Wikipedia talk:Online Ambassadors/Archive 2

Applications
So...will we be emailed when this program will start?Smallman12q (talk) 01:19, 2 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, I hope to email everyone who has applied so far by today or tomorrow.--Sage Ross - Online Faciliator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 11:08, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Name space question.
I am curious as to where these students will store their "works in progress" as they are mentored. Naturally if the article exists in article space it will be subject to the entire community and also be listed in web searches as well. From ns=5, as with WP:AFC, there is much more flexibility to work with the contributor. In other-words the published article should be an end to this means opposed to a means to some end. Perhaps this is already the intended direction. I hope it is, and if not, consideration should be given. By the way, I suggest ns=4 so each submission can have it's own associated talkpage in ns=5. My 76 Strat  19:56, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * [So as not to confuse people, n=4 is Wikipedia: space and n=5 is Wikipedia_talk: space.] Yeah, the plan is definitely not to have students start their drafts in article space.  User space (n=2) is what we've been assuming so far, so that students start out working within their own area where it seems a little safer.  For students who choose to do a one-on-one training session at the beginning, they'll probably create example subpages in their userspace, so they'll be all set to do the same to start drafting articles.  Then as soon as feasible (ideally, when articles are DYK-ready) they'll move into article space so that they have a chance at a meaningful audience and collaboration.--Sage Ross - Online Faciliator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 20:49, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * That's great and I am glad this aspect was considered. If there was to be a deciding factor, it might be the ability to consolidate the working drafts into one location where the project members can work in concert to a unified goal. Again I am thinking of the example demonstrated by WP:AFC and surely a working replica tailored to this project could be easily achievable. Again thanks for considering these as we move forward.  My 76 Strat  22:34, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The point about a central index is a good one; we could replicate that easily enough with a category (on the talk page, as part of the "educational assignment" template probably), and that way we could still track articles after they move into main space.--Sage Ross - Online Faciliator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 23:15, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Sourcing problems?
One question which has occurred to me is that a lot of even university students, particular at the smaller colleges, might not be particularly well informed on what sort of academic and popular sources are available to them, particularly if they happen to be dealing with an abstruse subject or one which is not particularly popular in their area or country. I have the beginnings of a list of journals, newspapers, and magazines which meet RS criteria which I am hoping, when finished, to add to the appropraite national/state/regional project pages and the various relevant religion projects, those being the topics I am collecting information on. But one thing that might be very useful for college students, particularly if they are small schools not close to major cities, might be just helping them get an idea of what new journal/magazine content is available on their subject. I think in the past some school projects have found that, for better or worse, bloody little is available in their area relevant to the subject they chose, and the articles suffered on that basis. Helping future classes avoid such situations would be something I think would be particularly useful. John Carter (talk) 19:56, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
 * It is my understanding that the students will be coming from the universities listed at WP:WikiProject United States Public Policy/Courses: George Washington University, Indiana University, Syracuse University aren't exactly small colleges. George Washington University has an extensive library and as well as access to comprehensive subscription based databases. Perhaps its best to give a nudge to instructors to place more weight on having solid, reliable sources?Smallman12q (talk) 02:36, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Most of the courses this fall are graduate and upper level undergraduate courses, I don't think sourcing should be too big of an issue, especially considering which schools they are at. Sadads (talk) 03:04, 11 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I have to agree with Smallman12q. Edits such as this are problematic. I've had a message on my talkpage to the effect that a professor is having students add material to The Scarlet Letter for an end-of-semester assignment. My inclination is to leave these edits up for a day or two, but they don't adhere to Wiki policy, and professors as well as students should learn our standard of sourcing. We should remember that professors from institutions outside of those listed above also use Wikipedia as a teaching tool. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 22:33, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
 * That is why the campus ambassadors are training the students about standards of inclusion. If you want a nifty and fairly quick explanation that they showed us check out this youtube video. I will assure you, however, that a substantial amount of the Training materials the Foundation developed emphasize the issues of WP:Verifiability, WP:Notability and WP:NOR, Sadads (talk) 22:56, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Emily
Sage, Might want to give that to her on her talk page, or e-mail as well, Sadads (talk) 13:11, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Yep, just sent her an email.--Sage Ross - Online Faciliator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 13:17, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

tertiary only?
I've tried to read up as much as poss. and I get the strong impression that this programme deals solely with tertiary students (ie. folk at university) - have I got this right? - and are there any plans to include secondary education students (high school etc.)? - I'm particularly interested in how a programme might be managed for those under the age of 18 :-) cheers, Privatemusings (talk) 04:41, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
 * As would I- I'm coordinating a "Wikipedia project" for next year, for senior geography students at Avondale College, Auckland, but would appreciate a "formal" programme to assist me in doing so. Is there any way I could go about starting one? sonia  ♫  04:56, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the intention is to try to build a community of ambassadors and set of materials for instructors that can be applied to all sorts of educational settings, including secondary school. The Public Policy Initiative will be limited to universities, and all the material that the WMF team is working on will be geared towards that, but the idea is that this is a pilot to try to lay the groundwork for something will be largely autonomous and Wikimedian-driven in the future.  If you have specific assignments/lessons/outreach ideas for secondary education, you can put them up on Outreach wiki; we want to start creating a diverse collection of solid model assignments and lessons, but not much has been done in that direction yet.--Sage Ross - Online Faciliator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 12:06, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Sonia, what did you have in mind in terms of a "formal" program? What kind of assistance would you want?--Sage Ross - Online Faciliator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 12:07, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, something more like this, I guess, where there's others aware of what I'm intending to achieve. In fact, what would be good would be to make a more obvious way for a teacher to just walk in and ask "Can I have help with my class?" and have a project sorted out with support available, rather than assigning a project then finding it was more difficult than it seemed and receiving warnings or blocks for attempting to learn the ropes. I know Lynfield College recently had a media studies class have a spontaneous Wikipedia project, but hit the 6-account limit and couldn't create accounts for the rest of the class. They tested things out but all but one student got Hugglewarned and rollbacked without comment- needless to say, the class has given up on it. I think that a more school-friendly approach would do us well, but am unsure as to how this would be implemented. sonia  ♫  21:40, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
 * That'd be interesting. Perhaps a Wikiproject Acedamia Support group could be started.Smallman12q (talk) 12:45, 25 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, I'd put an effort for my English classmates to setup a Wikipedia project like Sonia suggested, to create articles about Chilean villages or whatever they want it is notable. I'm sure I would get the support of my school to do this, and would help most of them improve their qualifications/scores. We are right now in 10th Grade / Segundo Medio. =) Diego Grez (talk) 00:14, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I would strongly support extending this program to high school students, probably after this first trial of the idea is completed. I think it could be an invaluable tool in classrooms, particularly as some high schools shift to providing laptop computers for each student. — GorillaWarfare talk 00:20, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Business English students in Mexico
A couple of years ago, I had two classes of advanced English students in Toluca, Mexico write articles for WP. Im going to do this again, this time with my Business English class, with an eye on having them write a B class (minimum) article as their final project. The last time I did this, I was a relative newbie on WP, and I went around willy nilly looking for folks to help out the class as mentors, especially in wiki-tasks like wikifying, categorizing, etc. as I have limited time to teach wiki skills. I would, of course, teach the academic English skills and citation. Might you be interested in helping out and/or spreading the word that I need mentors for my students? I'll have them look for mentors themselves (gotta remember to find the newbie pages), but any head start would be great due to the semester calendar. Please answer on my talk page. Thank you!!!!!Thelmadatter (talk) 20:58, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Ambassador Principles
There's a draft set of Wikipedia Ambassador Principles up on the main Ambassadors landing page. Please take a look, edit and discuss!--Sage Ross - Online Faciliator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 19:39, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Proposal for expanding the Online Ambassadors program
We don't know how much the current group of ambassadors will be able to handle, but it looks increasingly like there is enough interest from professors to keep busy as many experienced Wikipedians as we can find to help. So the question is, how should we expand the Online Ambassadors program? I propose something like this:


