User talk:McCormack

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[edit] Learning resources

Hi McCormack,

I am interested in helping to categorize pages, in order to highlight valuable learning resources. Only Cormac responded positive as well. Brent doesn't like the process.--Daanschr 08:20, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi Daan. Thanks for your message. I'm glad to hear you would like to help with this. How would you like to approach things? I'm capable of giving megalomaniac instructions, but a more consensus-based approach is "nicer". One of the things I'm waiting for is the activation of the subpagelist extension, so that we can start a subpage reorganisation - i.e. get lost pages back into their learning projects as subpages. Another way forward is to experiment with the DPL tag to identify organisational problems. --McCormack 08:49, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I have put some suggestions on Wikiversity talk:Learning resources. I agree that consensus based is better. Otherwise conflicts might arise that could have been avoided. At the moment Wikiversity is rather small, so we will surely have a lack of personnel. I will take a look at the sibpage question. I don't know what DPL is.--Daanschr 12:43, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

My remark about age was a bit too pointy. I wanted to revert it now, but you already read it.--Daanschr 15:58, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Japanese Wikiversity

Hello McCormack JApanese wikiversity was approved i will notify you when it will be created to change the main portal.--ZaDiak 16:49, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Extension

ping, ----Erkan Yilmaz Wikiversity:Chat 22:23, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] In search of the simple life...

Better stucture, not more commands

I am a teacher at Wikiversity because I like to teach. So to answer your question, "NO" I do not wish to be a Sys-Op.
  • The reason is a total lack of time. Already, I am running as fast as I can.
And, "Yes", the problem might go away if Wiki was designed with a better file structure systems which is easier for teachers to work with. Robert Elliott 14:27, 12 March 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Adding some structure to my life

A normal course with normal structure
I understand that many people prefer to more progressive methods of learning but I just want to do a traditional set of 10 courses, each containing 10 to 20 lessons, each with four to six lesson pages (separate steps that must be done in order)... along with separate pages for each pop quiz or practical example. All lessons are concluded with a page containing all of the completed assignments.
Each of these courses is part of a large school department or other structure. So what every I do, it must also reflect where I am in the structure of Wikiversity.
Getting started
When I write a course, I have no idea where it will go. I know the final goal but I do not know how to get the students there.
First, I rough out a set of lessons (such as the course for film scoring for filmmakers) and then fill in the missing pages. As soon as it becomes clear that students are not understanding something, I have to reorder the lessons or the pages of the lesson and I have to add more lessons or pages of lessons. If this does not work, I write a parallel course (such as Film Scoring For Musicians) and incorporate pages from the other course which seem to work and add new lessons and lesson pages.
The one thing that the designers of Wiki seem to ignore is I must create all my rough work on line where everyone can see it. These pages are either eventually cleaned up or abandoned. The course for film scoring for filmmakers has been abandoned and some of the pages from this course are now used in the film scoring course for musicians. Those pages are still out there somewhere. They should be in a folder called unneeded pages.
I need folders, not sub pages
I need is a set of folders which I put pages in. This is exactly like a table of contents for text book. It must look like simple folders but in reality it generates the structure for my courses.
Example
Here is how it works.
  1. When I put a page in a course folder, that page becomes the introductory page of the course. If I do not like the page later, I can fix it or I can remove it and replace it with an entire new page.
  1. When I put a folder called "lessons" in the folder of the course, any pages that I put in this folder becomes a lesson of that course.
  2. But when I put a folder in the lesson folder, that becomes a folder for all of the lesson pages.
  3. When I put a page on a lesson folder, it becomes the introductory page of the lesson.
  4. When I put a page in the lesson page folder in the lesson folder, that page becomes the start of a page of an actual lesson.
At any time, I can move a page from one folder to another and the page will take on new meaning. A lesson page in one lesson, if moved to a different lesson, becomes a lesson page of the other lesson. This should be easy and totally automatic.
Navigation
Then when I look at my pages, I want to see all of the navigation buttons fully populated with the correct addresses. Once I have done all the work of organizing my lessons, I don't want to have to start all over again creating a navigation system. That is what I have to do now for EACH course. Why make me do more work when I have already done it by defining lesson, lesson pages, pop quiz, example, completed assignments, etc.
Name Changes
When I create the name of the document (which then automatically appears in the navigation buttons), when I need to change the name (probably because I also need to reorganized the pages), I should be able just to type a name and that new name is reflected throughout the entire navigation of the course.
When I write or build anything, I am like a artist carving a figure from stone. I keep chipping away until the shape seems is correct. I will probably change the order and the names of my lesson page half a dozen times. With the current system, the original pages continue to float around WikiLand forever. What a mess! ~~~~ Robert Elliott 09:27, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
  • All of these are long term changes, not something which can be done in 2009. Slowly, there needs to be a project which defines the needs of the next generation of Wikiversity. That is where these comments should go. My comments are only about well structured lessons but that will be an important element of Wikiversity II. ~~~~ Robert Elliott 15:46, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re:

I've responded on my talkpage as best as I could. Terra What do you want? 10:40, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re:Please go ahead with your custodianship request

Hi there, thank you for the message you've placed on my talkpage if your fine with me going through with the request then I'll be happy to proceed. Terra What do you want? 18:24, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] well, thank you.

Thank you. I find this to be a worthwhile project, and I admire and appreciate you're contributions in kind. --Remi 22:41, 15 March 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Help:User contributions

I've copied the User Contributions page from Meta and transferred it here, it's this fine. It's on every wiki site which I've come across and have stated that the content was from a Master copy. Terra Welcome to my talkpage 12:44, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Grand schemes

  • Sigh* I know - and you're absolutely right - and thanks a million! I'm running out the door at the moment, and on holidays tomorrow, but I'd like to extend this idea actually - have a better grand scheme for all development initiatives - perhaps linked from the community portal or even (main page)... Cormaggio talk 17:33, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

for the welcome. I was zz =)

[edit] Your wish

"I would like to see sebmol retired from WV bureaucracy." May I ask why? sebmol ? 23:27, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Can I expect a response? sebmol ? 13:14, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Still too busy? sebmol ? 21:12, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] category trees

That looks highly interesting, I will definitely take a look at it and probably play with it some. I need to figure out its exact mechanics first, though. Thanks. : ) --Remi 18:05, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Do you know any way to display a category tree in multiple columns? e.g., for School:Psychology#Topics. -- Jtneill - Talk 12:39, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
How can a CategoryTree be forced to be closed by default? -- Jtneill - Talk 15:34, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the pointer to mw:Extension:CategoryTree. I'm not having much luck with trying out the example syntax from there though: School:Psychology#Topics. Any ideas? -- Jtneill - Talk 15:57, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
FYI, I've moved my CategoryTree testing to User:Jtneill/Wikiversity/CategoryTree. -- Jtneill - Talk 16:13, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Vision & Multimedia

Thanks for finding ways to harness momentum, ideas, etc. And for looking into the Multimedia options. I would like to see it done properly, so that the functionality would be available across appropriate WM foundation projects. At this stage it looks well out of my league. But perhaps we can start by initially deciding whether such functions are priorities for the WV and, if so, getting it into our mission/vision/goals, etc. I am happy to do whatever I can.

From a purely selfish POV, in transferring my materials from the university's confluence wiki system to wikiversity, I think the only part I can't currently replicate is the embedding of slideshare lectures (which are in .odp files). I am trying WikiEducator, where it looks like its possible, but very far from user-friendly or easy to work out the code. So, I will probably end up with the presentations embedded over there - unless perhaps something can be worked on the sandbox server for WV? The main reason I prefer embedding to sending students to slideshare is pedagogical - by embedding I can control and provide a clean screen/interface. Slideshare pages have too many adverts for my liking, but they do a great job of hosting, sharing, and showing presentations. Google have recently released their version of slidesharing, which has some way to catchup, but may eventually become the preferred option. -- Jtneill - Talk 00:49, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] using the template namespace for boxed-section content transclusions

What do you think about putting transcluded pages used for content boxes in the template namespace to avoid having so many content snippets in topic, portal, and school namespaces? Then these could always be forked and put in other namespaces. --Remi 07:54, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

  • Hi again and thanks for your message. I didn't quite catch the context of your message - i.e. perhaps you could give a few examples? But "yes", in principle it's probably a good idea. --McCormack 08:06, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm suggesting that instead of having templates like Template:Department place pages like Topic:Elasticity/Quotes in the topic namespace, that they go in the template namespace, maybe using {{BASEPAGENAME}}. I would be glad to do it, but I think it would be a change compared to what has been done much of the time thus far. --Remi 08:20, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
My feelings about the issue are not too strong. And unfortunately I am unable to be much help to you on those technical matters.

