Wikiversity:Requests for Deletion/Archives/16

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Cosmophysics

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redirection apparently accepted, no further action necessary. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 17:47, 17 December 2017 (UTC)}}[reply]

This page does not provide any education value or learning objectives. Perhaps it could be a redirect to Cosmology, which itself just references the Wikipedia Cosmology Portal --Iggynelix (discuss • contribs) 15:09, 29 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Iggynelix: The page has a "Prod" tag, which means the page, Cosmophysics, has until February 27, 2018 to provide educational value/learning objectives. We will wait until the period [of development] has finished, then we will decide if the page is deemed suitable for Wikiversity or should be deleted. Thanks! ---Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 15:21, 29 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Propose Close as redirected. (which I have done). Had Iggnelix simply redirected the page, nobody would have thought twice about it. This page was created in 2012 and was not developed. A user added a physics box to it in August, but showed no intention to develop. As it is, not deleted but merely redirected (I went ahead and redirected it as suggested), any user that wants this specific page could decide to develop it, but there is no sign of such a user existing. As a redirect, it's harmless, but if anyone disagrees, they could put a prod tag on it. Atcovi, Dave dated Iggynelix's prod tag (which should not have been combined with an RfD filing), then removed it, possibly because this was filed. This discussion was unnecessary. Just clean up! Prod tags are easy, redirect is even easier. RfDs involve far more work. They are really only needed if someone disagrees. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 22:56, 29 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Campus Radio/PSA

I had this deleted as author request back in March 2017, Subsequently there was some interest from a contributor on another project. Would it be possible for it to be restored so that the user concerned can comment, or recover some of the ideas? 23:08, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

checkY Done -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 01:42, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Cold fusion

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I'm going to ignore most of what has been written below as off-topic for an RfD and irrelevant to the discussion. (I will acknowledge that there were a few good points made on both sides, however.) I'm going to be Be bold and close with "At times, it may be useful to amend the Wikiversity research guidelines so as to explicitly exclude some types of fringe research if they disrupt Wikiversity or distract the community from its educational mission" as found in our Wikiversity:Research_guidelines/En policy. It is clear that the presence of this project has been drawing disruptive editing and contentious exchanges for years. I agree that in the current state "it is a colossal mess" that can not easily be fixed without a lot of hard work that no one is willing to do. Future work on this topic should more clearly disclose the bias shown in this work and honestly admit the controversy surrounding the topic as our Research Guidlines dictate. Preserving this is just not worth turning Wikiversity into an unproductive battlefield and our staff needs this distraction to stop so we can focus on improving our other resources. Any future work on the topic of Cold Fusion will be subject to pre-approval by a Review board/En. I'm going to hold off on implementing this close for a reasonable amount of time to allow anyone interested to archive the material. The details of what material is subject to this decision will discussed in another forum. I would caution those who request deletion in the future to stick to the merits of the page and follow the instructions in the notebox immediately below. --mikeu talk 02:06, 27 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]


This is not actually an educational resource, it's a POV fork from Wikipedia incorporating content that was rejected there as advocating fringe views. It is the work of user:Abd, who was banned form Wikipedia for events surrounding his advocacy of cold fusion.

user:Abd removed this request as "block evasion". That is incorrect. This IP address is a Virgin media cable address, the blocked IPs are O2 mobile and, for the avoidance of doubt, are not me. I am a user in good standing on multiple Wikimedia projects, including enWP, where Abd is banned (ironically, for block evasion [1]).

