I have greatly reduced the scope of the course by reducing the number of students to 6 and the number of articles to one. The article is at: Draft:Bell's theorem paradox
Helaine told me from the start that Wikipedia:Wiki Ed was not a suitable platform for Wikiversity projects, and she was right. I created this analog to your "dashboard" and will try it out next semester.
Hi Ian. Students in my Human Ecology course will be working on creating or improving pages about aspects of ecology or sustainability in Canada. I have several questions:
Ideally they'll find their own topics, but they could use some help from myself and the course TA Ruth Sharpe User:RuthVancouver. We've looked at the WikiProject_Canada page but don't see anything about science, much less ecology. Should we look somewhere else? Should we post a request for suggestions on the WikiProject Canada Discussion Board?
The Assign Articles page of the course lets us assign each student an article to work on. Can we do this for articles that don't exist yet? The students will work on their articles in their sandboxes, moving their articles into mainspace only when they're ready to be graded.
The Assign Articles also lets us assign each student a page to review. Can we assign two pages to each student?
One more thing. In the past we told students to put a banner in the sandbox where they were building their page, to indicate that this was a student project. Should they still do this?
One of Wikipedia's weakest areas is in the area of 'category intersection'. There's a tool called CatScan2, but it isn't always very responsive (for example, right now it isn't loading) and doesn't have a very user-friendly interface. If you look at the subcategories in Category:Canada, you'll find Category:Environment of Canada; that category and its subcategories have a lot of content, and that might be a fruitful place for your students to start looking. Category:Science and technology in Canada looks less promising, but might have some interesting articles among its subcats. (Oddly, it's a subcategory of Category:Education in Canada, which is a subcategory of Category:Canadian society - which makes it difficult to find.) Category:Geography of Canada (which has Category:Ecoregions of Canada among its subcats) is another good place to look. Normally I would point people towards a WikiProject's Assessment table, but WP:Canada is just too big. I will try again later to find some more specific examples for you, once CatScan is being more cooperative.
Yes, you can assign non-existent articles. The Dashboard will find them once they're created. (Remind students about capitalisation rules for Wikipedia articles - unless it's a proper noun, only the first word in an article title will be capitalised. Without that the dashboard can't find the articles to tag them.)
Yes, you can assign multiple articles - either to work on or to review.
Thanks Ian. The middle of your first paragraph has some sort of format problems - the links don't appear in the final view, so the text reads very strangely and uninformatively. Luckily I can see the links now that I'm viewing it in Editing mode - they're just the kind of thing I was looking for. Rosieredfield (talk) 22:32, 18 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I messed up linking to categories - luckily Bearcat saw that and fixed them for me. One more reason to use the 'preview' button when editing (as I need to remind myself to do!) Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:11, 19 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
No worries. What happened was that because the categories weren't formatted with a leading colon before the word category, instead of text links to the categories they caused this page to be filed in the categories — so the links were sitting at the bottom of the page instead of within the paragraph above. Another thing you can do, if you want to be really safe about not accidentally doing that, is to use the {{cl}} template to format a category link that's meant to just be linked to, so that you would type {{cl|Canada}} to produce Category:Canada. But as noted, I fixed the links accordingly so that this page wasn't sitting in the content categories. Hope that helps a bit. Bearcat (talk) 15:26, 19 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
So what are your intentions: a reasonable discussion, or you trying to bully me in every possible way? Please anwer my previous question: what use is the "mirror" when it can't be used for communication with the project? --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:35, 1 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Nah, had tried the talk pages, contacting Dr.renMueller in various ways (in December as now again)... no reaction. So no, the faulty instructions given by the project manager will stay corrected on the project page, and the same for the useful instructions of where the pages his students worked on went to. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:44, 1 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
