User talk:Countrymike/Archive2008

Reading Groups

Hi Brent,

Perhaps we can arrange Illich discussions on a weekly basis, to ensure that the Illich reading group really is active?--Daanschr 10:12, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Daanschr: I thought you'd quit the Illich reading group anyways? Initially I liked the idea of trying to bring some kind of 'weekly' schedule, but I then realized that I don't think its going to help and that it's kind of artificial in a project that can for all intents and purposes go over a long period of time on the wiki and have people join at different points. I think for the portal we should have some kind of designation as to whether groups are active or not, which may mean that an edit has been made at least within 6 months or so. Countrymike 20:29, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, the reading groups are a new phenomenon. At the moment there are only 4 or 5 people occupied with it, so we can leave the organization for some time in the future. For the moment, i am confident with a text about a scheduled activity for Thucydides and The Diamond Age. I'll prefer to wait for more participants before taking new steps.--Daanschr 21:01, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Yea, I think that if you wish to try scheduling for a group that is up to the primary authors/participants. I think that the idea of "promoting" more active groups on the portal page is good though. Countrymike 21:52, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the primary authors, participants should deal with the schedule of group activity. What i try to prevent is that Wikiversity has only inactive groups to present. For the moment everything is swell as it is.

I am sorry for disliking illich. I would be pleased to be part of a reading group with you on another topic.--Daanschr 09:38, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Talk with Cormac and Wayne

I pinged Cormac and he has limited availability on the dates you said Wayne was free. Cormac said "night of the 20th though, or the morning of the 17th" his time, and I don't know how that translates for the rest of us. However, even if it doesn't match up, we can do two shorter sessions, one with each. Ping me or drip into IRC and let me know. Historybuff 17:16, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Let me know when you'd like to do an interview ... I'm flexible for most days. We should also touch base on questions and what not, so we can have something to chat about with both of them. Historybuff 06:47, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Pinging you again on this. Things are starting to gain momentum, and to make sure we have traction, I'd like to schedule a chat with WikiEdu reps as one session, and once we are all happy that we've got the initial connections up and working, we can embark on something more ambitious. Let me know how you feel about timing and doability. Historybuff 09:55, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

custodianship

Thanks for listing yourself at Wikiversity:Candidates for Custodianship. Decisions about custodianship are community decisions. This means you have to communicate with the community. The instructions for how to do this are at the top of that page. Please edit this page and add a short description of your wiki experience.....for example, you can say that you are sysop and bureaucrat at WikiEducator. If you have a particular choice for a mentor, say so. --JWSchmidt 16:55, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for being willing to help at Wikiversity as a custodian. Please familiarize yourself with Category:Wikiversity administration and Category:Official policy. If you have any questions, please let me know. --JWSchmidt 14:51, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

You are now listed at Nominations for Full Custodianship. There will now be a five-day-long community discussion period. Please pay some attention to the discussion and reply to any questions that might be asked of you. I think these questions are intended to be part of the community discussion. If there are any questions that you do not understand or do not know how to answer I think it is best to say that rather than not respond at all. --JWS 15:44, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Main page editing

I've read your concerns about main page editing. In fact in an unrelated development earlier today, I downgraded the protection on some parts of the main page so that normal registered users could edit parts of it. This move is aimed particularly at allowing ordinary users to post news items. In the longer term, it is probable that we will be looking more closely at which parts of the main page should be open to normal users to edit. In addition, I posted ideas on the colloquium about more regular main page edits, with a main page task force set up to fast-track certain kinds of change. In future sysop status should therefore not be necessary for text and hyperlink changes in certain segments of the main page. McCormack 20:59, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Talk page and colloquium lists

Hi Brent. A long time ago I learnt somewhere on Wikimedia that it wasn't regarded as a good thing to break up other people's lists in talk page and colloquium discussions. It results in text that is not properly comprehensible for other users, because coherent numbering gets disrupted and signatures get detached from comments. I can't find a policy or etiquette page on this at the current time, but nevertheless I have sorted out your insertions into my posting on the colloquium and put them at the end of my post. I'm leaving you this message here so that you have an opportunity to check that your comments remain intact and comprehensible after the move. McCormack 09:04, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks

--Faustnh 14:27, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Coutrymike for your kind welcome .