Obviously Abd needs to recuse form any action in respect of this article, especially given his off-wiki collusion around the subject. 82.21.88.44 (discuss) 07:09, 21 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Delete it Totally different IP here (I have an en.wp username that I will disclose privately to any admin upon request, but not in public). I just checked that page and found factually inaccurate claims from unreliable sources repeated verbatim in the lead. That's the reddest, flaggiest red flag there is. 74.175.117.2 (discuss) 13:53, 21 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I have responded to the claim of "factually inaccurate claims" on the talk page for that resource [2]. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 23:53, 21 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I advocate Delete - this is really just Abd abusing Wikiversity as a free web host for his rejected version of a Wikipedia article. JzG (discuss • contribs) 14:06, 21 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Creation by alleged sock and revert warring here by that sock is now irrelevant to this discussion, because JzG, a Wikipedia administrator and long-standing user there (with thin contributions here), has commented. The IP votes are not from users with any edit history, except for looking at alleged socking. However, I ask @JzG: how he came to know of the existence of this request, because it's looking like there was some canvassing. JzG was highly involved with conflict re cold fusion on en.wikipedia, and was reprimanded by the Arbitration Committee for his activity there, and he was highly involved with my later ban from Wikipedia. All that is only relevant if an assessment of neutrality becomes necessary.
The cold fusion resource is obviously not a fork, nor is it a "rejected version" from Wikipedia, which would be completely obvious to anyone who reads it. It is organized very differently from an "article." Wikiversity allows content that is not allowed on Wikipedia, and the content here was written for here, almost entirely. I am involved with the facilitation of scientific research on cold fusion, off-wiki, that's true, however, I have disclosed that possible conflict of interest, and involvement with a topic is not contrary to participation in the development of educational resources here. We have professors creating resources on the subjects they teach, professionally. And we have amateurs creating resources and discussing topics they love. We are not Wikipedia.
"POV fork" is a valid argument for deletion (or merge) on Wikipedia, not here. We actually and deliberately create attributed POV forks here, as subpages, if scholars cannot agree on a single mainspace page. It is how we avoid most conflict. Wikipedia is neutral by inclusion, not by exclusion. We are not an encyclopedia.
If there are "factually inaccurate claims" in a top-level mainspace page, not attributed as opinion, w:WP:SOFIXIT. Claiming that such exist, with no specifics, is disruptive. I do not own the resource, many have worked on it. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 22:35, 21 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
This is the first clue I have that this user considers my single email to him through the WMF system "harassing." That email was polite and concerned a matter of apparent concern to him. He replied and we had several mails back and forth. And this is all irrelevant here, but someone is communicating off-wiki to attract people to this RfD whom they think will vote to delete -- with no arguments relevant to Wikiversity deletion policy. Campaign for what? --Abd (discuss • contribs) 23:30, 21 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete I just am not 82.21.88.44. I am the 02 IPS, none have been banned, it is not a static IP. I was on Wikipedia because I noticed Abd has been attacking Wikipedia users on his website. Abd has been posting libel about my IPS saying I am banned user and the other static IP. I am not that user. Abd is abusing the Meta-Wikimedia website, he has filed a false report here claiming "disruption" [3]. Abd was banned on Wikipedia he is now using this website to promote fringe views and attack users on meta-wiki. I am sending an email about Abd to the Wikimedia Foundation and I recommend others do. 82.132.238.67 (discuss) 00:35, 22 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Abd can you also remove the 02 IPS from your 'study' which contains false information about different people. You are using meta-Wiki to attack innocent users. [4] 82.132.238.67 (discuss) 00:45, 22 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
This is not the place to discuss a complex issue not related to keep/delete. My talk page here is open, and any autoconfirmed user may edit the LTA study Talk page on meta, or even the study itself. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 08:52, 22 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Seems to be an ongoing war attempting to disfigure Abd and his works. Accounts/IP Addresses showing baseless animosity towards Abd (for example, the repeated slogan: "Abd, a blocked user on en.wikipedia!") seem to show a clear pattern of attacking "Cold Fusion" and, obviously, the editor himself... sidenote: canvassing might be taking place as well off-wiki. The project itself seems to comply with Wikiversity's goal of "devoting to learning resources, learning projects, and research for use in all levels, types, and styles of education from pre-school to university, including professional training and informal learning", and there is no citing in WV policy/official document pages (etc., Wikiversity:What Wikiversity is not) as to how Cold fusion is out of the scope of Wikiversity. The OP's posts of "a POV fork from Wikipedia incorporating content that was rejected there as advocating fringe views" and the mention of Abd's block on en.wikipedia are not strong enough, in my opinion, to satisfy the deletion policies set forth by the Wikiversity community. Thanks and regards, ---Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 00:55, 22 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It's more the other way round. Abd warred for ages to try to refactor en:cold fusion to be more flattering to the cold fusionists' worldview, and failed, tot he point of being banned. So he brought it here as a POV-fork, and then set about off-wiki stalking of those he holds responsible for suppressing this peerless truth. Citizendium had much the same problem with rebuffed "experts" writing articles that were a reflection of their beliefs rather than reality, including, again, people banned from enWP for POV-pushing (e.g. Dana Ullman, a well-known homeopathy shill). JzG (discuss • contribs) 00:04, 23 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
* I'd like to ask why IP 82.132.238.67 was not added to Meta Checkuser request? --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 20:28, 22 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
* Might as well add IP 82.132.223.81 to Meta Checkuser request? --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 21:59, 22 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I would have speedy closed this as LTA disruption, though I don't have the rights to do so. Hopefully we can get Dave to come in and stop this mayhem? ---Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 21:23, 22 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I initiated it, I am not "Anglo Pyramidologist". I have posted to that effect on Abd's request for a global block at meta. As I stated there, I am a user in good standing on multiple WMF wikis, banned from none. I emailed the Meta stewards who have been in touch n return. Abd already knew this but chose to start this: [5]. This does not appear to be a good faith request, and it has been closed. 82.21.88.44 (discuss) 01:20, 23 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • comment because I'm not sure of the rules here. As someone who has worked with a lot of religion based content, I've seen quite a few reference books, sometimes recent ones, which include material which has been rejected by what used to be called the hard sciences. To my eyes that is almost expected. I do not know if it is acceptable here. If it is in general not acceptable for a non-POV source, then perhaps it might be acceptable of a POV source. I know of several sources in an old series of religion books "Why I am a..." which are very useful to get material on individual denominational thinking. If this subject is one where the editors here think a POV source of that type might be useful, perhaps it could be clearly made into such a source. If that would not be acceptable here and the current form is also dubiously acceptable, I personally as an outsider who knows nothing about the internal workings here would have no real objections to deletion. John Carter (discuss • contribs) 20:49, 22 December 2017 (UTC)][reply]
82.21 said he is emailing the Wikimedia Foundation. I am doing the same. [6], Abd is attacking users and writing libel saying different people are the same without any evidence. I believe Abd is going to end up globally blocked. I recommend letting the Wikimedia health and safety team deal with this. 82.132.223.81 (discuss) 20:59, 22 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
This IP is through the exact same phone exchange as IP 82.132.238.67! If the checkuser inquiry verifies even one of the IPs involved here is part of the earlier sock puppetry of October 2017, deception of Wikipedia admins, misrepresentation and impersonations, all IPs involved here are likely to be blocked unless evidence is forthcoming that they are victims rather than perpetrators. Please provide such factual cites ASAP to prevent a block or move on. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 22:20, 22 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I have admitted the 02 IPS are me. When I turn my phone on or off or leave for a long time it gives me a new IP. This is well known. I am not socking. 82.21.88.44 is not me, that is a static cable IP. I am not involved in any deception or socking. Abd has filed a checkuser even on 74.175.117.2, this is abuse, the guys over at Meta-wiki are getting tired of Abd filing fake requests. All these are different people in mostly different countries. [7]. As emails have been sent to the wikimedia foundation health and safety team about Abd's behaviour I am sure they will deal with this and may show up here. 82.132.223.81 (discuss) 22:32, 22 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It's not an exchange, it's O2's mobile pool. O2 are one of the largest cellular providers in the UK. JzG (discuss • contribs)
  • Delete this RfD seems to be irremediably broken, focusing on users rather than contents. Apart from authors, editors, sockmasters (brightly supporting the "keep" with their awkward deeds) and everyone else there's a simple relevant factual problem: stuffs like these are completely unacceptable for any Wikiversity, which are not blogs. --Vituzzu (discuss • contribs) 00:46, 23 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The RfD is broken, so put it out of its misery, as I suggested. We do not delete resources because of user misbehavior in an RfD. However, while there is evidence of socking visible, it is all on one side, not "Keep", but "Delete," and it is possibly only a coincidence, that some IP users, SPAs, not Wikiversity users, share IP provider. That is normally handled by templating those votes as SPAs. There is direct evidence of canvassed votes, and all on the Delete side. If this RfD was for the Bliki, I would not care. It's not. Out of 120 pages in the resource, you have picked the most marginal in appearance. Two of them study Wikipedia articles. That has always been considered within scope. Wikiversity allows original research and the expression of opinion, which users from 'pedias often don't understand.--Abd (discuss • contribs) 15:06, 23 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Do socking, blocks and any other stuff change the simple fact those "picked" pages are not simple original research but actually blog post? Also, I don't see how commentaries about Wikipedia's article may be classified as "original research about cold fusion". --Vituzzu (discuss • contribs) 15:47, 23 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Your factual problem is highly relevant. Abd is a cold fusion True Believer. Educational resources should not be written by True Believers in the hope of changing the real world. It's a bit like an article on evolution written by a creationist or an article on climate change written by the Heritage Foundation. JzG (discuss • contribs) 01:16, 26 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Your comment just above directed at Abd is a personal attack! If Mu301 or another bureaucrat or custodian do not block you for personal attacks, and Abd requests it you will be blocked for incivil behavior! Stick to the issues per the alerts at top please! --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 01:32, 26 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I already requested custodian action, and specifically for warning JzG for his comments, and was "sanctioned", apparently for the request, so I'm not asking again. However, incivility damages the atmosphere at Wikiversity and should not require complaint from the target. Rather, it's the other way around. Incivility should be sanctioned immediately (this is normal, and I have been blocked for an appearance of incivility without warning, which was proper in itself, and if an apparent target says, no, it's okay, then reverse the action (warning or sanction like block).
On the subject, "believer" is not a disqualification for creating resources on Wikiversity. Yes, someone religious could create resources on creationism and an atheist could create balancing resources.
"JzG obviously believes I'm one of those "True Believers" (as he has for years, incorrectly). However, my goal in the resource here has been to study the topic (hence many unfinished resources that someone else could finish or expand, learning in the process as I did creating them, this would never be allowed in polemic).
As to changing the real world, using Wikiversity for that would be a waste of time. I have instead acted, in that "real world," to identify necessary scientific research, as recommended by both U.S. Department of Energy reviews (1989 and 2004) and to support funding, which effort raised $16 million dollars for work under way at Texas Tech under the supervision of Robert Duncan. (My paper suggesting this was published under peer review in a mainstream peer-reviewed journal.) That's how one transforms the real world, not by "promotion" on Wikiversity, where I get a small fraction of the page views I get elsewhere, and where I am not funded, being only a volunteer here.
I am glad to know that canvassing is not prohibited on Wikiversity. Useful. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 17:03, 26 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - nuclear fusion can occur at any temperature at which thermalized neutrons are absorbed into light element nuclei. The resource Cold fusion discusses and educates about specific and controversial experiments in an effort to produce controlled fusion at low temperatures. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 10:33, 23 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    The problem has nothing to do with cold fusion theories, the problem are most of current contents being completely out of Wikiversity's scope. There's no point (and, even worse, no realistic chances to find someone interested) in spending months of hard work in trying to get an educative resource out of a personal blog. --Vituzzu (discuss • contribs) 12:16, 23 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No clear scope argument has been presented. First of all, the resource is about 120 pages, linked from the top level page, plus talk pages, which on wikiversity can be part of the resource educational function, they are not merely about "improving the mainspace page* as with the 'pedia projects. I did not create the resource, though I did create most -- not all -- of the page structure. Many others have participated. One of the pages (and only one) is a "bliki," a wiki blog, on cold fusion topics. I'd forgotten about it.
I have an outside blog (http://colfusioncommunity.net) and my expenses there are funded, but the Wikiversity work has been created as a learning project with a mind toward neutrality and behavioral policy, and if some edit violated policy there, it was years ago and this is the first time it has been claimed, though still with no specifics. The argument seems to be that the expression of original research and personal opinion on a topic is "out of scope." It has never been so considered, though there have been failed deletion efforts, which have become rare. When personal opinion is expressed in a top-level resource, we have often forked it, moving the opinion to a subpage (or sometimes to user space). We don't delete it, unless there is simply no educational purpose. Discussion, including discussion of opinion is highly educational.
It has always been the case that any scholar thinking a page improper could tag it for deletion or edit it, even blanking it, replacing it with proper content or just a claim the page is an irrecoverable mess. The problem can then be fixed. We have nondisruptive process for cleaning up the wiki. We have kept, often, pages that are practically incomprehensible. It takes time, and users who want to save their work have plenty of time. It doesn't look like it (one page was nominated), but this is actually a massive deletion request, attacking years of work by many, striking at the heart of Wikiversity academic freedom. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 15:06, 23 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see any learning resource, just many blog posts and I cannot find a single line in Wikiversity's policies allowing such this usage of this webspace. Since most of these posts are yours it's obvious you'll consider them as an educative resource of general interest, but avoiding COI also implies the need of 3rd-party opinions about similar issues. We're dealing with really trivial matters but it's important to clarify Wikiversities aren't blogs. Finally "We have kept, often, pages that are practically incomprehensible" is right in comparing these contents to "pages that are practically incomprehensible", but two mistakes never did a right as the socking mess is clearly showing. --Vituzzu (discuss • contribs) 15:49, 23 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Marshall. There was an academically-published book, about 1992, "Cold Fusion: Scientific Fiasco of the Century." So, we have a major set of claimed results, an historical event where it's been claimed half the U.S. discretionary research budget was being spent on replication efforts, yet only a relatively brief Wikipedia article? Which doesn't make space for much of what is in that book (which is reliable source, though opinionated) and information in many reviews in mainstream peer-reviewed journals, again reliable source, has been quite actively excluded from Wikipedia. Can we discuss all this on Wikiversity? There is a list of Recent Sources that is part of the resource. Is that out of scope? We need to know, so we don't keep wasting time. But the answer has always been yes, we can, following procedures that maintain site neutrality. The same attack was mounted recently, with similar arguments, on Parapsychology, which eventually was restored after deletion.
That recent sources page is not attributed and thus must be neutral. Is this not neutral, or out of scope? The study there would be relevant for any university course covering the field, and doing the work suggested (linking to available copies, which exist for many of the papers), and searching for replies in journals) would be educational, "learning by doing," which is a major goal for Wikiversity from the beginning.
Cold fusion itself is defined in the resource. What you describe, neutron activation or transmutation, is technically cold fusion, in my view, but is not what is being covered. (There is a theory, Widom-Larsen theory, which essentially claims that, and which then has the problem of understanding how the neutrons could be formed. The theory is not widely accepted, but has been acceptable to some because it is "not fusion," which is a semantic trick. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 16:28, 23 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Larger issue -- The nexus of this "resource" was content that is developed rather cynically (IMHO) to avoid the strict content rules of Wikipedia. The story over there was that about seven or eight years ago, astonishing claims about the viability of the cold fusion enterprise had been introduced into articlespace together with a toning down or eliminating the mainstream understanding of the subject. This resulted in arbitration rulings and judgments which dislodged many of the cold fusion proponents from Wikipedia and provided for a revamping of the content there much to the chagrin of those lead contributors who proceeded to create the Wikiversity "resource". In spite of these true believers' protestations to the contrary, cold fusion is not taken more seriously now than before, and the lipstick-on-a-pig attempts to claim that there is evidence that the excess heat can be used at scale to solve the energy needs of the world stray dangerously into the "free energy" claims of perpetual motion enthusiasts. This is not to say that a cold fusion resource cannot be developed to study cold fusion as a cultural, sociological, or even scientific phenomenon, but the current incarnation here is manifestly not an academic treatment and short of a total overhaul of the pages, it is not going to become such a resource. Instead, the current incarnation brings the Wikiversity project somewhat into disrepute as it seems to indicate that this project is a safe haven for obscurantist claims about the magic of deuterated platinum-group metals in electrolytic cells. If Wikiversity wants to have a resource on cold fusion, it needs to find people who can properly contextualize the subject to make the resource actually usable and not a laughingstock. As it is right now, I steer my colleagues away from this site and use this resource as a textbook example for why they should not be involved with this project. As an act of good faith, deleting this "resource" would cause me to reconsider my stance at the very least, though I note that you have similar issues with parapsychology. ජපස (discuss • contribs) 17:23, 26 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Wikiversity has a neutrality policy, and allegedly imbalance resources can be balanced in a relatively few minutes, using tools available here and not available on Wikipedia. It does complicate the resource slightly, it would involve moving a hundred pages or more, and I have not done it, because to make it more than useless would require at least one user taking a contrary position and being willing to be responsible for developing it (which would involve coming to consensus to keep top-level material and move the rest to an attributed "section.") That user has never appeared. Wikiversity is not going to "find people." This is a wiki and that is not how wikis work. However, the User With the Unpronounceable Name could volunteer.
He is, relatively speaking, an expert on what might be called Cold Fusion Skepticism. He gets his way on Wikipedia, I get my way being published in a peer-reviewed journal -- and funded as a journalist. Wikiversity is a side-project for me, not crucial.
Expanding that resource -- it was created three years before I edited it -- was very useful to me, in my own learning process, though. Cold fusion is well-known as something not understood, but that has a possibility of being a major energy resource, and that is a unanimous conclusion from the U.S. DoE reviews, and is the position found in mainstream peer-reviewed journals over the last dozen years. Possibility. Not proven, the research is difficult and there no satisfactory theory of mechanism (but there is a general theory of what it does, which is testable and which has been widely confirmed). In that context, those who want to be skeptical can find reasons to remain so, and skepticism is normal. However, genuine skeptics remain aware that "something not understood" cannot be known to be impossible. And those who care to investigate may do so, and what they find sometimes contradicts knee-jerk impressions or prior opinion.
Parapsychology is analogous in that studying it is allowed on Wikversity, even though there is a major faction on Wikipedia that confuses the study of the paranormal with "belief" in the paranormal -- which many scientists not familiar with the field do -- and that then calls parapsychology, "pseudoscience," when it is actually defined as "the scientific study of claims of the paranormal." It is also analogous in that the resource here has been attacked in the past, and, as well, that I have been criticized (mostly off-wiki) as if my support for that creation indicates that I "believe in" the paranormal. No. I trust scientific process, routinely. I'm not a "believer" in the paranormal, but sometimes there are things I don't understand. On occasion, I find them of high interest! --Abd (discuss • contribs) 18:15, 26 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Parapsychology

