Wikiversity:Colloquium/archives/July 2016

Open call for Project Grants

Greetings! The Project Grants program is accepting proposals from July 1st to August 2nd to fund new tools, research, offline outreach (including editathon series, workshops, etc), online organizing (including contests), and other experiments that enhance the work of Wikimedia volunteers. Whether you need a small or large amount of funds, Project Grants can support you and your team’s project development time in addition to project expenses such as materials, travel, and rental space.

• Submit a grant request or draft your proposal in IdeaLab
• Get help with your proposal in an upcoming Hangout session
• Learn from examples of completed Individual Engagement Grants or Project and Event Grants

Also accepting candidates to join the Project Grants Committee through July 15.

With thanks, I JethroBT (WMF) 15:21, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

IMPORTANT: Admin activity review

Hello. A new policy regarding the removal of "advanced rights" (administrator, bureaucrat, etc) was adopted by global community consensus in 2013. According to this policy, the stewards are reviewing administrators' activity on smaller wikis. To the best of our knowledge, your wiki does not have a formal process for removing "advanced rights" from inactive accounts. This means that the stewards will take care of this according to the admin activity review.

We have determined that the following users meet the inactivity criteria (no edits and no log actions for more than 2 years):

1. Countrymike (administrator)

These users will receive a notification soon, asking them to start a community discussion if they want to retain some or all of their rights. If the users do not respond, then their advanced rights will be removed by the stewards.

However, if you as a community would like to create your own activity review process superseding the global one, want to make another decision about these inactive rights holders, or already have a policy that we missed, then please notify the stewards on Meta-Wiki so that we know not to proceed with the rights review on your wiki. Thanks, Rschen7754 02:10, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Does the community have any interest in creating a local policy? If we were to change it, I personally would advocate for a policy requiring some type of actual administrative activity on an annual basis. From Wikiversity:Staff, that would mean that User:Countrymike, User:Darklama, User:Geoff Plourde, User:HappyCamper, User:Juandev, User:MichaelBillington, User:SB Johnny, User:Thenub314, and User:WiseWoman would need to participate administratively somehow to maintain their role. Please note that I am not trying to remove rights from anyone. Quite the contrary, I'd like to have users with administrative rights participate more often in support of that effort. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 03:14, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

If persons are not using their rights, then there is no problem, is there? --WiseWoman (discuss • contribs) 21:08, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

There are at least two problems with custodians not using their rights. First, Wikiversity:Support staff is somewhat misleading, in that users looking for support are given the impression that we have 19 people available to help them, when realistically there are only five or so who are regularly active, and even fewer who actually use their rights on a regular basis. Second is the workload left to those who are active. Please participate! -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 01:50, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

To complement the aforementioned analysis of the disadvantages of custodians not losing rights, we need to consider the consequences of doing the opposite. How long would it take for a custodian to regain their rights if the sole reason for losing them is inactivity. Perhaps we maintain a list of such people so that these rights could be restored in a day or two?--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 16:12, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Rights can be restored as quickly as a bureaucrat responds. We currently have one semi-active bureaucrat. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 18:56, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Then to answer your question, I see no reason to have a different local policy.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 03:10, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

And does the restoration follow the policies? Could it be restored even 6 months after?--Juandev (discuss • contribs) 15:16, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure what meta's restore policy is, but it would seem to me that a request to restore rights to resume custodian activities could be approved without additional discussion, unless the bureaucrat had concerns and wanted community approval first. Time since active wouldn't matter. The desire to be active again would be more important from my perspective. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 17:44, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

Another source for people-powered research

See here This platform provides opportunities for individuals to engage in first-hand research and it has an overlapping mission with Wikiversity. Maybe we can collaborate? Co-host material? Does anyone have thoughts? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:38, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

I have looked at the site and worked through one of their Mars exercises. It was fun and informative. At the least I could add urls to the site for others to enjoy. I'm not sure if they have direct computer access that allows dynamic calculations or not. If so they may be interested in hosting programming courses that so far we would need to go to the tool labs to try. I haven't made any direct contact with anyone there as yet. Perhaps you'd like to give it a shot? --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 23:06, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

Grant submission for OpenCon 2016

Here is a links to the grant page. All the best Lionel Scheepmans ^{✉ Contact} _{(French native speaker)} 11:21, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Wikiversity survey

Hello Everybody, I'm a French student and I'm currently writing a dissertation about Wikiversity's interface design and community. I need Wikiversity editors' input to complete a short 19-question survey in English. All in all it will benefit the WV community and help promote it. I 'd like to thank you for your help, (link below to access survey) https://www.sondageonline.fr/s/questionnaire-wikiversite

--PlymouthCad (discuss • contribs) 18:41, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

I have taken the survey. My apologies if I have done something wrong in the survey. Thanks! ---Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 22:06, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

I want to learn French

--129.45.95.68 (discuss) 22:19, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Welcome! See Portal:French and DuoLingo. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 22:23, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Translate Category: into Bulgarian

Hi :-). I'm new here, but not quite new to Wikipedia. Still I could not find where to translate Category: to Категория: so that the Bulgarian language editors can use their own language for categories. Same goes for Template: to Шаблон:. The question was first raised on my talk page on my homewiki by User:Luchibsl1, who thought that an experienced Wikipedian would know :). --Лорд Бъмбъри (discuss • contribs) 19:23, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

You might try asking this at Wikidata. Wikidata has taken responsibility for language translation. They may be able to tell you how that applies to categories. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 20:31, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Alternative names for Wikiversity Journal

Hi everyone,

Wikiversity Journal of Medicine may change its name in a not too far future. I'd appreciate further ideas and comments on possible names for the project: Wikiversity Journal/Future as separate Wikimedia project.

Mikael Häggström (discuss • contribs) 20:15, 26 July 2016 (UTC)