Wikiversity:Colloquium/archives/June 2011

You are examining an archive of past discussions for transparent review by inquisitive participants.
Please ask questions and share your thoughts on the current discussion page.

modern communication system

--123.49.2.110 19:09, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wikiversity Views needed! Help discuss and choose Wikimedia's Leadership

Wikimedia Needs You. Help with the Elections of Wikimedia Leadership!

Voting ends at 23:59 12 June 2011 (UTC)

the election ends. has already ended. (refresh)

The Election is Very Important...
Elected board members are the very highest leaders of Wikimedia.

They select and supervise the Executive Director and staff
They determine mission, goals, long-term plans and high level policies of the Wikimedia Foundation.
They oversee a budget in excess of $10 million per year.
They determine how resources are allocated.

Make a Voter Guide
1. Remember:	Be civil. Avoid personal attacks.
2. Write:	Talk about yourself. Talk about Wikimedia. What do you want for Wikimedia? Talk about who you support. Why? Talk about concerns. Be civil!
3. Share:	Make a link to your Voter Guide. Put it on your user page. Make a link to your Voter Guide. Put it on your user talk page. Make a link to your Voter Guide. Put it in the central location. Make links to all other Voter Guides. Put the links on your Voter Guide.
4. Recruit	Ask others to make a voter guide Ask others to talk about the election. Ask others to help promote election participation.

Help Choose: Ask the Candidates a Question • Discuss the Candidates

Help Translate: Elections Text • Questions and Answers • Promotion Text

Help Promote

Talk to others. Talk about the election and the election's importance.
Post notices about Election in Project Discussion areas.
Talk to trusted editors. Ask them to Make a Voter Guide.
Serve as an Election Promoter.

Use this box: just add {{PromoteElection}} to any page.

I think the size of this banner is effectively Template:WOT and is hence vandalism.--JohnBessa^talk 17:57, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WV attention suggested.

A recent thread on the Foundation-l mailing list mentions WV quite a few times. The most recent email suggested that WV community be invited into the discussion, and while I have no desire to wade into it, I thought others might want to read it. The conversation is roughly about if/why/how a global WMF ban should be instituted against one of our editors. The short form is that the Foundation itself doesn't and won't do that sort of thing, and that if any sort of global ban mechanism it would have to be organized by the communities. This, of course, seems an insurmountable task as consensus forming across projects is very difficult to say the least. Thenub314 16:15, 5 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not active enough to represent enwv on this one, but note that the custodian notice boards are being monitored if any intervention is needed. --Draicone ^(talk) 17:16, 5 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Glad to hear that, Draicone. I see no need for any action at this time, beyond routine. --Abd 17:43, 5 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(ec). As is common with long discussions like that, many take the basic facts, misunderstand or misinterpret them to make them seem more dramatic, and then call for action based on the dramatized stories. There is no cause presented for blocking the user here, there is only suspicion that, if the user did something Bad elsewhere, that it should be assumed he'd do it here.

The precedent is clear: each project makes its own decisions on matters like this, and when global locking is used for other than blatant vandalism, it's been rejected by some local wikis. The decision-making process for non-vandalism global bans has been far less than transparent, secret discussions have taken place, with what appeared to be highly biased decisions -- and since the discussions were private, we can't really tell.

The user in question should be allowed to work in peace here, and even raising the issue locally would be a form of harassment. I've now seen edits by two new users, one of which uses a name that was a known sock of the user in question, but that is quite likely not him, and the other makes a direct reference to socking, through the use of an image implying how difficult it would be to actually implement a "global ban." That's a major issue that is largely ignored by the Foundation-l discussion, it seems to be thought that it could be done, with some beneficial effect, if only the Foundation, or the steward community, would agree. No, it would drain resources, newly dedicated to fighting was is generally acknowledged to involve maybe one user per year at the most. If they do set this up: watch! The number of such users will rise dramatically. Prohibit it, they will flock to do it, plus it will creep to be applied to more and more. And such enforcement causes real disruption.

