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Work with Ball State University Course

Thanks very much for being willing to work with my Wikipedia project class. We're just getting ramped up this week, and will be setting up groups, user areas, and sandboxes. If you'd like to browse some new user areas and maybe leave messages, that would be a good introduction for students new to this process. We have another ambassador who has just come aboard, Steven_Zhang (Talk). The course is actually made up of two separate sections which are combined in our WP course page. Each section will be forming into groups on Thursday, after which time I'll arrange the students in groups on the course page. Each group has a separate topic, and the topics are open—not necessarily related to English or technology, although that link is encouraged. I foresee 8 groups in all; if you and the other ambassador could work with 4, I think that would work out best. Each group will have a "pathfinder" or coordinator who will be a central point for communication. Thanks again for volunteering, and get in touch either via email (wnewbold(at)bsu.edu) or my talk page as you wish. I probably will see an email message faster than one on the talk page.

Best, Webster Newbold (talk) 18:18, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Ryan's Group - Dr. Newbold class

1. Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library

Could you check out the article in My sandbox? We've formatted all of the sources we used and included them in the references section. Let me know if it all checks out and if it's ready to create the actual article. Thanks! Rsfitzharris (talk) 18:51, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Topic Possibilities Brittany's Group

I think we will go with Year-round school - user:bnfeilen —Preceding undated comment added 01:20, 1 March 2012 (UTC).

Topic Possibilites for Malorie's Group

Topic Possibilities for Kate's Group

History of Bison Conservation H396

Hello, Interior. I think our article is ready to go live, even though we are waiting for more edits. Tina told us that we needed to get feedbacks from the Wikipedians and make changes, preferably before our presentation. Thank you!--Chaereankim (talk) 06:02, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Adams River Part 2: The Blues

Aight. I wiped off enough of the marker on my monitors to work on it, heh. The upper areas belong to a higher elevation than the Shuswap area. No matter what I do, I couldn't remove the blue areas too much while retaining the thinner parts of the river. :/ The extent of the lake is more accurate now I think, but the river path on the north are more or less invisible, merely outlined by the lower terrain heights (green). Anyway, I've added the labels to the Upper and Lower Adams, this what you meant?

You can compare the new version with the old version here. Let me know quick if something is still off while everything is still fresh in my mind. XD -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 06:27, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

New version
Obsidian Soul Delivers! This is great, aight. As the river drops about 1600 m over a relatively short distance, getting those elevation colours to match the course isn't going to happen. I've added it: Adams River (British Columbia). How does it display for you left-justified like that? Feel free to tinker with the placement. I think it really ties the room together. Thanks again, folks like yourself give me hope for the future of this collaborative experiment. Best, The Interior (Talk) 19:32, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
Hmm... MOS says pictures should never begin left-aligned just after a section header. It also breaks bullet points. :P I've aligned it right. But then it extends past the infobox, which looked wonky, so I resized the infobox as well. *throws up hands*
And lol, not much of collaboration from my side though. :P Sorry for the months-long delay. I just tend to lose focus when the subject's not in my area of interest. Too many shiny things about. That said, I learned a thing or two with map software though. Holler if you need anything else in the future and I'll try not to drag my feet too much, LOL. -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 20:34, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
That looks better. I'm always trying to do the left/right thing with imgs., but it always messes up the headings. Need more text! As for putting you to work again, I'll be expanding Stein River sometime soon - might come a knocking for another watershed map. Cheers OS, The Interior (Talk) 18:05, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Wow!

I can't believe your sister took my class. I'm assuming it was my big first year one on the global environment, not an earlier edition of this one. And even more unbelievable is the fact that you signed up to be an online ambassador for it. I feel like I'm part of your family business! I think the practice edits went well, though I should have told them they had to make an edit that involved adding a reference. I thought that went without saying, given my in class instructions, but oh well... Most of them seem to have done that. I did have one student who had a fairly serious critique from another Wikipedian (it wasn't nasty and I am hoping I can use this as a teachable moment). The students are hard at work on their annotated bibliographies and outlines and they have to go live with 250-400 words of their articles by mid March, so you may be getting some business! Thanks for helping. --Greentina (talk) 01:19, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

