I have a number of reasons. First, I know a current ambassador who seems to like the job. Second, I saw a course listed in a subject that personally interests me, industrial psychology, and I would like to assist with a class such as that one where I can learn more about the subject during the course. Third, I'm somewhat interested in the call for regional ambassador volunteers and it makes sense for me to get experience as an OA before deciding if I want to volunteer for RA.
In three sentences or less, summarize your involvement with Wikimedia projects.
I'm most frequently involved at Featured Picture Candidates and Wikiproject Wikipedia Awards. I've also had heavy involvement in the research side of Wikimedia; see [[1]] and [[2]]. I do copyediting wherever my interests take me, and I sometimes add images to articles.
Please indicate a few articles to which you have made significant content contributions. (e.g. DYK, GA, FA, major revisions/expansions/copyedits).
I don't know if you want to count this is an article, but I suggest that you look at [[3]] to get an idea of how I work in the context of a significant piece of prose. That's my most significant prose contribution to Wikimedia, in coordination with the other authors of that work.
How have you been involved with welcoming and helping new users on Wikipedia?
I'm frequently on IRC and available in the help channel. I'm less proactive in help than some other users like Ocaasi but I do help.
What do you see as the most important ways we could welcome newcomers or help new users become active contributors?
I am looking forward to the introduction of the visual editor. Also see The Wikipedia Adventure which may be a great help. In the meantime, I think that IRC is a wonderful tool.
Have you had major conflicts with other editors? Blocks or bans? Involvement in arbitration? Feel free to offer context, if necessary.
I have had disagreements with other editors, but no blocks or bans. No involvement in arbitration. See Talk:Inside Job (film)#Synopsis is not too detailed where I think that I've had the most significant conflict of my time on Wikipedia. In a place as big as Wikipedia I feel that it's understandable for users to have disagreements but the disagreements should be kept civil.
How often do you edit Wikipedia and check in on ongoing discussions? Will you be available regularly for at least two hours per week, in your role as a mentor?
I'm usually on Wikipedia at least three times a week, and I'm sure that among those three times I'm here more than two hours total, so I think 2 hours per week is a reasonable expectation on average.
What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Wikipedia Ambassador?
Repeating what I said above, I'm somewhat interested in the call for regional ambassador volunteers and it makes sense for me to get experience as an OA before deciding if I want to volunteer for RA.
Support has positive interactions with people, and makes a good contribution to the encyclopedia. oppose However has hardly any experience with creating articles. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:46, 22 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I am not comfortable supporting this application. Online Ambassadors really need quite a bit more on-wiki experience. The contributions record currently only shows 358 edits to article space with 47 edits to article talk pages. There are only 174 edits to user talk pages accounting for welcoming only three editors, while other contributions are primarily barnstars and user warnings. While the candidate states that she has helped in IRC, she acknowledges being "less proactive in help". There is a lack of actual demonstrated experience welcoming or helping new editors on-wiki. This is key to working as an Online Ambassador. Content contributions are minimal with the link to significant work going to the Mind the Gap content on meta amounting to the addition of three bytes. The candidate has failed to indicate the one article created, which left me puzzled, so I reviewed the article. Unfortunately, the Gratitude journal article is a copyright violation, as demonstrated in this report. The area of conflict mentioned reveals a misunderstanding of the consensus policy, which is one of the community's Five Pillars. After reviewing this application and editor's background last night, I am impressed with the involvement with Featured Picture Candidates. That said, I have greater concerns overall with the lack of knowledge or misunderstanding of policies and guidelines which support the community and the Education Program. I chose last night to contact this candidate through email with my concerns and offering help, but was met with challenges and denials. Due to copyright violations, misunderstanding of consensus, lack of significant content editing and article creation, along with lack of demonstrated background and experience welcoming and assisting new editors, I am recommending against supporting this candidate at this time. I have suggested that it would be advantageous to gain more experience in article creation and editing on Wikipedia, thoroughly review policies and guidelines, and develop a regular pattern of assisting new editors, before serving the community and the Education Program as an Online Ambassador. With personal regret, I oppose, but maintain that approval would not be in the best interest of the program or community. Best regards, Cind.amuse (Cindy)16:51, 22 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Cindy, I want to respond so some of your points.
I disagree with your evaluation of my article-space edit count. As Wikipedia:Editcount says, "As edits can vary greatly in size and quality, it is important not to put too much weight into someone's edit count, and to avoid worrying too much about one's own edit count. Edit counts do not necessarily reflect the value of a user's contributions to the Wikipedia project. As the saying goes, "Quality, not quantity"."
The "Mind the Gap" essay on Meta was written almost entirely off-Wiki on Etherpad and then copied to Meta, as the first footnote says. Because it was written off-Wiki, the true edit history of the essay is unavailable. LauraHale and I spent a huge amount of time on the essay off-Wiki before it was moved to Meta.
