User talk:Gobonobo/Archive 16

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Would you believe...
... that I found a few more lurking in the shadows! If you have time... User:Johnfos/sandbox, In Mortal Hands, Britain, Australia and the Bomb, Solar Energy Perspectives, Deploying Renewables 2011, Climate Change and Global Energy Security, Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation, Nuclear Tipping Point... thank you... Johnfos (talk) 10:38, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
 * They say patience is a virtue, and you have been very patient with me and my many requests. Please let me know how I can return the favour! Johnfos (talk) 01:57, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
 * It is my pleasure. Once Clean Tech Nation goes live, I can upload a cover. If you had time and were interested, I would love to see an article for Jay Inslee's book Apollo's Fire. Otherwise, just keep up the good work. Cheers, Gobōnobo  + c 02:20, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Many thanks, I've made a start in my Sandbox... cheers, Johnfos (talk) 08:59, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

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Wikipedia Loves Libraries
We're having another event (with an editathon) at Special Collections, on November 3, likely a bigger event than last. It'd be great if you could make it. (See WT:Meetup/Minnesota.) Regards, &mdash;innotata 17:56, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

WikiCup 2012 September newsletter


We're over half way through the final, and so it is less than a month until we know for certain our 2012 WikiCup champion. currently leads, followed by, and. However, we have no one resembling a breakaway leader, and so the competition is a long way from over. Next month's newsletter will feature a list of our winners (who are not necessarily only the finalists) and keep your eyes open for an article on the WikiCup in a future edition of The Signpost. The leaders are already on a par with last year's winners, but a long way from the huge scores seen in 2010. That said, a repeat of the competition from 2010 seems unlikely.

It is good to see that three-quarters of our finalists have already scored bonus points this round. This shows that, contrary to criticism that the WikiCup has received in the past, the competition does not merely incentivise the writing of trivial articles; instead, our top competitors are still spending their time contributing to high-importance articles, and bringing them to a high standard. This does a great service to the encyclopedia and its readers. Thank you, and good work!

The planning for next year's WikiCup is ongoing. Some straw polls have been opened concerning the scoring, and you can now sign up for next year's competition. As ever, if you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on WikiCup/Reviews. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) J Milburn (talk) 19:54, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

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Please comment on Talk:Boy Scouts of America membership controversies
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The Signpost: 15 October 2012

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Page Curation newsletter - closing up!
Hey all :).

We're (very shortly) closing down this development cycle for Page Curation. It's genuinely been a pleasure to talk with you all and build software that is so close to my own heart, and also so effective. The current backlog is 9 days, and I've never seen it that low before.

However! Closing up shop does not mean not making any improvements. First-off, this is your last chance to give us a poke about unresolved bugs or report new ones on the talkpage. If something's going wrong, we want to know about it :). Second, we'll hopefully be taking another pass over the software next year. If you've got ideas for features Page Curation doesn't currently have, stick them here.

Again, it's been an honour. Thanks :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:26, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Writing 101 UMW
I just put up my article on my user page. If you wouldn't mind taking a look at it, it would be greatly appreciated. Outlaw10 (talk) 20:28, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

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Your submission at Articles for creation
 Rosa Beddington, which you worked on at Articles for creation, has been created. You are more than welcome to continue making quality contributions to Wikipedia. Note that because you are a logged-in user, you can create articles yourself, and don't have to post a request. However, you are more than welcome to continue submitting work to Articles for Creation. Thank you for helping improve Wikipedia! —Tom Morris (talk) 16:04, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
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 * Thanks for the Ada Lovelace award! I shall value it Victuallers (talk) 22:56, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Romney
Hello. Are you referring to someone other than Carrel Hilton Sheldon? If not, then could we refer to "a woman" instead of "women"?Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:31, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

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Edith Bülbring
Good morning. Just as an FYI about the Edith Bülbring article you nominated to DYK - it's almost entirely unsourced. It looks like a worthy article. The lead doesn't necessarily have to be sourced, but DYK guidelines require every paragraph be sourced in the rest of the article. I didn't check on the sourcing of the hook, but it has to be specifically sourced at the end of the sentence(s) the hook info comes from. — Maile (talk) 12:32, 24 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Morning. I should be able to add those sources in short order. I wanted to get the nom in before it expires. Since it was created during the Ada Lovelace event, I'm guessing that the FRS biography was the primary source document. There's a bunch more biographies of women scientists created at the Royal Society's Ada Lovelace Day event that are very close to being DYK eligible except that they soon won't be new enough. Gobōnobō  + c 12:59, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