It's crazy! We were raised in the woods, so environmental history does seem to be in the blood. The practice edits looked very good. I took a look at all of them, some feedback:
  • References - the edits that used them sometimes used primary sources. It should be stressed that secondary sources are preferred in most cases.
  • Critiques from other Wikipedians - heh, this will happen. Most of us are fairly diplomatic, but we do have some, hmm, more abrupt users. Tell the student the same thing happened to me fairly recently; I over-generalized about the state of late 19th century Czech literature, and was vociferously taken to task for it. It's part of what makes this project so interesting, having random people correct your work.
  • Strong edits - Danilar [1], Heatheralyse [2], Mhills91 [3], Tborto1 [4]. Some other good ones as well.
  • Some ideas for next time - it's difficult to add content to well-developed articles, you could link your students our "stub" category (stubs are very short articles). Here's the link - WP:STUBSHORT
  • I'm excited to see the content for the longer edits. I would be open to visiting your class if that's something you're interested in. I'm taking classes at Langara right now, but might have a open slot that lines up with your class times. Let me know, The Interior (Talk) 18:05, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Precious

reviewing eyes
Thank you for reviewing in the Contributor copyright investigations/PumpkinSky! Paraphrasing (I hope not too closely): If everybody who read this looked at one more article it could be over today. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:22, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
I'll try take a look at 1 or 2 more, Gerda. Very busy this week. The Interior (Talk) 18:05, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
It's over, thanks also to you! 719 of 729 articles were found with no problems. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:51, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
Hello, The Interior. You have new messages at Toll Booth Willie's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Suggestion

I see that you have responded to J Desantis' request for discussion. Thanks for that. If I could make a suggestion. Since political articles are easily stratified and become contentious at the drop of a hat, if you interject your questions into Joes request it will become very hard to read and to tell one editors stuff from the other. And, if some third editor responds, the confusion intensifies. Perhaps it might be good to try a different method...maybe cut the section out of Joes request and paste it in a lower position/section. I'm not telling you what to do, lol, but it took me 10 minutes to find you comments. Maybe its just me? ```Buster Seven Talk 22:24, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Reasonable, and probably more talkpagerules compliant. As Kenatipo has now followed my poor lead, I've asked his permish to move his also. The Interior (Talk) 23:55, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
Done. Maybe we should ask Joe to suggest edits one at a time. The Interior (Talk) 00:19, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Class Updates

Hi! When looking through a few course pages earlier today (and at the students' user pages), I noticed you've already been communicating with some of your students for the semester and looking over their assignments. I thought you may be interested in posting anything you've encountered on this outreach page to help get the ball rolling with that conversation. Hope you are willing to share your experiences! JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 00:15, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Sure, I can post something over there. Things have been going swimmingly with the courses so far. The Interior (Talk) 01:09, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

New Page Triage engagement strategy released

Hey guys!

I'm dropping you a note because you filled out the New Page Patrol survey, and indicated you'd be interested in being contacted about follow-up work. This is to notify you that we've finally released both the initial documentation about the project and also the engagement strategy, which sets out how we plan to work with the community on this. Please give both a read, and leave any comments or suggestions you have on the talkpage, on my talkpage, or in my inbox - okeyes@wikimedia.org.

It's awesome to finally get to start work on this! :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 02:00, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject Film's January–February Newsletter

The January 2012 issue of the Films WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.

To unsubscribe, please remove your name from the distribution list. GRAPPLE X 00:45, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for lending a hand at the Teahouse!

Looks like that question was quite niche for you. :) Thanks so much for helping out. Right now we're not accepting new hosts, but, it'd be great to have you consider participating if the Teahouse pilot goes well (and sticks around!). Take a look at WP:Teahouse/Your hosts and feel free to sign up if it interests you (whenever you want!). Enjoy your evening and thanks for your contributions. (I lived in Vancouver for a time, I sure do miss the mountains!) SarahStierch (talk) 03:50, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Oh dear, maybe I'm not using that page right. I was sort of treating it as well-designed help page, but I guess you need to be an approved host to respond to questions? And yes the mountains are as lovely as ever, when I can see them. Been a pretty rainy, cloudy winter! The Interior (Talk) 03:56, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
Well I appreciate your contribution! Yes, the Teahouse is a pilot project, and all of the 20 or so hosts actually applied to participate it in (like the Online Ambassador program). We've went through some training sessions, have sort of a method to the madness for lack of a better term, and are tracking their contributions and analytics during this pilot period (which runs through May) to assess if the project is a success (or not!). If you feel like reading all the details about the Teahouse, you can visit the meta page (but it's a bit dry!). Thanks again for your contributions! SarahStierch (talk) 04:04, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
Alright. I'll un-watchlist it then. The Interior (Talk) 04:20, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
But to be honest, I can't say I'm too happy with this experience. The Teahouse page does not make it clear that replies from non-hosts are not permitted. I can understand wanting to vet your hosts, but I guess I find the exclusivity not very wiki-like. If a user in good standing, with experience helping new users, wants to help out, I'm not sure he/she should be rebuffed. Outside of adminstration-only pages and templates, I'm not aware of any other place in Wikipedia I would be told not to participate after making constructive efforts. The Interior (Talk) 05:24, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
I understand why you would feel that way. As a long time editor I've actually been trying to come to grips with editors who have told me what you've just told me over the past week. But, my sensitivities aside, as I said, this is a pilot, through May. If it is a success, it'll be in the hands of the hosts and the community to use it as they see fit. Other areas of Wikipedia also have projects that insist on applications (ArbCom, Online Ambassadors, Campus Ambassadors, Admin, OTRS, etc), and while this isn't the same as those, this pilot is only temporary, and exists to help make Wikipedia a more friendly space and works with a group of editor's who applied to participate (they have a set amount of time they have to give to the project and deliverables each week). I hope it does that: make Wikipedia friendlier and improves retention. And I hope that you won't allow this one aspect of the project dissuade you from finding value in the project. Thank you for sharing your feelings and again, for your contributions to Wikipedia. SarahStierch (talk) 06:41, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
And you for yours. I'd like to respond to your points, but I get the impression you don't want to discuss this further. The Interior (Talk) 18:13, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Ibex Valley Edit Conflict

