User talk:Ian (Wiki Ed)/Archive 17

HISTAM at IUPUI
Thanks for the welcome! Just so you know, I'm sitting in on this class as an interested librarian. I'm modestly familiar with Wikimedia, but new to WikiEdu and want to see how the courses work in the real world. --Jaireeodell (talk) 19:17, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Pictures in Nature communications
Hi Ian, I have a question regarding the fair use of pictures in Nature communication publications. Basically this paper/comment is published under cc 4.0 license. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-27495-y  Credit: Southwest Research Institute. I am wondering if I can upload this pic to wiki commons with proper citation of the original article? Thanks! -Hirooooooooo (talk) 06:34, 16 January 2022 (UTC)


 * @Hiroooooo I honestly don't know. The text itself is licensed under a Wikipedia-compatible license, so you could reuse text (as long as you credit it properly). Since the image is credited separately, it may not be released under the same license as the article. But given that it's an editorial piece from the journal itself, it might be?
 * Anyone else here have any thoughts on this? Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:43, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
 * No, you can't take it from the Nature article, because it has no license. You have to find it from the source. I didn't find the picture exactly, but something similar for the press: https://www.swri.org/field-collection/field-media-resources-fc/16?width=500&height=500


 * And it says: Images/videos may be used by the media and the public for educational and informational purposes only. That's not a cc 4.0, it may allow commercial use for the media, but it is not unrestricted. So it is not compatible. You may use material from this NASA youtube channel, as it claims it's public domain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZHCwSaBzd8, however when I follow the link http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13352, I don't see anything of that.
 * It could be that the picture is actually from NASA, then you could be lucky. Maybe this stuff is already uploaded to commons by NASA and then it should be clear. -- Martin Gühmann (talk) 03:48, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Question About Editing an Article
Hi! I'm currently working on editing an article for my communications class. The article I have (Disorganized Offenders) is mainly focused on a book and is not really an accurate overview of the entire topic. After a bit more research, I want to go back and add some more information that I believe fits the topic. Am I allowed to delete sentences that are seemingly not useful or are only based on the book and not the overall topic? Or can I reword those sentences? Thank you! --Bellamila13 (talk) 22:30, 17 January 2022 (UTC)


 * @Bellamila13 As long as you are making the article better, you should feel free to edit it as you see fit. It seems to be based primarily on a book from 1999, which is probably quite out of date. If there's more recent, more scholarly sources, please follow their lead. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:46, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Not actually a student :)
Hi Ian, thanks for the warm welcome. As a heads-up, I'm actually a librarian at Laurentian helping out with the Writings In Architecture class. I'm enrolled as a student for now, which is helpful for ensuring that I'm seeing what the students are seeing, but will (hopefully) be elevated to a different role soon :) Dan Scott (talk) 21:46, 19 January 2022 (UTC)


 * @Dan scott Thanks for letting me know! Please get in touch if there's anything I can help with. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:00, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome!
Hello Ian, thank you for the warm welcome! I'm looking forward to contributing to Wikipedia.Aman-Maryam (talk) 21:50, 19 January 2022 (UTC)


 * @Aman-Maryam You're welcome. Nice to hear back from you! Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:00, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

repeatedly triggering PrimeBOT from WikiEdu
Hi Ian, I'm Mako's TA in Wiki_Ed/University_of_Washington/Online_Communities_(Winter_2022) -- it looks like something -- perhaps something we're doing -- is triggering PrimeBOT to mark article talk pages as being part of a WikiEdu activity, over and over. Can you assist? I don't like to see these Talk pages getting cluttered but I'm not sure what's happening to trigger it. Something in the WikiEd dashboard? Examples: Talk:Donghu_District and Talk:MyPlate but it seems sort of endemic....! Best wishes! Kaylea Champion (talk) 00:47, 20 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Per advice, I've also posted this on the section of the Wiki Edu Noticeboard where the course was already under discussion, I suppose that's the better spot for this to be addressed. Kaylea Champion (talk) 02:23, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
 * @Khascall I talked to Sage and it should be fixed. Thanks so much for the heads-up. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:20, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Wondering if two students in a course know an article already exists about their topic
Dunno if this is the best way to bring this up: I noticed (because I watch articles getting hit by repeated template adds by students in this course) two different people in Wiki Ed/Florida State University/Addressing Misinformation in Special Education (Spring 2022) picked articles regarding FBAs that don't technically exist (one's redlink, one's disambiguation) and I just didn't know if they knew an article for that subject exists at fundamental assessment (which someone raised on the talk page two years ago may be an incorrect title for the article). I didn't know if they had looked for or found the existing article on the subject, and I just didn't want there to somehow end up duplicate articles on the subject in mainspace that might require merging or something at any juncture, even if that's probably an unlikely scenario? I just feel like they should know if they don't know, but I didn't know what the right etiquette for bring it up in the context of Wiki Ed was. - Purplewowies (talk) 04:57, 28 January 2022 (UTC)


 * @Purplewowies Thanks so much for letting me know. I've left both students notes (and created a couple redirects). I'll keep an eye on what they do next, and if needed I can ask their instructor to intervene. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:39, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Assigning students to edit each others' posts
Hi Ian! I've got a new course in Wiki_Ed, and I understand how the students will find their topics, find their sources, and do the trainings, but how do I assign students to peer edit each others' work? Thanks for helping me figure this out! Nataliemhowe (talk) 21:24, 1 February 2022 (UTC)


 * @Nataliemhowe Students can assign themselves articles to peer review through the Dashboard (as outlined in this training module.
 * You can assign peer reviews to students yourself in one of two ways. On the Students tab there's a button on the top left that says "assign random peer reviews". Or you can click on the Assignments & exercises button on the Students tab and select a student. Once you do that a button saying "Assign/remove a peer review" will appear to the top right. You can use that to assign peer reviews student by student.
 * You can also email Helaine at helaine@undefinedwikiedu.org and she'll be able to give you more assistance with this. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:44, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Re: response to article
Hi Ian,

I appreciate your comments. There are a few issues with some of them though. The DAVINCI team has no official website or tab on a NASA page (just articles) that include the team names, so I had to use a paper that the team published. Same thing with LUVOIR, it has an older website from the mission study itself (since LUVOIR is not what is moving forward per the Astro decadal survey), and therefore no mention of its subcommittees or responsibilities that aren't public-facing. I tried doing the Team subpage link but didn't realize the automatic reference generator just did the homepage of the LUVOIR site, so I fixed that. I did change the naming convention, fixed some of the sources, and I'm not sure I understand the stuff about reddit AMA's and other media since it seems important to me, but I'll take it out. Mostly this just needed to be in the main space for the purposes of grading. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mvida (talk • contribs) 23:19, 1 February 2022 (UTC)


 * @Mvida It doesn't need to be in mainspace for grading - the Dashboard is set up so your instructor can grade your work in your sandbox quite easily. On the other hand, if it stays in mainspace it will probably be deleted (and thus, unable to be found by your instructor for grading at all). Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:34, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

I had received an email from my instructor asking to publish for grading, I will pass this info along. Mvida (talk) 17:51, 2 February 2022 (UTC)


 * @Mvida Thank you so much! My email address is ian@undefinedwikiedu.org. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:55, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Need help request from JZellMitch (talk)
Hello.

I need help with... practicing editing an article... I wanted to add a statement about about my topic...just practicing though..."That the true relational function of a behavior can not be known apart from a functional analysis"

--JZellMitch (talk) 13:25, 3 February 2022 (UTC)


 * @JZellMitch You can always practice in your sandbox. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:53, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Need help request from Carmadima (talk)
Hello.

I need help with writing on the sandbox. How will I do that? Thank you, Ian.

carmadima --Carmadima (talk) 19:25, 5 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Hi @Carmadima. You should be able to edit your sandbox by clicking the edit button (or the create button if it doesn't exist yet) and then clicking anywhere on the page to type. Don't forget to save what you do by clicking Publish changes. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:04, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment for Logos?
I'd like to check in regarding the plan for a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment for an update to the Logos page. See my comments on the Talk:Logos page[] under the "Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment" heading. It would be great to have this page examined in detail and updated. I hope this is in the works; this is a challenging topic with many competing perspectives. Good luck! Edunoramus (talk) 23:15, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Need help request from Ethic Factor1 (talk)Ethic Factor1
Hello Ian,

For my class, I need to pick out an article to edit or create one. I am thinking to edit either Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack or Vastaamo article, or create Vastaamo data breach article since it is missing on Wiki. I am wondering if I may have some helps with figuring out what would be the best option for my wiki article. Thank you so much for your help in advance.

--Ethic Factor1 (talk) 00:32, 7 February 2022 (UTC)


 * @Ethic Factor1 Looking at the Vastaamo article I wonder if it should be renamed Vastaamo data breach, given that there's very little about the company outside of the data breach. If you can find good quality sources you should definitely consider working on that article, because there's very little information there. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:09, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Excited to be using Wikipedia
Hello! Thank you for your help! This is the first time I am using wikipedia and I am already learning so much! Thelivelymoon (talk) 08:32, 12 February 2022 (UTC)


 * @Thelivelymoon I'm glad it's all helpful! Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:14, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Help With Adding a Red-linked Article.
Hello, My Colorado History course and I were having an issue in class with attempting to work on articles that don't technically exist yet. One of them, the Colorado State Mental Hospital at Pueblo, is in the list of Colorado Hospitals as a Red-Link waiting to be created, but we cant figure out to assign it in the dashboard. The other group initially chose the Chicano Movement as their topic but was informed that the article was listed as 'One of Wikipedia's best" and was not a suitable choice. As a result they wish to write about Freddie Freak, a key person in the Chicano Movement that was mentioned in the initial article, but would need to create a new article all-together and none of us have figured out how to do that yet. Some guidance would be appreciated.

Alexmoore552 (talk) 16:40, 15 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Hi @Alexmoore552. You can assign yourself an article that doesn't exist yet - just click on the button to assign yourself an article (using the "My Articles" section of the Dashboard) and type the name in.
 * As far as Freddie Freak goes, make sure that when you're building your bibliography you find enough reliable sources (preferably scholarly ones) that cover him in some depth. A quick search suggests to me that there's a decent chance he meets Wikipedia's notability requirements, but I'm not 100% sure. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:51, 15 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Let me know if you need any help finding sourcing - I can point you in some good directions. For example, source would likely be excellent and is available in your library. Make sure that you search under both his nickname as well as his formal name, just in case. ReaderofthePack (formerly Tokyogirl79)  (｡◕‿◕｡)  20:48, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

I don't understand...
...why a WikiEd notice from a Spring 2021 course is showing up on an article's talk page in January 2022 courtesy of PrimeBOT? Please see this notice-post at Talk:Aunt Jemima. Also, I could poke around for a while and eventually find an answer or two but my brain is tired tonight and a couple of thoughts about the notice have come to mind...1)The editor in question, whose assignment this was, never edited the article so 2) can I just archive the notice? I can't remember if Wiki Education Foundation notices are supposed to stay on talk pages forever-after or not... Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 01:11, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
 * yes, it’s because of this TFD. Secondly: yes, you can archive the notice, even if the editor *did* edit the article, as long as you generally follow any archiving guidelines already on the page, which may be present if there is an archiving notice in the header of the page. Mathglot (talk) 05:51, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the info, I had wondered about those templates hanging around for ages. and *ages*.... I glanced at that TFD but didn't see the why of PrimeBOT coming in with the notice so long after the fact... Do you know the why of its timing? Cheers, Shearonink (talk) 15:14, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
 * @Shearonink After the TFD, Primefac set their bot to substitute the messages. Which actually caused it to edit-war with Dashboard (see ). This prompted Sage to create an RFC to decide how to implement these things going forward. It's closed now, and I believe the next step is for Sage to figure out how to implement the new way of doing things. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:30, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Need help request from Jrichardsonc (talk)
Hello.

