Portal talk:Advanced General Studies

Merger Proposed

Why Separate Portals and Schools for This Subject?

I don't understand why we would have separate portals and schools on this subject. They should probably be combined into one. The Jade Knight 04:48, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Portals and Schools Distinct

Portals and schools are two distinct things. --JWSchmidt 05:18, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I'm aware. Can you please explain to me why it would be useful to have a School:AGS, and then also a Portal:AGS which contains nothing but links to other portals? That's the part I'm having trouble seeing the benefit of. The Jade Knight 06:28, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

This Portal was Under Construction

This Portal was Under Construction. "Advanced" Users can presently use This Portal to Link to other Portals in their efforts to pursue their "General Studies". -- (s) Dionysios ^(talk), a Participant in the Wikiversity School of Advanced General Studies, Date: 2007-07-11 (July 11, 2007) Time: 2044 UTC

What Are the Potential Effects of the Proposed Merger?

What are the potential effects of the proposed Merger of these two (2) Pages. Are not both Pages useful? If merged would the content of both Pages remain on the New Page? These Placeholder Links seem to this AGS Participant to be doing their job. Are Users being misdirected somehow? -- Dionysios ^(talk), a Participant in the Wikiversity School of Advanced General Studies, Date: 2007-07-11 (July 11, 2007) Time: 2044 UTC

If merged, the content of both pages would indeed remain on the new page. What would happen, is, for example, the material here on the Portal would be moved to the School, and the Portal would become a redirect to the School. This has the advantage of making it easier for users to find relevant content—if they're looking on content about "Advanced General Studies", they wouldn't have to figure out whether they want the Portal, the School, the Topic, etc., because they would all redirect to the same place, where all of the content on Advanced General Studies could be found. Follow? The Jade Knight 01:10, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Your servant does not follow this at all. It was intended that the portal should eventually become a major portal and the school should remain a major school. The plan was that the portal should eventually direct users to those friendly introductions to learning resources promised on the major portal page as well as providing links to Wikiversity schools and other content development projects in the "Topic:" namespace.

What is beyond Your servant is an understanding of how this proposed collapse of the portal into the school would make anything easier for anyone.

So far, the primary effect of the "decoration" of the pages of the portal and the school with a {{merge|School:Advanced General Studies}} template appears to have been to greatly discourage the the founder of the the portal and the school.

Nobody other than the proposer of the merger and the founder of the the portal and the school has posted comments after an urgent Request for Comments was placed on the the portal and school pages nearly one (1) month ago.

Perhaps it is time to withdraw the proposal and let the the founder of the the portal and the school return to development of these pages. The proposal could be renewed if it were later to be found that good progress toward a major Advanced General Studies Portal is not being made.

(s) Dionysios ^(talk), a Participant in the Wikiversity School of Advanced General Studies, Date: 2007-08-29 (August 29, 2007) Time: 2023 UTC

When I said "follow?", I meant to ask if you understood what I was saying. Ultimately, it's a matter of a few things (and maybe some I'm not thinking of):

1. What is the difference between the School and the Portal?
2. How will new users be aware of this difference?
3. If the two will simply contain different content, would it be easier for new users to find that content gathered in one place, with multiple redirects pointing to it, or would it be easier to have it scattered about (why?)?

The Jade Knight 20:53, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Again, your servant does not understand what you are saying at all.

But, to respond to your three (3) concerns:

1. The difference between a portal and a school is that the portal should direct users to, again, those friendly introductions to learning resources promised on the major portal page as well as providing links to Wikiversity schools and other content development projects in the "Topic:" namespace. Schools help Wikiversity participants organize learning resources for a set of related academic topic areas. Portals quickly guide new Wikiversity visitors to educational content. The major Wikiversity schools are content development projects where Wikiversity editors plan, organize, and develop related topics in a subject area. See: Wikiversity namespace for more information about Wikiversity portal, school, and topic pages.

2. It is not directly the concern of your servant how new participants might become aware of the differences. He speculates that this might happen through these new participants visiting these same Portals and Schools and Experiencing the Differences. New participants who are more oriented toward Policy may well Discover the Differences through consideration of the Wikiversity Naming Conventions. It makes little difference to your servant how or if new participants might become aware of the Differences; he is confident that they will do so if they need to do so; but he is just hoping to soon be past this Merger Controversy and to be back to Work.

3. Since the two do contain different Content, it is not easier for new participants to find that Content gathered in one place, with multiple redirects pointing to it, but to have All Content Located in the Appropriate Place. This is because The Technology makes it More Desireable to put Everything in its Proper Place.

Again, it is beyond the understanding of your servant how this proposed collapse of the portal into the school would make anything easier for anyone.

Again, so far, the primary effect of the "decoration" of the pages of the portal and the school with a {{merge|School:Advanced General Studies}} template appears to have been to greatly discourage the the founder of the the portal and the school.

Again, it is time to withdraw the proposal and let the the founder of the the portal and the school return to development of these pages. The proposal could be renewed if it were later to be found that good progress toward a major Advanced General Studies Portal is not being made.

(s) Dionysios ^(talk), a Participant in the Wikiversity School of Advanced General Studies, Date: 2007-09-11 (September 11, 2007) Time: 1113 UTC

• I'm not sure what is going on here. Wikiversity school and portal pages have different functions. Any large subject area can have both school and portal pages. --JWSchmidt 21:02, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

This Participant, too, is beginning to wonder what is or is not happening here. The Difference between Portals and Schools seems clearly established; and the Proposed Merger has had substantial discussion. This Participant has made the Good Faith Request that the proposal to merge the the portal and the the school be withdrawn. Of course the Proposal could be renewed without prejudice if the Proposer of the Merger were later to find that good progress toward the Advanced General Studies Portal becoming a major portal is not being made. Still, the Merger Proposal "Decorates" these pages, thereby discouraging Work on them. Fighting Deletionism and Mergeritis unfortunately are of necessity coming to consume more and more of the increasingly limited time this participant has for Wikiversity. -- Dionysios ^(talk), a Participant in the Wikiversity School of Advanced General Studies, Date: 2007-09-11 (September 11, 2007) Time: 1113 UTC

Do Participants in Schools Have Any Prerogatives Concerning Their Own Schools and Associated Portals? If so: Decision

Do Particpants in Schools have any Prerogatives when it comes to how they organize their own Schools and the associated Portals?

If the present Participant has Governance in this Matter and it is put for Decision, the Decision is: "Do Not Merge".

(s) Dionysios ^(talk), a Participant in the Wikiversity School of Advanced General Studies, Date: 2007-07-11 (July 11, 2007) Time: 2044 UTC

We haven't really established a policy on this yet. Everything is done by consensus, but there is also a great deal of deference that goes on at Wikiversity. You do not have absolute governance over the school, though you are currently its only participant, but at the same time, being the only participant, it is my opinion (but not currently policy) that your input on this matter should carry extra weight when compared to those who are not involved in the School. The Jade Knight 01:14, 13 July 2007 (UTC)