Hey The Interior

I was editing the Ibex Valley article and got an edit conflict. I put some discussion on the talk page for the article (which is what the edit conflict help page told me to do?) I wasn't sure if you would cruise on by again anytime soon, so I figued I would drop you a line here. Thanks for all your help, as I said on the TH page, it is much appreciated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JonGDixon (talk • contribs) 21:52, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Hey Jon. No worries about the edit conflict. It's a weird part of the software that no one likes. One thing you can do if you're planning on tinkering on something for a while is add the {{inuse}} template to the top of the page and save it. It will produce a banner telling other editors to hang tight. (just remeber to take it off when you're done.) Good work on expanding the Ibex Valley article. Nive infobox! It's great to see someone else working on Canadian geography, there's not too many of us. I'll look into your latest question if you haven't got a reply at the reference desk. How's the winter been up there? We actually had something approaching a real winter down here, more snow than I've seen in Van for a while. The Interior (Talk) 04:54, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
I can understand why the edit conflict is there. Thanks for that inuse tip though, I will make use of that. I'm actually really enjoying researching those two articles right now, since they are both right in my own back yard. I remembered about the pipe line alignment, which will give some more meat to the Ibex Valley article. I also just started trying to add some references the History of Yukon article, since it is high importance on the WikiProject Canada. The other two are low importance, but I figured they would work well as first time articles, since they are relatively short. I still haven't received an answer on the help desk, I'd appreciate your insight. The winter up here has been pretty fantastic, all things considered. We had a cold snap, a couple of weeks of -30 or colder, but other than that it has been about -10 or so on the average I would say. I was in Vancouver for a couple of days in Jan and it rained. Every day.--JonGDixon (talk) 05:22, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Page Triage newsletter

Hey guys!

Thanks to all of you who have commented on the New Page Triage talkpage. If you haven't had a chance yet, check it out; we're discussing some pretty interesting ideas, both from the Foundation and the community, and moving towards implementing quite a few of them :).

In addition, on Tuesday 13th March, we're holding an office hours session in #wikimedia-office on IRC at 19:00 UTC (11am Pacific time). If you can make it, please do; we'll have a lot of stuff to show you and talk about, including (hopefully) a timetable of when we're planning to do what. If you can't come, for whatever reason, let me know on my talkpage and I'm happy to send you the logs so you can get an idea of what happened :). Regards, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 23:54, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

History 396 at UBC

Hey! I'm a student in Tina Loo's history class at UBC which is working on wikipedia entries for our final assignment.Is this how I'm supposed to communicate with you....? I have a question and she directed me to you with it... So, I'm part of the team working on the Hells Gate. However, the existing page is "Hell's Gate," which is actually wrong. I'm wondering how best to correct this... it will entail creating a new page with the correct spelling and moving all the data to it, yeah? Is this a big deal? What do you suggest? Thanks!--Eye101 (talk) 02:57, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Hello Eye101. This is the best way to get in touch, so you're doing it right. The apostrophe question. I remember reading in the Akrigg's Place Names of British Columbia that the provincial and federal gazetteers removed all possessive apostrophes from Canadian places names at some point; I believe the idea was to bring things in line with American naming styles. So, your are correct that the official name has no apostrophe. Unfortunately, the company that runs the tram uses the apostrophe, and so do some sources. Our policy WP:COMMONNAME asks that we use the most common spelling used by reliable sources. Of the sources you have reviewed, what was the ratio?
As for moving the article, it's not that hard, but we need to do a requested move as it isn't a clear cut case such as a typo. How are things coming along with your expansion? The Interior (Talk) 15:12, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
Hey. So based on our reading, we would like to switch the content over to a page without the apostrophe. I'll take a look at the move request page you linked, and if I we have any trouble I know where to come :) Thanks!--Eye101 (talk) 19:47, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
Hello, The Interior. You have new messages at Sliver9754's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.
Thanks for the sandbox help! I was going to try and send you a custom sandcastle trophy but I just got confused and didn't want to send you a virus. Thanks again though!!! --Richard 00:37, 14 March 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rkfire (talk • contribs)
Quick question-- I am creating links in some of the paragraphs I write but how do I get a word to link to something that is not the title of the respective wikipedia article. For example, I mention the Albertan town of Bassano but the link to Bassano goes to the disambiguation of it: Bassano. Is there a way I can link this instead to Bassano, Alberta without writing the Alberta part?--rkfire 00:58, 14 March 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rkfire (talk • contribs)
It's called a "piped link". Do it like dis: [[Bassano, Alberta|Bassano]] and you get dis: Bassano. The Interior (Talk) 04:41, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
The "pipe" (|) character is above the forward slash on a Mac keyboard, think it's the same on PC. The Interior (Talk) 04:44, 14 March 2012 (UTC)


