article about a topic shouldn't affect the status of their students. The reality, however, is that students in this class will simply be more likely to run into this kind of problematic behavior, and should be aware of what they're getting into. For what it's worth, anyone following these students around and/or undoing their work will themselves be subject to heightened scrutiny, too. A good practice would be to encourage anyone who's wary of jumping in to just edit in userspace rather than article space, moving good content into articles after some review (a good practice with controversial subject areas regardless). But Chapmansh has run many Wikipedia assignments in the past, and likely knows a thing or two about editing controversial topics from both teaching and research, so I don't anticipate anything in this thread coming as a surprise. At the end of the day, if there's something the article and the arbcom case make clear, it's that there's room for improvement in Holocaust-related articles, and it would be great to have additional editors making policy-based improvements. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 23:07, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- I'll confirm here that User:Chapmansh's students will not be working on topics related to Poland. We at Wiki Education understand the sensitivity around this topic, and are working closely with Champansh to ensure students are adequately supported for any edits they make. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 01:33, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
Incoporating WikiEd into high school courses[edit]
Hi all! I am a high school teacher at a private school in the United States that gives us a lot of freedom in the sort of topics and assessment strategies we use. I'm interested in incorporating Wikipedia editing into my courses next school year, either as part of the assignments and assessments or as an entire course (like Composition 101, for example). Have any teachers here had success doing this who'd be willing to chat about it or have class-specific resources that could be shared with me? We have until December to propose new courses so I want to take my time crafting a strong proposal. ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)Talk to Me! 15:52, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
- Hi Thaddeus! While I do not teach computer anything (maths/physics for me) I did an "edit Wikipedia" project during my degree course. I don't have much in the way of content or resources to offer, but I will offer one suggestion based on how my project was run and how I see a lot of courses (in my opinion improperly) run. I was tasked with a) improving a stub or start class article, and b) becoming involved in the Wikipedia community. The latter part is what I actually found to be more beneficial (clearly, since I'm still editing ten years later!), as it got me into a bunch of WikiProjects and the IRC help channel. On the other hand, a lot of courses task their students with writing something from scratch, so they throw together a few thousand words about a non-notable subject and then panic when either their draft isn't accepted, gets deleted as copyright or for being non-notable, etc. Most of those students never edit again. I guess it's just something to keep in mind while you plan things out. Happy to chat more about it either here or elsewhere as you flesh things out. Cheers, Primefac (talk) 19:05, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
- Thank you for that insight! The idea of focusing on "getting involved" is really interesting and I'll need to think about that a little bit. The basic idea I have right now is this: A "historical methods and research" course focused on local history where students would get to work with our local archives and historical societies, pick an event/place/person from local history, and either write a new article about that subject or expand an existing stub. If it's structured that way, it would be closer to an independent study course and students would get to work on a single subject over the entire semester, which I think is a much more manageable workload for high school students and would let me keep all their editing in class time, so I could be more proactive in fixing any issues.
- From what you remember from your degree, what was the expectation for "becoming involved"? I could see that working as part of an "intro to Wikipedia" segment in the first part of the semester, letting kids choose RC patrolling/typo adoption/finding sources. I'm not sure administration would be on board with getting kids talking to strangers on WikiProject pages, though - Not sure I want to deal with that parental complaint! ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)Talk to Me! 23:16, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
- If nothing else, student editors will be expected to engage with "strangers" on the students' own user talk pages, if editors contact them about edits the students make. Perhaps that would be worth thinking about before making the decision to go ahead with this. Because they are of high-school age, I'd also strongly advise them to use account names that do not reveal their real-life identity. Also, keep them away from controversial topics, so they don't unwittingly step on a hornet's nest. And I'll say something that I say so frequently on this page that I sound like a broken record: it's a good idea to read WP:ASSIGN to get a feel for expectations and potential pitfalls for class projects. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:26, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
- I was just thinking out loud - I only meant that to people with no knowledge of Wikipedia it might seem unsafe at first glance. I'll definitely include an explainer on how collaboration here works in the actual proposal. I have read WP:ASSIGN, which was very helpful! I was really just hoping that some other teacher out here had a syllabus or class plan that they'd used at this level as I've never developed one from scratch before. And student safety is always the number one priority, so no issues there! ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)Talk to Me! 23:35, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
- The "becoming involved" bit was less about having tangible evidence of collaboration and more of our weekly update about how and what we had accomplished (though we did have to include a section in our research paper about the various ways communities interact with each other and the public). Keep in mind also I was at uni so the "chat with random people online" issue was slightly less of a concern. Primefac (talk) 15:46, 19 August 2023 (UTC)