So there is, already, some minor effort to stir up controversy here. We should resist that, by ignoring it, or with w:WP:RBI, as necessary, protecting our own users from harassment from outside. We've where a Wikiversity user did use Wikiversity as a haven for attack or harassment, creating true cross-wiki issues. We should not allow that. That is not happening. --Abd 17:43, 5 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

David Gerard wrote" "Poetlister is the level of case where project autonomy is an actively bad idea. e.g. en.wikiquote deciding to demonstrate their independence"[1]

I really think all the ban stuff is to attempt to centralize control, which makes WMF an accurate microcosm of sur-real life. Good onto Wikiquote! The moulton ban was partly based on trollism, which is ironically a bias that moulton supports, but a bias none-the-less.

Here is a weird quote from the same email-list page: "If the door is unlocked, you don't imprison every person who tries to open it, you lock it (and then imprison those who break in)"

Aren't we an open community?--John

Bessa^talk 23:32, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

logical approach

I think we need to deal with what threatens us in terms of what it is: mental illness that is not curable. In the DSM it is something like cluster A and B comorbidities on the schizoid-schizotypal-schizophrenic spectrum that I will add has a probable association with aspergers (in other words, endless varieties of autism). I only mention this in reference, I am for burning the DSM as it puts the shoe on the other foot (that is that it is a purely Nazi document). A really good symptom to look for is concrete thinking which is linked to bigotry (Sadock). moulton falls into the harmless category, and as such we like him, in the end, there is no such thing as a completely harmless mentally-ill person, as we found with his "breeching of the Wales." This is what asylums are for, and this is why I think we should have one (but how do we implement a virtual mental hospital?) From evolutional thinking I learned that all life, including the lives of the mentally ill, is divided into collaborative and predatory. Predatory is symbolized by the Humboldt Squid, as it uses binary communication to coordinate the hunt. (This squid is also an excellent area to study anthropomorphisis!) Normal life is collaborative and happy; this is what predatory life exploits, and as coordinated predation is ancient, responses to it are evolutional-- the suffering of the an attacker brings joy to normal people, just ask Hollywood! The latest threat so fits this model that it is actually a gift, just as the bipolar (and sadistic) batch plant operator gave me all this underlying information. I think we need to take this in stride, and use our educational merit to show the world how to easily walk through the valley of death that exploiters consistently promise and deliver: Zen. This exploitation actually goes a long way to describe our success as well; WP is so full of misinformation and so discredited by educators, for instance, that WMF is turning here for validation. Of course they will do here what they did to the WP, as we all can guess. So much for my Template:WOT!--JohnBessa^talk 14:52, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm... which users are mentally ill exactly? Who gets to judge our illness, based on what sort of evidence? I think we have a lot of things to work out before we get to the point of asking questions about how to implement a virtual mental hospital. Thenub314 16:50, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Self- and group-dynamics in mutually supported substance recovery: APA and Wiki

These two links have been my hard work for the past month. I created the wiki style version to show that the old APA-style version is effectively obsolete. I attempt to present addiction recovery research as a functional model. The wiki is wikified APA (american psych assc) writing, but the "2nd Cycle" section presents it purely as a functional model. I want to post this, but it is in HTML and translating it into "Jimbo's" crippled mark-up language will take time--JohnBessa^talk 17:15, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki functional model structure (to be programmed) click

APA-style writing click

“

ABSTRACT: Self-efficacy in those attempting to recover from substance abuse disorders is believed to contribute to abstinence. Participation in mutual support groups is believed to reinforce self-efficacy by giving participants the opportunity to help others. Self-efficacy, as a component of the conceptual "system of self" works in conjunction with self-esteem to help goal achievement, or self-agency, which, for those with substance disorders, is abstinence. To reinforce research from previous largely qualitative studies, this study proposes to correlate self-efficacy and self-esteem as predictors of the rate of abstinence, or self-agency, of a group 30 men with a mean age of 30 who attend mutual support substance abuse programs. It is hypothesized that increases in self-efficacy and self-esteem will predict self-agency in terms of higher abstinence and lower drug craving, but that self-efficacy will be a greater predictor. The study also proposes to explore innovative data collection and statistical methodologies that leverage cell phones, the internet, and continuous online statistical analysis for the benefit of other researchers and those who want to manualize self-efficacy and self-esteem concepts in the group context for substance abuse recovery.