DYK nomination of Edith Bülbring
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University of Montana-Western
Hi Gonobo, I am teaching Writing 101 at the University of Montana-Western in Dillon, MT. My students and I are working on a Wikipedia project. Their assignment is to choose a stub to "complete" - they have to write 750-1000 words, with 3-4 sources included, and then try to get it published on Wikipedia. I am in over my head on this one! I was wondering if you are available to mentor? Thanks, Lisa Bullard

P.S. The school here runs on a block schedule - so classes meet 3 hours per day, 5 days per week, meaning it is fairly intensive. The students assignment is due this coming Tuesday. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.131.146.137 (talk) 16:32, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi Gonobo, I am teaching Writing 101 at the University of Montana-Western in Dillon, MT. My students and I are working on a Wikipedia project. Their assignment is to choose a stub to "complete" - they have to write 750-1000 words, with 3-4 sources included, and then try to get it published on Wikipedia. I am in over my head on this one! I was wondering if you are available to mentor? Thanks, Lisa Bullard

P.S. The school here runs on a block schedule - so classes meet 3 hours per day, 5 days per week, meaning it is fairly intensive. The students assignment is due this coming Tuesday.

P.P.S. - Sorry to duplicate the message (total newbie here!) but I forgot to click "Watch this page" and also I created a user account. Thanks again!

LMB333 (talk) 16:47, 10 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi LMB333. I'd be happy to try and help. If you have a lesson plan or materials that you have given the students, seeing that might help me understand where you are at and how I can help. It might be on the late side to set up a course page for you, but it would be good to have a central page from which to coordinate. If you haven't read it, the instructor orientation outlines a typical schedule for a class project. If the students haven't yet selected articles that they plan on expanding, I would suggest having them select from Category:Stub-Class Montana articles or one of the subcategories that interest them in Category:Stub-Class articles. I'd advise against having them edit any medical articles, because the referencing requirements are more stringent. Feel free to contact me via email if you'd prefer or we could arrange to meet on IRC. Gobōnobo  + c 20:56, 10 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi Gobonobo,
 * Thank you for your help! I wish I would have contacted you sooner! The list of stubs you linked to would have been helpful for the students. I sent them to a much bigger list of stubs, which overwhelmed them! I would be happy to send you the assignment sheet, but am not sure how to do that. Can I attach it here?
 * I had them do this assignment: [[File:First_Activities_for_Wikipedia_Assignment.pdf]]
 * I think it could be very helpful to have a class page. We are going to the computer lab today so I can have them do that, although I'm not sure how...
 * To give you some sense of where they are at with the assignment: As of today, they should have chosen a stub they want to add 750-1000 words to. They should be coming to class with 4 sources, ideally 3 are "academic" sources and 1 is a "popular" source. By tomorrow they need to turn in an annotated bibliography on their sources. On Monday, their rough draft is due. On Tuesday they will be turning in a revised copy, and on Wednesday, our last day of class, I am hoping they can add their content to Wikipedia.
 * Thanks again! 150.131.146.229 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:18, 11 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I've set up a course page at USEP/Courses/Writing 101 (University of Montana-Western). Feel free to add to it or change it how you would like. Once the students have selected usernames, please be sure the usernames are added to that page (by them or yourself). The course page has a link to an orientation for students.
 * Ideally, we'd have a chance to preview the students' rough drafts so that any obvious problems can be addressed in the revision process. If they publish their rough drafts in their user spaces, I can commit to reviewing them. Be sure that the "popular" source isn't a blog or a tumblr (newspaper and magazine articles should be fine). Gobōnobo  + c 19:29, 11 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you! Students are adding their usernames to the course page as I type! We are excited to have a course page, and the students were very excited that you will be able to review their articles! They can add them to their userpages on Monday. I will ask them to complete the orientation over the weekend. Thank you again!

