Wikiversity:Colloquium/archives/March 2019

WMF proposes rebranding Wikiversity to as a Wikipedia project

WMF found studies indicating that Wikimedia is not well understood and that "Wikipedia" is the most recognized. It decides to rebrand Wikiversity as a "Wikipedia project". You people should go to meta:Communications/Wikimedia brands/2030 research and planning and its subpage about the rest of the proposal. For public feedback, you may go to meta:Talk:Communications/Wikimedia brands/2030 research and planning/community review; for private, email to brandproject -at- wikimedia -dot- org. George Ho (discuss • contribs) 10:06, 12 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You may now become 'Wikiversity — A Wikipedia project'

According to this discussion at Meta, Wikimedia Foundation is considering rebranding. This means for you, that rather than Wikiversity being a Wikimedia project, it would become a Wikipedia project.

The proposed changes also include

Providing clearer connections to the sister projects from Wikipedia to drive increased awareness, usage and contributions to all movement projects.

While raising such awareness in my opinion is a good thing, do you think classifying you as a 'Wikipedia' project would cause confusion? Do you think newcomers would have a high risk of erroneously applying some of Wikipedia principles and policies here which do not apply? If so, what confusion? Could you please detail this. I have raised a query about that HERE in general, but I am looking for specific feedback.

Please translate this message to other languages.

--Gryllida 23:02, 12 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Interconnecting Wikipedia to its sister projects should and needs to be greatly improved! I create portals here to connect Wikipedia portals to Wikiversity portals; there to connect here. That increases Wikiversity visibility on Wikipedia and Wikipedia visibility here. I also use {{Sisterprojectsearch}} and {{Sisterlinks|Resource name}} here at the bottom of resources to improve visibility here of the other projects. I create links on Wiktionary for resources here to increase our visibility there. Likewise on Wikispecies. Yes! Calling Wikiversity a Wikipedia project creates confusion! Solution: call Wikipedia a daughter project of Wikiversity. That links us to Wikipedia for re-branding. Why? Wikipedia is an encyclopedia which is a special kind of resource that can benefit from Wikiversity just like the other projects can. The confusion created is suggesting the highly restrictive nature of an encyclopedia applies to a university which clearly is a more general learning environment. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 02:06, 13 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Marshallsumter. Thank you for sharing this. As one more alternative, how would you consider 'a Wikimania project'? Is this a more catchy name than 'Wikipedia'? Does it create less confusion? Gryllida 03:33, 13 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wikiversity as a Wikimania project would be great! No confusion at all. We usually have representation at Wikimania conferences and we are crazy about that! --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 06:20, 13 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There is a proposal at meta to have brainstorming for different names. The names proposed so far are 'wikipedia', 'wikiworld', 'wikimania', 'wikiweb' to finish with 'a XYZ project' where XYZ is the name. Please share your opinions about which is better, or your new suggestions, either here or there, at your convenience. Gryllida 00:45, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Gryllida: For me, the concern is that many Wikipedians want nothing to do with Wikiversity. We can't be a Wikipedia project if people from Wikipedia continue to negatively support Wikiversity. I don't think those responsible for the marketing plan appreciate the responsibility the impact that making all other projects a daughter of Wikipedia (unnecessarily) places on Wikipedia volunteers. If we are a Wikipedia project, they are effectively responsible for us. That doesn't work, either for them or for us. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 03:38, 13 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Gryllida: Many of my recent contributes within Wikimedia Foundation projects has been in Wikiversity, largely because I can invite the world to change anything I post subject to what I think of as standard Wikimedia Foundation rules of writing from a neutral point of view, citing credible sources, and treating others with respect. (User:Pi zero convinced me I should NOT say, "assume good faith". "Treating others with respect" sounds to me consistent with both User:Pi zero's concern and "assume good faith".)

I think of some of my recent contributions here as inventing a new form of journalism, exemplified by "Improving schools/Pre-K for All in Kansas City, Missouri" and the two pages it links to, which are basically videos and transcripts of important local events that serve as background material for "Improving schools/Pre-K for All in Kansas City, Missouri". Eight hours ago, I was producing a broadcast on KKFI radio in Kansas City based partly on this material, namely '“Pre-K for All” on the KCMO April 2 ballot'.

I think this can plausibly be called "original research" and in that way consistent with the mission of Wikiversity. Wikipedia would likely reject it, because it's original material and therefore not encyclopedic.

Wikinews is a great education in high quality journalistic practices, but the gatekeeping there is too tight for me. If it's not immediately obvious to me what I can do to bring an article up to Wikinews standards, it's practically impossible to get help with understanding the deficiency and fixing the problem. As a result, I spend hours or even days on an article that doesn't get published. I asked on WikiTribune about posting videos with transcripts and did not get the encouragement I got on Wikiversity.

