Wikiversity:Requests for Deletion

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Revision as of 16:21, 3 January 2018 by Mu301 (discuss | contribs) (→‎Cold fusion: fix)
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We welcome and appreciate civil discussion of requests to delete or undelete pages when reasonable objections are made or are likely, the advice in Wikiversity:Deletions is followed, and other options have failed. A good attitude is to explain what you have tried, ask for help or advice from fellow Wikiversity participants on what to do now, keep an open mind, accept any community consensus, and focus on how pages can be improved. Finding ways to improve pages is the preferred outcome of any discussion and consensus here. Pages should always be kept when reasonable concerns are adequately addressed. Reasons and responses should be specific and relate to Wikiversity policy or scope in some way, kept brief, and stated in a positive or neutral way. Vague reasons ("out of scope", "disruptive") may be ignored.

A clear consensus should emerge before archiving a request. Often discussion takes a week or more to reach a clear consensus. Remember to add {{dr}} to the top of pages nominated for deletion. You can put "keep", "delete", or "neutral" at the beginning of your response, but consensus is established by discussion and reasoning, not mere voting.

How to begin discussion

  1. Add {{Deletion request}} or {{dr}} to the image, category or resource nominated for deletion.
  2. Add a new section to the end of this page using the following format:
    == [[Page title]] ==
    reasons why this page ought to be deleted --~~~~

Undeletion requests

If an article has been deleted, and you would like it undeleted, please list it here. Please try to give as close to the title as possible, and list your reasons for why it should be restored.

Wiki Campus Radio/PSA

I had this deleted as author request back in March 2017, Subsequently there was some interest from a contributor on another project. Would it be possible for it to be restored so that the user concerned can comment, or recover some of the ideas? 23:08, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

checkY Done -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 01:42, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Deletion requests

Cold fusion

Parapsychology

Extended content
Discussions are archived for review purposes. Please start a new discussion to discuss the topic further.