 * 1) We form a recruitment committee made up of myself and all the ambassadors (Online and Campus) who have an interest in evaluating new Online Ambassador applications.  (So far I've evaluated the applications myself, but having more people to help decide will lead to better decisions. Something like that is necessary in the long run anyway since WMF will only be leading this program for a year, by the end of which time it will be totally in the hands of the volunteers.) We might also want to include a few trusted Wikipedians from outside the ambassadors program as ombudsmen.
 * 2) We advertise widely to recruit new Online Ambassadors, probably including a watchlist notice or sitenotice for a short time.  (I didn't go that far in the first wave of ambassador recruitment because the initial goal of getting ~20 online ambassadors happened pretty easily without that.) Applications are sent to a mailing list for the recruitment committee this time, rather than directly to me.
 * 3) We expand to ~50 Online Ambassadors, and then decide where to go from there once we have a better idea of how to spread the workload around and how much work 50 ambassadors could handle.

--Sage Ross - Online Faciliator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 20:12, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Discussion
Smallman said: "Shouldn't we wait until the students get active on Wikipedia? It doesn't seem as though there's been enough "action" to warrant a request for additional ambassadors.

It's also likely that as the program advances, more Wikipedians may become interested....you probably could get some more participants from the Adopt-A-User program. "
 * It's true that we haven't had much action yet. But we're looking now at about 250 students (maybe a fair bit more) for this term, so the ratio of ambassadors to students is pretty low.  Once things do start to move quickly, it's easy to imagine we could get overwhelmed.  I did post something about this program early on at a Adopt-A-User, but it's really inactive these days.--Sage Ross - Online Faciliator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 21:35, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Some comments:  — fetch ·  comms   21:48, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Yes. I would also propose adding general, non-binding guidelines for ambassador requirements, such as X amount of time here, at least X number of edits, no blocks, etc. and then have a committee look at applicants as well. The committee probably couldn't be every ambassador, though, it would be a tad too big. I'd just let the current ambassadors pick out who will be on the committee and go from there.
 * Yes, but probably no site notices; that seems a bit excessive if we are looking for only about 30 more users; maybe put an invite up at AN, poke other experienced users, etc. and do it that way. Otherwise, we may get more applicants than we need or can handle/evaluate, and while that enthusiasm is wonderful, this is the first time we are doing this, and over 100 ambassadors with 250 students is hard to coordinate without any beforehand experience of what will happen.
 * 1) 50 seems like a good number; just not sure how the student-mentor thing will work (I guess not all schools are doing it with one-on-one mentoring?). We'll see, at least.
 * What type of support are you looking for ambassadors to provide? And how much is needed by the students? As this is a pilot program...there isn't a precedent, but estimates would be good=D.Smallman12q (talk) 00:07, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Welcome template
Per the mailing list note Sage sent out, here's a bold attempt at an initial draft: WikiProject United States Public Policy/Welcome. Please make whatever changes anyone wants, and keeping discussion for this onwiki rather than on the mailing list might help speed things up.  — fetch ·  comms   15:56, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * This is really good! It's just the right amount of complexity, I think--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 16:02, 14 September 2010 (UTC).  The "Handouts" section probably isn't ready for primetime, since we would want to link to the handouts for that individual class if we could.  Instead of that, maybe the bottom right link could go to a page about how to get an article started, with the aim of getting the new articles on DYK.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 16:03, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I made it go to WP:SAA, but we really need a separate USPP page for starting and developing articles, as they don't need to worry too much about much of the pre-writing checks process. Perhaps Writing better articles would be a help somewhere, too.  — fetch ·  comms   16:29, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

