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Improved access to courses via the new main page.
Does it work?
How and when will we know the increased user access to lessons as a result of the new main page?
Show me the numbers
Are there comparative stats of the most popular course page accessed before and after the new main page for Wikiversity was installed? Robert Elliott01:37, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Robert. Statistics for WV is a difficult thing. I've tried to get numbers from various sources in the past, but the scripts which extract the numbers from the database don't seem to work all that well. One thing I keep my eye on every now and again is http://www.alexa.org, although for smaller sites the reliability of Alexa is lower. An increased usage of Wikiversity will need more than just a snazzy main page - it will need a much more helpful infrastructure around the main page as well, such as loads of new and more helpful portals, tutorials, guides - i.e. a lot of things that are on the agenda but which I personally really haven't had time for yet.--McCormack04:42, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
More about Alexa: Wikiversity is probably in the area where Alexa is "slightly reliable" (reliability increases with popularity), but short-term usage figures for Wikiversity are probably better explained by seasonal factors, such as the start and finish of university terms and public holidays (plus other external factors, such as prominence of links from Wikipedia). Things like a main page redesign, infrastructure overhaul or usability aids are more likely to have a long-term effect than a short-term one, so looking for a statistics jump at some point would probably be a mistake. --McCormack04:52, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. I suggest: (1) redirect Wikiversity and Topic:Wikiversity to Portal:Wikiversity; (2) redesign the portal, ensuring that the content of the other two pages gets in there somewhere (e.g. by restructuring the category tree and reforming Category:Wikiversity). Portal:Wikiversity should perhaps be a minor portal intended mainly for maintenance purposes - i.e. the place where the lid comes off Wikiversity and you can see inside its internal workings, especially the contents of the Wikiversity namespace. The user-friendly equivalents should be things like Help:contents, the main page and introductions/portals for specific user types such as teachers and students. --McCormack05:44, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
At the top of Topic:Wikiversity it says (rather hopefully) "Welcome to the content development project where learning resources about Wikiversity are planned, organized and developed.", which is the kind of concept which I think the original author actually intended for the School namespace (i.e. School:Wikiversity). However this is actually what we are doing at Wikiversity:Vision 2009. So I suggest getting rid of the sentence just quoted, creating School:Wikiversity and then redirecting it to the latest Wikiversity Vision project. --McCormack05:49, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
McCormack, I looked at these pages and like these ideas; there is much to do, huh? I also wondered about possible redirection to Wikiversity:What is Wikiversity?. That at least seems to be the link that we're giving out e.g., in the Wikipedia Signpost interview as the current first port of call other than the main page. Any thoughts about this? I am partly asking because I want to link both internally and externally to Wikiversity and I want that to go to a page which clearly explains WV. I also noticed that Wikiversity:About redirects to Wikiversity:FAQ and wasn't sure that it's a good redirect e.g., could we perhaps paste some content from the Signpost interview and develop this at Wikiversity and/or Wikiversity:About? Just some ideas, that's all. -- Jtneill - Talk00:05, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've created the learning project High School Biology and am looking for more people to help. I am working on a Wikibook b:FHSST_Biology for the project and have developed a lesson (under Course in the project). I'd appreciate feedback as I'm new and I want to make sure this is going in the right direction. I'm also hoping to stir up a little interest in the project so others will contribute. Thank you for taking interest. Feel free to write here or on my wall.
Very nicely done! I wasn't even aware WV offers such graphical options. But let me ask you this: Are you going to write down all biology necessary for high school students ? Everything is already written in text books, why rewrite it ? EugenSpierer07:48, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know of a free textbook online that people can read. If there isn't one, then there needs to be. This will allow people without the resources to get a specific textbook to learn biology. The other problem is that not everyone has the same textbook. Lesson summaries don't do much good if everyone is reading something different, and putting a whole lesson in (not just a summary) would be just as much work as writing a (concise) textbook. If you do however, know of any free, (mostly) complete biology textbooks, please send me a link. Wesley Gray12:31, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well-known books are all over the world and for those living in remote places who don't have access to a major library, could order a book. I think the quailty of a book or a couple of books should be more important than the accessibility.--Daanschr12:39, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What books would people recommend for this project? If not, I think it might be best to compile text from existing Wikipedia, Wikibooks, and Wikiversity pages. If we do this, we can focus on editing, and make a high-quality, accessible book. Remember, this is a learning project for high school students (or those who want a basic introduction to biology), so a recommended text shouldn't be too advanced. Thoughts? Wesley Gray12:47, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Wesley! You are most welcome here! I am also very interested in biology, but haven't got enough time to contribute as much. I hope it will be better in the future. For now, browse my external link collection, maybe you can find some useful stuff. Feel free to add your links :). --Gbaor10:15, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I had an idea for a page would provide various links to 'random' pages. What do you think? What can you add? -- Jtneill - Talk15:48, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Do you intend to replace the link in the navigation bar with that ?
Crocodiles are large reptiles that live in water. They are modern-day relatives of dinosaurs. This page can help you to learn about these living fossils.
How can you tell the difference between an alligator and a crocodile?
Snout
This American Crocodlile has a circle-shaped snout
Crocs have long, narrow V-shaped snouts;
Alligators have rounded U-shaped snouts.
Teeth
The 4th tooth of the crocodile sticks out when its mouth is closed.
When crocs close their mouth, some teeth are still visible.
When alligators close theirs, all teeth are hidden.
Size
Crocodiles at birth are around 20 cm (8 inches) long - not much longer than your feet!