I need help with... using Sandbox

--Jrichardsonc (talk) 00:56, 20 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Hi @Jrichardsonc. It doesn't look like you've assigned yourself an article yet. If you go to the your course page on the Dashboard, you'll see the option to assign yourself an article. After that it's a pretty simple, step-by-step process. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:57, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

Medical Fiction Topic for Wiki_Ed
Hi Ian,

Almost a year ago I helped edit the Medical Fiction page on my student account, I'm not sure if you can see the finished results with this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cladelli/Medical_fiction

Comparing the article in its current state today I think I had some valuable contributions in my own page—what is the next step in actually publishing/editing the actual article?

Best,

Cladelli (talk) 19:34, 21 February 2022 (UTC)Cladelli


 * Hi @Cladelli. The first three slides in this training module outline the process. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:58, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

KSA135
Hey! Could maybe the instructors tell the students that these user names are visible to all and sundry, and in perpetuity? -- Deep fried okra ( talk )


 * We do that, and I believe we also send out a reminder email that touches on this right before the students sign up. But I think it might be worth trying out something different for the Fall. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:09, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Need help request from Hannah.Leanne.Moore (talk)
Hello.

I need help with... how to cite a Bibliography on my Wiki page

--Hannah.Leanne.Moore (talk) 01:50, 1 March 2022 (UTC)Hannah Moore
 * Hi, Hannah. Can you repeat your question, with a little bit more detail? I can see that your sandbox is basically empty, but you do have a subpage at User:Hannah.Leanne.Moore/Thomas Preston (British Army officer). Is this the prospective article that you wish to ask a question about? I'm not too sure about your question yet, but what you have there in your References section is a list of two general references, unlinked to the article body by footnotes. Are you asking how to create a footnote, using one of those general references?
 * If so, please start by reading Help:Footnotes, which will give you a general idea. You could also review your training module on Sourcing and footnotes (here). There are several ways to do it, but the most straightforward is to move one of the general references, let's say, "Boston Massacre Soldiers", up into the body of the article, right *after* the article content you wish to source, and surround it with &lt;ref>. . .&lt;/ref>. Then at the end of the article (or sandbox), add this:

== References ==


 * That will cause the footnotes to be generated automatically in the "References" section.
 * Is that what you wanted to ask about? If I didn't get your question right, please explain in a bit more detail, so Ian can pick it up and give you a better response. Thanks, and good luck in your course! Mathglot (talk) 09:11, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Need help request from CognitiveBehavioralTherapyWizardTheIX (talk)
Hello.

I need help with editing the article for Das Boot. I want to make certain that my edits are constructive and do not violate any rules, so I will be creating a sandbox in order to let you see what I plan on doing. I have already asked another Wikipedian to do this, but I do not think it would hurt to have your advice as well.

--CognitiveBehavioralTherapyWizardTheIX (talk) 21:59, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
 * the Teahouse is a good place to ask others to review your work or to ask questions about Wikipedia. wizzito  &#124;  say hello!  00:31, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
 * @Wizzito This is actually a part of what I do, and it's often better for students to ask me. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:03, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
 * @CognitiveBehavioralTherapyWizardTheIX It looks like the main thing you did was to removed a few character and separate main from secondary characters. My question would be why you made the decisions you made (that's the kind of thing you could explain with your edit summaries). This is why it's good to make smaller edits, so you can explain each decision.
 * Honestly though, instead of adding or removing bios, you should try to find sources that describe these characters. Right now, they're all unsourced (or only sourced to the primary source material - the movie itself). Look for secondary sources. Also adding and removing character bios is pretty cosmetic stuff. You really want to look for high-quality sources that discuss the film's importance, and themes and stuff like that. Focus on the more scholarly aspects. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:02, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Flagging a source as dead
Hi, Ian. I am looking at the article for Lucy Thompson and when checking the sources, I see the 4th one listed "'To the American Indian' turns 100". Retrieved 2017-11-19. Is a dead link. Below is what it redirects to when opening: https://www.times-standard.com/article/NJ/20161129/LOCAL1/161129853

How can I flag that for someone else's attention? JaPhiDiMi (talk) 00:20, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Use Template:Dead link. You can also pop the link into the Internet Archive, and if it is archives, you can add that as the archive link (see DEADREF for more info about this) wizzito  &#124;  say hello!  00:29, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
 * @JaPhiDiMi You can also go to the Wayback Machine and search for an archived version of the page that's closest to access date. In this case, there's a snapshot of the page on December 1, 2017.
 * If you click on the reference (where it appears in the text (in other words, the [1]) a box pops up with an "Edit" button. Clicking on that lefts you edit the reference. Scroll down a bit and you'll see a field that says "Archive URL". You can paste this url in there:, and then in the box below that which says "Archive date" you can add the date:
 * Sometimes those fields don't show up and you have to click on the "Add more information" box at the bottom and search for  in the search box.
 * A simpler way is to click on the "View history" tab and click on the "Fix dead links" link to the upper right. You may have to log in to use the service, but you just do that through your Wikipedia account. That will search for dead links and add archive links. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:13, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Need help request from JJJ7171 (talk)
Hello.

I need help with... finding the sandbox draft link on my course homepage???

--JJJ7171 (talk) 17:20, 3 March 2022 (UTC)


 * @JJJ7171 If you're logged in you should an a section titled "My Articles" at the top of this page. It should have section that says "Articles I'm updating" and below that there should be the name of the article, with two links below it: "Sandbox Draft" and "Article".
 * If you're not seeing that, check to see if you're logged in to the Dashboard. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:57, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

need help on reviewing peer review
my assignment is to respond to my peer review however i went to my talk page and theres nothing listed. Does this mean someone didnt review it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Annabellecrtrt (talk • contribs) 06:53, 6 March 2022 (UTC)


 * @Annabellecrtrt That's probably the case. You should speak to your instructor about this, and see if they can nudge the assigned person to finish their review. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:43, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Are these sources wiki acceptable?
I had a question, are interviews allowed to be used as sources? I have an understanding that Wiki prefers the use of secondary sources however I wanted to summarized a story of a survivor of the Argentina's torture rooms during its dirty war. Additionally can I use a source that I know the author but not its title for example this sourcePanchovillastan (talk) 17:48, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Interviews can be used as sources as long as the source is reliable, however they should be used sparingly. The reason for this is that the source is primary and as such, the claims may not have been verified by the person or outlet doing the interview. Now, I see that the link in question is to a YouTube video of a documentary someone made - I wouldn't recommend using this as a source. It's difficult to verify the accuracy of the video in question or whether the person would be seen as an authority on the topic. It's also possible that the video may contain content that is deliberately incorrect as opposed to them accidentally misinterpreting or representing something - it's not uncommon for people to include deepfakes in videos just to create mischief. Finally, there's also an issue of copyright in cases where people are reposting videos made by someone else.
 * Now that said, you could review this and take some notes, then use that information to seek out more material on your given topic in academic and scholarly sources. Sometimes having an overview of a person/topic makes it easier to find more material. ReaderofthePack (formerly Tokyogirl79)  (｡◕‿◕｡)  18:28, 8 March 2022 (UTC)


 * Something else to keep in mind - in order to write about a specific person you will need additional coverage to justify focusing on them over another individual. This can be kind of difficult to do, as a lot of times people writing on the topic tend to focus on the overall conditions or treatment of a group of people rather than the individuals. Part of this is because there are sadly so many individual cases, there's not enough time to focus on them all in-depth. My recommendation would be to write about the prisoner treatment and torture as a whole, with perhaps a sentence focusing on an individual experience. ReaderofthePack (formerly Tokyogirl79)  (｡◕‿◕｡)  18:32, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what sourcing you already have, but these look promising:, , . You may also want to review the references sections of these sources- this can provide a wealth of other sourcing to seek out. ReaderofthePack (formerly Tokyogirl79)  (｡◕‿◕｡)  18:36, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks so much, ! Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:54, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
 * @Panchovillastan the YouTube channel appears to be a repost from Encuentro (per the logo in the corner), so probably a good source. But you can't reference the repost, and you shouldn't link to it in your article because it's probably a copyright infringement. But you might be able to track down the actual source with that info. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:54, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you, I very much value your time and feedback! Panchovillastan (talk) 18:57, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Nacotchtanck
Hi Ian, In the past you have done a number of edits on the Nacotchtank page, so I'm starting with you. I'm doing the DC Native History Project (http://onceasitwasdc.org/index.html - note: in the "About" link you can get to the older blog and FB page.), and have recently put together some observations about the origins of the Anacostan name - which seems to be a mistake made by Smith's mapmakers, but it gets frequently perpetuated since it sits in such a prominent place. Details here: http://nativevillagemarker.blogspot.com/2022/02/the-name-of-dcs-native-tribe-how.html Quick points: The map says "Nacotchtanck." That spelling isn't included on the wiki page. Father Andrew White didn't "anglicize" the name, he corrected it.

