User talk:Matthewedwards/Archives/2011/09

WikiCup 2011 July newsletter
The finals are upon us; we're down to the last few. One of the eight remaining contestants will be this year's WikiCup champion! 150 was the score needed to progress to the final; just under double the 76 required to reach round 4, and more than triple the 41 required to reach round 3. Our eight finalists are:


 * , Pool A's winner. Casliber has the highest total score in the competition, with 1528, the bulk of which is made up of 8 featured articles. He has the highest number of total featured articles (8, 1 of which was eligible for double points) and total did you knows (72) of any finalist. Casliber writes mostly on biology, including ornithology, botany and mycology.
 * , Pool B's winner and the highest scorer this round. PresN is the only finalist who has scored featured topic points, and he has gathered an impressive 330, but most of his points come from his 4 featured articles, one of which scored double. PresN writes mostly on video games and the Hugo Awards.
 * , Pool A's runner-up. Hurricanehink's points are mostly from his 30 good articles, more than any other finalist, and he is also the only finalist to score good topic points. Hurricanehink, as his name suggests, writes mostly on meteorology.
 * , Pool B's runner-up. Wizardman has completed 86 good article reviews, more than any other finalist, but most of his points come from his 2 featured articles. Wizardman writes mostly on American sport, especially baseball.
 * , the "fastest loser" (Pool A). Miyagawa has written 3 featured lists, one of which was awarded double points, more than any other finalist, but he was awarded points mostly for his 68 did you knows. Miyagawa writes on a variety of topics, including dogs, military history and sport.
 * , the second "fastest loser" (Pool B). Most of Resolute's points come from his 9 good articles. He writes mostly on Canadian topics, including ice hockey.
 * , who was joint third "fastest loser" (Pool A). Most of Evan's points come from his 10 good articles, and he writes mostly on meteorology.
 * , who was joint third "fastest loser" (Pool B). Most of Phil's points come from his 9 good articles, 4 of which (more than any other finalist) were eligible for double points. He writes mostly on aeronautics.

We say goodbye to our seven other semi-finalists,, , , , , and. Everyone still in the competition at this stage has done fantastically well, and contributed greatly to Wikipedia. We're on the home straight now, and we will know our winner in two months.

In other news, preparations for next year's competition have begun with a brainstorming thread. Please, feel free to drop by and share any thoughts you have about how the competition should work next year. Sign ups are not yet open, but will be opened in due course. Watch this space. Further, there has been a discussion about the rule whereby those in the WikiCup must delcare their participation when nominating articles at featured article candidates. This has resulted in a bot being created by new featured article delegate. The bot will leave a message on FAC pages if the nominator is a participant in the WikiCup.

A reminder of the rules: any points scored after August 29 may be claimed for the final round, and please remember to update submission pages promptly. If you are concerned that your nomination, be it at good article candidates, a featured process or anywhere else, will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on WikiCup/Reviews. However, please remember to continue to offer reviews at GAC, FAC and all the other pages that require them to prevent any backlogs which could otherwise be caused by the Cup. As ever, questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup and the judges are reachable on their talk pages, or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start receiving or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn and The ed17 00:07, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

WPF1 Newsletter (August)
Delivered by MessageDeliveryBot on behalf of WikiProject Formula One at 19:17, 6 September 2011 (UTC).

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Mother and Child Reunion (Degrassi: The Next Generation)
Hello again. I see that you aren't very active anymore, so I don't know if you forgot that we would nominated Mother and Child Reunion (Degrassi: The Next Generation) for TFA for October 14. I went ahead and nominated it, feel free to edit the blurb. 117Avenue (talk) 21:54, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks :) I had forgot - we had our second child 10 weeks ago and that's been taking up most of our time. I don't get on here much because of that any more. Matthewedwards :  Chat  07:11, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
 * That's understandable. 117Avenue (talk) 19:37, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
 * In the next couple of days we should go through the online references and make sure they all work. Those that don't we will have to see if archive.org has archives of them. Refs 12 and 44 are dead. Refs 36 and 37 don't seem to verify the information any more. If you can think of another legitimate alternative to imdb, they should be switched out (Hollywood.com is owned by Hollywood Media Corp, a NASDAQ company so they were a RS over IMDB). Perhaps Hollywood Reporter or Variety will work. I seem to recall one of them having a filmography. Checklinks shows ref 24 not working, but it does. Also, all the www.degrassi.tv urls now redirect to http://www.muchmusic.com/tv/degrassi so hopefully archive.org has them backed up, or we can find them on the new site, or for the press releases, find them elsewhere. Ref 4 might be gone forever, it was the forum post by Stephen Stohn at the old degrassi.tv. Also, the Funimation website doesn't have any Degrassi listings any more. Matthewedwards : Chat  07:59, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I'll see what I can do. 117Avenue (talk) 19:37, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Research into the user pages of Wikipedians: Invitation to participate
Greetings,

My name is John-Paul and I am a student with the University of Alberta specializing in Communications and Technology.

