Wikiversity:Colloquium/archives/January 2018

Cryptocurrency, BOINC, and SENS

Hello. I am interested in creating information on this wiki about a specific cryptocurrency and BOINC, and how it can benefit/further SENS research (and other types of research too) potentially. I might financially benefit from this. I own some of this cryptocurrency, and hope to own more. Should I proceed with creating educational materials here related to BOINC research, this cryptocurrency, and SENS research here on this wiki? If whatever I create will be removed because it relates to research, and potential financial gain of researchers/teachers/learners (including myself), then I will not use my time to create the content here. Thank you for your feedback. 🖖 Michael Ten (discuss • contribs) 20:40, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

@Michael Ten: I can't imagine any valid situation in which these topics and any references to you or your financial benefit would overlap. If you would like to educate others about cryptocurrency, BOINC, and SENS, please do so. I would encourage you to leave out any specific cryptocurrency "brands". This is where your efforts would present a conflict of interest between education and profit motive. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 21:36, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

The main purpose of this cryptocurrency is to reward distributed computing contributors before being a cryptocurrency so that shouldn't matter? C933103 (discuss • contribs) 01:10, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

The main purpose of Wikiversity is to set learning free. Maintaining an ethical focus is easy to do when you don't have a financial interest in others learning from your contributions. Promoting a specific cryptocurrency that someone can profit from that isn't even in the top 100 by market capitalization crosses ethical boundaries. There are ways to present this research ethically which don't require specific cryptocurrency names. I have removed the specific name from this discussion, as the name of the cryptocurrency itself isn't necessary for the discussion. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 15:28, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

Some question about wikiversity.

1. I have just made my first edit on wikiversity by creating the article 4G feature phone. Is this up to whatever standard wikiversity have and is there anything that need to be improved?
2. When I am clicking around wikiversity, I saw templates like Template:About Wikiversity doesn't seems to display properly, and seems like there are problems in navbox module that need admin to fix them. Is there any admin around that can do this?
3. Randomly clicking around wikiversity I saw pages like Assignments that are simplhyh spec sheet of things which doesn't seems to help the goal of wikiversity. What is the procedure and policy for content keepinpg and deletion in wikiversity?
4. When I tried to join irc://irc.freenode.net/wikiversity-en , I was told that I need an invitation. What invitation is that?

C933103 (discuss • contribs) 01:05, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

@C933103: Welcome!

1. Regarding 4G feature phone, how is this different from Wikipedia:Feature phone or Wikipedia: Smartphone? The intent for learning resources at Wikiversity is for users to learn by doing. What will those who read this learning resource do to enhance their learning? Is it your intent that users contribute to the resource? Otherwise, it might be better to just link to the two Wikipedia articles and then have users research current feature phone / smartphone features and differences. They could research current brand market share, OS market share, new features, new trends, the difference between a feature phone and a smartphone, the future of 4G / 5G, etc.
2. The NavBox is broken in multiple ways. Not only does it not display correctly, it is not HTML5 compliant. We have thousands of Special:LintErrors based on problems with NavBox. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be a simple fix. The code is the same as Wikipedia, so there is likely some CSS or JavaScript also missing. Even that would only be a temporary fix, as it is still not HTML5 compliant.
3. Wikiversity generally does not have extensive discussions on deletions. If something obviously doesn't belong, you can tag it for speedy {{delete}}. If it might belong but quality isn't there, use {{subst:prod}}. There's also {{advise}} and {{scope}}.
4. I haven't tried IRC for a long time. I don't think it's actively monitored, but if it is, either User:Mu301 or User:Atcovi would know.

Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 15:14, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

1. Regarding 4G feature phone, my intention for the material is that it would allow readers to better understand the market of such a device, as well as the necessary decision making when their companies are building such a device. Both the wikipedia article on feature phone and smartphone only objectively introduce the characteristics of respective device type, without mentioning speciality of 4G feature phone, and also without mentioning precaution, speciality, and other aspects that shall be taken care of when companies would like to build such a device.
2. For the navbox, would it be a good idea to seek for help from other wikiprojects or foundations to try to fix these broken components?

