Wikiversity:Colloquium/archives/February 2015

What are we suppose to do with accounts with the name "bot" when they aren't even a bot?

I found one: https://en.wikiversity.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=&user=&page=User%3ACsdc-bot&year=&month=-1&tagfilter=&hide_thanks_log=1 - in the recent changes pretending to be a bot. Aren't we suppose to block accounts that have the name "bot" in it when it isn't even a bot? --Golden_burg111 14:46, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

How do you know it isn't a bot? Or is it just that the edits weren't correctly tagged as bot? But besides that, there was a long debate here several months ago regarding the blocking of bots. It was the community's consensus that we only block bots operating at faster than sixty seconds per edit without prior approval. In other words, we only block bots based on their activity, the same way we only block users based on their activity. So far, Csdc-bot appears to be an opportunity for education rather than a need to block. Would you like to leave this user/bot a message explaining your concerns? -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 14:58, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Sure. I'll leave one as soon as I can. I also have another one with this problem as well: https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Tokrkbot. I've already left a notice. And in response to your "So far, Csdc-bot appears to be an opportunity for education rather than a need to block", I'm assuming we leave bots like this alone? What action should we normally take when this happens? Thanks! --atcovi (talk) 16:13, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

It was the community's consensus that only bots operating faster than one edit per minute would be blocked simply for being a bot. So, other than that, treat bots as you would other users, and focus on the edits rather than the status. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 16:42, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Alright. --atcovi (talk) 17:47, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

IMPORTANT: Admin activity review

Hello. A new policy regarding the removal of "advanced rights" (administrator, bureaucrat, etc) was adopted by global community consensus in 2013. According to this policy, the stewards are reviewing administrators' activity on smaller wikis. To the best of our knowledge, your wiki does not have a formal process for removing "advanced rights" from inactive accounts. This means that the stewards will take care of this according to the admin activity review.

We have determined that the following users meet the inactivity criteria (no edits and no log actions for more than 2 years):

1. Adambro (administrator)
2. Historybuff (administrator)
3. Jade Knight (administrator)

These users will receive a notification soon, asking them to start a community discussion if they want to retain some or all of their rights. If the users do not respond, then their advanced rights will be removed by the stewards.

However, if you as a community would like to create your own activity review process superseding the global one, want to make another decision about these inactive rights holders, or already have a policy that we missed, then please notify the stewards on Meta-Wiki so that we know not to proceed with the rights review on your wiki. Thanks, Rschen7754 06:36, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

(If anyone's wondering, the notice from a month ago was for 2013, and this is for 2014... yes, we are a bit behind). --Rschen7754 06:36, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

But, why en.wv is considered to be a smaller wiki?--Juandev (discuss • contribs) 04:26, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Wikiversity vision 2015

After the mass deletion of 5000 pages in 2014 I have found the energy to start a new learning project on the Dutch wikiversity. This time I'm going to involve the Dutch community to prevent a deletion. When I posted a request for help in the Wikipedia-pub, I got a lot of reactions. Some of the Wikipedians suggested to start a wikibook to create learning material. Creating a book is not my aim at the moment I now want to facilitate the learning proces of a small community around programming language Scratch. I think what the Dutch community needs is a clear vision. To get inspiration I had a look at the following page: Wikiversity:Vision. What I cannot find in this vision is how wikibooks and the wikiversity differ and what is and is not allowed when creating learning projects? Are there some best practices? Lessons learned, etc.? Thanks for helping! Cheers, Tim, Timboliu (discuss • contribs) 19:45, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

I think of textbooks as one-way information sources. Learning projects are more interactive, and should address more learning styles (visual, auditory, kinesthetic), through reading, media, and hands-on activities. What is or isn't allowed depends on the community. It's up to the Dutch Wikiversity community to define what is allowed there.

There are many best practices available. Take a look at Instructional Design for a very in-depth review of best practices. The courses I've designed attempt to follow those best practices by including objectives, reading, multimedia, activities, a lesson summary, key terms, review questions, and assessments to validate that the learning meets the objectives. For an example that addresses a programming topic, take a look at Windows PowerShell. For a less formal approach, see Lua.

