Wikiversity:Colloquium/archives/May 2017

Voting has begun in 2017 Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees elections

This is a message from the Wikimedia Foundation Elections Committee. Translations are available.

Voting has begun for eligible voters in the 2017 elections for the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees.

The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees is the ultimate governing authority of the Wikimedia Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization registered in the United States. The Wikimedia Foundation manages many diverse projects such as Wikipedia and Commons.

The voting phase lasts from 00:00 UTC May 1 to 23:59 UTC May 14. Click here to vote. More information on the candidates and the elections can be found on the 2017 Board of Trustees election page on Meta-Wiki.

On behalf of the Elections Committee,
Katie Chan, Chair, Wikimedia Foundation Elections Committee
Joe Sutherland, Community Advocate, Wikimedia Foundation

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19:14, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Beta Feature Two Column Edit Conflict View

From May 9, the Two Column Edit Conflict View will be available as a beta feature on all wikis. The Two Column Edit Conflict View is a new interface for the edit conflict resolution page. It highlights differences between the editor's and the conflicting changes to make it easy to copy and paste pieces of the text and resolve the conflict. The feature fulfils a request for a more user-friendly edit conflict resolution from the German Community’s Technical Wishlist. Everyone is invited to test the feature and we hope that it will serve you well!

Birgit Müller (WMDE) 14:29, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Question about using Wikiversity

So I've been trying to find ways to get students in class to collaborate, and to get more materials online and freely accessible. After setting up several servers running mediawiki (with varying degrees of success), I began to realize that the best thing to do was to just add content directly to mediawiki itself. (It's far easier to merge/split pages than trying to move entire databases.) I'm trying to get other students comfortable with the concept of using a wiki. So, Here's an example, and a question:

Example:

• Mathematics Class, Discrete Mathematics.
• To benefit the class: A temporary area to add content relevant to the class (doesn't need to be protected in any way, but needs to be started from scratch.)
• To benefit the rest of the world: Categorized (or split apart into the individual subjects) - this could happen after the class ends.

Is this the sort of thing that Wikiversity is already doing? Personally, I don't mind doing categorization and integrating material into the rest of wikiversity, but there would need to be a temporary "blank canvas" in order to benefit other students (and not confuse/overwhelm them). Anybody have thoughts on this? Popcrate (discuss • contribs) 10:02, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

Wikiversity hosts a fair number of courses for colleges and universities from around the world. I'd suggest coordinating your efforts with @Dave Braunschweig:. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 11:58, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

Welcome! Regarding student collaboration efforts using Wikiversity, start with Collaborative Learning. There are a variety of successful models. You can develop templates and have the students fill in the details, you can do part of the work, have them do some, and then you clean up, or you can have them do everything. You can also choose to have them work in teams, or individually toward a collaborative product. It has as much to do with how you envision being able to support the students as anything else. If you believe in it, it will work.

You are welcome to start from scratch if you wish. See Editing Internet Texts for a current example of how this could be set up. But, if Discrete Mathematics is the subject, I would encourage you to adopt Discrete mathematics or rename it to Discrete Mathematics and make it your own. There's very little effective content there, so there's not much need to create something else instead. Just clean it up and dive in.

Regarding the overall concept of having students develop OER, there was a presentation in March on replacing textbooks with OER and engaging students in content development through Illinois (US) Community Colleges Online. The recorded session and others are available at ilcco.net. After reviewing some of the available resources, let us know what additional questions you have.

Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 13:39, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

@Dave Braunschweig: Thanks for the great response (possibly one of the best responses I have received on MediaWiki in awhile)! I really enjoyed reading through Collaborative Learning, (also the layout was very approachable and easy to navigate) <- something I RARELY find myself saying on Wikipedia. If you're interested, I found a link from Discrete mathematics to Introductory_Discrete_Mathematics_for_Computer_Science, which actually looks somewhat similar to what I had in mind. Thanks for the great info!

On a slightly unrelated note... I Personally think Wikiversity has a lot of potential, due to the connection to Wikipedia + ability to use in real courses + more freedom to have one's own space. Since I'm new, I will offer my perspective of what I first saw when I looked at Wikiversity (this can be taken with a grain of salt, but I can only have a "first time perspective" once, so I might as well record it. It may or may not be valuable.)

