User talk:MichChemGSI

Information: Spring 2011
Hi! Thanks for showing an interest in being a Campus Ambassador in either the Lansing, MI or Bloomington, IN area! This is an excellent opportunity to gain teaching and leadership skills, to build a network and to have some fun!

For more information about the background of the program: http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Public_Policy_Initiative

Please refer to the following link for more information, requirements and the application. http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Campus_Ambassador

If you are interested in being a campus ambassador in one of the following areas please leave a message under your appropriate region. Thanks!

Lansing, MI
I could be interested, even if this is being headed up by a UMich student... tsktsk - Go GREEN :o) Lord of Haha (talk) 05:22, 16 November 2010 (UTC) - MBA Supply Chain Management Candidate 2012

When I was a Newbie
Welcome!

Hello,, and welcome to Wikipedia! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Unfortunately, one or more of the pages you created may not conform to some of Wikipedia's guidelines for page creation, and may soon be deleted (if it hasn't already).

There's a page about creating articles you may want to read called Your first article. If you are stuck, and looking for help, please come to the New contributors' help page, where experienced Wikipedians can answer any queries you have! Or, you can just type   on your user page, and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Here are a few other good links for newcomers: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you have any questions, check out Where to ask a question or ask me on. Again, welcome!  Flying Toaster  19:55, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Your first article
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 * The five pillars of Wikipedia
 * Help pages
 * Tutorial

Speedy deletion of User Example:Second Page
Thank you for experimenting with Wikipedia. Your test worked, and the page that you created has been or soon will be deleted. Please use the sandbox for any other tests you want to do. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding  to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the article meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Lastly, please note that if the article does get deleted, you can contact one of these admins to request that they userfy the article or have a copy emailed to you.  Flying Toaster  19:55, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Go Blue!
For some reason, I just feel like saying so. __earth (Talk) 13:48, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

CHEM507
Not sure if you are aware, but the students in this class, perhaps not familiar with local customs, are pissing people off by their seeming rudeness.,, , , etc. Cooperation will lead to a good working relationship, and who knows, some may choose to continue to work here after their classes end. In contrast, drive-by replacement essays will often be met by reversion, warning, block, especially if attempts to contact them are met with silence. Not sure what pedagogical purpose this will serve. Perhaps you can talk to them? --Rifleman 82 (talk) 06:32, 11 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi, I have notified these students and they will be checking their talk pages and adding DOIs to their references.


 * Our goal is to improve selected pages by substantially adding content to pages missing relevant data, or completely creating new pages. However, the students do not realize that they are being communicated to through their talk pages. In order to control the content that is being added, we hold an internal peer review process, so the information being posted is not entirely unchecked.