Rather than either of these approaches, it sounds like you want to have a small group of learners and create a 'community of inquiry' for a particular topic. That also can work, but you need to have the community of learners to participate. Historically, Wikiversity had that. Currently, a community of learners tends to come from real-world communities already studying a topic, rather than people who meet here to begin their study. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 21:38, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

>What I cannot find in this vision is how wikibooks and the wikiversity differ and what is and is not allowed when creating learning projects?

Did you start also a thread at Wikibooks to get their opinion?

see also Wikiversity:FAQ (section: What is the difference between Wikiversity, Wikibooks, and even Wikipedia?)

When I was activate as bureaucrat and custodian here my vision of Wikiversity was, in short (1), this:

Wikiversity is a place where anything can happen

So, in terms of "I now want to facilitate the learning proces of a small community around programming language Scratch"

This can happen here at WV, you guys can start a book here (or on Wikibooks)

If here: you can at anytime (let it) import to Wikibooks. ----Erkan Yilmaz 14:34, 3 February 2015 (UTC) (1) no time to gather all links now

Where are Wikiversity's warning templates and IP Welcome template? (resolved)

Hi. So I'm looking for Wikiversity's warning templates. I can't seem to find any of these templates and would like to warn IP user's edits that are vandalism. As well as the IP Welcome template, can't seem to find them either. Are these templates been created or not yet created? I'll be more than happy to make these templates if they have not been created at this time. Thanks! --atcovi (talk) 16:09, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Atcovi, for the most part, we don't warn IP vandals, not for blatant vandalism. We may or may not block the IP. Warning them just creates a new page that usually does not apply to the next user of that IP. Rather, look at what to do about IP vandalism. First of all, revert it. Look at contributions. Check any older contributions for vandalism, I've found a lot of old undetected vandalism that way. If local vandalism continues, put a note on WV:RCA. Look at global edits. If there is a cross-wiki pattern, report this on meta:Steward requests/global for global blocking.

If it is a registered user, then warn the user. If it is gross vandalism, I suggest not welcoming, otherwise you may welcome for something minor or mysterious. Also look at other edits. Again, if you find a vandalism-only account, report it, here or on meta, as appropriate.

You may certainly make templates. However, do try to respond to the individual. We do want to be open and welcoming here, but IP users have nothing invested, and there is no reliable way to communicate with them. *Usually* they won't even see a talk page notice, unless they are still on-line and active with that IP when you place the notice. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 21:46, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Honestly with a 2nd thought and Abd's comment I don't think Warning template's is a good idea, I mean back in 2010 I was unwelcomed and i couldn't talk to the users since the user's who warned me just put templates on my talk page, I didn't care to read it. I'd rather have, at least, Wikiversity to be welcoming. I'm scratching out the idea of having warning templates. And I think Abd has a very good point on the IP Welcome. Thanks. --atcovi (talk) 21:55, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Copyright rules question

I found a website with steam tables copyrighted under (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US). Donolobo and I would like to write quizzes for them. Is it legal to copy these tables and put them on a Wikiversity page? We have two reasons to copy the table instead of referencing to them:

1. We want only a small portion of the table for a given wikiquiz
2. We want to ensure that the site is not taken down or moved, especially just before a test.

Thanks --guyvan52 (discuss • contribs)

This gets ugly. See the background information at Wikipedia: Creative Commons#License proliferation and incompatibility. The issue is that CC-BY-SA and CC-BY-NC-SA are not compatible. That means you can't take any existing content here and add it to the page you create, as that would violate the license it was originally created under. You could create a new page of CC-BY-NC-SA content, but when you save the page you agree to release the contribution under CC-BY-SA, which would violate the agreement of the content you're using. The page you create couldn't be included in any other content here, as it would violate the license of both the page it comes from and the page it gets added to. The only thing I can think of that might work would be to capture the content as an image or file of some type and then upload the file here. Tag that upload as CC-BY-NC-SA. Link to the uploaded file, but don't include it in any pages. The intent would be the same as our use of Fair Use copyrighted content.