What about a more... artistic... approach?  — fetch ·  comms   17:08, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Whoa, fractal wave welcome template! sonia ♫  19:29, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * A more post-card-y design, I think. I still can't figure out if it's more formal or less formal, and it is a bit extravagant, but perhaps we should dress welcome to impress? ;)  — fetch ·  comms   03:28, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Regarding Fetchcomms' first draft, I like the layout and links, but I think it would benefit from having an introductory paragraph that is specific to this program. Something like "Welcome to Wikipedia! As a participant in our Public Policy Initiative, you'll be actively engaged in {awesome stuff here}..." --Cryptic C62 · Talk 19:45, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Great idea. I've made some changes and added some explanatory text at the top.  — fetch ·  comms   03:28, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Haha, I like it although it reminded me of commercials. :) I don't whether is it just me or what, but the stack of newspapers pic seems to overlap the wording. Bejinhan   talks   04:49, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I was too lazy to properly do it, so it doesn't show right on some screens. I think I've fixed it now.  — fetch ·  comms   03:59, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Could there be a Template: form for it? It's rather time consuming copying and pasting the whole template on the talk pages. Bejinhan  talks   14:03, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
 * You can just copy and paste and it should transclude it, Sadads (talk) 17:14, 16 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Something more concise in Template: space would probably be good.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 17:49, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I moved it to USPP welcome. It's maybe starting to get a little crufty, though, in my opinion.  I think there's too much text at the top.  Two of the links near the bottom are red, as well.  I'm not sure any of the links in that row (idea, feedback, help) are strictly necessary.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 18:40, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * If the top is too much, then change it at will. I just wrote whatever came to mind for a draft.  — fetch ·  comms   01:40, 18 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Several problems with this template; in fact, I suggest retiring it altogether. First, when I view editors' talk pages, links to my  user name and my talk page (as opposed to the user name of the person who placed it) shows up  in the template's text. Second, the template is simply in  no way superior to old standbys such as welcomeh. The latter are in fact superior, as they supply a plethora of useful links. Third, are folks aware that the text specifically states that  the new user will be working on public policy? I've seen these being used for newcomers from the "Intellectual Property" project. Is that a subproject of Public Policy? In any event, the other problems are more salient. &bull; Ling.Nut 02:39, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * To address the latter points you raised. There is no such thing as a "superior" template. The purpose of this USPP template is to specifically welcome university students working under the Public Policy Initiative. There is no such thing as a subproject. The "Intellectual Property Law" is a course that is being taken by students from the University of California, Berkley. As you can see in the course page, this is just one out of many other courses under the Public Policy Initiative. Yes, we can make corrections to the template, after all, this is just a pilot project and we are learning along the way. However, I am strongly against the idea of retiring the template to make way for more superior templates. Bejinhan   talks   02:47, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry if I offended you, but the other templates are simply better. They provide a large number of useful links. There are nontrivial syntax probs with this one. Etc. I would suggest starting all over again, simply copy/pasting a template like welcomeh over the current code of the new template, and then making aesthetic and textual changes as you desire.  But use whatever you wish. &bull; Ling.Nut 03:09, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * No, I wasn't offended... but it pretty much annoyed me since you never gave any input but straightaway ranted about "superior" templates. We have been discussing this template for awhile before putting it into use. Going back to what I said earlier, we can make corrections and add more helpful links into the template if you feel that it is insufficient. Anyway, like you said, this is just a personal preference. Feel free to use the welcomeh template if you want, but note that there is no mention of mentorship or of the public policy IRC channel in that template. Bejinhan   talks   03:20, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * "Rant" is an unfair characterization, but I'll let it slide. As I said, modifying established templates is a much better idea. if we love this one, though, it still needs some help. &bull; Ling.Nut 03:42, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * My apologies, I take back that word. It was a bit too harsh. But yeah, IMO, doing it is more profitable and helpful than criticisms. Fetchcomms, Sross, what do you think about those suggestions? Can they be done? Bejinhan   talks   03:54, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It's easy. I'm working on it. &bull; Ling.Nut 06:04, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, here it is: AmbassadorWelcome. Note that it's not tailored specifically for the USPP; it's for the Ambassador program in general. A separate version to include USPP links would be easy to make (or options added to this one to add the links), but I'm not sure we should want one. That project will not last forever.
 * Oh, the prob with the other template may be that it needs to be substed on the page rather than simply pasted...? &bull; Ling.Nut 07:47, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The other one does need to be subst'd, yes. I think we could remedy that, if people find it too inconvenient.  I like elements of both AmbassadorWelcome and USPP welcome.  I think the main virtue of the latter is the strictly limited number of high-profile links, and I like the way they are laid out, with the icons.  Ling.Nut's new one is much more efficient in the way it presents the introductory text.  Either one, in my view, is a big improvement over the standard ones, which are way too crufty and contain too many links that are irrelevant for our purposes.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 01:17, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Where's the archive?
I have just realized that at least one section, perhaps others, has been removed from this discussion without the benefit of an archive. This strikes me as odd, bordering upon wrong. The entire discussion should be archived, from the beginning, In my opinion.  My 76 Strat  04:55, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * If some sections have been removed w/o archiving, then yes, that is certainly not best practice. Thanks for noticing... &bull; Ling.Nut 05:28, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Are you sure it's a section of this page you're thinking of? As far as I can tell from the history, it's been growing monotonically; I couldn't find any deletions in a quick skim of the history.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 01:19, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I am sorry I missed this reply when it was first posted. I apologize that I have erred in my initial observation. It was another talkpage which contains the section I was looking for, and everything is in order. I hope it was a quick skim and not too much valuable time was wasted. Nevertheless, I presume when the time comes, an archive will be produced, and concur that doing so will befit best practice.  My 76 Strat  02:50, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Approach
Some of the recent conversations on Google Groups started me thinking; I haven't followed any of the discussions leading to the creation of the online and campus ambassadors, so perhaps these ideas are off base.

I'm assuming that the classes are using Wikipedia as an engagement mechanism, and that the professors aren't measuring the students in any way on their knowledge of Wikipedia. I don't know if the professors are building the Wikipedia grading of the resulting articles into the class: Jon Beasley-Murray did that (e.g. with WP:MMM) but I could see it being optional.

Most Wikipedians, probably all of us, started by seeing some content that irritated us to the point we clicked the edit button; we were all content-driven to start with. We fixed a typo, corrected a date, added a birthplace -- and none of us knew anything about Wikipedia's rules. The community welcomes newcomers who start to edit: but because they are editing, we already know those newcomers are motivated to add content to Wikipedia. These students aren't motivated to do anything except get a good grade, and (if we're lucky) learn about public policy. They can do that without learning a whole lot of Wikipedia rules.

If my assumptions are true, and my logic above seems reasonable, then the role of the ambassadors should be almost the opposite of what it seems to me is being discussed on some of the recent Google Groups threads: we should not (at least initially) be training the students in anything to do with Wikipedia except how to click the edit button and add content. When they've added it we should do what we do when welcoming a new editor -- fix formatting, add ref tags, discuss NPOV issues on talk pages. We should be reactive on training Wikipedia minutiae, *not* proactive.

I think the ideal sequence for a student is to pick an article they are going to work on, and wait till they have something to add to do something. Let their mentor know which article it is; watch a screencast on clicking the edit button if necessary. Then just add it. If the formatting is horrible and another editor deletes it before the mentor can get to it, no problem -- it's in the edit history. If it's unusable the mentor can explain why.

The only thing a student should need to be told, in this scenario, is (a) a mentor will be available when you need one, and they'll be helpful and will take the burden of Wikipedia rules off your back; (b) read the five pillars, but only click on the links if you're interested; and (c) add content when you're ready, and coordinate with your mentor to start with so you can make sure you get quick feedback. Telling a student all the innumerable rules is unproductive and discouraging; if they could learn that stuff quickly, why would they need a mentor? And why would the professors even want them to learn that?