Saltwater crocodile: 4.3- 5.2m
Nile crocodile: 4.2m
American crocodile: 4.1- 4.8 m
Depending on the species (there are 23 species!), adults may vary in size from about 1m to 7m, and can weigh more than 1.5 tons or over 3,000 pounds.
The largest recorded crocodile was 7 meters (23 feet) long See a video of Gustav, the Giant Crocodile of Burundi (9 minutes; warning: fascinating, but may be scary; parental guidance recommended; contains some subtitles)
Whilst some species can gallop, the fastest way for many croc species is a "belly run". They move like a snake, wiggle their legs. and their tail whips back and forth. By belly-running, crocs can reach speeds of around 10 or 11 kilometres an hour (around 7 mph), or faster if they're sliding down muddy riverbanks.
A human can outrun a crocodile and crocodiles being ambush predators they will not pursue you for very long.
Bite
Crocs have extremely powerful jaws.
Crocodiles cannot chew. They can only tear and swallow.
Crocodiles have 64 teeth, but they are constantly being replaced. A crocodile can go through over 3,000 teeth in a lifetime.
Each tooth is hollow, with new ones growing inside the old ones. The new tooth appears once an old one is lost.
The salt water Crocodile has the strongest bite.
Habitat
Crocodiles like warm environments. They do not like cold water.
Crocodiles are found in tropical areas, such as swamps and everglades of the southeastern U.S., Central and South America, Africa, Australia, India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Borneo and Alabama .
Crocodiles mostly live in the pink, tropical zone.
Diet
Crocodiles wait... and watch. Until they are ready to attack.
Crocodiles are 'ambush hunters'. They wait for fish or land animals to come close, then rush out to attack. They grab their prey with their strong jaws, drag it into the water, then they roll over and over ('death roll'). This confuses the prey and eventually it drowns. Then the crocodile begins to eat.
Crocodiles mostly eat fish, other reptiles, and mammals, and sometimes other water creatures such as mollusks and crustaceans.
Stones are often found in the stomachs of adult crocodiles. Why?
The stones may help the crocodiles digest their food.
The stones may help the crocodiles to balance in the water (see ballast).
Crocodiles digest everything they eat, including bones and shells, because their stomachs are so acidic.
Life cycle
Female crocodiles lay eggs (about 9 to 90 eggs) and bury them in the sand.
Little crocs in some species make chirping sounds in their eggs when they are about to hatch. This tells the mother croc to dig them out of the sand nest.
Thanks, I like all the changes; I didn't have any particular ambitions for the page, but yes it was partly in response to there being limited random links which can be provided in the sidebar; yet random pages can be a useful and interesting way of 'touring' Wikiversity. I'd be interested to know if its possible to create random selection from multiple namespaces? -- Jtneill - Talk01:57, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Whose idea was the random redirect (i.e. Special/RandomRedirect)?!! I have an idea for this: find the user who creates the most redirects, and redirect their user page to Special/RandomRedirect. --McCormack06:00, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Anyone who doesn't quite undestand darklama's post: he's using a parser function with a pseudo-random switch between three built-in random namespace-specific functions - i.e. topic, portal and school. Code follows. --McCormack06:00, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
[[Special:Random/{{#switch:{{#expr:{{CURRENTTIMESTAMP}} mod 3}}|0=Topic|1=Portal|2=School}}|which namespace will I goto?]]
A step better would be to proportion these according to the perceived usefulness of the namespace. e.g. one could cause the School namespace to appear less often than the others like this. --McCormack06:00, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
[[Special:Random/{{#switch:{{#expr:{{CURRENTTIMESTAMP}} mod 6}}|0=Topic|1=Portal|2=School|3=Topic|4=Portal|5=Topic}}|which namespace will I goto?]]
Thanks for the example DarkLama and explanation McCormack - that helped a few little lights go off in a dark corner of my brain - aha! Interesting....