I've done a little editing on wiki, but with this I don't know where to start. Feel free to email me directly with thoughts and suggestions about this, and maybe who else you think I should contact: armandlione@gmail.com Thanks, Armand — Preceding unsigned comment added by Armandlione (talk • contribs) 00:25, 10 March 2022 (UTC)


 * Hi @Armandlione. I haven't actually edited that page, and I really don't know anything about the topic. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:34, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your reply! I guess it shows how little I know about the wiki editing process. Your name and this link seem to be listed there a number of times. I wonder why? Sorry to bother you, but someone put your "name in the streets" and that's how I got to you.
 * Guess I'll try some of the other links. Did someone say "not user friendly?"
 * Best wishes,
 * Armand Armandlione (talk) 02:01, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Rapid edits at Talk:Passing (gender)
Ian, I'm not entirely sure what's going on here, but it looks like it might be inadvertent edit warring between instructor and the wiki edu bot; see for example, the last five edits before mine at Talk:Passing (gender). It looks like instructor Ariella Horwitz might've wanted to add several reviewers for this assignment as part of their Gender and Technoculture article, but the bot kept removing them just before the instructor added another? Or, it was intentional, and they couldn't decide on which reviewer they wanted? Mathglot (talk) 19:47, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

I used the assign random reviewer function and then went in and made some changes after it assigned the articles.ACHorwitz (talk) 19:51, 11 March 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks @ACHorwitz and @Mathglot. I'm pinging just so he's aware that the Dashboard did this. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:58, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that clarification, User:ACHorwitz; Ian, looks like they are on top of this, I don't think the dashboard was involved, per User:ACHorwitz's comment above. I don't believe further action is needed, but I could be wrong. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 20:01, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Publishing Changes to Live Article
Hi Ian, when I try to publish my changes to my live article the message "Error contacting the Parsoid//RESTBase server (HTTP 404, what could I do to make this message go away and publish my changes to the article? Kaleasantoyo (talk) 16:42, 14 March 2022 (UTC)


 * @Kaleasantoyo That's a longstanding error that happens once in a while on Wikipedia (and is apparently difficult for the tech folks to pinpoint or fix). I would open a new browser window, copy and paste your edits into it, and try again later. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:39, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Need help request from Scientist06 (talk)
Hello.

Would you please review my work for week 5?

Thank you

--Scientist06 (talk) 08:01, 15 March 2022 (UTC)


 * Hi @Scientist06. I'm not really sure what your instructor expects here, so it's better to talk to them. I'm also not an expert on vertebrate anatomy, so I'm probably not the most helpful person in that regard.
 * If you have questions about how to write an article, or whether something is a good enough source, or anything in that regard, I'm happy to help. Just not on this. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:57, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

User:Zuzer Smith/Rueben Sanders/Biography
Hello, Ian,

A student editor keeps moving this page to main space. I was going to tag it for deletion but decided to move it back to their User space. I think if they move it back, for a third time, it will be tagged for deletion, at least a PROD or maybe an AFD. Liz Read! Talk! 02:11, 16 March 2022 (UTC)


 * @Liz They didn't respond to my feedback from earlier on. I'm going to email their instructor in the morning and ask them to intervene. In the meantime, I've partially blocked them for a few days to put an end to this. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 04:01, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

Need help request from Sammy horowitz (talk)
Hello.

I need help with posting in the sandbox

--Sammy horowitz (talk) 18:48, 16 March 2022 (UTC)


 * @Sammy horowitz It looks like you haven't assigned yourself an article to work on yet. If you assign yourself an article on your class's page on the Dashboard it will create links to post to your bibliography and draft pages. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:35, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

Editing a New wikipedia page
Hi Ian,

I'm editing a new wikipedia page for this Bay Area muralist for a class and I'm not sure how to edit my page away from speedy deletion. Do you mind looking at my page created for Elizabeth Blancas and giving me feedback?

best, Zyanya — Preceding unsigned comment added by Communistbakery (talk • contribs) 22:27, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Your article was subject to a request for speedy deletion, but was moved by an admin,, to draftspace instead. You reverted Bbb's move without addressing the issues. wizzito  &#124;  say hello!  03:08, 17 March 2022 (UTC)


 * Your article needs a lot of work still. I will leave you more feedback on your talk page. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:42, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

My edit isn't showing up on the existing article
Hi Ian,

I made a few edits to this article Ocean acidification in the Great Barrier Reef in my sandbox draft but I can't get it to update on the existing page. What am I missing?

Thanks,

Natalie — Preceding unsigned comment added by Winde068 (talk • contribs) 02:57, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Your sandbox and the main article are not the same page. You need to copy contents in your sandbox into the page. wizzito  &#124;  say hello!  03:04, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

No pictures under creative commons. HELP PLEASE!!!
Our topic is the Stockholm Declaration and we cannot find photos under creative commons. I wonder whether we can use photos linked below by the UN and how do we cite them?

https://legal.un.org/avl/ha/dunche/dunche.html

Much appreciation!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jessicawang.ubc (talk • contribs) 16:22, 17 March 2022 (UTC)


 * @Jessicawang.ubc I don't think they're usable. As far as I know, material from the UN published in the US before 1987 is usable, but later stuff is not. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:25, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the response! I am not sure how to find usable photos online. Any tips? Jessicawang.ubc (talk) 23:12, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
 * @Jessicawang.ubc It's difficult to find usable photos for most things like this. That's why so many Wikipedia articles don't have images in them. Historic events often have images that are out of copyright, while recent ones may have free images. But between the 1930s and the 2000s it's difficult. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:12, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Actually, the event took place in 1972, so these photos were taken during those time. Would that be okay? Jessicawang.ubc (talk) 23:27, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
 * @Jessicawang.ubc Unfortunately this works off publication date rather than creation date, so you'd need to establish when it was published. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:09, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
 * How would I cite these photos? Jessicawang.ubc (talk) 23:36, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Need help request from Hanfino (talk)
Hello.

I need help with... how do i create my sandbox

--Hanfino (talk) 18:35, 17 March 2022 (UTC) HE


 * @Hanfino You should see a link on your course's Dashboard page, under the My Article section, that links to your sandbox. Click on the "create" link, add some content, and then click Publish changes. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:27, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Can I republish my edits removed by ClueBot
Hi Ian, I recently edited the anarcha-feminism article, but all of my edits got removed by ClueBot. I wanted to make sure that it was a false positive from ClueBot and that I didn't actually do something wrong.

Thank you, Aniidorii (talk) 06:29, 22 March 2022 (UTC)


 * @Aniidorii You can restore edits reverted by ClueBot, but in this case, your additions lack inline sources, so you shouldn't restore them without adding in-line sources. There should be a minimum of one source per paragraph, and there shouldn't be any text after the final citation in a paragraph. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:51, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

no content articles
I get it takes time to create articles but can you please discuss with this instructor what the proper way to go about this is? Their students created at least 4 articles in mainspace with no content that sat for 30 minutes, I moved them to draft and the instructor recreated them yet again with absolutely no content. If they need to work on them, it should be done in draft space. CUPIDICAE💕 19:23, 23 March 2022 (UTC)


 * @Praxidicae Wow - that's not ok. That's definitely not what they're supposed to be doing - students are supposed to be drafting their work in their sandboxes; these days the Dashboard is set up to walk them through the process of drafting and peer review in sandboxes. I don't get what's going on here at all. I will email them now. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:30, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
 * And thanks for the heads-up! Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:30, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Also they've now recreated each of these 5 articles nearly 4 times with no substance and haven't responded. If they do so again, I will be requesting a mainspace block at ANI, despite my utter distaste for doing so. CUPIDICAE💕  19:31, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I don't get it. They usually ask Helaine or me when they're confused about something. Anyway, I deleted the three that still existed. You can also ping me (or, you know, that guy) if a partial block is needed. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:34, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Help on The Blue Room references and bibliography
Hi, i was wondering if you could tell me how to edit the references section directly without disturbing the links that are already there? They weren’t really necessary to the article and i wanted to replace them with the two i found and used. Thanks, ivan. Ivanm1234 (talk) 22:29, 24 March 2022 (UTC)


 * @Ivanm1234 you can't edit the reference section directly because it is generated from the references that appear in the text. In edit mode, when you click on the numbered reference where it appears in the text, you will have the option to edit the fields in the reference itself. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:56, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Parkinson's disease
Ian, there is a course at University of Minnesota, at least three students, not medical students, editing Parkinson's disease and using blogs and non-MEDRS; they don't seem to be registered. Might you try reaching out to one of them (see March 28 edits). Best, Sandy Georgia (Talk)  23:51, 28 March 2022 (UTC)


 * @SandyGeorgia Thanks for letting me know. I've left the students a note, and I'll try to see if I can figure out who the class is connected with. It's definitely unusual to see them create userpages on Meta first. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:15, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  14:17, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Hello Ian
I don't believe we have rolled out the WMF Growth Team features for all new editors but at least a portion are being assigned mentors. I noticed a student was assigned to me and I left a little welcome note on their talk page and some hopeful encouragement but I definitely do not want to step on toes here or break with protocol so I apologize if I have done so. -- A Rose Wolf  18:04, 1 April 2022 (UTC)


 * @ARoseWolf That's a great note, and I appreciate you leaving it for them. Too many student editors fail to grasp the community aspect of Wikipedia, even after editing here. It would be great if more students stuck around after the end of the assignment. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:41, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree 100% and it starts with just one. If nothing else I hope they see we are a larger community and we are here to help each other accomplish the goal of making Wikipedia the best encyclopedia it can possibly be. -- A Rose Wolf  18:48, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Need help request from BL Elsner (talk)
Hello.

I need help with... finding the My Articles section so I can find my sandbox draft link to my assigned articleBL Elsner (talk) 17:29, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

--BL Elsner (talk) 17:29, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
 * , Could it be found at this link? User:BL Elsner/Choose an Article -- A Rose Wolf  17:42, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
 * @BL Elsner The "My Articles" section should be towards to top of this page. If you don't see a section labeled "My Articles" check the page to make sure you are logged in. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:32, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Need help request from AshleyONeill (talk)
Hello.

I need help with making sure my resources are coming from good sources and that I have formatted my resources right.

--AshleyONeill (talk) 15:26, 5 April 2022 (UTC) Ashley O'Neill


 * @AshleyONeill A lot depends on the context. While peer reviewed articles in generally are good sources, those published by MDPI have had some controversies around them. They wouldn't be my first choice if I can find better sources. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:52, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Country articles
Hi Ian, I just noticed this assignment claim under Wiki Ed/University of California, Berkeley/African Politics (Spring 2022). It seems a good course, Politics in general is covered direly on Wikipedia, African politics I suspect more so. However, summary style leaves country articles a bad place to engage in this (and perhaps a bad place for any WikiEd course to encourage editing in given their broadness). Politics of Ethiopia would be a better target.As an aside, perhaps the course instructor or yourself may want to, at the end of the course, add any decent improvements to WikiProject Africa/The 10,000 Challenge. Best, CMD (talk) 07:43, 6 April 2022 (UTC)


 * @Chipmunkdavis Thanks for the heads-up. I agree, a country article would be a poor choice for any newcomer, especially a student trying to make a substantive addition. It looks like they have removed that and are looking at Land reform in Ethiopia and Agriculture in Ethiopia instead.
 * I will keep an eye out for articles to add to the 10,000 challenge. There's probably a fair amount of good student work that could be added to these challenges. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 13:26, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Please look at User talk:Kwashi20
I hope this was just one student making a mistake, Ian. I know you'll know how to offer advice here. 🇺🇦 Fiddle Timtrent  Faddle Talk to me 🇺🇦 20:11, 6 April 2022 (UTC)


 * @Timtrent Thanks for letting me know. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:48, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Need help request from Manu479 (talk)
Hello.