 * Despite being new to Wikipedai's editing system, the students are aware of their readership and work hard to write entries that reflect that. However, if you and your collegues would give more substantial and constructive feedback specifically on the content in question (instead of a blanket comment about logistics and policies of Wikipedia), it goes without saying that such comments are welcomed wholeheartedly. The students will happily address those comments  Or feel free to change some of the content yourself.  MichChemGSI (talk) 03:43, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Policy problem: the Chem507f10grpX accounts all appear to be a pseudouser corresponding to edits by multiple individuals in the group. WP:SHARED says that's a fatal flaw and immediately blockable. Please advise me how to proceed with regards to clearing up this problem. DMacks (talk) 16:17, 15 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, we were aware of this concern at the start of the project and we have been notified about this a few years back. The earlier discussion concerning this can be seen in the link. According to that discussion, we feel that is ok to continue to do this according to the [|last pillar]. The students will be creating their own accounts after this project and have been told that they are no longer allowed to use account for editing in the future. As you have noticed, one of our students user:tycarter has already created his own user account to correspond to other editors. We give group accounts in order to track our students edits for grading purposes. Thank you for your understanding. MichChemGSI (talk) 18:44, 15 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, I have the same concerns as others here. I feel that these accounts should be abandoned immediately.  You say to invoke IAR here, but a) I do not see any reason except for your convenience, and b) this would violate the licensing on Wikipedia - some rules, like the licensing or copyright, can not be abandoned by invoking IAR.  The students can just as easy make personal accounts, and make those accounts known to you.  That also gives you the possibility to personally see who is personally responsible for which edit, and who is accountable for actions.  Moreover, if these group accounts would get blocked, one student is negatively influencing the possibilities of all other editors on those accounts.  May I ask you to reconsider this approach?  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 19:22, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * What is the "benefit to the project" (wikipedia, not your grader) to this shared-account situation? Per the User:tycarter example, having an individual account does not appear to be something that "prevents [...] improving or maintaining Wikipedia" per the WP:IAR policy. Beetstra is right...it actually makes it even harder for you to grade individuals in the group. And when they do eventually create their own accounts after this group-project is ended, it means they lose the credit/connection for their previous work here--why would you want them to do that? Although it seems likely they will do "good" edits here, it puts them at risk for WP:SOCK trouble also...they would be multiple accounts per user, and if any one of them were to become problematic, by association with the shared group account, they could all wind up blocked. DMacks (talk) 23:06, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * ok, I hear your arguments. I will talk to my advisor about this and perhaps have students log/put up their usernames on the GSI's userpage so to keep track of the edits for grading purposes. Thank you for your understanding. When we started this project group accounts was the best way for us to keep track, however now we are more familiar with the WIKI SPHERE we can maybe adapt this. Thank you. MichChemGSI (talk) 15:23, 21 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Clarification about "moved" pages: the other reason why we created group accounts was that we could go back in the history to see the page at the point of when the students uploaded the page. Now with individual accounts we have designated a repository for the sandboxes user:UMChemProfessor. However, if we do the official page "move" those pages become the topic's page. (as was the case for chem507f10grp1/sandbox to insertion reaction) What do you suggest as the best way to access the pages when the students have uploaded them? MichChemGSI (talk) 20:13, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Glad to welcome new chemists to Wikipedia
Hi MichChemGSI... I noticed some of your discussions with Rifleman and Smokefoot, and have also noticed some recent additions, and I thought I'd stop by and say Hi.

Since some of the students are doing substantial expansions, I thought I'd ask if you are aware of the Did You Know project that features new articles and newly expanded articles on the main page. It can be a good way to get new contributions recognised whilst also helping new editors with wikipedia collaborations. For example, I noticed the article oxaziridine had been substantially expanded by user:DMelvinKaphan so I nominated it for DYK (T:TDYK) and posted to his talk page: User talk:DMelvinKaphan. At his request, I also posted some suggestions for improving the article, which I hope he will find useful as I think the article can ultimately qualify as a Good Article (as did my article on rhodocene, as an example). I would have nominated user:Mdlevin's work on Weinreb ketone synthesis too, had I seen it in time. So, just fyi, bear DYK in mind for those articles deserving some recognition and exposure... see that a page you expanded was read by 3000 people (say) is a nice feeling.

I have an academic background and sympathise with your goals, so if you want to ask or just talk with a chemically- and (reasonably) policy-literate editor, feel free to contact me. If you want me to see if any of the students' expansions are presently DYK-worthy, just give me a list and I'll have a look. Kind Regards, EdChem (talk) 05:22, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi EdChem! Thank you! That's actually a great idea. I thought that the DIK articles were somewhat randomly picked! :) this is good to know. Give me a few days as the students finish up the pages and I'll find a few that I think would be great to recognize! Thank you very much for introducing yourself! And In a little bit when this semester gets a bit less crazy, it would be great to talk a bit about chemistry or policy. Best! MichChemGSI (talk) 20:54, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi EdChem! Here are a couple that I think are excellent! Insertion reaction, and Isolobal principle. There is another one that is very good, but these students have not yet made their site live. When it goes live, I will let you know. Thank you!. MichChemGSI (talk) 15:06, 21 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I have responded to your recent post at my talk page. EdChem (talk) 15:50, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Also, fyi, I have posted here requesting fixing the history following your cut-and-paste move. EdChem (talk) 16:26, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
 * oh! ok, sorry, right, i only moved the page because there was some argument previously about the student's work and other editors over-riding their edits and i thought that perhaps if I did the edit, it would stick. as previous the students were blocked and could not respond to the editors and I responded on their behalf. I am actually not the Graduate Student Instructor for their course and have nothing to do with the grading of their course. I am only a resource for them on the Wikipedia front to help be a liaison for them between the community. So if there is a concern about me having a conflict of interest that is not the case. I was given permission by the students to upload the work as they previously were having problems with their work being deleted, but i do understand why perhaps these logistics might be important to carry out. Thank you for helping us out with this. MichChemGSI (talk) 19:59, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Discussion is now at User_talk:Chem507f10grp3/sandbox. This is a proposed move discussion.  For future reference, cut-and-paste moves from a sandbox to article space is only ok if only the user doing the move has edited the sandbox page.  So, the cut-and-paste move of the isolobal principle by the student account is ok but the one you did is not.  It has been reversed, and a move request discussion initiated.  Such a move discussion is also the 'right' way to make the new solvatochromism article live, because it means that all the editing history from the sandbox will be moved as well.  However, if the sandbox has only been edited by one student account then that account could do a cut-and-paste move if they really want to. For the future, when students have their own individual accounts, move requests will be needed to make sandbox re-drafts of existing pages live so that the editing history is preserved.  New pages (where no article page exists) can be collaboratively edited in a sandbox and then moved by any of those editors to article space themselves.  I will answer the specific questions you asked me on my talk page.  Regards, EdChem (talk) 00:47, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!
 

