Wikiversity:Colloquium

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"Freedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom." — Benjamin N. Cardozo (discuss)

Reminder! Vote closing soon to fill vacancies of the first U4C

You can find this message translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki. Please help translate to your language

Dear all,

The voting period for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is closing soon. It is open through 10 August 2024. Read the information on the voting page on Meta-wiki to learn more about voting and voter eligibility. If you are eligible to vote and have not voted in this special election, it is important that you vote now.

Why should you vote? The U4C is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. Community input into the committee membership is critical to the success of the UCoC.

Please share this message with members of your community so they can participate as well.

In cooperation with the U4C,

-- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 15:30, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

User group for Wikiversians

Was there ever a discussion about the possibility of establishing a user group in the sense of an affiliated organization that would defend the interests of professors and scientists on Wikiversity and possibly actively develop some projects? Juandev (discuss • contribs) 20:21, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Not that I'm aware of. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 23:20, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Rich's Illustrated Companion at Wikiversity: Right place?

Hello! I am creating a Wiki-version of a classical glossary (Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary, and Greek Lexicon by Anthony Rich, 1849), which explains the meaning of Latin headwords, primarily those "representing visible objects connected with the arts, manufactures, and every-day life of the Greeks and Romans." The aim is to help understand what a (classical) Latin text is actually about, instead of merely translating it. I already transcribed the entire text and scanned the images (about 1900) from an original 1849-edition. I am currently working on uploading the images to Mediawiki Commons, which probably will take some time. In the meantime I want to prepare the other aspects of the project (more than 3000 articles, already with many internal links). The important thing: this is not a might exist-project. My question: Is Wikiversity the proper place for it? Although I created an exact rendition of the original text, Wikisource is not applicable, because the project has a broader scope (adding content to the articles, e. g. links to online editions for quotations, adding images, but also adding entirely new articles). Neither is Wikibooks, because this is not a textbook and may otherwise breach its scope. For more about the project see my user-page at en.wikipedia. So, is Wikiversity the right place for it? CalRis25 (discuss • contribs) 09:15, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for asking. To be clear, it is acceptable to make annotated editions of texts at Wikisource and Wikibooks does host at least one annotated guide to a copyright-protected work. So if what you're looking to do is to include inline annotations to a public domain text, you certainly can put that on Wikisource. If you have a textbook or guidebook that is a companion, that would go at Wikibooks. If you have some other kind of learning resources (like maintaining a list of relevant links, organizing a book reading group, etc.), that could go here. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 09:26, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your quick answer. Actually, Wikibooks was my first thought. However, this project is not merely an annotated edition. Although at first it will be a faithful copy of the original text, I want the project to be "open", i. e. adding articles should be possible. And the project should enable to do a lot more than mere inline annotation. See section Improving Rich in the project description a my user-page (en.Wikipedia). No Mediawiki-project (Wikisource, Wikibooks, Wikipedia, Wiktionary) seemed to be a sufficiently applicable "fit" for the project, so I thought of Wikiversity as a last resort, because it is supposed to be home to all sorts of "learning resources". CalRis25 (discuss • contribs) 09:57, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

The scope of Wikiversity is pretty catch-all and would allow for a pretty flexible place to host most learning resources that don't fit elsewhere.

Also, as nitpick, "MediaWiki" is the software that is the basis of these wikis (wikis being collections of interlinked documents that can be edited) and "Wikimedia Foundation" is the non-profit who owns the trademarks and hosts these projects like Wiktionary and Wikivoyage. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 10:06, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Hello Justin, thank you for the reply. I think that settles it. I will create this project at Wikiversity. Just for additional clarification, why I do so. Let's imagine a full transcription of the original 1849-edition of the Illustrated Companion by Anthony Rich and call it RICH-1849. We shall call my project, for brevity sake, RICH-2K. And now, let's have a look at the article about the Roman toga (a piece of attire). In RICH-1849 we can can call it RICH-1849/Toga, and it contains exactly the content of the 1849-book. Now, let's look at the article RICH-2K/Toga. At the beginning its only content would be the article RICH-1849/Toga. Does that make RICH-2K/Toga and RICH-1849/Toga the same? Not at all, because in truth RICH-2K/Toga is a "container" which initially contains only the article RICH-1849/Toga but later on may include more stuff: images, external links, article text which builds on or extends RICH-1849/Toga and information from other sources of information (Wikipedia, specialized books). By the way, this added article information would not be a mere copy of the text at en.Wikipedia, because the information needs to looked at through the eyes of someone reading the original text (more citations with direct links to these etc.). CalRis25 (discuss • contribs) 11:39, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Coming soon: A new sub-referencing feature – try it!