C933103 (discuss • contribs) 19:28, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

On IRC problem: I get the same message when I try to join... this issue is very new, as I've only started to get this about a week or so ago. It's not that big of a deal to join #wikiversity-en though, but if you still want to enter an IRC on wikiversity, just go for #wikiversity instead, without "-en". I'm regularly on IRC for SWMT patrolling and I am usually on #wikiversity whenever I join IRC. As for this "invite" thing, I don't know. I'm not willing to investigate, though... Just doesn't seem like that big of a deal. ---Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 20:26, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

Many years ago IRC was heavily used and someone could ask a question and get a quick response. I've been in there lately and seen no activity. I also have had troubled joining with the invite error message. It appears that there is something broken on freenode. Oddly this link incorrectly redirects #wikiversity-en to #wikiversity. I'll see if I can figure it out. It was working a week ago. I'd recommend that you post questions here as they will get a quicker response. --mikeu ^talk 00:53, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

It seems that #wikiversity-en was so little used that it is now just a redirect to #wikiversity. The -en channel no longer exists and we'll need to update our wiki pages. --mikeu ^talk 01:15, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

On the topic of discussion channels, there's a pilot of a new forum at https://discourse.wmflabs.org/ — it'd be easy to create a Wikiversity category there, if desired. I used to hang out in the IRC channel, but gave up when nothing ever happened. — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 02:13, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

I took a quick look at the discourse. I'm not exactly sure it would be of use to us. Most of our interactions are on-wiki. I've been in #wikiversity recently. Feel free to ping me with any questions or even if you just want to chat. My Freenode irc nick and cloak is mikeu@wikimedia/mu301 --mikeu ^talk 03:23, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Abuse filter block of WikiJournal submission

Hi all,

A submission attempt by new user Gcl18 has been tripping the Abuse filter. Is there a way to override this, place exceptions, or reduce sensitivity for some pages? Is the content that they added lost, or merely hidden? Any advice appreciated from those that know how that section of the site works.

All the best, T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 08:34, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

@Evolution and evolvability and Gcl18: Yes, all of those options are possible, but only the override option is effective. Exceptions and reduced sensitivity just increase disruptive edits, and we particularly don't want disruptive edits on WikiJournal.

I have added Gcl18 as a confirmed user. The edit attempts aren't lost, but they also aren't saved as pages. I emailed a copy of the text to Gcl18.

Going forward, if there is a new user whom you know is going to be contributing new pages, either create the new pages for them first, or post at Wikiversity:Request custodian action and one of the bureaucrats can add them as a confirmed user. Users are confirmed automatically after just a few days and a few edits. If you'd like access to the Abuse log and settings yourself, please consider Wikiversity:Candidates for Custodianship. I'd be happy to support your nomination. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 14:27, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

@Dave Braunschweig: Very helpful response, thank you. Is there a page that lists the conditions for triggering the filter? T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 00:54, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

@Evolution and evolvability: Yes, there is a page with those settings. But you have to be a custodian to view the settings. :-) If the bad guys could see the patterns, they would just code around them. I'll send you an email with more information. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 01:40, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

@Dave Braunschweig: I suspected that might be the case. Makes sense to not just give the recipe for circumventing anti-abuse measures! For the moment, I can deal with things on a case-by-case basis if they come up again. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 01:46, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

@Dave Braunschweig: Hah, another case of the same thing just happened. Could you edit the permissions of the user User:Tatiana soaresdacosta (Filter log). I'll have to make some instructions to send to the contributors on how to avoid making their first edit so suspicious! Thanks. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 05:43, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Y Done. However, I can't email the content as this user did not configure an email account. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 13:45, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

life science

--41.113.196.81 (discuss) 19:32, 3 January 2018 (UTC)Andile

Draft Namespace

There is a discussion and vote on creating a Draft: namespace at Wikiversity:Requests for Deletion. Please review and participate. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 01:26, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Huge raft of unused and useless templates

About a decade ago, User:Fabartus created hundreds of seemingly useless and wildly complex templates that are unused or which only link to one another. I have deleted several dozen but any assistance in clear out these things is appreciated. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:37, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

This can easily be cleaned up by bot. And by the way, you took out a couple of my column templates in the process. Sorry they were seemingly useless. Give me the evening and let me see what I can code for unused Fabartus templates. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 01:43, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

