Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-10-09/In the media


 * In my experience, students editing wikipedia for grades have two major issues:
 * they are not volunteers (they are editing for grades, right?)
 * they have an inherent COI (they are editing for grades, right?)
 * This results in two major, diametrically opposite problems:
 * They fight claws and teeth for their contribution: content, structure (they have to prove heir grades, right?)
 * Quite often they start a fresh article on an existing topic, but with an essayish title (followed by essayish content meandering around the subject) not linked to anything in wikipedia, and I usually stumble upon them when doing a routine maintenance which involves wikipedia search for a phrase.
 * In a month their account is abandoned, nobody to ask a question for clarification.
 * (The fact that they are newbies with newbie-specific problems is easily forgivable.)
 * I say, they are not wikipedians. One may say that some of them ultimately become ones, but wikipedia is visible enough already for graphomaniacs like us, to join without extra prodding.:-) Staszek Lem (talk) 16:31, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
 * WP:COI says "How close the relationship needs to be before it becomes a concern on Wikipedia is governed by common sense." That someone is a student seems to me not to be a "relationship" that is of major concern; if it were, the COI guideline would mention students, and it does not. Nor does it follow that they will be graded based on anything other than article improvement (which addresses another concern - I've seen, at WP:VPT, that the focus is on improving low quality, high-value articles). Fighting (say) to keep poor quality information in an article isn't likely to impress their grader.
 * As for abandoning their accounts, what they do shouldn't require their subsequent assistance; it certainly is a fact that the vast majority of creators of articles here at Wikipedia are inactive (have "abandoned" their accounts).
 * And I believe WikiProject Medicine is helping out with the class mentioned in the article, as part of a larger effort. In short, this is quite likely to be very helpful, and I think we should avoid generalizing about this project. I personally think it's great that we can get subject-matter experts to edit Wikipedia. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 02:33, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes so marking is pass/fail. Articles being worked on will be already existing articles of key importance. I and a number of others from WPMED will be very involved every step of the way. This is a pilot. The hope is that the prior students will help with future students. Otherwise it will not be scalable. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 04:51, 11 October 2013 (UTC)


 * I think if they were giving pass/fail, or paid work-study minimum wage, I would not object. In fact, in the past, I have had work-study students conduct research on sources potential articles.  However, I did all of the editing myself. Bearian (talk) 17:03, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
 * It's interesting that the Daily Dot's coverage often overlaps with that of The Registers own enthusiastic Wiki-watcher Andrew Orlowski, as seen here. Curiously, Orlowski's opinion piece on Sue's comments, as linked in this report, originally read "Wikipedia's internal newsletter The Daily Dot has a comprehensive summary of Gardner's report and related issues". Not sure whether the mis-naming is flattering to the Signpost staff or those of the Daily Dot, but it's certainly an odd coincidence. (A separate embarrassing slip-up in the piece - confusing administrators with editors - was corrected after being pointed out by the Registers fact-checking commenting community.) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:51, 10 October 2013 (UTC)