-- Mike Christie (talk) 23:41, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * FWIW - the professors don't want them to become expert Wikipedians. Speaking for myself, I simply want students to have the experience of writing for an audience. Teaching the concept is one thing; having the student actually experience 'public writing' is quite different. If I have students on Wikipedia, I watch their pages and help when they run into trouble. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 23:59, 7 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree about proactivity and not reactivity. Like I said in my more lengthy response on the Google Groups thread, if I had begun my editing career on Wikipedia by trying to read every policy and guideline, I'd probably never have started editing. In regards to Wikipedia, I feel that the best way to learn is trial and error. The students have a large group of mentors to support them in their editing -- we can review edits, encouraging any good edits and suggesting changes to problematic edits, and, if necessary, staving off any biting that could come from other editors. — GorillaWarfare talk 00:15, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * In exchange for all the shtuff we're doing for professors, a nice quid pro quo would be to ask them to put two questions to the students:
 * "What interpersonal aspect of Wikipedia use made the strongest impression (negative or positive) on you?
 * What nuts 'n bolts aspects of the task of editing made an impression (negative or positive) on you?
 * As for GW's comment above, I agreed in the groups thread and agree here: teach them two or three or take-home points about the rules and regulations (but certainly more than that about the nuts 'n bolts of the editing task), then point them to the keyboard and let them learn as they go. &bull; Ling.Nut 00:50, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

After re-reading the Lehigh course page, I beginning to think that we're dumping too much info about the rules on the students. I think that we should ask ourselves whether all the is necessary or not. What we want them to learn is learn how to edit. Right now, most of them don't even know the basics of editing and its requirements: referencing, wiki-code, etc. Maybe we should stop pumping in too much of all those discussions for the moment. After all, when most of us first joined Wikipedia, we didn't even go deeply into all those stuff. Furthermore, I feel that the impression we're giving them is that Wikipedia is all about rules, rules, and rules. We want them to enjoy editing. We don't want them to feel restricted and stifled by the rules. Yes, the rules is important but I think we're overdoing it on them(even with the good intentions). Just my 2 cents. Bejinhan  talks   02:47, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually I think even that is too much for now. We didn't know referencing or wiki-code when we started.  If a student wants to learn that they will, but surely the main thing Wikipedia wants from the students is content, not wiki-skills.  If they learn how to be a Wikipedian that's just a bonus. Mike Christie (talk) 07:40, 8 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree in principle with the aforementioned. My only rebuttal is to note that the replies were in response to specific questions first raised by the inquiring participants. To not answer would be remiss, and answering does not constitute proactive measures. If I am missing something, please advise where I've erred. Regards  My 76 Strat  03:17, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Online and Campus - different contact buttons
Any reason why online ambassadors have buttons for their talk pages and campus, for email? I think both should be used for both. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 15:50, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I was thinking we should do that, and just haven't had time recently. Please, go ahead and add the other buttons, if you like.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 16:39, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Planning for next term
We'll be supporting more classes beginning in January&mdash;at least two or three times as many as right now&mdash;and we're giving much more guidance to professors about how assignments will be structured and how students will interact with mentors (see the requirements for course design and the Memorandum of Understanding). In short, we can expect much more for Online Ambassadors to do during this next term.

Based on the guidelines and Memorandum of Understanding that will shape most of the assignments for the upcoming term, I've sketched out what will be expected of mentors.

We need to figure out how many Online Ambassadors we'll need. Assuming that being a mentor next time involves roughly the "Mentorship process" I sketched out, how many students would you like to mentor? (Keep in mind that the biggest need for help from mentors may come at the busy parts of your classes, if you're a student.) Please give your estimate here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Online_Ambassadors#Planning_for_next_term

If you don't plan on being an active ambassador next term, or if you plan on doing other aspects of ambassadorship aside from being a mentor, please indicate that. Also, if you're willing to serve as the coordinating Online Ambassador for one or more classes, please indicate that. In addition to making sure we have enough mentors, we need to make sure we have enough people to make sure all students get adequate attention from ambassadors and to keep the other ambassadors up-to-date on the overall dynamics of student activity for each course.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 20:27, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

January-May 2011 mentors

 * User:Sross (Public Policy) - I will mentor up to five students, and be the coordinating ambassador for one course. I will be available to help students on IRC during the daytime of US Eastern time most weekdays.
 * User:Ssilvers - I am not available next term, sorry! -- Ssilvers (talk) 20:39, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
 * User:GorillaWarfare - Probably two, maybe three. I'd count me as two, though. — GorillaWarfare talk 21:05, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
 * User:Sadads - I expect to be able to handle 3, and will help monitor JMU classes, but my primary focus will be on expanding the Campus Ambassador program in the UK Sadads (talk) 21:50, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
 * User:Fetchcomms – I can mentor 3–4, and coordinate one course. IRC is usually pretty flexible for me during evenings. / ƒETCH COMMS  /  04:06, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
 * User:My76Strat – I can commit to mentor 3, more can be considered as needed. I can coordinate for 1 group as well.  My 76 Strat  04:16, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
 * User:Cryptic C62 - I can commit to mentoring 5, along with random help where needed. If Harvard is participating again, I'd love to be the coordinating ambassador for one of their courses. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 04:28, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
 * User:Sonia – undertaking part-time study of my own next semester; I think I'd be happy with two students but unable to coordinate this time around, sorry. sonia ♫  07:00, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
 * User:Smallman12q -I can commit to 3 or more, depending on how much they participate.Smallman12q (talk) 19:55, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
 * User:Ronk01 - I could probably work with one or two students, my schedule gets a bit hectic after the holidays and doesn't let up until mid-spring (people like to put off surgeries until after the Holidays), but one or two students should be no problem. Ronk01   talk  21:45, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
 * User:Patrickneil - I can do three. I seem to have lost track of the topics of some of mine this semester, when I had about five or six, depending.-- Patrick, o Ѻ ∞ 00:08, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * User:Mike Christie - I'll sign up for two. I can do more if most are inactive, as seems to be the case this year, but I don't think that's a safe assumption, so best to leave it at two. Mike Christie (talk – library) 01:20, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * User:The Earwig - Due to my near-complete lack of activity in the ambassador program (unfortunately so, due to real-life obligations, but rl > wp), I cannot expect to be available next term. Sorry, &mdash; The Earwig   (talk)  04:18, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * User:The ed17 - I'll take two. Seven classes would make it difficult to take more. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 03:26, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
 * User:Bejinhan - I can mentor five students and more if my mentees are not very active. I can coordinate one class.  Bejinhan   talks   13:59, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
 * User:AndrewN - zero mentees, will help on IRC
 * User:Blurpeace — perhaps one student, if it is truly necessary, but I'm really in the same boat as Earwig. Blurpeace  08:16, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

have not responded

 * User:Geniac
 * User:Skomorokh
 * User:Avicennasis
 * User:Chevymontecarlo
 * User:Arbitrarily0
 * User:Piotrus
 * User:Protonk

ambassadors-in-training

 * User:Rock drum
 * User:Forty two
 * User:Dwayne
 * User:Peter.C
 * User:1234r00t
 * User:Alpha Quadrant

Needs and capacity
See Ambassadors/Courses/Spring 2011 and WikiProject United States Public Policy/Courses/Spring 2011 for participating classes so far. Only those who have already signed the Memorandum of Understanding and agreed to the assignment design requirements are listed on these pages. 25 to 30 are expected to do so, and and there may be additional courses that want support later, as in the first term.