The other option would be to ensure that the Wayback Machine at archive.org has a copy of the content you want. Reference it in the original source as long as it is available, and switch to the archive.org copy if the original ever disappears. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 17:42, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

If the goal is permanence then I'd agree with Dave, archive the original and don't include more than small quotations from it in Wikiversity. Another good web archiving tool is Webcite: http://webcitation.org/archive.php — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 23:22, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

I never understood copyright law when it comes to posting small excerpts. Both tables that Donolobo and I posted at User:Donolobo/Sandbox 01 are already small portions of these tables:

• http://www.ohio.edu/mechanical/thermo/property_tables/H2O/H2O_Super1.html
• http://www.ohio.edu/mechanical/thermo/property_tables/H2O/H2O_PresSat1.html

Does this change anything regarding the legality of using this material?--guyvan52 (discuss • contribs) 17:31, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Short quotations from copyrighted sources are generally allowed under two rules: fair use and de minimus. In this case the license is "almost good" for usage of the whole. The problem is that it's an NC license, non-commercial usage only. There is no question about legality, if the terms of the license are followed. The question is WMF policy.

The point is that we copy copyrighted content frequently in resources, quoting for purpose of commentary or criticism. It is commonly done on Wikipedia. No copyright tags are used. It's de minimus, not something that would impact the value of the copyright. We do not have to stand on our heads to do this.

There is another issue here. These are tables, basically the output of a program using a formula. The "work" is copyrighted, the presentation perhaps, but that's a bit iffy. Anyone watching Commons for a while, as I've been, can get how incredibly complicated copyright can be, and can understand what a task the WMF took on to provide "free content," freely copyable, because that task serves for profit re-users, who may not be protected by fair use and who are not Non-Commercial. Why this was done, I'm not sure. "Free" sounds good. In fact, what the policies do is to harness the volunteers to save for-profit users the work, and the projects, to some extent, suffer a loss of quality. But it is what it is, and is established WMF policy. ::::Commons Home says "a database of 24,711,839 freely usable media files." That lies. It is really a database of so many files that nobody has yet successfully tagged as having a problem, and the problems can be quite obscure, and often files are hosted for years before anyone combing obsessively over that huge database, finds that, say, the image includes some other copyrighted image, such as a toy in a photo, and therefore the image is a "derivative work" and therefore subject to the original toy copyright. Delete. Or in some countries a photo of a building is covered by the copyright of the architect, and for 70 years after his or her death. It can get insanely complex. And, of course, decisions are being made by volunteers, some of whom become expert, some of whom merely become opinionated. --21:27, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

The Wikipedia policy on copyrighted text: w:Wikipedia:Non-free_content#Text. How much is "extensive" is a judgment call. If you use too much, but not egregiously too much -- don't copy the whole table! -- you might be warned. Nobody is going to beat you up. Wikipedia doesn't contemplate what we call "educational resources," and you might have a need to copy more than Wikipedia would allow. My general advice: consider the welfare of the project. Do not sacrifice resource quality for obsessive compliance with copyright. Just be reasonable about it, be appropriately careful, but also put the students first. And then be responsive if someone has a problem with it. Be sure to attribute. However, you could also create your own tables, using formulae and a spreadsheet, and put them up freely. Be practical, be fair, be nice, be happy! --Abd (discuss • contribs) 21:40, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

I think I will place small portions of the table into the questions and probably use less precision. The tables are unlikely to be used for commercial research and I don't think textbook writers are likely to "steal" questions that are in a public database. If anybody complains we can just change the numbers slightly and include a warning that this isn't "real" steam...And of course, I will attribute.--guyvan52 (discuss • contribs) 02:04, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Files

Is there a reason to host images here at Wikiversity? Why not to use Commons depositories. Others can use them if they are on Commons and there are more people, who can handle them.--Juandev (discuss • contribs) 13:40, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Fair use images must be hosted here, as they will be deleted at Commons. There have also been past issues where free images have disappeared at Commons, with no source for recovery and no cooperation there to transfer the deleted images back here. Those who have been bitten before post images here instead. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 13:44, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

