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Increasing community involvement and transparency in ambassador (de)selection processes

The ambassador role represents Wikipedia to the outside world, and hence significant damage can be done to the encyclopedia by incompetent ambassadors. Concerns have been raised about the opaque, obscure and bureaucratic process of appointing and removing ambassadors. Appointments and removals must be given appropriate scrutiny given the nature of the role. Furthermore the Ambassador program, being run by community volunteers, must be accountable to the community as a whole on the community's terms.

Ambassador selection

Three ambassadors were promoted over the Christmas holiday. I can count the number of participants in all three discussions combined (except the candidates) on one hand. This is unacceptable and is likely caused by the obscure venue -- this page is not linked to from any well-trafficked page.

I see two options for fixing this:

  • Using an existing community venue (e.g. WP:RFA) for candidacies. I am open to which venue this shall be.
  • Requiring ambassador candidates to post neutral messages in a number of well-trafficked venues (e.g. WT:RFA, WP:AN, here).

Thoughts? MER-C 03:13, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

This probably came about because the selection process was originally entirely off-wiki. The later on-wiki process was never entirely formulated. I would probably resign if RfA became the place for candidacy; I think the page we have is fine, but it needs to be promoted and linked more. Neutral messages (perhaps a boilerplate could be created) to this page would be good, AN probably good, RfA no. That's a toxic wasteland we don't need here. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 05:42, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
  • My thoughts exactly Ed. RfAs are frightening. I was biting my nails throughout mine, and nothing crazy happened. It has been referred to as a "Chinese water torture," "bear pit," and "hazing session" over the years. The approval process was purposefully light-weight so it did not feel like one to attract people. Turning the selection process into another !voting session at RfA would kill any and all chances of replenishing the OAs with fresh blood. --Guerillero | My Talk 05:52, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
  • First, I think that the selection process can be reworked hand in hand with the OA orientation process above. Perhaps people should be made to go through the orientation process first before they apply for approval. Pine(talk) 07:39, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Second, I think that there should be a clearly defined way for people to be apprentice OAs. Currently there is language about ambassadors in training but I've seen very little else written about it. Pine(talk) 07:39, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Third, regarding venue, I think that the current venue is fine. However, I'm not sure that just anyone should be able to come in and vote. Do you want IPs, novice editors, and non-ambassadors voting? I think that anyone should be allowed to comment but voting should be done on-wiki by the steering committee members. This would eliminate two potential problems at once, first the problem of potentially less qualified people voting, and second the problem of inadequate turnout for votes because SC members would all be required to vote (within a reasonable period of time such as two weeks). Pine(talk)
  • Agree the "apply" page should be more visible and have greater community participation. However, raising the bar by making it an RFA or AN-type procedure would IMO reduce the number of people willing to volunteer their time. Increased oversight of the student projects by experienced Wikipedians is the only way to reduce the amount of problematic content. We need to encourage more regular editors to take part, not make it harder/more intimidating. The Interior (Talk) 15:38, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
  • I must also post a gentle disagreement to the comment on "being run by community volunteers, must be accountable to the community as a whole on the community's terms". I am in agreement with your spirit, no doubt on that; but in reality, its a bit more complex web with the community members and the WMF getting involved together. So its easier said than done. Keep in mind that all community initiatives may not have the "approval" of the community. Indeed, if I were to get approval from the community for every outreach event I have ever conducted/will conduct, I could probably have never conducted/can conduct a lot of events. So lets be real on that; we know how long it takes for any proposal to go through onwiki, so I think we'd rather let our Wikipedians actually write an encyclopedia rather than be involved 24x7 on outreach matters (not that they aren't welcome to do so, of course). If there is something very seriously wrong with how things are going, then it would probably worth all the bureaucratic hassle, but for everyday, run-of-the-mill things, if we can do it more efficiently, we should. Lynch7 16:41, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
  • In thinking about this, I generally agree that the process to select new Ambassadors should be more visible - it would allow more people to have an eye on things to help avoid obvious errors, and would also help let people know that we need OAs in the hope that they may run. I wouldn't like to see an RfA-style process, though, in part because I guess I dissagree with the premise - OAs are only supposed to be experienced Wikipedians who assist some new students during their time on WP, and as such they don't really represent WP much more than any other editor. There is, I guess, some extra authority from having a title and a small role, but it really isn't much - I see it as similar to an enhanced mentorship program, where there is vetting of the mentors, and so I think it might be an error to assume any particular importance to the role (at least when compared to being an Admin, OTRS representative, or Checkuser, all of whom need far more control over who is selected). - Bilby (talk) 01:05, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Ambassador removal

The current ambassador removal process is documented in a murky backwater -- see Special:WhatLinksHere/Wikipedia:Ambassadors/Steering Committee/Ambassador Recall Process: less than 20 pages link to it! -- and is handled by a wholly non-transparent Steering Committee. There is no involvement from the wider community whatsoever. The process is excessively bureaucratic. This is also unacceptable.

Instead, I suggest complaints about ambassador conduct should be handled through normal dispute resolution processes, namely Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct. If a RFC/U ends in consensus that expresses no confidence in an ambassador, (s)he should resign in the same manner if the same were to happen to an administrator. In line with the adminship analogy, ambassadorship can be forcefully removed by ArbCom. Private evidence and appeals can be handled by ArbCom, as usual.