As of 15:27, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Active mentors: 13 (plus 9 who haven't responded but may be active)
 * Mentoring capacity: 41 mentees
 * Coordination: 6 classes


 * Expected students: 85-105 from 5 classes with student estimates, plus 8 other classes without student estimates yet.

If we have approximately 20 students per class, 25 classes would mean 500 student needing mentors. At an average of 3 students per mentor, that means we'd need about 170 mentors... compared to ~22 or fewer that we have now.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 15:27, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Time to recruit!!!! Do we have any specific recruitment scheme in mind?Sadads (talk) 15:40, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I was going to start with contacting everyone on the interest list whom I haven't already. Beyond that, the most effective way will probably be for current ambassadors to invite other editors they know who would be good mentors.  I have a number of additional ideas: asking people who are active good article reviewers, posting a call on the administrators' noticeboard and the village pump, leaving talk page messages for people involved with the adopt-a-user program.  I'm also going to try to write something for the Signpost highlighting the plans for the ambassador program next term and the number of mentors we'll need to support the expanded number of courses.  But basically, anything you can think of to find great mentors, please do it or suggest it.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 16:18, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I am reaching out to some of the people I know who do good stuff! I can help with the Signpost article if you would like too. (We should also put up one of those requests for support on the WikiProject Report) Sadads (talk) 16:37, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Application process?
Where are the applications going to be posted at? Why are they being emailed to someone? Why is this process secret? How does the community express their support or opposition to any particular ambassador? What mechanism is there for removal of this post? Gigs (talk) 19:37, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The applications are not being posted publicly because we wanted to avoid creating an RfA-like situation where rejected applicants are subject to public discussion of of shortcomings. If people have issues with an individual ambassador and their conduct, this page is a good place to bring them up.  The process isn't secret, it's described at Ambassadors/Steering_Committee/Online_Ambassador_selection_process.  We had a public discussion about what process to use (see the talk page of note selection process, and the archived discussion) and decided on this.  (It can be changed later if people want, but at this point it seems to be working well.)  Basically, applicants who have a fair amount of content experience and are consistently civil are accepted, and less-experienced but promising applicants are given the chance to to be ambassadors-in-training.
 * The mechanism for removing the watchlist notice would be to discuss it at MediaWiki talk:Watchlist-details.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 21:15, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I meant the process for removing bad ambassadors. Like ones that aren't on board with process transparency. Gigs (talk) 21:47, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah. At this point, it falls to either me, or the Ambassador Steering Committee, to remove bad ambassadors.  Probably in the long run that will be the responsibility of the Ambassador Steering Committee (which will be elected in its next iteration), but it's not something that's been fully discussed yet.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 22:00, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I assure you that a transparent process of ambassador approval would be nothing like RfA. It would be more like BAG nominations or a featured article nomination, since it's unlikely an ambassador would be doing anything contentious, and it carries little authority.  Participation would be somewhat limited in most cases.  According to the ambassador page, this program is all about communicating and upholding the policies and core values of Wikipedia.  One of the most important core values is transparency; radical transparency in most cases.  Gigs (talk) 22:46, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I think you're probably right that a public approval process would be nothing like RfA. Enough people had concerns about it, though, that the consensus we came to was to not have the applications and the approval/rejection decisions be public.  So far it seems to be working pretty efficiently.   But if you feel strongly that it should be changed, sketch out an alternative and start a discussion about it on the selection process talk page.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 22:56, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

What is "IRC"?
The project page says "Online Ambassadors will...train students via IRC..." But, it doesn't say what "IRC" is nor does it provide a link. Is this: IRC what that's referring too? --CurtisSwain (talk) 21:54, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes. Internet Relay Chat. Diego Grez (talk) 21:55, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for confirming that. Added wikilink on  project page.--CurtisSwain (talk) 23:49, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
 * That's an optional part of the Online Ambassador role. Some editors like to use IRC anyway, and so it makes a convenient way to offer immediate help to students.  But lots of other Online Ambassadors don't use IRC.  You can stop in to chat with ambassadors here --Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 00:00, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Thread at ANI
Please see this thread. Looks like Ambassadors are needed. DuncanHill (talk) 16:43, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Looks like it's been sorted out.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 18:15, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Class assignment to improve Utility (patent)
It seems that, as part of a class assignment, law school students are currently improving Utility (patent). I think this is great. If you have any experience or any advices to share with the professor (probably User:Iplawprof) or the students, looks like you can help (although there is no particular problem to report). Thanks.--Edcolins (talk) 20:01, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for pointing this out. I'll try to contact the professor.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 20:05, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I removed a lot of double spacing after full stops in the article. This seems to be a common issue with academic contributors.  Jujutacular  talk 20:37, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Nevermind, I need to be up on my manual of style: MOS:PUNCTSPACE. I did fix some other issues though.  Jujutacular  talk 20:39, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Publicity through WikiProjects
I've just discovered the orthopedic class at LSU (yay!) and left a note at WT:MED about it. For the other non-USPP courses, I think that it might be valuable to approach some of the WikiProjects with an eye towards recruiting subject-specific online ambassadors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:44, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Editing Fridays article for 11 February 2011
--Guerillero &#124; My Talk   04:23, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Resources for Ambassadors
Not sure how many Canadians you guys deal with here.. As i recall this is just for the USA ... However I have recently finished digitizing the Bibliography of Canada and most of Bibliography of Canadian history. Was thinking  those Ambassadors here may find this of value  for there  Canadian "clients" if you have any. The books are mostly in templates for easy of use. I will be doing others over time - however this takes a long time. I take it a Bibliography of the United States is the one that would be most useful here for you guys right? Moxy (talk) 23:26, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
 * That sounds like a very useful resource for some potential classes once we start getting really involved with Canadian universities... which hopefully will be next term.--ragesoss (WMF) (talk) 17:20, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

My encounter with an "Online Ambassador"
Not as impressive as Jimmy Wales might have hoped. SteveStrummer (talk) 22:26, 6 March 2011 (UTC)


 * One of the most unpleasant users on here has been given this title - one who revels in being offensive to new users and deleting as much content as possible. I assume it is just a mutual masturbation effort rather than anything that actually stands for anything real?  DiverScout (talk) 20:01, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Online Ambassadors/Apply/Vibhijain
Has no pages linking to it. Posting here to make you aware of the page. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 07:39, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. It's linked properly from the parent page now.--ragesoss (WMF) (talk) 17:18, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Retired Ambassador
User:My76Strat has announced a sudden retirement; they've requested that other users handle their current involvements which, I assume, includes this. It looks like they just started working with some students. Hopefully they'll return, but if not the orchestrators of this project should be aware that one of the active ambassadors has left. If there's an appropriate place to bring this, let me know. Regards,  Swarm   X 09:42, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I'm still hoping he'll change his mind, before trying to assign new mentors for My76Strat's mentees. It's sad case, but unfortunately not uncommon; RfA is traumatic.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 17:21, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

DYK Discussion
The following is a lengthy thread from the ambassador mailing list regarding DYKs and relevant topics.