”

You may find the HTML-to-wiki converter on toolserver useful. --Draicone ^(talk) 09:09, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

ty--John

Bessa^talk 15:49, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wikiversity:Community Review/Custodianship process

What do you think about the custodianship process? How could it be improved? Feel free to contribute your ideas. Sincerely, James. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 22:23, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wikiversity Day 15.8.2011

Wikiversity:Wikiversity Day/2011: ideas/wishes? ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat + Identi.ca 00:16, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Voting is about to close

It is currently 10:34, 12 June 2011 (UTC) , voting closes at 23:59 UTC, so just hours after this post. If you want to vote, please do so. Additionally, there's been an on-going discussion about a recommendation for voting to be extended to give people more time, opinions welcome. --Alecmconroy 10:34, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wikiversity as a Benefit Corporation, and more

See this discussion commented on by Jimbo Wales and others:

w:Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)#Need for-profit Wikiversity-like organizations as Benefit Corporations under Wikimedia Foundation control. --Timeshifter 03:43, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please stay on topic. There are other sections on this talk page. Start more sections to cover your topics. --Timeshifter 22:01, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I looked at Timeshifter's material and it is pretty weak--mostly business week-type magazine articles talking about how business can take over volunteer operations and make them better and make money, presumably off of the volunteers. He cites home schooling success on test scores as supporting evidence, for instance, but I am not sure what that is evidence for; there are plenty of home schooling resources for free. I posted some ideas about a college of arts and sciences portal a while back, and I wonder if that is what got them drooling for dollars.--John

Bessa^talk 00:53, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

/Ignore. --Timeshifter 04:09, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Heh, he noticed! A small but significant step in the right direction :) --John

Bessa^talk 14:30, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Timeshifter removed a section of comment by John Bessa, and then added the "/Ignore" non-comment. I urge Timshifter to not delete the comments of others, though some exceptions are possible. I'm going to respect, for the moment, Timeshifter's objection, but address it by putting John's original comment in collapse. John Bessa may remove the collapse, but I don't recommend that, the comment could be considered disruptive. I'll also suggest to John that he be a bit less ... personally confrontive? --Abd 15:56, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

comment by John Bessa

Ty, ADB --JohnBessa^talk 13:53, 14 June 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Thanks for posting this attempt at an obvious attempt at capital exploitation. Remember that "Jimbo" Wales got his start in the commodity pits of the Chicago trade operation. Commodities are the most useless component of a highly-damaging capital structure that is literally cooking the only planet we have. The huge deriviatives scandle that brought down the US economy in 2007-8 was traded as commodities.

The WP power-elite on consists of Ayn Rand-style libertarians who see anarchy as a vehicle for pure capital control (rather than the native peoples' revolutions), and any who disagree are "trolls who are trolling for abuse." According to the aptly self-named killerchihuahua, moulton was ultimately blocked because killerchihuahua's rag-tag cadre was attacking mouton's non-WP pages (felonies). This is what the Nazis did at Nuremberg: blame the victim. It didn't work for the Nazis, but times have changed since then. It may be that the WP is simply namespace perversion by a forward thinking... Does Wales own Wikia? What is the relationship because if there is one, it needs to be exposed.

I think, among things, we need to see the books to see where they are getting "anarchistic," or, in the eyes of the law, breaking the rules. I have been planning to get away from google docs, and when I looked at WordPress.com, I saw a potential wiki. Packing a parachute?--John

Bessa^talk 17:15, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ty, ABD.--JohnBessa^talk 13:54, 14 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hello

Hi. I'm MrABlair23 and I was here last year with my Human Legacy Course. I don't know if this is the correct place to put this and I do apologize if I have caused any inconvenience with this posting. However, I have been looking around Wikiversity and I see that it is a bit abandoned. Thus, I was wondering if there was anything that I could do to help as I have many courses that I have been planning to teach, but are there still any students around here? It's probably just a dumb question, but if somebody could just pinpoint to me where there is some activity or if there is anything that I could do to possibly help out a bit, then that would be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much and I hope to hear from you soon!