I presume "fair use" would include images of small excerpts from tables with that persnickety CC BY-NC-SA license, right? (By the way, I found an open source matlab code that circumvents all this by allowing us to construct our own steam table).--guyvan52 (discuss • contribs) 20:19, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Technically, Fair Use only addresses copyrighted materials. It doesn't really apply to open, non-commercial work, as almost all of the court decisions regarding Fair Use have to do with impacting the market value of the copyrighted work. An option for content here is probably to upload the images, tag them as CC-BY-NC-SA, and link to them where needed. Better would be to leave it on the original source and link to that if you can. Using an open tool to generate similar content is even better. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 01:20, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

The problem is what is called "non-free use." The CC-BY-NC-SA license, if I'm correct, restricts commercial usage. It *is* copyrighted. WMF policy requires a non-free use rationale, which boils down to fair use. Here is the situation: a commercial user cannot use that work without permission, except if they can claim fair use. Some could. The WMF, however, wants all content to be 'free use" allowing commercial re-use. However, it recognizes that this could damage content, so projects are allowed to have their own non-free use policy. The critical interests of the WMF are satisfied by having machine-readable tags that point to all fair use content, so that a commercial re-user can find it. However, the policy is designed for images, and the tags are on the images. They don't actually contemplate fair use *text*. Where would the tag go? Is there fair use text on Wikipedia? Yes, certainly, and there is on Wikiquote. There are no tags. An example: [1], a whole page of quotations. The whole site is like that, for modern authors. Marshallsumter may be amused seeing that. He was banned on Wikipedia for creating collections of quotations, allegedly it was copyvio. Wikipedia went completely insane over this.

The Wikiquote page on copyright has this: "much of the content on Wikiquote is derivative of copyrighted material and is used under the "fair use" clause of U.S. copyright law." When I proposed more liberal fair use standards here, years ago, there were screams that this violated WMF policy, even though the WMF clearly allowed the wikis to write their own policies. So now I notice that the entire site of Wikiquote (and apparently all language editions) is claiming fair use for text,[2], and without any Non-free Use Rationale tags. But note: though Wikiquote content is licensed under the CC-BY-SA and the GFDL, much of the content on Wikiquote is derivative of copyrighted material and is used under the "fair use" clause of U.S. copyright law. And then there is a section covering Fair Use, and this appears to apply here, easily: [3]. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 02:24, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

OK.--Juandev (discuss • contribs) 23:46, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Can I embed Google Maps of historic and scientific events on Wikiversity?

My web site, MyReadingMapped.com, has over 150 free Google Maps of historic and scientific events I am willing to share with Wikiversity that can be embedded directly on Wikiversity pages if the coding would allow it. My maps have been recognized and linked to by universities, libraries and government agencies for their quality and educational value. And I have a page on my site that shows how teachers and university professors are using my maps in the classroom.

The maps are referenced and linked to high quality resources on a placemarker basis to universities, Jstor, government agencies, Wikipedia, and the media. So you won't find a citation for the map because the citations are in each placemarker.

Many of the maps combine issues not normally associated together in a map. For example showing the topography of the Thermohaline Circulation, combining the American Revolution with the early years of the U.S. Industrial Revolution to how each affected the other and how they related to the unavoidable Civil War, the geography of the Koppen climate classification system, plate tectonics where you can zoom in on volcanoes, surmounts, hydrothermal vents, submarine fracture zones and mid-ocean ridges on the plate edges. The topics cover geology, paleontology, ancient ruins, migration due to climate change, sunken ships, disease outbreaks, war, and more.

If I cannot embed the map, can I add an external link that goes to the original Google Map on Google's server? Thus avoiding my web site. Like the over 30 external links I have on Wikipedia. For example the external link on Wikipedia's Plate Tectonics page that states:

Google Map of the Topography of Plate Tectonics that enables you to zoom in on submarine mid ocean ridges, fracture zones, ocean trenches, thermal vents and submarine volcanoes.