Closure: This resource violates so many of our policies I'm not even sure where to begin. Let's start with the gofundme link that clearly shows that the main contributor is profiting from wikiversity in a clear ethics violation of undisclosed conflict of interest.[1] Even if this COI were disclosed the resource would still be problematic. Wikiversity is simply not an advertising platform for your personal financial gain. Next we'll take into consideration the effort at "refuting" Wikipedia. Our policy considers "Research that threatens or compromises the reputation or public image of the Wikimedia Foundation or its various projects" to be "Unwelcome Research."[2] I'll also second Dave's comment that the presence of this resource is disruptive to the community. I could go on and on with numerous other reasons, but I'm not going to waste the community's time documenting the obvious. This is clearly inappropriate on many levels. In addition to mass deletion of these pages the main contributor is blocked for multiple policy violations that show a long term pattern of cross-wiki abuse. --mikeu talk 17:34, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I was very pleased to see the close offered above for cold fusion. I note that this resource suffers from the exact same problems: (1) content curated entirely by pseudoscience POV-pushers who could not get their preferred poor-quality sourcing reflected in Wikipedia, (2) content copied from en-Wikipedia over here and used to make an alternative encyclopedia entry (3) use of the pages as a dumping ground for unreliable sources that align with a pseudoacademic approach to the subject. The main problems are that this "resource" is actually in contravention to the roles and ideals of this project. ජපස (discuss • contribs) 15:26, 28 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Links would be appreciated for such strong claims. ---Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 14:58, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
A link to the resource is provided. What particular claim do you think requires a link? I think most of my points are rather self-evident. ජපස (discuss • contribs) 18:57, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Claims in bold italic: Content curated entirely by pseudoscience POV-pushers. That's libel, and, at the very least, an ad-hominem argument, and just plain false (particularly when "entirely" is included). The retainability of a resource does not vary with the users who worked on it. I designed the top-level page to be rigorously neutral. From article history, users who have edited Parapsychology:
  • Abd. I started the article to facilitate the neutral study of parapsychology. See the first version, 15:39, 24 May 2014‎
  • DeanRadin. This is w:Dean Radin, obviously a notable parapsychologist, thus an expert. Criticism of Radin exists, as can be seen in the Wikipedia article. Criticism is part of science. "pseudoscience POV-pusher" is not science, it is social opinion and a deep insult to any scientist; POV-pusher is a pejorative Wikipedia term. Advocacy of a "point of view" is allowed on Wikiversity unless presented as if "mainstream" without attribution.
  • Ben Steigmann. Real name of a young student interested in studying sources on parapsychology. His subpage, attributed to him, has been the subject of complaints and prior requests for deletion. It was found to be acceptable after full process was followed.
  • Brian Josephson. This is w:Brian Josephson, Nobel Prize winner in physics, with an interest in parapsychology (and that interest has been not uncommon in well-known scientists, who recognize that we do not necessarily understand everything!) Again, he has been criticized, but the nominator here goes far beyond criticism within science.
  • Craig_Weiler. Real name. Wikipedia user in good standing. Notable enough to have a RationalWiki article. (nothing there can be trusted without verification, and evidence pointed to there is often cherry-picked.) Not a scientist, but someone with personal experience of the "paranormal." Which means "unexplained by science."
  • MrRowser edited the resource in 2015. Some of this was accepted, some not. See discussion on the Talk page. MrRowser not pursue further improvement. (This is a global SPA, and has claimed recently, "I am a skeptic who has published a handful of papers debunking psychics." Almost every claim in that linked comment is demonstrably false, but he did "publish" many "papers" on psychics and other targets, on RationalWiki. Not under that name, of course. (The point here is that skeptics have not been excluded.)
  • TreeTrailer edited in 2016. Global SPA making familiar arguments, including personal attacks. See contributions and discussion on Talk. Requested custodian attention from Dave Braunschweig. See Dave's response, with which I fully agreed.
  • Dave Braunschweig, wikiversity custodian (and bureaucrat), addressed concerns. His edit was fully accepted by me.
So the claim of the resource being "curated entirely" by people with some possible point of view is false. That people who hold some opinion about a topic -- or who develop it by study and document that -- might take an interest in a resource is totally normal. Wikiversity is not Wikipedia.
content copied from en-Wikipedia over here and used to make an alternative encyclopedia entry. That is blatantly false. The lede is copied from Wikipedia, as a presumably neutral introduction, that's all. But the resource itself is far larger, and obviously not an encyclopedia entry.
use of the pages as a dumping ground for unreliable sources that align with a pseudoacademic approach to the subject. A study of a subject may include all sources, not just those considered "reliable" by Wikipedia standards. Study of sources is an important part of learning. Sources may be criticized and this was an important and early part of Wikiversity:Scope. "Pseudoacademic" is an opinion, unsupported by sources, and libelous for academics and scientists. The editors who appeared with a "skeptical POV" declined invitations to expand the resource, by providing contrary information and sources, on pages for that purpose. Ben Steigmann actually found a user who had compiled critical sources and included that on his own initiative, as Parapsychology/Sources/WaterPlanet.
The resource is neutral, not an encyclopedia article and the rest of the nomination is irrelevant. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 16:28, 31 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. No reason for deletion under WV:Deletions Deletion policy has been given. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 16:28, 31 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment The only reason necessary for delete would be the same as for Cold Fusion above. "At times, it may be useful to amend the Wikiversity research guidelines so as to explicitly exclude some types of fringe research if they disrupt Wikiversity or distract the community from its educational mission." There is no question that this is fringe research, that its presence disrupts Wikiversity, and that it distracts the community from its educational mission. All engagement in this discussion simply validates that these assertions are true, and further justifies a bold close for deletion. I encourage those arguing for keep to focus comments on how the benefits of keeping the resource supersede the disruption it generates. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 17:24, 31 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete As for content being copied from Wikipedia, yes that has happened. There are copyvio concerns on this page written by Ben Steigmann. He has taken huge chunks of text from Wikipedia page on the paranormal and then inserted his own claims to try and counter claim it. This is confusing and not an educational resource.
  • There is also copyrighted material on is main parapsychology project. A lot. I can cover this later in depth. Steigmann was banned on a bunch of accounts in November, 2017 on Wikipedia for spamming his content on Wikiversity onto Wikipedia articles. He now claims his edits were "censored" [3] directly on his Wikiversity project and he links to archived versions of his edits on the notorious archive website. How can this be acceptable at Wikiversity?
  • I would also add, that Steigmann is making money out of his parapsychology project. So far over 400$. I won't link to this because I respect his privacy but on Facebook Ben Steigmann advertises his parapsychology project on Wikiversity as "refuting" Wikipedia. I don't think this is a good thing for the Wikimedia Foundation. Also Dean Radin article on Wikiversity [4] is the same is what is hosted on his personal website [5]. He is merely using Wikiversity to promote his own website. In total I see no reason why these pages should be kept. They should all be deleted. 82.132.219.173 (discuss) 17:50, 31 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Assignments

Discussions are archived for review purposes. Please start a new discussion to discuss the topic further.