Hello. For many years, community members have requested an easy way to re-use references with different details. Now, a MediaWiki solution is coming: The new sub-referencing feature will work for wikitext and Visual Editor and will enhance the existing reference system. You can continue to use different ways of referencing, but you will probably encounter sub-references in articles written by other users. More information on the project page.

We want your feedback to make sure this feature works well for you:

• Please try the current state of development on beta wiki and let us know what you think.
• Sign up here to get updates and/or invites to participate in user research activities.

Wikimedia Deutschland’s Technical Wishes team is planning to bring this feature to Wikimedia wikis later this year. We will reach out to creators/maintainers of tools and templates related to references beforehand.

Please help us spread the message. --Johannes Richter (WMDE) (talk) 10:36, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

New Template:Form

Hi! Today I was bold and created Template:Form (which calls Module:WikiForm and MediaWiki:Gadget-WikiForm.js). The template allows to create user-friendly forms that can create pages or add content to existing pages. My motivation and first use case was this form to create new wikidebates, but I suspect the template can be useful elsewhere on Wikiversity. Let me know if you notice any issues or have any requests or concerns. Kind regards, Sophivorus (discuss • contribs) 15:21, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Sign up for the language community meeting on August 30th, 15:00 UTC

Hi all,

The next language community meeting is scheduled in a few weeks—on August 30th at 15:00 UTC. If you're interested in joining, you can sign up on this wiki page.

This participant-driven meeting will focus on sharing language-specific updates related to various projects, discussing technical issues related to language wikis, and working together to find possible solutions. For example, in the last meeting, topics included the Language Converter, the state of language research, updates on the Incubator conversations, and technical challenges around external links not working with special characters on Bengali sites.

Do you have any ideas for topics to share technical updates or discuss challenges? Please add agenda items to the document here and reach out to ssethi(__AT__)wikimedia.org. We look forward to your participation!

MediaWiki message delivery (discuss • contribs) 23:20, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

Template consolidation: User talk page block notice

Wondering if someone who likes templates could have a go at consolidating or helping decide between use of:

• Template:Block
• Template:Blocked

Unless I'm missing something, it seems like we don't need both?

-- Jtneill - Talk - c 07:16, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

I tried to figure out a Wikidata item with most links to projects. I found this: Wikidata:Q6379131, which is Template:Uw-block. There is even a corresponding Wikiversity template, Template:Uw-block1 (not used anywhere).

My impression is that of the three templates, we only need one. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 14:43, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Announcing the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee

Original message at wikimedia-l. You can find this message translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki. Please help translate to your language

Hello all,

The scrutineers have finished reviewing the vote and the Elections Committee have certified the results for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) special election.

I am pleased to announce the following individual as regional members of the U4C, who will fulfill a term until 15 June 2026:

• North America (USA and Canada)
  • Ajraddatz

The following seats were not filled during this special election:

• Latin America and Caribbean
• Central and East Europe (CEE)
• Sub-Saharan Africa
• South Asia
• The four remaining Community-At-Large seats

Thank you again to everyone who participated in this process and much appreciation to the candidates for your leadership and dedication to the Wikimedia movement and community.

Over the next few weeks, the U4C will begin meeting and planning the 2024-25 year in supporting the implementation and review of the UCoC and Enforcement Guidelines. You can follow their work on Meta-Wiki.