... Now what do you think about this Extension:RandomSelection, as a possible way to bring more ways to say display a random gallery of specifically-tagged images or randoms tips, etc. with a learning project page. I realise McCormack's efforts on the Educational Pictures page is a very useful resource; but its a big project. I'm thinking here more towards having some simple ways to help make learning projects more 'dynamic'. I am also interested perhaps down the track in the idea of randomly generated quizzes. What are your thoughts about playing with this on the sandbox server? -- Jtneill - Talk14:01, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The basic problem is: selected content = high quality; random content = low quality. A random link in the sidebar is a piece of fun. For major pages, we need selected content. In other words, the "today's featured project", which currently has 7 members, needs extending substantially, but only with selected content. --McCormack14:16, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It was deleted, because Gbaor put a deletion template on it: {{delete|duplicate of the template ''Wikiversity:Random''}} and no other page except Colloquium referenced it. If it should be restored, please communicate. ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat (try) 15:47, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It was the same as Wikiversity:Random, in case one writes it like {{Wikiversity:Random}} so I used this version on my user page, and marked my template to be speedy deleted. No need for duplicate entries :) --Gbaor16:51, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
New welcome template proposal
I have made two little changes in the current {{Welcome}} template, and now I want to suggest its' use as a default one to welcome new users (after renaming of course). Advantages of {{Welcome proposal}}: (1) No need for "subst:" any more (2) future changes in the welcome template will be visible also on talk pages of users welcomed earlier. --Gbaor11:27, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Alternative 2: Make the same changes in the current welcome template, and update its' usage. --Gbaor12:17, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've tried {{Welcome proposal}} in preview, it seems fine but the only thing which I'm concerned about is where your name appears. Would it be possible to change your name on the template to ~~~~ so that users who uses the template will have there username appearing similar to the standard welcoming templates. Terra18:39, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Gbaor, can you explain how the 'not using subst' works? What if one wanted to transclude without substituting, how would this be done? e.g., I think its used in this way, here Wikiversity (but probably not for much longer). -- Jtneill - Talk23:53, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Gbaor, First thing first, why do you want future changes in the welcome template be effective on the old welcomes? One key reason for substitution is to fix the content so that, for example, if people come back from a long wikibreak, they wouldn't be confused. Hillgentleman|Talk00:51, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I fixed the username thing, now it works like this> {{Welcome proposal|Gbaor}}. It is now more like the previous "subst version". But it still has the advantage of "future changes". More about displaying future changes in the earlier welcomes: The welcome template is already changed, since I made this proposal. But on our talk pages there is the same-good-old-version. Also in the future there could be a major change which helps also to new and old users. Is there a more simple way to tell everybody (also to users, who don't visit colloquium regularly) about this change? I think it could help also to old users to orient them selfs in new features and possibilities on WV after a longer wikibreak. --Gbaor10:06, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Most communities I know, e.g. English wikipedia, Chinese Wikipedia, Meta, etc, prefer substitution, but some people still prefer transclusion. People have discussed it before (see, e.g. w:WP:SUBST), and we may still discuss this. One problem with transclusion is that, you would create a huge job queue for the server whenever you change the template (but that is developers' business, of course). The other problem is that, if you look at the page history of the user talk page, you still only see the latest version of the template and not the archived version of the template. And that would be misleading. Or I may miss an old link which was removed in a revision of the welcome template. Another point for substitution is that the transclusion mechanism {{welcome}} hides the actual wikitext and doesn't help the newcomer hit the ground running. Traditionally wikiversiters use substitution, but there are pros and cons for both. Since it is problematic to use the same template to support substitution and transclusion, we may fork it into a subst version and a transcluded version, let everybody use the one she likes, and sync them from time to time - they need not be exactly the same after all - and each maintained by whoever uses it. Hillgentleman|Talk12:02, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And to help old users come back from a long wikibreak, we may as well send a new welcome message. That would feel warmer in the heart. Hillgentleman|Talk12:11, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Time stamp removed... As you said, there are pros and cons for both alternatives. It all makes sense, as well as my alternative (I hope :). But this is only a proposal, an option. It could be accepted or rejected, all depends on the will of the community. --Gbaor14:28, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
One concern I'd raise with a transclusion approach to welcoming is the just demonstrated incidence in which a vandal inserts a 'pornographic' image into the welcome template. -- Jtneill - Talk14:38, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I believe Category:Political science would be correct. I do not know if we have guidlines for it specifically, but we do have similar guidlines for article names. It seems categories could be looked at as special articles in the category namespace, and therefore, similar naming would be applied. And also, it is my understanding that on Wikipedia Category:Political science would be correct. Additionally, keeping them lowercase makes it easier to automatically link to them using various magic words in templates and what not. --Remi06:47, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I draw your attention to an interesting article in the latest Wikipedia Signpost about Educational content on Wikipedia. I think it provides much for us to discuss. In particular, we might consider how we could work collaboratively with Wikipedia's School and university projects. At least I had not heard of it before. See also:
I had seen this before, but was rather disappointed with the content/quality of some parts. I guess there is a historical reason for the lack of cooperation, but repeating history is for overcoming. --McCormack07:47, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think it is not just School and university project and not just Wikipedia. There are more projects such as this elsewhere, which are a little bit covering missions and themes the same or simillar to Wikiversity. What was bad in this project is, that to much work of students were lost, because, they havent been linked with the righ people who can help them, or they havent been linked to other WM projects (such as Wikiversity) where they could left their work.--Juan16:39, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have grasped a nettle very firmly with my bare hands and analysed the entire portal system, tabularised it with notes and added reform proposals. The community may like to look at the reform proposals and express approval, disapproval or alternative ideas. See portal reform. --McCormack10:49, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Open High School of Utah
David Wiley has announced the official founding of an online school in Utah which will exclusively make use of open educational resources. See announcement. This is a real development - it's the first of its kind anywhere. It also means that Wikiversity's content can play a role in this development - in building relationships, partnerships, spaces, and, of course, content. Cormaggiotalk07:05, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Anyone interested to read and discuss on chat, Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. In this book Bryson describes the natural world around us and how scientists discovered the way this world came into being. It is about the universe, the planet earth and the evolution of life on earth. Bryson tried to reach a large crowd by using a lot of humour and by keeping the text relatively simple. Still, it is a good read also for intellectuals.
I have studied history, so i am not an expert on the natural sciences, which is the main topic in this book. The title of the book says the word history, but it is the history of the natural world. Allthough, the history of scientific knowledge is being told, including the stories of how scientists came to this knowledge.
I propose to read a chapter for every discussion session. There is no need to read the entire text before a discussion. We can discuss the themes and people who didn't read the book can contribute. I will make a special article on this subject when there are enough participants.
The template MediaWiki:Defemailmessage is missing. Apparently, this is a basic element of the "email for teachers" option. Without this, my pages are formatting wrong. Is this a temporary problem?