Thanks

Thank you for your welcome! Shmooshkums 04:48, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for welcoming me

Thank you for welcoming me to wikiversity. I hope to help it become even better than it is already. :) Captain panda 04:08, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thanks for welcoming me too! I am around mostly at Wikipedia, and have been there for quite some time now, so I already know pretty much all there is to know about editing and all, but thanks anyway! Also if you want my attention quickly email me or leave me a message on my Wikipedia talk page! Thanks again for your kindness!--Kushan I.A.K.J 15:27, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Yet Another Paean of Gratitude

Hey, thanks for linking my lecture to Augustine's wikipedia page. I'll take all the help I can get. Seriously, it's awesome that people care enough about this venture (and other wiki projects) to give so much of themselves. Good on ya! Mike 04:49, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Learning about list editing

Hi Countrymike. I've noticed that you generally have difficult with editing lists. In order not to break up a numbered list, you must combine hashes and colons like this: #: rather than :: . Could you perhaps reinstate the correct numering in the interview? Thanks. --McCormack 11:33, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Your comment on colloquium

Please see my response to one of your comments at Educational_Wikis/constructive_interactions/Colloquium_thread#Merging_Wikiversity_with_WikiEducator. I appreciate your position, and I respect your opinion, however I would ask that you respect that of others as well, and address concerns as opposed to denying their validity or that of those who raise them. (I am aware that this is an archive page.) --Draicone ^(talk) 11:48, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

:-)

Hi Countrymike, congrats on becoming a full custodian! --HappyCamper 00:18, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Discussions

Hi dear wikiversitan , friend or I think I can call you Mike (if you allow).Thanks for your kind welcome , Yeh! I know it's a sweet tradition on wiki-projects.secondly , I wanna know if there are some particular sort of discussion portals to focus and exchange the knowledge of all the good guys here on any topic of knowledge .I think there should be something like this.I'm not talking about minor disscussions that is usually about the specific topic but a place where we can talk about any thing of the knowledge kingdom.Do share with me if there is something like that.Cheers,----Un-predictable 18:37, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikimedian Demographics update

Hello Countrymike. I'm writing because you requested a reminder about progress on Wikimedian Demographics. For the time being these will be about once per month.

Speaking of reminders, it turns out the template question isn't the most efficient way of coming up with a mailing list. If you want to recieve this message on another of your talk pages (or don't want them at all), please edit the list on Wikimedian Demographics/Reminders.

To update on progress so far, there have been somewhere around 50 respondents over the past month, with more trickling in slowly but steadily. There are 7 major surveys (or 12, depending on how you count them):

1. The basic survey (about your participation in Wikimedia)
2. The "geography" surveys (actually 6 of those, for each inhabited continent)
3. The Operating System survey (still stubby)
4. The Wikipedia survey
5. The Commons survey
6. The US presidential elections survey
7. The sexuality and relationships survey

Only the geography surveys have had any major modifications since being originally posted (more countries were added to those).

Several new surveys have been discussed at Talk:Wikimedian Demographics, as well as other places within Wikiversity. A few that might be ready sometime in February include:

• A survey about Women in Wikimedia
• A survey about Wikibooks
• A survey about Wikiversity
• A survey about administrative issues (including cross-wiki topics such as CheckUser and "global blocking")
• A survey about environmental issues
• A survey about religion
• A survey about international trade

If you have ideas for more surveys, please share them on Talk:Wikimedian Demographics. Thanks for your participation thus far, and we hope to see you soon! --SB_Johnny | ^talk 11:51, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Reading

Hi Brent, thanks for adding Illich to Wikiversity_learning_model/Reading_group. (I will get around to reading it - I got it for Christmas for god's sake!!) I also added the Seely Brown group to that page asking if it should be a part of the wider group - what do you think? Cormaggio ^talk 17:07, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I very much want to have the reading group(s) as a case study. That's how I see action research working here - doing activity (ie reading), reflecting on the activity, informing further activity... Cormaggio ^talk 12:59, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I saw you added yourself to Wikiversity research. What aspects of Wikiversity are you interested in researching, and how? It'd also be great if you added your thoughts to this discussion about viable methods for building learning communities - or any other aspect of the Developing Wikiversity through action research project. Cormaggio ^talk 13:38, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Personal learning environments

Hi Brent - thanks to Mchua, there are some interesting thoughts on Making Wikiversity a personal learning space if you want to take a look... Cormaggio ^talk 15:55, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Licensing

hi brent, could you explain to me more about "I dual license my contributions under the CC-BY-SA license as well as the GFDL in order to make my contributions work on the widest number of OER wikis possible.". I would like to understand. I just whacked CC-BY-SA on my stuff, but get the feeling that it might not be quite that simple. Feel free to direct me to what I should read. -- Jtneill - Talk 09:04, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Uploading Files

Hi Brent, I am working on a project located at "http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/DFE2008_Dry_Cleaning_Detergent", being really new to wikipedia I didn't realize that I need to be an account holder for 4 days before I could upload files for use. I realize that wikimedia allows people to bypass the rule for urgent cases. My project is due at 9am UTC+4 on Wednesday, and I need to upload files urgently. Any help would be appreciated.

Thank You, Naweed

Yes, I got help from the irc channel and used wikimedia to host the files.

Wikimedia Radio ...

There is a proposal concering a Wikimedia Radio project n:WN:RADIO 62.56.54.110 20:27, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

IRC meeting

Hi Brent - just notifying you of a suggested time/date for an IRC meeting about 'Wikiversity learning'. Could you indicate if you would be available, or would prefer a different time/date? Cormaggio ^talk 14:47, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

GNUmedia

Hey Brent, How're things in the pasture?