Hey hey. Question about citations: If the same page of the same source is used for several sentences in a row, should we be using the same convention as in academic writing and only cite the end of the content that comes from the page? As an example, citations 5-11 here are all from the same page. Where should the citation(s) go? Thanks! --Eye101 (talk) 02:54, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Hey Eye101! There are a couple of different approaches you could take with this. You could use the academic convention of citing the end of the content, but you'd have to be careful that nothing from a different source or page gets added in the middle. The other thing you could try is something called named refs - check out that page for details. Cheers, Nikkimaria (talk) 02:22, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
Oh that sounds fun! Thank you!--Eye101 (talk) 03
21, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
Is this the citation style that you were suggesting we use? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W.A.C._Bennett_Dam --Eye101 (talk) 22:31, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

The Tea Leaf - Issue One - Recent news from the Teahouse

Hi! Welcome to the first edition of The Tea Leaf, the official newsletter of the Teahouse!

Spring has sprung! Stop by the Teahouse for a cup of tea under the cherry blossoms.
  • Metrics are out from week one. Week one showed that the need for Teahouse hosts to invite new editors to the Teahouse is urgent for this pilot period. It also showed that emailing new users invitations is a powerful tool, with new editors responding more to emails than to talk page templates. We also learned that the customized database reports created for the Teahouse have the highest return rate of participation by invitees. Check out the metrics here and see how you can help with inviting in our Invitation Guide.
  • A refreshed "Your hosts" page encourages experienced Wikipedians to learn about the Teahouse and participate. With community input, the Teahouse has updated the Your hosts page which details the host roles within the Teahouse pilot and the importance that hosts play in providing a friendly, special experience not always found on other welcome/help spaces on Wikipedia. It also explains how Teahouse hosts are important regarding metrics reporting during this pilot. Are you an experienced editor who wants to help out? Take a look at the new page today and start learning about the hosts tasks and how you can participate!
  • Introduce yourself and meet new guests at the Teahouse. Take the time to welcome and get to know the latest guests at the Teahouse. New & experienced editors to Wikipedia can add a brief infobox about themselves and get to know one another with direct links to userpages. Drop off some wikilove to these editors today, they'll surely be happy to feel the wikilove!

You are receiving The Tea Leaf after expressing interest or participating in the Teahouse! To remove yourself from receiving future newsletters, please remove your username here. Sarah (talk) 16:04, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Invitation to Vancouver meetup

Hello,

You are invited to an edit-a-thon at the Prophouse Café on Sunday March 25, as part of Women's History Month events all over the world. If you wish to attend, please see Wikipedia:Meetup/Vancouver WikiWomen's Edit-a-Thon and add your signature to the list.

Thank you! InverseHypercube (talk) 09:36, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Articles for Creation question

Hey there, As you can see, my students in HIST 396 are starting to get going - contacting you. One of the groups is doing research on bison conservation in Canada and its history, and they posted their intentions to the talk page of the American Bison article. The feedback they got was that there was so much info that the history of bison conservation merited a separate article that would be linked to the main article. I think that's a great idea, but I see that creating articles will take some time. We also need to create an article on the Trail Smelter Dispute. I think my TA is handling that one, but both of us need to know how long it might take to create articles and if there's any way of speeding it up.

I haven't forgot about your generous offer to come to my class. I think I may take you up on it (assuming you are still open to that idea) but I wanted to let the students get started first. The teams are supposed to "go live" with their first 250-400 words by the end of Tuesday. I'll assess the class schedule after that.