  May your family have a joyous holiday season and a new year blessed with hope and happiness.   Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

/ ƒETCH COMMS  /  05:18, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Thoughts on animations
I have solicited many in the chemistry Wiki Community about inserting animations in key reaction mechanisms.

Example of animation: I very much welcome any and all of your comments on how to make this type of media a learning tool for the readership of articles on chemistry reaction mechanisms.

Comments
Re this specific animation: I hope these comments are useful. EdChem (talk) 17:10, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Too fast.
 * I would use E+ for an electrophile, rather than A+, and the animation appears to use A+, without a superscript
 * I am uncomfortable with the resonance structures appearing to be a separate 'step' as the most common student misconception about resonance is that it is some kind of equilibrium process, interconverting between resonance structures
 * Why not show the electrophile approaching along a more realistic trajectory, given the position in which the resulting C–A bond is shown?
 * Since charge is conserved, why does the animation sometimes show a full '+' charge and sometimes only a partial 'δ+' charge?
 * It is hard to tell because of speed, but does the base B become BH or BH+, because again conservation of charge is important

Advice on usernames
Hi... I notice that you have more students creating accounts, which is great, but they seem to be creating user names based on their real names. WP:Username policy, and in particular the section on real names notes that this can have disadvantages. Students may not want every edit they make on-wiki to be available to a potential future employer for the rest of their lives - one simple example of why may be that they choose to edit pages relating to their personal interests, and may not want all those interests to be easily discoverable by future employers / colleagues / stalkers / whoever. Many of us choose to use a pseudonym, and may or may not reveal a first name to select people, so as to maintain our privacy. In general, I would advise anyone to avoid revealing a real name without carefully considering the consequence. Your students could reveal to you off-wiki their chosen user name (say by email from their university account) so you can track their chemistry contributions without revealing their real names to the entire world. Users who have already created accounts can consider asking for renaming, or simply abandon the accounts and begin a new pseudonymous one if their isn't much edit history worth pursuing. Having been around WP for a while and seen some of the nastier things that can happen, I strongly advise you to at least get the students to consider whether adopting a pseudonym would be appropriate for them. For example, one user I know who has used a real name and ended up developing a mental illness that is now mentioned on wiki. Information on that user is now locatable to those who search for it in the correct places, which is not the sort of situation I would want to see happen to anyone else. Privacy is hard enough to protect in the online world, it makes no sense (to me, at least) to make personally identifiable information easily locatable. Just FYI. :) EdChem (talk) 00:34, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Program Newsletter: 28 January 2011
Delivered by EdwardsBot (talk) 00:33, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Program Newsletter: 13 February 2011
Delivered by EdwardsBot (talk) 18:24, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Program Newsletter: 21 March 2011
Delivered by EdwardsBot (talk) 22:24, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your contributions!
I just want to make sure you see my post at the bottom of this section! Thanks for being here. =) Shootbamboo (talk) 22:56, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Program Newsletter: 22 April 2011
Delivered by EdwardsBot (talk) 16:35, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Polyfluorene GA
I started the review of the polyfluorene article. I left a list of some general concerns that need to be addressed. Please drop me a note if you have any questions. Canada Hky (talk) 23:57, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Are you still working on this, or do you have any additional questions? Just drop me a note if needed.  Thanks!  Canada Hky (talk) 18:36, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Please take the Wikipedia Ambassador Program survey
Hi Ambassador,

We are at a pivotal point in the development of the Wikipedia Ambassador Program. Your feedback will help shape the program and role of Ambassadors in the future. Please take this 10 minute survey to help inform and improve the Wikipedia Ambassadors.