Thoughts? MER-C 03:13, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Again, there's a totally coherent reason for the lack of links – that recall process was more of a draft than anything. We never really got around to drawing up a formal recall process. The Steering Committee is elected, so it's transparent, but perhaps the investigation and vote could be taken on-wiki? I don't agree that the bar for RfC/U should be lowered for a recall process. I would also oppose expanding Arbcom 'power', if you want to call it that, into anywhere on this project, and I think they would feel the same. They don't need more duties heaped on them. The Steering Committee is perfectly suited to handle these situations, just like WikiProject coordinators could remove one of their own if necessary. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 05:42, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
I believe that the Steering Committee is the right body for dealing with this type of issue. Pine(talk) 07:54, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
If we really want to reduce the bureaucracy, then getting processes like RfA and RfCU to work in the Ambassador project is actually taking a step back. I'm all for transparency, but if that means an increase in bureaucracy, sorry, we need to find a better way that's still transparent. Lynch7 09:01, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
I would agree that ambassador recall ought go through "normal" channels were ambassador positions not time sensitive. At my university, for example, terms were 10 weeks long. Giving time for the project to get underway fully, problems with an ambassador might not show until midterm and then a RfC would consume the rest of the term. There needs to be a way to quickly recall and replace ambassadors so that an ambassador's misbehavior or incompetence doesn't torpedo an entire class project. Danger High voltage! 19:43, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
I found MER-C's suggestion to be hypocritical. You believed that the process is "excessively bureaucratic" yet your solution to fix this problem is to ask users to go through RfA process. Isn't that making the process even more bureaucratic? OhanaUnitedTalk page 22:49, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Who is actually on the Ambassadors Steering Committee? It says:

Current members of the selection team are:

So who is that? MathewTownsend (talk) 23:01, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

This is the list --Guerillero | My Talk 01:42, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
What about the above mentioned editors? They're Ambassadors Steering Committee list but not on the list you linked to above? MathewTownsend (talk) 02:03, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
The list that you are linking too is the now defunct selection committee not the steering committee. It says so at the top of the page. --Guerillero | My Talk 02:15, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
If that list is defunct, don't you think you should label it as such? How is anyone supposed to figure this out? It turns out the "recall process" is just a draft and not for real. What's going on? Whose running this thing? MathewTownsend (talk) 02:23, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
Agreed, it's time for this little fiefdom to be brought into line with community standards. There should be a quick, easy removal and replacement process that's at the very least visible to the wider community, and the community should get some input as to what that standard is. What happens when people other than the broader community try to do this is well-documented here; I think that was more than enough. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 04:02, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
Matthew, we haven't exactly had something similar to this happen before, and I'm sorry we aren't entirely prepared for every possible occurrence. The Steering Committee is nominally 'in charge'. The Selection Team was put together when ambassador applications were only taken off-wiki; when we added on-wiki apps, the number of off-wiki apps went to essentially zero. Hence the 'defunct' language. Blade, the snide comments ('fiefdom') are really unnecessary. You've been told already that we are working on the process right now, and you've also been told why there was none in place earlier. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 15:48, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
Blade, isn't that a bit of a false premise? Is "quick, easy removal" of volunteers from positions actually the community standard? Admins, Bureaucrats, WikiProject Coordinators, Featured article delegates, do any of these positions have a process like what you are describing? In my experience, it's the opposite. The Interior (Talk) 19:58, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
I'm aware of the lack of easy removal for those positions, and I'm also aware of the uproar it's generated. Instead of letting that fester here too, why don't we head it off at the pass? The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 00:54, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
Because online ambassadors should be compared to administrators and bureaucrats? Apples to oranges. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 01:41, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Right! Online ambassadors don't need to be familiar with technical issues, like how and when to block an editor, what are the criteria for deleting an article, how to oversight, and other admin tasks. They need to know how to build article content, how to recognize copyvio, plagiarism, copy/paste, close paraphrasing. If they aren't thoroughly familiar with how to evaluate the article content contributions of students, they are unfit for the job. MathewTownsend (talk) 23:48, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Journalist wants some contacts in France

I have just had an enquiry from a French journalist working for OWNI.fr, an online magazine dealing especially with digital topics. "I would like to know more about Wikipedia Class Assignments. When has the program begun ? You say that "We have a handful of historians from the US and France planning on giving it a try next year and are looking for more.", could you help me contact French folks involved ?" I have n=1 French contact-- anyone have some others for her? Rjensen (talk) 14:21, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Rjensen, can you email me with a contact? I can help her (I do the media relations for the program). -- LiAnna Davis (WMF) (talk) 16:16, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Online Ambassadors

I'm just curious, but how are OAs assigned to courses? I'm wrapping up my second USEP course and I have yet to have any contact with an OA and certainly have never had one on my "team" for a course. Is there an actual process for this? MyNameWasTaken (talk) 04:13, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