Example: {{email|user=Robert_Elliott|subject=I also want to use real musicial instruments|text=Email me}}
Someone added MediaWiki:Defemailmessage to the email template, but that's not built in msg for anything so it has no default to use. I've fixed it by removing it. --darklama21:53, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Can you rephrase your question, please? Maybe you can include more background information, because I have no clue, which pages you mean. --Gbaor04:59, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Here comes a crowd of new editors! Alright, let's wait for a few days and I will start doing some post-interview interviews on new editors to see how they got attracted by the interview. OhanaUnitedTalk page17:31, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've noted over the past few months that User:Remi and User:Erkan_Yilmaz are often quite curious about Checkuser actions (and CU-related blocks), and I think it wouldn't be a bad idea to give them the tool so they can see for themselves, as well as probably catching problematic accounts that JWS and I aren't catching (we're both a bit less active on RC patrol than we used to be). While we clearly don't need an entire platoon of Checkusers running around the place, both these users have a long history of doing good for the project, and being very patient even with those who are clearly seeking to try our collective patience. The CU tool gives us a powerful ability to both identify problem-causers, as well as allowing us to avoid "collateral damage" when blocking IPs (since it allows us to check an IP before giving a hard block). --SB_Johnny | talk12:57, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I originally posted: "I just realized (not that I did not know this already) that about all the subpages in the topic namespace are already included in non-subpage pages in the topic namespace, because they are transcluded. This then essentially creates a lot of duplicate content. Then having have "Random topic" button in the sidebar only serves to show this off. Then also subpages have little context. For example some subpages only have a sentence and a couple of usernames (for the "active participant" sections)." It was suggested that the random topic function could be made to not return subpages. I was hoping to build broader consensus on the issue. Does this seem reasonable/desirable? --Remi19:42, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hi! I also tried the "random topic" button with similar experience, your proposal makes sense. On the other side it is quite easy to identify minor subpages this way (for merge?). But the end users are generally not interested in maintance, so I support your proposal. --Gbaor10:38, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Just insert [[es:Usuario:Jtneill]] to your user page. The internal link will be on the left side. The same way like I did on my user page. Otherwise the internal links should be [[:es:Usuario:Jtneill]] which works like this es:Usuario:Jtneill or this Usuario:Jtneill --Gbaor15:23, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That's great Gbaor, thankyou. Now I have some other interwiki interlanguage linking questions on that user page if you get a chance... :) -- Jtneill - Talk15:53, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
@1: when you upload the image to commons it can be accessed by all wikimedia projects
I just tried uploading some material and found out that "Permitted file types are png, gif, jpg, jpeg, xcf, pdf, mid, ogg, svg, djvu." Oh :(. What if I want to upload doc, xls, odt, odp, ods, etc. to share files? -- Jtneill - Talk07:06, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I dont think so bugzilla will help. This is more like political, not technical problem. As all projects of WM, such as Wikiversity should be open and distributed under GFDL or CC-BY-SA licences these file formats would brake it. Such as doc format know to be widely used by MS Word. But on the other hand, I dont thing that jpgs, gifs or pdfs are much more free than Ogg Vorbis and Ogg Theora so maybe he can place it on bugzilla.--Juan16:14, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
.odt etc. are open document formats, but not allowed? Also, what about the scenario where one is teaching about how to use software. e.g. for concept mapping, one of the goals is to show how concept maps can be drawn in different types of software; i was hoping to upload examples in different file formats for participants to work with. Sounds like the sandbox server might be worth trying. -- Jtneill - Talk06:50, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In bugzilla can also be found explanations why something is not permitted, e.g. for OpenDocument file format
Besides: for features/bugs people can give their vote (which can indicate importance): each report has a "Vote for this bug" entry! So either people should vote or write another convincing argument so the developers get brainwashed to do what people want.
ODP would be quite nice too. ODP is open document format presentation file format. I think we could all see the benefits to that. --Remi18:49, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, how about asking them? File a bug report. Until then you could copy the content of the csv file on a page. E.g. upload a (dummy) image/screenshot of the csv and as description add the csv content. Then people could copy+paste the description text. But I guess that would be too uncomfortable and probably too much effort (also line breaks would be needed) ? ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat (try) PS: Tag a learning project with completion status !! 06:21, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
How can an image link to a page?
Ho can an image be made to link to a page (instead of to the image's page)? e.g., [[User:Jtneill|[[Image:Lightbulb.png]]]]
gives [[User:Jtneill|]] -- Jtneill - Talk04:24, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, yes, an image can link to a page, because the French wanted this. But I'd really recommend you don't do this, because the wikimedia convention is that an image always links to its licencing page. It's a critical contribution of Wikimedia to the world that it has great transparency of media permissions. --McCormack04:41, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Completion status: This resource is considered complete by its creator, but feel welcome to improve it!
9 out of 10 readers find this resource useful. You can help to improve it or suggest improvements on the talk page.
