Wikiversity:Colloquium

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"Freedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom." — Benjamin N. Cardozo (discuss)

Requested update to Wikiversity:Interface administrators

Currently, Wikiversity:Interface administrators is a policy that includes a caveat that interface admins are not required long-term and that user right can only be added for a period of up to two weeks. I am proposing that we remove this qualification and allow for indefinite interface admin status. I think this is useful because there are reasons for tweaking the site CSS or JavaScript (e.g. to comply with dark mode), add gadgets (e.g. importing Cat-a-Lot, which I would like to do), or otherwise modifying the site that could plausibly come up on an irregular basis and requiring the overhead of a bureaucrat to add the user rights is inefficient. In particular, I am also going to request this right if the community accepts indefinite interface admins. Thoughts? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:23, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

And who will then monitor them to make sure they don't damage the project in any way, or abuse the rights acquired in this way? For large projects, this might not be a problem, but for smaller projects like the English Wikiversity, I'm not sure if there are enough users who would say, something is happening here that shouldn't be happening. Juandev (discuss • contribs) 10:28, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

Anyone would be who. This argument applies to any person with any advanced rights here. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 10:46, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

I think it is reasonable to allow for longer periods of access than 2 weeks to interface admin and support adjusting the policy to allow for this flexibility. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 04:57, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

Ambitious projects on Wikiversity

Greetings,

I have found a project that I might think of reviving, but I may need a bit of help and support from the community:

https://en.m.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Wikiversity_Day

Would any contributors like to help or support me in these efforts? I might be able to make it a reality.

—RailwayEnthusiast2025 (Talk page - Contributions) 20:41, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

Proposed change to Special:Watchlist

If you take a look at your watchlist on species: at species:Special:Watchlist, you'll see that there's a line at the top that gives visibility to a handful of tracking categories that require attention and in the case that a certain category has more than x pages in it, it gets a hi-lite. Would the community here be in favor of a similar change for categories such as Category:Candidates for speedy deletion, Category:Pages with reference errors, and Category:Possible copyright violations? I imagine about a half-dozen of the more important maintenance categories. I think this would be helpful in providing visibility for admins and other users to fix more acute problems. Thoughts? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:27, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I think it is a good idea. But what does that highlight actually do? —RailwayEnthusiast2025 (Talk page - Contributions) 07:50, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

It just says "Not only are there some problems, but a lot of problems, so please pay attention to this particularly large backlog". —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 15:50, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

Ah okay that makes sense. But on Wikispecies, is this tracking system also on the maintenance categories there as well? —RailwayEnthusiast2025 (Talk page - Contributions) 12:37, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

I don't understand your question. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 13:22, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

Is the highlight system on Wikispecies as well? —RailwayEnthusiast2025 (Talk page - Contributions) 13:48, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

Yes. See species:Special:Watchlist. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 13:49, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

(as in on the maintenance categories) —RailwayEnthusiast2025 (Talk page - Contributions) 13:50, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

No. See (e.g.) species:Category:Candidates for speedy deletion and species:Category:Disputed taxa. Nothing special appears at the category page (or even other non-category pages linked there, such as https://species.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:RecentChanges&hidepatrolled=1). It appears only on watchlists, because it is a modification of species:MediaWiki:Watchlist-details. The equivalent here is MediaWiki:Watchlist-details. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 13:58, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

Google Gemini peruses Wikiversity

I asked Gemini: "What is chargomagnetism"? It said (two first paras):

'"Chargomagnetism" is a theoretical concept that does not appear in mainstream physics. The term and its related concepts, like "chargism," "polar chargomagnetism," "electronorthism," and "protosouthism," are found in a few non-peer-reviewed online sources, such as Wikiversity.

'Based on these sources, the idea of chargomagnetism seems to be an alternative, non-standard way of describing fundamental physical interactions. It proposes that "chargism" (positive and negative) and "magnetism" (north and south) are distinct but related phenomena that, when at right angles to each another, create a new kind of "space." This framework also introduces other terms and concepts that are not part of accepted scientific theory.'

'[...]'

Google search for "chargomagnetism" found only Wikiversity pages. It follows that Gemini is perusing Wikiversity. (Background: I just moved Draft:Chargomagnetism to User:Marshallsumter/Chargomagnetism, and when googling for the term, Google offered a Gemini output.)

The term "chargomagnetism" is used in 'a polar chargomagnetism separating or dividing from another is called a ray', now at User:Marshallsumter/Radiation.

Searching for the term again, Google automatically provided this output: ' "Chargomagnetism" is a theoretical concept found in Wikiversity's Cosmogony/Laboratory page, defined as a combination of attraction (chargism) and repulsion (magnetism) that occurs at right angles to each other, potentially relating to the separation or division of polar forces, as described in the text. [...]'

It follows that Gemini also scans subpages, not just landing pages. (So does Google search? I just moved Cosmogony/Laboratory page to user space.) --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 08:41, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

What to do with remaining Marshall Sumter pages

There is still quite a number of Marshall Sumter pages in the mainspace (User:Marshallsumter), per https://xtools.wmcloud.org/pages/en.wikiversity.org/Marshallsumter. Currently, the count given by the link is 609, of which there are 8.5% deleted pages. They have that peculiar character that makes them not particularly good learning resources.

I am planning to move them all into his user space (I see no need for deletion). This will not be so much work since they often consist of subpages grouped under a larger page, e.g. under Chemicals (created in 2022; Chemicals/Rocks was moved to user space in 2023 and Chemicals/Mineraloids was deleted in 2024; other subpages apparently remain as per those listed in Chemicals).

An alternative would be to move them to quasi-namespace Marshall Sumter/.... For instance, Fedosin physics essays are in the mainspace (e.g. Physics/Essays/Fedosin/Infinite Hierarchical Nesting of Matter; incidentally, I would not mind dropping the "Physics/Essays" prefix). However, Fedosin essays look like essays whereas I am not sure how to describe Marshall Sumter pages; perhaps workshop pages? Moreover, the key question is whether a search in mainspace should find these pages, or whether their being found is more of a nuisance. User space is also searchable so any user interesed in the kind of material that the project demoted by moving to user space can easily extend their search beyond mainspace (in one search, one can indicate both mainspace and user space to be searched); and thus, user space is still so much nicer than deletion. And fairly many of Marshall Sumter pages were outright deleted.

A decision to do something about Marshall Sumter pages was reached here:

• Wikiversity:Requests for Deletion/Archives/16#Main Page "Lectures", January 2018

Many of these pages were then moved to Draft space. It was then decided that a page in Draft space can be deleted after 6 months of not being brought up to mainspace level/grade/quality. In the end result, the move to Draft space amounted to deletion/ultimate move to user space.

Anyone has any input on this?

--Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 06:01, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

All of those pages should be removed from mainspace. I would be inclined to delete them all. I don't support creation of a "quasi-namespace." Either draft or delete. mikeu ^talk 15:53, 13 November 2025 (UTC)

More thoughts. A difference between Marshall Sumter/... and User:Marshallsumter/... would be this:

• The former signals that the content is mainspace-worthy (is good enough for mainspace; is half-decent; is worthy of reading/perusing).
• The former appears in searches in mainspace, which is the default.
• The former is indexed by search engines, including Google.
• The former is consumed by some LLMs, e.g. Google Gemini.