OAs are not "assigned". Being an OA is a voluntary task, as is everything Wikipedians do in WP. If a course is accepted into the education program, it is listed at Wikipedia:United States Education Program/Courses/Present, and one or more OAs may then choose to associate with that class. There still are not enough active OAs to properly cover every class in the education program. I am working with one class (with 25 21 students, it is all I want to work with for now), which I associated myself with after the professor posted a request on a Wikiproject talk page. OAs are also listed at Wikipedia:Online Ambassadors. You might contact OAs on that list, especially if they do not list classes that they are currently working with, but I would suggest you avoid contacting many at a time, to avoid the appearance of spamming. For general information, I know that OAs (including me) have had the experience of trying to contact instructors about working with a class, and never receiving any response. -- Donald Albury 11:36, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
To make contact with professors, try using email, as they may be quite sporadic on Wikipedia talk pages. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:03, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
Oh, I've tried email, as well, if I could find an email address to use. Some professors never set up a user account, others don't link email to their account. I was finally able to get one professor's email address from a Foundation staffer. Hopefully, that is a thing of the past, and the professor whose class I'm working with now is an active editor. -- Donald Albury 12:53, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Archives of this talk page

Since this talk page is getting awfully long, I suggest that we set the bot to archive threads that are older than 1 month instead of the current 3 months. How do other people feel about that idea? Pine(talk) 08:49, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable. bobrayner (talk) 09:18, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
Agree. -- Donald Albury 10:53, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
Thankyou Ed. Epistemophiliac (talk) 18:59, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

How to make the project more attractive to academics

Again, a thought based on Mike's essay. Let me quote from it: "A professor of physics who spends time improving an article on weak isospin isn't going to get a publication credit that will help his or her career.". I feel this is a major, major issue. Anecdotal evidence I have from talking to others points to this as a major reason they are not involved: it's a cool idea, but it's not worth my time. This is something that I feel WMF should work hard to overcome. For example, now we have to professional association on board, the APS and ASA. Both give out numerous awards, for best books, papers, student papers, community involvement, you name it, and that is usually multiplied within each of them by dozen(s) of sections (subfields, think along the lines: "This years award for Best Paper on Sociology of Leisure goes to..."). Those rewards do not need to have a significant (or any) monetary value, their true worth is in the prestige. They allow an academic to impress his peers at the awards ceremony, impress his peers at his department, and decorate his CV. Last year at the Wikipedia in Higher Education Summit, WMF awarded a number of awards; that was great, but WMF status in the academic community is relatively small. However, we know have some pull with APS and ASA, WMF (and Wikipedia) is no longer a "nobody". I think it would be a great idea if WMF would work with those professional associations in creating their own series of awards, to be awarded not at the Wikipedia niche conference, but like all the others, at the main annual meetings (conferences) of those associations. ASA, for example, has two sections that come to mind as ones that could be approached to include a related award (or a set of) in their award ceremony, the Section for Teaching Sociology and the Section for Information and Communication Technologies. The Student Section could be approached for a some student award. I am sure APS has their equivalents. The cost of such an initiative wouldn't be high, even if the WMF would offer to sponsor them (after all, how much are a few frames with glossy paper worth, really?), but the potential benefits in advertising what we are doing and making it prestigious would be very significant. I don't want to go into too much detail here, but I'll end with a note that there should be at least two awards - one for educational part (having one's students do something), and the other, for knowledge contribution part (doing something oneself), the latter going back to Mike's article and rewarding the mentioned professor of physics for his time improving the weak isopsin article. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me 21:49, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

This is a really interesting idea. sonia♫ 04:44, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
Great idea! Then again, the community might have to bear the burden of educating the profs to the Ways of Wikipedia and correcting their edits. Hope that doesn't happen. ManishEarthTalk • Stalk 07:17, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
I wouldn't expect that to be any significant amount, nothing like the current student intake we can (barely, but still) manage. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me 12:37, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
Hey, Piotr. I think the idea of having some "official" awards via the APS/ASA are really great ideas, but a few issues come to mind. We definitely don't have the WMF staff resources to devote more time/effort to specifically supporting those initiatives right now. Additionally, it seems a bit troubling for WMF to explicitly support a specific discipline over others in this way. However, we can give you a letter of support if you'd like to use your own contacts and influence with these organizations to work out some awards/incentives for teachers who use Wikipedia in the classroom. I think you're right that there are a lot of great opportunities for such a project, but I think it needs to come from an involved volunteer rather than the Foundation. Perhaps another ambassador or professor would be interested in proposing these ideas with you. JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 19:01, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
Glad you like the idea; I'll see if I can interest somebody in the ASA in it. I wish I had more pull, support from a professor or two would really help - I am still a mere grad student. A letter of support would not go amiss, thanks! --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me 20:56, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
speaking as a retired professor, let me suggest is that professors like to give conference talks, and like to get recognition. So combine the two: WMF can give awards to the best papers given at an academic conference, in which papers use/discuss Wikipedia in a significant way. Rjensen (talk) 23:10, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
I suggest bringing this up with RCom and possibly the research-l mailing list participants. You might be able to assemble enough volunteers to do awards based on peer reviews among the participants in the Wikipedia research community. Pine(talk) 01:19, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Bold edits to the welcome page

I boldly made some edits to the Ambassadors welcome page. I added an image, and links to information on regional ambassadors and the Steering Committee. Comments and further improvements welcome. Pine(talk) 23:19, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