- @ThadeusOfNazereth I would be really worried about that local history idea since the students will almost certainly run into notability issues unless you're getting really directly involved in helping them pick topics. My advice (I teach university courses, not high school, but I think it applies either way) is to start very very small and see how it goes before you do anything more ambitious. In my experience, students haven't really thought about who makes Wikipedia and why they do that - I expect you will be very surprised by the things your students assume or don't assume about both this project and the web in general. You might want to start with a project that gets them to think about the encyclopedia itself, rather than writing for the encyclopedia, as your first assignment(s) so you have a better idea of where your students tend to start from. Then you'll have somewhere firmer to start from when you're thinking about making it a major part of a course. Some suggestions for simple assignments: have students make a single edit - any edit - and explain why they did that; have students read a page like WP:YOUNG or WP:5P and get them to think about why they say the things they do / what they think is the most important point; have students find a conversation on a Talk page where at least two editors disagree and have them explain how the editors resolved (or didn't resolve) the issue. The hope is that this kind of thing gets them to bumble into your blind spots in an extremely low-stakes way. -- asilvering (talk) 04:48, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
- Hi ThadeusOfNazereth, I frequently teach a Wikipedia-based writing course (first-year composition) at the postsecondary level - and can offer some resources and advice. First, here's a basic syllabus which outlines my basic approach to the course (though it changes every time and I also use the Wiki Education's program: Writing in Wikipedia. Others have said "start small" which I agree with, but if you did work up to a more scaled approach, I would recommend having students work in groups of 3-4 so that they could help each other evaluate, research, and make either a "mock" edit or actual edit to an article. If they are working up to one or two small edits, you would be able to assess their contributions BEFORE they try to go live with them, which would certainly help in terms of reverts, and/or negative interactions with other editors. Are you familiar with the Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom program? It is geared towards training secondary teachers and has some useful approaches and materials for teaching in this context: RWIC. Also, I have recently written an essay for students about how they can contribute to Wikipedia (while it's directed at first year college students in composition, your students might also find it helpful: You Are Good for Wikipedia. Would love to chat sometime if you're up for it. best! - Matthewvetter (talk) 14:03, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
- Thank you so much for these resources! Feel free to send me an email, I'm happy to talk as well :) ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)Talk to Me! 14:07, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
- For me, the RWIC and You Are Good links appear to be dead links. Could you please check them? I'd be interested in taking a look, and possibly linking to them at WP:ASSIGN. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:08, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Tryptofish it's RWIC and You are Good. Thanks so much for sharing your syllabus, @Matthewvetter! -- asilvering (talk) 22:05, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
- Thanks! --Tryptofish (talk) 22:15, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Tryptofish it's RWIC and You are Good. Thanks so much for sharing your syllabus, @Matthewvetter! -- asilvering (talk) 22:05, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
- Hi ThadeusOfNazereth, I frequently teach a Wikipedia-based writing course (first-year composition) at the postsecondary level - and can offer some resources and advice. First, here's a basic syllabus which outlines my basic approach to the course (though it changes every time and I also use the Wiki Education's program: Writing in Wikipedia. Others have said "start small" which I agree with, but if you did work up to a more scaled approach, I would recommend having students work in groups of 3-4 so that they could help each other evaluate, research, and make either a "mock" edit or actual edit to an article. If they are working up to one or two small edits, you would be able to assess their contributions BEFORE they try to go live with them, which would certainly help in terms of reverts, and/or negative interactions with other editors. Are you familiar with the Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom program? It is geared towards training secondary teachers and has some useful approaches and materials for teaching in this context: RWIC. Also, I have recently written an essay for students about how they can contribute to Wikipedia (while it's directed at first year college students in composition, your students might also find it helpful: You Are Good for Wikipedia. Would love to chat sometime if you're up for it. best! - Matthewvetter (talk) 14:03, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
- If nothing else, student editors will be expected to engage with "strangers" on the students' own user talk pages, if editors contact them about edits the students make. Perhaps that would be worth thinking about before making the decision to go ahead with this. Because they are of high-school age, I'd also strongly advise them to use account names that do not reveal their real-life identity. Also, keep them away from controversial topics, so they don't unwittingly step on a hornet's nest. And I'll say something that I say so frequently on this page that I sound like a broken record: it's a good idea to read WP:ASSIGN to get a feel for expectations and potential pitfalls for class projects. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:26, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
Procedures when nominating student articles for deletion?[edit]
I came across first generation college student writing when looking through some backlog categories. Although it's a perfectly fine piece of writing on the topic, it's more of an essay than a Wikipedia article. It also seems to overlap a lot with first-generation college students in the United States. Because of these issues, I was going to nominate the article for deletion, but I noticed a student editor had created it for an assignment back in June. Are there any special considerations when putting student articles up for deletion (for example, should the instructor be notified?) – Teratix ₵ 11:05, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
- Not as far as I am aware. Primefac (talk) 11:44, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
- No, there are no special considerations. But it can be worth telling the instructor on their talk page if their students are making bad edits, so future classes don't repeat the problems. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:39, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Teratix I agree with Primefac and Tryptofish - there's no special considerations, especially if the class is finished. (If the class is still running, I wouldn't mind being pinged in the hope that I could find another solution to the problem, but that's not a requirement.)
