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This Month in Education: January 2014

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User:Smallbones/Questions on FTC rules Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:43, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

• Thanks for the invitation Smallbones, but I'm going to hold off signing for now due to an interesting series of in-progress events. Best, Kevin Gorman (talk) 17:19, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Libyan Civil War

Hey, you protected this page as a result of IP disruption after this AN discussion; one of the IPs went back to the page after the protection ended and continued their previous crusade, and the other notified me of it on my talk page today. What do you suggest is the best course of action? Thanks, ₆ansh₆ 20:33, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

• I'll reprotect it if they return again, but the edit you reverted was ~10 days old and they haven't come back yet. Kevin Gorman (talk) 20:36, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
  • Sounds good. I haven't been watching the page, and the other IP just noticed it, so we'll see if the first IP comes back and does it again. I'll let you know. Thanks, ₆ansh₆ 20:43, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
    • The IP is back: see - I don't appreciate my good-faith edits being called "possible vandalism", but whatever. Do you think a formal RfC or something of the sort would help there? ₆ansh₆ 20:24, 13 February 2014 (UTC)
    • Both IPs are also back at it on National Transitional Council... ₆ansh₆ 20:33, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi Ansh - for now, I've thrown semiprotection on both pages because I agree that the IP edits are disruptive. I will review the length and other action necessary later tonight, as I'm in a bit of a rush atm. I'll try to provide advice about how to move forward as I can, but it is likely going to be faster if you ask another admin - unfortunately, I have a >60 hour week this week. Best, Kevin Gorman (talk) 21:16, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Alright, no problem. Take it easy! Thanks, ₆ansh₆ 21:23, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

User talk:KajMetz

Hi, Kevin, I just unblocked KajMetz based on their unblock request. I normally don't unblock without first consulting with the blocking admin, but you said at AN3 that you were off to bed and gave permission to any admin to act as they wished. Hopefully, you had a good rest. Regards.--Bbb23 (talk) 21:39, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

• No worries, looks good to me; thanks for handling it. Best, Kevin Gorman (talk) 21:45, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Elisabeth Camp

Probably I'm missing something, but she seems to have significantly less of a publishing record than most academics who would pass WP:PROF. Based on AfDs, Associate Professors even at places like Berkeley are often not accepted here , & I usually avoid working on their articles unless there is something special. DGG ( talk ) 00:19, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

• Hi DGG: it's one of my pieces that is still in progress; I have a good number of severely paywalled RS'es talking about her. Once some of the current situation calms down a little bit, I'll update the article and drop you a note to see what you think about it. Best, Kevin Gorman (talk) 01:49, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

• Hi DGG: just to ensure you I haven't forgotten, this is still on my radar. Unfortunately, some of the sources I need to write the article a bit more I'll only be able to access on Monday. To give you some idea of why I wrote an article about her on the first place: Quite a bit has been written about Camp's work, definitely more than enough to pass WP:AUTHOR. Brian Leiter, who runs a very well respected philosophy blog (not dissimilar in stature to Groklaw or The Volokh Conspiracy,) singled out her move to Rutgers as solidifying Rutgers' standing as the #2 philosophy department in the US. Her organizational work has also been written about quite a bit.

All in all, I wrote about her because I think she's an interesting person who definitely meets WP:AUTHOR, I would strongly argue meets WP:ACADEMIC, and certainly meets the GNG - she certainly stands out over most academics. (It's also worth noting that Rutgers has a much stronger philosophy department than we do at Berkeley - Rutgers is typically ranked #2 in the US by the Philosophical Gourmet Report, which is the most widely accepted ranking of philo departments in the English speaking world, whereas Berkeley is normally ranked around #17. That said, I'll add in more sources as I can (and once I've finished my first round of making bios that are close to being stubs, I intend to go over them again, and add significantly more information about their work.) I'm also hoping to get some USEP classes involved in the near future to help build out some of the conceptual articles that will allow for the bios I'm writing to more easily explain the work of the philosophers I'm writing about (right now, we're missing almost all conceptual articles in the fields a lot of the people I am writing about are active in.) Best, Kevin Gorman (talk)

• This is on my to-do list for this week. Since I initially posted the article, two RS'es dealing with her have popped up in the popular press, and there's 7-8 paywalled articles I'll be working off as well. Kevin Gorman (talk) 23:27, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

This Month in Education: February 2014

WP:AIV

I responded to your block notice in diff; this is more an conflict dispute than vandalism. Cheers, Deville (Talk) 01:55, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Responded to you there... but repeatedly blanking content that belongs there both according to literally every source you can find on the subject and common sense isn't a content dispute. It's vandalism. I can go make an ANEW report as necessary since it'll pull a block either place, but it seems a bit silly to send an obvious case that can fit in to two boards from one board to another. Kevin Gorman (talk) 02:02, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