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Closure: This resource violates so many of our policies I'm not even sure where to begin. Let's start with the gofundme link that clearly shows that the main contributor is profiting from wikiversity in a clear ethics violation of undisclosed conflict of interest.[8] Even if this COI were disclosed the resource would still be problematic. Wikiversity is simply not an advertising platform for your personal financial gain. Next we'll take into consideration the effort at "refuting" Wikipedia. Our policy considers "Research that threatens or compromises the reputation or public image of the Wikimedia Foundation or its various projects" to be "Unwelcome Research."[9] I'll also second Dave's comment that the presence of this resource is disruptive to the community. I could go on and on with numerous other reasons, but I'm not going to waste the community's time documenting the obvious. This is clearly inappropriate on many levels. In addition to mass deletion of these pages the main contributor is blocked for multiple policy violations that show a long term pattern of cross-wiki abuse. --mikeu talk 17:34, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I was very pleased to see the close offered above for cold fusion. I note that this resource suffers from the exact same problems: (1) content curated entirely by pseudoscience POV-pushers who could not get their preferred poor-quality sourcing reflected in Wikipedia, (2) content copied from en-Wikipedia over here and used to make an alternative encyclopedia entry (3) use of the pages as a dumping ground for unreliable sources that align with a pseudoacademic approach to the subject. The main problems are that this "resource" is actually in contravention to the roles and ideals of this project. ජපස (discuss • contribs) 15:26, 28 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Links would be appreciated for such strong claims. ---Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 14:58, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
A link to the resource is provided. What particular claim do you think requires a link? I think most of my points are rather self-evident. ජපස (discuss • contribs) 18:57, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Claims in bold italic: Content curated entirely by pseudoscience POV-pushers. That's libel, and, at the very least, an ad-hominem argument, and just plain false (particularly when "entirely" is included). The retainability of a resource does not vary with the users who worked on it. I designed the top-level page to be rigorously neutral. From article history, users who have edited Parapsychology:
  • Abd. I started the article to facilitate the neutral study of parapsychology. See the first version, 15:39, 24 May 2014‎
  • DeanRadin. This is w:Dean Radin, obviously a notable parapsychologist, thus an expert. Criticism of Radin exists, as can be seen in the Wikipedia article. Criticism is part of science. "pseudoscience POV-pusher" is not science, it is social opinion and a deep insult to any scientist; POV-pusher is a pejorative Wikipedia term. Advocacy of a "point of view" is allowed on Wikiversity unless presented as if "mainstream" without attribution.
  • Ben Steigmann. Real name of a young student interested in studying sources on parapsychology. His subpage, attributed to him, has been the subject of complaints and prior requests for deletion. It was found to be acceptable after full process was followed.
  • Brian Josephson. This is w:Brian Josephson, Nobel Prize winner in physics, with an interest in parapsychology (and that interest has been not uncommon in well-known scientists, who recognize that we do not necessarily understand everything!) Again, he has been criticized, but the nominator here goes far beyond criticism within science.
  • Craig_Weiler. Real name. Wikipedia user in good standing. Notable enough to have a RationalWiki article. (nothing there can be trusted without verification, and evidence pointed to there is often cherry-picked.) Not a scientist, but someone with personal experience of the "paranormal." Which means "unexplained by science."
  • MrRowser edited the resource in 2015. Some of this was accepted, some not. See discussion on the Talk page. MrRowser not pursue further improvement. (This is a global SPA, and has claimed recently, "I am a skeptic who has published a handful of papers debunking psychics." Almost every claim in that linked comment is demonstrably false, but he did "publish" many "papers" on psychics and other targets, on RationalWiki. Not under that name, of course. (The point here is that skeptics have not been excluded.)
  • TreeTrailer edited in 2016. Global SPA making familiar arguments, including personal attacks. See contributions and discussion on Talk. Requested custodian attention from Dave Braunschweig. See Dave's response, with which I fully agreed.
  • Dave Braunschweig, wikiversity custodian (and bureaucrat), addressed concerns. His edit was fully accepted by me.
So the claim of the resource being "curated entirely" by people with some possible point of view is false. That people who hold some opinion about a topic -- or who develop it by study and document that -- might take an interest in a resource is totally normal. Wikiversity is not Wikipedia.
content copied from en-Wikipedia over here and used to make an alternative encyclopedia entry. That is blatantly false. The lede is copied from Wikipedia, as a presumably neutral introduction, that's all. But the resource itself is far larger, and obviously not an encyclopedia entry.
use of the pages as a dumping ground for unreliable sources that align with a pseudoacademic approach to the subject. A study of a subject may include all sources, not just those considered "reliable" by Wikipedia standards. Study of sources is an important part of learning. Sources may be criticized and this was an important and early part of Wikiversity:Scope. "Pseudoacademic" is an opinion, unsupported by sources, and libelous for academics and scientists. The editors who appeared with a "skeptical POV" declined invitations to expand the resource, by providing contrary information and sources, on pages for that purpose. Ben Steigmann actually found a user who had compiled critical sources and included that on his own initiative, as Parapsychology/Sources/WaterPlanet.
The resource is neutral, not an encyclopedia article and the rest of the nomination is irrelevant. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 16:28, 31 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. No reason for deletion under WV:Deletions Deletion policy has been given. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 16:28, 31 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment The only reason necessary for delete would be the same as for Cold Fusion above. "At times, it may be useful to amend the Wikiversity research guidelines so as to explicitly exclude some types of fringe research if they disrupt Wikiversity or distract the community from its educational mission." There is no question that this is fringe research, that its presence disrupts Wikiversity, and that it distracts the community from its educational mission. All engagement in this discussion simply validates that these assertions are true, and further justifies a bold close for deletion. I encourage those arguing for keep to focus comments on how the benefits of keeping the resource supersede the disruption it generates. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 17:24, 31 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete As for content being copied from Wikipedia, yes that has happened. There are copyvio concerns on this page written by Ben Steigmann. He has taken huge chunks of text from Wikipedia page on the paranormal and then inserted his own claims to try and counter claim it. This is confusing and not an educational resource.
  • There is also copyrighted material on is main parapsychology project. A lot. I can cover this later in depth. Steigmann was banned on a bunch of accounts in November, 2017 on Wikipedia for spamming his content on Wikiversity onto Wikipedia articles. He now claims his edits were "censored" [10] directly on his Wikiversity project and he links to archived versions of his edits on the notorious archive website. How can this be acceptable at Wikiversity?
  • I would also add, that Steigmann is making money out of his parapsychology project. So far over 400$. I won't link to this because I respect his privacy but on Facebook Ben Steigmann advertises his parapsychology project on Wikiversity as "refuting" Wikipedia. I don't think this is a good thing for the Wikimedia Foundation. Also Dean Radin article on Wikiversity [11] is the same is what is hosted on his personal website [12]. He is merely using Wikiversity to promote his own website. In total I see no reason why these pages should be kept. They should all be deleted. 82.132.219.173 (discuss) 17:50, 31 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Assignments

Discussions are archived for review purposes. Please start a new discussion to discuss the topic further.

I am not sure whether this list of computer hardware would fit wikkiversity's purpose. C933103 (discuss • contribs) 01:17, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I've looked at the resource. It has been abandoned since 2011. Do you know what this assignment is, or is for? You can attach the template {{Prod}} instead if you prefer. If no one attempts to improve, it will be deleted by a custodian in just over three months. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 02:04, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It looks like Assignments is/was part of a course called "Value chains and new media" offered here by Gwenaëlle Bauvois of Metropolia University of Applied Sciences, Helsinki, Finland. Would you be interested in updating and improving this course? --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 06:57, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I believe they are unrelated, because that assignment in "Value chains and new media" was asking students to write about their experience, while the Assignments article is merely some computer spec sheet that seems to be suitable for doing some particular task according to 2011 standard.C933103 (discuss • contribs) 09:53, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Assignments was a student homework assignment improperly named and improperly positioned. It fit Wikiversity's mission in terms of hosting a learning project, but it doesn't provide value to others. I've moved it back to the user's space, where it came from originally and should have remained. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 15:40, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Assignment

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Speedy delete of unused redirect -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 15:45, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't seems like a good idea to redirect the Assignment page to a page for assignment of a specific course. C933103 (discuss • contribs) 01:17, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

See my comments just above, and Happy New Year! --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 07:01, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@C933103: You are correct. It's not necessary to open a deletion discussion. Just tag resources like this with {{delete|reason}}. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 15:44, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

International Environmental Law

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In this field, there are 2 main issues confronting the individuals who care about the ocean , fish and the mammals. First is the latest opinion from the ICJ on Japan v. Whaling. Japan is not complying with the Court Order which rejects Japan's argument that by killing the whales it is just studying the whales. Most of the Japanese are still eating whale meat every day on the main plates for dinner. Please tell me your arguments in order of importance as to what can be accomplished in this area and how to make it happen (The Japanese have to change their culture and obey the rule of law from the International Court of Justice in Den Haag, The Netherlands. 

The second issue involves China's rejecting of the UNCLOS' Court of Appeal which ruled against China in its expansions of the South China Seas.

Please do not quote anything from U.S. Law due to the fact the U.S. is not a party to UNCLOS.

Question: which specific page are you referring to? --mikeu talk 16:48, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

""Response""" When you ask which pages am I referring to. My response is that I am referring the the Judgment of the ICJ on Whaling. On the second issue I am referring to the complete Appellate Court opinion. If you want me to quote the conclusion, I will not. It is important to read the complete opinion to understand the issue and how these 2 different Courts resolved the Question of Law that was presented to them.