I've gotten 183 views on "Improving schools/Pre-K for All in Kansas City, Missouri" since I first created it on 2019-02-07. I don't know how many of those are local to Kansas City, but I sent out several emails on 2019-03-08 inviting local people involved in the events described in the article for comments. One called me on 2019-03-11, and I invited him to join me on the broadcast 2019-03-12.

Regarding rebranding, it seems natural to me to explain to people that Wikiversity and Wikipedia are both projects of the Wikimedia Foundation. I agree with User:Marshallsumter and User:Dave Braunschweig in their concerns about calling Wikiversity a "Wikipedia project". I personally prefer the status quo, but I would support calling Wikiversity and Wikipedia "Wikimania projects" if it attracted more people younger than me. (I'm 74, and I'm keenly aware that the project needs younger blood if it's not going to die when people my age do ;-)

Thanks for asking.

By the way, I have a global edit count of 6,514 since 2010-03-26 per wmflabs, mostly in the English language Wikipedia and secondarily in Wikiversity. I'm also a fan of Wikidata, though I couldn't even get started with it until Wikimania - Cape Town. It fills a need: It's stupid to have to enter the same information multiple times if I'm citing the same source in different articles. If they are in different languages, it's really difficult, because I don't know where to look to find the names of the fields in Spanish, French or German, for example; most of my edits have been in English, but I have a few in each of those other languages.

I like Wikiquote, also: Other sources of "quotes" don't document their sources and can easily be in error. I've found it very useful to post quotes I like there. That makes it easier for me to find them later ;-)

Do I need to post something on this someplace else? I'm pressed for time. Thanks again, DavidMCEddy (discuss • contribs) 08:05, 13 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm glad to see you again, DavidMCEddy. Happy New Year! :)

There is a proposal for brainstorming, linked above. I can see you like Wikimedia more than Wikimania, and that is better in your opinion than Wikipedia; if you would like to share your opinion about other suggestions, or add yours, I would not mind. Gryllida 00:47, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comment, the brainstorming proposal has been moved. SelfieCity (discuss • contribs) 04:20, 20 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Marshallsumter, DavidMCEddy, SelfieCity: As an alternative to saying 'a Wikipedia project' there is the possibility of saying 'a sister of Wikipedia'. This in my opinion may reduce confusion: it makes the sister project stand out as a separate project more clearly. That's what I commonly do when speaking with people about one of the sister wikis, when asking them to release an image under a free licence. They usually understand quickly. Do you think this option can reduce confusion here caused by people misinterpreting Wikipedia policies as Wikiversity's own? --Gryllida 18:26, 25 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I've read some of the pages but I'm not clear on what this would mean in practice. There is a discussion about "branding" which seems to involve advertising but no clear proposal for how this branding would be implemented. I encourage interested parties to ask questions and make suggestions at the central forums for this idea. I'm not sure it will have much impact on us, though that could change if a more specific idea is implemented. --mikeu ^talk 18:54, 25 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I too don't quite understand the purpose of this change -- isn't Wikiversity already a "sister project" of Wikipedia? While I welcome more visibility and exposure, I think that each of the other projects have unique aspects as compared to WP. I think that smaller projects already struggle against the perception they are simply an "extension of WP". I'll do a bit more reading on this, but I think there are probably better ways to improve exposure of smaller projects (if that is the goal of this). Historybuff (discuss • contribs) 17:26, 31 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

template import

I just imported {{Radic}} (and dependencies) from en-wv. It imported much more than I realized. I thought it was a rather simple template... I also noticed that there are a lot of redlinks in the docs. What't the best way to go about getting templates to prevent this sort of thing? --mikeu ^talk 00:17, 30 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Mu301: It's a trade-off. I typically don't use "Include all templates". But then you can find yourself troubleshooting missing dependencies. It depends on whether you prefer deleting things you didn't want, or searching for things you wanted but didn't get. Regarding the red links in the docs, you need to import the docs separately, if you want them.

Several years ago they talked about having common templates across projects the same way we have common files, but it was never implemented as far as I know. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 01:52, 30 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Getting edit error

Hi there, i am being given this error:

Error: This action has been automatically identified as harmful, and therefore disallowed. If you believe your action was constructive, please inform an administrator of what you were trying to do. A brief description of the abuse rule which your action matched is: Blocked Edit

Can someone help me with this? I am adding content from links on Latin. JimKillock (discuss • contribs) 11:48, 31 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

NB: it is at Latin/Demonstratives Lesson 1 - I seem to be able to add other content still tho, eg Latin/Demonstratives Lesson 2 JimKillock (discuss • contribs) 11:48, 31 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Try it again and let me know if you still have trouble. --mikeu ^talk 12:09, 31 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@JimKillock: From time to time we have persistent vandalism that we address using advanced filters. User:Mu301 adjusted the filter. Your edits should work now. Let us know if you have additional problems. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 13:42, 31 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]