Therefore, it seems to be a meaningful general scheme for user-specific pages. And it is not an anything-goes into mainspace approach; the items can only be in mainspace as opposed to userspace if they are determined to be mainspace-worthy. (The mainspace now all too often contains what I refer to as junk, things that are not really mainspace-worthy.) --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 06:41, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

If this is actually Marshallsumter (whatever identity of the operator of the account) hoaxing Wikiversity as is hinted in one of his dominant group pages, which I find increasingly likely, I would just move all his articles to his user space and be done with it (no deletion!). We do not have the resources to inspect his pages one by one and look for grains of value amidst the chaos, incoherence or whatever that is. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 09:52, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

In the move summary, I plan to use the word "sumtercruft" and be done with it. A link to this Colloquium discussion is on his talk page, so traceability seems fine. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 09:55, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

A glance at User talk:Marshallsumter makes this look like a personal conflict between Dan Polansky and Marshall Sumter. I suggest to wait for more opinions. --Watchduck (quack) 16:37, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

What you refer to as personal conflict only developed after I created this nomination. That is to say, I had no conflict with M.Sumter before; any conflict developed only after he wanted to provide input into this nomination, first in Wikipedia (which I rejected as wrong venue), then here. Then, I discovered he was suspected from hoaxing, so I started to investigate to what extent it could be true. He then started to make extravagant claims, such as that he is an expert on radiation with over 100+ articles on the subject, but refused to provide a proper substantiation. After these interactions, I find his behavior very suspect.

Regardless of the person of Marshallsumter, the pages actually speak for themselves, as incoherent collections of quotations from various sources. I do think that they probably do not belong to mainspace.

As for hurry/time and process, I plan to wait at least for a month before implementing the above proposal so that enough time was given to collect input from other editors. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 16:56, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

Ok, so Marshall Sumter's reply was on your Wikipedia talk page. I quote the relevant part:

What sort of input would you like? [...] Each of my contributions to Wikiversity are educational resources. I did not authorize or approve of my contributions being moved to Draft space or deleted.

A month sounds good. The problem with moving stuff is, that it will probably break many links between these pages. Could that be fixed with a bot?

I took a look at Dominant group, and I must admit, that it looks like an incoherent collection. But Genetics/Paleobotany and Remedy/Alcohols seem to be more typical.

Many of these pages look like collections of quotes. That may be nice to have, but user space does seem like the right place. (Also because the quotes will be kept, if someone should actually write an article.)

Oh, and I think "sumtercruft" is needlessly rude. "sumterify" of "sumterspace" will serve the same purpose. --Watchduck (quack) 20:06, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for you response. And in particular, thank you for the "sumtercruft" note (I guess I got this kind of language from E. from E.W.); I will try to figure out something more neutral and descriptive. Perhaps "typical Marshallsumter page, which were moved to user space before" (I already used something similar). --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 05:58, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

As for "Remedy/Alcohols", there are again suspectly many direct quotations. Perhaps more importantly, I cannot figure out how the content belongs to the subject of "alcohols as remedy" or "alcohols in the context of remedy"; it rather looks as belonging to "Alcohol". This is an example of incoherence of filing of sentences under headwords; for instance, Remedy/Alcohols#Simple_alcohols is to be interpreted as Remedy / Alcohols / Simple Alcohols, and that is, the lead question is perhaps, how good of a remedy (for human ailments?) are simple alcohols? But we learn nothing about the subject there, from what I can see. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 06:04, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

I just want to note that one of the essay page (Physics/Essays/Fedosin/Infinite Hierarchical Nesting of Matter) was submitted to WikiJournal in 2023 (WikiJournal Preprints/Infinite Hierarchical Nesting of Matter) and the submission was desk rejected. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 21:00, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

Update. I moved a lot of pages by Marshallsumter to his user space. These included pages in mainspace, Draft space and Portal space (any some other spaces). I track the effort in User:Dan Polansky/Change request on articles by Marshallsumter. More can be done: I can also delete all or most the "X/Lectures" categories created by him since they usually only contain his pages now in user space. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 18:32, 14 November 2025 (UTC)

I wouldn't waste any more time on this. Just delete it all. There's nothing worth saving there. If anything is preserved, it shouldn't be searchable. --mikeu ^talk 05:04, 16 November 2025 (UTC)

@Mu301 I don't know what exactly was going on, but wouldn't it be better to actually delete the pages than move them to a personal userspace? Wikiversity is not a hosting tool, the usefulness of pages in a personal userspace for others is minimal, the usefulness for creators is reduced with the interruption of the connection, and so on. It seems to me that moving to a personal userspace will cause more harm than if the pages were deleted by the community's decision. Juandev (discuss • contribs) 20:15, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

What is the harm that the pages are doing in the user space? They are an important historical reminder, an important piece of history. Should they be deleted entirely (which I oppose), at least some of them should be kept so that the institutional memory does not get lost. They can be even used as a learning exercise: pick a page by Marshallsumter and explain what is wrong with it in detail. I did actually learn something when doing this exercise. Before I was moving pages to his user space, they were also moved there by Guy vandegrift and Dave Braunschweig. Dave wrote in Wikiversity:Requests for Deletion/Archives/18: "We have long agreed that part of the Wikiversity:Mission (creation and use of free learning materials and activities) includes the learning opportunity for the creator, irrespective of any learning value for others. From my perspective, there is no question that Landmark Education was a learning opportunity for Abd, just as Radiation Astronomy was a learning opportunity for Marshallsumter. If the community does not see value for others in these resources, they can be moved to user space. They should not be deleted, as they are still supporting the Wikiversity mission, just as thousands of other User: space resources do. (The many engineering homework projects are examples.)" --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 20:25, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

I reviewed the dozen or so remaining main space pages created by Marshallsumter. About half of them were Wikipedia-like stubs so I've soft redirected them to Wikipedia. The other half have more substance and are more suitable for main space, so they remain. -- Jtneill - Talk - c

Looking for interested collaborators in engineering

Hi all, I know this is not quite the right place for this comment, but I'd figure I post a note here, in case there are any other people interested in collaborating on any engineering topics. I've been working on a thermodynamics course, that I could use some help with. Also, in general the entire school of engineering could use some work to help organize the sub-portals and topics. Feel free to drop a message on my user page! IanVG (discuss • contribs) 22:32, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

Creation of a department of plurilingual education

Hi, I'm the coordinator of an EU-project (PEP - Promoting plurilingual education, cofounded by the European commission in the Erasmus+ programme). We are developing lessons (almost 40) on plurilingual education in French and English. We already have a department in the French Wikiversity (faculty of Education), which we have started to feed. We would like to open a similar department in the English Wikiversity. Can you help us? Thanks in advance. Best wishes Christian Ollivier Projet PEP|Projet PEP 10:44, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

What kind of help would you like to see? Like, do you have some specific questions you would like to ask, concerning what is possible in the English Wikiversity?

A transparent link to your English Wikiversity user account: User:Projet PEP. As a first step, I would recommend you create a page at Meta:User:Projet PEP: this will then get automatically shown across wikis in various languages. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 13:24, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Hi Dan,

Thanks for your reply. We would need help to create a department of plurilingual education in the facutlty of education or in the school of language studies.