This discussion page is to request the deletion of pages that are hosted at Wikiversity. Are you asking us to delete a page that contains information about the ICJ on Whaling? I don't see any content on our site that fits that description. You are more than welcome to create a new page about this subject. I'm not clear about what you are asking us to do. --mikeu talk 17:22, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Mu301: We have a link at the top of all pages currently inviting users to discuss and request main page lectures. I believe this is a proposal to create one. Perhaps the notice should be more clear. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 17:25, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Ahh, I saw the sitenotice but didn't make that connection. --mikeu talk 17:36, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't make that connection either. Easy fix - drop the word "request", or change to "requests for deletion" - suggestions? --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 22:41, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Cold fusion

Cold fusion

Parapsychology

Parapsychology

Main Page "Lectures"

Discussions are archived for review purposes. Please start a new discussion to discuss the topic further.
Consensus to create a draft namespace. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 22:30, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There are many stand-alone main page resources at Wikiversity apparently designed and/or designated as lectures. Examples include Sciences, Fringe sciences, Art, History, Humanities, etc. The {{scope}} and quality of these resources is being questioned. Potential solutions are:

  • Keep as is - No changes are necessary. - option removed by consensus
  • Subpage of a main page - Make each current page a subpage of an appropriate main page resource.
  • Subpage of a specific main page - Create a specific main page that all related lecture pages would be moved under.
  • Subpage in user space - Move these lecture pages to the user space of the primary contributor.
  • Blank and replace - Replace the existing content with a new introductory page.
  • Delete - Delete the resource. - option removed by consensus

This list is not meant to be exhaustive either in examples or potential solutions. While it would be possible to discuss each page individually, it seems that a broader initial discussion and direction is necessary first. Please comment and/or vote on how we should proceed. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 18:04, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Initial Discussion

Extended content

Independent of the location in the wikiversity content tree e.g. students subpages belong to that category. These pages can be in the category "work in progress" should be marked as those e.g. with new "Student page" Logo. In this case "Student Page" markers can attract more guidance of more experienced wikiversity authors, e.g by adding learning tasks that addresses the needs for improvement in the Student work. So the content development becomes part of the learning process and it is visible that this is "work in progress" and needs perhaps some guidance. --Bert Niehaus (discuss • contribs) 12:46, 4 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think Keep as is is a poor choice. I like the idea of using subspaces of the specific main page. But that doesn't solve the real problem, which is all the time and effort this community wastes on discussing these things. I have a rather complicated proposal, which will probably get lost in the kilobytes of text that are likely to placed under this thread. My proposal is "half-baked", so I will place it under my own userspace right now under user:Guy vandegrift/Making Wikiversity less chaotic--20:13, 1 January 2018 (UTC)
I've read your Arbitration Committee proposal and must respectfully decline its implementation. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 00:22, 2 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for updating sitenotice. --mikeu talk 15:24, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Here's a consensus approved portion of the {{Scope}} proposal discussion: "Templates that target the work of editors for destruction should be used with care. They should not be used as a substitute for first discussing page contents with the editors or fixing something that needs to be fixed. Wikipedia has developed a culture where there is a rush to drop dozens of templates on articles and delete them, without ever discussing the articles with their creators. I do not want to see that culture carried over to Wikiversity. Wikipedia has a very narrow mission: to produce encyclopedia articles. Wikiversity is a much more ambitious project where editors are exploring how to use wiki technology to support learning. If we each assume good faith then we have to open our minds to a very wide range of possible methods and approached to learning. When a page is not doing obvious harm there should be no rush to delete content. Take the time to discuss questionable content with the editors who created it. --JWSchmidt 16:02, 17 December 2006 (UTC)" from here. So, please cite specific examples of "The {{scope}} and quality of these resources is being questioned." Also, discussions start on each resources Discuss page, not this Rfd page. Those of Art and Humanities are uncreated. The History Discuss page shows peer review where the apparent concerns brought up above were not mentioned or discussed. "Encouraging people to see how something could be improved, or the benefits of free content etc, is pretty much always a better option than nerve-twitch deletions. If it's clear that the person isn't listening, or nothing is happening to improve the situation, then we can go ahead with taking measures, like deletion. However, the development of friendly templates, encouraging people to see how they can help, is a good step, I think. Cormaggio talk 08:44, 18 December 2006 (UTC)" from the same scope discussion. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 16:22, 2 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Cross posting from User:Mu301/Learning blog to below. (Some of these comments are not relevant to the pages in question.) I plan to elaborate on this later. --mikeu talk 16:44, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Wikimedia projects are becoming increasingly interconnected. Wikidata assumes that W:cold fusion and V:cold fusion cover the same subject matter and treat the topic in a similar manner. It then cross-links the resources (on numerous multilingual projects) together because they have the same title. Every other project treats this subject as a mainstream physicist would: a research area that has produced few results and is primarily known for a spectacular failure to replicate. Our resource never clearly disclosed that it was original research that treated the topic from a decidedly enthusiastic POV.
The interlinking of dissimilar content becomes especially jarring when you compare W:fringe science and V:fringe science. These pages have nothing in common except the title. Numerous pages here are damaging to the wikimedia foundation's attempt to cross-link similar resources. Even pages like V:plants are damaging to this effort because wikidata incorrectly identifies wikiversity as a site that hosts a learning resource on this topic when we don't. For these reasons I am going to strongly advocate for the deletion of minimal stubs and a policy that "prime" page titles (those found in a library subject classification system) be required to adhere to a neutral point of view and present the material from a mainstream perspective. Minority POV interpretations should not be given such prominence to cross-link to mainstream counterparts at wikipedia and elsewhere. The "prime" titles should treat the subject consistently across the world wide wikiverse as wikidata sssumes. --mikeu talk 07:01, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
For these reasons I feel that it is a poor choice to "keep as is" or "subpages" in mainspace. Please share your thoughts on these considerations. --mikeu talk 16:44, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Here's what I found to be necessary on Wikidata. Rather than choose an exact match to a wikidata item I have to check both the Wikipedia entry, when there is one, and the description, when there is one. Minerals or mineral comes to mind as an example. The earlier description read "naturally occurring non-biological solid". It reads well but it's dead wrong, example: obsidian. Obsidian is a naturally occurring inorganic glass that has the composition of a rock, is amorphous, and physicists consider it a solid, but geologists consider it an extremely viscous liquid, both views are mainstream. Correct answer: "naturally occurring usually inorganic substance that has a (more or less) definite chemical composition and a crystal structure". The latter is now the description and the Wikipedia and Wikiversity, article and lecture, respectively, are listed even though their contents differ. Problem on Wikidata - none! The situations are deliberately different between WMF projects. Are the physicists wrong? Physicists come in two general types: Condensed matter and solid state, with respect to a mineral, so no! Are the geologists wrong? Geologists have to consider much different time scales. To them diamonds and obsidian out of their formation environment are both metastable. Diamond reverts back to graphite usually and obsidian to a rhyolite or granite among other possibilities. The same is true for a general encyclopedia entry or article on astronomy versus a general lecture on astronomy. Note the differences, but here's why they are linked, the description: "natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects". When the description is missing or doesn't line up with the Wikiversity resource, create a new item with the appropriate description. Wikidata mission prefers it. WMF projects differ and they have the numbers available to handle the needed flexibility. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 22:34, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Where will student efforts go? I see three possibilities: (1) user space, (2) subpages of mainspace articles, and (3) create an outside wiki. A few preliminary thoughts:
  1. Userspace is not a bad idea, especially if every article went with category such as category:History/student efforts.
  2. I lack the understanding of wikidata interconnections to judge the complications that would arise from using subpages, but if wikidata were not a complication, I still think subpages is the simplest way to go. For one thing, we could use Template:Subpages to keep track of things.
  3. I am intrigued about creation of another wiki (or collaborating with the folks at Miraheze) because we really do need a non-commercial place for researchers and students to write in private before publishing the material (under Collective Commons if possible).--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 21:36, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The French Wikiversity has a Research: namespace. We discussed that approach but didn't make progress on it. Wikipedia has a Draft: namespace. Draft: is more generic, and easier for others to understand. User space works for individual efforts. Team efforts either need subpages or a separate namespace. I think any approach taken should be as simple as possible for all to understand, implement, and manage.
I'll also mention Flagged Revisions. That's definitely not simple and easy to understand, but Wikibooks uses it to effectively manage their main space.
I appreciate Guy's interest in private wikis, but I'm not sure that's a problem we need to solve. There are plenty of free private wiki and course management systems already available.
Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 22:14, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Dave Braunschweig: please correct me if I am wrong, but the only suitable non-commercial private wiki farm I know of is Miraheze. And Miraheze is a shoestring operation that is struggling with almost zero funds. Course management systems are fine, but do they allow "outsiders" to create private wikis? I would love to be proven wrong on this. Every semester I have to wonder if my private wiki farm node at will be available for my next class. Students do perform much better if they have a private wiki. See for example ♣/Final Velocity for a Constant Acceleration. But I agree that my discussion is off-topic on this page. In the future I will use User:Guy_vandegrift/Blog/Making_Wikiversity_less_chaotic--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 22:50, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Suitable would be in the eyes of the beholder. I've used Blackboard, Moodle, Canvas, Google Sites, PBWiki, Wikispaces, Bitbucket, Wikibooks, and Wikiversity. All are free, each has their own advantages. The platform really doesn't seem to matter to students, and with the VisualEditor, it is now possible to take content and easily move it from one platform to another if that becomes desirable or necessary. I currently use Bitbucket for private student work (coding and websites), and Wikiversity and Wikibooks for public student work. Private is used when they are completing identical activities. Public is used when they are addressing similar concepts using separate content. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 22:59, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, didn't address the outsiders and private issue. Yes, see https://www.coursesites.com, https://canvas.instructure.com/register_from_website, and https://moodle.com/cloud/free/ . PBWiki and Wikispaces are also both free if you just want a wiki. Between the two, I preferred Wikispaces, but it's been a couple of years since I used them. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 23:03, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • The same problem exists in Russian Wikiversity, there are a lot of pages which look like a Wikipedia article. I think that these articles should be transformed to be a part of some course in Wikiversity during some time (for example, articles should be transformed during one month). Else they should be deleted.
  • I think that the decision adopted here could be and will be used in other Wikiversities. -- Andrew Krizhanovsky (discuss • contribs) 08:55, 4 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Review

Can we simplify this discussion with a quick consensus vote (with minimal discussion) on two of these options?