For one thing, Francis, you removed the actual name of the instructor and the name of the Education project support staff [1]. That is completely unacceptable. Ian has tried to explain to you how those course pages work and why your editing is disruptive and counter-productive there. I did too, last December. The education projects have their own special software for maintaining their project pages. The course instructors tend to view the page via their "dashboard" which won't show your changes. This is what the article list looks like on the dashboard. It doesn't show your changes and any time the page is edited by the instructor or someone from the education project, the changes you make will be automatically removed by the software. Please stop this. If you don't, you are probably going to end up at ANI. Voceditenore (talk) 19:32, 1 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
No Francis, you did not "fix it". It's not fixed on the dashboard page, i. e. the master copy, because only course instructors or the education support staff are able to fix it there. If they try to add the information where it belongs, or add any new information to the dashboard, e.g. a new class list for the spring term, it's going to automatically override everything on the "mirror" and you will start edit warring and accusing people of vandalism again. Either you can't wrap your head around this or you are being deliberately disruptive to make a point. Either way, it's unacceptable. MOVE your version of the student list and your commentary to the talk page and LEAVE The MAIN COURSE PAGE ALONE. I personally agree with you that the current software fails to encourage full participation and interaction on Wikipedia by the instructors and students and thus has a lot of disadvantages, but this is not the way to go about it. Bring it to Wikipedia:Education noticeboard/Incidents, start an RfC, whatever, but please stop this behaviour now. As I said, if you don't, you're going to find yourself at ANI and rightly so. Voceditenore (talk) 07:10, 2 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Ian,
My name is Conner, and I am part of the Climate Change class at Castleton University. I have a question about one of the films and its availability. I would like to work on the page for the film Fuel, But it already has some content. My professor thought that this page may be a "stub", but asked me to contact you to see if this was still a good option for our project, and requested that I seek conformation from you. Please let me know if there are any issues with my persuit of this documentary.
Hi Ian,
Thank you for replying so quickly and clearing up that concern for me. I'm sure I'll be in touch with you soon in regards to the project. In the mean time, take care!
CjohnsonCU (talk) 16:35, 2 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Ian,
Thanks for your welcome message. I'm wondering how I can join the Wikipedia:Teahouse group that you mentioned. Additionally, I did all of the training programs, but when I look on the course page it still says that I haven't added any characters on my userspace. What does that mean?
Hello, Ian (Wiki Ed). Please check your email; you've got mail! It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.
Hey Ian, Just wanted to let you know that the students are going to likely run into resistance at Kombucha for the class at Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/University_of_British_Columbia/FNH_200_102_(Term_2). I have been watching a lot of people argue back and forth about a lot of the science, and the research is quite variable, and spread out all over the place. I would highly recommend rotating them to another food topic (there are hundreds of gaps). Sadads (talk) 04:07, 13 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Ian, since we are working on our Wiki page as a group, we decided to just put all of our stuff in one sandbox like our professor suggested, but we have no idea how to do it, can you help us?
Hi Ian, I am teaching an Insects and Society course using Wikipedia this semester. A few issues that I'd like help with:
After the students' trying their hand at editing this first time around, I am already noticing some harsh comments on their talk pages by editors that seem somewhat argumentative. Is it worth sticking up for my students by responding to these comments on their behalf, or should I just let this go, and explain to my students that this can happen? I already warned them that this was a possibility, so it's not like they have no clue this may be coming.
One of my student's edits, which are legitimate updates to the site, has been tagged as possible vandalism. How can I remove this tag, or request to have it removed?
I am a student editor and am working on the baby sign language page. I am trying to divide my references into scientific articles and websites, books, and magazines. I have clicked the 'insert reference list' button and have titled two separate reference lists. I have clicked edit on my cited sources, clicked add information, ref, and typed in the title of the reference list i have made. When I apply changes the entire reference list moves to an area at the very end of the article leaving my section titled 'references' empty. I have clicked the help button and found out I needed to check and ensure that the wikicode was correct for the reference list, which it is. I am now out of ideas of what to do but would really like to have my reference section divided to make it clearer and more accessible.