As I mentioned in my email, I believe that regarding the copyright issue in question, the website copied from Wikipedia and not the other way around. I disagree that someone can simply copy a paragraph from a Wikipedia article to their own website, claim copyright of it, and then Wikipedia would remove the content from the encyclopedia on the assumption that the website's copyright claim is correct. I will discuss this issue further with an administrator regarding the specific article that you mentioned.
1. The information provided at WP:EC is standard practice in interactions with other editors. When considering applications for participants in the Education Program, experience is essential. The biggest complaint that the Wikipedia community has overall is the number of Online Ambassadors that lack even a moderate background in editing and knowledge of policies and guidelines. The community would quickly close any application for any role of leadership with the demonstrated lack of experience. Accepting this application and appointing this editor is a primary example of the rage they are expressing about the program.
2. I have over 20 years professional background in writing and editing. It doesn't equate to experience on Wikipedia. The claim of writing an essay off-wiki and placing it on meta does not equate to content contributions or editing on Wikipedia.
3. While the website has a copyright notice, even the absence of a copyright notice does not mean that a work may be freely used. If in doubt, assume you cannot use it. A lack or misunderstanding of copyright violations is a concern. While Dcoetzee offers an opinion, it is not applicable to policy. The article clearly meets the G12 criteria. Best regards, Cind.amuse (Cindy)12:13, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You didn't understand my explanation. There is clear evidence that the web article in question copied Pine's edits without attribution, not the other way around, as explained by User:Franamax on my talk page - so they are the ones violating copyright, not Pine. I'm aware of Franamax's concerns about Pine copying from another Wikipedia article, and although Pine did this incorrectly, this is a common error that is easily corrected and I believe he will be careful to follow procedure in the future. In general, you have an unclear understanding of a number of important issues related to copyright - you don't seem to acknowledge that reverse copyvio is a possibility; at your recent GA review you tried to claim your article presented mere facts when in fact there is unanimous consensus that it borrowed heavily from the presentation of the source material; and you also misinterpret CSD policy, as G12 is only for blatant copyvios. I suggest you defer to other users in matters related to copyright. Dcoetzee22:19, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have two concerns: one is that the inter-page copying was not attributed. As you say, this is fixed easily enough, but in my mind an OA should already know this stuff - else how can they be of use to even newer editors? Given the occasionally massive copying problems we have seen from EPs in the past, and the sometimes aggressive way in which some OAs have defended their clients against established editors, I would have thought that the baseline knowledge expected from an OA would be well-established by now, especially in the area of copying; of rather more concern to me though is the fact that the original intra-wiki copying was not disclosed up front. I had to track it down by wondering about the curious "et all" phrasing and who might have used it first or most extensively. Similarly with you Dcoetzee, had Pine said "I copied this text from Gratitude and now it is on another website", you would have looked for the earliest occurence in Gratitude and seen right away that it predated the copyright notice on the website. This is either misrepresentation or an unhappy and time-wasting omission, and again, it gives me pause as to who is actually representing Wikipedia in these outreach programs. I suppose maybe my standards are too high... Franamax (talk) 00:51, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for bringing this concern to my attention. I wasn't aware of the rule about internal cites in August but I have since been made aware, and I'd forgotten about this article at the time that I learned of the rule about internal cites. So much time had passed that I'd also forgotten about the internal cite when I was accused of the external copyvio. I have now given credit to the other article. Suggestions for formatting improvement are welcome, since those of us on IRC seem to have multiple opinions about the best way to format the cite. In my defense related to the Online Ambassador application, I last edited this article in August 2011 prior to inserting the internal ref just now, and the current month is February 2012. I have learned much in the nearly 6 months since I last worked on that article. Pinetalk09:10, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Accepting this application and appointing this editor is a primary example of the rage the Wikipedia community is expressing about the program. The Steering Committee and Selection Team has established a criteria for evaluating OA applicants. while I have no qualms with this user's activity level, the applicant does not meet the criteria for content development, or user interaction in helping individual new editors. Best regards, Cind.amuse (Cindy)12:13, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
What do you mean? I wasn't addressing anyone specific, but sharing a comment and concern that others appear to support an OA candidate that does not meet the established criteria for approval. Graeme and Epistemophiliac both support stating that the applicant has "good contributions", but I don't see any, they haven't presented any, and the applicant hasn't presented any. You merely support because you "don't have an issue with Pine". Nothing here indicates that the applicant is qualified.Best regards, Cind.amuse (Cindy)15:47, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
In my opinion, contributions isn't just edit count (For example if one looked at my edit counts, you would miss out on things I do behind the scenes). Even if you look at edits as a way of measuring interaction, I think Points #2-4 seem like valid counterpoints and Pine would be able to accomplish what I think is the #1 objective of any OA: either knowing the ins and outs of the system well enough to guide someone else - or knowing who to go bug if they don't know what to do... As of right now the main "point" against Pine seems to be debunked by Dcoetzee (who is an expert on such things) so why not support him? Epistemophiliac (talk) 23:28, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Pine, are you aware that copying text between Wikipedia pages requires mandatory attribution? You may wish to look at my follow-up comment at Dcoetzee's page. Franamax (talk) 18:38, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I'm just going to point out a few things, if I may.
