Wikiversity talk:Rebooting Wikiversity

start

Should content like this be in the Wikiversity namespace? Adambro 12:27, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

I guess you mean if page name would be: Wikiversity:Rebooting Wikiversity? ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat (try) 12:31, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

No, it's a learning project. I think the deeper issues aren't really up to us, so it's more a study of the project rather than a policy discussion. --SB_Johnny ^talk 12:51, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand what makes this a learning project. It seems to me to be about looking at where Wikiversity is now and considering how it could be improved. Those issues relate directly to the running of the project and so I'd think it makes sense for discussions about them to happen in the Wikiversity namespace. If you wish for us to discuss where Wikiversity is going then it is probably easier to frame it as a discussion rather than a learning project. Adambro 13:29, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, I'd really rather to treat it as a learning project. Feel free to copy it to the project namespace if you want to follow that path, but I'd like to entertain a broader approach. The "forking" element will involve discussions of servers, funding, and software configurations for potential forks (i.e., ideas for creating new educational wikis), which really aren't a policy issue. Or even completely different software platforms, or wishlists for changes to MediaWiki, or who knows what else. --SB_Johnny ^talk 13:44, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure that here is an appropriate place to discuss setting up alternatives to Wikiversity. If someone wants to create a fork they can go ahead and do so without using this project as a venue of planning it. Adambro 14:06, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

And the policy is... where? I didn't say I personally want to create a fork, but teaching people how to do so is certainly a good thing, IMO. --SB_Johnny ^talk 14:14, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't remember mentioning any policy? Adambro 14:21, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

• SBJohnny, I take it that you have some unspoken assumptions of what wikiversity, in particular a rather more restricted one than the current one, should be. The problem is that it is not likely we would get a consensus on how to restrict it. My worry is that it may be an example the phenomenon of resorting to the short cut of using a long term and general solution to a specific and limited problem after it has been exaggerated out of proportion. (The other recent example was the thinly-veiled threat by jimbo wales to close wikiversity simply because there are a small number of users which he couldn't handle.)

• In raising "anybody can edit" as a problem, you have some hidden assumpations that I would like to see. Wikiversity is not supposed to be easy - we are to do what wikipedia cannot, i.e. we have to confront the problems that wikipedia avoided by hiding behind the NOR and NPOV principles. We have to be better listeners than talkers, and tolerent to other ideas. Anybody can edit is a fundamental wiki principle, without which you risk losing a great number of potential contributors (c.f. wiki:WikiDesignPrinciple). There are better and more specific solutions elsewhere - like protocols for dealing with controversial researches. It is a possible to have some rapid response protocols just to satisfy our friends in our sister projects who usually don't have a lot of time to read through the discussions.

• Concerning the range and scope of wikiversity learning projects, the guiding idea of betawikiversity:research guidelines is that we allow original researches if the authors are responsible and trusted, but we would err on the side of caution until the frameworks like the wikiversity:review board (whether you like the name) are in place. There are also legal limits like projects requiring institutional review boards.

• To reboot wikiversity, User:WiseWoman, who was not happy with the way wikiversity started, has some comments [1]. Hillgentleman | //\\ |Talk 13:01, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

It's generally not a good idea to ascribe "unspoken assumptions" to people and then deride them for having them. --SB_Johnny ^talk 13:05, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

SBJohnny, My personal apologies - if you think I am being derisive. As you know I am just saying what I observe and what I think. I think you are doing good work on wikiversity and I simply wish to provide alternative ideas, even if they are controversial; for I think the Multiple-points of view are the essense of wikiversity. Anyway, congrads for having your tools back. Hillgentleman | //\\ |Talk 16:54, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Okay, np. --SB_Johnny ^talk 17:04, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

• Re: Adam and Johnny: Cormaggio would love this - wikiversity learning project about building wikiversity. Hillgentleman | //\\ |Talk 16:56, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, I hear he's defending his thesis in a couple weeks, so hopefully he'll join in :-). --SB_Johnny ^talk 17:04, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

reasons

someone expressed it was not clear which problems lead to this. I'll start to put here first some links which may help uncover this, add more please:

• meta:Proposals for closing projects/Closure of Beta Wikiversity (May 2008)
• w:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-03-15/News and notes (Wikiversity dustup, March 2010)
• meta:Requests for comment/Remove Founder flag (March 2010)
• meta:Requests for comment/Shut down Wikiversity (April 2010)
• meta:Requests for comment/Improve Wikiversity (April 2010)

I think it's also needed to look at:

• Wikiversity:Technical needs
• Wikiversity:Vision/2009 + Wikiversity:Vision/2010, ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat + Identi.ca 18:41, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Spring cleaning

Changing the mission statement isn't going to help so long as the troll-to-legitimate-editor ratio is out of whack. This project should ban users who are banned from other projects and are known to have a history of trolling. They are not here to legitimately contribute to the project. Kaldari 15:48, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I would also suggest strongly liberalizing the deletion criteria here. Kaldari 15:57, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

If you have questions about a user's participation at Wikiversity then you can drop by their user talk page and chat. If a Wikiversity page has weaknesses, click "edit" and improve the page. --JWSchmidt 16:17, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Hosting

• Wikiversity uses the MediaWiki software, which works fairly well. However, there are a vast number of extensions and other tools available which have never been turned on.
  • Software: I could imagine: content primarily in audio form (users joining and getting also another sense activated than in normal wikis) and a software which converts audio then to text. So, later text could be input in a system (e.g. wiki). Talking is faster and easier than writing. The question is: if that time won goes lost when correcting the converted text from audio :-) ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat (try) 23:22, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Clearly addressing what interfaces, tools, and extensions are useful, and finding people interested in hacking on those sorts of tools/extensions, are both essential to a thriving project. –SJ+>
  • federated wikis (by Ward Cunningham)
• Some thoughts, e.g. Opera Unite or some kind of p2p, ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat (try) 23:58, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

• Wikiversity:Sandbox Server (no longer active, but currently parked).

improvements

• Wikiversity:Vision/2009
• review Educational wikis - see for instance AcaWiki, OpenWetware, Scholarpedia, &c.
• Education in virtual worlds

Alternatives

• If there are serious problems that really are intractable, what are the options?
  • Working out a better arrangement with the WMF might be best, but it's unclear what would be on the table.
    • A better arrangement for what? See comments under 'management' above. –SJ+>
  • Forking might be best, but would be complicated and expensive to carry out.
    • Details?
    • Forking shouldn't be expensive. The 'right to fork' is a central right of wikis, and MediaWiki and the dumps provided by Wikimedia projects make both of these trivial. I don't think that is what you mean... But the existence of an easy, cheap way to fork encourages people with different {ideas of how a project should run} to work together and avoid duplication of effort if at all possible. –SJ+>

Attempts to create a new "Wikiversity"

• With what new features? What qualifies as 'a new wikiversity'? There are many other educational wikis out there. I happen to think wikiversity is one of the best organized and most civilized, even if it isn't terribly big yet... –SJ+>