If articles are not expanded 5x, they do not qualify for DYK. Some articles are large to begin with and are expanded 2-4x. Is there any way for them to appear on DYK? For example, see Childhood amnesia.

It's disappointing to the students to not be able to qualify for DYK because their article was too large when they started to qualify for DYK.

-Small
 * It would be more appropriate to discuss this at the DYK talk page rather than here, where nothing can be done about it.


 * Anyway, my two cents is, the DYK criteria are the DYK criteria and I don't see a point in changing them just to reward some students; the project should be for readers' benefit. As always, editors who expand a large article are free to submit it to GAN instead of DYK.


 * Rjanag
 * I agree this is unfair but this is something to propose on the DYK pages in the wiki. I am interested in this question outside of being an ambassador, so if you start such a thread, please ping me on wiki about it. -Piotr
 * If it's a longer article, a lot of reviewers will IAR the article through, but it still needs to be roughly 3.5x expanded.--Ed
 * That's interesting, but hardly consistent. I've written hundreds of DYKs, and I've never heard of that - at the same time, I've had frequently been asked to expand the article further because "it is just 4.5x" or such.


 * So I'd caution against expecting 3.5x to work. And if it sometimes does, and sometimes doesn't, it would be rather unfair to some students ("but we did the same work as them, why are we treated differently")?-Piotr
 * Remember that the DYK process has gone through some major changes in the past year or so and is still in flux to some degree. Things that have worked in the past may or may not work now. When I was reviewing DYKs (mid-late 2010), I stuck closely to the expansion needed requirement but gave people wiggle room with the time aspect. At that time that was the norm. I haven't visited in a while so I have no idea what the culture is like now.--Tom (Guerillero)
 * The professor of one class, Greta Munger, nominated about a dozen articles, but I can't pass 3/4 of them due to 5x requirements...what's the 'nicest' way to explain this to her?-Small

Hi all,

It seems to me that the goal of attaining a DYK has grown, since the start of the university program, from initially a nice, unexpected "feather in the cap" of the occasional student, to something that is often expected, or at least taken as the clearest indication of success on the part of a student.

I'm wondering if it might be worth turning the current question around; instead of thinking about how to change the DYK program, or the approach to the DYK program, to fit the needs of professors and students, maybe it would be worth rethinking: what is the best way to achieve some recognition for good efforts on the part of students?

I don't have a ready answer to this question, but it seems like an important one to explore. Is it worth putting out a call, perhaps, within the Ambassador program, for proposals for other ways to approach this need, outside the DYK program?

-Pete
 * We could do a batch run every month highlighting articles from this program. This should be discussed on the wiki somewhere though...garnering support here may be viewed as canvassing.-Small

Well, we should consider first whether recognition is now becoming necessary to drive better student contributions or whether it's just Nice. I'm afraid that treating DYK as success means that recognition is turning into the main incentive to write quality articles. And this is worse because DYK isn't really a marker of success in the slightest. It might feel cool at first, but I and a number of other ambassadors could churn out a DYK-eligible article in thirty minutes. We cannot treat DYK as a true accomplishment when it's the quality of each individual article that counts.

For a long time, Wikipedia was written only by those who really *believed in and enjoyed* the mission of bringing free knowledge to the world. That's why most users are interested in working hard on GAs or FAs--sure, there's a little bit of "look what I did!" in there, but for the most part, quality content comes from those who genuinely enjoy contributing. DYK is not a "prize" to work for--GA and FA, however, do need significantly more work. Yet I'd argue GA is still easier (and probably more fun) than writing a thesis or dissertation. What the education programs are now doing are forcing students who may have absolutely no interest in Wikipedia at all to contribute. And this leads to poor-quality content appearing, with the only incentive for any real quality at all being DYK.

(Note: perhaps someone with the technical know-how could find a way to retrieve the average article ratings for a class that offered extra credit for DYK or required it, and compare it to the average ratings for a class whose assignment did not mention DYK at all. We could then have an indicator of how influential DYK is, regarding article quality.)

(Also: is there a chart for editor retention rates among students in the education program after their class ends?)

Someone who truly believes in Wikipedia's mission doesn't need or perhaps even want recognition; there are some prolific IP editors like that, for example. But because many students don't believe strongly enough about Wikipedia's mission, then is main-page recognition the best incentive for better contributions from them?

What about competitions for things like t-shirts (well, that's sorta lame) or other items? That would also have the benefit of spreading Wikipedia interest through word-of-mouth, whilst most articles just end up sitting in a corner of WP without any activity. We could use article ratings or something similar to judge article quality and reward the best performers that way.

Or, I've found that knowing the *impact* of one's contributions is a great incentive. The main page or DYK is hardly anything (6 hours? for about 1,000 hits, give or take?), so why not encourage students to pick more popular topics rather than some obscure piece of legislation or something? For example, the Wikimedia blog featured several months ago a post about how a student wrote an article about that one Egyptian political party just before the Arab Spring began to take hold in Egypt. That blog post isn't going to disappear in six hours, nor is that article or the *interest in that student's work*. That's the true inventive--interest, not just the main page.

Fetchcomms
 * I doubt that students don't believe in Wikipedia's mission...students are Wikipedia's most avid users. Getting a dyk on the main page is merely for for swagger....(something liek "OMG...it's on the front page of this awesome site!") Students are graded on the content of their article...most don't get a grade for dyk. A lot are going for GA.


 * Any experienced wikipedian can churn out dyks by the dozen, but for students, its a pleasant intro to the fact that they can actually make it to the main page.


 * The notion that students are being forced to participate here is absurd. The students are in college and pay tuition for these classes...they wouldn't be here if they didn't want to. (Whether or not they should be in college is a different matter...)


 * The quality of content depends on the class and the students. Hopefully, the WMF will screen out "unwilling" participants.


 * A lot of students (which are from America) are just probably just lazy, distracted, or busy...and that's not something we can fix.-Small
 * I agree wholeheartedly. In particular, I don't think it's appropriate for instructors to assign "get a DYK" or "get a GA" type of assignments (especially if they themselves don't have a clear understanding of the process), it puts both the students and the reviewers in bad positions. DYK reviewers should not be having to worry about some student's grades.-Stephen
 * It's not that they aren't believing, but that they're indifferent. For example, if I wanted to contribute to Wikianswers or Wikihow, something, I could do it, but I don't really align myself with their goals or layout, so I wouldn't try as hard to produce useful content.


 * The notion that students are required to participate in this program for their grade is not absurd. It's the truth. Their profs tell them to do this assignment. There are plenty of assignments that people don't want to do during college. They still have to do them, or fail the class. That was all I was saying, you seem to be blowing my words out of proportion (and then you contradict yourself by admitting to the existence of unwilling students) so now I'm confused.


 * I agree wholeheartedly that it is a waste of effort and time to fix laziness in college students. But laziness = lower-quality content. And we don't want that. So we need an incentive, which was the whole point of this email thread ... unless we are going to be just as indifferent as some of them to crappy articles being created just because of school and not because the author identifies with Wikipedia's mission.


 * Fetchcomms

I have a handful of unrelated observations that seem to me to lead to a conclusion about student interactions. I hate long posts, so here's a summary for those of you like me who don't want to read the long post below: I think we need to drop growth as a goal for the education program, and focus on perfecting the relationship between a class, the ambassadors, and the instructor. Only when we've done that should we look to grow again.

Here are my observations and more detail on the above, if you're interested.

I was at the Wikipedia Loves Libraries event in NYC on Saturday, and spent the day with a brand-new editor who was knowledgeable about theatre, smart, and interested in learning about Wikipedia. Within three hours we had created two new articles and he knew how to create bibliographies, categories, and footnotes, and was citing his sources for everything he did. He was (and is) motivated because he is interested in certain topics and would like to see them better represented on Wikipedia. This is very unlike the usual interaction with a student in the education program.

Initially I thought the goal for the education program should be to have that same interaction with each student; but most are motivated by the grade, not by the quality of the resulting article. We can try to change that for individual students we interact with -- any good educator would try to change that -- but we have to continue to act in the knowledge that most students will remain interested only in the grade. DYK is motivational to many experienced editors, but experienced editors wouldn't want to get a substandard DYK on the main page. I don't think this is true for most students: not from any attempt to cheat the system but because many students do not want or expect to put in the amount of work they would have to in order to understand how Wikipedia values quality, and to be able to comply with those values. Actually they have no idea how much work that would be, nor, I suspect, do (some of) the instructors.

I saw an instructor post on a CA's page today: see Cindamuse: Mentorship and where to work. This includes two very interesting comments: "I'm still grading their last assignment to add a sourced sentence to an article and review the sentences of two other students, but my spot-checking shows that they have trampled a lot of articles. I'm going to try to fix the problems as I go." and "I don't know how often students have come to you for help, but they aren't really good at help-seeking behavior." This corresponds to my own experience -- to interact with OAs would require students to spend additional time at the computer, writing and reading posts. Working on the class, in other words. Many won't do this.

The situation with the Indian education program has caused a good deal of work for Wikipedians such as the New Page Patrollers; everyone involved is keen to avoid a repetition of the problems there. The problems appear to be at least partly caused by the students focusing on what they believe will get them a good grade, and not on the needs or rules of Wikipedia.

Another instructor quote that I can't now locate was to the effect that they had not realized before the course the very wide range of student abilities. I think this is a key point: almost no experienced Wikipedians are other than highly articulate and very verbally oriented. This doesn't appear to be true for the students as a group, though I have seen some outstanding individual contributors.

It's looking likely to me that the Education Program can't simultaneously achieve all its goals: rapid growth, high quality, and good interaction with the existing editor community. Looking at it as an optimization problem, we are limited by the size of the community. The ambassadors are a way of focusing those resources on the education program but the ratio of ambassadors to students, and the lack of interest from most students in obtaining help from the ambassadors, means that ambassadors are very limited in their ability to filter the students' input so that the rest of the Wikipedia community doesn't have to. Quality can be improved by means of incentives, which is the point of the last couple of posts to this thread, but the evidence is that many students won't be motivated to produce work of sufficient quality to be worth keeping (though I'm well aware that many will produce very good work that benefits the encyclopedia).

I suggest that we drop growth as a high priority goal, and instead focus on having enough resources to make every class successful. If we have to choose where to direct resources, they should go to the instructors that have run successful classes and who are learning to edit Wikipedia themselves. I have something like 200 students in the classes that I am an OA for, and there's no way most of them will ever get a single post from me. For many of them I'll never look at a single edit they've done. I'd be delighted to seek out the ones that want personal attention and feedback (there are surely some) and work with them, but I think the scale is too large already and the pool of ambassadors is unlikely to grow significantly from its current size. We should probably reduce the number of classes for next year, scaling it back to a size commensurate with the ambassador bandwidth we have. If we don't do this, the poor quality work will lead to irritation in the wider community, regardless of the fact that we will probably have some real successes as well.

Mike
 * I strongly agree with what you said. The majority of students are simply *not* very interested in sharing knowledge via Wikipedia. We need to worry more about developing the relationships between students and ambassadors and profs--isn't the community always trying to make things like warnings more personal? We should be more personal to good-content-builders as well as bad-content creators, too.


 * Also, I think a small part of the issue is that students simply don't know who they are talking to online--so online ambassadors are going to seem like these anonymous random individuals--and that can be a big obstacle to overcome for students who aren't very active on the Internet.


 * Fetchcomms
 * As there are unwilling/indifferent/unmotivated participants...how do you propose we respond? If the article is of such poor quality, you could always delete it. As a volunteer, you can choose to not participate in reviewing the articles, or inform the professor that the student is failing at wikipedia.


 * It'd be best if you started an onwiki thread.


 * -Small
 * As I mentioned earlier, we need other incentives, such as physical items (I mentioned t-shirts) for articles rated highly, or encouraging them to pick articles that *will* get public interest and therefore feel more "useful" rather than the "Smith-Johnson-Jones-Davis Act of 1794 that is pretty much irrelevant to 99.9% of the world but still happens to be notable".


 * Deleting articles makes the student feel like they wasted time and could either lead to bad word of mouth. It's also something we want to avoid in general--let's hope we teach students better in the beginning so that doesn't happen.


 * Do go ahead copy this whole email thread onwiki--that'd be great.