We already had an account in the French version, I have now created one in the English version of Wikiversity.

Thanks in advance for your support.

Christian @Projet PEP Projet PEP (discuss • contribs) 07:19, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

I do not know what is is to create a department of education. That may be my fault since I do not care about departments; I care about expository articles. Searching for "WV:Department", I find no unequivocal evidence that the English Wikiversity has something like a department concept. I found Category:Department of Occupational and Environmental Health Sciences, University of Panamá, but that looks suspect to me.

One thing you can do is create something in your user space, e.g. User:Projet PEP/Department of plurilingual education; that would not require any pre-approval or the like, I think.

Again, I am perhaps not the best person to ask; I am providing information on your query that I could quickly figure out. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 07:45, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

Concern regarding curator conduct User:Dan Polansky

I’d like to raise a concern about the recent interactions I had with curator Dan Polansky during a discussion about one of my research articles.

My issue is not about the deletion of my article itself, but about his repeated unprofessional conduct and dismissive tone throughout the process.

Dan deleted my article assuming it was a copyright violation, even though it had a CC BY 4.0 license clearly shown on Zenodo. I even updated the ResearchGate description to confirm that the authors (myself included) consented to publication on Wikiversity. Instead of moving toward resolution, the discussion kept looping first copyright, then my identity, then grammar, and then back to copyright again.

He also removed one of my replies from his talk page, calling it “GenAI slop,” even though that message contained proof of my authorship. That felt dismissive and unnecessary, especially when I was trying to clarify things in good faith.

At one point, he admitted he was inexperienced in handling such matters and told me to ask other curators to step in, which is fine... but if that’s the case, deleting an entire page without prior discussion seems premature. Even after I proved authorship and clarified the license, he never reverted the deletion.

Later, he went on to write a public note in his own sandbox describing our interaction, saying he “at the beginning of Oct 2025, I interacted with someone who threw at me GenAI slop” directly referencing me. That felt quite unprofessional and disrespectful, especially coming from a curator.

Finally, he began micromanaging my sandbox, criticizing how I structured my own draft and telling me to “move authors to the top,” while also pointing out that “some sections were missing” compared to the ResearchGate version. As an author, I have the right to adapt or shorten my own work that’s what a sandbox is for. When I reminded him of that, he responded by calling me “a major waste of time and attention.”

While I understand moderators have to check for possible copyright issues, this tone and behavior felt personally belittling and not in the spirit of collaboration or respect that Wikiversity encourages.

I’d appreciate if the custodians could review this matter and consider whether this kind of conduct is appropriate for someone in a curator position.

I would also like to kindly request that Dan refrain from responding to this thread until at least one other curator or custodian has shared their view, so the discussion can remain balanced and impartial.

WP:DNB | WP:SNOW | WP:FAITH Tomlovesfar (discuss • contribs) 18:56, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

I will happily cease interaction with user Tomlovesfar and cease handling of his content, handing it over to any curator or custodian who volunteers to replace my role. Then, I guess I could ignore his activities going forward and pass the responsibility to others. So far, I have acted to protect the integrity of the English Wikiversity. I posted problems I identified to User talk:Tomlovesfar, to make it easy to understand to others. It suffices you (curators and custodians) notify me that I should disengage and I will. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 19:08, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Is there a policy on en.wv to prohibit AI assisted communication? Juandev (discuss • contribs) 20:19, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

BTW, you stayted "...and I do not see that the researchgate license would be Wikiversity compatible". As you can see from the link, the license is compatible. The question is if the reasource was created the proper way mentioning all authors. (posibly original source). Juandev (discuss • contribs) 20:34, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

I was asked above by Tomlovesfar to refrain from responding. I provided only a minimum response, offering to step away and yield to curators and custodians. I am refraining from further communication here not to derail the communication, awaiting input from curators or custodians. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 20:52, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

The person in question can request this, but it does not comply with the rules of the Wikimedia movement. Unfortunately, the person in question did not post it on the Request custodian action page, but in the discussion area, so I think it is normal to discuss it here. Juandev (discuss • contribs) 20:58, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

@Tomlovesfar, @Juandev i second the concern Harold Foppele (discuss • contribs) 11:17, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

Since there hasn't been any reply from other curators, shall i proceed and post it on request custodian action page? Tomlovesfar (discuss • contribs) 14:15, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

@Tomlovesfar Is your problem solved?Harold Foppele (discuss • ]]contribs) 09:17, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

@Tomlovesfar I had a look fast on policies and havent found a guideline for undeletion. So yes, I woudl directy ask custidians to undelete it via Wikiversity:Request custodian action. Juandev (discuss • contribs) 12:17, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

I was not talking about the article page, as I've already created it once again. I meant raising a post on request custodian action page regarding the behaviour of Dan. Tomlovesfar (discuss • contribs) 19:49, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

The unapproved policy on Curators states that one should first talk to the Curator and then to its Mentor if it doesn't work, which in this case is User:Jtneill. The goal is to find a consensus on the action. If it still fails, open the topic here on Colloquium to discuss with a broader community. Custodians will probably not help you at the moment, as there are no policies on this. Juandev (discuss • contribs) 20:17, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

I'm assuming that he is ignoring the discussion, and it seems like no other custodian wants to join in the discussion too. Tomlovesfar (discuss • contribs) 03:51, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

A small explanatory note about how I proceed as for a possible copyright violation. I now deleted Zagatala State Nature Reserve, as a result of searching for word sequences online and finding text containing those; then I tried to figure out whether the target would have copied from Wikiversity, determined that probably not, and proceeded to deletion. With the discussed item by Tom, I proceeded similarly, but only after I figured out it actually could have been copyright violation, and then went searching for text snippets and found some in ResearchGate, and at that time point, there was no license attached to the article in ResearchGate. It did not cross my mind to visit Zenodo; I did not have that entity active in my mind at all. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 07:46, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

BTW, you said, you are not going to comment on this and now you are comenting. So will you be discussing with us or no? Juandev (discuss • contribs) 12:18, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

My view: Wikiversity:Staff should be welcoming and supportive as well as doing administrative tasks. Editors, similarly, should be polite and respectful. We have a couple of newer contributors (User:Harold Foppele and User:Tomlovesfar) reporting similar issues (micromanaging, respect/politeness) with Dan Polansky, a curator.

• Please take this feedback on board, Dan Polansky. Let's Wikiversity:Assume good faith and seek to educate/support in the first instance, especially with newer editors. That's how we grow a collaborative, healthy editing community. Only non-controversial deletions should be done without discussion and consensus.
• All edits need to be compliant with copyright. If appropriate to use generative AI, provide acknowledgement with link to the conversation/generation.