WMF will de-identify results and make them available to you. According to KwikSurveys' privacy policy: "Data and email addresses will not be sold, rented, leased or disclosed to 3rd parties." This link takes you to the online survey: http://kwiksurveys.com?u=WPAmbassador_talk

Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments, Thank You!

Amy Roth (Research Analyst, Public Policy Initiative) (talk) 20:42, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Proposed Image Deletion
A deletion discussion has just been created at Category talk:Unclassified Chemical Structures, which may involve one or more orphaned chemical structures, that has you user name in the upload history. Please feel free to add your comments.  Ron h jones (Talk) 22:59, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I cannot remember what images I have uploaded without classification. Is there an easy way to find this? Thank you. MichChemGSI (talk) 02:26, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * And you won't find them, because they have gone. Looking at your deleted history...
 * File:ATRP general.png - Moved to commons (where all the structures are now going)
 * File:ATRP general.gif - a small, unused, 407x117px GIF version of the above and deleted.
 *  Ron h jones (Talk) 12:40, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * oh! ok that is fine. I also wanted to delete that image when I first uploaded them, but was unable to find how to delete images. I believe that all of our images are now uploaded to commons with categories before they are uploaded into the entry. Thank you. MichChemGSI (talk) 12:43, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia in Higher Education
I saw your name listed at WP:Campus Ambassadors/United States. If you’re still interested in joining the embassy, let me know, and I’ll send you an application. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 04:11, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Wikimania Stories Project
My name is Victor Grigas and I'm a Storyteller at the Wikimedia Foundation. We're exploring new ways to explain why Wikipedia is so special and we’ve started a Wikipedia Stories Project, where we’re chronicling the inspiring stories of the Wikipedia community, especially editors and active contributors in the movement like you. I'll be traveling to Wikimania next month to collect stories for our 2011 Fundraiser. While there I'd love the chance to meet with you and hear your thoughts about Wikipedia. We’ll have a schedule of available times for you to sign up if you’re interested, but right now, we’d like to make the initial contact to gauge your interest. Please let me know by emailing me at vgrigas@wikimedia.org or responding on my talk page.

thank you,

Victor Grigas (talk) 18:53, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Ambassador Program: assessment drive
Even though it's been quiet on-wiki, the Wikipedia Ambassador Program has been busy over the last few months getting ready for the next term. We're heading toward over 80 classes in the US, across all disciplines. You'll see courses start popping up here, and this time we want to match one or more Online Ambassadors to each class based on interest or expertise in the subject matter. If you see a class that you're interested, please contact the professor and/or me; the sooner the Ambassadors and professors get in communication, the better things go. Look for more in the coming weeks about next term.

In the meantime, with a little help I've identified all the articles students did significant work on in the last term. Many of the articles have never been assessed, or have ratings that are out of date from before the students improved them. Please help assess them! Pick a class, or just a few articles, and give them a rating (and add a relevant WikiProject banner if there isn't one), and then update the list of articles.

Once we have updated assessments for all these articles, we can get a better idea of how quality varied from course to course, and which approaches to running Wikipedia assignments and managing courses are most effective.

--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 17:27, 27 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Hey! Assessment here means assessment using the Wikipedia 1.0 system through WikiProject banners on the talk page: the Stub, Start, C, B, GA, A, FA ratings.  For more details, see Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment. --Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 00:09, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

We met at Wikimania
Nice meeting you today at Wikimania. -ReuvenkT C 11:07, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Hey Cheryl, we already met yesterday (right before the opening talk) and I really liked the talk you just gave about Students' Clubs. Now, I'm seriously considering creating such a club at the law faculty of the University of Cologne. Would you mind adding me on facebook to keep in touch? Greetings, --  toblu [?!]  14:36, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi Cheryl, thanks for your note. If you are looking for Open Access materials, please request them here. Cheers, -- Daniel Mietchen - WiR/OS (talk) 13:57, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