I need help with opening a sandbox

--Manu479 (talk) 23:41, 6 April 2022 (UTC)


 * Hi @Manu479. You need to assign yourself an article to work on first. Go to your course page on the Dashboard and use the My Articles section at the top of that page to assign yourself an article. Once you've done that, you should see the links you need. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 13:51, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Just wanted to make aware of this conversation
Its not totally related to Wiki Ed but Wiki Ed was discussed and I thought you might want to at least observe and possibly comment.

There is currently a discussion at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. A Rose Wolf  16:49, 8 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I added the thread to it but I must have done the parameter wrong. The thread is "Undisclosed Jamaican school writing project". -- A Rose Wolf  16:51, 8 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks @ARoseWolf. I participated in the thread using my volunteer account. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:14, 8 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I didn't even realize that, I'm sorry. Just glad you were aware of it. -- A Rose Wolf  17:18, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Need help request from C Nouvel (talk)
Hello.

I need help with the sue of a map from a peer-review article to add to the Siau Island Trasier wiki page. Can I use the GIS map from the article below? https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/oryx/article/an-acute-conservation-threat-to-two-tarsier-species-in-the-sangihe-island-chain-north-sulawesi-indonesia/14B594D43AA08FE54C29269324A283E2

--C Nouvel (talk) 19:42, 9 April 2022 (UTC)


 * @C Nouvel It doesn't look so. The article's rights and permissions links says it's copyright, and there's nothing in the image captions that says the images were released under a less restrictive license. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:36, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Large chunk of unsourced material added to Propaganda by a student
See here. They've obviously worked hard on it but I couldn't let it stand. I also found some of it difficult to understand. Can you get them some help? Doug Weller talk 11:39, 11 April 2022 (UTC)


 * @Doug Weller Thanks for letting me know. I've given them some feedback. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:33, 11 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks. People like you are heroes! Doug Weller  talk 14:35, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Rewilding (conservation biology) had an inappropriate new para added to it on April 12 that I just undid.
Check out the history. The name of the inappropriate addition is DFischer4. It is in red so that person isn't registered. Can somebody do something to that name that puts them on probation, or that bans them from adding anything else to this page? Thanks. Cbarlow (talk) 23:15, 12 April 2022 (UTC) CBarlow


 * @Cbarlow I work with students in classes supported by Wiki Education, so I'm not really in a position to help with this. I think the Teahouse is probably the best place to get help with this. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:01, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

Dashboard bug
Hello Ian,

Not sure who to report this to, but since the assigned instructor seems checked out and the students ignored a ping before, but in case it hasn't already been reported and filed... the Dashboard for Wiki Ed/Laurentian University/Seminars in Forensic Science (2022W) seems to be busted and creating incorrect talk page sections without a linebreak after the section header. Even if manually fixed, the next Dashboard change overwrites this. Is this happening with other courses and is a Dashboard bug, or is just this course misconfigured? Example breaking diff, manual fix diff (+ignored query), undone by next dashboard tagged edit. Judging by, say, Special:Contributions/NJodkoN, this appears to be true across the course.

Also, not sure how to phrase this politely, but the instructor doesn't appear to be paying any attention at all to the changes being made in Wikipedia, judging by her lack of contributions and some of the simple errors persisting in her students' contributions. SnowFire (talk) 21:44, 13 April 2022 (UTC)
 * SnowFire: This linebreak issue is indeed a Dashboard bug. I've just coded a fix for it that I'm deploying shortly. Thanks for bringing it to our attention!--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:39, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

Conflicting Articles and Primary sources
Hello, I am working in Carroll University/Aquatic Ecology (Spring 2022) on the article Banded Guitarfish. There is not much on my topic except for primary articles. However, I know that wiki stated that there is limited use of primary articles, would it still be okay to use them if that's all I can find. My second question is one of the articles I found had conflicting information on my species' reproduction with another article. My professor said there should be a training module to deal with conflicting articles but I can't seem to find it. Any help would be appreciated. (Lthompso (talk) 00:49, 15 April 2022 (UTC))


 * @Lthompso primary sources are probably fine for species articles. As far as conflicting information goes, unless it's clearly outdated information the best idea if probably to include it all, and attribute conflicting claims to different authors. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:45, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia Growth Team Features
Hi Ian. You and the others at Wiki Ed might want to take a look at WP:GTF for reference. This is something new started by the WMF itself and one of its features is the random assigning of volunteer mentors to newly created accounts. I'm bringing this up because this seems to be happening for your student editors as well (User:BlueDolphin98 as been assigned to me), and I'm not quite sure the WMF Growth Team gave much consideration to that type of things. Most of the mentors experienced editors who do seem to know what they're doing, but they might not be as used to dealing with student editors as the Wiki Ed staff. Student editors might get confused hearing things from Wiki Ed and then hearing things from someone claiming to be their "mentor". Too much well-meaning advice might cause some students to stress out since they won't know who they should be listening to, and maybe they might be getting conflicting advice. Perhaps Wiki Ed and the WMF Growth team can get together and discuss whether things should be tweaked a bit for student editors. -- Marchjuly (talk) 07:15, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Just letting you know that I asked about this at Wikipedia talk:Growth Team features and apparently at least Sage (Wiki Ed) knows about it and seems to have asked that students not be (at least as of June last year) assigned mentors. -- Marchjuly (talk) 07:46, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
 * @Marchjuly - thanks for the note. I remember this discussion last year (I believe I may have been the one who asked Sage to weigh in). It's likely to cause problems for precisely the reasons you've identified - that students are likely to get conflicting advice.
 * I think you're right - it's worth raising this again, maybe see if there's a solution for this. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:20, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for this! Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:22, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Need help request from JackGradyP1 (talk)
Hello.

I need help with finding the sandbox where I should draft my assigned article. I'm adding my edits to the sandbox under my username.

--JackGradyP1 (talk) 01:28, 16 April 2022 (UTC)


 * @JackGradyP1 it looks like you've already assigned yourself an article, so just go here and you should see the links in the My Articles section. If you don't see them, check the top right corner of your screen to to make sure that you are logged in to the Dashboard. This training module should help orient you. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:13, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Please...
reach out to this user and explain how to edit - even the basics. There's a lot going on with this class that's being reverted, some of the writing is egregiously bad but they need some serious instruction. CUPIDICAE💕 22:47, 16 April 2022 (UTC)


 * @Praxidicae um, ugh. It looks like their second try was a bit better than the first at least. Thanks for the heads-up about the class - I will dig into their work. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:11, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Hey, Ian!
We had a student in BIOL 4610H 6610 Cell Biology persistently move a User page into main space even though it was basically blank. I wish the instructors would emphasize that students' article drafts/stub should stay in User or Draft space. Inevitably, as soon as these pages are moved to main space, they are tagged for deletion. If the new page patroller is more kind, they move them back to User space but no one wants to get into a move war with a draft creator so after one move try, the page just gets tagged.

Thanks for your patience and guidance to students. Liz Read! Talk! 06:03, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Is MDA-MB-453 (cancer cell line) the article in question? It seems to have a number of issues that probably need some TLC from Wikipedia:WikiProject Molecular Biology/Molecular and Cell Biology, but there are some minor formatting issues (e.g. WP:REFPUNC) that can be cleaned up without much effort. The student also seems to be trying to use a simple table markup as an infobox where something from Category:Biology infobox templates might work better. So, if you think there's something worth keeping, maybe move the content to their userspace (because it's also a WP:DUPLICATE), and perhaps advise the student to try and improve MDA-MB-453 instead. If you think it needs to be WP:TNT'd, then there's no point in even doing some minor copyediting. This kind of thing is always problematic because a WikiProject might be able to help sort things out, but at the same time some people might not want to do the heavy lifting and have the student then receive a grade for something they didn't really do. -- Marchjuly (talk) 07:40, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks to both of you for your help here. Sage set up a notification for deuserfying this term, and it's really been helpful in catching these things. I don't understand what in the trainings makes some students think they need to move sandboxes to mainspace (some do it after they've made their additions to mainspace articles, which is extremely baffling). I'm hoping to have time this summer to dig into this and maybe help avoid this.
 * Thanks especially Liz, for your patience with students. Thanks to the suite of notifications Sage has created for me, I see the page moves, even if I don't get to them in time. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:00, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Editing Sections with other writing
Hello Ian, Sorry I have one more question regarding the article Banded Guitarfish. I was hoping to add to the reproduction section, but others have already started it. Is it okay to move around the sentences to fit my information into them? I also noticed some close paraphrasing and was going to fix it along with fixing the reference section. What are the rules for changing other people's edits? Lthompso (talk) 22:40, 18 April 2022 (UTC)


 * @Lthompso You can always edit what others have written on Wikipedia (except for signed comments on talk pages). It's a collaborative process. Just remember to explain what you're doing in your edit summary. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:10, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/Western Colorado University/Biology 667 (Spring 2022) - topic
Hi there, noted one of the students from Wiki Ed/Western Colorado University/Biology 667 (Spring 2022) created a new article Mountain Whitefish which should be merged into Mountain whitefish. I believe the student did not check whether is there an existing article or thought to create a new article instead. Appreciate if you can follow up on this. Thanks~! --Justanothersgwikieditor (talk) 03:38, 19 April 2022 (UTC)


 * @Justanothersgwikieditor Thanks for letting me know. I moved it back to their sandbox and left them a note that they should improve the existing article instead of creating a duplicate. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:13, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

How can I help?
Dear, I just found out that one of my created article was included in Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. I'm more than eager to help in creating and curating American history related articles and also keen to volunteer for such course assignments. Please advise. -Hatchens (talk) 03:56, 19 April 2022 (UTC)


 * @Hatchens You could leave the student a friendly note on their talk page. A lot of students (like many newcomers) don't really get that Wikipedia is a community of people. You can see what they're drafting here. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:19, 19 April 2022 (UTC)
 * @Ian (Wiki Ed) I'm on to it. A day before yesterday I opened an account with dashboard.wikiedu.org; will keep a tab on all such assignments. In case, if you need any sort assistance, please do give me a ping. - Hatchens (talk) 16:26, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Need help request from Maalmor (talk) 05:22, 20 April 2022 (UTC)
Hello.

I need help with my bibliography in the Emigration from Africa article. It seems that I should have put it in the Bibliography section by clicking edit, is that right?