-- Jtneill - Talk - c 04:58, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

Adding on to Jtneill's comment, I felt that Dan's language was very uncivil, and by looking into actions conducted by him in other Wikimedia projects, this is not new from him. Although some of his points were correct, I didn't really like him editing my user page, and I felt that his behaviour mirrored his behaviour on Wiktionary. —RailwayEnthusiast2025 ^{talk with me!} 05:25, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

A note: Curators are supposed to follow all policies, including Wikiversity:Civility and Wikiversity:Assume good faith. This can be for a brief period, because some of this behaviour has carried on from the English Wiktionary. If you choose to test newbies, rant about other users, test newbies on their qualifications etc. I highly doubt it should be allowed. We need to feel welcome on Wikiversity, and not be discouraged from editing. —RailwayEnthusiast2025 ^{talk with me!} 05:37, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

Believing the above feedback, I guess I still have a lot to learn and adapt. Can you quote here the language that you found very uncivil, so we can know what you are talking about specifically? --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 06:02, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

Dan, I understand that you want to keep the wikiversity clean and useful for everyone. I agree with most of your points mentioned in User:Dan Polansky/Problem reports (about Wikiversity problems) - Wikiversity.

However, before making any changes to the page at least discuss it with the author. if the author does not reply within 48 hours, you may proceed with whatever you are meant to do. I have read your history and all the drama in Wiktionary, and I do not want you to get blocked here too. Therefore, please take this feedback and learn from your mistakes. Tomlovesfar (discuss • contribs) 07:10, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

Just like Popper's beetles, I am trying to learn from mistakes, especially mine. As per Popper, when amoeba makes a serious mistake, it is eliminated; Einstein lets his theories die in his stead. How back to the point again. Now really, can you quote here the language that you found very uncivil? --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 07:14, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

Have you noticed my notes in your talk page? For example: User talk:Dan Polansky#Testing newbies is not civil. Juandev (discuss • contribs) 07:42, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

It should not be too hard for anyone to provide here a quote of actual language that is very uncivil. Not too much work, right? --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 07:44, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

Isn't calling the user "A major waste of time"

Uncivil?

https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User_talk:Tomlovesfar ~2025-29083-30 (talk) 07:54, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

To pillory someone is uncivil. https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Dan_Polansky/Problem_reports_(about_Wikiversity_problems)

To call a person "This kind of people" is scandalous.

Do you mean like "Negroes", "Jews", "Homosexuals", "Americans"? https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User_talk:Jtneill#c-Dan_Polansky-20251015041700-Jtneill-20251015040300

Responding with DFX to a discussion is uncivil. https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User_talk:Jtneill#c-Dan_Polansky-20251015082600-Harold_Foppele-20251015082100

Follow your mentor's lead, a simple guidance instead of focusing and escalating a problem.

If you dont want to listen to critism nor helping people then you should not be a curator. Harold Foppele (discuss • contribs) 08:59, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

I think it would be reasonable to expect you to check your own talk page. Just a note — your phrasing "Not too much work, right?" sounds slightly sharp." Juandev (discuss • contribs) 08:50, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

(Note) this comment was from User:Tomlovesfar, you are confusing them with me (User:RailwayEnthusiast2025) —RailwayEnthusiast2025 ^{talk with me!} 15:05, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

Don't worry, we all understand what this is about :) Harold Foppele (discuss • contribs) 15:09, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

Anyway, I believe @Dan Polansky's conduct was really ruthless and mean. He was not very understanding and gave off the tone that he only believed that his view was right, as seen with the quotes above, as well as this link: User talk:RailwayEnthusiast2025/Basic Scratch Coding. Obviously, the page wasn't ready yet, and now I can see why it should be in userspace, but his tone gave off the fact that my work wasn't good enough and that I didn't have a voice, otherwise I would be silenced by Wikiversity:Request custodian action similar to the request made to @KayYayPark. I also put a message on his talk page. In that case, I moved the pages to my userspace, hoping that the drama would stop. It also seemed like he didn't read all of my text, as he only read the first comment and made his reply. I also made an assertive comment on his talk page, titled (Regarding Wikiversity:Colloquium) of which he didn't give any advice, and he ignored the fact that I was inexperienced. From now on, I'd like to cease contact with @Dan Polansky, and instead of being too harsh, give clear reasons and follow policies. As I said, give advice instead of being too harsh; I have life outside of Wikiversity. There also isn't a policy on what is and isn't good enough for mainspace. I think there should be. —RailwayEnthusiast2025 ^{talk with me!} 15:36, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

Looking at all the edits and reading all the comments I suggest to put @Dan Polansky on hold until there is a concensus regarding his position. ~2025-29155-36 (talk) 17:03, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

Well, maybe if someone with authority at Wikiversity could talk some sense into @Dan Polansky ..... We should go by AGF ! Harold Foppele (discuss • contribs) 17:44, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

If you want to get community review, you can ask at Wikiversity:Community Review, fyi. —RailwayEnthusiast2025 ^{talk with me!} 12:14, 25 October 2025 (UTC)

The discussion going on regarding Dan's behaviour at Wikiversity:Community Review/Dan Polansky resulted in "temporarily removing the Curator flag" by User:Mu301. Harold Foppele (discuss • contribs) 11:02, 16 November 2025 (UTC)

Outright prohibition of use of GenAI AKA LLM in interaction

I propose to outright prohibit the use of GenAI AKA LLM in interaction. The "in interaction" part is important; this would still allow the use to improve articles.

Rationale: The opened floodgate of GenAI/LLM easily results in discussion/communication posts containing voluminous and often irrelevant parts. It further hides the unability of the poster to communicate in normal English. The hiding is not complete since the use of GenAI/LLM suggests there is a problem here, but one does not see the actual level of English any more.

Reasonable command of English should be required to participate on the English Wikiversity in the role of an editor. It does not have to be perfect, but it has to be half-decent.

Use of GenAI/LLM will not always be perfectly obvious. But in case where it is obvious, we should be able to tell the poster to cease and desist with a reference to policy, and if it continues, block.

While the English Wikiversity is something of backwaters, it is indexed by Google and Google Gemini (GenAI/LLM). There is some motivation to use Wikiversity for promotional purposes, or other purposes not really consistent with its educational mission. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 09:57, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with that. Wikiversity has some rules and conventions, so I think that a user who composes their answer through LLM has no suggestion, the only thing that can be annoying is the length of the text. There are also positive uses of LLM, like having your text checked by Grammarly. Juandev (discuss • contribs) 12:59, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

I don't understand the second sentence; can someone rephrase it for me? Am I right in thinking that the above response largely ignores the points I raised instead of addressing them? --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 16:12, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

@Dan Polansky maybe you should learn to read Harold Foppele (discuss • contribs) 17:34, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

I’m comfortable with LLM-generated text in Wikiversity discussions when it meets all other requirements. What matters is the nature/quality of the contribution, not the tool used. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 02:03, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

Contesting article deletions

What insitution or peron(s) does Wikiversity have to contest article deletion?--Harold Foppele (discuss • contribs) 21:29, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

This: Wikiversity:Requests for Deletion. Its both for deletion and undeletion. This procedure is described in Deletions guideline. Juandev (discuss • contribs) 03:45, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

WMF Board reform

Wikiversity editors may be interested in the m:2025 WMF Board reform petition. Clovermoss (discuss • contribs) 04:02, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

Minimum page content

Is there any policy or guideline, pointing out what is the minimum amount of page content, that the page could exist in the main namespace? Juandev (discuss • contribs) 12:54, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

So as noone replied I would assume, there isnt. Juandev (discuss • contribs) 07:35, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