No trouble. The sooner you ping me about something a class is doing, the easier it is to solve problems. And though he doesn't post a lot on Wikipedia, the instructor for this class is very involved and interested. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:31, 8 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
so it is really, really, really important that people include PMIDs in their citations. Would you please ensure the class is aware of that? Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 04:57, 9 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The article "soil plant atmosphere continuum" does an adequate job explaining how water flows through a plant based on the water potential gradient, but adding a corresponding image to the text would make things much more clear. Am I allowed to create my own image using information cited from a textbook and upload it to a Wiki page? My apologies in advance if this isn't the correct place to post this question. Katiestu (talk) 05:08, 9 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
If the instructor is going to require students to edit on Wikipedia, the instructor should be do some editing themselves. Encourage this instructor to practice what they preach.--Smokefoot (talk) 02:52, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry about the delayed response to your offer for feedback, I'm still trying to figure out how to use Wiki's functions such as chatting. Would you mind taking a look at my sandbox page on Kponyungo Masks to ensure that everything fulfills Wikipedia's requirements and standards. If there is a problem with any of the text or images, please let me know, especially if you remove anything. I still have more work to do on the page within the next couple of days, so expect more changes. Your advice and criticism will be helpful and appreciated. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nicholas.Zarazinski (talk • contribs) 17:40, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi again, I just sent a message through this function and forgot to sign it with the date. Basically, I'm asking for feedback on my sandbox page for which I just uploaded to images for. Would you please review the page to ensure that everything is up to par. Thank you. Nicholas.Zarazinski (talk) 17:43, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think I accidentally put my article in the main space when I was editing it and now I don't know how to take it down. I haven't put citations in it yet and I don't want to be in violation of Wikipedia rules. Is there a way of putting it back into my sandbox?
Hi Ian, two students in the class both want to work on honeybees, and there is plenty of literature on them so I agreed. However, it appears I am unable to assign the same species to two students. Is there a workaround? Thanks. Rico.schultz (talk) 19:10, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Ian,
I realized that I selected the wrong copyright for the photos I've uploaded.
I'm not sure how to delete those photos or edit the copyright on them.
Yes. I just saw the ping that DMacks fixed on the Chem WikiProject too. I will contact the instructor with these concerns/suggestions. Thanks for the heads up. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:18, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The main problem, aside from absentee instructors, is that the students are given weak topics. If you could somehow connect the course with the Wiki-chemistry project, we could recommend topics or, more usefully to all, article improvement projects. Is there any prospect that you can intercept these instructors before they suggest topics? Perhaps contact the current instructors and beg to let Chemistry project advise them?--Smokefoot (talk) 12:40, 22 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who declined the request. Other administrators may also review this block, but should not override the decision without good reason (see the blocking policy).
Caught by a web host block but this host or IP is not a web host. My ISP just made some changes, which apparently resulted in me getting caught behind a two-year-old range block. I don't think my ISP existed two years ago. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:08, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Decline reason:
Hello Ian, my apologies for the inconvenience but I am not seeing any active autoblocks at this time. Would you please copy the contents of the block message in its entirety so that we may assist you? Regards, Yamaguchi先生 (talk) 21:46, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the {{unblock}} template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.
It's not an autoblock, it's an IP rangeblock. Apparently my IP address used to belong to a webhosting company; it's now an ISP - LightSpeed. See [4]; I had never even heard of {{webhostblock}} Not urgent, Gamaliel gave me an IP block exemption, but I think it's worth changing a 2-year-old range block that, by the look of things, no longer applies. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:51, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your comment at my talk page. Please can you get these people to _stop_?
It's impossible to consider changes to the page sensibly when every few hours someone sticks back in a vast chunk of ill-considered text - text which has not even been proofread. I think there is starting to be some useful material in there, but at the moment it's like trying to drink from a firehose; I'm reluctant to try and curate any of the edits when for all I know an hour later another ream of "sea salt in popular culture" is going to turn up, and when plainly the material has not been subject to any kind of examination in detail; literally, the first sentence added by the most recent round of edits was "The six major ions found in almost all of the sea water is sodium ion (Na+), chloride (Cl-), sulfate (SO42-), magnesium ion (Mg2+), calcium (Ca2+) and potassium ion (K+)" which plainly has never been proofread. Pinkbeast (talk) 08:06, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Edited to add; still more important is that people should not be moving their drafts into mainspace just because they feel like it - especially if they can't even spell the words in the titles, and even more so if they're going to try and get into move wars with admins! Pinkbeast (talk) 08:09, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Ian,
I am working on adding information to the Construction site safety article, but I had troubling moving it out of my sandbox. I created a different page called [Site Construction Safety]. I did not intend to create a duplicate article. You recommended to added to the existing article, and redirect the new article to it. I can't seem to figure this out using the "Moving out of your Sandbox" handout to redirect the new article [Site Construction Safety] to the Construction Site Safety article. Any guidance would be helpful. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Millebg (talk • contribs) 01:29, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
One of my students got permission to use a photo from the photographer illustrating the characteristic eyes of Strepsiptera and posted it on Wikimedia. It was subsequently removed: "Removing "Screen-Shot-2013-11-19-at-3.29.05-PM.png", it has been deleted from Commons by Túrelio because: Non-free Flickr license disallowing commercial use and/or derivative works.