• I couldn't really tell what Wikiversity was at first sight, and I mainly just interpreted the words "Wiki" + "University" and imagined what that meant. =)
• I was not aware of this:
  "we are open to new ideas about the use of the Mediawiki environment for learning and Research."
  (which is on Wikiversity:Main_Page under 'development')
• Everything is a bit disorganized (now I understand why)

Of course, now that you have shown me some of these examples, I have begun to dug a bit deeper into wikiversity and think about the potentials... Not only can this be used for teaching courses, but it could result in students/researchers being more involved in Wikipedia, purely based on the fact that they will be more experienced with the real MediaWiki. If past/present/future resources were more organized, and/or if there was some peer review going on, MediaWiki as a whole could turn into something even more incredible.

(takes a deep breath) Okay, NOW that I've said all that, How can I get more involved in Wikiversity and/or MetaWiki as a whole? -- Popcrate (discuss • contribs) 20:37, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

@Popcrate: Be bold! If Introductory Discrete Mathematics for Computer Science is similar to what you had in mind, start there. It's been abandoned for seven years, so you're welcome to adopt it and improve it. I'd say it should be renamed to Discrete Mathematics for Computer Science, as people searching for Discrete won't currently find this course unless they do a full search. Start small. Set a simple goal of what you want to accomplish or what you want your students to accomplish. Try it, and then build on your success. Ask questions whenever you have them. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 01:30, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

RevisionSlider

RevisionSlider will be available as a default feature for all users on all wikis from May 17. The RevisionSlider adds a slider view to the diff page so that you can easily move between revisions. The slider view is collapsed by default, and will load by clicking on it. It can also be turned off entirely in the user preferences. RevisionSlider has been a default feature on German, Arabic and Hebrew Wikipedia for 6 months and a beta feature on all wikis for 8 months. The feature fulfills a wish from the German Community’s Technical Wishlist. Thanks to everyone who tested RevisionSlider and gave valuable feedback to improve the feature! We hope that RevisionSlider will continue to serve you well in your work.

Birgit Müller (WMDE) 14:39, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Join the next cycle of Wikimedia movement strategy discussions (underway until June 12)

Message is available for translation on Meta-Wiki

The Wikimedia movement strategy core team and working groups have completed reviewing the more than 1800 thematic statements we received from the first discussion. They have identified 5 themes that were consistent across all the conversations - each with their own set of sub-themes. These are not the final themes, just an initial working draft of the core concepts.

You are invited to join the online and offline discussions taking place on these 5 themes. This round of discussions will take place between now and June 12th. You can discuss as many as you like; we ask you to participate in the ones that are most (or least) important to you.

Here are the five themes, each has a page on Meta-Wiki with more information about the theme and how to participate in that theme's discussion:

• Healthy, Inclusive Communities
• The Augmented Age
• A Truly Global Movement
• The Most Respected Source of Knowledge
• Engaging in the Knowledge Ecosystem

On the movement strategy portal on Meta-Wiki, you can find more information about each of these themes, their discussions, and how to participate.

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21:10, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Start of the 2017 Wikimedia Foundation Funds Dissemination Committee elections

Translations of this message are available on Meta-Wiki.

On behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation Elections Committee, we are pleased to announce that self-nominations are being accepted for the 2017 Wikimedia Foundation Funds Dissemination Committee and Funds Dissemination Committee Ombudsperson elections. Please read the letter from the Wikimedia Foundation calling for candidates at on the 2017 Wikimedia Foundation elections portal.

Funds Dissemination Committee
The Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) makes recommendations about how to allocate Wikimedia movement funds to eligible entities. There are five positions being filled. More information about this role can be found at the FDC elections page.

Funds Dissemination Committee Ombudsperson
The Funds Dissemination Committee Ombudsperson receives complaints and feedback about the FDC process, investigates complaints at the request of the Board of Trustees, and summarizes the investigations and feedback for the Board of Trustees on an annual basis. One position is being filled. More information about this role can be found at the FDC Ombudsperson elections page.

The candidacy submission phase will last until May 28 (23:59 UTC).