Do nothing

Biology discussion
I just personally find it difficult. I wish to add more to Biology--but to me it just seems like a bunch of definitions of Biology-like subjects. I don't need really know where to put my content as my intention is to make it a whole course. ---Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 03:27, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Try starting a temporary userspace page. We can always move it later. I'm sure a few people, myself included if you want, would be willing to take a look and give you some advice and feedback. Sometimes it is easier to create something new, rather than try to force your ideas into a framework created by someone else. I'd be interested in reading your perspective on what a whole coarse of this subject looks like to you. Just a suggestion... otherwise create a draft in Discuss as Marshallsumter said. If you are having difficulty that could be a sign that the merger of dissimilar visions for the topic are incompatible. Trust your instincts and follow the path of least resistance on your learning journey. --mikeu talk 03:50, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Well.. that was the initial plan of making a course--but as you can see, there are several pages about Biology floating around here at Wikiversity. There is a portal, school, high school course, and an unfinished cell biology course (to name a few at the top of my head). It's somewhat of a problem here that we just have several pages on the same topic... and unrelated to this point: there are several courses that are inactive (or probably haven't even started, such as Cell biology). It's very complicated to just easily pick a verdict for a certain page--in this case, Biology--and just make a course out of it when there are probably 5 other pages showcasing the same content. We need thorough research into how many pages are out here that pertain to Biology, and then make a verdict on what is best for the main page.
What I had in mind is, now that I really think about it, to just redirect Biology to other biology-related pages, such as the school and portal. The school provides all the learning projects and courses of biology, while the portal, according to Help:Portal, can "help specific kinds of users find the content they are interested in". It's really just a complicated jumble mess at this stage now. ---Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 16:43, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Actually, the Biology lecture such as it is, is in the Genetics/Course, which the middle of the lecture is a start at so I prefer it not be redirected or put in 'draft' namespace. It might qualify as say Biology/Advanced. Collaboration is fine, but I don't know if anyone else here is interested in a biology lecture from a genetics point of view. Ideally, it is possible to derive the taxonomy of biology genetically. But, if it gets locked or pigeon-holed into 'draft' space, there's no point in continuing. I'll just start from a different lecture title like Genetic taxonomy, for example. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 22:58, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Atcovi: This is going slightly off-topic but I have had a look through some of these pages and propose the following;
  • School:Biology - this should be the coordination page for two core courses: a school-level one called Biology and a university-level one called Advanced Biology?
  • Portal:Biology - another coordination page, although not strictly necessary?
  • Biology - this could become the main school-level resource after more advanced material is moved to Advanced Biology; currently has one subpage
  • Biology (A-Level): unfinished and out of date (2008), this is the UK equivalent to High School Biology; there are three subpages that could be moved under High School Biology
What do you think? Green Giant (discuss • contribs) 20:00, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wow! That's a lot of pages on one topic. I agree with School:Biology aiding in navigation in the way you have displayed, as Biology is not a simple 1-way subject IMO:  Keep. Portal:Biology, I feel serves a role: To represent all Biology pages here at Wikiversity... Featured content, featured article, etc., serves to represent the Biology field that are present here. I believe it is necessary for this reason.  Keep

Biology serves as a "dictionary", you could say--which I don't find very useful on the topic of Biology itself. I don't believe this should be in any "Biology" works, imo. MOVE TO "DRAFT:"

As for: Biology/Quiz--this might be moved to a "Draft" namespace per the votes... it serves as an accomadation to the Biology lecture by Marshall.

Unfinished courses, imo, should be deleted from WV as they serve little-no valuable knowledge. Though, for the ones you've listed--I can give a sketchy view of a few of them:

  1. Introduction_to_biology#Fields_of_Biology - moved to mainspace Biology. Rest are unfinished work--but not everything here is finished! So: {{move|Biology}} under "Topics".
  2. General_Biology/Introduction - not only confusing but also repeated info--check my works on High School Biology in terms of the intro: User:Atcovi/Science/Introduction_to_Science,_Experimental_Design,_and_Graphing - higher quality than General Biology/Introduction. Delete
  3. General_Biology/Animal_Development - same as above, but can't seem to find any other pages dealing with Animal Development... move to userpage possibly? {{move|userpage}}
  4. High School Biology - Course that I'm planning on undertaking... structure is off from how I am studying it though. I agree with moving it into main Biology

Agree with Biology (A-Level) moving to main Biology---although poor quality and not finished (not to mention 10 years out of date!).

Now to finish out the rest:

  1. List of Major Topics and Concepts in Biology to Biology/Topics: Agree
  2. Biology Wikimedia as an appendix for School:Biology: Agree
  3. HHF/Biology but remove the unfinished work. Rather confusing.

This whole process of figuring out the bolts and nails for each topic is rather very tiring and requires extensive research and discussion. This should be discussed in its own separate place. I don't know where this could be, though. BTW, this is only a sketch of these resources. When time permits me, I'll go into more detail with these pages. Not an easy job. Thanks. ---Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 20:42, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This is actually the purpose of the portal talk page. A place where like-minded people can discuss Biology resources. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 20:48, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Dave. Will copy this discussion on Biology and save it on the talk page if Green Giant would like to further discuss this issue on the portal talk page. Though, its still a concern that I feel it was worth mentioning here in this discussion--going into detail was a bit derailing of the thread. ---Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 22:50, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Delete (for good faith efforts)

  • Oppose Delete is too harsh for good faith efforts by cooperative editors. Instead move it into userspace, and perhaps request that they blank it. That permits them to store a permalink of their "mistake" in their userspace for future reference. My understanding is that permalinks are unreachable if the page is deleted. Is that true?--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 00:35, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree for any namespace except userspace per argumentum ad infinitum here, and elsewhere. --mikeu talk 01:27, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral if we adopt Draft: namespace proposal. --mikeu talk 03:23, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

All other options (e.g., move to subspace X)

I cannot evaluate the other options without a better understanding of how editors monitor and navigate these pages. On one hand, it seems simpler to put all discussion underneath the mainspace resource. But on the other hand, how much does it burden a resource to hang too many subpages below it? These seem more like technical issues, but I personally would rather navigate one resource than cross between mainspace pages.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 00:35, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I would oppose sub-pages in any name space (excepting user space.) Main space sub-pages are indexed and searchable just like any other main space (or school &c space) pages. Pages that include multiple repetitions of a search term flood the top of the results effectively burying all our other content. --mikeu talk 01:40, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Well, before I vote on the above I've been seeking to apply Help:Lecture to those above so let's start with Sciences:
  1. In Help:Lecture introduction: "A lecture, unlike an article, is an educational resource which can remain on Wikiversity regardless of its topic." - topic: sciences, or the sciences, in the title.
  2. Context: link to a course: by Special:WhatLinksHere - Sciences/Courses, a design following Geology/Courses to allow students to put together courses of study from sets of lectures, quizzes, lessons, and laboratories.
  3. Call it a lecture using {{lecture}}: this template puts the lecture in the Category:Lectures - by Special:WhatLinksHere, Sciences in Category:History of Sciences/Lectures, Category:Sciences/Lectures and Category:Semantics/Lectures. It's also linked to the School:Philosophy.
  4. Use a subpage for it, e.g., course/subpage, possible as Sciences/Lecture, perhaps redundant and unnecessary.
  5. Avoid the temptation to copy-and-paste from Wikipedia, unless you heavily edit the Wikipedia article to suit your lecture. checkY Done --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 02:16, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
From the initial question, "While it would be possible to discuss each page individually, it seems that a broader initial discussion and direction is necessary first." Please discontinue editing individual pages and then commenting on the edits here. This is a much broader discussion than a few page edits will address. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 02:47, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Is the Wikipedia Draft: namespace approach something that might work here? User space is fine for single-contributor resources, but it doesn't delineate well when there is a collaborative effort to develop content. According to Wikipedia, their Draft: namespace is not Google-indexed. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 02:01, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Given Mikeu's insight that hanging pages under namespace pages confuses the wikidata indexing, then we have no choice but to use a Draft space, although perhaps we should give it a more dignified name, like Project:. A Draft: (or Project:) space would pretty much supercede my /♠ idea, but I had fun making them and clicking through the links let me fantasize about a much better Wikiversity.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 02:32, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I've been entering mainspace pages of nearly all types we have here for several years into wikidata, essentially problem-free, in short, no confusion of wikidata indexing, with help from their experienced custodians and longtime users. If anyone has a question, put it on wikidata:Wikidata:Project chat‎. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 02:53, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Just FYI, Project: is an alias for THE project, meaning it's the same as Wikiversity: here. So that's out. Draft may not be fancy, but it's meaning is clear. It's also not breaking new ground. Wikidata and Google would both know what it means, and the support folks at Phabricator already have a configuration script for it. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 02:38, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Good to know. If mikeu is on board with "Draft" I am 100% on with you. Also, we could create "Drafts" associated with colleges or courses. For example, Draft:XX State College could have many many subpages because there is no reason to wikiindex it. Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 02:42, 5 January 2018 (UTC) Added later: Wikiversity Draft: items don't need to be labeled as harshly as those on Wikipedia. It is possible to change the font size of titles, so that the title would appear as[reply]
Draft:XX State College.
The explanation could be in a small user-box sized statement in the upper right corner, not that garish and humiliating "DRAFT" statement used by Wikipedia. The purpose of this new type of Draft: space is to keep the Wikiversity tradition of allowing novel research and student essays, while also highlighting the resources that are more likely to be used by teachers.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 05:02, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I enthusiastically support a Wikipedia style Draft: namespace. --mikeu talk 03:17, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Draft namespace

I think this is where the voting began (header added later on Jan 11 EST by Guy vandegrift)

