Wikiversity:Colloquium/archives/April 2015

Will this cause problems with some browsers?

Wikimedia resources (click)
w:Optics w:Geometrical optics w:Thin lens w:Paraxial approximation w:Accommodation (eye) w:Focus (optics) w:Optical aberration w:Corrective lens b:Physics Study Guide/Optics

I am only vaguely aware of how different browsers interpret Wikitext. But the box to the right seems like a quick and simple way to conveniently display all the resources on Wikipedia/Wikiversity/Wikibooks. Will there be any "bugs"?

In the case of this particular topic "Optics", there may be so many resources that we need an entire page for the links. But in most cases, a half-dozen links are all we need. --Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 15:09, 28 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimedia resources:
w:Optics
w:Geometrical optics
w:Thin lens
w:Paraxial approximation
w:Accommodation (eye)
w:Focus (optics)
w:Optical aberration
w:Corrective lens
b:Physics Study Guide/Optics

Browsers don't interpret Wikitext. Only the wiki server does that. It generates dynamic HTML that must be interpreted by different browsers. There's less risk of a problem with the dynamic HTML than there is with a user having a NoScript add-in so that dynamic HTML is disabled on their browser. What if, instead of having a collapsed list (that I suspect most users won't expand), you have a list of items below the image, something like on the right. A template could be developed to generate the content so that users don't have to manage the HTML details. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 15:33, 28 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

In the future I will refrain from using the collapsible list. I did it mostly for fun. Regarding the template, I think we need one. I believe that the wiki-sisters will grow, and if nothing is done clutter of signs will look those billboards you see when driving along highways. Also, the logo will need to be changed to either a generic logo for all sisters, or to a switch that turns the individual ones on and off. If you make a switch, make the simplest option a generic image. And, it would be nice to have simple options for the oft-used combinations (e.g. Wikibooks-Wikipedia-Wikiversity). With the image method I am using, there is no rush to get this done.

Also, a nice convention would be to place this either at the top, alongside the contents, or at the bottom near external links. I want no part in the arguments that will ensue as Wikipedia editors argue which option is more appropriate for a given article. As I said, there is no rush to get this done.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 16:10, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. This system is a reason to sometimes keep the convention of using the letter (e.g. v or c) instead of the keyword (Wikiversity or Commons) in the address of the wikilink. In prose, I do much prefer the keyword, e.g. Wikipedia:Optics is better than w:Optics.

Create a link for a special section of a page

Hello , i checked the wikipedia Tutorial but still i can't do it correctly

Possibility of a "Sister projects" report in the Wikipedia Signpost

Hello, all I'm a volunteer at the Wikipedia Signpost, the Wikimedia movement's biggest internal newspaper. Almost all of our coverage focuses on Wikipedia, with occasional coverage of Commons, the Meta-Wiki, MediaWiki, Wikidata, the Wikimedia Labs; we have little to nothing to say about Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikibooks, Wikisource, Wikispecies, Wikinews, Wikiversity, or Wikivoyage. I'm interested in writing a special long-form "sister projects" report to try and address this shortfall. Is there anyone experienced in the Wikiversity project with whom I can speak with, perhaps over Skype, about the mission, organization, history, successes, troubles, and foibles of being a contributor to this project? If so, please drop me a line at my English Wikipedia talk page. Thanks! ResMar 21:04, 5 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

From what I see, 2 people contacted you already. w:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-05-09/Wikiversity interview might also be helpful, ----Erkan Yilmaz 11:14, 7 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Is this a "fair use" of an image?

Two questions: One: Is it permissible to add this diagram] to the Wikiversity collection of image files? Two: Is it worth the bother? I ask because it would be no trouble to simply link to the image. The only advantage to showing the actual image in a Wikiversity resource is cosmetic.

According to http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html , considerations for "fair" use include:

The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes
The nature of the copyrighted work
The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work

It seems to me that 1 and 4 are clearly satisfied. We endorse the lab, except for portions of the lab manual that we found confusing. Pasco should be delighed that we are using their image. --Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 15:57, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It depends on how you use the image. Can it simply be added as a file? No. That's not fair use. But if you create a resource about how to use the Pasco device and then add an image of it to support the article, yes, that would be fair use. It wouldn't diminish the value of the work, because they aren't selling the image, they're selling the product. When you add the file, include a Fair Use tag and the source, and indicate that it is being used for an article about the product.