How can we add this picture to Wikimedia when it is on Flickr but we have permission from the photographer to do so?
@Cprather3: - if it's on Flickr, ask the photographer to change the license on Flickr to CC-by-SA. Once that's done, it will be OK to upload the image to Commons. On the other hand, if the goal of the photographer is only to allow non-commercial use (CC-by-NC) then the permission they gave isn't compatible with Wikipedia. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:31, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Ian, this is jungi0714. Thank you for your feedback. I realized also that one of our group member forgot to post his source on my sandbox. He will do that asap. Also, is there any other things that you want to mention about the context of our work? Let us know and I was not sure if I post my questions here or somewhere else. If this post cause any trouble to you, please put it down and you can leave a comment on my page. Thanks!
I just finished migrating my changes to the Computational sustainability page. It has a an external links message at the top of the page and I'm curious how I should go about making changes so the message can go away. Also if you have any general comments about my article please let me know :). Thanks in advance! Joeyw526 (talk) 17:25, 10 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for getting back to me. I removed the links and am curious how to get rid of the message at the top of the page. Is this something I can remove or do I ping someone about it? Joeyw526 (talk) 23:48, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, I have a quick question about the computational physics page. One of the sources seems to be a personal website, and its citation method is different from the other sources (referenced amidst the text instead of in the reflist) and it is only used once, in a section that casts doubt on the field. Is this something that should just be removed?
Thanks in advance,
Serrion (talk) 20:21, 10 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Ian,
I recently moved my sandbox page of "Nigrostriatal Pathway" to the main space with the intention of replacing the existing article, but instead I accidentally made a new page. There is now one page I created called "Nigrostriatal Pathway" and another with the original article called "Nigrostriatal pathway". I tried to move my sandbox again into the intended article but Wikipedia told me it's invalid. I'm not sure what to do here.
Rhoffing (talk) 03:24, 12 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry Ian, I tried messing with moving the article again before I saw your message. Can you fix that again for me? Also thanks for the advice, I'll try to merge them better. I did try to shorter the initial description of the pathway, but do you think that what the original article had was better with putting most of the information out in the first couple paragraphs? I tried to rework that info into other sections, but I can get rid of those.
Rhoffing (talk) 04:05, 12 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I have a question about editing; I used to have the option of "edit" and "edit source" and now there is just the option of "edit" and when I click on it it takes me to the "edit source" set up. Do you have any suggestions?
@Beezing: This is new - think it just started today - but you can now choose your preferred editor. You can change it if you got to Special:Preferences (or the 'Preferences' link at the top of the page) and click on the 'Editing' tab. Then you can select the way you want it to work. (See image at right.) Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:02, 12 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Ian, sorry for bothering you, it's Hphan1719. My group is currently writing an article about Fixational Eye Movement. On my page, you left a note, says: "could you please merge your additions into the existing Fixation (visual) article?" The article, including all the feedback we have so far, is a group project for my Neurobiology course. So, I may need to meet with my professor to discuss about merging my article, Fixational Eye Movement, with an existing article Fixation (visual) since she wants us to write our own article. I hope you can give us some time to clarify this point.
Also, do I have to ask the author of the page Fixation (visual) before I merge my article to his/her?