I am not sure whether this list of computer hardware would fit wikkiversity's purpose. C933103 (discuss • contribs) 01:17, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I've looked at the resource. It has been abandoned since 2011. Do you know what this assignment is, or is for? You can attach the template {{Prod}} instead if you prefer. If no one attempts to improve, it will be deleted by a custodian in just over three months. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 02:04, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It looks like Assignments is/was part of a course called "Value chains and new media" offered here by Gwenaëlle Bauvois of Metropolia University of Applied Sciences, Helsinki, Finland. Would you be interested in updating and improving this course? --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 06:57, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I believe they are unrelated, because that assignment in "Value chains and new media" was asking students to write about their experience, while the Assignments article is merely some computer spec sheet that seems to be suitable for doing some particular task according to 2011 standard.C933103 (discuss • contribs) 09:53, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Assignments was a student homework assignment improperly named and improperly positioned. It fit Wikiversity's mission in terms of hosting a learning project, but it doesn't provide value to others. I've moved it back to the user's space, where it came from originally and should have remained. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 15:40, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Assignment

Discussions are archived for review purposes. Please start a new discussion to discuss the topic further.
Speedy delete of unused redirect -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 15:45, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't seems like a good idea to redirect the Assignment page to a page for assignment of a specific course. C933103 (discuss • contribs) 01:17, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

See my comments just above, and Happy New Year! --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 07:01, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@C933103: You are correct. It's not necessary to open a deletion discussion. Just tag resources like this with {{delete|reason}}. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 15:44, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Main Page "Lectures"

Discussion

There are many stand-alone main page resources at Wikiversity apparently designed and/or designated as lectures. Examples include Sciences, Fringe sciences, Art, History, Humanities, etc. The {{scope}} and quality of these resources is being questioned. Potential solutions are:

  • Keep as is - No changes are necessary.
  • Subpage of a main page - Make each current page a subpage of an appropriate main page resource.
  • Subpage of a specific main page - Create a specific main page that all related lecture pages would be moved under.
  • Subpage in user space - Move these lecture pages to the user space of the primary contributor.
  • Blank and replace - Replace the existing content with a new introductory page.
  • Delete - Delete the resource.

This list is not meant to be exhaustive either in examples or potential solutions. While it would be possible to discuss each page individually, it seems that a broader initial discussion and direction is necessary first. Please comment and/or vote on how we should proceed. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 18:04, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think Keep as is is a poor choice. I like the idea of using subspaces of the specific main page. But that doesn't solve the real problem, which is all the time and effort this community wastes on discussing these things. I have a rather complicated proposal, which will probably get lost in the kilobytes of text that are likely to placed under this thread. My proposal is "half-baked", so I will place it under my own userspace right now under user:Guy vandegrift/Making Wikiversity less chaotic--20:13, 1 January 2018 (UTC)
I've read your Arbitration Committee proposal and must respectfully decline its implementation. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 00:22, 2 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for updating sitenotice. --mikeu talk 15:24, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Here's a consensus approved portion of the {{Scope}} proposal discussion: "Templates that target the work of editors for destruction should be used with care. They should not be used as a substitute for first discussing page contents with the editors or fixing something that needs to be fixed. Wikipedia has developed a culture where there is a rush to drop dozens of templates on articles and delete them, without ever discussing the articles with their creators. I do not want to see that culture carried over to Wikiversity. Wikipedia has a very narrow mission: to produce encyclopedia articles. Wikiversity is a much more ambitious project where editors are exploring how to use wiki technology to support learning. If we each assume good faith then we have to open our minds to a very wide range of possible methods and approached to learning. When a page is not doing obvious harm there should be no rush to delete content. Take the time to discuss questionable content with the editors who created it. --JWSchmidt 16:02, 17 December 2006 (UTC)" from here. So, please cite specific examples of "The {{scope}} and quality of these resources is being questioned." Also, discussions start on each resources Discuss page, not this Rfd page. Those of Art and Humanities are uncreated. The History Discuss page shows peer review where the apparent concerns brought up above were not mentioned or discussed. "Encouraging people to see how something could be improved, or the benefits of free content etc, is pretty much always a better option than nerve-twitch deletions. If it's clear that the person isn't listening, or nothing is happening to improve the situation, then we can go ahead with taking measures, like deletion. However, the development of friendly templates, encouraging people to see how they can help, is a good step, I think. Cormaggio talk 08:44, 18 December 2006 (UTC)" from the same scope discussion. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 16:22, 2 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Review

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