--Maalmor (talk) 05:22, 20 April 2022 (UTC)


 * @Maalmor Yes, the bibliography section is populated automatically by the inline references in the article. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:47, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

University of Maryland Baltimore County/Japanese Translation (Spring)
Hi Ian. I came across User:!Wete Pentz Bass!/Earth Seeker because there were some non-free files being used in it, which happens quite a lot. After noticing was participating in a Wiki Ed course and that the course likely involved Japanese translation, I started wondering whether things like WP:TFOLWP are covered in the modules and other information you provide for course instructors and their students. Of course, there's nothing wrong translating content from other language Wikipedias into English and adding it to existing Wikipedia articles, but there could be some big differences between the policies and guidelines of the different Wikipedias that might complicate things a bit. Even when a policy or guideline appears to be pretty much the same, how vigorously it's being applied or enforced by the different Wikipedias is quite different because the Wikipedia communities are different. So, someone not aware of such things might just assume that all Wikipedias are the same and that if some thing is done one way on one Wikipedia, then it's OK to do the same thing on all Wikipedias.Japanese Wikipedia, in comparison to English Wikipedia, seems to have fewer admins and other editors monitoring articles and doing basic cleanup. So, questionable sources, embedded external links, formatting peculiarities and other things often never get noticed (even more so than happens here on English Wikipedia). Some WP:ORDER and MOS:MOS differences also exist. For example, Japanese Wikipedia seems to prefer that "See Also" sections come after "References" section, whereas English Wikipedia prefer they come before. Another example is that Japanese Wikipedia also doesn't follow WP:REFPUNC like English Wikipedia does and citations are generally added before punctuation.Anyway, as !Wete Pentz Bass! has been incorporating content from their sandbox into Earth Seeker, they also been introducing various formatting and other MOS errors that are going to eventually need to be cleaned up. There also seems to some WP:NOTEVERYTHING, WP:CITETRIM and WP:NOTDIRECTORY issues to clean up too. WP:VG is a pretty active WikiProject and there's a good chance that one of its members is just going to come along a revert all of the changes made. So, perhaps it would be wise for you to try and explain things to this student and get them to self-revert, and then try and get them to look some of the FAs or GAs about videogames or even seek input from WP:VG before taking another crack at the improving the article. If this student's intructor is just evaluating their students translating ability, they can probably do that sufficiently by looking at their students user sandboxes since that's not really related to Wikipedia at all. -- Marchjuly (talk) 07:47, 20 April 2022 (UTC)


 * @Marchjuly Yeah, this class has been a learning experience for me - working through machine translation to try to figure out whether a source is reliable or not is not fun. We have a training module aimed at translation classes, but I'm not sure it adequately captures all the possibilities. We've been in touch with the instructor - LiAnna gave them some good feedback while I was out last week (I learned a few things about the Japanese Wikipedia by being cc'd on that message).
 * Given that conversation, I think I'll email the instructor about this too. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:26, 20 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you Ian. For reference, I’ve also asked for assistance at WT:VG. Perhaps through a combination of efforts the student may be helped and maybe even encouraged to stick around once their class has ended. In addition to WP:VG, WP:JAPAN might be something the student is interested in. — Marchjuly (talk) 20:51, 20 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Update: Some editors from WP:VG have been working on cleaning things up and building on what !Wete Pentz Bass! started. Although the Wete Pentz Bass! contributions weren't all reverted, enough changes made and the article does look quite different from how !Wete Pentz Bass! left it. Most of the WikiProject members who commented seem to have no issue working with the !Wete Pentz Bass! to continue improving the article; so, !Wete Pentz Bass! should be OK asking questions or seeking assistance on the article’s talk page. It seems that students are sometimes graded on their work in the mainspace; so, !Wete Pentz Bass! might try to restore things back to what they were because of that. If that's a concern, !Wete Pentz Bass! should have their instructor look at their user sandbox instead. What they absolutely need to avoid, however, is reverting all of the changes made by others and restoring things back to their preferred version since that will likely just lead to problems with the others working on the article. Maybe you could explain this to the student so that they don't panic when they see the article has been changed. — Marchjuly (talk) 03:59, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
 * @Marchjuly I will ask the instructor to remind the students that they will be graded on their sandbox work, not what's in mainspace. Thanks for the update. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 13:25, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

Need help request from Rackzbrown (talk)
Rackzbrown (talk) 04:17, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Hello.

I need help with...

Rackzbrown (talk) 04:17, 21 April 2022 (UTC) --Rackzbrown (talk) 04:17, 21 April 2022 (UTC)


 * @Rackzbrown is there something specific I can help you with? Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 13:54, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi Ian,
 * I have edited 3 articles and published them, I'm not sure if it was done correctly?
 * Also there is an article Color Wheel of Love that I undid to add an edit summary, is there anyway to have only 1 article displayed than the 3 of the color wheel (like removing the other 2) Rackzbrown (talk) 14:17, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
 * @Rackzbrown I don't understand what you mean with the second question. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:50, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi Ian,
 * I made some edits to an article and published it . When I realized I didn't add an edit summary, I went to history and then clicked on Undo. When I did that and added the edit summary and published again , all the changes made previously were reverted. So I had to redo it again. So now it shows up 3 times in my history. Can the unnecessary ones be removed? Rackzbrown (talk) 15:50, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
 * @Rackzbrown Oh, I understand. No, they can't be. Don't worry about it. Also, if you forget to leave an edit summary, just leave it. You don't need to revert yourself and then re-add it just to fix the edit summary. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:22, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you Ian Rackzbrown (talk) 22:29, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Women in the Montana government
One of the articles created during the Fall 2021 Gender and Politics course at Rice University is now a candidate for deletion. We've tried to salvage it by removing problematic statements that could be construed as original research, but thought you should be aware that this discussion is currently in progress. Cielquiparle (talk) 17:28, 23 April 2022 (UTC)


 * @Cielquiparle Thanks for letting me know. I appreciate the ping. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 13:21, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

Need your assistance regarding a student edit
Hi Ian, a student editor has moved one of their userspace pages into the mainspace AshleyONeill/Haloarchaea, which appears to be a copy of Haloarchaea and doesn't quite meet the guidelines for mainspace articles. I see that they're enrolled for Wiki Ed/University of Delaware/Marine Microbial Ecology (Spring22). I'm not accustomed to working with student editors and thus seeking your assistance. If there's anything I can help with, please let me know. Thanks! &#8212;CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • C • L) 10:13, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
 * So another editor has already acted upon the page and left a talk message at Ashley's talk page. Thanks! &#8212;CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • C • L) 15:49, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Oh! I somehow got Ian on my watchlist in the past. Didn't mean to jump on something you were acting on, my apologies. . Happy Editing-- IAm  Chaos  16:40, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
 * @IAmChaos I'm happy for any help. Thanks for moving the page back to userspace.
 * @CX Zoom Thanks for the ping. If student editors mess up page moves like this, you should feel free to either move it back to their sandbox, or move it to the proper article title (if you think it's viable, and they didn't create a duplicate). It's also fine to just ping me - I'm more than happy to clean up things like this. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 13:20, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

Amphiodia occidentalis
Thank you for your recent addition to this page. Could you check the references, though? There is one citation that you used several times, but it's not defined properly in the code. The "ref name=:0/" is used, but it doesn't refer back to the same without the slash, so there's an error message. I figure that it's easier for you to fix once it's brought to your attention than for me to read each reference and figure it out. Thanks.

Ira

Ira Leviton (talk) 00:12, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

WP:MEDRS
I came across a rather problematic class for a variety of reasons ranging from copyvios, to violating POV and not using medrs. Can you please explain to this particular student that our standard for editing medical articles is far higher than other articles (except maybe BLP and that they must provide clear WP:MEDRS without their personal editorial? I reverted their edits to Mental health as first, I find them degrading as a human to equate mental health and stability with exercise and as an editor where it's largely unsupported by mainstream medical and scientific sources and filled with their own commentary, which they again restored, and I've reverted. I'm not interested in edit warring with Wikied but if it continues, I'll be requesting a block from the article. Our med editors are really engaged so they can take their changes to the talk page. PRAXIDICAE💕  16:18, 25 April 2022 (UTC)


 * @Praxidicae Thanks. Three of the five largest contributions from this class have crossed by radar as problematic today. Looks like it's an older, cloned course page that doesn't use any of the new article scaffolding processes. That probably doesn't help. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:54, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

Problem, with Sichuan Cuisine as an example
Hi Ian;

Much admiration for your patient and energetic work with student projects. I'm a retired college teacher, and think it's great to have Wikipedia integrated into college courses.

But....

I removed material from Sichuan cuisine that was incorrect and unsourced HERE.

Seeing your advice above, I put a note on 's Talk Page that I hope was helpful.

Question: Is there a way to get instructors to take responsibility for student work? It's good to get students involved, but I feel just a little annoyed that I have to take time to correct obviously misleading edits, which I have done on many occasions.

Instructors read and correct student papers, so why should they not read and correct writing that appears in public?

But cheers to you in any case!

ch (talk) 17:07, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

PS I should have added that this is for Wiki Ed/Boston University/Language and Technology (Spring 2022) ch (talk) 17:24, 25 April 2022 (UTC)


 * @CWH Thanks for doing that, and thanks for letting me know.
 * As far as getting instructors more involved in reviewing student work before it goes to mainspace, I know it's something we encourage them to do, but I do need to work with Helaine to see if we can come up with a more effective way to encouraging that. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:53, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

From the same course, we have Gnaphalium affine Kueh (chi kak kuih) (moved to draft by User:Star Mississippi), and The Shanghai EDITION (draft declined, created in mainspace anyway, there deleted as G11 advertising), and Chunqiu Yancheng, where the edits have been reverted and revdeled as close paraphrasing (oh, this happend at Jinling Hotel as well). And I am ignoring the rather dubious writing used in other articles like here or here. It's not clear why a Boston University course on "Language and Technology" would only attract Chinese editors writing about China and food or drink either. Something very strange and rather unproductive going on here. Fram (talk) 08:15, 27 April 2022 (UTC)


 * Hi. I just want to respond to a couple of the comments in this page. The course Language and Technology has a lot of ELL (English Language Learners), many of them, from China. One of the goals of the class is to facilitate students to bring in their cultures and backgrounds into the assignments they work on in the class. Wikipedia has an Euro-centric bias, so this is one way in which some of the topics that are poorly covered or not covered at all get some coverage on Wikipedia. I agree that there are issues with some students' work, and we are working on fixing it as soon as we can, but many of my students make excellent contributions to Wikipedia. I would not characterize the work in the classroom as "strange and unproductive". Thank you for helping the students as they navigate their first time editing Wikipedia. Mettysh (talk) 14:28, 27 April 2022 (UTC)