LMB333 (talk) 21:09, 11 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi Gobonobo! Thank you for getting in touch with the students on their talk pages! Almost all of them should have posted drafts to their user pages. I was wondering what the next step is? I was hoping that on Wednesday, the last day of class, they could move their articles from their user page to the Wikipedia pages they have developed. We may have time to use the computer lab as a class this afternoon if there is something they should do before that. Should I tell them to watch for comments from you on their talk pages or user pages? Thanks again! — Preceding unsigned comment added by LMB333 (talk • contribs) 16:57, 16 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi. Yes, please tell the students that I will make comments on their talk pages shortly. I'll try to identify any problems and any revising that needs to happen can be done before they move their articles from their user spaces. Gobōnobo  + c 21:27, 16 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Gobonobo, can you please tell this instructor to have the students PLEASE read WP:CITE, WP:V, and WP:RS. I have two articles they've been working on watchlisted, and so far am about at an hour each to fix them.  Also, a discussion about unencyclopedic tone would help.  These sound like grade school term papers.  I want to support educational efforts, but when even the instructor can't be bothered to learn the system first, they are not helping the overall project.  They are making a lot of work for us to clean up their messes.   Montanabw (talk) 07:42, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The class assignment is finished, so they probably won't be making further edits. I'm not in contact with the professor and they didn't go through official channels to set up their assignment. I was contacted about helping with the class less than a week before the assignment was due. They're a writing 101 class, so their skill varies quite a bit. I've been putting off going through and doing a final check and cleanup of the edits. If anything looks as if it would take too long to fix, I was just planning on deleting or paring it down. Gobōnobō  + c 08:11, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * A hit and run, eh? ;-)  Well, there are a couple of us trying to clean up Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site and I took a quick whack at Guide horse. I can live with both as is at the moment after the roughest chunks got knocked off, though it would be good to do more cleanup later.  I guess I have to take large breaths now and resist my urge to bite.   Montanabw (talk) 08:30, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * It was interesting to see what sort of topics Montana students would choose. I'll be doing some revising soon. Thank you very much for the cleanup. Gobōnobō  + c 08:57, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Gobonobo, again, thank you for all your work with my class!
 * In response to Montanabw, it is difficult for me to not respond rudely. But I won't. First, thank you for editing the pages and I'm sorry they are trouble for you. Second, it is not that I "could not be bothered" to learn the Wikipedia markup system. It was my first time using Wikipedia in the classroom and I didn't even realize their were official channels to go through until I was already starting the assignment. I knew nothing about Wikipedia when I began. Now I know more, and if I teach this assignment again I will definitely get help much sooner. Learning is never perfect - the path of learning is full of mistakes. On that note, I resent you saying that the papers sound like "grade school term papers." Though many students may not be at the level you expect, they worked hard on this. And it is possible that they could read what you wrote. Again, I am sorry to have created a lot of work for you and other hard working volunteers, and I thank you for your time. I understand how you would feel frustrated at having a lot of extra work on your hands - I just wish you would be more constructive in your feedback. Otherwise, I found the whole Wikipedia education project to be helpful, fun and beneficial for the students. I would love to teach this assignment again, putting into place more of the things I have learned this time around! LMB333 (talk) 19:38, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

With school assignments we often get writers whose inexperience writing in an encyclopedic tone is compounded by unfamiliarity with Wiki markup and Wikipedia rules. This can be frustrating for experienced editors, as it can take a considerable amount of time to bring a new addition up to the level of quality we like to see. I think the best way to address these difficulties is through thorough preparation. The educator training module has some good practices and it is helpful (though not always possible) to have someone who is familiar with Wikipedia to provide in-class support. Creating more time for the assignment would allow for a lesson plan that involves discrete windows of time for feedback and revision. Gobōnobō + c 22:07, 24 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I did not intend offense, LMB, but frankly, their submissions DID read like, at best, high school papers and wikipedia is a tough world. If college students can't handle being told they are writing at a level below that expected of college research, making excuses for them like, "they worked really hard" doesn't cut it here. If they read what I wrote, they can cope with it, they are adults, not kindergarteners to be babysat.  There is no grading scale in real life, and wikipedia is real life.  I say this knowing your world as well; among my other work, I teach part-time as an adjunct college instructor and work with a lot of freshman and non-trads.  I have repeatedly debated whether to use wikipedia writing as an assignment in my classes, and have repeatedly decided not to do so because a) their writing skills are not up to par; b) I don't have the class time to do the required prep (I teach a content area, not writing, maybe if I taught a writing class, I'd reconsider); and c)  research and citation is critical on wiki, and I can't get them to do thorough research and proper citation even in their term papers after multiple prep assignments (which drives me crazy). So I'd be setting them up to fail, and pissing off my friends on wikipedia in the process.  Gobonobo is right that instructor prep is crucial to project success; I think some of my reaction came from the obvious fact that you yourself were inexperienced and just sent them off to "edit wikipedia" without even knowing things like our citation guidelines.  Clearly, we have tons of stubs and poor articles that need improvement, and your students DID add some helpful content; but it is frustrating here to  have to spend time cleaning up after other people.  I could have just hit the "undo" button and thrown out all their work, but instead, I cleaned it up.  If you do this again, I suggest you continue to work with Gobonobo or other experienced mentors, and also contact User:Mike Cline who has been a wikipedia ambassador for MSU and is over in Bozeman.  Also, look at the excellent project some high school kids did under the tutelage of User:JimmyButler, where they had a step-by-step process that led to some truly outstanding work in just a semester.   Montanabw (talk) 22:06, 25 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you for sharing your perspective Montanabw. Your suggestions for future assignments are especially useful. Gobōnobō  + c 04:10, 27 October 2012 (UTC)