That is the code on Template:Introduction 0.4: [[Image:{{#switch:{{CURRENTDAYNAME}}|Monday=Various-133-1000cf.jpg|Tuesday=Missione del Guaricano-bimbi a scuola.jpg|Wednesday=ScienceOlympiad.jpg|Thursday=Ian Mackenzie High School Classroom.jpg|Friday=Various-110-1000cf.jpg|Saturday=Learning bongos.jpg|Sunday=Discoveryclassroom.jpg}}|200px|left]] maybe that might help. --Remi 08:38, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

So, my concern is that using all the subpages for transcluded content in the topic, portal, and school namespaces seems to make the random functions less useful to varying degrees. Maybe this is okay or it can be viewed in another way. --Remi 19:07, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Importing from Confluence

Appreciate your offer of help. Here's where I'm at:

  • Someone's off-list advice suggested that xml wouldn't be much good for importing.
  • So, I've been experimenting with html export. html via OO Writer comes through as MW syntax nicely, but its not a bulk solution. I have posted about this to the OO Writer forum and MW SOC 2008 suggestions (can find links if you want).
  • Confluence at UC seems to break on large exports - I've notified them, but it's probably just too big.
  • I've uploaded a 'manageable' 10-page zip file of an html export, with most of the typical elements e.g., hierarchical text-based pages, with one image.
  • Let me know if I can do anything.

-- Jtneill - Talk 12:57, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll try those wikificators, and keep exploring OO writer. Maybe if I had a bunch of flat html files in a folder I could get a bulk convert. Images could be stripped out, no problem. But at the end of the day I figured it was probably going come down to pretty manual conversion. It never hurts to rework the material in the process of converting, so its not a bad option, just takes longer, but the final product at WV end is probably better for the extra effort. Thanks for checking it all out and appreciate your advice. -- Jtneill - Talk 13:40, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] the concept

I saw that this morning before I checked my messages and I thought and still think that as it is now looks extraordinary nice and quite useful. Good work =) --Remi 18:06, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

It didn't seem appropriate to apply that to the templates currently in use. Perhaps something with icons would be useful for primary or secondary areas. --Remi 19:47, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Using subpages

Hey, McCormack, thanks for the encouragement! You didn't come off as a wikidragon, but I'll tread carefully anyway ;-). You told me to ask if anything in your comment me was unclear, so I thought that I'd ask you what gave the impression that I don't use subpages? In my Study of Genesis (currently my largest contribution) I use subpages for each of the lessons in the course. Moreover, all of my non-learning plan contributions to The Department of Biblical Studies and its Center of Biblical Survey are done entirely (to my knowledge :-) using subpages.

I was trying to think of where I might not use subpages (where they may be appropriate), and I noted that none of the studies listed on the Center of Biblical Survey are subpages of the center. If this is what you were referring to, I can see where it might be desirable to make them as such. It was my impression that the general design of Wikiversity was to have learning plans as top-level pages in the main namespace, with subpages for individual lessons, etc. Then, such top-level learning plans could be grouped together by "Topic" pages, and ultimately "school" and "portal" pages.

So what I did was to create a "topic" page for the Center of Biblical Survey, which served to link together the individual courses (in the top-level, main namespace). I had considered making them all subpages of the topic page, but that seemed to go against the general design of Wikiversity, and it would make it harder to group the courses under a different topic, should such grouping be desirable.

What I did do was create a navigation bar at the top of each course's main page, showing where in the School of Theology each course resided. Was this nav bar what caused it to seem like I didn't use subpages? At any rate, let me know where I could use improvement. And sorry for this lengthy response; I wanted to make a justification for my design decisions, in case they were what prompted the comment.

Thanks for looking out for Wikiversity (and me),

--Opensourcejunkie 09:15, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Oh, I see...how sneakily superb a way to find such misdemeanors! :) Thanks again for working to keep Wikiversty in-check and pruned. cya 'round,
--Opensourcejunkie 09:36, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Hey, by the way. I've had a question about subpages that's been nagging me in the back of my mind, but I haven't taken the time to do the research; perhaps you can answer it. I have a page, Topic:Biblical Overview that I want to move to Topic:Biblical Survey because the name fits better with traditional universities. However, I've created a number of subpages underneath of Topic:Biblical Overview that would also need to be moved. Does the functionality also move subpages, or merely the page in question?