For future reference, there are discretionary sanctions on the Ayn Rand topic areas from Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Ayn Rand that can be used. Mark Arsten (talk) 02:42, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

I went beyond the report at WP:AIV and did a preliminary look into the edit war. Admittedly, I have very little knowledge about the subject which may have serendipitously assisted in terms of uninvolved. What was clear to me was that there were seemingly legitimate grounds that this person should be included on that list as there was a reliable source, the article was a GA, and that there were plenty of supplementary articles like Objectivism (Ayn Rand) that supported the claim she was a female philosopher. My block was already in place when I saw Mark Arsten's link about the ArbCom case. As such I blocked under the grounds of disruptive editing. Blanking can be a grey area and I think at this point we should all move on give the net result was (hopefully) agreeable to all reviewing parties. Mkdw 07:52, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for February 17

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Ayup

I have been told by a little bird that <redacted for now> is a certain identifiable academic who has a RW dispute with <redacted for now>, and therefore should not be editing that article <redacted for now>. Do you know anything of this, please? You can email if you prefer to keep real names off teh wikipediaz. Thanks, Guy (Help!) 22:10, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi Guy, I'll drop you an email when I can, I'm currently finishing up an email to all parties involved. I am aware of the situation, and think that it will be resolved amicably on both sides. I hope you don't mind, but I redacted the names of both parties as well as some information that would make them identifiable on this talk page for now in hopes that the issue can be resolved quickly. Once I've finished up the email to them, I'll drop you an email with more details. I'd discuss it directly on wiki, but believe that the best chance of not escalating the dispute is to handle it off-wiki. Best, Kevin Gorman (talk) 22:15, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for this. Best of luck dealing with prickly academic temperaments. Guy (Help!) 00:31, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Disruptive edits and edit-war by user Kwamikagami

We have a problem with the user:Kwamikagami, again.

Voting was ended by another administrator:BDD (The result of the proposal was: no consensus). User:Kwamikagami immediately began a new voting (introducing own notes near some options). I add note to some other because other options also have disadvantages. User:Kwamikagami reverted it. I restored it . User:Kwamikagami make second revert: . Also, a moment later user:Kwamikagami reverted edit by user:IJzeren Jan . Page was marked "Discretionary sanctions, one revert restriction" (info at the top of page: "Warning: this article is subject to a 1RR limitation"). User:Kwamikagami reverted my edit twice time (broke the rule) and also reverted edit by user:IJzeren Jan. His behavior is very disruptive. Franek K. (talk) 10:01, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

It's disruptive of you to fill the spaces where others are expected to vote with your personal opinions. If we all did that, the poll would quickly become illegible. *All* options are controversial, not just the ones you don't like: That's why we're having a poll! Just vote, or add comments below. You imply that "my notes" are opinions I'm pushing, but they're not: One is an MOS objection raised by an admin elsewhere (against a name I voted for, I might add), while the other is the name we use for Lower Silesian, in case consistency is desired by voters. Also, the talk page is not the article. — kwami (talk) 10:14, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

If it is the voting, not there should be notes. Information is available above voting, in the discussion. You say: "not just the ones you don't like"? really? I add the same note also to "dialect" and "language" . Franek K. (talk) 10:30, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Also, "Kwamikagami moved page Upper Silesian to Upper Silesian (disamiguation)" and interceded template of speedy delection to Upper Silesian for without consensus change the name of the article from Silesian language to Upper Silesian. Administrator Nyttend reverted it, user:Kwamikagami reverted edit by administrator. Happily, other administrator WilyD reverted it again. Kwamikagami's behavior is unacceptable. Franek K. (talk) 10:38, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

• I would interpret Kwami's actions as having turned Upper Silesian in to a dab page in case the title Upper Silesia was chosen in a future move discussion, and the dab page he created looks reasonable as it stands (though I would suggest his moves may have been a bit pre-mature.) That said, ranked choice voting isn't really an appropriate mechanism to decide how Misplaced Pages articles are named. I've outlined some alternatives ont he discussion page of the Silesian language talk page, and also moveprotected a few involved pages. As a last note before I plunge back in to bed for a bit, the 1rr restriction only applies to the article itself, not the talk page. Kevin Gorman (talk) 17:17, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Education Program technical update, February 2014

We've started working on "editor campaigns", a system that we expect will eventually be able to replace our current Education Program extension (and be useful for many other purposes as well). The early work with that project will focus on a system for signup up new editors for editing campaigns (such as courses, but also edit-a-thons, Wiki Loves Monuments, etc.). Because of that, progress will be slow on the current course page system. However, we have several improvements that should be available within the next few weeks.

Anyone can edit the main text of course pages

As part of the effort to make course pages behave more like regular wiki pages, we've enabled editing of course pages by anyone. Users who currently have the right to edit courses will have access to all the fields (so that they can change the start/end dates, and change the enrollment token). Users who currently cannot edit courses will be able to edit only the "page text" portion. This change should take effect on 2014-02-27.

Simplified course editing interface

We've considerably simplified the interface for editing course pages, removing the options to rename courses. Changing the title of a course would also move the course page, creating confusion and leading to a number of bugs. Several other parts of the course editing interface were not very useful, so we've removed them to make it easier on newcomers. This change should take effect on 2014-02-27.

Additional Notifications

Two students participating in the Facebook Open Academy mentorship program are currently working on additional Notifications for course pages. For the first of these, users will be notified whenever someone else adds them to a course.

Once again, if you have feedback about these new features, or other questions or ideas related to course pages, please let me know!--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 17:38, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Subscribe or unsubscribe from future Misplaced Pages Education Program technical updates.

Polomas, Chihuahua, Mexico school children

Hi Kevin -

I don't know if this recent update on the Palomas, Chihuahua, Mexico school children fits into your upcoming course, but it might interest some of your students and weave its way into the infrastructure issue of the Colonias on both sides of the border. These children are U.S. Citizens that live with their parents, that are not U.S. Citizens. The children were born in the U.S. because the hospital in Palomas had been not as safe for births as the one in Deming, New Mexico, USA. Anderson, Lindsey. New technology bridges US-Mexico border at Columbus school. Las Cruces Sun-News. 21 February 2014. Accessed 22 February 2014.

Best regards,

--Joe (talk) 22:21, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Invitation to a stroll

On a hike around here, it crossed my mind to invite you to a stroll of my 2013 talk, looking at the (not many) contributions by MF and Eric, including discussion of the name change. I will not judge, look yourself, - of course every guest is "tamed" by my edit notice (not my idea) "Every editor is a human being", to something like "OK, later. Have to warn you though that I'm not really a Wikipedian, have never been a Wikipedian, and I scare away women, children and new editors. Allegedly. But I'll try and be gentle." I miss him, not only as a content editor but as a person, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:41, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Arbitration request motion passed

A motion that was proposed for the Arbitration Request initiated on February 17, 2014 that you were a party to has passed. The motion can be found here. The following is the text of the motion:

• The committee notes that it is not in dispute that User:Kevin Gorman has acted out of process and in a manner which is incompatible with the standards to which administrators are held.
• The committee notes and accepts Kevin Gorman's assurances that he has learned by his mistakes and will not repeat them.
• Kevin Gorman is strongly admonished.
• The request shall be filed as "Kevin Gorman".
• The request for a full case is declined.

For the Arbitration Committee, Rockfang (talk) 01:42, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

• I'll be archiving this shortly, as I've been doing with everything else related to this case, but for archival purposes I would like to note:

1. An admonishment is, in a literal sense, meaningless. This was a poorly written motion, in that it failed to acknowledge (a) that I acted in good faith, (b) the problems of other users involved in the case, including the fact that the filer has been arbcom blocked twice for repeated personal attacks and editwarring, (c) that a number of statements on the RFAR made it clear that although my actions should not be repeated, the second half of the first point of the motion motion is factually incorrect, and (d) that the motion doesn't actually do anything - basing a motion off the wording Carcharoth used at the clarification request would've been infinitely more sensible (although I'll note that I'm still disturbed that Carcharoth voted to support a motion that he didn't actually support.)
2. The second bullet point in the motion is rather silly.
3. The third bullet point dealing with the naming of the case doesn't make a whole lot of sense given that the filer of the case has received two arbitration blocks during the course of the case, and it is customary for arbitration outcomes to reflect the actions of all participants. "Kevin Gorman, Giano, et al" would be a much more sensible name, as I would expect NYB would agree.
4. The entire case should have been finished a week ago, even if it ended in a similar motion then. The behavior of certain members of arbcom in the interim has been vaudevillian, and if it was possible to submit an RFAR about the actions of arbcom itself, multiple sitting arbitrators would have been 'strongly admonished' for their quite literally ludicrous actions. And yes, if this motion had come a week ago, I wouldn't be snarking about it.
5. Amazingly, I think the only almost universal point of agreement between me, Giano, and most of the rest of the community is that arbcom badly fucked up their handling of this, and probably shouldn't do so again.

Kevin Gorman (talk) 01:57, 26 February 2014 (UTC)