Not that I'm aware of. I think its more about community consensus (e.g., a stub which is active might be treated differently than a stub which has long been inactive). -- Jtneill - Talk - c 02:05, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

Curators and curators policy

How does it come, that Wikiversity has curators, but Curators policy is still being proposed? How do the curators exists and act if the policy about them havent been approved yet? Juandev (discuss • contribs) 18:33, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

It looks as if it is not just curators. The policy on Bureaucratship is still being proposed as well. See Wikiversity:Bureaucratship. —RailwayEnthusiast2025 ^{talk with me!} 18:33, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

I think its just the nature of a small WMF sister project in that there are lots of drafts, gaps, and potential improvements. In this case, these community would need to vote on those proposed Wikiversity staff policies if we think they're ready. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 02:08, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

Proposing Policy on making policies

As I read in Wikiversity:Policies/How Wikiversity makes policy, some policies were set by a single Custodian. It looks like later policies were made just by voting. Unfortunately, it's unclear who can vote and how the vote is evaluated. That's why I am proposing a Policy, which would describe the process of creating new Policy and voting on it. The best way to discuss my proposal is on its talk page. Juandev (discuss • contribs) 19:39, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

similar issue in voting for permissions. they may be open for weeks and only 2 or 3 votes on some smaller wikis. i think it would help if there was a weekly or biweekly project meeting that anyone can join as then, if it was planned strategically (time; platform) then a group can produce more active discussion and voting. what do you think? Gryllida 22:24, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Well, I think a small number of voting participants should not be a problem. That's why I am not proposing a minimum number of voters. Two votes in favour should be enough. As of progress, I am proposing 14 days for the vote. If no one votes within this range, the bureaucrat would close it as unsuccessful. As for the biweekly project meeting, it's a good idea, and you may propose it separately. Juandev (discuss • contribs) 03:51, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

For the record, the relevant link is User:Juandev/Making policy. My objections/reservations are on the talk page; in summary, 1) purely numerical vote instead of RfC is bad; 2) excluding bureaucrats from having a binding voice is bad; 3) 80% threshold is bad. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 11:56, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

a portal for learning step by step

hello there are apps like Moodle which allow to learn interactively step by step and for a student to record their progress. is there some app installed like this for Wikiversity. as i would like to make a course about coding gadgets for wiki, coding extensions for wiki, and how to make a page. and these contents put just on a wiki page would be difficult to progress. if there was a platform similar to udemy that exposes the wikiversity content to others i think it would be helpful. please let me know if this was already installed, if not, whether you would be interested to try it. thank you Gryllida 22:23, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

This feature isn't available on Wikiversity, I think mainly because there is no student record (other than their editing history). For example, there is a quiz extension installed, but it does not store a record of student performance/progress. It is possible to embed Wikiversity content in learning management systems such as Moodle (e.g., using iFrame) around which a recorded step-by-step learning experience could be constructed. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 00:00, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

It's as Jtneill writes. The reason why such an extension was not sought is probably that Wikiversity is not supposed to offer courses. This is not always followed, but the initial instruction from the Wikimedia Foundation was probably that Wikiversity was not supposed to award certificates. In general, there is also a problem that the development of the MediaWiki software is mainly done for Wikipedia, which makes other sister projects that would need different development and different tools suffer a bit. Juandev (discuss • contribs) 04:00, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

Hi @Jtneill & @Juandev, i think it would be good if

• course was easier to write (i wrote links to previous and next page on it manually as wikilinks)
• users could bookmark their progress and optionally show it on their user page
• User can add courses to "i am doing this now" and "i wish I could do this one day" lists
• A user is listed as teacher and can take homework or verbal exam and sign a section on user page of a student

Is there some code that kind of already does this. Would all seem doable to me except I got mad for the first item, it was exhausting to have a "wizard" format as there is no structure to present a next button or a previous button as link without loads of manual work...

Please let me know what you think as I think it would make a lot of Wikiversity materials more accessible and easier to use. It could also help training new Wikipedia users in creating, editing and reviewing pages...

Regards, Gryllida 10:00, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

These are great wishes and ideas, but as Juandev explained Wikiversity is "just" an implementation of MediaWiki software which is software primarily tailored for Wikipedia. Wikiversity will not likely become even a light learning management system and much more likely continue to allow for development of open educational resources (OERs). There are some other learning-oriented implementations of MediaWiki that might be interesting e.g., WikiEducator, but still, they focus on OERs. So, there a lot of freedom to structure and organise materials, but not really much prospect for storing/tracking learner progress. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 10:23, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

Would it not be practical to have a learning progress tracker thing as theen the courses would be easier to use. And with more users there would be more contributions to the courses themselves as well as to whatever was being trained on. Think like course "how to start editing wiki" or "how to volunteer as an Ubuntu maintainer". They would create more users who know how to do these things. Seems in scope for Wikimedia mission. This could work by syncing Wikiversity content in a Moodle. Gryllida 11:36, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

So you can either advocate with the mediawiki developers to develop something like this, or write it yourself and then propose it for inclusion in the mediawiki software, for example in the form of an extension. Some things could probably be solved with simple JavaScript, but the tracking would probably have to communicate with the server, so it would require a completely new extension. Juandev (discuss • contribs) 07:38, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

Physics - Any Educators willing to help with Quantum ?

While writing the page Quantum I am not satisfied with the flow, sound and looks of the page. Objectives:

• Educational
• Attractive to students of any age
• More colorfull

If you look at the page as is, its boring :) Any help welcome.. Cheers Harold Foppele (discuss • contribs) 15:34, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

I will help you with the page. Regards —RailwayEnthusiast2025 ^{talk with me!} 17:46, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

Thank you!! If you look at W:Quantum that is exactly what i don't want :) Harold Foppele (discuss • contribs) 20:52, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

@RailwayEnthusiast2025 Hi, I changed the page a bit, do you like it? Harold Foppele (discuss • contribs) 13:35, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

haven't checked yet, but i'm sure it's good! —RailwayEnthusiast2025 ^{talk with me!} 16:26, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

Help us decide the name of the new Abstract Wikipedia project

Hello. Please help pick a name for the new Abstract Wikipedia wiki project. This project will be a wiki that will enable users to combine functions from Wikifunctions and data from Wikidata in order to generate natural language sentences in any supported languages. These sentences can then be used by any Wikipedia (or elsewhere).

There will be two rounds of voting, each followed by legal review of candidates, with votes beginning on 20 October and 17 November 2025. Our goal is to have a final project name selected on mid-December 2025. If you would like to participate, then please learn more and vote now at meta-wiki. Thank you!

-- User:Sannita (WMF) (talk) 11:43, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

MediaWiki questions and answers

I created this page as a tool where users learn by doing, i.e. in this case they either look up answers to questions and write them down, or ask themselves questions and look for answers themselves. How to work with this resource is described at the top of its page. I think that it forces the user to think about the subject, and learn to search for information.

However, the curator Dan Polansky is moving the page to my user space, saying that it is not sufficiently developed. However, since I designed the page as a community page, I think that its existence in my user space does not make sense, because it is not easily searchable by the participants. I will definitely expand it in the future, because I have been studying the subject of research for a long time, but not at the moment.

Therefore, I want to ask whether such a method of education has a place on Wikiversity and if so, what is the minimum size of the page for it to exist in the main namespace?