Any idea?

--Opensourcejunkie 10:03, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Aight, thanks. Shouldn't be too difficult :-)
--Opensourcejunkie 10:50, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Religious policies

Wow. I'm honored that you'd think of me. I would love to be so intimately involved in the inception of such a thing, especially as I have a vested interest ;-). Now, as I've never written a wiki policy draft before, I could use a hand with some information:

  1. you mentioned that a dialogue has been going on about the potential policy; do you know where I can go to view what's already been discussed?
  2. do you know of any policy writing tutorials/faqs etc., either on here or another wikimedia project? If not I can probably wing it, but such a resource would be helpful.

Thanks for this opportunity, McCormack!

--Opensourcejunkie 13:19, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
  1. Replied: --Opensourcejunkie 13:43, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
  2. Replied: --Opensourcejunkie 13:46, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
  3. New Thread: --Opensourcejunkie 11:44, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
  4. Replied: --Opensourcejunkie 15:43, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
  5. Replied: --Opensourcejunkie 17:42, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
  6. Replied: --Opensourcejunkie 17:42, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
  7. I moved the (pertinent parts of the) discussion over to the policy's talk page. Also, I added a section defining religious scholarship.
  8. Replied: --Opensourcejunkie 12:09, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
  9. Replied: --Opensourcejunkie 12:54, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
  10. Replied: --Opensourcejunkie 13:38, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re:Templates for portals and schools

ping- Thuvack 09:26, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re:White backgrounds for tables

ping- Thuvack 06:15, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

ping-Thuvack 07:34, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re:Participants lists

ping- Thuvack 15:07, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Getting the background around image thumbnails right

ping- Thuvack 16:52, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

ping
ping- Thuvack 06:12, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] barnstar

I think I never told it since I know you: thank you for your efforts in Wikiversity. Alone from looking at your user page one can see you are a valuable asset to Wikiversity. Please keep it up, ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat (try) 17:14, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Underconstruction Template

ping-Thuvack 09:04, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Templates - Class

Could you explain how class="infobox" works e.g., on Template:About Wikiversity. Where is that infobox code stored? -- Jtneill - Talk 16:07, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Template - Mission statement

Can you think of a nice template for Wikiversity:Mission/Current? -- Jtneill - Talk 03:38, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

A little bit more info - I would also like to be able to include the mission statement on other pages, e.g., on the OmahaUnited sisterproject interview page. -- Jtneill - Talk 03:43, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Cool. I've contacted Cormaggio for clarification, but have also gone ahead and created Template:Mission. I also want to create Template:Vision, but first we need a vision :) Wikiversity:Vision. Can you think of a groovy template for displaying Wikiversity:Slogan? Something big, bold, centred, maybe with WV logo? -- Jtneill - Talk 03:43, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re:McCormack was here.

Ping- Thuvack 13:21, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Ping - Thuvack 10:29, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Ping -Thuvack 06:05, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Template Automation.

Hi. I think you have seen my new look pages for Electrical Engineering courses. I've got 1 problem. I created thr following templates Template:Elec Eng Hierarchy-0 and Template:Elec Eng Hierarchy-1 I think it is a cool way to help the student/user see where the course is in the greater picture of what he/she wants to achieve. At this rate I will have to create 3 other Templates to complete the above. Is there a way I can automate the above template to achieve this: { Template ; level } i.e Create template Elec Eng Hierarchy which can accept argument of level where course belongs in. I'd be glad if you could help. Say does wikiversity support java code? I know how to achieve above using Java, I just wouldn't know where to put the code. Thanks , I'll only see your response on monday. :-) Thuvack 12:28, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I've sort of figured out bits & pieces from Film making school and used that to create Template:Circuit Analysis Courses Content and Template:Electrical Engineering Orientation Courses Content, these have worked well you can check Electric_Circuit_Analysis & Electrical Engineering Orientation courses. I do still think that the above Template on Hierarchy is necessary and I have not found a work-arround this problem as yet. Any Ideas, Help ? wellcome.-Thuvack 06:21, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Featured content

Could you help me to understand how 'featured content' works? I have seen Help:Portal#Updating featured content and I am interested in having a go at adding featured content (don't know what yet) to Portal:Pre-school Education. -- Jtneill - Talk 14:18, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

That's fine; plenty to do :). -- Jtneill - Talk 14:35, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikiversity:Browse

I like the new layout which you've done, i've taken a Wikibreak on Wikipedia to be more active here. Shall I transfer my Help page contents in my subpage to replace the current Help:Contents and move it to Help:Contents/old. Terra 19:23, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

ping Terra 07:02, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
ping Terra 14:52, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] please...