I just migrated some content from gnumedia.org to the GNUmedia Wikiversity page. You said you were interested in updates :) Any suggestions/contributions are welcome. --Brylie 10:25, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Your colloquium post and disruptive users

Hi Brent. Thanks for your post to the colloquium. On the subject of your custodianship, you've been a very much better custodian than your mentor. Since opposing your custodianship request a long time ago, I've slowly come to think that it was probably John's actions I should have been opposing back then, not you. Anyway, to come back to your post on the colloquium, I think you may not have been following the edit histories. I'll give you just one example of what John was doing. Go to the history of the deletion request template here: http://en.wikiversity.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Deletion_request&action=history. You'll see that someone called Countrymike made a sensible version in March (good sensible solid edit). You'll then see that on 11th August, User:ViperSnake151 made some design changes, not content changes. ViperSnake151 was doing a number of template design improvements at the time. ViperSnake151's edit drew John's attention and John made this edit [1] which was problematic for two (smallish) reasons: firstly, the box title didn't fit the content any more, and second, the box content started to move in an anti-deletionist direction rather than being just neutral. Nobody did anything for a while. 20 days later, User:Adambro spotted the first of these problems (title misfit) and undid the change - however he left the anti-deletionist content alone. Adambro's edit was small, harmless and undoubtedly a small improvement - see [2]. JWS promptly reverted Adambro, insisting that a "reason must be given". Actually what was going on here was that JWS wanted a reason to be entered on the template using a parameter, but the template had no parameter, and (as I slowly realised) JWS didn't know how to edit templates to use parameters. I think you do know, however! Basically, the argument was over the introduction of a parameter which neither of JWS (nor perhaps Adambro) could programme in. The argument between Adambro and JWS goes back to at least 20th August, when Adambro was active on the deletion requests pages and JWS got sarcastic with him using the comment "Adambro: you do not recognize any difference between editing a wiki and using a word processor?" [3] (note also JWS's comment to this edit). Anyway, at this point (31st August again), I didn't like how JWS was treating Adambro and I stepped in and restored Adambro's edit as well as making a few further changes to the template - reformating, and making JWS's content edits of 11th August more neutral in tone. At the same time, I created the talk page for the template and opened a discussion of the edits. Instead of using the talk page, JWS promptly started using the template itself as a talk page with this large edit [4], transcluding his opinions into every page currently up for deletion. This was probably the first truly "disruptive" edit on this page, because by repurposing the template as a discussion forum, JWS disrupted the functionality of Wikiversity and forced his agenda. It's something called "disrupting a project to make a point". The template couldn't actually be left in that state, regardless of points of view. The first person to step in and correct the problem was User:Adambro, who reverted JWS's edits. I think this was right. JWS immediately reverted Adambro and this time left an even bigger essay right in the middle of the template: [5]. The template was now at 340 words or so and about 10 times larger than a template should be. John's sarcastic comment for his edit was that the template "was not long enough". Adambro then reverted John. John then reverted Adambro again, leaving an even longer essay in the middle of the template (370 words). At this point, Adambro was on 2 reverts and John was on 3 reverts. I think if we'd been applying Wikipedia rules, JWS could have been legitimately blocked from editing Wikiversity for a short cool-off period. Watching this, I decided not to block JWS and I also decided not to revert JWS. I felt this would worsen the situation, although JWS was clearly wrong. Instead I left a note on the talk page about the edit war and backed off. At this point, another custodian (User:Darklama) took up the problem of putting the template back into order after the disruptive edits by JWS. See Darklama's edits here [6] where he removes JWS's essay and tries to improve the template. User:Darklama is a good programmer and introduced the "reason parameter" as well. Darklama's edits were good. Adambro changed Darklama's edits and removed the reason parameter - I don't agree with that particular edit by Adambro, as the presence or absence of the parameter should have been discussed on the talk page first. I can see arguments both ways between Darklama and Adambro. I think both of their edits were good faith. Darklama then reverted Adambro. I tend to agree with Darklama. Darklama continued to prgrammatically improve the template (good edits). User:JWSchmidt then returns and starts inserting essays into the middle of the template again - this is once again disruptive editing, and the edit summaries are not exactly polite towards Darklama. Darklama reverts JWS, referring to JWS's "anger and frustration". The final word in this saga was when a sockpuppet account suddenly appeared and added a penis-icon to the template - pornographic vandalism. Without a checkuser action, we do not know who was behind this edit. The current version of the template is as left by Darklama and Hillgentleman. Anyway, Brent, I hope that as a custodian, you read all of this. If you feel that John's behaviour here was anything other than "disruptive", please state why. He really wasted a lot of time on the part of Darklama, myself and Adambro. And this is only one of his disruptive editing phases in recent days. I'd be very happy to see you change your opinion on this. If you do, many thanks and hopefully no hard feelings about your comment on the colloquium - ? --McCormack 07:42, 9 September 2008 (UTC)