I've been having a very interesting discussion with McCormack on IRC - but I wanted to bring it into wider discussion. It seems that these templates represent different paradigms of working. For example, if we label something as "complete" - are we saying that it should not be edited any more? How does this align with the wiki way? I've forked this template by creating a "ready for use" template, indicating an alternative way of seeing this. Both templates could exist side by side, or we could decide on a single wording that reflects the nature of the resource, and the way that we work. I've also added "incomplete" to this discussion, as this is a different paradigm again - in which the resource (and its knowledge) is seen as in a permanent state of becoming. But I'm interested in what others think about these templates, and how useful they can be. Cormaggiotalk10:22, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please note that the templates have deliberately been constructed so that individual users can override the default wording in each of them and adapt them to their own educational philosophy. I've added some further examples. --McCormack10:31, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think templates that try to measure how incomplete or complete a page is are unhelpful and discourage contributions. I think it would be better to measure things like how useful a page is while encouraging people to either improve pages themselves or to leave constructive criticisms on the talk page for other people to use as a means of improving pages. --darklama13:05, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't feel these templates are as useful as they are intended to be...It makes things look pretty, that's for sure, but it's continuing a trend of making pages cluttered with MediaWiki code. --HappyCamper23:50, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I do like "ready to use". Perhaps in some circumstances "complete" may be appropriate. I cannot think creatively enough at this moment to think of any though. As for how neat or messy pages may be. If there is just some a small set of squiggly brackets in the markup page, it does not seem that that would contribute to too much disorganization. Using "subst" could risk a mess though. All the pages in the template namespace that use transclusions liberally that does seem to create a mess. So do all the pages that use a bunch of CSS and fancy formatting right on the page! Ah. --Remi05:39, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I had a think about wording, and decided that personally I like Cormaggio's wording more than mine. However I know there are also people who like my wording. I'll be updating the project box page in question to offer all alternatives. --McCormack06:41, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Good idea, but I dont like the pictures, I dont understand some of them, which means it is too difficult.--Juan09:42, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"Completely" missing the point Refocussing on what's really going on here
The pun is intended. Sorry. Couldn't resist. Anyway, I think some people are just looking at these templates and judging them by what they look like, which is, actually, missing the point. They can all be modified in individual cases with new wording and icons, so the appearance is actually rather irrelevant. So what's the point? Well, the point is this. (Actually, three points.) (1) A few days ago I managed to re-categorise about 1177 stub pages into about a dozen or so useful sub-categories in under 3 minutes. How? Because those pages already had a template embedded in them, so I was able to retrospectively apply a complex parser function and introduce organisation where before there had been little or none. Of course, this was just beginner stuff, and the principle could be taken much further into the mysterious jungle of several thousand further "lost" resources on Wikiversity. The general principle is this: if a group of pages have an embedded template in them, then one can retrospectively apply useful things to them which help improve organisation. Project boxes are really just "bait" (as in fishing) - they are a way to encourage people to stick templates on their pages which can be useful now or later for hidden organisational functions. If you don't like them, don't use them and watch your learning resources disappear into the mist. (2) A few days ago, I asked myself a rather obvious question: how many complete/ready-to-use/usable learning resources are there on Wikiversity? I think User:OhanaUnited was asking something similar, and I'm sure that a lot of other wiki-projects, the Wikimedia Foundation, and 10's of 1000's of Wikiversity visitors, are also asking the same rather obvious question. So how many are there? Well, as a seasoned and very active Wikiversitarian, I think I could name 10 ready-to-use resources straight away and another 10 or so if I had some time to look around. Quite frankly, that's pathetic. Is the problem that we have some good resources but nobody knows where they are? Or is the problem that Wikiversity is the ultimate home of permanent incompletion, of interest only to anti-structuralist revivalists, where any "complete" or "ready" resource is deleted or side-lined in the name of political correctness? (Well, neither, quite). I think if people want to label their resources as "ready" (or whatever), they shouldn't be subjected to a ban on this, nor should they feel disapproved of. Equally, those who have dedicated themselves to permanent incompletion should be just as free to label themselves as such, or refuse all labelling - but please don't push your views onto others. This is a wiki, and new self-organisational structures should be allowed to emerge as the wiki grows. (3) Somewhere down the line, metadata sharing with partners is going to become reality, and I have quite a lot of experience with metadata sharing around the OER world. Wikiversity has so far pretty well ignored the rest of the OER world (and been ignored back in return). If we are going to engage, or make engagement possible, we have to start cataloguing what we've got and create metadata structures which allow sifting out resources which are worth reporting to outside projects for their directory listings. NB: Google may be enough for Wikipedia, but for something with the greater structural complexity of Wikiversity, we may need to think beyond Google. --McCormack07:14, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Your first point won't make much difference with regard to these templates if nobody or only a few people wants to use them. As for point 2 and 3, there are other ways to organize content without referring to them as incomplete or complete. I don't have as much problem with a "ready" status if it doesn't imply being complete. The problems with incomplete or complete statuses is that readers might not want to read anything that might be marked as incomplete even if its at a stage where it could be a useful resource, and writers might avoid or be reluctant to improve, expand, or otherwise contribute to resources marked as complete even if there is room for expansion and improvements. I think in the long run incomplete and complete statuses will do a disservice to Wikiversity or any other wiki project that uses them.