 * Fetchcomms

Smallman12q (talk) 22:07, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi everyone, thank you for this very thoughtful discussion. Following an insightful note from Mike, I have moved this discussion about the growth of the U.S. Education Program to the talk page of the U.S. Education Program page. I've indicated my reasons for moving it on that page, but just to repeat them here as well - (1) the topic affects not just Online Ambassadors but the entire U.S. Education Program, so it should be discussed in a forum that is not OA-specific; and (2) this particular discussion about the future growth of the U.S. program has hitherto been embedded in a discusion about nominating student articles for Did You Know, but this particular topic really deserves its own section. The purpose of moving this discussion is to encourage more people - Online Ambassadors, Campus Ambassadors, Regional Ambassadors, professors, other participants of the U.S. Education Program, and the existing editor community - to participate in the conversation. On that page I also put down some of my thoughts on this topic of how to grow the U.S. program. I'd really appreciate everyone's input on what I wrote, as well as continuing discussion in general on this topic. Thanks all! Annie Lin (Wikimedia Foundation) (talk) 21:00, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Two applicants awaiting review
Hi folks. Just a note to let you know you have two candidates for Online ambassador awaiting review. If you are not accepting new Ambassadors, this should be made clear on the "Apply" page. I'm quite excited about being an Ambassador, but if there are problems, I'd prefer to know. The term is getting on. The application process took some time; would be nice if the applicants could get some timely feedback. Thanks, The Interior  (Talk) 18:42, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Oops. I could "promote" you both myself if it comes to that, but I've sent an email to one of the WMF people involved with managing the OAs, hopefully she'll be along shortly. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:47, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
 * If there is no opposes after a week it is safe to promote people. Approving OAs NEEDS to stay a community process for reason that I do not want to get into --Guerillero &#124; My Talk  02:49, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Okay, after a brief email exchange, I've accepted both individuals, as they were both unopposed. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:26, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Potential job application
On Wikipedia_talk:Teahouse/Host_lounge I was advised to apply for a job here. Based on the comments there, does it even make sense for me to apply here? History2007 (talk) 16:32, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
 * The online ambassador role is volunteer, and you can find the application here. Good luck! Rob SchnautZ (WMF) (talk • contribs) 16:52, 26 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I know where the forms are, etc. I did not know if it makes sense for me to bother filling them in. So I was asking for a hint. History2007 (talk) 16:56, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I see you're actually looking for employment. The Wikimedia Foundation has several job openings right now. But in regard to the OA role, you'd basically need to have the ability to serve as a sort of online live tutor and give up a large chunk of your day to being available to students in the IRC and any other useful mediums. Right now, there's an emphasis from the community on OAs needing to fully understand plagiarism, since a lot of student work s reviewed by OAs (you'd have the chance to intercept their plagiarism and address it). Rob SchnautZ (WMF) (talk • contribs) 17:15, 26 March 2012 (UTC)


 * No, I am not looking for paid employment at all - I was just joking. I do this for fun, and to stop junk from accumulating in articles. My point was as in the other post, that I only want to interact with the experts to get them to improve articles. So I will not help users who want to improve Charlie Sheen's articles or the latest celebrity mishaps. The people at the tea house made it easy and said they only want editors who deal with new comers, so sent me here. My main goal is to help the experts, preferably professors, etc. I understand their mindset. History2007 (talk) 17:22, 26 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Well, there are certainly a lot of newcomers as well as professors involved in the OA role, so I'd say it sounds like a good fit if you've got what it takes. Rob SchnautZ (WMF) (talk • contribs) 17:42, 26 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Ok, I will fill the forms later anyway, and we will see if I have what it takes... History2007 (talk) 17:46, 26 March 2012 (UTC)


 * The students are mostly new to Wikipedia, but they are not here for popular culture or vandalism. Some will be experts, but others will know little on the articles they work on. The main point is to help out those students. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 09:07, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the students need help. But there are probably others who can do that. My goal would be to reduce the "scare factor" for the experts who are in pretty short supply, but hesitate to edit Wikipedia. That would be a good way to increase scholarly content. On highly technical topics, the students may not have a broad enough perspective. Every time I look at the disaster stricken WikiProject computing, I wish there could be more experts. I often wish a Wish You Were Here type message could be automatically generated for experts. Think of it this way, if the students write the textbooks, would the university use said books? Not a chance. So would we expect the university to use Wikibooks written by students? Not a chance. That is why things need to change before Wikipedia gains acceptance within higher education. History2007 (talk) 09:38, 27 March 2012 (UTC)


 * That's certainly an interesting perspective, comparing a wiki to a textbook. However, I think a better comparison would be to compare it to an encyclopedia. An expert-written encyclopedia doesn't exactly have its place in the university setting. Nevertheless, I agree that bringing in the experts would be great! Rob SchnautZ (WMF) (talk • contribs) 20:41, 28 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes. And there are Wikibooks online and also printed versions for sale by WMF. The Wikibooks get generated from the articles. You could probably get an idea of how many printed copies get sold to universities. My eventual goal would be to reach a day when some universities actually order these books. The fact is that in a field such as Mathematical logic there are real hidden gems in Wikipedia, because a few expert editors have spent the time to write the articles and they maintain them. These people are driven by their love for their field of study. I have no hesitation in recommending many of the mathematical logic articles to any graduate student. They are really well written. Just as many of the art history articles are high quality. The problem is lack of uniformity. Many of the computer science articles, on the other hand, are just inconsistent and flatly incorrect. The gems are thus mixed in with very questionable content. That needs to change. I do not have 72 hours a day to work on it, so I would like to get more experts involved. History2007 (talk) 21:30, 28 March 2012 (UTC)


 * By the way Rob, I have not forgotten about this. I just got busy/distracted by other Wiki-matters - I will try to join this a little later. History2007 (talk) 21:59, 31 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Don't worry; there's no rush. I'm not part of the selection team, anyway. Rob SchnautZ (WMF) (talk • contribs) 17:24, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
 * But there is a rush. Content quality of technical articles is going down in many cases due to self promotion, now that Wikipedia is the next hot thing. It is really hard to unscramble an egg after people have positioned themselves as the leading researcher in a technical field. Once that type of self promotion by 3,000 wannabe researchers has been mixed in with content, it will be too late. So steps must be taken now. In 3 years it may well be too late. History2007 (talk) 17:56, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
 * In that case, get a move-on! Rob SchnautZ (WMF)  (talk • contribs) 18:02, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I would like to, but too many Wiki-distractions took place last week.... I will try to find time now. History2007 (talk) 18:04, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Be Counted in the Online Ambassador Census!
Please check in at the Great Online Ambassador Census of 2012, an effort to document the continued participation of Wikipedia Online Ambassadors in the current semester. Let us know if you are assisting any courses (or not!), and also the subjects you would most like to help with. This is all part of the larger WikiProject Academical Village initiative.--Pharos (talk) 10:41, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Education peer review launches!
We are now starting a process of 'Educational peer review' for select wiki-courses in the ambassador program:

Please review a course today!

To do so, just add a paragraph or two on the talk page giving your general assessment of the wiki-course so far:


 * Category:Educational peer review requests

And feel free to add the edu review template to whatever other courses you feel might benefit from reviews, including your own :)--Pharos (talk) 15:48, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Replacing the course pages
We're replacing the course page system currently in use for the U.S. and Canada Education programs. Please see WT:Ambassadors and place followup comments there. Rob SchnautZ (WMF) (talk • contribs) 18:10, 9 May 2012 (UTC)