I looked at every contribution by Fabartus and deleted all templates that were not transcluded. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 03:25, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

@Dave Braunschweig: Nice! He had several who linked to one another or transcluded one another but had no other links or transclusions as well but this is a good start. Thanks. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:14, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Wikiversity:Featured

I'd like to try something new: revive Wikiversity:Featured. Please nominate a learning resource that you've found on Wikiversity that you feel represents some of the best work on our project. These will be added to Main Page/News to highlight the fantastic work that is being done here. --mikeu ^talk 02:42, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

I took a quick look at some of our current Featured content. I'd like to de-nominate Observational Astronomy as it is far less developed and arguably has less general interest than some of our other projects. I would suggest replacing it with the extensive and higher quality Motivation and emotion, though I'm not sure which of the subpages is best to link to. There are also a number of featured projects that appear to have been inactive for a long time. It might be worthwhile for us to reconsider what the main page links to and try to draw attention to some of the best content that has been developed here. --mikeu ^talk 19:14, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

• Federal Writers' Project - Life Histories - a Public humanities project containing over 200 biographies documenting the lives of everyday people during the Great Depression. --mikeu ^talk 02:42, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

Just FYI Federal Writers' Project - Life Histories was added to Main Page/News here.

That diff shows World War I -- Life Histories added to News in 2015. (That is also a Public humanities project, but not the one I was nominating.) There is new work at Federal Writers' Project - Life Histories/2017/Fall/Section 26 that I feel is worth highlighting. A major goal of Wikiversity is to host free and open source resources that can be shared and reused. A project conducted by university students could generate materials that are of use in teaching at a high school, for example. We should use our mainpage more to showcase and highlight the best of what we have to offer. There are 223 pages in that project that probably few visitors know about. --mikeu ^talk 18:13, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

• What about Photosynthesis? What's your thoughts on this page? What can be done to improve this resource? BTW how will it be added to Main Page/News? If it's by "date": won't it just be buried as other pages are completed for learners/participants? I suggest it be added under "Today's Featured Project" in the Home page. I believe works that take a lot of hard work should be added there... and maybe a special notice on the news page. I was thinking of something along the lines of: A new featured resource has been added to Category:Featured resources--in addition with the date of admission. These are my thoughts on the matter. ---Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 03:33, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

Those are great points. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. That is exactly why I opened the discussion here. I haven't seen Photosynthesis, I'll take a look. --mikeu ^talk 18:13, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

• Add nomination here...

Open Education Week

Open Education Week is March 5-9, 2018. See https://www.openeducationweek.org/ for more information and available promotional materials. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 17:27, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Google Search and Wikiversity

I've revived a long dormant project that I started at Google/Search and Wikiversity back in 2009. I've been collecting data on how Google search indexes Wikiversity content and also analyzing which search terms bring people to our project. The results are a depressing. Very little traffic is discovering our site from Google and the number of pages that are indexed are a small fraction of what we have. This problem has become much worse over time. Please have a look and discuss at Talk:Google/Search and Wikiversity. --mikeu ^talk 22:37, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Similar open learning project: OpenGenus

I just saw this: maybe it will interest someone here. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:26, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Wikiversity Twitter bot

Does anybody know who operates https://twitter.com/wikiversitybot? It tweets out a Special:Random link twice per day, --mikeu ^talk 02:41, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

what use does that bring? ---Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 03:14, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Personally, I think that it is pointless to send out links to random pages. It would be better to pick from a category like featured content. I may try to revive our other twitter account to do that. Mostly I was just curious who is operating the bot. --mikeu ^talk 03:31, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

I contacted the legal team. Anyone is free to link to our content (or anyone else's) but between the name and the reuse of the logo with no context, it implies that the WMF owns the feed. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:00, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

And they are investigating. Note that a similar situation happened with a Wikiquote Twitter handle and I brought it to the WMF's attention and they got the account. (It was also one that had never sent out a message). —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:30, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

I suspect that it may be operated by someone we know/knew. The account was created in 2009 at about the same time as our official @Wikiversity account. See WV:Twitter for background. The wikiversitybot is not really doing any harm, though I question how useful Special:Random is... --mikeu ^talk 21:19, 22 January 2018 (UTC)