I just created those so there would be some minimal content and the links would be blue. Please edit them and even just totally scrap what I started. I didn't realize you were intending to do something with them, especially so soon. --Remi 20:53, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, okay. I will see what I can do... email ping. --Remi 20:58, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Jtneill custodianship

Hi, thanks for reminding me - done! Cormaggio talk 09:32, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the nomination, support, etc. I'm underway. I think I'm ready to stuff beans up my nose and get wacked by trout. -- Jtneill - Talk 13:15, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Feel free to throw/suggest tasks; for now I'm working through How to be a Wikimedia sysop and will try to improve that resource as I go along. Is it really OK to try blocking one's self - or should I try on a test account? -- Jtneill - Talk 13:43, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
The mentorship of 4 weeks have passed. Please evaluate James' performance. Thx, ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat (try) 06:46, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Blocking

OK, I blocked/unblocked myself and read over Wikiversity:Blocking policy. Could you suggest how to... "determine if the address or range is allocated dynamically." -- Jtneill - Talk 14:37, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] main page .5 horizontal scroll

on firefox

on firefox

here this are... --Remi 07:34, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Main page

Aha - I see Remi's adding screenshots too! No, I've no objections - I think, as ever, we can tweak as we go. No, I haven't seen an FAQ (apart from the existing Wikiversity:FAQ) - where is it? Cormaggio talk 12:26, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] somewhat more on transclusions-

i posted the thought on colloquium, and i was curious what you thought:

Subpages used as soley as transclusions should not be given their own page in the namespace at which they are used as transclusions. They should be in the template namespace. They arguably just contribute to clutter, especially if they serve the purpose of soley being used as a transclusion and cannot hold their own and hold no particular use wholly as an individual page. --Remi 16:06, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] untagged

Just curious if you could help me understand use of the "untagged" tool. -- Jtneill - Talk 01:33, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

FYI, thanks for the follow-ups on this one. Makes sense now. -- Jtneill - Talk 00:03, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Random topic

"(removing random topic - it's embarrassing)" - What do you mean? --Remi 18:50, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be best to try and establish broader consensus on the issue. I can see it both ways. Personally, topics seem more accessible given the new browse page, and the namespace isn't the cleanest space... yet, it could be a really awesome namespace to stumble around inside. --Remi 23:56, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] NavFrame

Thanks for the feedback on this delete, McCormack. You're right - I need to check 'what links here'. Appreciate it. So now I've moved the content to another page and left additional comment User talk:134.67.15.6. -- Jtneill - Talk 00:06, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] SubPageList on MediaWiki 1.12

Hello McCormack, I use you nice extension for MW called "SubPageList" but it seams that it doesn't work anymore on MediaWiki 1.12. When I try to install the exentions, I have the following error while loading those extension : Fatal error: Call to undefined function wfLoadExtensionMessages() In this thread, they said that you shoud change the way you call the function wfLoadExtensionMessages() in your script. Could you do that for us ? Thanks in advance. -- Phil -- 26 april 2008

[edit] {{orphan}}

Hi, McCormack, actually I was just trying to work if there is any point to using this manual 'orphan' template, since orphaned pages are automatically listed in special pages. It seems a bit useless to me. What do you think? BTW - should all pages in the Template: namespace be categorised as at least 'Template' or a more specific type of template. Is that that the best way to organise and navigate to them? -- Jtneill - Talk 11:42, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh, btw, I didn't create this template, I just came across it, played with it, pondered it. It just seems to manually duplicate what is automatically organised. But I guess it does serve to point out to future visitors/editors that a page is orphaned, which they may otherwise not realise. No big deal. -- Jtneill - Talk 15:39, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Categorising (Psychology)

I've tried to tidy up Category:Psychology to make better use of CategoryTree. Let me know if you have any suggestions. -- Jtneill - Talk 13:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Category:Psychology -- Jtneill - Talk 13:06, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
That's odd - putting the link above is putting your talk page in the category?? -- Jtneill - Talk 13:07, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Hmmmm, but the link above has a preceding colon - yet its putting this page in the category? -- Jtneill - Talk 13:12, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
You didn't correct both links - just one. --McCormack 13:20, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Schools