IRC!
Hi! I just wanted to let you know that we have created an IRC channel for women and Wikipedia: called Wikimedia-gendergap - I hope you'll join us. (And if you need any IRC help, just let me know!) See you there! SarahStierch (talk) 21:36, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Resources for Wikipedian Student Organizations
Hi, MichChemGSI. I've sent you a message about testing out some new resources for student organizations. Hope you can lend a hand, and feel free to follow up with questions at studentclubs@undefinedwikimedia.org. Wolliff (talk) 23:47, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi Wolliff!! Thanks for the prompt! We will definitely get to these resources in the next few weeks as the school year gets started! Thank you! MichChemGSI (talk) 22:17, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia in-person training?
Hi. I read you a course in Wikipedia editing on User_talk:Earlgrey101. Where, and is there a directory for other places? 97.87.29.188 (talk) 23:30, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Me too. 99.190.85.220 (talk) 01:41, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Just checking in...
Just checking in with you and hoping everything is running smoothly with the class. If you hit a brick wall or need help, don't hesitate to contact me! Best regards, Cind.   amuse  (Cindy) 19:42, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry it took me so long to respond! things are going well with the courses. did my first presentation for this semester a couple weeks ago and I think that it went really smoothly. Still need to set up one more course page. Thanks for checking in! I really appreciate it. Best, MichChemGSI (talk) 02:36, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Survey
Hi!

I have put together a survey for female editors of Wikipedia (and related projects) in order to explore, in greater detail, women's experiences and roles within the Wikimedia movement. It'd be wonderful if you could participate!

It's an independent survey, done by me, as a fellow volunteer Wikimedian. It is not being done on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation. I hope you'll participate!

Just click this link to participate in this survey, via Google!

Any questions or concerns, feel free to email me or stop by my user talk page. Also, feel free to share this any other female Wikimedians you may know. It is in English, but any language Wikimedia participants are encouraged to participate. I appreciate your contributions - to the survey and to Wikipedia! Thank you! SarahStierch (talk) 18:13, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Dracorex says thanks!
Feel free to add the GLAM:TCMI userbox to your page and if you're interested, here are some more ways you can help. Either way, your opinion's valued! Thanks! LoriLee (talk) 20:35, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

InChI's
Hey, thanks for the update work, like here. That greatly helps us. Just a heads up, on Wikipedia, the InChI-fields do not have the 'InChI=' in the data, that is taken care of by the template (avoid confusion, you will otherwise see 'InChI=InChI=' in the code, and there will be editors (unknowing of convention) who think that is wrong and remove the second). Thanks again, and keep up the good work!! --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:38, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

TUSC token e6538a8215aa1dca2292e31d16e3b26a
I am now proud owner of a TUSC account!

e6538a8215aa1dca2292e31d16e3b26a

Campus Ambassador Training
Great training session! Dmalicke (talk) 19:56, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

March 2012 Move-to-Commons drive
Delivered by MessageDeliveryBot on behalf of WikiProject Images and Media at 07:40, 29 February 2012 (UTC).

Interest in Wikimedia Midwest concept?
Greetings - in an effort to help nudge a conversation about developing a broader Wikimedia presence in the Midwest, I've posted the beginnings of a Wikimedia Midwest page/proposal. I was wondering if you know anyone, yourself included, who might be interested in organizing or helping shepherd this proposal along? Any thoughts you may have would be most welcome on that page or it's talk page. Thank you! --Varnent (talk) 22:55, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi user:Varnent that's great!!! This is so excited and I would love to have this get going! unfortunately you have just caught me at the end of my tenure here in the Midwest! But I will definitely pass your message along to those in the Michigan Wikipedians! Hopefully they will be able to help get you in contact with some people. There are definitely lots of those here at Michgian who would be interested. best, MichChemGSI (talk) 15:46, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
 * So then "good luck with your upcoming defense" and "congratulations" (assuming it goes well:)? Are you headed somewhere else where you will be able to continue working with students on WP-Chem stuff? DMacks (talk) 15:55, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks DMacks!! I'll keep everyone updated! MichChemGSI (talk) 16:27, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
 * We'll be sad to see you leave the Midwest - but definitely let me know if there are others who may be interested. Feel free to send them my way.  :)  Good luck!!  --Varnent (talk) 19:33, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

EduWiki Conference 5-6 September in Leicester, UK
I am writing to you as you have signed up to the Education Meetup at Wikimania 2012 and perhaps are interested in how Wikipedia links to education. Wikimedia UK is now running a education related event that may be of interest to you: the EduWiki Conference on 5-6 September in Leicester. This event will be looking at Wikipedia and related charitable projects in terms of educational practice, including good faith collaboration, open review, and global participation. It's a chance to talk about innovative work in your institution or online community, and shape the future of Wikimedia UK's work in this area!