Finally, I see you and your sister have a video up on the NiCHE site! Cool! Thanks, --Greentina (talk) 00:22, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Hey Tina. Yes, I agree that the Bison material should form its own, stand-alone article. As for creating new articles, it takes but a second. Any user page draft can be moved into the mainspace (read: among the live, searchable Wikipedia articles) simply by clicking on the down arrow in the group of options at the top of the wiki page. I can help with that if you give me some prior notice (or the student could do it themself). Best practice would be that the group members create a draft space, get their work mostly together, then the article can be moved to the big time. I've already set up a draft page for SockeyeSam: it's at User:SockeyeSam/Trail Smelter Dispute. Something similar should be set up for the new bison article, I just need to know which group member wants to host it.
Perhaps some of the confusion comes from the Articles for Creation process; this project is set up to vet article ideas submitted by unregistered users, who cannot create new pages on their own. By now, I believe most of the student accounts have been registered long enough to create pages. Were you advised by anyone in the Education Project to use AfC? Maybe they're advising using that just for additional oversight, but I don't think it's necessary as long as your OA's have looked over the drafts. I can talk to someone at Education to clarify this for you.
As for coming to class, I love too, but I'm now in the same boat as your students: end-of-term stress-bomb crunch-time. Until about the 29th, I'm pretty snowed under.
Glad you liked the video, I'm working on a Wikipedia article on the fire here: User:The Interior/Richardson Fire. It may linger for a while as schoolwork needs doing.
Re: the Trail Smelter Dispute - In another example of strange synchronicity, I was at Teck Cominco's corporate library downtown last week. Talk about posh! They probably have a lot of relevant resources down there, but them letting you access their collection might be another story. Although, they do use the UBC Library system for their own reference work, so it should work both ways! The Interior (Talk) 01:10, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
This is great. I just contacted Team Bison and told them to read your message above and to decide who wants to host the draft space. I told them this would be separate from their own Sandbox, right? One of them will be in touch with you. I appreciate the help. No worries about being swamped! I am too: the students are presenting in class April 3 and 5 so maybe if you're free you can come and I can unmask you to them! Kinda like Zorro. It would give me the chance to buy you a real beer rather than one of those virtual wikilove ones, in any case. Good luck with all your work and I'm sure we'll be in touch about other course stuff soon! --Greentina (talk) 01:42, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, "sandbox" is used kind of loosely. Really, anything you make that starts with the User:Greentina/ path is a sandbox and yours to play with. I've got a bunch of messy old pages in my space I should clean up. You're on for the non-digital beer, might be nice to come out and see the class in early April when their content is up. I'm going to need a beer after the next three weeks are over :) The Interior (Talk) 02:24, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
Hello, The Interior. You have new messages at SockeyeSam's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Hi, The Interior, Your posting above might answer my question about how to ensure that the Team Smoke students are able to have their work reviewed by the Wikipedia community. To answer your question, we were advised to use the AfC page. Thanks for your help. SockeyeSam (talk) 02:05, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Bison draft

Hello there! I would be happy to host the draft space. Please let me know what the next steps should be... --Sara Binns (talk) 01:58, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Sara. I've gone ahead and made you a draft space on your userpage. User:Sara Binns/History of bison conservation in Canada I've linked it there too. Next step would be to post messages with the rest of Team Bison and give them the link so they can find it. After that, go wild! Start slapping it together. The nice thing about using a draft rather than a new live article is that you can experiment. When the article is more or less finished, leave me a note and we'll move it. I'll also copy your outline onto the draft's "talk" page for quick reference. The Interior (Talk) 02:11, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
Great! Thanks so much for getting our draft space started. --Sara Binns (talk) 03:16, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

History of Bison Conservation H396

Hello, Interior. I think our article is ready to go live, even though we are waiting for more edits. Tina told us that we needed to get feedbacks from the Wikipedians and make changes, preferably before our presentation. Thank you!--Chaereankim (talk) 06:04, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

New Page Triage newsletter

Hey all!

Thanks to everyone who attended our first office hours session; the logs can be found here, if you missed it, and we should be holding a second one on Thursday, 22 March 2012 at 18:00 UTC in #wikimedia-office. I hope to see you all there :).

In the meantime, I have greatly expanded the details available at Wikipedia:New Page Triage: there's a lot more info about precisely what we're planning. If you have ideas, and they aren't listed there, bring them up and I'll pass them on to the developers for consideration in the second sprint. And if you know anyone who might be interested in contributing, send them there too!

Regards, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 00:23, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Columbia River Treaty Project

Just a friendly thank you for helping our group with the reference list! Wiki formatting is still kind of alien to us Wls33 (talk) 05:27, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Sandboxes

thanks for your message. Sometimes when I click on the students' sandboxes I do get to theirs.... --Greentina (talk) 04:12, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

And great challenge to the Hells/Hell's Gate team! --Greentina (talk) 04:37, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

HighBeam Research promotion

Hi! Thanks so much for signing up to assist with the HighBeam Research project. The first step in getting this project started is widespread promotion of the account sign-up opportunity. Anywhere and anyone you can tell will help make sure that no editors miss out. We're keeping track of where the project has been promoted on the promotion page. If you notify people, please add {{done}} after an entry on the promotion page with a [link] to where you did so. Here's a sample text you might use:

  • HighBeam Research--an online, pay-for-use search engine for newspapers, magazines, academic journals, newswires, trade magazines and encyclopedias has agreed to give free, full-access, 1-year accounts for up to 1000 Wikipedia editors to use. HighBeam has access to over 80 million articles from 6,500 publications, most of which are not available for free elsewhere on the internet. Aside from a free 7-day trial (credit card required), access to HighBeam would cost $30 per month or $200 per year for the first year and $300 for subsequent years, so this is a wonderful, free, no-strings-attached opportunity. To qualify, editors must have at least a 1 year-old account with 1000 edits. Please add your name to the WP:HighBeam/Applications account sign-up page if you are interested.