Support +1 for "Draft:" -Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 03:21, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I don't feel strongly about this, but I oppose the simultaneous creation of a Research: space and a Draft: space. I am not wikt:per se against a Research: space, but think it is wise that we first see if Draft: is sufficient. Otherwise we will waste time trying to create rules and definitions that decide which resources go into each space. Essentially, all research is in "draft" form until a journal accepts it for publication.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 04:19, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. Let's consider one proposal at a time. I don't see any urgent need to consider Research: at this time. Let's stick to the Draft: discussion for the moment, and revisit the other later. --mikeu talk 05:51, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support OK, let's will be Draft: namespace. -- Andrew Krizhanovsky (discuss • contribs) 11:35, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support a “Draft” namespace. As Dave says, it is quite clear what it’s meant for and we have an existing template that can be adapted. I would also suggest that we adopt the following principles:
  • Draft pages should be noindexed until they have been reviewed and are ready for publishing.
  • I would recommend we use a modified version of the Proofread Extension, which is used at Wikisource, specifically the Proofread/Validate methodology. As non-coder, I haven’t the faintest clue how it could be modified but I don’t think it should be too much of a challenge?
  • If a Draft is left unedited for six months, a notice should be left on the Draft talk page and the initial authors talk page. If there is no response within a month, the Draft should be deleted without further notice.
  • Any copy-and-paste pages from Wikipedia or other wikis should be moved to Draft space until/unless there is sufficient unique development.
hiding inappropriately placed comment by Guy during vote and also response by Green Giant
comment-On both of the two above, is there any harm with being very lenient about what we allow to stay? We should be more like Wikipedia, but not exactly like Wikipedia in regards to this IHMO.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 15:50, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Guy vandegrift: I think it is better to maintain a reasonable distance from Wikipedia because if it gets too close there will be naysayers who will argue for WV to be wound down. Note that I find it very odd that the WP:Education program is hosted at Wikipedia and not Wikiversity, which I think would be its natural home. As far as C&P I was thinking of pages like Rohinton mistry, an almost exact copy of Rohinton Mistry from 2014, abandoned since then and highly unlikely to become a useful WV resource. The problem is that there is no acknowledgement of the WP article (going against the spirit, if not the letter, of CC-BY-SA-3.0). I’m not against importing articles to re-use as a base for new resources but I am against hosting duplicates. As for leniency, I suggested six months but I’m willing to go as far as allowing up to two years between constructive edits, for genuine efforts. Green Giant (discuss • contribs) 00:46, 7 January 2018 (UTC) --- Green Giant Two years is more than enough for me. It would give students plenty of time to move their essays into their WMF userspace--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 02:59, 7 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Drafters should be encouraged to use free-licensed or public domain images where possible but we should permit limited numbers of fair use images where absolutely necessary.
  • Userspace should not be used for drafts but using subpages for brainstorming and other related activities would be fine.
hiding another discussion between Guy vandegrift and Green Giant that confuses the question of who made this vote
comment-Drafts in user space should be permitted if outside collaboration is not desired--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 15:50, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I’m not totally against the idea of developing something like this on an interim basis but if you don’t want collaboration, that seems to go against the grain of Wikiversity. I am concerned that such userspace activities might end up treating WV as a webhost (somewhat akin to c:COM:NOTHOST, although I appreciate other wikis ideas don’t always apply here). Green Giant (discuss • contribs) 00:46, 7 January 2018 (UTC).[reply]
@Green Giant: I wish I knew more about WMF policies in this regard. What I do know (believe) is that any wiki devoted to education needs to be not only a webhost for students' (so-called) "bad" writing, but also be capable of allowing students to write "in secret". I understand why the WMF might be reluctant to permit such activities, but would a collaboration with Miraheze be possible? If the folks at Miraheze are being honest with me, they want to be a non-profit dedicated to serving exactly these two needs ("webhosting" and "secrecy"). Is there a way to ascertain whether WMF is willing to change these policies? If not, is there a way to establish a collaboration between Wikiversity and Miraheze? P.S. It has been pointed out that many websites can provide both webhosting and private communications. But we need one that works in wikitext, because we want to teach students and scholars to communicate in the wikitext environment. Personally, I feel WP needs to be structured in a radically different manner than WP in order to fulfill this role.

Green Giant (discuss • contribs) 13:22, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support Draft: namespace per my previous comments, along with most of the additional suggestions by Green Giant above. Let's hold off on discussing Proofread and take one proposal at a time. --mikeu talk 15:45, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • General Support for the Green Giant suggestions with details to be worked out later. Perhaps we should be super-strict about mainspace, and very lax about draft space. All research articles that have not been successfully peer reviewed by a journal deemed acceptable by Wikiversity should "live" in draft space. Perhaps give students more than a six month "vacation" from their articles in draft space. Also, an alternative for allowing unorthodox research to "live" in draft space, is to move them into another wiki. I am a strong advocate of collaborating with Miraheze for this reason, and also to give students a private wiki to write term papers.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 15:58, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - There's an older saying: "The only peer review that counts is the one you get from the journal editor you submit it to." The 'draft' namespace is a good idea but must be voluntary for the resource creator(s) and principal contributors. They are free to ask for peer review but should never be controlled by it. An author who submits a manuscript to a journal always has final say. If the editor-in-chief and authors can't reach agreement the author takes the MS elsewhere. But, if there's disagreement here, the author has a high probability of losing. There's no perceived pressure to cooperate on the reviewers or 'draft' namespace enforcers. Not good! --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 00:40, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Just FYI an earlier discussion and voting may be pertinent here with opinions and voting on both sides, especially on peer review. The voting + reasons are at Wikiversity talk:Research Namespace#Voting. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 01:59, 12 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose The Draft namespace is where content goes to die on en.wp and that project is much busier than this one. The idea of a Draft namespace on a project with 25,000 content pages (many of which are not usable already!) is pretty ridiculous, honestly. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:39, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
That assessment is a bit unfair. Wikipedia has developed a system recently that is more encouraging of nurturing articles and fostering the development of drafts. I've recently rescued some articles (or parts of them) from draft space and there are many others at wp that pursue this in a more positive manner. --mikeu talk 19:51, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  1. "If a Draft is left unedited for six months, a notice should be left on the Draft talk page and the initial authors talk page. If there is no response within a month, the Draft should be deleted without further notice.
  2. Any copy-and-paste pages from Wikipedia or other wikis should be moved to Draft space until/unless there is sufficient unique development.
  3. ... Perhaps we should be super-strict about mainspace, and very lax about draft space. All research articles that have not been successfully peer reviewed by a journal deemed acceptable by Wikiversity should "live" in draft space. ... Also, an alternative for allowing unorthodox research to "live" in draft space, is to move them into another wiki. I am a strong advocate of collaborating with Miraheze for this reason, and also to give students a private wiki to write term papers.)".
Thanks for your input. It is greatly appreciated. Your last question is one that I've given a lot of thought (pages with the same title.) See my recent comments about naming conventions and wikidata at User:Mu301/Learning_blog#January_2018. Also see the report that I'm currently working on about search analytics at Google/Search and Wikiversity. --mikeu talk 16:42, 8 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@AKA MBG: Different users will have different perspectives on Wikipedia vs. Wikiversity, but as I see it, Wikipedia has encyclopedia entries, while Wikiversity has learning projects. There is no need to duplicate extensive Wikipedia content here. Instead, Wikiversity resources should provide interactive learning opportunities that engage users beyond the reading itself. See Contextual Learning for the best explanation I've found of how to approach this. Absorb information, do something with that information, then make a connection / apply that learning to your own environment. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 16:47, 8 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Let's use this header for the conclusion of the vote establishing that the tally so far is 6-2 in favor of a draftspace
So probably this is where new votes go
  • Oppose on technical grounds: I don't have much of an opinion about how WV classifies articles as draft, research or whatever (so I did not take part in the discussion). But I don't think it's a good idea to move things around between namespaces. Breaking links is bad, however good the intention. Initially there would be a redirect page - but the discussion above sounds like that will often be absorbed by someone who wants the "good" name for something else. I suggest to generally keep pages where they are created (unless the name is really bad). The reasonable way to express the status of a page in a Media Wiki system is with templates. (Imagine a "disputed" or "proposed for delition" namespace! Wouldn't that be great?) Watchduck (quack) 18:50, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
So what is your resolution for pages such as Biology, Glaciers, and other pages brought up in the beginning of this discussion? Certainly would be nice to add some useful context in these pages rather than just a bunch of random definitions there... though I do oppose just straight out deleting them (as I respect Marshall's hard work here). But alas, I feel like action needs to be taken on these pages. A lot of work I was planning on adding to pages like Volcano and Glaciers... I can't do. I have no clue where I should put them. ---Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 18:56, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Actually there's an easy fix! If you'd like to use the resource title Volcano which is a redirect and you'd like to be the resource creator, I can delete the redirect if there are no objections and you are free to use it. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 19:09, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Ditto for Glaciers and Glacier is unused. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 19:15, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Obviously the name of a whole science should be a TOC like entry point to the topic, and not "someones" page. I wrote unless the name is really bad. If Biology is currently kind of owned, then I agree that it should be renamed. But I think it should be renamed because Marshallsumter apparently chose too broad a name - and not just because it is in the mainspace. People who choose reasonably specific page names should be spared the hassle of broken links.
PS: I also think the way WV uses subpages is terrible. MW has a perfectly fine category system, where topics can be placed under all the appropriate parent topics. (E.g. "Glaciers" under "Rocks" and "Ice".) And what does WV do? Put a tree structure in the page names that is parallel to the category system! (Where "Glaciers" is only under "Rocks".) The namespace proposal is ill advised in a similar way: The MW tools to add information dynamically are ignored, and instead the information is hard coded in the page name. Watchduck (quack) 20:35, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Recap on motion to create a Draft space for Wikiversity

Current tally is 7-3 for Draft space

Wikiversity:Research Namespace

Summary of stalled Wikiversity:Research Namespace proposal not part of this discussion
Namespace & peer review tally is 2 - 5, totals with above is 9 - 7.
  • First, I'd like to mention many users who may want to participate are on holiday perhaps to the end of this month.
  • Second, some may have perceived that this discussion was about mainspace lectures and dismissed the notice. Now that it has been clarified to a discussion of a "draft" namespace perhaps we should give them at least until the end of the month to participate.
  • Third, the previous discussion contained opinions and votes that are pertinent here. User:Juandev opinioned against the whole proposal of namespace usage such as here "What benefits will come with new ns? If none, its not neeed than." User:James500 opposed per the peer review. It's no different here. User:JackPotte opinioned in favor and may wish to do so here. User:Leutha did the same. User:Thierry613 initially did the same then withdrew support because of the peer review per "If the research namespace would not be searchable, is it a choice or a technical restriction ? I think it should be searchable, as it is on the french-speaking Wikiversity. However, that does not address the problem of the valid peer review." which is the same here. User:Alkhowarizmi stated: "To have a separate research namespace and then keep original research in the main resource space, on condition that it is (by whatever means) refereed is surely absurd. Moreover it invites further argument over what constitutes valid peer review." is clearly applicable here. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 01:48, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

More debate

Let me pose and answer two questions:
  1. Why do we need to separate resources like this? Because while Wikipedia has one article per topic, WV has many, and some of them are student efforts, and some of it is research. The present configuration muddles all these together.
  2. Why draft space? The technical aspects of programming bots and such is easier if we use an already present device. Someday I would like to see 54 subspaces (J♥ would be my favorite) but we first need to establish that Wikiversity can be a useful resource before we tax the coders with such bells and whistles. I would like to remind everyone that a vote to have a draft space leaves open the question of whether we gussy it up to be harsh or kind.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 16:36, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Outcome

After two weeks of discussion, and two site notices:

  • Do Nothing - Unanimously Oppose
  • Delete - Oppose with one neutral if moved to Draft: namespace
  • Draft: Namespace - Support 7, Oppose 3

I will create a Phabricator ticket to have a Draft: namespace added to Wikiversity. We should create a separate Wikiversity: Draft Namespace or similar page to develop guidelines. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 22:25, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Phabricator: T184957 -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 22:40, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