Which goes to: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zlY48eTMIq2I.k-1jW7gnLPbk&msa=0&ll=-2.811371%2C-22.5&spn=139.996839%2C320.625

Unfortunately, I cannot allow the maps to be edited by just anybody because I need to control the content and the safety of these maps because they are embedded on my web site and on school web sites across the country by teachers who trust me for the content. Teachers I have found distrust Wikipedia due to the ability of just anyone making edits and questioned why I link to Wikipedia so much.

While at lunch I thought of a way users can edit on Wikiversity without altering the original map. Place a image of the map on the original content page with a link to an embedded map page. Then under the embedded map would be a place for users to add their text content with their own external link to their own Google map containing their placemarkers and addtional in depth information.

Pragmaticstatistic (discuss • contribs) 18:15, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

I think linking to the source Google maps would be a welcome addition to our various learning projects, similar to what you have done with Wikipedia. Unfortunately, the very issues of control that you mention regarding your own site would make linking there less effective for us. We prefer to 'set learning free', and find that control isn't typically necessary when there are alternative approaches for everyone to share their knowledge. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 19:33, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

So I am allowed to add external links? Your control issue discussion seems to hedge on an answer. Yes or No? And, is there a limit before some editor considers it spam? Sorry for being so specific, but a few Wikipedia editors considered my maps spam, while most welcomed them as educational. I actually had more than 30 but many were removed, while the 30 that are still there were not considered spam. Their policy is totally inconsistent. If there is no external section on a page can I add one?

My intent here is not so much to drive traffic to my site. My site does fine on its own (over 413,000) and by submitting the Google URL it avoids my site. However the maps do contain a link to my site because many visitors found the original version in maps.googel.com without knowing who created the map. So if they want to see more of them they need to go to my site.

My main intent is to solve the problem that according to US News, 30% of the first year college students drop out due to lack of commitment and being ill prepared, while half of the college students never graduate. Also studies show that in general online courses have a poor retention rate and suffer from poor reading comprehension. While other studies indicate digital education fails without an emphasis on pedagogy. That means brick and mortar schools, online courses, and likely Wikiiversity are not effective. I believe my maps will help to solve that problem by drawing on their natural fascination for maps, and creating maps that are a directory to multiple issues that link all over the web from within a personalized Self-Learning Environment (SOLE). And, teacher response to my maps demanded I switch from being a 250 page blog to being a .com site so it won't be blocked by their school servers Pragmaticstatistic (discuss • contribs) 22:23, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, you can link to Google Maps. Please don't link to your personal website. That would be seen as promotional. Thanks! -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 23:00, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

For your approval, here is my first map placed on Plate tectonics and the structure of the Earth's crust page. Pragmaticstatistic (discuss • contribs) 02:00, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

That looks good. Many pages with an external link like that will separate the link from the description with a hyphen or colon. Also note that internal links are created using [[ page ]] syntax. See the correction to your entry in the paragraph above this one. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 03:32, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

I added a lot, check them out. Many of them make a perfect match to the course presented and in some cases is the only significant content on the page.Pragmaticstatistic (discuss • contribs) 12:07, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Check out a page I am working on that promotes MyReadingMapped's sharing of maps with Wikiversity in order to drive traffic to Wikiversity in order to acquire course materials. Please let me know if you have a problem promoting the relationship and if the wording is acceptable. the page is as preview pafe that is not yet published.

• MyReadingMapped's maps are now part of Wikiversity's free online courses. Pragmaticstatistic (discuss • contribs) 17:36, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

• Except it's published here, of course, if it worked, which it doesn't. ("Invalid security token"). Pragmatic, if this were Wikipedia, you'd very probably be blocked by now. The whole concept of "driving traffic" and "promoting the relationship" is making me edgy. It would drive Wikipedians clean up the wall. Back up. Slow down. You've added some maps. Great! Learn to work with the community, and you'll be fine. If you want to promote your site though, as distinct from using it, you are going to run into problems. This is not the place to do that. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 23:37, 26 February 2015 (UTC)