Please let me know if you have any questions, thoughts, comments, concerns, ideas, or otherwise. Awesome to have your help! Ocaasi t | c 17:42, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Jezebel'sPonyobons mots has bought you a pint! Sharing a pint is a great way to bond with other editors after a day of hard work. Spread the WikiLove by buying someone else a pint, whether it be someone with whom you have collaborated or had disagreements. Cheers!

Because it's St. Patrick's Day and you still took the time to turn the trolls away from the gate.

Spread the good cheer and camaraderie by adding {{subst:WikiPint}} to their talk page with a friendly message. Message received at 00:46, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
Wow, well done. If you're anywhere near PoMo the next one free (and real :))--Jezebel'sPonyobons mots 01:32, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for the offer, but, lame as it sounds, I'm in doing homework tonight (or supposedly doing homework but actually reverting trolls on Wikipedia). Although did get a bit of a digital buzz off the digital pint. You guys don't actually call it PoMo, do you? That's awesome, never heard it before. The Interior (Talk) 01:57, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
No, we don't usually use PoMo; I was just trying some secret lame James Bond spy crap. I'm not surprised it didn't work...--Jezebel'sPonyobons mots 02:28, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

help triage some feedback

Hey guys.

I appreciate this isn't quite what you signed up for, but I figured as people who are already pretty good at evaluating whether material is useful or not useful through Special:NewPages, you might be interested :). Over the last few months we've been developing the new Article Feedback Tool, which features a free text box. it is imperative that we work out in advance what proportion of feedback is useful or not so we can adjust the design accordingly and not overwhelm you with nonsense.

This is being done through the Feedback Evaluation System (FES), a tool that lets editors run through a stream of comments, selecting their value and viability, so we know what type of design should be promoted or avoided. We're about to start a new round of evaluations, beginning with an office hours session tomorrow at 18:00 UTC. If you'd like to help preemptively kill poor feedback, come along to #wikimedia-office and we'll show you how to use the tool. If you can't make it, send me an email at okeyes@wikimedia.org or drop a note on my talkpage, and I'm happy to give you a quick walkthrough in a one-on-one session :).

All the best, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 21:36, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Trail Smelter Dispute and Bison Conservation in Canada- going live?

Howdy, Thanks for all your help with HIST 396. The team doing the Trail Smelter Dispute has a chunk of their article up in their draft space now, and I wonder if it can be moved to a "live" space? Same with the draft article on Bison Conservation in Canada. It would be great to do this asap so the students can have the experience of interacting with the community. Are these articles ready in your view to be moved? Can we do that? What is involved? Thanks! --Greentina (talk) 19:53, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Howdy Greentina. Sorry for the late reply, but I'm doing some training up in Hinton for a week. I've moved Team Smoke's article into the big time, it's now at Trail Smelter dispute. Wikipedian feedback may be forthcoming shortly, so the team members should "watch" the new article. User:Sara Binns/History of bison conservation in Canada is almost ready to go, but needs an introduction, or "lead". This page has some guidance: WP:LEAD. I can move that article as well when the team members have put one together.
Overall, things are looking great with almost all the content I've seen from your students. They seem to be really conscientious about wikipedia's style and requirements, and have added some great reading (I've learned quite a bit about these topics through this). I haven't been able to check things like proper paraphrasing yet; when I'm back from 'Berta next week I'll do some spot checks. Best, The Interior (Talk) 03:01, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for your help with this! I did try to be careful with paraphrasing so hopefully I didn't make any errors. Some of the sentences got a bit long when I was adding content so I will revise over the next week or so. The other pieces should start to come in by the end of the week.Sliver9754 (talk) 03:26, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
Hey there, Thanks for taking care of this and all your help! As you can see, Team Smoke (as I call them) are keen. I've sent a note to Team Bison about getting their lead done - we'll see what happens. Have fun in Hinton (?) --Greentina (talk) 04:18, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

I think a 'Help-me'...