--MrABlair23 16:40, 13 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hello and welcome back! :D Wikiversity is not abandoned because I'm here. Even if I'm the last WV editor alive I'll still contribute to the project. I guess I'm a student but drawing in more contributors and growing the community I would say is a definite priority for me and should be for us all. I think the best way to go about bringing people in is adding more content to WV and hopefully that'll increase WV's SEO ranking on Google and other places and gain more attention. If you're into programming then you can work with me if you want at Pyjamas. Otherwise I'd just say monitor the Special:RecentChanges page for vandalism and to locate activity on WV. Also it helps to locate new contributors. I'd say if someone with a new account is adding content then I'd {{welcome}} them. Devourer09 (t·c) 18:50, 14 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Dangers of wiki commercialization: an recent real-life case

This describes the transfer of the formerly free camerapedia to for-profit Wikia: Link to post-mortum discussion on Camerapedia

Note: rebollo_fr paints himself as a hero, but in my experience he is the worst martinet.

Being a photographer, I worked on the camerapedia for a short period (and hated it). But it has been commercially "hybridized" in a way Timeshifter suggests, by being absorbed into the Wikia empire, so I suggest that Wikiversians take a look at the post-mortem conversation that took place after the transfer. In it the Wikia personnel rationalize the commercialization as if they are doing everybody a favor, deliberately ignoring the fact that they are gaining financial resources from the hard work of volunteers, as the volunteers point out. The camerapedia founder, Lbstone, got an undisclosed sum from Wikia, and appears to have operated camerapedia as a capital investment from the beginning (Jimbo?) by flippantly minimalizing the the work of his volunteers. The camerapedia editors continually bring this up, but are ignored in the conversation--though not censured (Timeshifter).

BTW, we need to make censorship a crime here to further distinguish us from the oligarchic WP and WMF as a true democracy. I am also thinking court injunction -- our operating expenses cannot possibly be more than a few thousand per year, far less that the $10,000,000 that WMF requires (for what?!). --JohnBessa^talk 14:17, 14 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Timeshifter's link above to the WP village pump has many pro-commercialization comments from Leutha, who "branded" my Rogers 19 point theory page as the property of the University of Westminster. I didn't like it, but I was being "collaborative" (really cooperative) and then wound up in an edit conflict with him over the number of columns. What you need to know is that Leutha is in with Timeshifter in his desire to exploit our hard work for his personal resources. What I learned from their conversation at the virtual pump is that Jimbo is indeed running things at Wikia, and hence had to have been involved in the above commercialization of Camerapedia. (In my opinion, the new site looks horrendous, throwing strong doubt on web skills.) Seeing that text confirms for me that Jimbo did in fact invest in the WP to leverage it commercially, just as I suspect camerapedia's Lbstone probably did. This actually confirms something else that is much more significant, which is that commercial "hybridization" describes a "split" (in Gestalt terms) that cannot possibly exist. Either you work collaboratively for the good of community, or you work cooperatively to exploit community efforts (which is capital). The split cannot exist because the difference is etched in the individual's neurology, usually through DNA, but also from cocaine or similar drug abuse (which is significant). It isn't as if exploitive cooperators have something that others don't giving them the ability to accumulate wealth, they are missing the ability to interact on an emotional level, which deprives them of normal generous human qualities. Dawkins describes it in his selfish gene, which, while not being evolutional, is not reverse evolutional as we are told (such as in de-evolution, or devo), but a hard turn away from the natural track which naturally heads towards humaneness, aesthetic beauty, and genuine information. Neurologically it is probably a deficit in the connective networks between the modern intelligence centers of the neocortex and the ancient affection, or affective, centers lower in the brain. (This will be confirmed in next couple years, we will know which gene expression isn't signalling, and we will have a test--and maybe even a cure!)

Clearly Jimbo is seeking to exploit the "outer projects," and I am looking for ways to document it. (In his words, "I've had a longstanding interest in hybrid models, due to the limitations of both the non-profit and for-profit models," or " imagine if Wikinews could raise $4 million in venture capital, with the investors expecting to make a return from an advertising-based business model") I don't want to impact his venture-ism, because I want to document it. This is an exact xerox copy of every single annexation of the public domain by the wealthy, where the public domain is not land but public information. I imagine the "hybridization" approach attempts to not "cook the goose that lays the golden egg" by exploiting it, but keep it laying based on misconceptions. Like every other annexation (Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilization), this involves serfdom, or slavery, and native (ex)termination. Some feel that they can directly profit, for instance, by helping Wikia annex the public domain.