  • Hey Pine, thanks for the attention to the Ambassadors welcome page. Being bold is good. We're actually in the process of rewriting, consolidating, and streamlining pages. This specific page is intended to address Ambassadors that work directly with the professors and students, which does not actually include Regional, or even Recruitment Ambassadors, so I've gone ahead and removed the information about Regional Ambassadors. Have you received any feedback on actually serving as a Regional Ambassador yet? I could check with Jami, but she's in meetings today. I've made the recommendation and Chris and I think you would be great in the role. We're hoping it comes through for you, since this is what you truly desire, and you clearly have a heart for the movement and a desire to participate in a greater capacity. In my opinion, you would be a welcome asset to the team. Best regards, Cind.amuse (Cindy) 17:13, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
    • Pine and I have spoken pretty extensively, and he's interested in seeing more of the OA/CA work before coming on as an RA, so he will be working with some people as a bit of an "apprentice". Thanks for following up with that, Cindy! JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 21:33, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
    • Hi Cindy, thanks for your comments. Regarding the regional ambassador stuff, thanks for following up. As Jami said I'm seeing how the CAs/OAs work a bit more, partly because I want to make sure that I'm reasonably competent at ambassador type work before I formally take on a coordinating role as an RA. Regarding the welcome page, I understand your reason for removing the info about regional ambassadors, but how did you feel about the image that I added? I've put a copy below as a reminder. Pine(talk) 08:46, 23 March 2012 (UTC) [[File:WEPhandbook10-edited-2.png|center|250px]]
      • Essentially, the Ambassador Program is one portion of the WEP, which encompasses a global audience, i.e., the WEP is global, while the WAP is only focused on the English Wikipedia. We have attempted to streamline to minimize confusion. Different graphics are used for different functions in accordance with the appropriate audience. Hope that makes sense. Best regards, Cindy(talk to me) 07:31, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia Signpost Education Report

We are always looking for more submissions from ambassadors, brief or long form, at the Wikipedia Signpost Education Desk!

For an example of the types of things we're looking for, see the upcoming Signpost March 26 Education Report, which will "go to the presses" on Monday.--Pharos (talk) 00:16, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia Education Program Metrics and Activities Meeting

I just stumbled across this and thought that others might be interested. If anyone would like to have the regular meeting announcements post to this talk page, I could try to make that happen. Pine(talk) 05:49, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Online Ambassadors: located anywhere in the world?

Regarding the geographical status of the Online Ambassadors -- I assume the "help desk" function can be performed from anywhere in the world. (Just like many help desks for the US market are operated from India). And they can specialize on certain topics. What they do not have to know much about is the intellectual content of the articles: the professors are the experts at that. Rjensen (talk) 00:04, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree with your assumption. And we would have been far better off last September if we had a robust "help desk" for Indian students, staffed by experienced Wikipedians who might have been British, American, Canadian, Australian, Irish and so on, including some experienced Indians. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 01:27, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
Noting, if I may add, that help desks only function when someone is aware that they need assistance. The problem with the IEP and other issues with the education program is that ambassadors need to be proactive in detecting problems, rather than responding. :) Otherwise yes, location for an OA isn't really an issue. - Bilby (talk) 02:26, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
let me generalize to Regional Ambassadors. In my case I have much more in common with history professors across the world than I do with professors-in-any-department who are based in the Midwest: region 8. So I suggest the Regional Ambassadors wear two hats: one is they specialize in a field like history/sociology/library/computer science/ and handle the professors worldwide (give or take language issues), and then (temporarily) they have a secondary hat to take care of profs in their geographical area who lack a specialist. Call them Field Ambassadors, perhaps . Rjensen (talk) 02:37, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
That may be a pretty good idea. The place it breaks down is cross-country – different countries will have different university systems, and (for example) Regional Ambassadors in the US may not be able to effectively deal with professors and systems in the UK. I may be wrong on this, though, so I'd welcome clarification. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 03:02, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
Speaking as a historian who has lectured at universities in a dozen countries, the academic system is remarkably similar and that is not a problem. (They are all based on the model of the European university of 1850.) I would have much less in common with a psychology or computer science professor on my own campus. Rjensen (talk) 04:59, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
I'm based in Australia, but I haven't had any trouble working with US courses. If anything there is a slight advantage, as our teaching periods aren't the same, so my busy periods don't tend to coincide with busy periods in US teaching. That said, the role of the OA is to advise and assist students in working within WP, so I'm not sure how big an issue understanding the regional teaching system is. It might help you understand motivations and pressures, but I though our primary role was from a WP perspective. Perhaps, though, the discussion isn't so much about OAs? - Bilby (talk) 05:11, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
Bilby is right. Any university where students do written class assignments for a professor will qualify, no matter where the university is located. Language however, makes a difference, and the OA should specify what languages they can work with. Rjensen (talk) 05:20, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
Ah, yes, a dozen countries would give you a perspective I don't have. :-) Fair enough then, I think this is a workable idea. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 12:43, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
Speaking as someone who's interested in becoming a regional ambassador, I spend plenty of hours on Wikipedia related stuff already and adding "topic ambassador" to a regional ambassador's list of responsibilities would almost certainly be more than I could handle as a volunteer. I suggest that subject specialty ambassador be a separate role from RA, although one person could volunteer to do both. Also, I think that someone would need to develop a selection process and job description for this new type of ambassador in a way that would coordinate well with the other types of ambassador projects. Pine(talk) 01:26, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
I think that it would be a great idea to have subject specialists. I'm working with a linguistics class right now and have a little trouble understanding what they're even talking about. When they ask me if something would be a good idea for a new article I have no idea because I have no idea what that thing is! Semccraw (talk) 04:52, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps we could have a "Subject Ambassador" (SA) be very similar to an OA or CA except that an SA could work only with classes that are in an area where they already have some knowledge of the subject, while regular OAs and CAs would still be general practitioners who take any type of class but don't usually have specialized knowledge. If SAs were set up like this then we could use a similar selection process to what's used for OAs or CAs, and it would be easy to make SAs fit into the rest of the ambassador system that's already in place. Also, advertising SA positions to active wikiprojects might be a way to recruit new ambassadors who would be SAs. Pine(talk) 09:06, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikimedia Education Cooperative?