on this user's talk page is meant for you or Steven Zhang and is in reference to Kmpriddy's sandbox which appears to be an assignment for Wikipedia:United States Education Program/Courses/Introduction to Digital Literacies (Webster Newbold). In my opinion the draft is very good and almost (but not quite) ready for Main. The following sections need additional sourcing: History, Educational Uses and FCC Rules and Regulations. Also, the FCC Section seems to be an extensive quote of a document, a Wikiquote could possibly work better there. (In case this group is in Steven Zhang's section, I am placing a duplicate post on his talkpage.) --Shearonink (talk) 03:28, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Hey Shearonink. Kmpriddy is indeed "under my wing", so to speak. Thanks for doing a review, I wasn't sure when that course wanted to go "live", but looks like they're getting ready. I might copy over your response when I give some feedback, is that okay with you? That was a good topic choice by that group, lots of sources. I agree that verbatim FCC info is problematic, I might request that they summarize that instead. (I'm working with about 14 student groups this term, and falling a bit behind on feedback, I really appreciate you helping out) Cheers! The Interior (Talk) 03:43, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you for your advice! It's good to know that's not considered an acceptable way of communicating to newcomers. I'm a little nervous to write anything in response just yet, I think I need some time to organize my thoughts and recover. The content about high modernism was on our recommended reading list for the article and now that it has been challenged, I'm not even sure whether or not it should be included. I will give it some thought and talk to Tina about it tomorrow after class.--Heatheralyse (talk) 01:30, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

The Interior to the Rescue!

Thanks for helping re: Heatheralyse's query about the somewhat cranky comment she received on the WAC Bennett Dam article. It was really helpful and constructive! I've left her a note also. (The individual who left the note seemed to misunderstand "ambassadors" and to have missed the banner at the top of the page saying it was part of a class project). On another topic, apparently the BC Ministry of Energy and Mines has discovered the fact the students are working on the Columbia River Treaty! They contacted one of our campus ambassadors by calling the History Department and getting the contact info! Interesting that I wasn't contacted. In any case, I have written this person back and introduced myself. You never know who is out there watching... --Greentina (talk) 03:54, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:United States Education Program/Courses/Adolescent Literature Spring 2012 (Adrianne Wadewitz)

My students are starting to edit their articles - please watch out for them and help them! Thanks! Wadewitz (talk) 16:55, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Adrianne. I've "watchlisted" all of your student's topics - some great books and authors in there. Excited to see their work. Tell your students they can use this talk page to post any editing questions they have, and that they should be bold! Best, The Interior (Talk) 04:29, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
Honestly, I doubt they will post their questions here, even if I tell them to. They are still really getting used to Wikipedia pages. More than likely the questions will appear on the article talk pages. I'm glad that you think the articles look interesting - I love the texts myself and greatly enjoy teaching the course! Wadewitz (talk) 22:54, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

A big NPT update

Hey! Big update on what the developers have been working on, and what is coming up:

coding

  • Fixes for the "moved pages do not show up in Special:NewPages" and "pages created from redirects do not show up in Special:NewPages" bugs have been completed and signed off on. Unfortunately we won't be able to integrate them into the existing version, but they will be worked into the Page Triage interface.
  • Coding has been completed on three elements; the API for displaying metadata about the article in the "list view", the ability to keep the "patrol" button visible if you edit an article before patrolling it, and the automatic removal of deleted pages from the queue. All three are awaiting testing but otherwise complete.

All other elements are either undergoing research, or about to have development started. I appreciate this sounds like we've not got through much work, and truthfully we're a bit disappointed with it as well; we thought we'd be going at a faster pace :(. Unfortunately there seems to be some 24-72 hour bug sweeping the San Francisco office at the moment, and at one time or another we've had several devs out of it. It's kind of messed with workflow.

Stuff to look at

We've got a pair of new mockups to comment on that deal with the filtering mechanism; this is a slightly updated mockup of the list view, and this is what the filtering tab is going to look like. All thoughts, comments and suggestions welcome on the NPT talkpage :). I'd also like to thank the people who came to our last two office hours sessions; the logs will be shortly available here.

I've also just heard that the first functional prototype for enwiki will be deployed mid-April! Really, really stoked to see this happening :). We're finding out if we can stick something up a bit sooner on prototype.wiki or something.

I appreciate there may be questions or suggestions where I've said "I'll find out and get back to you" and then, uh. not ;p. I sincerely apologise for that: things have been a bit hectic at this end over the last few weeks. But if you've got anything I've missed, drop me a line and I'll deal with it! Further questions or issues to the usual address. Thanks, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 17:08, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Applications for free, full access, 1-year accounts from HighBeam Research officially open

The applications for 1000 free accounts is now officially open until April 9th. I have the account codes in my email box and we are ready to go. This week's main goal is promotion. Several editors have already done a great job of getting the word out, but there is still time to make sure people don't miss out on the opportunity. Please tell your Wikipedia friends, WikiProjects, non-English Wikipedias, and anywhere else you think people would benefit from knowing. You can record your progress at WP:HighBeam/Promotion where we're keeping track of all of the notifications. Thanks so much for your help! I'll keep you posted. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 20:46, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Invitation for a big (or little) reveal?