Wikinews uses several statuses which I think are more useful than incomplete and complete, which I think would be more useful here:
under development,
requests for comments and
ready for publishing,
I think these are more useful and functional uses of statuses than incomplete and complete, and are closer to how the typical writing cycle works. A resource at any point in time can be under development, ready to receive feedback from learners and other people, and go back into a development phase again. This can easily repeat itself for some time, than get to the point where it could reasonably be ready to be republished outside of Wikiversity by schools or whatever, and than someone comes along finds a way to expand it or improve it some more sending it back into a development and review cycle. --darklama14:24, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to reply (briefly) here. :-) Those statuses that wikinews use are ok, but they seem to reflect the way that a news resource works (i.e. happens and then 'dates' relatively quickly). I'd say that Wikiversity resources would have all three attributes to varying extents at the same time, which depends on the context in which they are to be used (for example, a very basic resource could easily be just what someone needs to turn it into a learning project). So, perhaps we need to describe what types of uses Wikiversity resources will have, and how their development can impact on these uses? This way, we'd have a clearer way to define what is appropriate for a wiki context (particularly a diverse one, such as WV - I never wanted to raise this discussion in the context of telling people what to do or not to do). Cormaggiotalk09:58, 21 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"Pathetic", no. I have stared at the main wikiversity page and am minded that my edu-home has re-organised on the basis of student numbers with labels yet to be determined. The categorisation process on the right of the screen has its benefits but I believe the star of the show which took me a while to stumble on, and appreciate, is that on the left of the screen - ie the film school. Indeed like the Renoir, featured in the middle, the interest is not up front, indeed the two characters are not engaging, but it is the depth of field that the lilies behind create. Teaching how to paint is far harder than seeking the Higgs Boson - currently the largest Learning by doing experiment - where being empathetic, one on one usually, is a serendipitous exploration. So how do you catch attention, what tools can help students refocus from the bebo-lite culture we have gravitated towards. Paulmartin4205:06, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Activity + Promotion
Stephen Downes 'awards' WikiEducator as the best educational wiki supposedly on account of it being the most active. But I had a look at number of edits and new users, etc. and estimate that its about a third as active as WV. Can anyone help point me to how/where we can find some solid facts about WV activity? WE are milking it on their Main Page. No big deal; but it suggests WV could be do better in promoting itself. -- Jtneill - Talk16:34, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well numbers can always be read so and so (never trust a statistic, which you didn't manipulate yourself :-)).
Here some figures only considered for the English Wikiversity (the other Wikiversities not included)
Erkan, I'm sorry, I only just clicked on your figures - I didn't realise they were so "instantly new" and useful; well done. The data is very interesting; do we have say a page for ... ok, so I added the material to Educational wikis#Wikiversity and Wikieducator. I suggest a way forward here is NPOV research, transparent data, etc. -- Jtneill - Talk14:40, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There can be many (not immediately visible) reasons for this (including also this). I encourage you to start a learning project here to uncover - some of - the mysteries of the influence factors. The automatic stats you can find always on my user pages on both projects. Have fun, ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat (try) PS: Tag a learning project with completion status !! 15:48, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
@Jtneill: and do you think that only one criterion for this "award" was just a traffic. I would say, that there could be more criteria, which places WE in front of WV. WV is a mess, but I dont feel that this "mess" is something wrong. I understand it like an experimental phase of the project.--Juan09:46, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Promotion by an unusual way
Yesterday I thought quite a lot about possible ways of advertisement and promotion of WV in the world of Open educational resources . McCormacks comment above namely "Wikiversity has so far pretty well ignored the rest of the OER world (and been ignored back in return)" stuck in my head. Two more things came upon my mind: 1. a politician who stareted his live pre-election television debate naming the good things, which were done by his opponent during his premiership; 2. my own experience with specific sites, which I visit quite regularly, because of the interesting links I found there. So... My idea is this: Let's promote ourselves with promoting other OER resources. This may include heavy interlinking our pages with similar ones on other OERs or even (and this is the main part of my suggestion) on our main page similar to "today's featured project". There is quite a lot free space under "Community" and "Development" for a "selected OER resource" which may circulate on daily/weekly basis.
Pros and cons: One may argue, that we can loose readers, even participants this way, what is surely true. The possibility exists. On the other side we can assume (but not demand) that we get something similar in return from those OERs. Also it would be a bald and I think pleasant move from us towards cooperation between OERs (hopefully will be noticed also by bloggers and others). And the main advantage to the end of this entry: It is the best for the learners, people who came here to educate themselves. --Gbaor06:06, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think this idea couldnt be done. You cant do interwiki linking and external link allready work. On the other hand, I dont think so this have a sense.--Juan09:53, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Minimal requirements
I want to ask, what are the minimal requrements to keep a page at VW for longer time. I am asking it, because there are numerous pages without any content. Shouldn't we delete them, if they are empty for some time (let's say 1-2 months)? In case of need, they can be very easily recreated. --Gbaor10:03, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's a radical idea and one for which I certainly have some sympathy, but it rather goes against the established way of doing things. Rather the opposite: the normal thing at WV seems to be to create or allow creation of any page with anything approaching a reasonable title, and hope that one day someone might expand it. However I think we should be focussing our limited manpower on finding well-developed resources in the haystack and promoting these and more like them, rather than deleting thousands of empty pages. See: Wikiversity:Featured. --McCormack10:34, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Deletion decisions: there are suggested guidelines at Wikiversity:Deletion policy. I advocate the use welcome templates on empty pages. We can treat empty pages an an opportunity to educate Wikiversity visitors about how to edit and participate in the process of content creation. I think decisions about page deletion should be made on a page by page basis (is the page potentially useful? will the page just be created again if it is deleted now?), not on the basis of an arbitrary criterion like a time limit. --JWSchmidt14:24, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I also tend not to delete pages. I see it as a motivation factor for newcomers to build on something existing (even if it is not much). But one side effect can be that people could see this as "blind alleys" and get a negative opinion, see e.g. here (search for "blind alley"). ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat (try) 15:40, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with all of you at some extent: "focussing our limited manpower on finding well-developed resources" (McCormack); "educate Wikiversity visitors about how to edit and participate" "page by page basis deletion decisions" (JWSchmidt); "for newcomers to build on something existing" (Erkan Yilmaz) On the other hand the question is, what will be a reaction of people, who visit WV not to contribute but to read/learn something (our target group). In case they will search for birds, etiquette or applied math basics (the latter has at least few links), they won't be pleased. It could be rather discouraging to them looking further in that topic on WV. We have good resources, yes, but one time we also will have to take care of these pages. Maybe when Wv will be better developed... Two more notes:
1. Shouldn't we vote about and move Wikiversity:Deletion policy among official policies (nearly after two years of its existence)?