Timeshifter's and Leutha's financial examples are the weakest I have seen to date. Jimbo points out to them and the others that the only way to make money off the net is advertising. I don't think I need to say why advertising would be bad for WV--even Timeshifter and Leutha can see that! I would hope that the WV contributors would fight advertising, and the way to do that is to show that we are a genuine community of people, and that the discussion at the virtual pump would be the equivalent of bulldozing a community (as often happens) to have it replaced with people, who it will soon be proved, have taken a sharp turn away from normalcy (in the big scheme of things). The place to do this is the courts. Win or lose, what we all know that in our current world, it is all about the information! As far as the bit string "John Bessa" is concerned, it's SEO is high enough, and my work here is based on recent research, so new versions of my material written elsewhere will supersede it, and a commercial venture would probably want to erase most if it anyway, (as rebollo_fr did) so I won't lose too much. (I bet rebollo_fr is really angry because he did not get his cut of the payout from Wikia!) Its really up to all of you if you want to preserve the WV and support the other projects from exploitation. Otherwise we can let the WMF sink as no one really trusts WP information anyway.--John

Bessa^talk 17:23, 15 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

--Cocadimarco 19:10, 15 June 2011 (UTC)I am just registered here. I newer went to college and English is not my mother tongue.[reply]

I want to start up my honey brand. I would be happy to find someone direct me and suggest me with the business plan.
Of course i have all informations, but have to put them together and make a rational theory that shows profits, so it justifies the investition.

Tnank you. Marko

Commercialisation doesn't have to be bad persé, it depends on where the money that is earned with the commercial practise goes to. A good businessman invests in his own company. I have the impression that isn't happening with Camerapedia, which seems to be exploited from the outside. The bad way of commercialisation would be that the volunteers and visitors of Wikiversity are bombarded with advertisings aimed at making them buy products, while the owner of the website uses the money for his private uses. A good way of commercialisation could be that material made on Wikiversity can be for sale, and the money obtained will go back to Wikiversity itself, for instance by paying contributors for their work. The community at large can do quality control to prevent that material is made for commercial reasons which doesn't live up to a certain ethical standard.Daanschr 09:42, 18 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Free Learning Manifesto

Hi all, I would like to submit a collaboratively written, open, and continually editable manifesto to Wikiversity, but I don't know what category would suit it best. For the moment, I've put it under my own user page at User:Arided/FreeLearningManifesto. This is something I've done with other personal learning-related projects in the past, so I assume that that, at least, is OK. However, I'd like to find a more permanent/shared home for the content. Your thoughts? Arided 17:01, 19 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is this manifesto meant for Wikiversity to declare what its intentions are with respect to free open educational resources? It seems similar to WV:Mission. If you want I guess you could put this in WV:Manifesto. Devourer09 (t·c) 20:20, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't want to give the impression that it's supported by Wikiversity (unless it is!). This is just an educational project -- but from a political angle. There doesn't seem to be a place on Wikiversity for this kind of project at present? Arided 10:12, 21 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So this would be a learning resource on writing a manifesto? I guess it would be categorized under something like composition. You also mention the political aspect which may pertain more to School:Political science such as the political aspects of drafting a manifesto. Would the w:United States Declaration of Independence be considered a manifesto? Devourer09 (t·c) 14:38, 21 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

fine art in America during economic downturn

communities with little exposure to the arts have always had issues accepting contemporary art in the economic landscape of their active business model

what is possible when existing business models lack experience in accepting original art in their venues or experiment with exposing their customers with examples of local, original artists' work? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Magnusonart (talk • contribs) 12:26, 22 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Can you give a specific example of what you mean? Devourer09 (t·c) 16:39, 23 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

sedimentary rock

--41.138.164.95 19:40, 29 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Was this supposed to be a question? Devourer09 (t·c) 02:06, 7 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Creating content categories in SEQUENCE layers is important when students lose interest if out of their depth. A website called freebase is a similar idea and DB pedia. Marsupiens 22:50, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What? Devourer09 (t·c) 22:33, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]