Wikipedia talk:Canada Education Program/Courses/Present/The Newspaper in Canadian Society (Michael Valpy)

Welcome to the talk page
This is a place where you can ask questions, talk about problems, and discuss the Wikipedia assignment with classmates and other Wikipedians.--Valpymic (talk) 19:43, 16 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Several articles created by this project have been nominated for deletion (by me), as not being appropriate for wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a place for eassays - please see WP:NOTESSAY, WP:OR, and WP:SYNTH. While the ambassador program is very important, part of that importance is teaching new editors the type of content that is appropriate for wikipedia. In the future, please make sure that students are creating articles which are of an encyclopedic tone and valueGaijin42 (talk) 16:09, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Hello community, I'm Michael Valpy, the course instructor. I would like to explain what my course was about and what relationship my students and I have had with Wikipedia. First, the course was part of a first-time Canadian pilot with Wikipedia's education project. Please put emphasis on the word "pilot". It was experimentation. Knowing what criteria Wikipedia sets and what I wanted in my syllabus, I initially questioned whether the two were compatible but decided to give it a try so that my students could understand more about new media. Please understand that my course was not a course on Wikipedia, it was a course on the newspaper in Canadian society with a peripheral Wikipedia element. Each of my students was assigned an article that was to be prepared for Wikipedia. They were given instruction on what a Wikipedia article looked like. Prof. Jonathan Obar, the Canadian outreach appointee for the Wikipedia education project, came to my class for one session, which is all the room I had in the syllabus. I assigned the topics (some admittedly weren't as Wikipedia-ish as others, but you try coming up with 70 topics) and the students' articles were prepared in two iterations: a first draft and a final draft. They were marked in their sandboxes. They were graded almost exclusively by academic criteria.

I then considered what realistically to do next, and decided to instruct my students to move their articles into the main space. I didn't expect the community reaction -- the ad hominem attacks against me, my students and everyone connected with the education project. I had expected that members of the community would try to work with my students, or make constructive and courteous statements to my students, to improve their articles (as in some instances has been the case, and I'm appreciative). Let me repeat, this was an experiment, a pilot project. There was no malfeasance, no stupidity, no attempt (as someone has said) to "&%$# wikipedia". My students have been totally excited from the outset by this project. If you think there's a better way I could have done this -- given that I was not teaching a course on Wikipedia but a course on Canadian newspapers with a side dish of Wikipedia -- I'd like to hear your suggestions. But please make them without insulting me or my students. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Greycounty (talk • contribs) 21:52, 15 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I think the key problem was article selection. Everything can be improved, but if the core purpose/topic of an article does not mesh, then very likely nothing can be done. Perhaps in this case, your initial instinct was right - on the other hand there are surly many many topic that would be valid encyclopedia articles - but they might not make good academic papers, and you are correct thinking up 70 of them can be tough. Keeping them userfied would have been the best course, and in the end what is what will happen to them, with just some drama in between. On the other hand, I think you are being overly sensitive. Yes, the community has been harsh - but with few exceptions not unjustly so. Cursory reading of the links which are part of this course page could have identified that some of the articles were wildly off base. Now, there could certainly be blame to spread around. The ambassador program certainly can do better outreach to ensure expectations are set up front, and that there is a good fit for each class to be part of the program. Gaijin42 (talk) 21:59, 15 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I may have just identified part of the problem. If you compare the welcome page for this course, to this other ambassador course I have interacted with Ambassadors/Courses/BrunellFeministThought links to several of the important policies are prominently placed in the timeline. Now, you mentioned the time you could allocate to wikipedia. If sufficient time is not possible to go over the policies, then perhaps the fit is not there. But I think that may be the root of what happened. Now - certainly one of our ambassadors could have emphasized this more to make you aware (and in any case, you certainly are aware now, even if you do have a sour taste in your mouth for it). Gaijin42 (talk) 22:04, 15 December 2011 (UTC)


 * From experience elsewhere, it can be extremely difficult making a fit for some subjects between the usual essay topics assigned in an upper division class, and  the sort of articles written for Wikipedia. The selection of topics is the place where the most active help from the most experienced Wikipedians is needed, but it needs to be undertaken in active collaboration and mutual exchange with the course instructor.  Most faculty in courses have a repetoire of suggested topics for their courses that they have developed over the years--it is not that easy to find successful topics even for the more specific purposes of an academic course alone.  I suggest that in most cases, writing an entire article on a complicated subject is excessively demanding, and writing a long article on a narrow subject tends to incline too much towards Original Research. Trying for a   relatively short article on a narrow subject is generally more appropriate: I normally suggest a biography, or an article on an organization, or a particular work of art, or something similarly discrete, where a moderate article not involving original research can be compatible with the general learning objectives of the course, and be useful to an encyclopedia--even though it may not be the sort of assignment that might be used otherwise. It's easy to talk to a class about the principles of Wikipedia, and it's not that hard to teach the mechanics.   DGG ( talk ) 02:24, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Articles for Deletion
Hi there. If people are interested in following the deletion discussions, they are going on here, here, and here. PaintedCarpet (talk) 11:07, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Please ensure students are aware of Wikipedia guidelines
More and more articles created by this program are being put forward for deletion. A discussion has had to be initiated at WP:ANI regarding this project. Please ensure that students are made aware of Wikipedia guidelines for the creation of articles - undergraduate essays, however well-sourced, are not appropriate in an encyclopedia. Yunshui 雲&zwj;水 11:56, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
 * At the same time, a lot of good has come from the project; it's not a matter of the program, it's this particular application of it. The campus ambassador responsible for this course needed to work to make sure students understand what's encyclopedic and what isn't. As best I can tell, that's been the underlying problem in this scenario. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 23:26, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

A suggestion
Some of these essays I'm seeing contain hypotheses and conclusions based on factual investigaton. The factual portion of these creations with citation to sources may be suitable wikipedia content, but the original hypotheses of the students are not. Since this project seems related to Canadian newspapers, consider whether the existing articles of Canadian newspapers can be improved, or whether articles on existing notable Canadian newspapers that do not have coverage on wikipedia can be created (if any exist). E.g., I created The Reminder (Flin Flon), that is about the lower edge of notability - a daily paper of 10,000+ circulation would be a better target. Also, we currently have no article on History of Canadian Newspapers though we do for History of American newspapers and some other regions/countries. That would be a big topic to tackle, but a very worthwhile one.--Milowent • hasspoken 13:30, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Doing a little more digging, I see that your class is probably close to finished, so please consider this advice for future classes. I did see The Upper Canada Guardian; or Freeman's Journal as one of the articles created, that looks like a fine contribution of the sort I was thinking of.  Cheers.--Milowent • hasspoken  14:27, 15 December 2011 (UTC)


 * By the way, there was an article created by one of the students that I've renamed to History of Canadian newspapers, which seems like a pretty good start. Mlm42 (talk) 23:07, 15 December 2011 (UTC)