What is the relationship between the Ambassadors program and the Wikimedia Education Cooperative? The Cooperative looks like a proposal that has no official standing but I thought that the Steering Committee and others would want to be aware of this if they aren't already. Pine(talk) 05:45, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

  • This is a global proposal of the WMF, which is currently in draft form. At this time, other than a head's up notice for editor's unaware of the Metrics meetings, in my opinion, comment or discussion on a working draft is a bit premature. Best regards, Cindy(talk to me) 09:45, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
It's an effort to bring the Wikipedia Education Program in communion with educational initiatives hosted by chapters around the world. If you have input on it, go ahead and put it on its talk page; I'm sure Frank would be delighted to get input from the ambassador community! Rob SchnautZ (WMF) (talk • contribs) 17:51, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Online Ambassador Orientation- Request for Input

As some of you know, the Wikipedia Education Program in the US and Canada is moving to an online training format, so that we have a better reach with our limited resources to properly train all participants in the Education Program. Based on feedback from many ambassadors, we will be rolling out a mandatory online orientation (that will vary according to the role) for Campus Ambassadors, Online Ambassadors and professors. Each participant will need to complete the training at least once.

We have compiled a lot of material for the professor/Campus Ambassador orientations. However, in light of some recent concerns about the previous lack of a process for preparing OAs, please use the opportunity to suggest content that you believe should be included in the OA training. We have a framework and now realize we need to focus more on some general policies, including copyright laws, but please post below any input you have on the matter.

The orientation is also intended to be comprehensive yet concise, so please keep in mind that not all material will make it to the first draft of the Online Ambassador Orientation that will be available this summer.

Thank you ahead of time for taking time to contribute to this! JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 22:32, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Need-to-Haves

  • Thorough review of copyright violations, including close paraphrasing. JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 22:32, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
    • Make it clear that, for most Western universities, that students may be subject to disciplinary action by their university for copyright and plagiarism problems (in a similar manner to normal assignments). MER-C 12:03, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
      • I think there needs to be an awareness of how to both recognize and avoid plagiarism, and if necessary how to deal with it from the Wikipedian as well as university perspective - it's all well and good to discipline a student for plagiarism, but unlike with traditional university assignments the plagiarized article is public, and remains so after the assignment is over. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:50, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Reliable vs. unreliable sources. Most (all?) Wikipedians that have written an article will know this, but it's worth a quick overview simply because many of the students will not know what a reliable source is. This won't need to be lengthy, maybe a paragraph at most. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 23:48, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
  • I have created a table of contents for the professor orientation and I would suggest that all ambassadors also complete that orientation. Ambassadors can also sign on the signature page after completing all three modules, but under a different section than the signature list for professors, so that we can easily track who's who. Pine(talk) 03:11, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
    • I disagree -- whoever wrote the professor orientation doesn't appear to be familiar with Wikipedia policies at all. The orientation places undue emphasis on the basics of editing instead of community policy and avoiding producing unencyclopedic crap (alluded to below). There is no mention of reliable sourcing. The section on the copyright policy is misleading (close paraphrase?) and feels like an afterthought. And the author thought that "grading students on the sheer amount of material they add to Wikipedia" is a good idea. It should be scrapped and rewritten from scratch. MER-C 12:03, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
      • I suspect that given as it's written for professors, a) it's assumed they have an understanding of things like reliable sourcing which are common to both the academic and Wikipedian communities and b) it's assumed they have no understanding of how to edit. I agree improvements are needed, though. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:50, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
      • MER-C, you're welcome to make edits to that orientation. I made a number of edits to module three and I'm sure that further improvements would be appreciated for all of the modules. Pine(talk) 20:52, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Emphasis on the OR/synth problem. Writing a wikipedia article is fundamentally different from many other things that students are expected to write - students may often be tempted to draw conclusions (or make implications) which go slightly beyond a literal reading of the sources. This is not as bad as the copyvio problem but we should rein that in. bobrayner (talk) 06:08, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Keeping track of users. The new followed users tool may help; suggestions on how often to check on users, where communication should happen (article talk, individual user talks? email?), etc. I think beyond all the Wikipedia-stuff, the people-management sometimes gets a bit tricky. sonia♫ 08:38, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Personally, I think this should be prioritized. There is an expectation that the volunteer editor has to track changes across dozens of articles and talk pages. When the results are mixed in with a regular watchlist, it can be very time-consuming and impractical. A tracking system would increase oversight. Some support from the WMF software people would be good here. The Interior (Talk) 19:35, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
  • An assessment quiz at the end, especially examining the candidate's understanding of copyvio/close paraphrase problems, encyclopedic suitability and reliable sourcing. The quiz may be repeated any number of times, but the candidate can only become an [OC]A if (s)he achieves above a certain mark. The current orientation has a "tick this box if you have read the material" at the end, but there is no guarantee that the content has been learned. MER-C 12:07, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
    • There will definitely be 'knowledge checks' after each module for each orientation! This will be one of the nice new ways of making sure the ambassador/professor actually understands some key principles. Glad some of you agree this is necessary! JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 18:18, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Notability, and how to tell whether students are working on a viable encyclopedic topic. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:50, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
  • So that we don't make unnecessary duplication of effort in writing orientation materials, I think that we could have a single menu of orientation modules for professors, CAs, OAs, and maybe students also, but require only certain modules from that menu for each type of participant. This way we aren't duplicating effort along three separate orientation tracks that might diverge in their development. Pine(talk) 20:58, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Clarification of role and expectation of demeanor - Early interaction with the professor, respect for their assignment guidelines, and a championing attitude toward students. While the assignment may be focused on development of one section or basic information for new articles, the OA should respect the professor's learning objectives and help students achieve them by helping them navigate the WP culture, community, and standards in a friendly way. (e.g., The OA may feel the article needs more on a certain topic, but if that is beyond the scope of the assignment, they should help students by focusing on the content that is there.) Also, interacting with students in the sandbox early on is imperative. Waiting until the students go live with articles to provide feedback does not foster an effective learning process. All interaction with students and faculty alike should be welcoming and friendly as 99% of the time they will be new to the WP community and culture. Customer-service should not be lost just because this is a volunteer position! --Rburdette (talk) 22:21, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Nice-to-Haves