Thanks for the warning. FYI, I think I've only changed the namespace for School:Psychology as an experiment as reported on Colloquium and one particularly 'dodgy' psychology sub-school which I've moved to the mainspace. I don't intend to go any further at this stage. -- Jtneill - Talk 13:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] topic, school box

It seems that more specificity probably wouldn't hurt. However, it also seems that we want to avoid information overload. So I'm fairly neutral on the matter. Done properly, it could probably be made prudent and useful. --Remi 18:51, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Biology Portal

Thanks for creating the Biology portal. I'll help out as much as I can. It could take some time to get a vast amount of material out there though, I'm writing the Wikibook FHSST Biology while I'm making resources for Wikiversity. I'm also trying to get involved with other projects around the Wiki communities. I appreciate your help.

Cheers,

Wesley Gray 19:59, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Columns

Do you know a way to create columns which are automatically even in length? Or must one manually specify and manage column breaks? I searched MW and meta and didn't find much - it's all based around tables from what I can see. -- Jtneill - Talk 10:31, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Found what I wanted: meta:Help:List. -- Jtneill - Talk 10:35, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Oh good, this worked - 3 columns for category tree: Psychology#Categories. -- Jtneill - Talk 10:46, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Bummer - it's 3 columns in FF and 1 in IE - hmmmmm. -- Jtneill - Talk 11:05, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Main page experiments

Thanks for taking a look & responding. Do you think I should remove or move those v0.6 pages I created? They were just really for my testing and not new versions. -- Jtneill - Talk 10:07, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Blindspots

Are there any aspects of custodianship which you think I've overlooked so far? I've tried to 'tour' myself around and try out most functions I'm aware of. I probably could pay some more attention to working through some of the special pages - and cleaning stuff up. And I haven't been on IRC lately, but do intend to get back there eventually. Appreciate any thoughts. -- Jtneill - Talk 10:07, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback; that's bonza. -- Jtneill - Talk 12:22, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
OK, so it took me all day to work out... ha ha... and i had to read in this context: 2058 state of the nation address by the honourable victor bitter jr.; president of the republic of australia. -- Jtneill - Talk 12:45, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Filmmaking - Course level (answer to your question)

Initial goal
I have tried to design the course materials for the three filmmaking courses (Basic filmmaking-preproduction, editing, and scoring) for 16 year old students.
Overall goal
By keeping the three courses simple enough for high school kids who speak English, the courses are now used by:
  • 1. International high school graduates who are unable to enter local trade schools because of cost, availability or the lack of English skills. (30%)
  • 2. First year film students at regular universities who do not have access to these specific areas. (5%)
  • 3. High school students who need to create a demo reel to be accepted to film school. (15%)
  • 4. 12-year-old kids who just want to have a bit of fun. (50%)

The last group usually completes only the first two lessons. Still, it is enough to make them happy. ~~~~ Robert Elliott 01:53, 1 May 2008 (UTC)


Special Note
The first two lessons of the basic filmmaking course are extremely popular with people waiting for airplanes all around the world. Don't ask me why!!! Maybe you should have a category for "Things to do when you are bored." Robert Elliott 02:09, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Update May 22, 2008
I recently looked at the requirements for the filmmaking courses to be offered by high schools in the State of Utah. They have a complete description of what they want for a FINE ARTS COURSE in filmmaking. It is the opposite of my course. Therefore, clearly my course is NOT fine arts filmmaking. My filmmaking course at Wikiversity is either commercial art or a trade school course based on the criteria of the State of Utah for high school courses. Robert Elliott 01:11, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Gadgets

I have been checking out gadgets in user preferences here and on WV. I'm curious which, if any, of these you use/recommend? -- Jtneill - Talk 14:52, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Other than 'maybe' WikEd on WP (for complicated pages), I haven't yet found a gagdet which lasts behind a short period of novelty. I like the principle of keeping the interface as similar as possible to that for newcomers. -- Jtneill - Talk 00:13, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Talk link in your signature

Curious if there's any particular reason you don't have a talk link in your sig? -- Jtneill - Talk 14:52, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Narrative Filmmaking = Replacements for school plays