Hello Ian! I was hoping for a bit of feedback on the article I had been working on for my class, Nutrition psychology. In speaking with my professor, she suggested potentially moving it from stub class to start class and then linking articles like obesity to it in order to attract more attention. Do you think that these are good ideas and if so, how do I change the article's class designation?
Thank you! ZackNU (talk) 10:27, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I am a student at CSUS and I am required to create a new article in Wikipedia or add to an existing one. I am in need of assitance/feedback on the current assignment. I'm trying to add to an existing article for (Loon Lake, CA), but I'm not sure where else to start because I don't want to overstep what has already been said or mentioned. Can you help me with this?
Would you please consider advising this person for future classes, to work on articles in draft space or userspace? Further would you please consider advising them, if they insist on working in mainspace, that trying to WP:OWN an article is against policy? I am not interested in drama. Please just consider advising them to do things differently in the future. Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 05:28, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hey Ian. Would it be possible for you to swing to the Axon Reflex page and help us with the references and how to organize it properly? I tried to figure out the Wiki-language but was unsuccessful. This is for the Marquette Wiki-Education program. Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bradleyjude1313 (talk • contribs) 15:13, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Dear Ian, I wanted to ensure that my students in EEB 4215 Physiological Ecology were doing what they should. Most of them have posted draft contributions to the talk page of their species. In a few cases other editors have commented but mostly there has been no feedback. In one case (Threespine stickleback) there was a template box with a request for feedback and your name was on it so thanks for responding to my 'ping'. I'd like the students to publish their contributions by the end of the week, should they go ahead if they haven't heard from anybody?
Rico.schultz (talk) 17:49, 3 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hey Ian,
I'm having trouble editing from my sandbox. I was able to edit the page I'm working on in a different format. I'm not exactly sure what the other format was, but it was almost like I could edit as I see it, without all the coding and what not. If you could help that would be great! May 3, 2016 Brent SchubertBrenttare (talk) 01:25, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Ian,
I am having trouble with my citaitons transferring properly to the actual page. Currently the first 2 citaitons are incorrect and need to be the ones from my sandbox. I don't want to incorrectly type them. Originally in my sandbox, the citations were saying "Find @ USC", so I went in and manually changed them in my sandbox, but they still don't appear correct, as it looks different than the others with the first word as "Cite". I want to correctly have citations 1 and 2 on the actual page but don't want to make any errors that will mess up anything that is already done. Please let me know as this is my first time attempting to do citations. I would appreciate any of your help.
Thanks,
LisaLisaloo7 (talk) 22:40, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure if this is the correct medium for asking questions, but it's all I could come up with.
I can't tell if my article is in the mainspace or not. I've moved it according to the instructions, but it still has a box at the bottom saying its in my sandbox. Is there a way you can check for me?
Thanks Johnbod for the heads up. Since it's all on the talk page already, I just removed it completely rather than hiding it. Thanks for cleaning up after this student, apologies for the extra work. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:33, 23 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Ian. Not sure you are aware of this, but wanted to bring to your attention this and this. This video should not be used to teach people what NPOV is all about. I am following various processes but not sure what person I should speak with in Outreach or in the Education program. You have been helpful so I thought I would try you, at least for a reference to others... Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 02:33, 6 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Ian. Just to let you know that my class has voted to expand the Black Tamarin species stub (Sanguinus niger). This week they will be completing a lot of their basic training and some introductory assignments, as well as researching their subject areas, so you may be hearing from them. I have posted a note for the community on the species page indicating our intention to work on the stub.Njclum (talk) 01:15, 10 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Ian. If a student is only finding information on a particular aspect of biology for tamarins in general, or other species of tamarin, should we post this on the black tamarin page with the appropriate qualifications, or should that only be posted to the tamarin article?Njclum (talk) 01:53, 7 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Ian, I am working in a group to edit the Sonophoresis stub. I've made a small edit in my sandbox and was hoping you could take a look and let me know how I can add this edit to the page - thanks! --SteveSchirch (talk) 16:49, 15 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Ian, I was wondering if you would be able to take a peek at my sandbox page, I started a new article and I want to see what your thoughts are. Thank you! Kellogg.jor (talk) 19:08, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
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