The conference will be of interest to educators, scholarly societies members, contributors to Wikipedia and other open education projects, and students.

For details please visit the UK Chapter Wiki.

Please feel welcome to register or promote within your network.

Thank you, Daria Cybulska (talk) 16:20, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Congratulations on getting your PhD!

 * Awww! Thank you!! :D MichChemGSI (talk) 01:54, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

^^^^ YEAH!!! -Pete (talk) 21:45, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia and Communicate OER!
Thank you for signing up on the Communicate OER team page! There's a great group forming -- so far, we have more than 25 people, with a broad range of backgrounds and interests; we have professors, librarians, instructional designers, and more. Members also span a variety of countries and language proficiencies. As we set out to improve articles about openness in education, it looks like we will have a great team to work with. If you haven't looked through the list, I encouraged you to read through it: WP:Communicate OER Team.

Whether or not you're at the Open Education conference this week, we encourage you to engage with us -- we're expecting a flurry of activity as we launch! If you're here, come visit us in room C010 any time; or come to one of our daily 45 minute intro sessions in the Remixathon track in room C215.

Another great way to stay engaged is through the project's "talk page" (aka "discussion page"): WT:COMMOER. Please always feel free to add ideas, questions, etc. at the bottom of that page -- even if you just want to say hi, and go into a little more detail about what you're hoping to work on -- we'd love to hear from you. (I just posted a note at the bottom, exploring the open education article, and seeking input into how we can go about improving it -- take a look!)

If you're just looking to get started, we have a page for that -- WP:Communicate OER Do -- intended to collect ideas of projects we can work on. There's currently a "getting started" recipe for how to post a review of a Wikipedia article; check back for further ideas in the coming days. (And if you're game, feel free to add your own!)

Looking forward to working together, -Pete (talk) 18:25, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

education wikibook
Hi, Am in the process of creating a wikibook for educational purposes. It is located here:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Parallel_Spectral_Numerical_Methods

Contributions on formatting and editing are welcome. The book uses many formulae and requires these to be numbered. Have started a discussion to install mathjax to support this here:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Reading_room/Proposals

votes in support of this can be made here:

https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=42061

If there are other ways to get automatic numbering of formulae, figures and program listings, please let me know. Thanks Benson Muite (talk) 13:24, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

I mentioned you at WP:ENB
Hi... Firstly, let me congratulate you on receiving your PhD - it's a major achievement and I am glad to see that you have made it through the process. Secondly, I need to notify you that I have mentioned you in a post at the education noticeboard (see the section Education noticeboard/Archive3). In it, I refer to my nominations for DYK of insertion reaction and isolobal principle from 2010 (I hope you recall them), as part of a discussion on student editing of Wikipedia. I would be interested in any and all comments, experiences, or additional thoughts which you might like to add to the discussion, of course including any corrections or criticisms of my comments. I think the perspective of someone who has supervised students over several years on how the process evolves would be valuable. Kind Regards, EdChem (talk) 05:06, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassadors update
Hi! You're getting this message because you are or have been a Wikipedia Ambassador. A new term is beginning for the United States and Canada Education Programs, and I wanted to give you an update on some important new information if you're interested in continuing your work this term as a Wikipedia Ambassador.

You may have heard a reference to a transition the education program is going through. This is the last term that the Wikimedia Foundation will directly run the U.S. and Canada programs; beginning in June, a proposed thematic organization is likely to take over organizing the program. You can read more about the proposal here.

Another major change in the program will take effect immediately. Beginning this term, a new MediaWiki education extension will replace all course pages and Ambassador lists. (See Course pages and Help:Education Program extension for more details.) Included in the extension are online volunteer and campus volunteer user rights, which let you create and edit course pages and sign up as an ambassador for a particular course.