I discussed this issue with Dan Polansky, and I disagree with his views and think they are not in line with the community consensus. That's why I'm bringing this matter up for the Colloquium. Juandev (discuss • contribs) 07:15, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

Ask it at Wikiversity:Community Review, if you want. —RailwayEnthusiast2025 ^{talk with me!} 07:59, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

I presented the matter in detail at User talk:Juandev#Page move, Sep 2025, so I will perhaps do well to hand over the podium/stage in Colloquium to others. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 09:51, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

Yes, you have presented your POV, but I would like to get POV also from other contributors. Juandev (discuss • contribs) 16:04, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

Let me add that I started to collect example moves to user space at User:Dan Polansky/About Wikiversity#Moving pages to userspace. There seems to be quite a bit of tradition and implied support from the admins doing the moves. -Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 21:06, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

How to get community consensus for a guideline

Hello, How do we get consensus for a guideline? As in, how and where do we get consensus? Wikiversity:Curators Thanks, RE —RailwayEnthusiast2025 ^{talk with me!} 18:31, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

The consensus is made, whene there are no more changes to the page and/or unfullfiled points from the policy discussion page. Than usually proposed guideline underwents vote, which is done on its discussion page and announced here in colloquium. Juandev (discuss • contribs) 04:21, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

What I said is a custom system common on other wikis as well. To make this clear, I propose a policy that defines how to accept policies. Juandev (discuss • contribs) 04:25, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

It's quite a bit more complicated than that. 1) Lack of changes to a policy proposal does not automatically guarantee consensus. 2) Different wikis use rather different mechanisms to adopt policies and policy changes, e.g. the English Wikipedia uses requests for comment with emphasis on argument strength rather than mere vote count whereas the English Wiktionary codified pure numerical consensus in its votes (which I opposed in vain). --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 09:34, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

You are not right, the general principle of consensus is always the same. Juandev (discuss • contribs) 14:33, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

So, after looking at other policies, consensus is usually done on their discussion. Do you just use a template to start consensus? —RailwayEnthusiast2025 ^{talk with me!} 09:37, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

No need of template. Juandev (discuss • contribs) 14:34, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

(With edit conflict.) As for Wikiversity:Curators, it is a policy proposal. An important aspect of curatorship is that it is a technical setting (or set of technical settings), something like hard policy encoded on a technical level. And thus, even if "Wikiversity:Curators" were deleted, the technical settings would remain in place and determine what curators can and cannot do.

If you find some sentence from "Wikiversity:Curators" to be problematic, you can raise the issue here in Colloquium or on the talk page of the policy proposal. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 09:40, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

I would like to start consensus for two policies:

Wikiversity:Curators

Wikiversity:Child protection policy

Is there a way of starting the discussion?

—RailwayEnthusiast2025 ^{talk with me!} 09:47, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

I do not think you can "start consensus". You can start a formal approval process to switch the page from policy proposal to policy. This could even be started in Colloquium, I think; it has excellent visibility. But there is quite a bit of a chance that editors are not going to be interested in running the process. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 09:54, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

What I meant by 'start consensus' is to make these policies official, fyi. —RailwayEnthusiast2025 ^{talk with me!} 09:56, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

So, how do we start the discussion? Do we just make a notice regarding the policies? And if so, how do we do that? —RailwayEnthusiast2025 ^{talk with me!} 09:57, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

I would best believe that starting a dicussion on the Colloquium would be the best move, due to high visibility as Dan pointed out. —Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 13:10, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

You would rather start voting. Open the vote, notify people in here and after a while close the vote. Juandev (discuss • contribs) 14:35, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

Seeking volunteers to join several of the movement’s committees

Each year, typically from October through December, several of the movement’s committees seek new volunteers.

Read more about the committees on their Meta-wiki pages:

• Affiliations Committee (AffCom)
• Ombuds commission (OC)
• Case Review Committee (CRC)

Applications for the committees open on October 30, 2025. Applications for the Affiliations Committee, Ombuds commission and the Case Review Committee close on December 11, 2025. Learn how to apply by visiting the appointment page on Meta-wiki. Post to the talk page or email cstwikimedia.org with any questions you may have.

For the Committee Support team,

- MKaur (WMF) 14:13, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

New template text color default

(A follow-on on User talk:ShakespeareFan00#Color var additions.)

I am planning to create a template "text color default" to contain the following:

color:var(--color-base-fixed,#202122);

ShakespeareFan00 is going to insert the template into various pages to prevent a lint error, for which he gave me the following links:

• Special:LintErrors/night-mode-unaware-background-color
• https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Lint_errors/night-mode-unaware-background-color

Any objections, ideas, etc.? I don't particularly like it, but I do not know enough about the matter to provide a better alternative.

Having this as a template is preferable if only because then there can be a documentation in the template explaining what it is for; without a template, there would be suspect looking code (to me anyway) with no explanation. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 17:08, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

I went ahead and created Template:text color default, without the semicolon. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 05:23, 15 November 2025 (UTC)

Chess for Wikiversity fans

To all Versitans, the pages Chess,Talk:Chess and Chess/Board Configurations are open to gather information. There is also a Wikiversity chess team created at Lichess.org. Teams can participate in Team Competitions. Its fun. You can find me there as: HappyPlayer1. If you feel like it, please join the team. Please leave a message at Talk:Chess. See you over the board :) Harold Foppele (discuss • contribs) 12:23, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

General ban on direct use of GenAI output with exceptions

As a long-term contributor by now, to help protect the English Wikiversity from harm, I propose:

• Prohibit insertion of output from GenAI into the English Wikiversity mainspace, with exceptional allowance expressly specified.

That is, prohibited per default, with exceptions to the prohibition being added. Some exceptions:

• Use GenAI to help with formulation in the course run by Jtneil, where his students are linking to GenAI sessions from edit summaries.
• Use GenAI in articles whose topic is GenAI specifically. For instance, an article on "Math performance by GenAI" is tentatively allowed to directly use GenAI output as long as properly credited.

Rationale: The threat/risk of the English Wikiversity becoming swamped by GenAI low-value, inaccurate, misleading, etc. content is very real. The threat of GenAI for the English Wikiversity is much bigger than the opportunity, by my assessment. Granted, the English Wikiversity is something of backwaters. Even so, it is becoming increasingly clear that it presents an attractive venue for GenAI-fuelled disruption, not just Wikipedia with its huge brand and page views. Moreover, since GenAI is generally available to anyone on the internet with a Google account (or even without?), a user interested it its output for a given prompt can use it himself; there is not that much added value in dumping the result into Wikiversity. And therefore, I do not see any significant loss from such a prohibition either.

As a reference point, let me quote from Wikipedia: Wikipedia:Large language models (not a policy, just one of those essays that become de facto policy):

"This page in a nutshell: Avoid using large language models (LLMs) to write original content, generate references, or create replies on discussion pages. LLMs can be used for certain tasks (like copyediting) if the editor has substantial prior experience in the intended task and rigorously scrutinizes the results before publishing."

Also worth reading is the talkpage: Wikipedia: Wikipedia_talk:Large_language_models, where harm already done to Wikipedia is being discussed. By acting with urgency, we can save ourselves a lot of pain/trouble/effort later.