First, to Pine, the role of OA is rather different to that of CA or RA. The OAs are expected, from what I can see, to be independently capable of resolving student issues from copyvio through to any questions about complex formatting; CAs and RAs deal more with the people and local side of things. I'm not sure that being an OA will at all help you aggregate what being an RA is like; I have no clue myself what exactly they have to do!
Secondly, to Cindy, I think you're being unnecessarily harsh (especially given that you yourself have been involved quite recently, from what I read on Derrick's talk page, in a close paraphrasing debacle). Twenty years of writing experience certainly doesn't count for anything (other than being able to write competently in general), but being involved with the community enough to be able to do analysis on its structure as the meta essay indicates is a completely different story.
I've interacted with Pine extensively on IRC, which may bias me a little. From what I can see, to be fair, he's not got enough established history to be clearly qualified; however, I'd easily have him over some of the current OAs, who had superficially more extensive records than Pine's, but with big black marks over parts of it. I know Pine has a good work ethic and is ready to learn, erring on the side of caution; that makes him a much better candidate than some ambassadors who cannot either communicate clearly or have egos/misconceptions that get in the way of efficient help.
Lastly, I'm curious whether in your opinion I meet these standards you're judging Pine by. I was made an OA right at the very start, so probably wasn't vetted quite as thorougly, but I don't feel that my lack of content 'tribs makes me any less competent a helper—if anything, I don't write content much because I prefer to use my jack-of-all-trades knowledge to help out on IRC and elsewhere. Content is not and should never be a be-all-and-end-all assessment of skill. As for "less proactive in help" being a reason for lack of evidence: hell, I'm less proactive in help than some users, we all are! It's like "having less FAs than X"; doesn't mean you can't write or help. (Incidentally, many of my photographic or textual contributions have been mirrored without attribution; I think it's uncalled for to assume that he is lying about this.)
All in all, though, I'm neutral; while I resent the oppose rationale given, I don't think this is the best role for Pine at this time. sonia♫ 22:07, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sonia, thanks for your comment. I looked at the application for RA, and it doesn't seem to indicate a preference for OA or CA experience prior to volunteering for RA. Since one of my reasons for expressing interest in OA is to see how it goes before thinking further about applying for RA, if there is a consensus here that it would be better for me and the Project to be a CA instead of an OA in preparation for a possible application to RA, I'm certainly open to that feedback. Pinetalk09:17, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral. Pine is a very promising user. He's obviously smart, concerned, values the community, and has a clear track record so far (despite blameless newbie mistakes which everyone makes at some point). My concern is that being an ambassador requires a certain critical mass of experience that Pine does not yet have. There are issues upon issues that come up when working with editors, especially new ones, and it's a great disadvantage to have to look up where to look something up when someone asks you for help, which these users will inevitably do. Pine likes goals, so I'd set a goal of 3000 edits and 1.5 years of active participation. In the meantime, there are many great places to help out, my favorite recommendation being the Wikipedia-en-help channel. There is much to be learned from entering a policy debate, a controversial editing area, reading help documentation, writing help documentation, starting articles from scratch, going through DYK or GA or even FA. I know Pine is trying to get involved, and I want him to put his skills and enthusiasm to great use, it's just a matter of what is the right place at the right time. Right now, I'm leaning towards not the right time for online ambassador, but if one were to make the 'mistake' of appointing him the role prematurely, there are few who would be better to make that mistake with. Ocaasit | c09:52, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Suggestion and request I would like to suggest that I could help with an existing class that's already supported by one or more OAs. I would be in an apprentice role, learning about OA work while helping the class under the direction of the regular OA. This would let me develop some experience in an OA environment while giving additional help to the existing OA. What do people think about my becoming an "apprentice OA"? (I am also discussing with Jami the possibility that I might have an apprenticeship with the current RA in my area, but that's a somewhat separate discussion). Comments would be appreciated. Pinetalk23:59, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Suggestion - given Cindy's failure to understand copyvio/plagiarism/close paragraphing problems, as demonstrated by her failed GA nomination due to these problems, I suggest that you ask in depth questions of applicants to ensure they understand these issues. MathewTownsend (talk) 21:18, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Mathew, I think your suggestion is a good one, but I would also like to suggest that my application isn't the right page for this discussion. This problem has a broader scope than my personal application for OA, and it's also broader than the scope of the US OA program. I have heard unofficially from an SC member that the SC reached a consensus on my application but I'm still waiting for it to be posted here. I do think that your suggestion should be addressed and perhaps Epistemophiliac could suggest a good place to have that conversation. Also, Epistemophiliac, I would appreciate it if you'd give me an update on the status of my application, since my understanding is that the SC reached a consensus but the decision has yet to be posted here and more than two weeks has passed since this application was started. Thanks, Pine(talk)03:15, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
After some off-wiki discussion, I've decided to withdraw my official OA application for the moment. I plan to continue my involvement with outreach projects including education outreach, so you may see me around the talk pages. Pine(talk)04:37, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