If you would like to continue serving as a Wikipedia Ambassador — even if you do not support a class this term — you must create an ambassador profile. If you're no longer interested in being a Wikipedia Ambassador, you don't need to do anything.

First, you need the relevant user rights for Online and/or Campus Ambassadors. (If you are an admin, you can grant the rights yourself, for you as well as other ambassadors.) Just post your rights request here, and we'll get you set up as quickly as possible.
 * Please do these steps as soon as possible

Once you've got the ambassador rights, please set up at a Campus and/or Online Ambassador profile. You can do so at:
 * Special:CampusAmbassadorProfile
 * Special:OnlineAmbassadorProfile

Going forward, the lists of Ambassadors at Special:CampusAmbassadors and Special:OnlineAmbassadors will be the official roster of who is an active Ambassador. If you would like to be an Ambassador but not ready to serve this term, you can un-check the option in your profile to publicly list it (which will remove your profile from the list).

After that, you can sign on to support courses. The list of courses will be at Special:Courses. (By default, this lists "Current" courses, but you can change the Status filter to "Planned" to see courses for this term that haven't reached their listed start date yet.)

As this is the first term we have used the extension, we know there will be some bugs, and we know the feature set is not as rich as it could be. (A big wave of improvements is already in the pipeline. And if you know MediaWiki and could help with code review, we'd love to have your help!) Please reach out to me (Sage Ross) with any complaints, bug reports, and feature suggestions. The basic features of the extension are documented at Course pages, and you can see a tutorial for setting up and using them here.

In the past, the Education Program has had a pretty fragmented set of communication channels. We're trying to fix that. These are the recommended places to discuss and stay up-to-date on the education program:
 * Communication and keeping up to date
 * 1) The education noticeboard has become the main on-wiki location for discussion of the Education Program. You can post there about broad education program issues as well as issues with individual courses.
 * 2) The Ambassadors Announce email list is a very low-traffic announcements list of important information all Ambassadors need to be aware of. We encourage all Ambassadors (and other interested Wikipedians) to subscribe to the list; follow the instructions on the link to add your email address.
 * 3) If you use IRC regularly, or need to try to reach someone immediately, the  IRC channel is the place to find me and fellow Ambassadors.

We now have an online training for Ambassadors, which is intended to be both an orientation about the Wikipedia Ambassador role for newcomers and the manual for how to do the role. (There are parallel trainings for students and for educators as well.)
 * Ambassador training and resources

Please go through the training if you feel like you need a refresher on how a typical class is supposed to go and where the Ambassadors fit in, or if you want to review and help improve it. If there's something you'd like to see added, or other suggestions you have for it, feel free to edit the training and/or leave feedback. A primer on setting up and using course pages is included in the educators' training.

The Resources page of the training is the main place for Ambassador-related resources. If there's something you think is important as a resource that's not on there, please add it.

Finally, whether or not you work with any classes this term, I encourage you to post entries to the Trophy Case whenever you see excellent work from students or if you have great examples from past semesters. And, as always, let students (and other editors!) know when they do things well; a little WikiLove goes a long way!

--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 20:40, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Michigan Wikipedians roll call
Greetings MichChemGSI! The Michigan Wikipedians is currently conducting a roll call to ascertain which of its members are still active. If you are still an active Michigan Wikipedian, please go to our members list and move yourself from into the active members subsection at the top of the page. On November 1st, all of the members who have not moved themselves into the active members subsection will be renamed inactive members. Even after November 1st, however, any editor can move himself or herself from inactive to active status. Thank you for your participation in the Michigan Wikipedians. As always, you are more than welcome to participate with us, either in person or remotely via the Internet. Take care! Michael Barera (talk) 00:49, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
Hi, You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:01, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
Hi, You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:05, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Women in Red World Contest
Hi. We're into the last five days of the Women in Red World Contest. There's a new bonus prize of $200 worth of books of your choice to win for creating the most new women biographies between 0:00 on the 26th and 23:59 on 30th November. If you've been contributing to the contest, thank you for your support, we've produced over 2000 articles. If you haven't contributed yet, we would appreciate you taking the time to add entries to our articles achievements list by the end of the month. Thank you, and if participating, good luck with the finale!