  • This is not necessarily for the ambassador program, but for new users in general. I would like to see a guided tour of Wikipedia which gives stop-off points telling users how to become acquainted with Wikipedia. For example, after a user already knows Wikipedia basics for editing articles, the tour could tell users to go to the NPOV or OR forums and tell them to post a reply, then go to AfC and critique an article, then respond to an RfC and an AfD and then do other things which only take a couple of minutes in various places which regular site users all know about. When people know what kinds of things happen on the site then they will know where they should go to get questions answered, and the only way to know what happens is to participate at least a little. I also think this process would demonstrate the humanity of Wikipedia by making it very clear that some human does everything on the project. New users seem to have a disconnect that the content on Wikipedia actually comes from volunteers who do everything. Blue Rasberry (talk) 22:42, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
@ed17 - Campus ambassadors and online ambassadors often are "ambassadors" before they become Wikipedians. Often the first job in being an ambassador is to make one's first edit. The WMF has the priority of recruiting more non-Wikipedians who need Wikipedia, and not more Wikipedians who need more external content.
@Pine - this game is cool and had never heard about it, and its intent is exactly what I want. If someone wants to put the work into actually gamifying this then that would be great, but I would be happy if 95% of that effort were cut and a non-interactive set of instructions existed to tell people to do the same things in a low-tech way. Thanks for feedback, both of you. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:21, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
I think there should be a template to setup student's talk pages. Often they have nothing there, and when other users post warning templates on their pages they have no idea that it is a student who is confused and trying to do something. Also the campus outreach templates put on the article talk pages often are not sufficiently tied to the course, the student, and the concept of the ambassador program. This confuses people who have never heard of the program. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:24, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Additional suggestions