- As as aside though, in this case a merge or redirect would be simpler than sending it through AFD. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:57, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
- Best practices per Tryptofish, try to get in touch with the instructor. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 05:42, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
- No, there are no special considerations. But it can be worth telling the instructor on their talk page if their students are making bad edits, so future classes don't repeat the problems. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:39, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Teratix Missed this earlier, but I'd add that a personal note on the student's talk page and a reminder in the AfD for people to keep the BITEyness down can go a long way. -- asilvering (talk) 22:09, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
How to check whether/which students completed the Training?[edit]
Wikipedia:Training for students at https://dashboard.wikiedu.org/training/students. Right now students are sending me screenshots like this. Not very efficient and I clearly need to tell them to send screenshots w/ their usernames, sigh. My courses are registered in the (outreach) dashboard (ex.). Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 05:42, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
- If they are logged in on the Dashboard, it will keep track of which training modules they complete (ie, reach the final slide). If you have specific modules that you have assigned for them to complete, you could enable the Timeline and then add that training module to a block on the Timeline; this would make the Dashboard treat it as an assigned module, and show completion status on the Users tab. Otherwise, the only place you can see which modules a user has completed is at the bottom their profile page (reachable from the 'profile' link when viewing an individual student from the Users tab). Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:50, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Sage (Wiki Ed) Huh. That sounds interesting, but where is that functionality? 1) Can the training be completed without the student being logged into the dashboard, and where is that track kept? 2) I've never seen any Timeline button nor seen anything about assigning modules? 3) I did find that but it tells me 'This user has not completed any training modules.' for each student I checked, which I think is incorrect - I am sure some did click through, many sent me screnshots etc. Wonder if this functionality is bugged (not turned on for outreach dashboard...)? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 13:58, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
- Oh, sorry! I missed that the students are doing the trainings on dashboard.wikedu.org while the course is on outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org. The user profile pages will not show any data for a user who not participating in any courses (on that Dashboard server), so even though the system is keeping track of which training modules your students have completed on dashboard.wikiedu.org, that data will not show up on their dashboard.wikiedu.org profile pages. (The two servers don't share any data between them.) If you students complete any of the modules on Programs & Events Dashboard, data about that should be accessible to you.
- For the Timeline feature, you can enable it via 'Edit Details' on the Home tab, and change the relevant setting to 'Yes'. Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:13, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
- Thanks. But. Sigh. When are you going to merge those servers and give the non-US&Canada users full functionality? It sucks feeling like we are discrminated again for so many years :( Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:42, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Sage (Wiki Ed) Do you have a video tutorial about how to assign stuff through the timeline feature? I was able to activate the timeline but the functionality that shows up is very limited or at least the interface is very opaque. All I can do is add a seengly pointless list of weeks, and the interface tells I may change the week names but I can't even figure that out. Terrible design - seems like a pre-beta feature (or, perhaps, broken again because it's the outreach dashboard?). Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:47, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
- Sorry, the UI for the Timeline was built around populating it automatically via a wizard, but the wizard content is specific to Wiki Education's program structure, so it's a manual process on Programs & Events Dashboard. Once you add a week, you have to add a "block" to that week, and that block can include text as well as any of the training modules from https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/training.