Not an easy fit
Currently, narrative filmmaking is very hard to categorize. It does not fit well with traditional high school courses.
School productions
Instead, narrative filmmaking will eventually be in offered in high school drama departments in the same category as a school play or a school musical and in the music department in the same category as a school concert.
Rather than something which is taught, it will be something which is done. (But before that happens, step by step procedures for schools to follow need to be developed in the same way that schools buy a complete package of step-by-step instructions when they obtain the rights to a play such as Disney's musicals. My lessons do not go that far. That will require another ten years.)
Not IT or fine art
In contrast, "Information Technology" is linked with "Multimedia", not "narrative filmmaking". "Art and design" in high school refers mostly to "fine art" which "documentary filmmaking" fits better. Narrative filmmaking should be associated with "commercial art" but few high schools offer commercial art, just fine art. (If you are not sure of the difference, fine art is made for the appreciation of the creator, commercial art is designed for the appreciation of the viewer. Fine art is spiritual, commercial art is a craft.)
Vocational
Or to put this another way, in Germany, narrative filmmaking would be taught in vocational school along with automobile design and commercial cooking. Narrative filmmaking fits much better into the vocational category. Narrative filmmaking is a craft. Robert Elliott 00:37, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Templating

[edit] Wikiversity:Mission

Could you help explain how to template, say, Wikiversity:Mission in such a way that it can be incorporated, if desired, into a box on the new portal pages. This is a more of an experimental learning question on my part, but could be useful in some places e.g., Portal:Wikiversity. -- Jtneill - Talk 00:17, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Edit Page

For this template, Template:Edit page, how could it be changed so that one could add the parameter 0 to switch off the text "(and any subpages)", and 1 to switch it on. I haven't done this stuff before, but am interested. -- Jtneill - Talk 01:55, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Portal:Pre-school Education

I'm pondering Portal:Pre-school Education... and thinking that a two-column format might be more user-friendly for this page. What do you think and if that sounds appropriate, how? -- Jtneill - Talk 03:48, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the kids-only fork; that works well. I'm enjoying exploring it. I like the create a box input box. Small mystery - if one clicks create a page with no text in the box, it seems to go into editing the main page... Wouldn't want to see a toddler scoring you a trout... :) -- Jtneill - Talk 13:54, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, I guess you're pretty safe, with the main page protected :) -- Jtneill - Talk 13:55, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Where is the list of completed courses?

  • Just a quick question. Where is the list of completed courses (or courses which are working well enough to be listed as completed courses by their instructor)? Robert Elliott 04:37, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Completion status: this resource is ready for testing by learners. Please begin!
Question: How should courses which are ready for testing be listed?
Suggestion:
"This course is ready for a test drive." - - 99% complete? (with a picture of a bumpy ride?) Robert Elliott 22:00, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Another suggestion -- I think that a CATEGORY for each of the templates should be included inside the template. (Sorry if that is not clear.)
Example: the template {{Template:100%done-2}} should include the category of [[Category:Completed course]] (or something like that) so that a List of Completed Courses is automatically generated. (Again, I am not sure if this makes sense. If not, let me know and I will try again.) Robert Elliott 22:22, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Completion status: this resource has reached a high level of completion.
  • Correction -- I think that the link should not be to the help page but rather to the list of completed lessons category.Robert Elliott 03:29, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Huh? -- I do not think that automatic categorizing is working correctly. You say "Your suggestion about auto-categorising is already there in the system." but this is not producing the results that I expected. How does this work? Things seem to be appearing on the wrong pages or not at all. Robert Elliott 05:48, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
  • High expectations -- Maybe I had different expectations for how this feature works. Question: How to I refer to list of completed courses in my pages. [[Category:Completed resources|Click here to see the list of completed courses]] does not seem to work.
I will try experimenting with different ideas for a while. If it does not work, we can always roll back. Robert Elliott 06:43, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Ahhh! -- Yes, I did not understand about namespace. Thanks.
Yes, I would like to be able to point people to the page of completed lessons but the simple approach does not work. Obviously, there must be an easy way to include that in my text but I cannot think of it at the moment. The goal is for people to click on the word complete in the {{complete}} template and take people to the page of completed lessons. Robert Elliott 14:08, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
This lesson is ready for testing
by students. Please begin!!
  • My Thoughts - Here is an example of what I am thinking about.
1. If we make this template more useful for students, teachers will accept it quicker.
2. For the most part, only students will see this.
3. The help page can be announced in other locations which will be more effective. (Example to follow soon.)
  • Note that I use the word "students". Half of my students do NOT speak English. They know the word "student" but they don't understand the word "learner". The foreign students are my best students so I do what they need most. Robert Elliott 00:02, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
  • My Plans - This is what I will be doing.
1. I like the work that you have done. I think that this will be extremely useful.
2. I will continue to experiement and to promote your marking system to identify completed resources.
3. However, my goal is very specific. I want to create a list of Traditional courses which are complete or ready for testing. This list is for a very select audience (the average person who comes to Wikiversity to learn.) Therefore, I will be creating a parallel list which will be based on your list. It should compliment what you are doing. (This will be clearer when I get more done.) Robert Elliott 14:46, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Category trees -- Now I see why programmers like categories so much. There is a lot you can do with it. The challenge is to make it meaningful and easy to read for students. Robert Elliott 03:58, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Extension:Gnuplot