 * Why do you (and way to many other Wiki-Edu people) believe "creating a new article" is in any way a good method to "navigate their first time editing Wikipedia"? Why not at the very least then make them use the draft namespace instead? "Many of my students make excellent contributions"? Apart from the ones already listed, we have e.g. the edits to Leo (astrology), which were reverted completely (and rightly so). They succeed in making correct things worse. This is a copyvio translation from the source (copied the Google translation). Perhaps, in general, check your students work before it reaches the mainspace, as it causes a lot of extra work. Fram (talk) 14:49, 27 April 2022 (UTC)
 * @Fram We need to do a better job directing students away from article creation and towards article improvement. Less than 10% of students create new articles (and more than half of those "creations" are people trying to merge work using the move button) but there are still too many who start with the idea of creating something new. As soon as the semester is mostly done, that's my main priority. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:03, 27 April 2022 (UTC)
 * @Fram I hadn't noticed the pattern until this semester but yes, this class always has a lot of Chinese students (guessing from their usernames) working on topics like these. I've noticed some of the close paraphrasing (and revdel'd some myself). I think that after 2 years of Covid, undergrads are struggling more (but maybe that's just me being an old man yelling at clouds). We need to update our training materials to adapt to that.
 * The proportion of undergrads from China in US universities is a lot higher than it was a couple decades ago. GenZ as a whole is also a lot less white than the millennials or GenX, and includes a lot of children of immigrants. If you're outside of academia, even if you're academia-adjacent like I am (literally - I live just a couple miles from campus) I think our perceptions are often out of date. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:51, 27 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Still don't see what any of these topics have to do with "language and technology" though. Fram (talk) 14:57, 27 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Edit conflict (2 times): Response: I have been attempting to keep out unsourced, poorly sourced, and information not related to the Northeastern Mandarin article. Despite me informing the teacher here of the problem and later informing the editor here the problem has not been addressed and in fact the student continues to add in unsourced information along with information that is completely not relevant to the topic, for example the section labeled Famous Comedian - Zhao Benshan. There have been enough concerns with this teachers class that I think it is about time we start protecting Wikipedia from the actions of their students.-- VViking Talk Edits 14:58, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

This discussion has touched sensitive points! But the larger questions should be addressed in a wider venue, though I don't know where. Perhaps (to whom continued thanks and increased chocolate chip cookies) could suggest where? ch (talk) 15:51, 27 April 2022 (UTC)


 * @CWH I think the correct venue for further discussion would be WP:ENB. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:33, 27 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I'll check it out and try to catch the flow before adding my two cents worth. As even the short discussion here shows, there are many issues to consider.ch (talk) 22:37, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

I also removed by the same student editor from Sichuan cuisine for lack of sourcing. A mitigating factor may be that we all learn by example, and student editors are no different, and when they see a table of Sichuan dishes in an article, none of which are sourced, they may well wonder why their edit was removed, but not the pre-existing table listing other unsourced dishes. That's a valid question, to which I might respond "whataboutism" isn't a defense, their stuff still needs to be sourced; and that WP:EDITCONSENSUS may support the previously added table entries. I'm also just as likely to agree with them, should they raise that question, and remove the rest of that unsourced table, and I may do it anyway, even if they don't raise the question. Mathglot (talk) 20:49, 1 May 2022 (UTC)


 * @Mathglot "model your work on what you see in Wikipedia articles" is usually good advice. Until they choose to model it on the structure of the crappy article they're working on. Personally I think "x cuisine" articles are almost always awful. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:48, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I couldn't agree more. With all your points. Those cuisine articles are uniformly crappy. It takes more experience than a student editor is likely to have, to know when to model their editing on what they see, and when not to. I don't know what the solution for this is, other than to gently let instructors know where the pain points are likely to be. But then, we see brand new student editors being directed by their instructors towards articles under WP:AC/DS, and that's usually a train wreck waiting to happen. If Azov Batallion shows up on any course listing, you'll know we're on the wrong track. (That's my pick, for the most contentious article in a contentious topic area under AC/DS, and likely to get you indeffed if you don't know what you're doing.) Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 20:54, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
 * @Mathglot Students usually do pretty well in climate change, and often do well in areas related to feminism, so not not all DS articles. I do get notifications when they assign themselves articles subject to DS, but the bigger problems tend to arise from people who don't assign themselves articles.
 * As far as "cuisine of x" articles go, we've talked about possibly creating a list of articles that we could automatically discourage students from editing, not necessarily because they're Azov Batallion-contentious, but because they're edited far too frequently (like Boba tea). Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:09, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Link: User_talk:Ian_(Wiki_Ed)/Archive_16 Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:09, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Ian, thanks for those insights. I haven't edited in the area of climate change, so it's good to know that students have had a better track record there; I hope that's more the rule than the exception. I had also considered something like your "list of articles" idea; I wonder if it would be too long? Maybe some efficiencies could be found by allowing regular expressions, as in your "cuisine of x". If it becomes practical to create such a list, it could be useful beyond just student editors to any new editor, and possibly to other groups such as WP:AFC, and WP:NPP. This is worth some additional thought, so let me get back to you on this. Mathglot (talk) 23:05, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

sigh...issue with a wikied teacher
Can you please let this teacher know that restoring WP:OR, poorly written WP:NPOV violations and partial copyvios isn't okay? This isn't a matter of ownership or "ROWN" (reverting inappropriately) but we have standards for med articles that fall under WP:MEDRS and job descriptions and study.com just aren't suitable. I do not have the energy or time to explain this to another professor who isn't interested in engaging the community before reverting experienced editors. PRAXIDICAE💕 14:23, 26 April 2022 (UTC)


 * @Praxidicae I've pinged Matt about this. He's actually pretty engaged with Wikipedia and the community, though I think he was a bit hasty restoring this. Thanks for letting me know. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:34, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Locked wiki pages
Hi Ian, One of my assignments is to add a sentence to a wiki article. I wrote out my sentence and referenced it in sandbox. However, the article (venus' fly traps) is locked. Is there any way that I can go ahead and add my sentence to the page? Thank You! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kay Kang 1 (talk • contribs) 20:18, 26 April 2022 (UTC)


 * @Kay Kang 1 You can use Template:Request edit to request an edit on Talk:Venus flytrap. But I think you should have enough edits by now to edit a semi-protected page like that one. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:33, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Mountain Whitefish
Hi Ian, In the sandbox I copied all the text over from the older version of the article and made sure it was incorporated into my version (So the new version is an improvement of the older version). Can you please let me know how I should proceed? Thank you! 75.82.75.73 (talk) 04:17, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Need help request from IAmNotTLockett (talk)
Hello.

I need help with accessing my sandbox

--IAmNotTLockett (talk) 02:14, 28 April 2022 (UTC)


 * Hi,, go to your user page, and click the button that says "Sandboxes", which will bring you to this page. Happy Editing-- IAm  Chaos  03:58, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
 * @IAmNotTLockett If you go to your class's Dashboard page, you should see a "My Articles" section near the top of the page. There if you don't see the links there, you should check to make sure you're logged in. This training module should help orient you. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:22, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Need help
Hello Ian I need help with something in my sandbox. In my see also section im trying to add another few topics, they need to be highlighted and when I hover over I need to be able to see an example or definition. Im still very new to this and feeling a little lost. Sarahv504 (talk) 18:28, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Response at User talk:Sarahv504. Mathglot (talk) 19:06, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks so much @Mathglot! Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:40, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for your help with this fiasco. Flabbergasted. -- Deep fried okra ( talk ) 22:06, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

WikiEd Course creating lots of student essays
You may already be aware, but a WikiEdu assignment is creating lots of essay-heavy articles like Systemic Injustice in Literature, Literary hope theory, and Empathy in literature. Some may need to be draftified or else receive extra attention. Articles like these make Wikipedia seem more like an upstart digital journal or homework hosting hub than anything resembling an encyclopedia. Cheers, --Animalparty! (talk) 06:49, 30 April 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks @Animalparty. I've been trying to figure out what to do with these. Topic-wise, I think they're just this side of what could be an article, but these aren't. On the other hand, I think there might be something salvageable (there's a lot in there, and it might be enough to craft an article out of in some of them). Something I plan to take a shot at as soon as the flood of end-of-semester student work has passed (hoping it'll be this week). It would have been better if I had caught the scale of this sooner, but I didn't realise that almost everyone was working on such borderline topics until it was a bit too late.
 * That aside, I think the problem here is that it's a new instructor who didn't quite make the transition from class paper to Wikipedia article. If they choose to try this again, I'm hopeful that we can guide them in a more productive direction. That obviously doesn't help with the need to clean these up, but I'll take a shot at clean up wit my volunteer account. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:45, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Template:Did you know nominations/Anne Zelensky
Ian, the nomination needs more work, and an attempt to ping people who might help doesn't seem to have yielded fruit. According to the relevant WikiEd page, the class this came from ends today. Is there anything you can do, or should we give up on it? Please let us know. Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 20:41, 30 April 2022 (UTC)


 * @BlueMoonset I've emailed the student. Hopefully they will be able to help. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:21, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Ian. I hope they can help, too. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:55, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
 * @BlueMoonset They replied to my email and seemed interested, so hoping for the best. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:18, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Ian, no communication from the student at the nomination as yet. In the meantime, another student editor, 19jshi, has nominated Template:Did you know nominations/Sarah Sayifwanda, which was initially passed, but the hook has been disallowed per WP:BLPCRIME. The class ends later today (UTC), and while the editor has edited as recently as Wednesday, I was wondering whether you could get directly in touch with the editor, or might perhaps wish to suggest a hook yourself or ask the instructor. Thank you very much. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:25, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

Need help request from Aopeters (talk) Albert Peterson
Hello.

I need help with... Uploading my article to the correct sandbox

--Aopeters (talk) 18:31, 2 May 2022 (UTC)


 * It looks like you've already assigned yourself an article, so just go here and you should see the links in the My Articles section. If you don't see them, check the top right corner of your screen to to make sure that you are logged in to the Dashboard. This training module should help orient you. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:02, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Reverted Edits of the Black Ops wiki article
Hello Ian, after listening and adjusting to the comments you made towards the edits I've been making in the black ops wiki article, I am still having difficulties with my edits still being deleted. If it is no trouble, I would like you to review the recent edits I've made in the article. If there is any problems with the sources, information or the purpose of the content, please leave me any messages because I really do believe the information I have to provide for the article is essential and beneficial for the average viewer of the wiki page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NateRob25 (talk • contribs) 04:44, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
 * ; and see . Mathglot (talk) 05:25, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Kind of running into conflict with other editors
Hi, I'm a student on the course 'Climate Change Spring 2022'. Recently someone undid my edits twice and left arrogant responses. That really hurts. I might have a few grammar mistakes but that editor didn't help me improve. Instead he choose to simply undo the edit without specifications. I write on his talk page and complain about that, and he use mean words as a response. If he undo my edit again, what should I do? This is a very unfriendly move for a non-native speaker.Yuheng98 (talk) 23:34, 4 May 2022 (UTC)


 * @Yuheng98 William's edit summaries were not impolite. The first said: don't add stuff already linked. That is correct - you aren't supposed to link things more than once in an article. His second comment is also pretty straightforward: not improvements, adds grammatical errors. While some of your edits are improvements, others are not, and you did add at least one grammatical error. Other things you added like adding "e.g." to the middle of a sentence, and changing "snow or ice" to "snow/ice" are the kinds of things you should avoid.
 * I think you should stop editing the article. While William's reversions were fine, your response was not. If someone reverts your edits, the onus is on your to figure out why. Instead of doing that, you continued to do what he said you shouldn't (added links to things that were already linked). In addition, your response to him was extremely rude - you can't accuse someone of "arrogant responses". That's a violation of Wikipedia policy on civility.
 * The greenhouse effect article is quite well developed. You should find something else to work on. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:14, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Just to be clear, @Yuheng98, you're violating three key policies in your edits here: Wikipedia's civility policy, the policy on personal attacks, and the policy against harassment. You really can't treat other Wikipedians that way. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:36, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I apologize for my rudeness. Thank you very much for addressing the policies. I will not edit like that again. Yuheng98 (talk) 14:48, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I learn the policies now. Should I delete the bad comments on William's talk page? Yuheng98 (talk) 15:35, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi . I don't suggest that you try and delete your comments because that's likely to backfire and create further problems. What you should do is follow the advice given WP:REDACT and strikethrough your comments instead. You can leave an edit summary explaining why, but it might also be a good idea to leave a new post at end of the discussion thread in which you apologize for your comments. You don't need to go into a lot of detail trying to justify or explain why you made the comments you made; if you messed up or misunderstood something, just say "I messed up" or "I misunderstood something" and apologize for doing so. As long as you avoid blaming others, you should be OK. Of course, you're not required to apologize, but a simple apology can help smooth things over and may show other users that you're more interested in collaborating with them than fighting with them. If you apologize, don't do so expecting a certain response from the other user. How they respond is up to them. If they post a "thank you", then that's great for you. If they post a "get lost", then that's too bad for them. If they don't respond at all, don't keeping posting stuff until they do; make your apology and move on to doing other things. Users, even experienced users, make mistakes all the time. Mistakes are OK, but the drama that some users create when making them often is more of a problem. — Marchjuly (talk) 21:05, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the reminder! Yuheng98 (talk) 21:10, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your detailed explanation. I used language in a terrible way. I thought 'arrogant' is not a very strong word, and I really felt frustrated when I saw the comment. I didn't mean to insult anyone. I'm truly sorry for what I've caused. I understand now that I need a lot to improve my language use and accept the responsibilities of being a contributor of Wikipedia. I really enjoy editing! Yuheng98 (talk) 15:25, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
 * About the edit on Greenhouse Effect, I think at least some of reference and links are useful. For example, 'Hallett-Mossop process'('Cloud' section) is not cited and readers will be curious about the process. I added the original 1974 Nature paper as a reference yesterday. The paragraph I added in 'Details'(I changed that to 'Mechanism') explains why molecules can absorb radiation energy. I think it is useful for understanding of greenhouse effect. Yuheng98 (talk) 15:55, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Some of those points might be worth discussing on the article's talk to find out what others familiar with the subject matter think. There's nothing wrong with being WP:BOLD because there would pretty much be no Wikipedia today if nobody was ever bold; sometimes, though, it can be better to be WP:CAUTIOUS. When you make an edit that is subsequently reverted by another, don't automatically assume the worst. Instead, try to figure out why and then act based on that. Sometimes the user reverting you might be just looking to cause trouble or may just be wrong; in either of those cases, try to avoid back-and-forth reverting and arguing via edit summaries since those things seldom lead to resolution and often make things worse. It's better to seek Ian's help sooner than later if you find yourself having problems because Ian can most likely help you sort things out before things go too far. -- Marchjuly (talk) 21:41, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Some of those points might be worth discussing on the article's talk to find out what others familiar with the subject matter think. There's nothing wrong with being WP:BOLD because there would pretty much be no Wikipedia today if nobody was ever bold; sometimes, though, it can be better to be WP:CAUTIOUS. When you make an edit that is subsequently reverted by another, don't automatically assume the worst. Instead, try to figure out why and then act based on that. Sometimes the user reverting you might be just looking to cause trouble or may just be wrong; in either of those cases, try to avoid back-and-forth reverting and arguing via edit summaries since those things seldom lead to resolution and often make things worse. It's better to seek Ian's help sooner than later if you find yourself having problems because Ian can most likely help you sort things out before things go too far. -- Marchjuly (talk) 21:41, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Edits to chlorophyll a article
Hello Ian

An editor, who I believe is under your mentorship has made some recent changes to the chlorophyll a article, specifically today to reach this OID. I have no doubt that these were made in good faith but I have some issues that I'd like your help (and that of the student editor) to resolve. Firstly, there is now a whole section Chlorophyll a which I fear does not meet our WP:MEDRS standards, in particular in relation to the material on Dr Westcott's fraudulent claims. I am not qualified to judge all the sources and text that has been added in that section but at the very least a discussion needs to be started on the Talk Page of the article to agree what, if any, utility chlorophyll a has been reliably shown to have in medicine. I'll begin that discussion soon.

I am somewhat more qualified to judge the addition in this diff, which I think arises from a misunderstanding of what comprises a "side chain" (at C7 of the chlorin ring) and the "hydrocarbon tail". The diff refers to the phytyl group as a "sidechain" where in fact phytol is the esterifying group (R in the adjacent diagram in the article) and has little relationship to vitamin E since the latter is not an ester. The article could readily be improved to make such confusion less likely and I'll make some changes now that I hope will help. I look forward to working with you and IHoversten to improve the article. Mike Turnbull (talk) 22:03, 6 May 2022 (UTC)


 * @Michael D. Turnbull Thanks for the heads-up. I left them some feedback and removed the section on medicinal applications (which would probably be UNDUE even if it med MEDRS). Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:07, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Need help request from RYNOT1206 (talk)
Hello.

I need help with post my new article to the actual wikipedia page

--RYNOT1206 (talk) 08:13, 7 May 2022 (UTC)


 * @RYNOT1206 To merge your contributions into the existing mainspace article, follow the instructions in this training slide, and the one that follows it. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:37, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Need help request from MaddieAcheson (talk)
Hello.

I need help with... transferring my outline in the sandbox that I wrote already to my Unser name and not someone else who is also doing the same topic. Right now I am typing my paper in the sandbox portion but under user it is showing johns name instead of mine, have I been writing my paper In the correct spot? how do I fully publish it to wikipedia after I am done writing it also. and show that it is under my name and my work so the teacher sees it.

--MaddieAcheson (talk) 22:57, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Maddie, I've responded at your Talk page. Mathglot (talk) 09:59, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Edit summary
Can I see my edits in the edit summary under the article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Carmadima (talk • contribs) 02:13, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Carmadima, I responded to your question at your talk page. Mathglot (talk) 09:42, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Needing help with login...
Hello, When I try to access the class project page, it says internal error... May I ask what is going on with that? Christina — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikiwikichrissy (talk • contribs) 13:06, 10 May 2022 (UTC)


 * @Wikiwikichrissy The Dashboard is currently down. We're hoping to have it back working later today. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:20, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Need help request from Handro19 (talk)
Hello.

I need help with... getting my sandbox back from the main space... sorry for the trouble..

--Handro19 (talk) 18:36, 10 May 2022 (UTC)


 * @Handro19 I've moved it back to your sandbox. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:08, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Upload Copy Right
Hello Ian,

I have recently uploaded new pictures under the Works Progress Administration's Museum Extention Project. Everything made under this project was funded and conducted by the federal government. However, I have posters for the Pennsylvania Game Commission under the Museum Extention Project. Does this take it out of Federal copy-right licensing?

If so, I have noticed that works made by the federal government are in the public domain, BUT the footers on my images suggest that the Pennsylvania Game Commission made them. Even though I know, they are made under the federal government. If this is the case--that a state agency makes them, this copyright exemption won't apply.

The source of the image doesn't specify its copyright status.

The image was published between 1935 and 1943 and with the copyright notice, so Template: PD-US-no_notice doesn't apply. However, Template: PD-US-not renewed could if the Pennsylvania Game Association did not renew the work's copyright status. I looked up the US copyright office's online catalog which indicates that the PA Game commision did not register anything from 1978 onwards, so therefore they were not registered.

Do I need to use Template instead: PD-US-not renewed from now on? Or can it still apply under the Federal copyright licensing exemption rules? If this is the case that it needs to be changed from exempt to PD-US-not renewed-- how do I go about doing that?

Thank you for your time,

LoveLeyla — Preceding unsigned comment added by Loveleyla (talk • contribs) 00:57, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Courtesy link: Commons uploads by LoveLeyla (new only) Mathglot (talk) 03:20, 11 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks . And thanks so much for doing all that research before asking. I hope the folks on Commons can figure this out. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:00, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

117Bobby
I made changes to the Federal Housing Administration article for a college class called History on the Web at West Chester University. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117Bobby (talk • contribs) 20:41, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

SUNY Gender and Art course
Hi, I see you're listed as the "Wikipedia Expert" for Wiki Ed/SUNY at Geneseo/Gender and Art (Spring). Reviewing the activity of editors in that course, I've seen 5 copyright violating uploads (here and on Commons) from 3 different editors (and there are only 10 in the course!). Perhaps you could communicate with the instructor/students to try to prevent this happening in the future?

Also multiple cases of student editors dumping big blobs of text without any inline citations, e.g.
 * Special:Diff/1087213739
 * Special:Diff/1086543795
 * Special:Diff/1086562922
 * Special:Diff/1086379981 (this one actually removed all existing inline cites from the article?!)

I see the course is intended to end 3 days from now. I hope these articles will at least be left in a condition that is no worse than before the course. Colin M (talk) 17:11, 11 May 2022 (UTC)


 * @Colin M Thanks for letting me know. Yes, this is a problem. The Dashboard was down for a few days, which is probably why I didn't get notified of copyvios. I'll see to the problems here, and try to sort out any misunderstandings the instructor might have. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:25, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

Need help request from JasmineBriggins (talk)
Hello.

I need help with... Bibliography with reliable publication

--JasmineBriggins (talk) 05:40, 17 May 2022 (UTC)


 * @JasmineBriggins If you can't find reliable sources on the topic you want to work on, you might consider finding another topic. Having enough information in high-quality sources is a crucial step in the assignment. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:31, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

NEED HELP WITH A REFFERENCE User:Wikiwikichrissy/Real estate ______________________________________________ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikiwikichrissy (talk • contribs) 13:54, 18 May 2022 (UTC) Hello, I am having an issue with editing one of my references #17, I just don't understand what I am doing wrong... Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikiwikichrissy (talk • contribs) 13:53, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

NEEDING HELP WITH A REFERENCE
I CANNOT GET #17 CORRECT User:Wikiwikichrissy/Real estate IT SAYS THE DATE, WHAT AM I DOING WRONG? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikiwikichrissy (talk • contribs) 13:57, 18 May 2022 (UTC)


 * I've helped out the user after seeing their messages here in SWViewer. I fixed the errors by removing the comma in the date (changing "May, 2021" to "May 2021") and just removing the archive URL since it just went to a search page which is of no help to anyone. ― Blaze WolfTalkBlaze Wolf#6545 14:01, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks @Blaze Wolf! Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:16, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
 * No problem! ― Blaze WolfTalkBlaze Wolf#6545 14:18, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

Making sure my work is visable and can be graded.
HI Ian,

I just submitted my last step to editing an article by adding two paragraphs to a marine plastic pollution page and I wanted to make sure it was visible and will be able to be graded. Any recommendations on to how I do that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by K1carter (talk • contribs) 01:03, 25 May 2022 (UTC)


 * @K1carter I can see them here. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 13:59, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Need help request from Riba1645 (talk)
Hi there,

I can't figure out in what sandbox to draft my new article. When I try to use the regular wikipedia sandbox it sends me to the dashboard. Apparently there's a sandbox there I should use, but I can't find it.

Thanks so much

--Riba1645 (talk) 01:07, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
 * User:Riba1645/sandbox. Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 01:09, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Nevermind, figured it out. Riba1645 (talk) 01:11, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Odd dashboard bug
This was a while ago so may not be worth investigating, but I noticed while doing some unrelated cleanup that the dashboard created User:Unknown user and User talk:Unknown user in January 2022. Bug? * Pppery * it has begun... 02:32, 27 May 2022 (UTC)


 * @Pppery Thanks for letting me know. Pinging . Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 13:57, 27 May 2022 (UTC)
 * @Pppery: Thanks! That's new and weird. I can't think of what might have caused that to happen, unless it was perhaps a username change or some other transient mismatch in data on the MediaWiki end versus the Dashboard.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:11, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

WikiEd Course
Hi, just wanted to let you know that a course you are listed as the Expert for has been brought up at AfD. AfD Link I just reached out to the Instructor's talk page as well. Another article from the same course currently has a PROD tag on it. . Happy Editing-- IAm Chaos  01:05, 30 May 2022 (UTC)


 * @IAmChaos Thanks for letting me know. That course has produced a number of articles that don't seem like good fits for Wikipedia this term; something went wrong in the chain of communication. We need to intervene with the instructor to figure out what went wrong and make sure this doesn't happen again, since it's a waste of everyone's time (students who put the work into creating these articles, volunteers who have to PROD or AfD them). Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:31, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * @Ian (Wiki Ed) @IAmChaos Just pinged Ian on this AfD discussion as well – clearly non-notable subject – draft arguably should never have been drafted (for Wikipedia anyway), let alone moved into Mainspace: Articles for deletion/Rebecca Garcia Leija
 * Perhaps these WikiEd article drafts should be required to go through the AfC review process before being published? Cielquiparle (talk) 10:12, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
 * A good idea in theory, but instructors whose contracts end with terms wont wait for the 4 month backlog of AfC to assign grades to students who may even be graduating months before their draft gets reviewed. on Wikipedia WP:NODEADLINE, but that doesnt apply in the academic world. Happy Editing-- IAm Chaos  16:03, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

"Editing Wikipedia"
Hi. I've just noticed a copy of a booklet produced in order to help students edit Wikipedia. It appears to be telling them to move their work straight from their sandbox into article space. This seems like a very misleading instruction and is leading to the introduction of sub-standard articles, reviewed only by their student peers, into the encyclopedia. This is often followed by deletion, which naturally will be discouraging for the students and lead them to distrust their instructors. Can't something be done to correct this advice? Deb (talk) 17:21, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

The Uncommon Leaders course problem - notability for people, particularly academics
Most of the articles produced by students in Wiki Ed/University of Washington/Uncommon Leaders - Women and BIPOC in Science (Spring of 2022) have been or will be moved to draft as not meeting Wikipedia notability requirements. I noticed the problem at the end of the course last year (see Articles for deletion/Michelle Tseng and Articles for deletion/Gwenaëlle Thomas for a good explanation of the problems. But summer came and I went to see my grandchildren and did not follow up. After all the student work I feel quite badly about this.

Instructors for courses like this one which aim to produce new biographies need early extra instruction on notability and independent sources. Maybe a module or brochure for them to go through up front while planning the course. In this case many of the problem articles are about academics, whose notability requirements can be hard to understand. In the instructor training materials the notability section says little more than Generally speaking, a topic is considered notable if it can be supported by 2-3 independent and verifiable sources. The biographies guide for the students does say Notability means the subject has received significant coverage, over a period of time, in multiple reliable sources independent of the subject. It also provides links to WP:BIO and WP:NACADEMICS. But with so much training material to cover I doubt whether instructors or students read them. StarryGrandma (talk) 07:11, 2 June 2022 (UTC)


 * @StarryGrandma This is my fault - I noticed that this course was among the ones that had problems like this, but I figured my big revamp of our training materials could probably catch this. But I ended up being much too busy last summer, and the revamp never happened. It's back on my agenda for this summer, and I'm hoping it will get done. But I also intend to have a chat with this instructor. I think it's really important to add information about underrepresented groups to Wikipedia, but a lot of these don't begin to meet notability standards.
 * Although this class was on my radar, I really do appreciate your message. It helps me prioritise the things that need to happen. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:11, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia Article Regrade?
Hello! I hope all is well!

Out of curiosity, I was wondering how the process works for getting an article regraded? Before any edits to my article, my article was a S (start class) rating and I wanted to see if the additions I made is enough to get it from an S grade to at least a C grade. If you have any information on getting my article graded, I would really much appreciate it.

The article I edited was "Liang Bua" if that information is needed.

Thank you and I appreciate the help! Jtruongucr (talk) 22:23, 2 June 2022 (UTC)


 * @Jtruongucr Looks like you got a great reply from at the Teahouse. Is there anything else I can help you with? Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 13:36, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Also, nice work on the article! Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 13:36, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
 * No, all of my questions have been answered :) Thank you so much! Jtruongucr (talk) 03:05, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Nowiki's purpose
Hi Ian! I'm not involved with WikiEd, although I'm aware of its existence. I noticed that the article Julia (Sesame Street) has been chosen as a student assignment. I've been seeing a lot of the references with added to them. I've never seen something like that before, so I was going to ask if there's a purpose to that or if that's included as part of what people learn when they're in a course. At least to me, it seems to lead to references not containing external links? Although maybe there's a different reason that's happening. I did want to say that I appreciate all the effort that goes into WikiEd assignments, I've seen some on my watchlist over the years and for the most part the changes have been great. Clover moss (talk) 10:51, 3 June 2022 (UTC)


 * @Clovermoss I've wondered how that happens myself. I think it's something that the visual editor is adding, but I can't figure out what. I really need to figure out if it's VE or if it's something else that's causing it. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 13:33, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Suggest readding this at WP:VPT. Mathglot (talk) 18:21, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Heritage
Puente was created in 1981 by Felix Galaviz. Felix was a counselor. The co-founders were concerned about the high drop-out ratio of Hispanic/Latino learners on campus. They understood that the best possibility of overturning this tendency was to create a system that would fulfill the needs of the whole student in a carefully selected regulated and culturally motivated. Puente's criterion was established on the belief that any learner, regardless of their background, has the potential to succeed academically if provided with the right tools and learning environment. Puente was an acknowledgment of three main factors that contributed to the poor educational achievement among Latino community students: lack of strong English abilities, absence of a mentor, and absence of academic counseling recommendations. The Puente Program precisely deals with these factors by using an interdisciplinary strategy that combines composting, counseling, and mentoring. — Preceding unsigned comment added by J.nieto21 (talk • contribs) 07:00, 10 June 2022 (UTC)


 * @J.nieto21 I'm not sure where you meant to post this, but my talk page probably wasn't the right place. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 12:39, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

user page
hi Ian, i need some help figuring out how to start writing in my user page. is this something you can help me with? Karinadlgd (talk) 19:49, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Need help request from Karinadlgd (talk)
Hello.

I need help with...trying to get into my sandbox so I can start writing

Karinadlgd (talk) 19:53, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

--Karinadlgd (talk) 19:53, 21 July 2022 (UTC)


 * @Karinadlgd, reread your training module at Sandboxes, talk pages, and watchlists. You can edit your user page by clicking on the tab with your name at the top of Wikipedia pages. (Note by a talk page watcher.) StarryGrandma (talk) 19:59, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
 * @Karinadlgd first you need to assign yourself an article as outlined here. Then you'll see the link under the My Articles section here. Note that you have to be logged into the Dashboard to see this section. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:57, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Heads up
I dunno if this student is compromised or unclear on how encyclopedias function but their edits are nothing short of vandalism, so figured you should probably know. I'd expect this from a middle school class but certainly not college level... PRAXIDICAE🌈 21:35, 28 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks @Praxidicae. Since the class is done, I don't have the leverage I'd have normally, But I'll try to keep an eye on them and follow up on your block warning if they persist. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 13:13, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Coors strike and boycott
Hi, I recently came across several edits to the page Coors strike and boycott, which I had created several months ago, that were made by participants in the Wiki Ed project Wiki Ed/Colorado State University - Pueblo/Colorado History (Spring 2022). I'm not too familiar with Wiki Ed, but I just wanted to bring these edits to your attention, since I ultimately reverted them based on a lack of citations and possible copyright violations in the case of a file one of the participants had uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, which you can find. Like I said, I'm not really familiar with how the project works, but I just wanted to let you know in case this is a persistent issue. Thanks, -JJonahJackalope (talk) 03:45, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
 * JJonahJackalope, thanks for your message. Just treat edits by students editing under the guidance of Wikipedia education exactly the same way as you would treat an edit by any other editor. WP:DONTBITE applies, as the student editors are invariably new to Wikipedia as editors, but other than that, no special treatment is required or advised. If there are edits that need to be reverted for policy-based reasons, then revert them. That said, It's helpful to bring your comments here to the attention of Wiki Ed, as you just did, so thanks again! Mathglot (talk) 08:37, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks @Mathglot. @JJonahJackalope I second everything Mathglot said. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 13:57, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Newcomers/students
Hello!! I'm sorry to bother you on your talk page, just wanted to make sure it's okay for me to leave welcome messages for student editors, as I noticed you were leaving one as well since you help students on the regular. Just didn't want to step on your toes :) SPF121188  (talk this way) (contribs) 18:09, 30 August 2022 (UTC)


 * @Spf121188 You should absolutely feel free to leave them welcome messages. I think it really helps for them to understand that Wikipedia is a community of people, not just some faceless institution. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:14, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Excellent! Will do, thanks! :) SPF121188  (talk this way) (contribs) 18:15, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Thanks
Hey Ian - just wanted to say thank you for working with my students this semester. I am showing them how to leave a message on the talk page. Best, DarthVetter (talk) 19:35, 30 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Hi @Matthewvetter! It's always my pleasure to be able to help! Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:42, 30 August 2022 (UTC)