  • I think that many of the suggestions being listed here would also be appropriate for CA orientation. As there seems to be no standardized CA orientation, perhaps one should be made. Pine(talk) 03:25, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
    • Agree. It would be helpful for CAs to be at least somewhat familiar with Wikipedian culture beyond the simple mechanics of editing, to avoid mixed messages. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:50, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
      • There has been a standardized CA orientation, initially it was on-site for 2 days - right now we are moving to something in a virtual setting in order to keep costs down. If you have suggestions of what topics should be covered on the culture side - please make them. Epistemophiliac (talk) 17:16, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
        • Yep, I did the on-site CA orientation, and while it was great for people who had never edited before, some of the key points above (copyvio and notability in particular) were only briefly covered. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:56, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
          • I did the on-site CA orientation too and though the opportunity to practice public presentation skills seemed useful for some, that emphasis on that and not on other important issues like copyright, having entries/projects broken into small chunks that were built over the term rather than presented as a final project, etc. were lacking. Coverage of these areas would make for a smoother transition for students, faculty, and CAs. Jktanaka (talk) 02:26, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
  • I'll repeat a comment here that I also made above because it's relevant to the talk about CA orientation. "So that we don't make unnecessary duplication of effort in writing orientation materials, I think that we could have a single menu of orientation modules for professors, CAs, OAs, and maybe students also, but require only certain modules from that menu for each type of participant. This way we aren't duplicating effort along three separate orientation tracks that might diverge in their development." Pine(talk) 07:45, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
    • Pine, you should know that the person creating the online modules is doing exactly what you suggested: creating different parts that can piece together to form each orientation. The content is mostly pulled (though can still have additions) for CAs and professors based on other feedback ambassadors have given in the past (you can see the majority of the content on those 'Professor modules' on Outreach. The reason I requested more input for OA orientation is that we've never had any form of OA orientation and see from many discussions that have been going on that it can be very useful. I believe once the modules have been further developed, we will be able to distribute to volunteer ambassadors to participate and make sure the information is correct, useful and relevant. JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 20:02, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
  • I'll repeat what I wrote elsewhere when my opinion was requested by Epistemophiliac. He asked me what I thought needed to be implemented to prevent the past problems with copyvio, plagiarism, copy/paste etc. in the education program, especially in medicine and psychology articles:
  • I suggest that the program solicit the advice of User:SandyGeorgia and User:Moonriddengirl, as they're on the front lines cleaning up the mess. Besides the policy/guideline pages, all online ambassadors should be very familiar with (Wikipedia:Plagiarism, Wikipedia:Copyright violations, Wikipedia:Copy-paste, Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing), there's Let's get serious about plagiarism. Check specifically to insure that online ambassadors are competent in this area.
  • My opinion is that you need to select Online Ambassadors who already know this stuff, as I don't think it is something that can be learned in a few days or weeks by wading through policies and guidelines. It comes from years of experience. This is why you should select online ambassadors who already have solid article building experience. Check their contributions and make sure that most of their edits are in the article namespace. Ideally, they should have many GAs and some FAs, Fls etc.
  • Maybe you need two types of Ambassadors - those that deal primarily with evaluating content, and those that do the friendly, supportive stuff - sending welcome messages and such - it may be different skill sets. You have to be sure that the online ambassadors that deal with content understand and actively engage with students on these issues of copyvio, plagiarism, copy/paste etc. I know that WMF is concentrating on "editor retention", but if the en:wp community continues to be hit hard on NPP, on medical and psychology articles etc., it will harm the community. MathewTownsend (talk) 23:37, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
I don't see the point of two kinds of Online Ambassadors. It is hard enough finding experienced editors to serve as ambassadors to cover the classes in the program. In fact, the number of classes in the current term was cut back from the last term because there are not enough qualified Online Ambassadors to accommodate all the professors who want to join the education program. The point of putting welcome messages on the students talk pages is to establish a relationship with each student, and let them know that an ambassador is available to help. It would be confusing to have welcome messages coming from one ambassador, telling the student to contact another ambassador for help. There has always been a requirement in the US/North America education program that Online Ambassadors be experienced editors. (I cannot speak to how ambassadors were selected in the India education program.) Online Ambassadors certainly should be alert to copy vios and plagiarism from the students they are helping, and that should be emphasized to them. However, my impression is that most of the concern about copy vios and plagiarism stems from the India education program. How much of a problem has there been in the North America education program? There is also the factor that professors are having their students edit Wikipedia whether or not they are accepted into the education program. I received a request a couple of months ago to mentor a class that was not part of the education program (it was in Singapore). I declined, as I am working as the sole Online Ambassador with a class of 25 students in the education program. We can do what it takes to make the education program work, or we can watch as more instructors have their students edit Wikipedia with no guidance from an experienced editor, or guidance from volunteer "ambassadors" who do not have sufficient experience. -- Donald Albury 00:36, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
  • I'd like to write a section on my userspace called "How NOT to write a Wikipedia article" - been thinking about it for some time now. It would also help to coordinate users who may volunteer to resolve backlogs or fill in for professors who they are not directly enlisted for. In one example dozens of new editors need to submit articles and this would facilitate the response for potential review. ~AH1 (discuss!) 23:54, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