Hello, I just wanted to thank you again for the help you've been giving my class, especially to the teams that are working on the lawn and the Bennett dam. I know this is a busy time of the year, and I know it's also short notice, but if you have time on Thursday to meet my class, that would be great! It runs from 1100-1220. We could have the "big reveal." Regardless, I would like to invite you to lunch with my TAs and campus ambassadors sometime this month - probably in the next few weeks! I have promised to take them to Vij's Rangoli, where you can have anything you want, but we all must have the cricket pizza as an appetizer. This is an environmental history class after all, and eating low on the food chain is a good thing! Would you be interested in coming? The date's not yet been set, so do let me know what weeks are best for you. Thanks --Greentina (talk) 21:31, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Sure, I can come out tomorrow. My cape's at the drycleaners, though. Maybe you can email me the class location, I still sort of know my way around. Rangoli also sounds like a plan, never been one to turn down free food. See you soon, The Interior (Talk) 15:18, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
Great! But I should also have told you that I won't be able to hang out after the class because I have a department meeting right after. Still want to come? If so, do you want to meet at my office and walk over? If so, I am in the Buchanan Tower, 11th floor, room 1124. Come at 1045. Let me know what works (or if it does)? Just in the process of planning lunch - will fill you in tomorrow if we meet. --Greentina (talk) 16:54, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
That works fine, see you at 10:45! The Interior (Talk) 17:21, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

The Tea Leaf - Issue Two

Hi! Welcome to the second edition of The Tea Leaf, the official newsletter of the Teahouse!

  • Teahouse celebrates one month of being open! This first month has drawn a lot of community interest to the Teahouse. Hosts & community members have been working with the project team to improve the project in many ways including creating scripts to make inviting easier, exploring mediation processes for troubling guests, and best practices regarding mentoring for new editors who visit the Teahouse.
Springtime means fresh tea leaves...
  • First month metrics report an average of 30 new editors visiting the Teahouse each week. Approximately 30 new editors participate in the Teahouse each week, by way of asking questions and making guest profiles. An average of six new questions and four new profiles are made each day. We'd love to hear your ideas about how we can spread the word about the Teahouse to more new editors.
  • Teahouse has many regulars. Like any great teahouse, our Teahouse has a 61% return rate of guests, who come back to ask additional questions and to also help answer others' questions. Return guests cite the speedy response rate of hosts and the friendly, easy to understand responses by the hosts and other participants as the main reasons for coming back for another cup o' tea!
  • Early metrics on retention. It's still too early to draw conclusions about the Teahouse's impact on new editor retention, but, early data shows that 38% of new editors who participate at the Teahouse are still actively editing Wikipedia 2-4 weeks later, this is compared with 7% from a control group of uninvited new editors who showed similar first day editing activity. Additional metrics can be found on the Teahouse metrics page.
  • Nine new hosts welcomed to the Teahouse. Nine new hosts have been welcomed to the Teahouse during month one: Chicocvenancio, Cullen328, Hallows AG, Jeffwang, Mono, Tony1, Worm That Turned, Writ Keeper, and Nathan2055. Welcome to the Teahouse gang, folks!
  • Say hello to the new guests at the Teahouse. Take the time to welcome and get to know the latest guests at the Teahouse. Drop off some wikilove to these editors today, as being welcomed by experienced editors is a really nice way to make new editors feel welcome.

You are receiving The Tea Leaf after expressing interest or participating in the Teahouse! To remove yourself from receiving future newsletters, please remove your username here. -- Sarah (talk) 21:37, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Trip out to UBC

Thanks so much for coming! I wish you could have had more time with the students but I'm glad they had a chance to meet with you. SockeyeSam tells me that you spoke to a number of them for quite some time. When I get feedback from them I'll pass on the comments they make about WP. On lunch (eating crickets), I working on an alternative date (a M or F) and will get back to you as soon as I hear from the others. Great to meet in person! --Greentina (talk) 23:28, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

One more thing: I did see the Cronon article - it was widely circulated in my world. I am planning on writing him about what I've done in class since he is also an environmental historian. --Greentina (talk) 23:30, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Dispute resolution survey

Dispute Resolution – Survey Invite

Hello The Interior. I am currently conducting a study on the dispute resolution processes on the English Wikipedia, in the hope that the results will help improve these processes in the future. Whether you have used dispute resolution a little or a lot, now we need to know about your experience. The survey takes around five minutes, and the information you provide will not be shared with third parties other than to assist in analyzing the results of the survey. No personally identifiable information will be released.

Please click HERE to participate.
Many thanks in advance for your comments and thoughts.

You are receiving this invitation because you have had some activity in dispute resolution over the past year. For more information, please see the associated research page. Steven Zhang DR goes to Wikimania! 23:36, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

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