Is it worth it? It certainly could be, if the image would enhance the description you intend to provide. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 16:51, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Stewards confirmation rules

Hello, I made a proposal on Meta to change the rules for the steward confirmations. Currently consensus to remove is required for a steward to lose his status, however I think it's fairer to the community if every steward needed the consensus to keep. As this is an issue that affects all WMF wikis, I'm sending this notification to let people know & be able to participate. Best regards, --MF-W 16:12, 10 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Projectmanagement tooling

One of my customers is in the selection process of a project management tool. On the following page I would like to discuss some solutions. https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/System_development/Domains/Overview/Project_management/Software. Who has knowledge about project management tools? Timboliu (discuss • contribs) 07:04, 15 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Description Lists

Hey! I was wondering if there is any wiki markup for description lists. Any help is appreciated. Thanks! --I8086 (discuss • contribs) 22:31, 16 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Use ; and :
;dt
:dd
;dt
:dd
dt

dd

dt

dd

Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 23:57, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! --I8086 (discuss • contribs) 01:05, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Nominations are being accepted for 2015 Wikimedia Foundation elections

This is a message from the 2015 Wikimedia Foundation Elections Committee. Translations are available.

Greetings,

I am pleased to announce that nominations are now being accepted for the 2015 Wikimedia Foundation Elections. This year the Board and the FDC Staff are looking for a diverse set of candidates from regions and projects that are traditionally under-represented on the board and in the movement as well as candidates with experience in technology, product or finance. To this end they have published letters describing what they think is needed and, recognizing that those who know the community the best are the community themselves, the election committee is accepting nominations for community members you think should run and will reach out to those nominated to provide them with information about the job and the election process.

This year, elections are being held for the following roles:

Board of Trustees
The Board of Trustees is the decision-making body that is ultimately responsible for the long term sustainability of the Foundation, so we value wide input into its selection. There are three positions being filled. More information about this role can be found at the board elections page.

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The Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) makes recommendations about how to allocate Wikimedia movement funds to eligible entities. There are five positions being filled. More information about this role can be found at the FDC elections page.

Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) Ombud
The FDC Ombud receives complaints and feedback about the FDC process, investigates complaints at the request of the Board of Trustees, and summarizes the investigations and feedback for the Board of Trustees on an annual basis. One position is being filled. More information about this role can be found at the FDC Ombudsperson elections page.

The candidacy submission phase lasts from 00:00 UTC April 20 to 23:59 UTC May 5 for the Board and from 00:00 UTCApril 20 to 23:59 UTC April 30 for the FDC and FDC Ombudsperson. This year, we are accepting both self-nominations and nominations of others. More information on this election and the nomination process can be found on the 2015 Wikimedia elections page on Meta-Wiki.

Please feel free to post a note about the election on your project's village pump. Any questions related to the election can be posted on the talk page on Meta, or sent to the election committee's mailing list, board-elections -at- wikimedia.org

On behalf of the Elections Committee,
-Gregory Varnum (User:Varnent)
Coordinator, 2015 Wikimedia Foundation Elections Committee

Posted by the MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of the 2015 Wikimedia Foundation Elections Committee, 05:03, 21 April 2015 (UTC) • Translate • Get help[reply]

Question

Special:Statistics says we have 20,077 content pages at the moment. Towards the end of March of this year, about a month ago, we had nearly 28,000 pages: [1]. Have more than seven thousand content pages been deleted recently? James500 (discuss • contribs) 17:50, 23 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The deletion log Special:Log/delete shows just less than 500 deletions for the past month. It would take about 230 deletions for 30 days to account for the difference. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 22:09, 23 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

According to archive.org, the previous count up to 23 August 2014 was 26,930. I do remember seeing some 26,000 fairly recently. Something may be up with the special statistics all pages counter. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 23:30, 23 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If the number of deletions is too small to account for the apparent reduction in the number of "content pages" by 7,888 since March 21, could it be explained by pages being moved out of the mainspace to another namespace, or by mainspace pages being blanked and redirected? James500 (discuss • contribs) 02:07, 24 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Something like that I believe is occurring. We host a number of courses from several colleges and universities. The students create files and content pages that may remain outside our content space while in use. Then when the course is over a bot (I'm guessing here) returns them to mainspace. The files that do not have proper licensing appear in Category:Pending deletions. These have been showing up at about 50 a week for awhile now. I usually delete as many as I can. Dave may know more about this. If the bot has removed some content pages as if in a course it may have a bug in it. But, I'm just guessing. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 02:23, 24 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The total number of pages has remained consistent (162,593 -> 163,338). It would seem that content pages is no longer counting some namespace that was included in the past. We would need access to the variable indicated at mw:Manual:Article count to know what is included. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 02:39, 24 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Following up on Dave's suggestion I found this: "MediaWiki 1.26 is currently being developed. Consult the RELEASE-NOTES file for the full list of changes. It is currently deployed on Wikimedia Foundation wikis through incremental "wmf"-branches starting April 08, 2015." MediaWiki 1.25 was deployed last year in September and doesn't come online fully until May 25, 2015, which is too soon to be responsible for the change in content pages. I'll look at mw:MediaWiki 1.26 release notes to see what's going on. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 02:55, 25 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