File:Teaching computer.jpg

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This file has been hosted since 2006 but is currently unused with one link from a user talk page. The source URL is a dead link. The license terms suggest it is an Attribution-Noncommercial type of license, not the {{Attribution}}-only license that the file had until today (I’ve hidden it because it is not the correct license). Neither page has an archived version at the Internet Archive because of robot.txt, so we can’t check the situation nearer the upload date. We can’t keep it under the Attribution license because it says commercial re-use is permitted whereas the licensor does not permit it. So, unless we decide to create a BY-NC license (not a CC one), I propose we delete it. Green Giant (discuss • contribs) 12:57, 20 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Without an explicit license, it's an unused Fair Use file and should be speedy deleted. No discussion necessary. There's also nothing special about the image. There are plenty of equivalent replacements available at Commons. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 16:05, 20 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wikihigh

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I am requesting deletion of Wikihigh and all subpages and related templates. The history of the project [13] shows that it was a proposal for an accredited online high school. This is contrary to the Wikiversity project proposal and should not have been allowed to start with. The page draws 0.32 views a day on average (no viewer interest) and no editors. The related templates include six pages of invalid page titles (example: {{Wkh/}}), and the content itself is nothing more than a Wikiversity tour that already exists on other pages. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 04:18, 19 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Ugh! The whole tour was created by user:Planotse. Nuke the tour! A prod will take of the first page, or we can Speedy delete all of it! I'm good with SD! Nuke might have unexpected consequences. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 04:47, 19 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Boubaker Polynomials/Wikipedia and Subpages

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User:TheDragonFire has asked at [14] for Boubaker Polynomials/Wikipedia/SPI to be moved to a more appropriate space. Upon review, there doesn't appear to be an appropriate space for this content. The primary author is globally banned [15] for activities similar to this research, and the secondary author sees no purpose for maintaining the content [16].

Similar to Cold fusion and Parapsychology deletions in January, Boubaker Polynomials/Wikipedia and subpages have been deleted. Any future work on this subject will require pre-approval at Wikiversity:Community Review under Wikipedia Studies or a similar title. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 14:53, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Serial communication

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Deleted and closed. Speedy deletions don't need discussion. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 13:44, 1 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Page is obviously copied and pasted from another wiki, but the page contains no attribution whatsoever. This has been the case since 2015, according to the cleanup template there.Mr. Guye (discuss • contribs) 03:49, 1 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I have no objection to deleting Serial communication--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 05:10, 1 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

4G feature phone

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Deleted and closed. Speedy deletions don't need discussion. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 04:18, 20 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Somewhat unsuitable to wikiversity in retrospectC933103 (discuss • contribs) 20:38, 5 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

checkY Done Closed. Author request. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 16:45, 6 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Placing proposed delete templates on a number of pages

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Fake news, London attack, and Collaborative Animation Project deleted by PROD, MCAT Study Academy deleted per consensus. Wikidirectory left with PROD due to lack of consensus to delete immediately. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 04:22, 20 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Many out of scope pages

are outside project scope.

The author has insults directed at Wikiversity on their userpage (since they started editing here...) so I won't ping them here. Zafloom (discuss • contribs) 08:31, 16 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I placed the {{prod}} on all of them. None looked harmful and I suggest moving them to Draft space. Also: I have no objection to deleting them either. --Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 14:14, 16 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - See my extensive comment from the "Fake news in Canada" discussion. ---Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 23:11, 26 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Fake news in Canada

Fake news in Canada has been questioned by two editors, and supported by a third editor who is not the author. It is time to discuss what to do with it.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 18:20, 1 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

  • Preliminary statement by Guy vandegrift: I am not sure that it belongs in mainspace, unless it is a subpage to a page such as Fake news. If nobody wants to initiate a brief resource called "Fake news", or if the community does not support such a page, then the current Fake news in Canada belongs either in Draft space or as a subpage of the user's space. Either way, it is possible reduce the size of the font "Draft/:" or "User:username/" so as to not spoil the appearance of the page. Personally, I support such efforts to make such pages appear more attractive, but the community needs to agree on these suggestions first...And the community needs to decide whether Fake news in Canada should reside where it is (i.e., in mainspace.)--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 18:20, 1 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

For discussion's sake here's a copy from the Colloquium: "On the front page, this notice pops up: 23 September: Fake news in Canada is ready!

As I have an interest in Fake News, I visited the page. I just have one question -- what is this?

It appears to be a log of tracking of Fake News site campaigns. There is a brief explanation at the top about "products advertised", but overall it has little if any educational value.

Now, I fully understand that it can take time to flesh out resources, and being a wiki a user can come, create a page and immediately abandon it. My concern is that something of potential interest and seemingly marked as "ready" (by templates?) and placed on the front page is actually of little value, and shouldn't be promoted.

(The upside is that I was so bothered by this I dug out my account details to log in and voice my concern. And I may be bold and rework the resource, if I can figure out what the original author was trying to do.) Am I just not understanding the motivation or missing some context? Historybuff (discuss • contribs) 07:19, 29 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Somebody requested that it be deleted, so I added the {{PROD}} (proposed deletion) template, and assumed there would be discussion on whether it should remain, be deleted, or be moved into DRAFT space. There was a movement afoot to move pages into DRAFT if they could not be demonstrated to have specific pedagogical value. A consensus was reached on using DRAFT space this way. I know of suggestions that we reconsider, but to my knowledge, no discussions have begun.Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 00:13, 30 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Historybuff: If you are interested in developing that resource, consider creating an understandable page at Fake News and moving Fake news in Canada to a subpage of it. Whatever FNIC is, it might be nice to create and monitor a main page article on Fake news and allow articles in progress to be subpages of it. Or... we could follow some guidelines and place the works-in-progress in Draft space. Either way is OK with me. But I suspect there will be a consensus to get Fake news in Canada off the top of a mainspace article.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 00:29, 30 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Guy ... I've actually done a small project in Fake news, and thought this might be a different take. I've looked at it a few times, and it's different ... but whatever it is, it isn't comprehensible in the form it is, at least to me. I was a bit tired and thought I might be missing something, which is why I left a note here. I looked again, and my best guess is that it was someone's research bits, but without the context of what else is going on, it's of little value to other people. (I like your idea, and if I have some time in the new week, I'll work a bit on it)
The main thing that bothered me enough to mention it was it showing up on the Main page, purporting to be ready, when at best it's still very rough. Whether by design or by accident, this page shouldn't be showing up as ready based on the state it is in. Historybuff (discuss • contribs) 05:15, 30 September 2018 (UTC)"[reply]

I'm not an expert on fake news but found Fake_news_in_Canada interesting, educational and informative! Further, the author extensively chronicled ongoing follow-up. It is the only resource on Wikiversity exclusively devoted to fake news. A search using "Fake news" finds it first with this File:How To Spot Fake News.jpg in the first 20 of 558. Most of which are images from commons. Ironically, many examples cited as fake news in Fake_news_in_Canada I have seen on TV and the web. As such I considered it a timely and brisk stab at fake news and left this on user:Lojbanist's talk page: "Your news resource Fake news in Canada appears to be ready for learners! Would you like to have it announced in our Main Page News? --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 21:07, 30 October 2017 (UTC)". User:Lojbanist responded with "It will be finished on December 25th UTC. KATMAKROFAN (discuss • contribs) 22:19, 30 October 2017 (UTC)". User:Lojbanist's last context edit was "23:59, 2 December 2017 Lojbanist (discuss | contribs | block) . . (43,740 bytes) (+46) . . (→ Statistics)". On 16 September 2018 Guy vandegrift added a {{prod}} and 23 September 2018 Lojbanist removed it, triggering my watch list. I checked the user's talk page, considered the 23 September 2018 to be the final edit and announced it on Main Page News. It was there for about 8 days and had 289 hits for the past 30 days most on or after 23 September. Based on this it's clear the news resource struck a chord of reader interest. As the creator and principal contributor has used the label "SEMI-RETIRED", I doubt any response will occur. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 19:21, 1 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It is research, and assuming "good" faith, we must presume it to be valid research. I would strongly support a brief main page Fake news that contains an invitation for people to add subpages, and include a link to Fake news/Canada. I would even be willing to write the Fake news page. And, I would support a redirect at Fake news in Canada--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 12:30, 2 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

 Comment It's not a landing page. It should be moved to draft space, user space, or as a subpage of an appropriate learning project. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 19:01, 2 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Do we have a consensus to move Fake news in Canada to Fake news/Canada and include a link down to it? Dave Braunschweig and user:Historybuff seem likely to approve, and Marshallsumter raised no objection. I would be happy to write a short main page that features both the link, as well as an invitation for others to participate.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 18:51, 3 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Dave that Fake news in Canada is not a landing page. Research here is usually only conducted by one or maybe two interested contributors so a landing page may need to be more general, or may be too soon. Just from reading user:Historybuff's history, the user stops by for short spurts of 1 - 3 days a year, then is gone again. So any subsequent handling looks like is in Guy's hands. As a subsequent contributor, go for it! --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 21:01, 3 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It was hard for me to read the comment after mine -- it looked like someone had found some value in this resource, but I'm not sure how. I did check and I think it's off of the Main page, which is what my concern initially was. @Guy vandegrift: If it's research, and it may very well be, it looks like notes rather than anything useful to another party. I wasn't suggesting it be deleted, but rather trying to figure out what it was. And I hope to be back for more than a day or three this year. :) Fake News isn't my first priority on being back, but I'll do something with it in the next few weeks. Historybuff (discuss • contribs) 02:44, 4 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

To be open and complete, I've added a comment for clarification to the Talk page. Let's give that a few days to see if there is any response. Historybuff (discuss • contribs) 17:32, 4 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to mention that the account of the creator of this page, Lojbanist, has been locked ("vanishing" from the Wikimedia foundation projects). I'm not particularly sure if this were to greatly affect the discussion or not, but I do believe it is worth mentioning this. I also believe that it is worth nothing that Lojbanist has arrogantly refused to address these concerns raised here in this discussion, removing the {{prod}} template from Fake news in Canada + including: Wikidirectory and Collaborative Animation Project with childish remarks [in the edit summaries]. With the fact that these pages seem to be of no educational value, the immaturity of the author (and his/her account being locked because he/she is "vanishing"), I say delete these pages and his other pages linked in my comment. Cheers. ---Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 23:03, 26 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

MCAT Study Academy

Page seems to be of no educational value. The only worthwhile page here is the introduction. Other than that, there seems to be nothing in its subpages that seems to be of educational value. I'll admit, there are a few physics pages in there that are charming to the eyes of anyone eager to study for the MCAT (me), but the other subpages full of "No material available yet!" set my happy eyes to a rather disappointed pair.