We will also be accepting questions to ask the candidates until May 28. You can submit your questions on Meta-Wiki. Once the questions submission period has ended on May 28, the Elections Committee will then collate the questions for the candidates to respond to.

The goal of this process is to fill the five community-selected seats on the Wikimedia Foundation Funds Dissemination Committee and the community-selected ombudsperson. The election results will be used by the Board itself to make the appointments.

The full schedule for the FDC elections is as follows. All dates are inclusive, that is, from the beginning of the first day (UTC) to the end of the last.

• May 15 (00:00 UTC) – May 28 (23:59 UTC) – Nominations
• May 15 – May 28 – Candidates questions submission period
• May 29 – June 2 – Candidates answer questions
• June 3 – June 11 – Voting period
• June 12–14 – Vote checking
• June 15 – Goal date for announcing election results

More information on this year's elections can be found at the 2017 Wikimedia Foundation elections portal.

Please feel free to post a note about the election on your project's village pump. Any questions related to the election can be posted on the talk page on Meta-Wiki, or sent to the election committee's mailing list, board-electionswikimedia.org.

On behalf of the Election Committee,
Katie Chan, Chair, Wikimedia Foundation Elections Committee
Joe Sutherland, Community Advocate, Wikimedia Foundation

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21:06, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Extra "Purge" gadget?

I saw that we already have "Purge" button without clicking the "Add purge tab" option. When I clicked it and then enabled it in the Special:Preferences page, I see an extra "Purge" gadget at the "More" menu, i.e. two "Purge" buttons saying "Purge" each. Why is that? Meanwhile, Wikiversity doesn't have the clock/purge button. --George Ho (discuss • contribs) 02:25, 24 May 2017 (UTC); edited. 02:27, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

@George Ho: Could you please clarify?

I'm confused. I see a "Purge" button that says, "Purge cache". Is this the button to which you refer? Whether yes or no, what does this "purge cache" button do? And if no, to which "purge" button do you refer? Thanks, DavidMCEddy (discuss • contribs) 02:51, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Yes, and the "purge cache" resets the page to the current revision, i.e. most recent revision, of a page, like this one. Hmm... while two "Purge" buttons are similar, one "Purge" button resets and redirects to automatically the current revision while the other "Purge" redirects to the "Purge this page" page with the "OK" button before going to the current revision. Have you enabled the gadget in your Preferences page yet? --George Ho (discuss • contribs) 02:56, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

@George Ho: "Find" on this page finds for me only one "purge" button and other uses of that term in this section.

I can't find "purge" on Special:Preferences, either -- even after I click "More language settings".

I don't understand what any of the "purge" features you describe do, but they sound slightly dangerous. Why would someone want them? DavidMCEddy (discuss • contribs) 11:17, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

It's under "Gadgets" tab and the "Enhance your browsing experience" section. Find "Add purge tab" and you'll see that option. --George Ho (discuss • contribs) 20:59, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Purge for an explanation of the purge option. We had issues with the gadget, so Purge was added to More menu as a Wikiversity-wide setting. This past week, someone with global rights modified the gadget code so that it loads correctly. If you had the gadget enabled, you currently see two Purge options. I haven't had a chance to investigate the differences in the code yet.

Does the community want to have Purge automatically on the menu for everyone, or do we want it only as a gadget enabled by the user? -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 19:19, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

I am neutral (but don't need it personally)--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 20:12, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

It is very rare that I need to purge a page and I've never done it on this project, so I certainly can't imagine needing it. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:24, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

I already started discussing the "Purge" button at meta:‎Tech#"Purge" button in Wikipedia's sister projects. Feel free to comment there. --George Ho (discuss • contribs) 09:34, 26 May 2017 (UTC); edited. 09:36, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

– Actually, that discussion was more about the "Purge" thing in sister projects. Hmm... Somehow here, the extra "Purge" button is gone, leaving the other "Purge" remaining. The kept "Purge" button is the automatic refreshing/reloading of a page. How was it fixed? :S --George Ho (discuss • contribs) 09:47, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

@George Ho: See MediaWiki:Common.js. If Guy and Koavf don't use it, it's clearly a special use tool. I use it all the time for testing templates, modules, category changes, and verifying wiki cleanup. But I can enable the gadget now that it is working again. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 15:01, 26 May 2017 (UTC)