MediaWiki 1.26 implements a content page search using whether a resource page contains at least one link versus earlier version(s), still checking on this, that look for commas. 1992 Cuba earthquake contains commas but no links. It may not be counted as a content page currently. So I will test that. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 15:23, 25 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Here's a time sequence:

20,087 at 15:32
20,087 at 15:38
link edited to 1992 Cuba earthquake at 15:40
20,087 at 15:41
20,087 at 15:50
20,089 at 15:57
20,089 at 17:01

Problem: looking through Recent changes, it appears all the other changes involve adding links to pages that already have links and commas. I can't account for a change of two. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 17:18, 25 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I believe I may have found the answer. We have a special page called, Special:LonelyPages. These are "The following pages are not linked from or transcluded into other pages in Wikiversity." A-Level Mechanics - Vectors is the first one. If you click on "Page information" while on that page from the left column, what you don't see is "Counted as a content page Yes". The category does not say how many there are, but there are 500 between A-Level Mechanics - Vectors and Coffee house. Including these and for the rest of the alphabet there could easily be between 4,000 and 8,000 such pages. Since I have linked to A-Level Mechanics - Vectors from here, it may now show up as a content page. If so try the next one. What do you think? --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 01:47, 28 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

OpenStax College using Wikiversity Quizzes? An opportunity to collaborate.

Does anybody know anything about editing PDF files? In the past, OpenStax College has hosted practice quizzes through Learningpod.¹ Unfortunately, the future of this support is uncertain.² Wikiversity might be able to fill the gap, but unfortunately our quizzes are rendered with undesirable page gaps. For a discussion of this, see (and perhaps edit):

~~[[OpenStax_College/Printing_wikiquizzes_as_in-class_tests]]~~ OpenStax College/Wikiversity testbank of quiz extensions would never be used

Footnotes:

--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 13:17, 27 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It's not an open solution (and doesn't directly answer your question), but my approach is to use existing content to make a course management system test bank and use the CMS for real-world student testing. It is relatively easy to convert printed content into a format that can be uploaded into a CMS exam pool. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 14:08, 27 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Dave Braunschweig: I think you solved my problem. There is no need for the entire testbank to be open source. It is not only sufficient, but better if only some of the test questions are open source. Is there a standard CMS testbank format that everybody follows? Who sponsors the software that creates these tests? I am trying to Google it right now, but can't seem to find a good set of search words. --Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 16:52, 27 April 2015 (UTC) Adding two links that answer my question:[reply]

Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 17:47, 27 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Our institution uses Blackboard. I've experimented with Moodle, and taken five courses as a student on Moodle. I prefer Blackboard. Blackboard is not open source, but it is available publicly for free with an unlimited number of students at http://coursesites.com. The exam pool import format is tab-separated text. I create them in Excel, usually with a copy and paste and then an Excel macro that moves the typically vertical exam content into the horizontal column format required for upload. It's a little bit of work, but not at all overwhelming. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 21:49, 27 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

An already available ("standard") CMS testbank system is the way to go, if it can be done. The problem is tricky because I need a high level programming language to calculate random numbers to insert into the questions and the answers. This can be done using Matlab (or Python?) to generate many lines of text (for many versions of each question). This forces me to use a Latex-like procedure for writing equations, while most testbuilders use menu-driven equation writing methods. And then there is the problem of images. It turns out that Wikipedia's quizzes are almost uniquely suited for this job ... except for the page break problem.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 00:24, 28 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Y Done with help from at least three people, I found a way to create user-friendly quiz banks on Wikiversity. See OpenStax College, as well as this solution to the pagebreak problem. --Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 15:45, 30 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]