I personally would be fine with taking on the challenge of creating a new MCAT study prep project on WV, but not without community consensus. -Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 23:09, 26 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Voting

I have already dIt seems to me that all these pages need proposed delete templates so that nobody wastes their time reading them. So the question is whether to delete any or all of the following pages. If I am not mistaken, the options are delete, keep or move to draft space

Keep in mind that a consensus to delete can be reversed at any time (even after the pages have been deleted.)--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 06:50, 28 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Guy vandegrift: Wait, why can't we just do the voting on its own, separate discussion page? ---Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 10:47, 27 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Atcovi:Did I put the question on the wrong page? Sorry. Perhaps we should consider this a straw vote and later move the discussion to the proper pages. What you think?--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 21:45, 27 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Here, I went ahead and showed you what I, personally, think the format of this discussion should be. If you disagree, you may show your disagreement by reverting my changes. ---Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 21:52, 27 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Atcovi:I like your edit because it focuses the discussion on Fake News MCAT Academy, which is probably the easiest call to make. Later we do the other questions one at a time.-Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 06:50, 28 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

User:ShakespeareFan00/Wikiversity All Subject Original Research Desk

Request restoration in connection with a proposal at English Wikipedia concerncing closure (and or Transwiki) of the English Wikipedia reference desk. I'd like this restored so I can develop it again. ShakespeareFan00 (discuss • contribs) 22:49, 8 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

checkY Done --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 23:06, 8 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Physisc Essays Moreno

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Closed as invalid request from blocked user. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 16:01, 21 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

the resourse is not abandoned is in progress just need more time and the other essays have the same of more time of been here and is not deleted that is discrimination! --190.36.249.90 (discuss) 15:26, 21 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The user account associated with this resource is blocked for repeated disruptive edits, and the anonymous request is a block violation. The request is invalid. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 16:01, 21 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Portal:SchoolsONE

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Portal:SchoolsONE promotes an external for-profit organization currently owned as a sole proprietorship by Jacob J. Walker. As such, it is a violation of the Wikiversity:Mission to host free content and free learning projects. It's not free, and it's not a learning project. The learning that is proposed may be hosted as separate learning projects. The content under Portal:SchoolsONE belongs on a separate organizational website not hosted by Wikiversity or Wikimedia. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 04:26, 20 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Voting

Sculpture

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Sculpture has been deleted per Wikiversity:Deletions #14 "Serious ethical breach, where a resource standing undeleted may cause harm". The content was drawing repeated attacks, both on-wiki and off-wiki. Anyone with questions is welcome to contact me by email. Due to the nature of the attacks and history of the abuser, it cannot be discussed in a public forum. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 00:03, 21 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

English-Chinese

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I am seeking community consensus regarding several aspects of the English-Chinese learning project. This project currently has 2,838 subpages. See Special:PrefixIndex/English-Chinese/. Each page is typically a single phrase in English, followed by the same phrase in Chinese, sometimes with the same phrase in Chinese pronunciation using ASCII characters.

The resource has become a concern for several reasons. The purpose of this RFD is to clarify community consensus regarding the following:

  1. Page Titles - This project has extremely long page titles, where the title of the page is the phrase that is being translated. According to Wikiversity:Naming conventions, titles are to be simple and concise. This project is not consistent with this guideline.
  2. Page Content - This project has thousands of extremely short pages. The pages do not link to anything, and cannot be used as standard Wikiversity lessons. The only clear learning approach is through content searches from the project's main page.
  3. Category Usage - Many of the pages include multiple categories (sometimes as many as many as eight to ten categories), all based on one or two words from the content phrase.

Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 19:07, 28 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Page Titles Discussion

Page Content Discussion

  • The content design for this project does not appear to add value. Pages do not lend themselves to any type of structured learning. Content can only be accessed effectively through a search from the main learning project page. Such a search would be equally effective if the pages were combined into more traditional learning by language structure or subject. At the same time, a redesign would allow page linking and more effective use supporting a variety of learning styles. It is my recommendation that we require more structure be added to the project, combining pages on similar subjects or similar language structure, or delete the pages if no one wants to combine content and add structure. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 19:53, 28 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree with Dave. The growth of these pages as currently structured is very problematic. The material really needs to be consolidated into a much smaller number of coherently organized pages. --mikeu talk 14:14, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Right, would be better to organize so there are 100 sentences/phrases per page and then fewer than 30 pages. SelfieCity (discuss • contribs) 01:52, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Category Usage Discussion

Questions

Voting

  • Support all three proposals (Page content and titles, and category usage). As a person who is fond of the study of languages, I actually like the resource and hope the author continues to cooperate in making it better. I suspect the category usage is the most problematic, and don't quite understand how moving category-free version of the entire resource into draftspace would cause any problems. But I defer to the opinions of Dave and mikeu that all these pages will cause a problem in draftspace.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 19:41, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support all three proposals I have to agree with Guy. I really like the multilingual resources but the implementation leaves much to be desired. The current organization is problematic on a number of fronts. We need to have some organization that clearly distinguishes the resources. --mikeu talk 01:28, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support all three proposals. I think some things ought to be a little clearer, like how long we’ll wait before we start outright deleting these pages, but overall I agree with the ideas put forward by Dave. The existence of 2,000 pages all translating English to Chinese just doesn’t seem right here. SelfieCity (discuss • contribs) 02:04, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support all three proposals. This page is certainly confusing as it is currently presented. I support finding a way to properly label this content and put it in a category that will make sense to users, if the content continues to be developed. --AmyFou (discuss • contribs) 18:22, 6 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Outcome

  1. Page titles must be simple and concise. Pages need to be renamed consistent with this guideline.
  2. Content must have some type of learning structure. A course search has been added to each page. The pages still need to be combined with some type of learning structure.
  3. Category use must go beyond term indexing. All categories have been removed and replaced with {{CourseCat}}.

Just FYI, user:Efex3 has been generally and consistently editing English-Chinese since 6 March 2018, after about a year wiki break from 17 March 2017. At that time the user was preparing lessons for Mandarin which suggests familiarity with course structure. The resource English-Chinese may be an innovative alternative approach to teaching/learning Chinese for English speakers. Currently, the user has not edited since 6 May 2019, suggesting that the above discussion however well-meaning has failed to provide positive, constructive suggestions to overcome the negative criticism associated with being on Wikiversity:Requests_for_Deletion rather than on Talk:English-Chinese. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 21:13, 14 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Marshallsumter: Just FYI, but this is an archived discussion. Your ongoing attempts to litigate RFDs after community consensus is reached are not helpful.
When a resource comes to RFD, it is no longer a discussion of constructive suggestions overcoming negative criticism. At that point, it is a resource that, by its very nature, is deemed by someone to have a negative impact on the community. If the community agrees, which in this case was unanimous, community consensus will be followed.
If you would like to help organize this resource by combining pages to delay or prevent deletion, please feel free to do so. However, note that the user themselves no longer participating in the project should tell you something about the manageability of that idea and the amount of effort required. Which was the point of the RFD and the community consensus of why it cannot remain this way. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 22:02, 14 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Just to be clear, this is not any attempt to litigate RFDs after community consensus is reached! The best and only user to organize this resource is the one who has apparently left. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 22:11, 14 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Biographies

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Are Special:PrefixIndex/Biographies/ something the Wikiversity community wishes to continue supporting? A brief review suggests that many of these pages are either personal promotion or close family or associate fan pages rather than something that provides an ongoing learning experience for the wider community. Please discuss and consider voting for one of the following options. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 00:56, 2 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

All of the Biographies/Stubs appear to be abandoned resources. Applying a prod at least could help decide if any remain. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 13:59, 4 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Vote to Keep As Is

Vote to Move to User Space

Vote to Delete

  • Delete. I had to think a little here, but I came to the conclusion that these resources should belong on Wikipedia (and perhaps Wikijournals in isolated places), but not on Wikiversity. If this was being actively developed, then I'd be more in favor of supporting, but considering the state of these biographies and the concerns raised about POV, deletion of these stubs is the best route. SelfieCity (discuss • contribs) 01:51, 6 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
PS. When I mention WikiJournal as a separate project, I'm thinking ahead. WikiJournal is still on Wikiversity as I write. SelfieCity (discuss • contribs) 03:42, 6 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Vote for Other Outcome (Describe)

Outcome

Biographies with significant user contributions have been moved to user space. Anonymous biographies have been deleted. The Biographies page now lists learning projects which contain biographies. Individual biographies meeting Wikipedia notability guidelines should be posted there. Biographies which are not notable should be moved to user space or deleted. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 01:43, 12 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

An overview of Lassa fever

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Addressed by WikiJournal editing and review process. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 14:48, 24 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This page has large amount of copied text, see talk page for specific examples. See also https://tools.wmflabs.org/copyvios/?lang=en&project=wikiversity&action=search&turnitin=1&title=WikiJournal_of_Medicine/An_overview_of_Lassa_fever (The preceding unsigned comment was added by 199.18.157.82 (talk • contribs) 20 June 2019‎)

☒N Not done This is being addressed by the WikiJournal editors at Talk:WikiJournal of Medicine/An overview of Lassa fever. Posting here is both inappropriate and premature. Anonymous requests on this issue will not be considered on this page. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 17:19, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Just as a note for the record here, WikiJMed is actively discussing the best course of action. Two guiding references on the matter are:
  • COPE: "Journal editors should consider issuing a correction if a small portion of an otherwise reliable publication proves to be misleading (especially because of honest error)"
  • Barbour et al 2017: "Our fifth key principle is that all changes made post-publication should be traceable and all versions of an article should be preserved. The circumstances in which an article should be removed (for ethical, legal or safety reasons) are extremely rare, and even in these cases a metadata record should remain, alongside an explanation."
T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 00:38, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The COPE link also lists "it constitutes plagiarism" as one of the reasons "Journal editors should consider issuing a correction" 2605:A000:EE41:5400:10B8:202C:CC8A:A59D (discuss) 01:10, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Evolution and evolvability: Also relevant in Barbour et al 2017: "Where an article is so seriously flawed or erroneous that the findings can no longer be relied on, then the method of correction is typically wholesale i.e. the article is retracted. COPE guidelines on retraction1 advise retracting articles if the main findings are found to be unreliable, redundant, plagiarised or if the authors have reported unethical research or failed to disclose a major competing interest which could influence the interpretation of the article." 2605:A000:EE41:5400:10B8:202C:CC8A:A59D (discuss) 02:03, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
"Keep"
The reasons for this issue have been cleared out at the talk section. Though this discussion was initiated at a very early stage. Based on the current comparison search, copyright violation is unlikely. all other issues have been duly addressed by the author and the editors. Thank you

--Laamiido (discuss • contribs) 16:10, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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