Hi McCormack, just wondering if you had any initial thoughts about mw:Extension:Gnuplot. It could have some potential for WV? -- Jtneill - Talk 17:23, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, I thought it could potentially save time drawing plots externally, then exporting, uploading, etc. for teaching statistics. Maybe there's an external online graphing solution which could be embedded. Not a major priority, but I'm looking for other ways of presenting data/graphs - and if it could be done dynamically, so that others can change the data, even better for learning. -- Jtneill - Talk 04:35, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Random mascot welcome

Mascot welcome

Woof! My name is Jack (Russell). I am a dog and a Wikiversity mascot. I am pretty new around Wikiversity. Perhaps we can learn together! Tail wag...

[edit] Project boxes

They are way cool :). Thankyou. Just trying to work out stacking and preventing overlapping e.g., -- Jtneill - Talk 01:03, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Educational level: this is a tertiary (university) resource.
Please help develop this page

This page was created, but so far, little content has been added. Everyone is invited to help expand and create educational content for Wikiversity. If you need help learning how to add content, see the editing tutorial and the MediaWiki syntax reference.

To help you get started with content, we have automatically added references below to other Wikimedia Foundation projects. This will help you find materials such as information, media and quotations on which to base the development of "McCormack" as an educational resource. However, please do not simply copy-and-paste large chunks from other projects. You can also use the links in the blue box to help you classify this page by subject, educational level and resource type.
Run a search on McCormack at Wikipedia.
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Lost on Wikiversity? Please help by choosing project boxes to classify this resource by:
btw, this looks different in FF and IE. -- Jtneill - Talk 01:24, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Any ideas for layout here Level of measurement (robelbox + project box)? It looks fine in IE, but overlapping in FF? -- Jtneill - Talk 03:08, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
Excellent initiative, James! It's great to see the metadata efforts being revived in such a practical and potentially "addictive" way. :-) Cormaggio talk 12:15, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
I think maybe {{stub}} and {{welcome and expand}} both contain "lost at wv?" e.g., see Colour. -- Jtneill - Talk 01:43, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Actually, i meant {{uncat}} and {{welcome and expand}}. Is there some way of using "IF" with parser functions to detect if another template is being used on a page? Just curious. -- Jtneill - Talk 01:45, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] edit summaries and IRC chat

"Please do not write my name at all in your edit summaries" <-- I'm sorry you got upset because of my reference to your user name. Maybe I can figure out how to refer to your edits using the version numbers for article revisions. I'm also sorry you got upset because of my comment about a vacation....I should have put a :) after "I think you need a vacation". --JWSchmidt 18:13, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Main Page/News

I added an announcement to Wikiversity:Announcements, but didn't see it on the main page. Checking Main Page/News it seems this is done separately? Any way to transclude from annoucements? -- Jtneill - Talk 04:45, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks; I can see value in keeping annoucements and main page news separate. -- Jtneill - Talk 21:16, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] barnstar

I thought that between the mainpage, all the work on templates you've been doing, the browse page, and a multitude of other things that you have done, you deserve a barnstar. I found this nice green one, so... keep up the good work. : ) --Remi 02:18, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Cat tree

I can see both sides. What if "Category:Paths by user type" was open by default? It may give more empahsis to headings, but then also get the message accross that, "these things expand!". --Remi 08:08, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Portal reform

FYI: