| Revision as of 08:14, 29 December 2012 editATC (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers24,946 editsm →No reply← Previous edit | Revision as of 18:43, 31 December 2012 edit undoSandyGeorgia (talk | contribs)Autopatrolled, Extended confirmed users, Page movers, File movers, Mass message senders, New page reviewers, Pending changes reviewers, Rollbackers, Template editors278,950 edits admins have gone hog wild in here, no fun anymoreNext edit → | ||
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| I prefer to keep conversations together and usually respond on my talk page, so watch the page for my reply.<br /><br /> To leave me a message, click ''' | |||
| == Hallmark == | |||
| Thanks for helping out with Hallmark of Hall of Fame movie ]. I couldn't get the image to work for me, but it's there now and that's what counts. Also thanks for finding more sources and filling the blanks, such as summaries and plots. That's not my kind of thing. I was surprised no other user took the time to make a movie link, when Front of the Class was first announced. Especially since there's so much information out there now for Hallmark movies. | |||
| Your help is really appriciated. ] (]) 07:47, 25 February 2011 (UTC) | |||
| : Ack! Thanks for the reminder that I was interrupted by Wikidrahmaz just as I was intending to expand that article from the sources. And thanks for getting the ball rolling. Regards, ] (]) 14:49, 25 February 2011 (UTC) | |||
| == Combine all WMF and Education program posts == | |||
| Combining all of these under one header, since I haven't caught up on pending work and responses here. ] (]) 17:27, 1 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| === Medical sources handout/paragraph === | |||
| Sandy, if/when you create the sentences or handout or whatever it's going to be on sourcing, could you ping me? The students on the course I am working with (]) are having some trouble with correctly identifying secondary sources, according to a more experienced editor I'm talking to. I think your notes would be helpful. On the plus side, they seem to have been instructed to post notes to the article talk page offering to fix problems -- I've seen this note on several talk pages, almost identically phrased: "If anyone has any comments on the material that I have added or any more material that they believe should be added please comment on the talk page and I will be more than glad to take into account any comments". Let's hope they are as good as their word. ] (] - ] - ]) 00:33, 1 May 2012 (UTC) | |||
| === Assessing psychology articles in the education program === | |||
| Sandy, I don't know if you saw the ] I posted to the education noticeboard about assessing student articles, but I thought I'd check to see if you would be interested in assessing a couple of articles in the psychology area that you've been dealing with. You expressed some concern about whether the metric we're using for quality is good enough, so you may not want to participate on that basis, but if you're interested, you'd be a big help, because you'd be a lot more accurate than I would in assessing the quality of the sources used for these articles. It's a fairly quick process to assess an article, especially if it's short. I know you've had trouble with the pscyhology classes and these metrics are intended to help answer the questions you've been raising about whether the EP is a net negative to Misplaced Pages. If you're interested, the relevant link is ]; it should be self-explanatory but ask if you have questions. Thanks. ] (] - ] - ]) 12:22, 14 May 2012 (UTC) | |||
| : Mike, I cracked my elbow and the pain is keeping me from working ... what is your timing? ] (]) 00:14, 15 May 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::There's no deadline, though it would be useful to have them done by mid-July, when the working group meets to talk about the education program. We have three volunteers working on it now, and I think we'll eventually get to all of them, so if you would like to reserve a couple for your assessment take a look at that page and just put your name after "Reviewer:" under "Reviewer 1" (or "2" or "3") with <nowiki>{{user|SandyGeorgia}}</nowiki> and they'll be there when your elbow recovers. (Sorry to hear you hurt it.) I think LiAnna is going to add two sample articles from every single class, and she hasn't done all of them yet, so the classes you've been working with may not yet be represented. We haven't created the "burden" assessment yet -- we're not really happy with any of the ideas we came up with for measuring negative impact, but we'll probably go with some form of questionnaire -- I'll ping you again when that goes up. ] (] - ] - ]) 01:02, 15 May 2012 (UTC) | |||
| === Hi === | |||
| Hi. Are you aware of ]? I'd appreciate your thoughts, if you're interested. --] (]) 12:35, 11 September 2012 (UTC) | |||
| : Read the discussions with Iri ... concerned. Much goes wrong in here even with the best of intentions, and that one seems ripe for incidents. ] (]) 08:12, 2 November 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :: I couldn't agree more. That's why I'm spamming it everywhere. The intention is obviously benign – an entity with a cheque account that can pay the minimal expenses involved in outreach to professional and scholarly organisations, NGOs, etc. – but it needs concerned eyes on it to make sure it doesn't morph into something nobody intended. Nothing is cut in stone at the moment. The discussion on Iridescent's talk page is a fair summary but some points not raised there are being discussed at ] and ]. --] (]) 14:25, 2 November 2012 (UTC) | |||
| === Burden of education program === | |||
| Sandy, I know you were concerned that some of the students editing under the education program were more trouble than they are worth. This is something it's been difficult to measure, so in response to some of the discussion at the recent ] I created a ]. Would you be willing to cast a sceptical eye over it and let me know what you think? | |||
| Some of the results bear out your comments from this spring -- the worst performing class is a psychology class from Kentucky, which I believe is part of the Association for Psychological Science's , and I recall you being particularly critical of some of the medical article edits. For some of the edits I went to ] to get a second opinion; you can see those discussions ]. Any feedback you have time for would be very helpful. | |||
| -- ] (] - ] - ]) 19:53, 15 November 2012 (UTC) | |||
| === There are only two things I know significantly more than squit about === | |||
| One is computing and the other is psychology; pretty much everything else I've written about here I've learned about on the job so to speak. I've done a few early steam-driven computers and I might do more, perhaps even branch out into transistorised computers eventually, but I'd really like to tackle a serious psychology topic, and I keep coming back to ]. I just looked through the article again and it seemed full of the kind of stuff I might have written as an undergraduate, with references to individual papers that had caught my eye. One of my own favourite undergraduate essays was on the application of Fourier transformations to the understanding of brain waves, which now I look back on it I didn't even really understand myself, and my tutor certainly didn't. But I digress. | |||
| Do you think it would be possible to move an article like cognitive dissonance more towards what an encyclopedia article ought to look like without being blocked for 3RR/disruption/whatever? Perhaps even GA? Bearing in mind that my impatience with idiocy is legendary? What's held me back in the past is a lack of access to sources, but now that some who may be sympathetic to my cause are being offered free access to JStor things might become easier. | |||
| If you were to seriously look at working on cognitive dissonance where would you start? My initial impression is that I'd start by rewriting the whole fucking thing. But I know you to be more of a diplomat than I'll ever be, so perhaps you may have a better idea. ] ] 02:31, 27 November 2012 (UTC) | |||
| : I looked at the contribs history; there is a student at work, so no doubt the entire thing needs rewriting. Whether you can get it done without interference depends on which psych editors are watching it-- there aren't many of them who know how Misplaced Pages articles are supposed to be rewritten, and some of them dig in to preserve their pet theories. Do you ''really'' want to spend your time on that? At best, you'd have to wait for the student to finish, because the entire WMF is behind allowing poor student edits to stand. By the way, I haven't heard back on my JSTOR email ... has anyone? We should follow up to find out if our emails were even received, and when we should expect an answer ... what if they were "lost in the mail"? ] (]) 02:37, 27 November 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::That explains why it looks like an undergraduate essay then, so I suppose I'll have to leave it be, at least for now. BTW, I did myself down a little with my introduction; I know a hell of a lot about ferrets as well, another article I'd just love to take a scythe to, and 17th-century English witchcraft ... and I'm sure there must be other stuff I know about as well. :-) I'll look around for another psychology article in need of a little bit of TLC. ] ] 02:47, 27 November 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::I strongly disagree with stepping back from articles where students are active. The WMF keep repeating the mantra that this is the "encyclopaedia anyone can edit" which is as much a lie as the "sum of all human knowledge" bullshit. They use that claim to explain their unwillingness to implement controls on profs using WP for homework assignments. This is an encyclopaedia, not homework. We've now got the ridiculous situation where one of our top article writers is prevented from writing a featured-quality psychology article, because it is currently someone's homework. The students are all over the popular psychology topics like cockroaches so it is impossible to avoid them. From the discussion on Malleus's talk page, it appears the student has been told to write an academic essay from primary sources. So the longer this student carries on doing this, the more it wastes their time and the less useful the article becomes to our readers. Does it surprise anyone to look at the prof's to realise the problem here. It would be wonderful if someone wrote a top quality popular psychology article because we could at least point the students at it and say "Look! This is how you do it." -- ]°] 09:28, 27 November 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::::If the professor has told them to write essays on Misplaced Pages, then she's not getting the point of how Misplaced Pages is supposed to present information. That's an entirely different issue than students editing for school or pleasure. I will take a look. <font color="#cc6600">]</font><sup><small>(<font color="#ff6600">]</font>)</small></sup> 14:03, 27 November 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::::: You'll take a look? Fuchs it is WAAAAAYYYY too big of a problem for even a dozen editors to deal with, a group could spend their Wikicareers trying to address article damage done by student editing, the WMF employees (the truly guilty in all of this mess) will scream "BITE" if you deal with student articles in the same way we would deal with any other editor's articles, you can never tell which articles are student edited because they don't tag the talk pages, you'll spend hours dealing with plagiarism alone, you need journal access to correct their faulty text ... there is so much more ... I despair. I truly despair. Add to that the WMF funding and institutionalizing pro-Chavez editing, and there aren't many ways one can turn for enjoyable editing without encountering WMF incompetence leaving a truly negative impact on the quality of this website. Yes, if Malleus were to write one good psych article, it may show the way ... but no, it wouldn't, because the profs and students do not engage the encyclopedia in any way-- they don't look. And Malleus might get peeved and get blocked if he really got in there and saw how truly bad it is. I'm glad you'll take a look, but I have a sneaking suspicion that one of the few editors who has enough gravitas on this site to get WMF to pay attention to the problem is Raul654 (he got us JSTOR, he makes things happen). I don't think it's possible to move PAID employees off of the position of damage that has been done here ... they have access to millions of dollars of DONATED money, and that keeps them employed, keeps our psych articles underrepresented at ], and now, thanks to their use of our donated funds, will also guarantee that the entire suite of Chavez articles remain POV. ] (]) 15:06, 27 November 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::"they don't look" -- that is indeed the problem and you will note I said that ''we'd'' point them at the example of how to do it. I repeatedly see students writing material on WP that we already have, but they write it in the wrong place because they've been told to expand a stub or a redirect into a GA. So yes, they don't look. But also, with psych articles, if they did look, it would set a very bad example to them. Perhaps that's because it isn't a hard science so the articles are littered with discussions of the crazy experiments psychologists think up rather than actualy explaining how our minds work with the same level of confidence we can explain how blood cells work. ]°] 15:40, 27 November 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::::: My experience of class-assigned art history articles is that they are often pretty poor, and sometimes need wholesale reverting, but I have never experienced any resistance from the volunteer "Camus Diplomatic Corps" to me doing so, let alone from WMF employees. Students tend to do their diff & submit that, sometimes entirely removing the pre-existing content, but neither they nor anyone else seems much to care about what happens afterwards. Anyway, WMF are now "narrowing their focus" as you will have seen, which will I think mean leaving the college programme to shift for itself, with a little cash for expenses. The WMF staff stick pretty rigidly to the "section 230" policy of leaving content well alone in my experience. I don't say that's a good thing. ] (]) 15:24, 27 November 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::: Actually, I'm not sure what you are referring to with "narrowing their focus", but I suspect it means they've realized that they aren't getting any editor retention from a program where students are only editing for a grade, and they can for sure get real editor retention by advancing programs that recruit folks with a committed political POV-- now those are the types of editors who will stick around to advance a cause (not just editing for a grade), and growing the ranks of editors is what WMF really wants. Maybe they realized they aren't getting that from student editing. I guess the real fools here aren't the WMF employees, but those who donate money to the WMF. ] (]) 15:29, 27 November 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::: Ok, that is , this year's big thing from WMF, board-driven I think. Specifically on the college programme, you may have missed . ] (]) 15:37, 27 November 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::: Thank you, Johnbod, yes I had missed those. I find Sue Gardner's writing about as informative as ''The Signpost''. But yes, it seems that my hunch about what was going on was correct-- they are now directing grant money towards areas that will increase editorship better than the education programs did (anything is better than nothing, and get some POV warriors on board, empower them with money and collaborative editing as a group, and they will stick around). It's possible that they are so incompetent that they don't even realize they are funding institutionalized POV. They will get committed editors this way, and dealing with the editors they are now recruiting will result in even more damage to content. Welcome institutionalized, funded POV (which is the same as we were getting from the education program, but now we are paying to get ''committed'' POV warriors instead of those editing only one article one term for a grade). ] (]) 15:48, 27 November 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::: Her writing style really grates with me. What does "execute on" mean for instance? But I see she doesn't really accept the point you're making SandyG: "Aside from supporting Wikimedia's continuing growth in unique visitors and pageviews, we've achieved important successes through our work .... and a global education program with thousands of students contributing high-value content as course assignments." ] ] 15:55, 27 November 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::::: That's a gem. I mean ''Really, Sue''? Who are you kidding? Or, who are you ignoring? Or, how much are you getting paid to push this BS? Will Jimbo turn over in his virtual grave when he comes to and realizes where donated dollars went to institutionalize POV on Misplaced Pages? I will admit that as a strategy, the current focus on granting Wikimedia Chapters around the world is much more likely to keep WMF employees in their jobs-- it will increase editorship. And POV. ] (]) 16:30, 27 November 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ←(ec) I've sent an email to the professor who was running the class. Finals are upon us so I don't think there's much concern about more issues there, but I recommended that she more clearly distinguish between essay and encyclopedia writing to her students and pointed out ] and ] as useful links. Malleus, I can only beseech you to be patient in explaining things to such users in the future; it's unfortunate that a misunderstanding on the teacher's part can trickle down to the students (of course they're going to pay attention to the prof, they want a good grade.) | |||
| The matter of exposing new editors to featured content and the years of accumulated wisdom and grit from trying to create those articles, I think, is a more general problem that I have no idea how to solve in a world of 3+ million articles and people entering from every nook and cranny of a Google search. I know when I started editing I probably tried to reinvent the wheel on a couple of articles. It's mostly a matter of whether you wise up or get repulsed. <font color="#cc6600">]</font><sup><small>(<font color="#ff6600">]</font>)</small></sup> 15:32, 27 November 2012 (UTC) | |||
| BTW: you guys may not be aware of . And see the "Education program metrics" section on my talk page. It appears that the "Our data shows that students improve Misplaced Pages articles an average of 64 percent" statement is based on an analysis that didn't check for plagiarism nor specific guidelines like MEDRS. The plagiarism-detection and fixing-up-student-edits issues are absolutely huge. Because you can probably count on one hand the number of medical editors with decent access to a wide selection of sources. The best I have been able to do is use Google Scholar to find snippets of the inserted text inside paywalled journals, but I'm unable to read the journal articles as I have better things to spend $30 on than three sheets of A4 paper. And if they plagiarise their student textbook then essentially nobody other than the prof probably has the ability to check it. So these students expand unwatched stubs and redirects (how many folk watchlist a redirect) and the plagiarism and other issues go undetected and unfixed. We need to shift the burden of plagiarism-detection onto the profs and other teaching staff because we simply don't have the resources to do it, even if we had the inclination. ]°] 16:06, 27 November 2012 (UTC) | |||
| : Well, of course; we only have to consider SOPA to know that copyvio isn't one of WMF's concerns. And, we know that the WMF staff is replete with folks who don't know anything about actual editing. ] (]) 17:33, 27 November 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ] find the hidden student gem, and save that one for the Annals of Student Editing. ] (]) 19:32, 27 November 2012 (UTC) | |||
| === Classroom === | |||
| FYI, I have some good news about that neuroscience class and ]. I'm in contact, and I will be writing up some advice about how to do things next Fall term to make everyone happier. =) ] (]) 19:51, 27 November 2012 (UTC) | |||
| : That is most encouraging, Bio ... but what about the legions of other classes? I hope your info will address more than that one class (although it is particularly problematic, it is not unique). I had plans long ago to write something up, but instead I gave up in despair and went to my garden all spring, summer and fall. ] (]) 19:53, 27 November 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::Well, I do hope to scale up from one class to more than one for Spring semester, and I put any thing I see that comes up that is an eye-sore at ] to hopefully transmit to future "generations". Who knows, maybe it will become a Misplaced Pages guidance essay. Or used by me to lecture classes before, or assigned by professors as required reading (and quizzable). We'll see! Feel free to share any random points that pop up and frustrate you there in ] Best. ] (]) 20:32, 27 November 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::I do already mention a lot about secondary sources, etc. at the main user course page. ] (]) 20:33, 27 November 2012 (UTC) | |||
| Note to self: five hours today on cleanup, and I have barely scratched the surface, and realize I won't be able to fix most of the problems without a whole lot of journal articles that I don't have. What's troubling is that I'm making these articles ''look'' good, and they ''look'' better than they did before, but before they were ''accurate''-- now they are not. No information is better than wrong information in medicine. ] (]) 18:17, 29 November 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :True... give me one to work on/tell me (hopefully without using too much more of your time) the main things you see that are wrong? Thanks. ] (]) 18:22, 29 November 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :: I left lists at ] and ], but they are incomplete and working on them now may not be productive. Lots of missing info on sources, and I fear those students will never return to fill in the missing info. Completely wrong focus on both as they used old sources or sources not specific to the topics, resulting in just about no mention of main condition in which these occur (]). Lots of queries about where they got some info that is wrong as far as I know. Much more to do, not sure if starting now is the best idea, maybe wait and see if they return to answer questions? I've got to run ... busy day now. I've not even started on ], and I can't remember now the fourth article I need to fix. ] (]) 18:48, 29 November 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::Well I haven't made much headway in clean-up, but I did of your recent post, FYI. Thanks for putting it there. Good idea. ] (]) 16:59, 10 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| === Psychology student edits === | |||
| You and/or some of your talk page stalkers may be interested in yet another strand of discussion about edits made by psychology undergraduates as part of an education program, this time at ]. --] (]) 14:05, 8 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| === customized probation to deal with problematic classes? === | |||
| Hi Sandy - this idea isn't entirely thought out yet, so I figured I would solicit your feedback here rather than bringing it to EN/B yet. How would you feel about a customized ] that dealt with classroom assignments that worked on articles covered by ] that said something like "If more than XX% of student editors in a particular class make mainspace edits on articles that are covered by the aegis of ] that substantially fail to meet the requirements of ], the edits from all students in that particular class will be forcibly sandboxed until they can be independently reviewed by Wikipedians experienced with applying ]?" I understand the significant problem that exists here, I just want to find a way to deal with it that fixes the problematic classes, without punishing the non-problematic ones. (I think a similar clause about "If more than XX% of student editors in a particular class violate our copyright policies, the entire classes edits will be rolled back" would also likely be a good idea.) Obviously we'd have to figure out exact wording of the terms of the probation and then get community agreement to it, but do you think this could be a viable compromise path forward? ] (]) 01:19, 9 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| : I suppose it might help, but it still seems kind of backwards. First, there has been no class I've encountered that hasn't been problematic (to varying degrees), so the burden seems to be backwards (sandbox all of 'em, bring out what is salvageable). Second, it adds a whole 'nother dimension to the burden on established editors-- that is, we have to now check ''every article'' written by the class to see if the percentage that fail to meet requirements is met. So, instead of me having to fix two or three articles per problematic class, I would be tasked with checking up to 40 articles !!! So, I think Slim's proposal is more in the right direction-- sandbox them to begin with, bring out what is salvageable. Best, ] (]) 01:36, 9 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::How about a change to the text to make it clear that it's not placing any requirement on established editors to conduct such reviews, just requiring that the content stays sandboxed until such reviews are done? (Which may mean it's sandboxed indefinitely.) I'm just trying to come up with a mechanic that targets problematic classes, while allowing high performing classes to continue to function unimpeded. I haven't reviewed many medrs covered classes; if they are truly all bad, then I would consider supporting forcibly sandboxing all of 'em. I just know of a high enough number of non-medrs covered classes that perform at a high level that I don't want to support a general EP-wide forcible sandbox. ] (]) 01:41, 9 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::And I do see your point re: figuring out XX% being a pain in the ass for MEDRS covered classes. ] (]) 01:41, 9 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::: What you're trying to accomplish is in the correct direction; the problems in medical articles are occurring because the profs are completely unaware of MEDRS, the sourcing is inadequate, and the undergrad students are simply not up to the task of writing medical content for an encyclopedia. Generally, a problematic class results in every article being problematic. So your intent/direction is right. Yes, if they were forcibly sandboxed it would help ... but no one but the medical editors would know which of these classes needed to be put on that probation, so the burden on medical editors to identify the problematic profs would still be there. What would help MUCH more are two things: 1) educate the profs on MEDRS, and 2) get the students to post to talk so we can guide their edits, point them to adequate sources, make sure the content they are adding belongs in the article they are editing, etc. They are students at universities, and so should have better access to sources than, for example, I do. If I knew someone wanted to write on topic X, I could say-- go get ''this'' source, which is high quality, recent, compliant with MEDRS, and from there, you can write an article. Instead, they're getting whatever (usually faulty) sources they can find, and trying to generate meaningful content from often bad sources.<p> On another matter, I had a friend look at the law articles you suggested. He found several grammatical errors-- not a big deal-- and generally felt that the articles were decent quality. He did comment two things, though: 1) he noticed that every article had a) an editor, b) a copyeditor, and c) a reviewer (a good setup), and 2) he said he couldn't address whether the articles were adequately writtten for a general audience. He understood them because he's a lawyer, but said there may be problems with general audience comprehension (that is, encyclopedic tone aimed at laypersons). He also added that he wasn't surprised that they were better than what I'm seeing in medical articles, since they are written after all by law students. And he said that one reason that class's choice of articles probably worked out well is that case reports follow an established structure which lends itself to an encyclopedic format. Hope that helps, ] (]) 02:19, 9 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::::They are written by students at the graduate school of information, generally people getting master's degrees in information science - not law students (and not always grad students - I've taken both his classes.) It is still definitely the case that they articles written by primarily graduate students are going to be better in quality than undergrad articles though, that's been a pretty consistent finding throughout the ed program, so it is still a point. Re: point (1) from your friend - they do indeed all have that, it's built in to his assignment design. I've somehow lost a link to his full instructional design, but you can get the gist of it from ]. I think it works quite well, and have been encouraging new professors I encounter to adopt it. And re: point (2) - he has a point there, too. Not all of the articles are written in a way that is as appropriate for a general audience as they should be. That said, I feel like they're certainly of a quality that is worthwhile for Misplaced Pages to have - they're not perfect, but pretty damn good, and I suspect better than an average Misplaced Pages article. (And his classes have produced a ton of content - I think at this point they've written a majority of case summaries about American internet law that exist on Misplaced Pages, or at least a huge chunk of them.) His class is definitely on the higher end of successful as far as GEP classes go, I just wanted to show it to y'all to make sure that it's clear to everyone that even though there are unsuccessful classes, there are highly successful ones too. | |||
| ::::I'd like to come up with a solution that allows his class - and classes like his - to continue to function in the way they have been, that at the same time limits the harm caused by the subset of classes that do not represent a net benefit to Misplaced Pages. (I don't think slim's current proposal does this, which is why I can't agree with it.) I do agree with you that my idea in this section as I originally presented it is probably unworkable. Thanks for your feedback on it, and I'll try to come up with a more workable idea. ] (]) 02:13, 9 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::::: Your response has me pondering ... I'm pretty sure some of my most problematic classes may also be grad students. I wonder if medical encyclopedic writing is just ... harder. Most interesting is how really poor their basic writing skills are ... anyway, nice ideas coming out! ] (]) 02:19, 9 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::::: Honestly, I do think that part of it is that it is just harder, partly because MEDRS is a standard that is both significantly more serious than RS, and significantly different than what students are used to, and partly because medical writing is just harder. I've been discouraging everyone in a medrs-covered area who has contacted me at Berkeley from participating in the program, because I think that their success rate is inevitably going to be significantly lower than the success rate of general classes, at least until we come up with a better approach to them. Re: general writing skills... I've had some term papers turned in to me that would make you cry :). Sometimes it seems like the average person is a way below average writer, heh. ] (]) 02:30, 9 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::: If we could get one good medical class to do it right, it just might show the way. If the prof would engage, understand ] (speaking of an established structure, like law case reports-- MEDMOS has an established structure that students rarely follow), choose appropriate topics for expansion, and use MEDRS-compliant sources ... we might show how it should be done. Were you and BIO going to do something in SF early next year? I was considering joining you depending on my travel plans ... although I'd have to give Berkeley the big axe :) :) ] (]) 02:39, 9 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::: I'm actually not sure who BIO is offhand, so I probably wasn't planning on it, but would be definitely up for something :) is BIO another bay area wikipedian involved in education issues who I haven't encountered yet? If so, it'd be greatly appreciated if you introduced the two of us. If you're ever in the bay area, let me know if you have some free time. I'd love to meet up with you for drinks or something, and brainstorm about some of this stuff in person. ] (]) 07:58, 9 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::: Ah, I got the wrong person then. I encountered a conversation somewhere recently where ] mentioned to another editor something about helping direct a class in the Bay Area ... I can't recall who the other editor was. BIO will surely pop in here (see his earlier posts in this section); if not, give him a ring! ] (]) 13:39, 9 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::Ooh, ooh, more bay area stuff I can help out with! If there's a medical class going on nearby, I'd love to help out with them. I'll poke Bio, thanks. And seriously, if you end up in the bay at some point, poke me on my talk and let's get drinks or something. ] (]) 06:12, 11 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| {{ygm}}] (]) 03:00, 14 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| === WMF noticeboard === | |||
| Weren't you instrumental in getting the Education noticeboard up and running? I think we should have a WMF noticeboard, that way users can express their desires for specific actions (non-Education program related) that ''could'' conceivably be addressed. I guess a central concern there will be whether or not certain things violate the WMF interpretation of ]. Best. ] (]) 19:41, 10 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| : No, I wasn't involved in the set up oF ENB ... I was one of the first to find, need and post to the board, though. The initial reaction was to shut down anyone criticizing anything about the program. WMF staff pretty much silenced us and moved our posts to talk. I unwatched. Then months later, when I peeked in again, I found Slim raising exactly the same issues several of us had been raising for months, so I joined in again. I'm unclear on the focus of this new board you propose. Generally, I think there are too many dispute resolution boards, and that has stretched resources and has led to diluted resolution. I'm not sure anything can be done about the fact that WMF doesn't care about copyvio. There was only one thing that worked in the past, and her name was Moonriddengirl-- they hired away to a job unrelated to copyvio, and now copyvio gets little attention. ] (]) 20:02, 10 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::I created ] the other day because it is a WMF activity. If someone wants an update on the Visual editor, or an update on RTCE, then I think they should be able to go to the WMF noticeboard to get a reply from either knowledgeable Wikipedians or WMF people about WMF activities. I imagine it should exist to serve as a place where Wikipedians could communicate to the WMF from a bottom-up approach. I think it would encourage effective understanding, transparency, and (I hope) positive results. ] (]) 23:41, 10 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::: The tone-deafness of some WMF staff with respect to the problems in medical articles could lead bad places wrt Section 230; they've been notified repeatedly, but nothing is done. But if we raise that, someone will cry "legal threats". They really should be thinking not only about the legal, but also about the moral, repercussions of supporting a program that recruits unprepared and unqualified editors to add medical content to such a prominent website. ] (]) 22:01, 13 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| === Done === | |||
| Done with ] now! ] (]) 17:34, 11 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| == A question about a comment in your voter guide == | |||
| :: ] | |||
| I had a question about a comment you made in passing in your voter guide, but I decided to defer bringing it up until after the election. In your introduction, you wrote that you resigned as FA delegate "in February 2012 so I could focus more on my area of editing interest (medical articles) after Wikimedia Foundation efforts furthered programs that have caused deterioration in the quality of Misplaced Pages's medical content." Either I have forgotten, or I never knew, what your concern was in this regard. Could I ask you to briefly explain or let me have a link? Thanks, ] (]) 05:27, 11 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :Not Sandy, but I suspect you'll find your answers in her recent comments ]. ] (]) 05:35, 11 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::Thanks. I'll take a look at that page tomorrow. Regards, ] (]) 05:38, 11 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::: There's more than that, NYB; I'll try to type up something later today that won't require 50 typo corrections. I bet you're glad those elections are over! ] (]) 14:15, 11 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::: Please don't take this as a writing assignment or anything like that, especially since whatever you identify as a problem may not be something I can do anything about in any event, no matter how I might feel about it. But I do try to keep abreast of what editors perceive as serious problems on the project, and I could tell from your guide that you were troubled by this one, so I'd like to have at least a general idea of what it is, and perhaps your other watchers here might as well. Regards, ] (]) 03:07, 12 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::::: I haven't undertaken the "writing assignment" yet because the issues I saw with WMF and the Education Programs (that have negatively impacted my medical editing) have grown into now four related issues ... related in my mind, at least. Did you get the gist of the issues at ]? There's a lot to read there, but the dialogue is a worthwhile read; you can get a sense of the community divide. I'll write more tomorrow ... really wanted to finish my tree! ] (]) 03:21, 12 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::::: I found ] very illuminating. I have recently done some work at the ] article. After a while, I stepped back and asked how the article had come to be in its present state - my recollection of it was of a much better-written article. So, I looked in the history and found . I posted a request at ] for clean-up of the article, recognising from the user name that it was likely student work, but it wasn't until I read WP:ENB that everything crystallised in my mind. This set of student work was done in the sandbox, as some at ENB advocate, but then was dropped into article space in a huge slab, a problem that Sandy has been commenting on at length. The idea of wading through all of the new material and trying to make it encyclopaedic whilst also working on referencing, checking accuracy, etc., is more than I am up to doing at the moment. So, Sandy has an excellent point... here is an example of an article where a large amount of work in clean-up is needed and where there is a real question as to whether the new material is a net positive addition once the problems of poor writing, reorganisation, referencing and reference checking, editing out the ] material, fixing overlinking and MOS issues, etc. etc. are all addressed. This is an article that requires expertise to edit and fix, I know WP has little regard for experts, but I can think of much better uses for the time of those editors. Further, looking at the issue of helping develop the students as editors, I take much more satisfaction from my recent ] review of ] where I see an editor who is likely to contribute positively and my investment of time is much more likely to pay off in ongoing quality contributions. Fixing the ] article, I see a lot of work cleaning up a mess that not only isn't my responsibility or problem but also is partly created by a WMF structure that (to me) reflects an attitude of underappreciation of the time and efforts of volunteers that actually build the 'pedia, and I resent the idea of spending my time on the article when it would have been better spent (and would have been more satisfying) developing the old version of the article. And, I'm annoyed about the time I spent before I realised what had actually happened here. Sandy, sorry for the rant, but I do feel better for saying this and in a place where someone like Brad might hear and be influenced in his thinking. Regards, ] (]) 04:25, 12 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::: Thank you muchly, Ed; you completed one part of my "writing assignment" quite nicely. Your post summarizes what is happening to me over and over and over. I'm not sure if the problem is more pronounced in medicine or if others just haven't spoken up yet, but when I was first raising the issues (several years ago), the problem was compounded by the wall I hit when speaking to '''staff'''. It was clear that established editors were undervalued. I had promised medical editors like Colin I would help, and I was watching article after article fall apart while there weren't enough editors to deal with the problem. Now that more people (like you and Slim and Melanie and Colin) are speaking up, at least we are being heard. <p> Now that you have summarized the Education Program portion to NYB, I can focus on describing the other, similar problems. The despair is that paid '''staff''' are taking over and undervaluing the efforts of the free volunteers, at the same time that the arbs aren't helping either-- so yes, there is a factor that NYB can influence. ] (]) 15:21, December 12, 2012 (UTC) | |||
| === Four issues affecting "regular" editors === | |||
| Ok, digging in: | |||
| :: In your introduction, you wrote that you resigned as FA delegate "in February 2012 so I could focus more on my area of editing interest (medical articles) after Wikimedia Foundation efforts furthered programs that have caused deterioration in the quality of Misplaced Pages's medical content." Either I have forgotten, or I never knew, what your concern was in this regard. Could I ask you to briefly explain or let me have a link? Thanks, ] (]) 05:27, 11 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| Thanks for asking, NYB. My statement when I resigned is at ]. While I was speaking mainly then about the 1) problem with student editing of medical articles-- and that my FAC duties were preventing me from returning to article work and helping my colleagues deal with the onslaught as I had earlier promised I would-- in my resignation, I also touched on two other areas of concern. Just as the situation with article deterioration and demoralization of established editors due to student editing has worsened since I wrote that statement, so have two other areas I touched on in my resignation statement: 2) "That task is made much more difficult by the apparent intent of WMF to emphasize quantity over quality" and 3) "POV dominates almost every article in the Venezuelan suite of articles". A fourth concern encompasses these three: 4) a widening rift related to the value of "unpaid volunteers" who are increasingly at odds with paid '''staff''' or WMF-funded programs. On the ], both Malleus and Slim sum up the frustration well in what I see as the relationship between my first three concerns and the fourth: and . Jbmurray (whose student FAs helped launch the Education program concept) (with an ), which discusses the money factor, among others. <p>The four issues: | |||
| # On the serious problems with the Educational program and student editing, there are any number of issues there that could end up in arbitration; I recommend reading the current page at ]. More editors are weighing in now than when I first encountered the same problems over the last few years. The discussion has been robust. Important concerns (rampant plagiarism, ethical, financial, article deterioration, students being coerced to publish under real names, and relating to Section 230) have been raised but not addressed adequately by the WMF, and there are more examples and eloquent descriptions of the problem there than I could summarize here. The medical editors that are left on Misplaced Pages (and several of our finest are gone, as you may know) are unable to keep up with the impact. One sample of what is hitting medical watchlists over and over is | |||
| # "That task is made much more difficult by the apparent intent of WMF to emphasize quantity over quality" ... this comment related not only to the Education Program debacle (that program promoted recruiting ''more'' editors at the expense of quality and retention of ''experienced'' editors), but also to Sue Gardner's off-the-cuff comments about Featured articles recorded and used against FAC in the attempt to change leadership that started last fall and lasted a year. Sue Gardener is not ... to use an unfortunate phrase ... a "real Wikipedian" in the sense of editing, adding and improving content, and dealing daily with articles on a watchlist. I imagine she was passing along something she heard, about which she knew little, when she should have kept quiet, and her dis of the FA process gave ammunition to the very small but vocal minority that wanted to unseat Raul654 as FA director. Here we have another instance of paid '''staff''' at odds with the unpaid volunteers, and in this case, one who probably didn't really even know what she was saying. Seeing that attitude reinforced my feeling that I would be better off getting back to medical content work, and reviewing articles at FAC, where I could make a bigger difference than I could as a delegate. She never fully retracted her statement: I don't think she could have because I don't think she understands what she said or how it was interpreted. Her comment (combined with the socks and a returning editor breaching CLEANSTART and RTV) gave fuel to and allowed the campaign against FAC to continue longer than need be. I had a very busy summer, but every time I found time to peek back in here, I found that in spite of four RFCs, and in spite of Raul and me both standing down (in my case, hoping the furor would die down in my absence, I can't speak for Raul, but likely the same), the same small group continued the issue, merely moving it from ] to ]. Paid '''staff''' had a role in allowing that to continue by making ill-informed statements that fueled the fire. And when given a chance to address the battleground that continued even in my absence and Raul's absence, the arbs declined to do anything about the Merridew's taunting. | |||
| # "POV dominates almost every article in the Venezuelan suite of articles"; yet another situation where WMF money and funding seems to be driving quality down. POV was an issue when I resigned, and I hoped by resigning I would have more free time to re-engage with Venezuelan topics. While I was busy over the summer, any possibility of engaging Venezuelan topics with the aim of NPOV was eliminated. The WMF funded a Wikimedia Chapter in Venezuela, and the editing histories of the <s>editors staffing</s> officers of that chapter are no surprise. In Venezuela, if one criticizes Chavez or chavismo, one jeopardizes life and limb, livelihood and family. Period. You can be forced into exile, you or your children kidnapped and robbed; shot, knifed or murdered; lose your job, be persecuted by various authorities, tax, police, etc ... in short, no Venezuelan who might help neutralize the Venezuelan suite of articles would ever join a public chapter, and the chapter will only serve to allow editors who would further pro-Chavez POV to band together, courtesy of WMF. I've looked into the editing history of the editors <s>staffing</s> who are officers of the chapter and have not been surprised by what I've found. So, the WMF has in effect funded POV editing on Misplaced Pages, and assured that editors attempting neutrality will be unable to gain consensus, overwhelmed by the volume of recruits on WMF's dime. This is another example of the WMF having more money than it knows what to do with, and passing it out without awareness or consideration of the consequences to article quality, and in a way that undermines the pillars of the project. Just after I resigned, Jimbo pinged my talk saying he was ready to work with me on reducing hagiography and increasing neutrality in Venezuelan articles: I would not even consider trying now to neutralize Venezuelan topics and I note that the POV tag is gone from the ] hagiography. | |||
| # Which brings us to the fourth, summarizing point: a growing divide between we schmucks who are out here in the trenches as unpaid volunteers, and WMF-funded programs and paid employees who don't understand, value or respect content contributors or article creators. Another example of this is the loss of one of our finest editors working in the copyvio realm, {{user|Moonriddengirl}}, when she was hired away to '''staff'''. WMF appears unconcerned with the seriousness of plagiarism and copyvio (re SOPA), and the loss of MRG in her regular editing duties (and what I perceive to be a softening of her stance since she became '''staff''') is a big one. At some point, it began to feel like the '''staff''' (with the exception of MRG, generally not very knowledgeable about content) and various funded programs are going to outnumber the rest of us dummies who are toiling along in the trenches as free unpaid volunteers. What is emerging from the ] is that no one is effectively running most parts of the WMF, and increasingly non-editors are trying to keep their jobs by spending donated funds on ill-advised programs that are spinning out of control in ways that are impacting us schmucks out here in the trenches. | |||
| All of this (what is the value of the unpaid volunteer) brings me to arb matters. I suppose we never will get an answer about what happened behind closed doors that allowed Merridew and Rlevse to taunt, poke, hound and bear out grudges on Raul for almost a full year (to the point that even when Merridew did that on arb pages, no one said a word). Different arbs have given different and contradictory accounts about was known when by whom, and whether they knew Alarbus was Merridew. I've never known either Kirill or Cas to lie or shade the truth, and we still don't know why Elen of the Roads did or said the things she did, seemed to try to bully me into silence, never did answer the questions (to this day), whether the arbs knew or not that Alarbus was Merridew, whether they were aware of the full extent of his taunting and hounding (even though some of it appeared on arbitration pages and it was all over FAC and TFAR, looking like breaching experiments to challenge the status quo), whether they cared that he was changing accounts to avoid detection each time he encountered resistance to installing his preferred citation style on different suites of FAs, why the arbs turned a blind eye when a known sockmaster who had previously been admonished to stick to one account with a finding that he had wikihounded continued to hound and taunt Raul (even under the arbs' noses), and why we were met with a wall of contradictory and incomplete answers from different arbs. <p> All in all, the bottom line is that there no longer seems to be any part of this project where one can expect quality in content to be upheld. '''Staff''' and funded programs are not advancing quality, and some of the arbs-- for reasons still unknown-- said they knew Alarbus was Merridew, but let him continue to taunt and hound to the point of chasing off many FAC participants-- an effect still felt today in the decline in quality reviews. <p> I think that's about it. Best regards, ] (]) 21:51, 14 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| === Wikimedia Venezuela === | |||
| :I can't work out how much, if anything, WMF has given Wikimedia Venezuela, but it won't I think be much. I don't believe they have any "staff", and whatever cash they get probably goes on travel and small expenses for events. The editing the 45 members do is volunteer editing just like yours. ] (]) 20:35, 15 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :: Here you go: That is a boatload of money in bolivares (even after Chavez gets his share if the $$ were not exchanged on the black market). Also, . Have a look at this quite fine FA on en.wiki: ]. In the es.wiki (Spanish) article, one of those staff has maintained that article POV, and after reverting to his/her preferred POV version, protected the article (is that allowed on the Spanish wiki?) ... can't remember which. ] (]) 20:42, 15 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::Thanks - as I said, no salaries, & apart from a pc & printer etc the biggest headings are travel & whatever you have in Venezuela for tea & biscuits. I see the revolution has not yet swept away Venezuelan notaries! They have no more "staff" than your local PTA. ] (]) 20:46, 15 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::: Correct, no salaries-- I was using "staffing" in an informal sense. Setting aside that this amount of $$$ translates to a huge amount of bolivares and buying power (because my argument wasn't about the amount of money), the point was/is that the funding sets up an entity that can only further POV, because no editor who doesn't edit Venezuelan articles with that POV can publicly identify themselves by joining the chapter or letting their identity be known. ] (]) 14:53, 16 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::::: I prefer "blatently misleading" for "informal". When you are coming up with this sort of stuff there is little point about complaining about others' POV. ] (]) 15:52, 16 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::::: Attacking the person instead of the issue is the weakest form of argument. We know what my POV is (and we know what yours is, too). Money donated to WMF is not being used in a way that will further my POV and assure that only my POV will be represented in content. The issue I am raising in all four points is that the WMF has more money than it knows what to do with, there are leadership issues, they don't always spend money wisely, and they increasingly spend money in ways that affect content and content contributors negatively. I welcome your comments on the substance of the issue. ] (]) 17:08, 16 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::: Feel free to substitute "volunteers who are members of the Venezuelan chapter" for "staff" in your comments above; otherwise they are clearly and <s>intentionally misleading</s> . If the active volunteers in the chapter were not busy dealing with notaries and trying to encourage wikipedias in indigenous languages etc they would have a lot more time available to make their edits. The education project works differently but is also run by volunteers who you like to characterize as WMF staff. The striking thing about the WMF is how little interest they take in content, how little involvement they have in it, and how keen they are to devolve anything to do with it to volunteers. Attempts to attribute knock-on effects from WMF grants to a grand conspiracy to degrade WP content run counter to the reality and distract from efforts to tackle individual and different problems that have very different causes. ] (]) 18:05, 16 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::: Feel free to ]. I didn't see the word "conspiracy" anywhere in my post: if you want a "C" word, ] might be the better choice if we had to choose one, but you still miss the point. WMF decisions make content work harder and harder. I've reviewed all of my uses of the word staff, highlighted those which were used to indicate paid employees of WMF, and changed two instances to "officers". By the way, Venezuelans are quite accustomed to what you call "dealing with notaries"; it's how the country functions, even more so these days. ] (]) 18:55, 16 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::: Sometimes they do, and sometimes they make it easier, as with the JSTOR subscriptions and many other things. Now I suppose any edits not liked by one of those editors are the fault of the WMF too. The "conspiracy" appears in all your edits going way back, where anything arising in efforts that have received WMF funds is typically regarded as following instructions from the top. Thanks for making those changes; I have factored accordingly. ] (]) 19:04, 16 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::: You still confuse conspiracy with competence; the common theme is that WMF staff (with a few exceptions) aren't "real" editors and seem unaware of the consequences to content of their actions, whether Sue Gardner's comments about FAs, the misguided Education and similar programs, or the latest trend of funding chapters. The bigger picture being, add that to the arbs failure to take actions to stop taunting at FAC, and it's harder and harder to see how content matters in here, or what value we "unpaid volunteers" have. ] (]) 20:12, 16 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::::No, that's what I'm saying you do. Seeing stuff as mere incompetence is progress, though you can't really accuse an elephant knocking over bushes of "incompetence". The latest trend is ''not'' funding chapters, as I have tried to point out to you before. ] (]) 20:42, 16 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| === Education programs === | |||
| :re NYB and others. Back in February I made a number of comments and suggestions re the Indian Education program, including that might accord with some of Sandy's concerns. Ten months on and those pages are looking rather dusty, but I suspect that Sandy and others might feel rather more comfortable with such projects if the WMF accepted that a low proportion of copyvio was one way to measure if such schemes are a success. Currently one of the gulfs between the community and the WMF is that many in the community see this sort of WMF outreach as a source of Copyvio, whilst the WMF doesn't measure Copyvio when it calculates whether such schemes are successes or failures. Perhaps the WMF would pay attention if Arbcom were to rule that if there were to be any more such schemes on the English language Misplaced Pages then a low detected level of Copyvio has to be one of their measures of success. '']]<span style="color:#CC5500">Chequers''</span> 20:30, 16 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :It is not in Arbcom's purview. The community could recommend that educators mark copyvios as a fail, and send a very clear message to the foundation about this. ''] ]'', <small>23:23, 20 December 2012 (UTC).</small><br /> | |||
| == Reminder to self == | |||
| # ] for EdChem. ] (]) 22:06, 14 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| # ] to prep for GA. ] (]) 06:11, 17 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| == A barnstar for you! == | |||
| {| style="background-color: #fdffe7; border: 1px solid #fceb92;" | |||
| |rowspan="2" style="vertical-align: middle; padding: 5px;" | ] | |||
| |style="font-size: x-large; padding: 3px 3px 0 3px; height: 1.5em;" | '''The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar''' | |||
| |- | |||
| |style="vertical-align: middle; padding: 3px;" | Thanks for your constructive criticism. It really is appreciated, and I also believe your contributions to Misplaced Pages are great. Happy Holidays! <font face="Impact">]]]</font> 06:26, 19 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| |} | |||
| == Merry Christmas! == | |||
| <div style="border-style:solid; border-color:red; background-color:fff; border-width:2px; text-align:left; padding:8px;" class="plainlinks">] | |||
| — ]] is wishing you a ] ]! This greeting (and season) promotes ] and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a ], whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year! <br /> | |||
| <i>Spread the cheer by adding {{tls|Xmas2}} to their talk page with a friendly message.</i> | |||
| </div> — ]] 05:50, 21 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| == Merry Christmas! == | |||
| <div style="border-style:solid; border-color:red; background-color:fff; border-width:2px; text-align:left; padding:8px;" class="plainlinks">] | |||
| <font face="Impact">]]]</font> is wishing you a ] ]! This greeting (and season) promotes ] and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a ], whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year! <br /> | |||
| ''Spread the cheer by adding {{tls|Xmas2}} to their talk page with a friendly message.'' | |||
| </div> | |||
| <font face="Impact">]]]</font> 15:55, 21 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ==Season's tidings!== | |||
| ] To you and yours, Have a Merry ______ (fill in the blank) and Happy New Year! ] (]) 02:16, 22 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| == Merry Christmas == | |||
| {| style="background-color: LightCyan; border: 1px solid #fceb92;" | |||
| |rowspan="2" style="vertical-align: middle; padding: 5px;" | ] | |||
| |style="font-size: x-large; padding: 3px 3px 0 3px; height: 1.5em;" | '''Merry Christmas''' | |||
| |- | |||
| |style="vertical-align: middle; padding: 3px;" | May your Christmas sparkle with moments of love, laughter and goodwill, | |||
| May the year ahead be full of contentment and joy, | |||
| May the good times and treasures of the present become the golden memories of tomorrow, | |||
| Merry Christmas To U & Ur Family. | |||
| ] (]) 07:25, 24 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| |} | |||
| == Year range punctuation in Template:Infobox SCOTUS case == | |||
| Hi. in '']'' broke the {{tl|Infobox SCOTUS case}} template's logic for displaying the membership of the Supreme Court based on the year range. I changed the en-dash back to a hyphen in order to fix the infobox's output. | |||
| The documentation for this template says the SCOTUS parameter "needs a hyphen and not an en-dash between the years". In your opinion, is this a situation where the template is unacceptably fragile and has got to be "fixed" to accept en-dashes as well as hyphens? Or is it OK for the template to insist on a hyphen, given that it's documented? — ]] <small>''(no relation to Jimbo)''</small> 07:21, 24 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| : Hi, Richwales. I'm sorry for the mess ! In trying to track down why this is happening (a template that forces something that conflicts with MOS), I found ]. If I'm reading that correctly, it sounds like the issue could have been fixed, should have been fixed, but maybe didn't get fixed because the writer of one dash script said he'd alter the script so it would avoid infoboxes (I think that's what the conclusion was, but why do we bother with dashes/hyphens anywhere if we exempt them in one infobox? I don't get it ...) But I use a different script, I think, then the one mentioned there. Yes, it sounds like the template should be fixed, but ... ya know ... on December 24, it's not worth worrying about. Let's just leave the hyphen, and let some MOS warrior sort out why that template hasn't been made to comply with MOS. When a minor MOS issue extends beyond FAC's control, it can't be held against an article at FAC. I'll try to finish up on both law articles today, but for a merrry ho-ho-ho, I get to unexpectedly spend part of Christmas Eve day getting a crown (tooth, not head!), so now I feel terrible about starting a review I might not be able to get back on promptly ... my apologies, and Happy Holidays !! ] (]) 12:50, 24 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::No biggie. This conflict is clearly going to have to get cleared up, one way or another, but not right this instant. Which dash-cleanup script did you use, BTW? I hope the crown happened successfully — they're no fun, I've had two (both on molars). Have a Merry Christmas. — ]] <small>''(no relation to Jimbo)''</small> 23:16, 24 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| == Seasons greetings... == | |||
| {| style="border:2px ; background-color: #90ee90;" | |||
| |rowspan="2" valign="right" | ] | |||
| |rowspan="2" | | |||
| |style="font-size: x-large; padding: 2; vertical-align: left; height: 1.1em;" | '''Happy Holidays''' | |||
| |- | |||
| |style="vertical-align: middle; border-top: 1px solid gray;" | Wishing you and yours a Happy Holiday Season, from the horse and bishop person. May the year ahead be productive and troll-free. ] - ] 17:25, 21 December 2011 (UTC) | |||
| |} | |||
| {| style="background-color: #90EE90; border: 1px solid #fceb92;" | |||
| |rowspan="2" style="vertical-align: middle; padding: 5px;" | ] | |||
| |style="font-size: x-large; padding: 3px 3px 0 3px; height: 1.5em;" | Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas 2012!<br><br> Happy New Year and all the best in 2013!<br><br>Thanks for all you do here,<br><br> and best wishes for the year to come. | |||
| |- | |||
| |style="vertical-align: middle; padding: 3px;" | ] ''']''' 03:16, 25 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| |} | |||
| == 'Tis that season again... == | |||
| {| style="background-color: #fdffe7; border: 1px solid #fceb92;" | |||
| |rowspan="2" style="vertical-align: middle; padding: 5px;" | ] | |||
| |style="font-size: 20px; padding: 3px 3px 0 3px; height: 1.5em;" | '''Happy Holidays!''' | |||
| |- | |||
| |style="vertical-align: middle; padding: 3px;" | Hope you and your family are enjoying the holiday season, Sandy! I trust hosting the family Christmas party wasn't too taxing, either. :-) ] <sup>]] ]]</sup> 06:06, 25 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| |} | |||
| == Merry Xmas == | |||
| {| style="background-color: #fdffe7; border: 1px solid #fceb92;" | |||
| |rowspan="2" style="vertical-align: middle; padding: 5px;" | ] | |||
| |style="font-size: x-large; padding: 3px 3px 0 3px; height: 1.5em;" | '''Merry antipodean Xmas''' | |||
| |- | |||
| |style="vertical-align: middle; padding: 3px;" | hope yours is/was fun, and you had a good turkey :) Cheers, ] (] '''·''' ]) 06:54, 25 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| |} | |||
| == Merry Christmas! == | |||
| {| style="background-color: #fdffe7; border: 1px solid #fceb92;" | |||
| |rowspan="2" style="vertical-align: middle; padding: 5px;" | ] | |||
| |style="font-size: 20px; padding: 3px 3px 0 3px; height: 1.5em;" | '''Merry Christmas!''' | |||
| |- | |||
| |style="vertical-align: middle; padding: 3px;" | For all that you do for this project and for fighting the good fight. Blessings to you and your family, and may you enjoy the respite from all the drama. ] (]) 18:39, 25 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| |} | |||
| == Happy holidays! == | |||
| {| style="background-color: #CC0000; border: 10px solid #008000;" | |||
| |rowspan="2" style="vertical-align: middle; padding: 5px;" | ] | |||
| |style="font-size: x-large; padding: 3px 3px 0 3px; height: 1.5em;" | '''Happy Holidays!''' | |||
| |- | |||
| |style="vertical-align: middle; padding: 3px;" |From the frozen wasteland of Nebraska, USA! ] 12:15, 25 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| |} | |||
| == No reply == | |||
| Hi SandyGeorgia,<br /> | |||
| I received no reply at either ], ], or ] about merging the ABA and Behavior mod articles.<br /> | |||
| Also ] is checking at his office.<br /> | |||
| One psychologist said he thought ABA was a form of Behavior mod.<br /> | |||
| He said he wants to ask others in order to get a more a global view on ABA.<br /> | |||
| In addition, it is quite confusing because Cognitive-Behavior Modification is the old term for, what is now known as, ].<br /> | |||
| Nonetheless, a website said CBT and ABA are two different forms of behavior therapy.<br /> | |||
| CBT is a form of psychotherapy and ABA is a form of behavior analysis that utilizes the application of operant conditioning to reinforce behavior.<br /> | |||
| ]<sup> '''.''' ]</sup> 05:58, 26 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :I just spoke to someone I know who has a Ph.D. in Behavior Analysis and Clinical Psychology. He is also an author and works with autistic children as well as people with sexual disorders and helps people organize themselves in business (See here: ] (OBM), a form of ABA), and has spoken at various press conferences. He said anyone who still uses the term "behavior modification" is using "outdated termonoligy" and that no one has called ABA "behavior modification" in years if they kept up with the literature. In addition, he said ] commonly used ABA in the old days which is why they use to call it "Cognitive-Behavior Modification". He said some forms of CBT still incorporate ABA which is known as ] and ]. But it is primarily two different forms of Behavior therapy. So what should I do about not receiving a reply? I can't just merge the articles on my own right? So what should I do? ]<sup> '''.''' ]</sup> 08:14, 29 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| == Pre-GA second round == | |||
| Hi Sandy, hope you're having a good holiday season. At circ, I finally got through suggestions you gave, and also a general walk-through of the article, looking for more and fixing. Fortunately (?) for your first pre-GA look-through, you happened to go through the section that I thought had the worst prose in the article. Would you mind giving it another spin? Note: One thing that is NOT done is cleaning up wikilinks, that will be the last thing I do before submitting, so don't worry about that. I'm not expecting that it is FA quality now or even will pass GA as-is, but I just need to get the GA process started. Sometimes I need some external pressure to make me get things done! I'm hoping it's now close to "good enough to start GA" and will get to GA as part of the GA process. I just don't want a quick-fail. Appreciate it! <code>]]</code> 21:14, 26 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| == Improving Otis Redding == | |||
| Hello, | |||
| I am sorry for my harsh responses on the article's nomination page. I tend to be sometimes a poison dwarf if something does not function correctly. I would like to work with you to improve ]. Since you have much better English skills, I have difficulties in detecting errors. I and our readers would be glad if you help bring it on the main page. Regards.--] '''''(])''''' 11:23, 28 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| == Citation question == | |||
| Hi Sandy, hope your holiday season isn't too hectic. | |||
| I have a citation question. It involves sports, which may not be your forte, so if you cannot answer it, I hope you can point me in the right direction. | |||
| I cite ESPN quite often. I'm now building a "template" to help make the citation faster. Most of the parameters are quite straightforward, although I confess some weakness when it comes to "work" and "publisher". I decided to look at some FA, on the assumption that these citations have been checked thoroughly. | |||
| I have been working on the assumption that I should use {{tl|cite news}} for newspapers, even if on the web, while I should use {{tl|Cite web}} for other web based sources. | |||
| However, when I checked ], I see that refs to ESPN use {{tl|cite news}}. So question number one is if you agree with this. Again, I presume that because it has gone through FA, it is the right approach, but I'd hate to start using it and find I grabbed the wrong article. (I also glanced at ], but that one isn't using the cite templates). I checked ], which also uses {{tl|cite news}}. | |||
| The second question relates to the ideal parameters for Work and Publisher. | |||
| The Yao Ming article uses "publisher=ESPN" and no entry for work | |||
| Derek Jeter uses "work=ESPN New York" or "work=]" but nothing for publisher. | |||
| I do recognize, (I think) that citations styles do not have to be uniform across all of Misplaced Pages, but it is desired to use a consistent style within an article, so that may explain why I'm seeing differences between articles, even if there is consistency within an article, but I would like to set up the canonical style for my future use. | |||
| My tentative conclusions: | |||
| * Use of {{tl|cite news}} for ESPN is acceptable | |||
| * Use of "publisher=ESPN" and no entry for work is acceptable--]] 14:41, 28 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| : Hea there! Hectic would be an understatement :) :) I hope yours was grand! | |||
| : On the first, I disagree that cite news should be used; ESPN is not a hard print source to my knowledge. I distinguish between what is in hard print and what is web-based when it comes to work and publisher (journals, newspapers, etc are italicized). | |||
| : I also disagree on the second; since ESPN is not a hard print source, I would use publisher, not work. It should not be italicized. I would say Jeter is wrong. On the other hand, it's less important which template you use as it is to get italics correct. We do not italicize websites; we do italicize books, journals, and newspapers. Perhaps folks are using cite news for ESPN because it is media news-- as long as the italics are correct, that's probably OK> | |||
| : It would be good to hear from others, but that's my take. For example, I use cite web and publisher for the BBC, but using cite news would probably be OK as long as BBC isn't italicized with "work". | |||
| : ] (]) 16:12, 28 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::I have been using {{tl|Cite web}} for ESPN, so I can continue doing so - I was surprised to see {{tl|cite news}} instead on some FAs, so I decided to ask. | |||
| ::I'm discombobulated by your disagreement with the second point - I suggested using the Publisher parameter, and I think you are saying the same.--]] 16:32, 28 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::: OK :) Reading too fast :) Maybe someone can remind me of the name of that Australian editor who was the citation guru ... I was absent for most of 2012 and memory fails me. ] (]) 16:34, 28 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::::I think you're referring to ]. ] (]) 16:41, 28 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::::: Yes, thx Ucucha ... Sphilbrick, you might ping Fifelfoo to this discussion-- he's the best at citation. ] (]) 17:02, 28 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::::: Thanks to both, I've posted there.--]] 17:20, 28 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::As long as you use the publisher= parameter for ESPN, it doesn't really matter which template you use because the output to the readers is usually the same. The only difference I can think of is when an article is by the Associated Press or another news agency; there is an agency= parameter for cite news, but not for cite web. From that standpoint, there is an advantage to using the cite news template, even though I'd prefer to use cite web for a non-print publication myself. Also, bear in mind that ESPN does publish a magazine, and sometimes runs the articles online. In those cases, cite journal is probably your best bet, in the absence of a cite magazine template. ] (]) 01:24, 29 December 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ==Talkback== | |||
| {{talkback|Talk:Autism|Removed AS and mental retardation for discussion|ts=19:37, 28 December 2012 (UTC)}} | |||
| ] ] 19:37, 28 December 2012 (UTC) | |||