On behalf of the U4C and the Elections Committee,

RamzyM (WMF) 14:07, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Re: The Vector 2022 skin as the default in two weeks?

A two minute-long video about Vector 2022

Hello everyone, I'm reaching out on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation Web team responsible for the MediaWiki skins. I'd like to revisit the topic of making Vector 2022 the default here on English Wikiversity. I did post a message about this almost two years ago (where you can find all the details about the skin), but we didn't finalize it back then.

What happened in the meantime? We built dark mode and different options for font sizes, and made Vector 2022 the default on most wikis, including all other Wikiversities. With the not-so-new V22 skin being the default, existing and coming features, like dark mode and temporary accounts respectively, will become available for logged-out users here.

So, if no large concerns are raised, we will deploy Vector 2022 here in two weeks, in the week of September 16. Do let me know if you have any questions. Thank you! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (discuss • contribs) 21:48, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Sounds good, Szymon - we look forward to the upcoming change of skin Sincerely, James -- Jtneill - Talk - c 07:35, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

• I for one oppose a switch to Vector 2022. I do not find it preferable. Here is a staggering evidence of user refusal of Vector 2022 once it was deployed: W:en:Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Rollback of Vector 2022, Junuary 2023. 355 voters supported rollback to Vector 2010 whereas 64 opposed, yielding 84.7% support, as clear a supermajority as one may wish. These people opposing Vector 2022 feel the same way as I do. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 10:48, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

  Hey @Dan Polansky. Thanks for your comment. I'm open to discussion about problems with our software, and I hope we can maintain a respectful tone.

  I understand that there are users who prefer Vector legacy or other skins, just as there are people who still stick to Monobook. Such people are active across many wikis. They can keep Vector legacy, although non-default skins don't have the support the default ones do. We are rolling out for technical reasons, as I mentioned above, with benefit to not logged-in users.

  Regarding the rollback RfC on Wikipedia, two neutral users stated that there was no consensus for rollback, RfC is not a vote, and the numbers were different (355:226:24). I believe this all is pretty easy to verify.

  So to sum up, Vector 2022 needs to become the default, tons and tons of comments were made about the skin and related stuff, and we have taken many ideas into account, and it's totally OK if you stick to Vector legacy.

  Thanks! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (discuss • contribs) 19:30, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

  Today, I visited Wikiversity and found it switched to Vector 2022. I changed my preference settings to Vector 2010. From what I understand, non-registered visitors are now defaulted to Vector 2022 despite its unpopularity in W:en:Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Rollback of Vector 2022. I have not seen any evidence that users prefer Vector 2022, and given the evidence in the linked RfC, I tentatively conclude that the decision to switch has made the site experience worse for the majority of users. The logic of "you can switch" surely applies to Vector 2022 as well: those who prefer it can switch to it. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 05:08, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Have your say: Vote for the 2024 Board of Trustees!

Hello all,

The voting period for the 2024 Board of Trustees election is now open. There are twelve (12) candidates running for four (4) seats on the Board.

Learn more about the candidates by reading their statements and their answers to community questions.

When you are ready, go to the SecurePoll voting page to vote. The vote is open from September 3rd at 00:00 UTC to September 17th at 23:59 UTC.

To check your voter eligibility, please visit the voter eligibility page.

Best regards,

The Elections Committee and Board Selection Working Group

MediaWiki message delivery (discuss • contribs) 12:15, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Separate page for hyperbola.

Good morning,

I notice that a search for "hyperbola" redirects to "Conic sections".

At present there is a separate page for "ellipse". Therefore a separate page for "hyperbola" seems to be justified.

Could this redirection be changed so that search for "hyperbola" goes to a separate page for "hyperbola"?