2. Talking about good/hidden resources... I have found this page in the school namespace. This tiny looking school holds unbelievable amount of uncategorized, unlinked text worth to browse (I hope it isn't copyvio). --Gbaor06:07, 21 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Gbaor has raised a very good point here which I hadn't thought about before - namely, that if there is an empty "birds" page, and a visitor does a search on "birds", they will, of course, end up on the empty page and not be pleased. Moreover, the empty birds page prevents the search from defaulting to a text-content search with a listing of pages by relevance. This is probably the best possible argument against hosting a few thousand stubs. On the other hand: the new version of the welcome-and-expand template has a lot more helpful content than it used to - and specifically the ability to run a search across 8 different sister projects. --McCormack06:30, 21 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
From above: "It could be rather discouraging to them" to find empty/stub pages. <-- 99.999% of Wikiversity remains to be constructed. People should not get past our Main Page without realizing this. To make it clear, we should change the Main Page....maybe put a big banner at the top that says "Under construction, we need your help!" --JWSchmidt07:43, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
@Gbaor: I think this is not a good idea. This is Wikiversity, this is different thinking. Lets leave them in peace, if they are longer time incative and someone needs the page name - he might overwrite it or just kill data and write his own. Also be carefull on deffinition. Inactive project doesnt say that noone use it and study. There are severel types of projects or pages, which - when they are completed - they are ´static´ and they dont need to be eddited more. Also the problem with the page deletion is, that it is an extra operation, because deletion doesnt mean to kill the data - so they still fill the server. Just one difference is that deleted pages are not visible for normal users. So the key how to break people fear from reediting these pages may be don via "McCormack´s" templates.Juan10:00, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Walter, the main guy behind the Wikizine, needs assistance. Mostly writers and info about the projects, from the projects themselves. Projects like... Wikiversity!
If you have some time and want to write a bit about something you like (or an area you'd like to see improved by more contributions), please continue to read:
Helping can by reporting news, especially from non-English wikis. http://report.wikizine.org And by helping actually creating a Wikizine edition http://meta.wikizine.org You find there are the also link to the editors mailing list.
I think that is a good opportunity for the fresh appointed/probationary custodians to learn another tool (Special:Import). There is enough material for all of them :-) Anyone up to the task ? Start reading here: Wikiversity:Import - also pester us in the chat :-) We can do this then also step by step together then. ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat (try) PS: Tag a learning project with completion status !! 15:57, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
YDone I've imported the articles which Mike.lifeguard wanted to be imported, this is my first attempt to import the articles so I hope I've done it correctly. Terra19:10, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thx very much Terra - will check now your importing. Good would also be when importing pages to here that on the place where they are imported from the pages are marked or someone informed, so they can be deleted - will do this now.
A number of pages I tried to import previously wouldn't have been able to import and had a failed import message, which I presume that the page itself might have already have been transfered over here, however though I was wondering what Mike.lifeguard said about the subpages of the Exercises article over on wikibooks saying that he wanted the subpages being transfered over here according to the Special:PrefixIndex page only the main Exercises article was available so I just imported that article as well as the other articles which Mike.lifeguard wanted transfering, I'm pleased that I've done it correctly and will have a look at the updated page of Wikiversity:Import. Terra18:02, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Exercises has no subpages - my bad. Will check the deleted one in a minute. The error Terra encountered is because there are too many revisions to import. There is no hard number, it just fails sometimes :( You can try again (a few times!) and it may work. Another trick is to import only the top revision (which always succeeds) then import all revisions (remember that it will merge histories if there are previously-imported revisions, which is why you much check that the target doesn't exist before importing normally). – Mike.lifeguard | @meta23:42, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
At Wikiversity, people should not move pages because of spelling corrections. (Example: (Move log); 18:10 . . Remi (Talk | contribs) School talk:Music and Dance moved to School talk:Music and dance (casing).
Moving at Wikiversity does not move a page. It simply creates a second page. This leaves the incorrect page still out there.
There will be many reasons to change page names as Wikiversity continues to grow. A single change is no problem but many pages (such as this one) are receiving multiple name changes. Then things get messy.
Currently, the programming at Wikiversity is not designed for a school which is always growing. Therefore, we have to start thinking about a better system which will allow for a name change without creating a redirect. Robert Elliott21:23, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That would break links, and an automatic way to update links to a page will probably never be implemented in core software. Unless you convince a developer that you want to run a bot 24/7 to bypass redirects and they should therefore allow configuration such that redirects are not created, this is going nowhere fast. I'm not sure you understand the implications of not having the redirect.
Note that the English Wikipedia has not failed yet due to creating redirects every time a page is moved, and they have grown far more than Wikiversity has. – Mike.lifeguard | @meta23:38, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Alternatively, if double and triple (or more) redirects would not create hard stops, and would instead describe the path that the redirect took, this would allow for changes to be made without causing disruption in the flow of the user experience. But no one wants (I assume) hard stops caused by anything more than a single redirect. -Remi00:23, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Just thought I'd point out two major points on moving and redirects:
The reason for moving a page is to keep the page's revisions history - copying and pasting a page's content to a new page loses all the context of a page's development. So moving pages is most definitely good practice.