- We're hoping to develop some video documentation on this soon; I've listed a documentation project for the upcoming round of Outreachy internships. Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:37, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Sage (Wiki Ed) Please ping me once the video tutorials are live. Since my courses started and the week for doing the trainings has passed, I assume this is sadly of no use to me this semester, particularly with the current non-intuitive (for me) interface. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 05:24, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Sage (Wiki Ed) Huh. That sounds interesting, but where is that functionality? 1) Can the training be completed without the student being logged into the dashboard, and where is that track kept? 2) I've never seen any Timeline button nor seen anything about assigning modules? 3) I did find that but it tells me 'This user has not completed any training modules.' for each student I checked, which I think is incorrect - I am sure some did click through, many sent me screnshots etc. Wonder if this functionality is bugged (not turned on for outreach dashboard...)? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 13:58, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
Wikipedia Library - can we enable it for students?[edit]
As I was reading recent TS coverage of this great project, I noticed the requirement: "an active editor who has made more than 500 edits and has an account more than 6 months old". While it is reasonable to prevent abuse of the system by third parties, it also realistically prevents most student editors (and even some instructors) from being eligible. Can we think of any solution? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:13, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- Just as an initial thought, wouldn't most university students have access to the same resources through their own university? bibliomaniac15 06:25, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) Students generally have access to hundreds of databases through their student registration. I haven't tried to line them up, comparing TWL with the repertoire available via a university connection, but I'm aware at least of the overlap in the ones I use most often. Are you aware of resources at TWL that are not available at a particular university? Also, students should be made aware of WP:RX here, and of inter-library loan via their academic or local public library; both have been useful to me. Mathglot (talk) 06:30, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- Students at wealthy western institutions usually have access to online collections on a par with TWL. – Joe (talk) 08:49, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- Piotyrus appeared to be thinking of WikiEd, where they are all that. I very much much doubt that publishers/resources who signed up to WL were agreeing to allow access to anyone, anywhere, who says they are a student. Meanwhile JSTOR continues to offer 100 items a month free. Johnbod (talk) 13:20, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- I seem to recall a past thread at one of the Village Pumps, but I think the team is able to grant access on a case by case basis. 500/6mo just does that automatically to most resources (those in the bundle).
- As an aside on overlap, I recently noticed that neither TWL nor my institution had Gale Onefile, which I distinctly remember being in TWL before via the default search and quite useful at that. I was fortunate to be able to get it via my state public library though. Alpha3031 (t • c) 06:22, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- Piotyrus appeared to be thinking of WikiEd, where they are all that. I very much much doubt that publishers/resources who signed up to WL were agreeing to allow access to anyone, anywhere, who says they are a student. Meanwhile JSTOR continues to offer 100 items a month free. Johnbod (talk) 13:20, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- What Joe said. In my experience, TWL has some but not full overlap with what my institution has, for example - often TWL is better. And @Johnbod, remember that there's a ton of wikipedia education stuff outside US/Canada. US/Canada is pampered in many ways, but we should not let that influence our concern for others (which, disclaimer, includes myself, as I teach outside US/Canada region, and I personally feel how much of the WikiEd stuff is not applicable to what we do...). Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 02:53, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- Forgot to ping @Bibliomaniac15 @Mathglot Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 02:53, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- Students at wealthy western institutions usually have access to online collections on a par with TWL. – Joe (talk) 08:49, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- I brought up that question about "500+ edits, 6+ month account, 10+ edit last month" requirement to access Wikipedia Library at a Wikimania session in Singapore. I was told by a foundation staff that the publishing providers (Elsevier, Taylor & Francis, etc.) imposed these access requirements. I don't know what are the account requirements for "manual approval" (if this process even exists, since it is not on wiki). Samwalton9 (WMF) may be able to answer better than I do. OhanaUnitedTalk page 02:12, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- Sam from the library here, I just wanted to chime in with some additional context on this. 500 edits / 6 months activity is a requirement that we set in place so that the publishers we add to the library feel comfortable that they are giving access to folks who are dedicated contributors to Wikimedia projects and will actually use the access to edit Wikipedia, rather than someone that's signed up for an account and only made a handful of edits. As @OhanaUnited suggests, because this is part of our partnership agreements with publishers, it's hard for us to make exceptions or change these requirements now - we'd need to go back and re-negotiate the agreements with our 75+ partner organisations. We actually did this once years ago, when we only had a few dozen partners, to lower the requirements from 1000/12 to 500/6, and it was a lot of work! I sympathise with the issue being described here, I'd love for more enthusiastic new contributors to gain access to the library to help them start editing, but I can't see us lowering the activity requirements further given the work involved and the likelihood that there are publishers who would not agree to the change. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 14:30, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- Yeah I probably misremembered then, sorry. Can't find it where I thought it might be. Possibly the discussion involved someone who met the edit/time requirements but had a technical issue due to IPBE but obviously my memory is not functioning properly for this so take with a truckload of salt. Alpha3031 (t • c) 07:50, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Samwalton9 (WMF): Can you clarify if there's a manual approval process for those who haven't hit "500/6"? OhanaUnitedTalk page 04:42, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
- @OhanaUnited There's no manual approval process for users who are under the criteria. I think the only time we've done this was when someone who was already eligible vanished their account and started a new one. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 08:21, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Samwalton9 (WMF): Can you clarify if there's a manual approval process for those who haven't hit "500/6"? OhanaUnitedTalk page 04:42, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
- Yeah I probably misremembered then, sorry. Can't find it where I thought it might be. Possibly the discussion involved someone who met the edit/time requirements but had a technical issue due to IPBE but obviously my memory is not functioning properly for this so take with a truckload of salt. Alpha3031 (t • c) 07:50, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
- Sam from the library here, I just wanted to chime in with some additional context on this. 500 edits / 6 months activity is a requirement that we set in place so that the publishers we add to the library feel comfortable that they are giving access to folks who are dedicated contributors to Wikimedia projects and will actually use the access to edit Wikipedia, rather than someone that's signed up for an account and only made a handful of edits. As @OhanaUnited suggests, because this is part of our partnership agreements with publishers, it's hard for us to make exceptions or change these requirements now - we'd need to go back and re-negotiate the agreements with our 75+ partner organisations. We actually did this once years ago, when we only had a few dozen partners, to lower the requirements from 1000/12 to 500/6, and it was a lot of work! I sympathise with the issue being described here, I'd love for more enthusiastic new contributors to gain access to the library to help them start editing, but I can't see us lowering the activity requirements further given the work involved and the likelihood that there are publishers who would not agree to the change. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 14:30, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
Editorial comments for WikiEd materials[edit]
I'm not sure where these sorts of comments go, but File:Editing_Wikipedia_articles_on_Chemistry_(Wiki_Ed).pdf information about "Writing about compound classes" (second page) has a bullet-point "Nomenclature" whose wording talks instead about "the compound". By definition, a class is not a specific compound. Instead is should say maybe "group of compounds", or "chemicals of this type". The compound-classes bullet-point "Properties" looks like another over-zealous copy-paste from the specific-compound list. and a useful aspect of chemical classes that I don't see listed would be specific examples of notable chemicals in the class. That might be a useful addition to the Reactions bullet-point, something like "focusing on notable chemicals in this class" so students don't just google-dump a bunch of primary-lit/one-off examples. DMacks (talk) 17:41, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- Thanks DMacks. I appreciate the feedback. I should be able to fix that in the next few days. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:35, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
Blocked student[edit]
Could a member of WikiEd please take a look at User talk:PKnight2020, who has been blocked for vandalism? They assert that they were making the edits as part of a class project, but they are indecipherable from vandalism. If there is a prof involved, and they are participating in WikiEd, I think someone needs to step in.-- Ponyobons mots 19:45, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Ponyo: - this edit suggests that they actually intended to make their edits as part of a class, but that's not consistent with even a major misinterpretation of any training module of ours.
- They're not enrolled in any class we're supporting, and it's unlikely that they're taking a class we support and just failed to enroll. This edit changing "football" to "soccer", coupled with edits to the Perth Dance Music Awards and Kane Lambert (an Aussie rules footballer) makes me think they're likely to be in Australia. I probably should know who the education programme contact is for Australia, but I don't. I'll find out (though of course, if anyone knows, they can ping them). Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:43, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
- I think WM-AU doesn't have a formal education program, but pinging @Pru.mitchell and Canley: who should be able to better direct the student to someone in Australia for help! --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:23, 22 September 2023 (UTC)