Temporariness/provisionality: In case of doubt, we may enact a policy for only, say, one year, and then revisit the issue. Sure enough, there will then perhaps be a bias toward keeping the policy, but not so big as when we make a policy with indefinite duration/validity from the start. This idea is inspired from how StackOverflow proceeded.

See also Wikiversity:Artificial intelligence (policy proposal or draft) and Should Wikiversity allow editors to post content generated by LLMs?.

Disclaimer: There is quite a bit of chance that I will not find consensus for such a ban (or at least numerical consensus, as opposed to argument-based consensus). I am writing this proposal nonetheless to make sure I did what I reasonably could to try to prevent harm. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 19:41, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for escalating this. I have been active in drafting b:en:Wikibooks:Artificial Intelligence and I think we should definitely get out ahead of this (or, more accurately, should have gotten out ahead of this). —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:43, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

Yes, we should definitely ban GenAI on Wikiversity. --D.H (discuss • contribs) 13:21, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

I suggest developing policy/guidelines on how genAI can be used appropriately rather than outright ban. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 00:50, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

I propose to adopt the policy proposal I made above for one year, and then see whether Wikiversity participants are able to figure out (and agree on!) a better policy. That would be a stopgap measure. After one year, the policy expires, which should address the problem with enacting policies that are then too hard to modify (as happens in the English Wiktionary). I suspect that designing a policy of appropriate use that will be much more relaxed than my proposal above will turn out to be really difficult. But I may be wrong and that we would see. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 06:01, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

An example application of the principles I articulated above: AI-Assisted Evaluation of Cosmological Theories can be tentatively kept since the title indicates this is "AI-Assisted": the Google searcher knows immediately, without looking into the article. Even such kind of material can turn out to be problematic in the ease of production and not-so-great value, but the principles as currently stated allow it. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 09:47, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

I agree that accepting a policy on a provisional basis is safe enough to try. I'd like to see it workshopped a little more, but I am generally in favor of that proposal, Dan. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:26, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

For what it's worth, an obvious caveat to AI usage is any learning module which is itself about AI. Just wanted to document here. That's the primary use case I can think of for allowing the material. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:26, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

@Koavf: I already covered that above, as an allowed exception in "Use GenAI in articles whose topic is GenAI specifically [...]". Is there a wording change you would like to see, perhaps to make it clearer/easier to understand, etc.? --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 05:01, 13 November 2025 (UTC)

Сreate a new educational page

Hello! I tried to create a new educational page titled “GSR System (Deep Development System)”,but the automatic filter blocked me with the message “New User Exceeded New Page Limit”.

Could an admin please temporarily lift this restriction or create the page for me?

Thank you! FactPilot (discuss • contribs) 12:52, 13 November 2025 (UTC)

This is something that goes away after x days and y edits (pardon me for not knowing the exact values). I can create a blank page that you can then edit if you will leave a link. To do so, do it in the form of "[[Foo]]". You can ping me if you want with {{Ping|Koavf}}. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:36, 13 November 2025 (UTC)

Thank you very much, @Koavf:! Yes, I would appreciate it if you could create a blank page for me.

Here is the page I would like to start with: GSR_System_(Deep_Development_System)

It will be an educational resource on self-regulation methods and related pilot studies. Once the page is created, I will edit and format it according to Wikiversity guidelines.

Thank you again for your help! FactPilot (discuss • contribs) 16:21, 14 November 2025 (UTC)

Y Done —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:36, 14 November 2025 (UTC)

Community Review

Please contribute to Wikiversity:Community Review/Dan Polansky. --mikeu ^talk 06:22, 16 November 2025 (UTC)

Night mode unaware lint..

I'm reaching the limits of what I can usefully patch with my current userrights.

So I'm having to sandbox updated versions of heavey use templates.

Can someone review and apply the following sandbox, and then based on the approach, update other templates (and modules) accordingly? Thanks

{{Template:Collapse top/sandbox}}

ShakespeareFan00 (discuss • contribs) 10:14, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

I am affraid I do not understand. You can edit templates yourselv without any rights. If you need to modify Lua module you request the Custodian. Juandev (discuss • contribs) 16:09, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

I can't. The actual template {{Collapse top}} is protected. Hence why I was using the sandbox. ShakespeareFan00 (discuss • contribs) 20:03, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

Page name

Could anyone come up with a name for this page ? User:Harold Foppele/Elements-Particles I'm thinking about "Matter" any thoughts? Cheers Harold Foppele (discuss • contribs) 18:26, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

Naming is up to you if the name is not used elsewhere. Juandev (discuss • contribs) 19:42, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

I know ofcourse. Writersblock maybe 🤣 Harold Foppele (discuss • contribs) 21:17, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

The policy status of Wikiversity:Be bold

I have demoted Wikiversity:Be bold from policy to policy proposal per Wikiversity talk:Be bold#Policy status. The key argument is that policies must not state falsities. Being policy proposal does not make it toothless but it warns the reader that the page is not to be rigidly enforced or applied. An alternative would be to demote it to a guideline.

Juandev has reverted me, with pretty much a non-argument. I expect more reverts from this proven-disruptive editor. I ask for support to keep the page demoted, to make policy and guideline pages in the English Wikiversity better track reality and actual practice, and avoid misleading the unsuspecting newcomers. I expect there are many people like me who do not want to live in an Orwellistan. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 18:35, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

Fortuna favet fortibus Harold Foppele (discuss • contribs) 18:37, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

Reminder: Help us decide the name of the new Abstract Wikipedia project

Hello. Reminder: Please help to choose name for the new Abstract Wikipedia wiki project. The finalist vote starts today. The finalists for the name are: Abstract Wikipedia, Multilingual Wikipedia, Wikiabstracts, Wikigenerator, Proto-Wiki. If you would like to participate, then please learn more and vote now at meta-wiki. Thank you!

-- User:Sannita (WMF) (talk) 14:23, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

Wikiversity Day 2026

The page Wikiversity:Wikiversity Day/2026 is created. Contributions, ideas anything that might help very welcome. Harold Foppele (discuss • contribs) 20:02, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

Problem with too many pages in User namespace

In the past, it was common practice that a page on a wiki either:

• existed in main ns (if it was good or promising enough),
• was deleted (if it was clearly inappropriate),
• or it remained in the main namespace but was marked with templates, and categorized for improvement.

This way, the page stayed public, findable, and open to community collaboration.

In recent years, however, a different trend has emerged: content that someone considers unsuitable for the main namespace is often moved to the User namespace. This practice has several downsides:

1. Content in the User namespace is usually considered personal, and other users tend not to edit it.
2. The content becomes effectively invisible. User pages are often not categorized, and are hard to find or systematically monitor.
3. There is no clear follow-up. Once a page is moved to the User namespace, there is usually no established process to bring it back to the main namespace. In many cases, it simply gets stuck.

This trend is also reflected in the numbers: on English Wikiversity, the ratio of pages in the User namespace to the main namespace is over 54%, which is the highest among all surveyed projects. For example, on German Wikiversity, the ratio is only about 6%, and even English Wikipedia sits lower at 31%. This suggests that English Wikiversity is gradually becoming a kind of free hosting platform. This is problematic because Wikimedia projects were created as a collaborative environment for the public.