The reason for having a redirect in place after a page-move is so that links to the page are not broken. A "better system" as proposed by Robert would have to automatically change all links at the same time as changing the page's url - or follow Mike.lifeguard's proposal for a bot that ignores redirects.
Personally, I don't see a problem with current practice/technology - there's nothing wrong with redirects (provided they are kept relatively tight - not getting into double/triple redirects). Cormaggiotalk16:25, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Long past that state...
I am trying to develop traditional courses at Wikiversity. This is a huge experiment. Not all my experimentation is correct.
Often, I design a page which turns out not exactly what I want and I need to change its purpose and name. My preference is to change the file name to make my changes clearer. But currently, I refrain from making these page name corrections because it will cause a redirect. Even with self restraint, I am far beyond simple redirects. If I made all the corrections that I need, I would be about six or seven redirects deep.
Contrary to what everyone thinks, the system does not handle redirects well. It frequently burps and does not follow all the redirects. Occasionally, I see the wrong pages... which the next time I select the page, I see the correct page.
Is there perhaps a more fundamental issue in developing a naming scheme for pages within a certain structure - in this case, a "traditional course"? If you had a scheme, would that help? Or is that just in fundamental contradiction with the experimental nature of the process? Would it help to devote a page to your naming scheme(s) and experiences? (Eg. Filmmaking/Naming scheme?) Your course, being by far the most developed course on Wikiversity, could be a case study we could all learn from. Cormaggiotalk23:54, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Reply on June 3
I posted my naming scheme about 6 months ago. At that time, everyone thought it was too complicated but as courses are developing, it might be the correct solution. ( I will try to find it again.)
Still, because of the experimental nature of the courses, the naming scheme hierarchy is still changing. Note: It will change even more to allow for automated student assignment posting if I can find someone to do the basic programming. See below. Robert Elliott18:38, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oh I absolutely have to agree with Robert Elliot here... I've seen a lot of page moving lately moving things to "non-capped second/third/etc. words" lately, often with the edit comment "naming convention". Keep in mind that this is not wikipedia, and search oesn't work in subpaged projects no matter how you configure things. This is a case of the "maintenance people" getting in the way of the content creators, and is (IMO) frankly obnoxious frustating. Categorizing and organizing is an entirely different thing from moving pages around, and moving pages without discussion and careful investigation is quite disruptive. --SB_Johnny | talk00:27, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hi! I am sure that you comment was meant good, and I'd like to react to it in few points. 1., Wikiversity:Naming conventions are here, and although they are just proposed guidelines, I try to adjust the page names according to them; 2., creating content is the most important work here, no doubt. But sometimes "non-capped second/third/etc. words" make big difference. Just compare Category:Interdisciplinary Studies and Category:Interdisciplinary studies, Category:Social Sciences and Category:Social sciences and many others (I am working on them, and also on a general solution that will be proposed here). So... Maintenance is needed, sometimes even with pagemoves. Robert: I won't rename/move your pages, if you don't want it now. Just tell me. ;) There is plenty of other work to do... --Gbaor05:47, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, with categories in particular keep in mind that they can be used differently in subpaged projects, and sometimes nearly-duplicate categories can serve a particular function. It's generally worth taking the time to ask whomever is actively putting things into the categories about them before diving in. Also keep in mind that categories might be used in DynamicPageList scripts, so changing a category name can cause unintended damage. --SB_Johnny | talk10:20, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hi John! Than you for this! DynamicPageLists are great! I don't how how, but I will use them. Do you (anybody) know about any particular page/place on WV, where the "DynamicPageList" is used (to identify/modify the categories there)? Certainly I don't want to cause any damage to anybody. Still I think we should unify the category system (upper-lower cases) while often there is no connection between the 2 cats. See the examples above and many other in Special:Categories. "to ask whomever is actively putting things" -quite hard to follow if you aren't online 24 hours a day, while there is no record of this in category pages, but I will give it a try. (Music and video - Robert Elliott; psychology - Jtneill -- anybody else?) --Gbaor06:38, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Robert, I realise this isn't necessarily the solution you're after, but would it help if you were able to delete pages (that way you could tidy up your own double-redirects, etc. after pages get moved (rightly or wrongly by yourself or others). I can personally say that in setting up less complex content with subpages, I've found the need to do quite a bit of moving/deleting of subpages in order to evolve/refine the structure. -- Jtneill - Talk22:32, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Reply
A new MOVE PAGE function should correct all links to the page. Just deleting pages will not correct the links. Changing the links manually will be a problem on popular pages. Robert Elliott10:19, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There's several double-redirect cleanup bots running on en.wikipedia. User:MetsBot and User:RussBot come quickly to mind. I'm pretty sure that they wouldn't mind running an instance of their bots here, as the modifications to the code would be minimal. Titoxd(?!?)05:09, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Titoxd! Those bot pages just mention double redirects and no higher mutliples (ie triple, quadruple redirects). I've asked on their 'owner's' pages if either can be used for more complex redirects, and whether it would be possible to modify them for Wikiversity. Cormaggiotalk10:02, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
See a video of Gustav, the Giant Crocodile of Burundi (9 minutes; warning: fascinating, but may be scary; parental guidance recommended; contains some subtitles)
Listen to the call of a baby crocodile (3 seconds).
Video of Nile crocodiles being born and starting their life (National Geographic; 3 minutes)
lama 19:11, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
]] -- Jtneill - Talk 04:24, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
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Done I've imported the articles which Mike.lifeguard wanted to be imported, this is my first attempt to import the articles so I hope I've done it correctly. Terra 19:10, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