Many thanks,

ThaniosAkro (discuss • contribs) 12:04, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

It is true that ellipses are covered at Conic sections (along with hyperbolas, parabolas, etc.) and there is a separate page for ellipses that elaborates. We certainly could have a page about hyperbolas that is separate, but no one has written sufficient content to spin it off yet. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 12:17, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

I hereby request for your Unblocking IP address and just reviewed and received a reverted rec

Hi there. (The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ishmael Raphasha (talk • contribs) )

No one has any clue what you're talking about. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:53, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

RICH-2K: New project with some initial questions

Hello! I'm creating a new learning resource on Wikiversity. The respective project is based on my transcription of a classical dictionary from 1849 by Anthony Rich. For more information about the project see its description page (see also that page for why not Wikisource or Wikibooks). The project's scope is fairly big: 3205 article-pages plus 304 REDIRECT-pages. The images (scanned by myself from an original copy) have been uploaded to Commons. I have some initial technical questions (more of these and more detailed ones will follow):

• Upload: Due to the large number of pages it is not realistic to create these manually. Is it possible to bulk-upload these in some way (the Wikitext of the pages is created using a Python-script with one file per article/page)? Is it possible to upload these to a test-environment first where any problems (hopefully none) can be identified and dealt with more easily than on the production-version of Wikiversity?
• (Technical) Structure: I am planning to set up this project at https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/RICH-2K as the main page and anything else as subpages: RICH-2K/Subpage_1 ... RICH-2K/Subpage_n. However, these subpages fall into two categories: 1. Article-pages (content) and 2. Meta/Administrative pages. This project requires search capability restricted to the RICH-2K-namespace. The Mediawiki-software seems to supply a Search-input field with the possibility to restrict the search to some namespace. I would like, however, to restrict the search further to the first group of pages, namely the articles. Is that possible, perhaps by use of (hidden) categories?
• External links: This project will need many external links, and yes, I have read the relevant Wikiversity-pages, but this specific project needs them. The Recommended Editions-page (used for recommended online editions, to which to link when citing texts) alone probably will require several hundred external links. However, only relatively few second-level domains will be involved, and most of these should be trustworthy (Perseus Digital library, digital collections of universities etc., in some cases, however, also Archive.org). Perhaps there is a list of web-sites, for which external links are generally allowed? And who is allowed to create external links on Wikiversity-pages (I haven't found the relevant policy)?
• Categories: This project requires quite a few of its own categories, which belong to two large groups: 1. Categories (2 levels) of the Classed Index (about 170 categories), a thematic index of some (but not all) of the articles. 2. Administrative categories. Is there a recommended way to distinguish between different classes of categories within a project (category name or other method)? What about naming conventions for project-specific categories?

I am looking forward to your input. If you think that it's preferable we can move the discussions to the Talk-page of the project's description. Thank you in advance. CalRis25 (discuss • contribs) 05:29, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

• Admins have access to Special:Import and can bulk import XML pages. You can create pages in your sandbox if you'd like and make an indefinite amount of them at pages like User:CalRis25/sandbox. What can and cannot be hosted in user namespace is very loose, but still has to follow in principle Wikiversity's scope.
• Using subpages is in principle a good way to organize these various resources. Please do not name them after a user name or something obscure. I personally think that "RICH-2K" is a not optimal name. I may recommend something like Anthony Rich Dictionary Project or 21st-Century Anthony Rich Dictionary or something more obviously intelligible. While we have very few actual policies and guidelines, see Wikiversity:Naming conventions for a rough consensus of what is probably best practice for naming pages.
• External linking generally does not use an allowed list (a.k.a. whitelist model), but a disallow (a.k.a. blacklist) model. See MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist and Special:BlockedExternalDomains (which is currently empty but is another method of listing blocked domains). It's perfectly fine to aggregate external links in learning resources.
• I'm not 100% sure what the distinction is that you're drawing, but you can freely arrange categories underneath a main category that has the same name as your larger project. So, following the suggestions I gave, you could have a category like Category:Anthony Rich Dictionary Project and then create any number of subcategories that logically help users navigate all these pages. Please make sure the main category you create is itself categorized under some relevant category(ies). If you need help, please ask.

I think this answers your questions, please let me know if I'm unclear or you have more. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:11, 20 September 2024 (UTC)