Proposal

If the community does not want to keep certain types of content in the main namespace, it would be better to move them into the Draft namespace or delete it, not User. The Draft namespace:

• is collaborative, not personal;
• allows for clear categorization and tracking;
• can have standard procedures for what pages are sent there, how to handle them, and how to get them back to the main ns;
• and invites community involvement in content development.

Pages should only be moved to the User namespace in exceptional cases, not as a default solution. Wikiversity has a Draft namespace, so all that remains is to develop a policy that can describe working with the namespace and the above procedures and instructions for both users proposing a move to Draft and original authors whose pages will be moved to Draft. Juandev (discuss • contribs) 23:27, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for raising this issue. My view is that resources that aren't suitable for main space can reasonably be moved to:

• Draft: for collaborative work
• User: for personal work

-- Jtneill - Talk - c 04:26, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

(Outdent; response from Dan P.) I see the following advantages, disadvantages or considerations concerning allowing content to be created in user space or be moved to user space.

1) Load on server storage and on page serving. A page once created is stored on the server anyway, deleted or not. Moreover, since user pages are not Google-indexed, they have usually very low page views, and thus, page serving load (responding to requests from browsers, crawlers, etc.) is minimal.

2) The use of user space makes it possible to more readily move something out of mainspace, and give the author chance to bring it up to the minimum standard, in fact indefinite time. When the page is deleted, that is impossible. And thus, the use of user space seems likely to speed up the clean up of the mainspace; otherwise, one does not want to be so harsh, wants to give more time to the author, etc.

3) Expanding on the above, a curator who sees a poor page can more readily move it to user space since the move is undoable by the curator and other curators; a curator cannot undelete pages. Moreover, when a curator keeps moving very-low-value pages to user space (and there are too many such pages here!), his activity can be effectively reviewed by others and easily undone by him (others can see the content of the page that is being quasi-deleted). Subjectively, I find this advantage huge. Wikiversity is in very much need of a clean-up of this sort.

4) Common law. Keeping the quasi-deleted pages in user space makes it possible to see what was previously quasi-deleted and compare new quasi-deletion proposals with that. The comparison can be done by anyone (ordinary user and curators), not just custodians. This is vital, especially in the absence of detailed, well-designed codified rules (as if statutory law).

5) Historical record and institutional memory. Keeping quasi-deleted pages in user space enhances institutional memory. That is similar to the item above.

6) Disadvantage: searching in user space will then see many more pages than otherwise. True. Subjectively, I find the disadvantage minor compared to the advantages above. Searching in user space seems to be a relatively unimportant use case.

7) Not free web host: Sure enough. A user space page should ideally have something of being an educational exercise for the page creator. On the other hand, once a page has sat in mainspace for years, what is done is done. That said, I am not perfectly clear about this point. So far, user space was very unregulated. I will add that the risk that people will abuse Wikiversity user space as free web host is limited by the non-indexing by Google; usually, people want their content to be seen rather than ignored. Moreover, Wikiversity does not tolerate commercial promotion in user space (as far as I know); e.g. a company cannot set up its promotional web site in Wikiversity, nor can a private individual do so (e.g. "I am Peter Surnamer; I provide software consulting services for 100 EUR per hour; my exeperince is such-and-such").

8) Deletion is still an important tool. Some cases that need to be deleted include copyright violation, libel and leak of personally identifiable information (PII). Deletion of PII is supremely urgent (should be done in a hurry). There are other cases that need deletion.

9) Collaboration: One cannot expect in Wikiversity the kind of collaboration one finds in Wikipedia. A key element of Wikiversity is learning by doing. And thus, one who practices writing/analysis by writing one's own article or page is supporting the educational mission of Wikiversity. The fact that English Wikipedia, which does not have this kind of educational mission depending on learning by doing, has such a huge number of pages in user space suggests that the huge number of pages in the user space of English Wikiversity is fine. Moreover, since Wikipedia has many times more pages in total than Wikiversity, its user space pages present much bigger load on servers than Wikiversity user space pages. The kind of collaboration one can find in Wikiversity is that one person comments on another person's text and the author responds to the comments and makes changes as applicable (this is done e.g. by Jtneil).

Let me also quote Dave Braunschweig from Wikiversity:Requests for Deletion/Archives/18#, Dec 2022:

"We have long agreed that part of the Wikiversity:Mission (creation and use of free learning materials and activities) includes the learning opportunity for the creator, irrespective of any learning value for others. From my perspective, there is no question that Landmark Education was a learning opportunity for Abd, just as Radiation Astronomy was a learning opportunity for Marshallsumter. If the community does not see value for others in these resources, they can be moved to user space. They should not be deleted, as they are still supporting the Wikiversity mission, just as thousands of other User: space resources do. (The many engineering homework projects are examples.)"

My conclusion based on the above: it seems preferable to continue the established tradition of quasi-deleting pages by moving them to user space, with exceptions such as copyvio, libel, leak of PII, etc., and of allowing users to make writing/analytical exercises in their user space. From what I understand, this view or similar one was also held by Guy vandegrift (and of course Dave Braunschweig).

As something of an appendix, here are some examples of moves to user space that I collected in my user space, the oldest one being from 2011, 14 years ago:

Page	Year of move	Mover
User:MrFidaAliEngr/Skardu	2011	Abd
User:Achiahe/Organizing A Maker Fair	2013	Atcovi
User:TyEvSkyo/Positions of Skywalkistan	2017	Dave Braunschweig
User:Emesee/Policy proposals	2019	Mu301/mikeu
User:Dc.samizdat/Radially equilateral polychora	2019	Dave Braunschweig
User:Annie Flanagan/Dr. John Creighton Buchanan	2020	Dave Braunschweig
User:Marshallsumter/Rocks/Glaciers	2022	Guy vandegrift
User:Marshallsumter/Sources/Astronomy	2022	Dave Braunschweig
User:TyEvSkyo/Particle Sphere Theory	2024	Guy vandegrift

Above, I have not listed myself as an example; it goes without saying (e.g. from my page move log) that I moved many pages to user space instead of deleting them, thereby having continued the tradition. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 07:43, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

When to use

Template:X delete Is it allowed to use this template on a page that I want to propose for deletion? There are some pages that I think should be deleted as being improper. Or is that curator privilege? Thanks Harold Foppele (discuss • contribs) 17:23, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

Anyone can propose any page for Wikiversity:Deletion. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 04:20, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

Request to create my user page

Hello, I am a new user and I am trying to create my user page at User:Sead Spuzic, but the system blocks me with the message "New User Exceeded New Page Limit". Could an administrator please create a blank user page for me so that I can edit it? Thank you very much. Sead Spuzic (discuss • contribs) 02:58, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

Probably fixed. See: User talk:Sead Spuzic. Juandev (discuss • contribs) 12:55, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

It is fixed, indeed. Thank you for the help.

Sead Spuzic (discuss • contribs) 00:06, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

Page move request

Hello,

I have created a learning resource in my sandbox and would like to request that it be moved to the main namespace.

Current page: User:AIonescuResearch/Sandbox

Proposed title: Affordable Luxury in Consumer Markets

Reason: Publishing a completed learning resource.

Thank you.