I would like to include your Wikipedia user page in a study I am doing about how people present themselves online. I am interested in whether people see themselves in different ways, online and offline. One of the things I am looking at is how contributors to Wikipedia present themselves to each other through their user pages. Would you consider letting me include your user page in my study?

With your consent, I will read and analyze your user page, and ask you five short questions about it that will take about ten to fifteen minutes to answer. I am looking at about twenty user pages belonging to twenty different people. I will be looking at all user pages together, looking for common threads in the way people introduce themselves to other Wikipedians.

I hope that my research will help answer questions about how people collaborate, work together, and share knowledge. If you are open to participating in this study, please reply to this message, on your User Talk page or on mine. I will provide you with a complete description of my research, which you can use to decide if you want to participate.

Thank-you,

John-Paul Mcvea

University of Alberta

jmcvea@ualberta.ca

Johnpaulmcvea (talk) 22:18, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd be happy to participate. Best, Matthewedwards : Chat  04:52, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank-you for agreeing to participate in my study
Thank-you for agreeing to participate in my study, entitled “Online Self-presentation among Wikipedians.” I appreciate it.

As I indicated before, here are five questions that I would like you to answer. Please be as brief or as thorough as you like. Please indicate your answers to these questions on your talk page, or on mine. If you like, you can email your answers to me instead (jmcvea@ualberta.ca).

Thank you again : )

Johnpaulmcvea (talk) 23:30, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

5 QUESTIONS

1. Are you a member of social networks such Facebook or MySpace?

2. In addition to maintaining a user page in Wikipedia, have you also written or edited articles? If so, about how many times?

3. What are the key messages about yourself that you hope to convey with your user page?

4. Have your Wikipedia contributions ever received feedback, such as being edited by others or commented on? Have you received a message from another Wikipedia user? If so, do you think your user page positively or negatively affected what other people said and how they said it?

5. Do you see your “online self” as being different from your “offline self?” Can you elaborate?

INDICATING CONSENT

By answering these questions, you indicate your agreement with the following statements:

•	That you understand that you have been asked to be in a research study.

•	That you have read and received a copy of the Information Sheet, attached below (“Additional Information”).

•	That you understand the benefits and risks involved in taking part in this research study.

•	That you have had an opportunity to ask questions and discuss this study.

•	That you understand that you are free to refuse to participate, or to withdraw from the study at any time, without consequence, and that your information will be withdrawn at your request.

•	That the issue of confidentiality been explained to you and that you understand who will have access to your information (see “Additional Information”).

•	That you agree to participate.

ADDITONAL INFORMATION

Background

•	I am asking you to participate in a research project that is part of my MA degree.

•	I am asking you because you have created a user page in Wikipedia that other people can use to learn about you.

Purpose

•	My research is about how people present themselves online.

•	I will look at how people present themselves when presenting themselves to the Wikipedia community.

Study Procedures

•	With your consent, I will analyze the language of your user page and gather basic statistics such as the count of words, the frequency of words, the number of sections, and so on.

•	I will also read the text of your user page, looking for elements in common with ads posted by other people. I will note whether you include a picture, or links to other content on the internet,

•	I ask you to answer my five questions, above. This will take about ten to fifteen minutes to complete. I will ask you to answer the questions within a week, and send your answers to me.

•	Throughout my research, I will adhere to the University of Alberta Standards for the Protection of Human Research Participants, which you can view at http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/gfcpolicymanual/policymanualsection66.cfm

Benefits

•	There is no direct benefit to you for participating in this research. You may, however, find it interesting to read my perspective on how you present yourself online.

•	I hope that the information I get from doing this study will help understand how technology affects the way people come together into a society.

•	There is no reward or compensation for participating in this research.

Risk

•	There is no direct risk for participating in this research.

Voluntary Participation

•	You are under no obligation to participate in this study. Participation is completely voluntary.

•	You can opt out of this study at any time before October 10, 2011, with no penalty. You can ask to have me withdraw any data that I have collected about you. Even if you agree to be in the study, you can change your mind and withdraw.

•	If you decline to continue or you wish to withdraw from the study, your information will be removed from the study at your request.

Confidentiality

•	This research will be used to support a project that is part of my MA degree.

•	A summary of my research will be available on the University of Alberta website.

•	Your personally identifiable information will be deleted and digitally shredded as soon as I have finished gathering data about you.

•	Data will be kept confidential. Only I will have access to the computer file containing the data. It will be password protected. I will not be sent by email or stored online.

•	I will always handle my data in compliance with University of Alberta standards.

•	If you would like to receive a copy of my final report, please ask.

Further Information

•	If you have any further questions regarding this study, please do not hesitate to contact Dr. Stanley Varnhagen, my research advisor for this project. If you have concerns about this study, you may contact the University of Alberta Research Ethics Committee at 780-492-2615. This office has no affiliation with the study investigators.

Thank-you again!

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