CV/CP

Split from above discussion. Nikkimaria (talk) 18:45, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Two kinds of ambassadors may not be the right solution. But there is ample evidence that the North American program had severe problems with copvio, plagiarism, copypaste, especially in particular courses during the Fall semester. A good example are those of User:MTHarden's class in psychology because the online ambassadors did not engage with the students and the class produced vast amounts of copyvio, plagiarism, copypaste. No where in the "application" for online ambassardors are these issues covered, and the online ambassadors for that course were uninformed. At least one of the members of the "Online Ambassadors Selection Committee" is misinformed about these issues and could not get an article through good article review, despite two tries, because of copyvio/ plagiarism etc. issues (and POV). If online ambassadors continue to lack knowledge in these areas, it will have severe consequences for en:wp. MathewTownsend (talk) 01:13, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
Ah, yes, the class with more than 180 students and only three OAs. I thought that was going to be trouble and I stayed away from it. When I joined the ambassador program, each OA was expected to mentor a few (typically about 3 or 4) students. Last fall we were asked to sign up for a class rather than individual students, with the expectation that each OA would work with about 15 FTE (i.e., the number of students that an OA worked with divided by the number of OAs working with that group of students). The OAs who signed up for Harden's class were also working with other classes, and were spread much too thin, but they were valiantly trying to help as many students as possible. I will have to let those OAs relate their own experiences with the class. I will also note that the instructor for that class, Harden, has had an account for more than four years, and should therefore be familiar with WP policies.
As to the alleged problem with the Steering Committee member too closing paraphrasing, whether a paraphrase is too close to the original is always a matter of judgement. There will always be cases where editors legitimately disagree about whether a paraphrase is too close (and I will note in the case at hand that only one GA reviewer raised the paraphrasing issue, previous reviewers had not mentioned it). In the end, whether a paraphrase is too close to the original is a matter to be decided by legal counsel (and we know that the Foundation legal staff will not do so) or by consensus of experienced Wikipedians. Unless an editor shows a pattern of repeatedly creating paraphrases that most experienced Wikipedians regard as being too close to the original, there are no grounds for sanctioning that editor. -- Donald Albury 10:12, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
You are mistaken. Legal counsel is not involved in the evaluation of articles on wikipedia and not necessary for a finding of close paraphrasing and plagiarism (or copyvio) in wikipedia articles, so that the article must be cleaned up or deleted. The "alleged problem with the with the Steering Committee member too closing paraphrasing", copyvio and plagiarism, as well as copy/paste was not just a matter of one opinion over another. The Online Ambassador in question called in second opinions, including one that Moonriddengirl, the copyvio expert, recommended to evaluate the problems. All agreed that there were these problems in the article. If the Online Ambassador did not see that, there is something wrong. The Online Ambassador never admitted her errors, rather attacking me personally instead of fixing the article which I had put on hold.
She submitted the same article three weeks latter to another good article review, and the article was instantly failed (no hold), the reviewer finding "There appear to be multiple instances of very close paraphrasing", giving examples of this and of unsourced and inaccurate material, OR and POV - too many to justify putting the article on hold. This Online Ambassador has little article building or article reviewing experience, looking at her contributions. Her online activity is mostly speedy deletion of articles, and a lesser amount of welcome templates.
I am merely suggesting that Online Ambassadors have the skill set to provide the required help to students. Is it your belief that these skills are not necessary in on Online Ambassador who interacts with students in the area of article building?
This Online Ambassador is also on the "Online Ambassador Selection Committee". Is this good? MathewTownsend (talk) 13:28, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Mathew, enough of this. The only one going around and attacking anyone is you. I never asked for second opinions on the article. I suggested that you request a second opinion, if you were unable to separate your animosity toward the Education Program from the review of the article. You were told by your adoption program mentor to contact Moonriddengirl. Instead, you contacted her through her WMF account to which she stated that she could not offer help. She suggested that you contact Derrick. You did not do so, so I contacted him on your behalf. Upon receiving further guidance from Worm (your mentor) and Derrick, I requested that the article be placed on hold so that I could address the close paraphrasing. Rather than place on hold, you immediately failed the article. I didn't fault you for that and continued to edit to remove any areas of question. At the same time, you initiated a vicious campaign against me and the Education Program. As far as the second review, there was no OR or POV. All information in this regard was sourced and explained. Nikki arrived a bit sooner than I expected. I was in the midst of expanding the article and was planning to remove the GAN, but there was an edit conflict, so I let her finish. Half of a sentence was identified as close paraphrasing or reflective of the sourced content. The prose flag was not entirely unsurprising, since I write in a much more formal tone. (Technical writing will do that to you.) Bare URLs were due to not running reflinks while she was reviewing. The article went through extensive editing after your review to address and correct close paraphrasing. I do not lack an understanding of close paraphrasing or copyright violations from a legal standpoint, but through this experience, it is clear that my understanding of the terms in relation to Wikipedia needs fine tuning. That said, I have never established a pattern of close paraphrasing or copyright violations. By the way, I have quite a bit of article building experience and zero speedy deletions. I would much rather build or establish notability for an article, if possible, than see a possibly notable article deleted. And as an Online Ambassador and Wikipedian, I would most certainly hope that I would have a significant amount of experience welcoming new editors. Welcoming editors is a vital part of the program. Understand that hundreds, if not thousands of GANs have failed due to close paraphrasing, not an excuse but an understanding of facts. Different people have varying degrees of what is acceptable or not. The line is definitely blurred. What is not acceptable to one may be perfectly acceptable to another. Failed GANs and close paraphrasing does not equate to incorrectly performing my duties as an Ambassador. Mathew, the community, the Steering Committee, the WMF, and I have heard and responded to your complaints. As far as SandyGeorgia's accusations, I have kept quiet until yesterday. The accusations that she made about my involvement with Mitch Harden's class did not accurately reflect the truth, but a misunderstanding of my involvement and the Education Program overall. In fall 2011, I worked with over 300 students. We were extremely understaffed and overworked. We simply do not have the number of OAs available to function as a second instructor to the class or as individual tutors for hundreds of students. In situations like this, the best response is to serve as a source for assistance and answers when approached. I have never been in charge of any "classes that gave Sandy the worst headaches ever," (or something like that). The other links you have provided to discredit my work were additionally based on the misunderstandings that others had of the Education Program. I have never incorrectly performed my duties as an Ambassador. Mathew, I have attempted to communicate with you directly, which you have chosen to ignore. You have labelled my appreciation for and acknowledgment of your work, along with my offer of apologies where there was miscommunication or errors as a "rant". My previous attempts to communicate with you were never rants, but sincere attempts to bring resolution to the issues you have brought forward. (That said, my communication here in this forum probably would qualify as a rant.) Best regards, Cind.amuse (Cindy) 16:17, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Yes, I consulted Worm and he was clear that your article certainly was close paraphrasing and probably plagiarism and advised me to fail the article. I gave you another chance by asking you if you wanted to consult others, since you were so adamant that you were right.[1] So I placed your article on hold.[2] However, after Worm weighed in on the review page with additional concerns, along with Dcoetzee who gave numerous examples and tried to reason with you, and Franamax questioned your understanding of copyvio, that I realized how serious the problems were, as I had only evaluated the lede which was completely close paraphrased/plagiarised. Since you continued to argue, quoting court cases and such, I saw it was useless and failed the article the next day. Please consult Talk:Douglas W. Owsley for the record. It was the next good article review, done by an independent reviewer, that failed the article for close paraphrasing, OR, unsourced material, POV etc. without putting it on hold. See Talk:Douglas W. Owsley/GA2
I remind you that I asked a question about the article starting out new at 55,000 bytes before I agreed to review the article.[3] If you were going to get upset about my question, the time would have been then, rather than accusing me of bad faith for asking that question after I failed the article.
I also remind you that after I expressed concern about your role on the "Online Ambassadors Selection Committee", Dcoetzee did also.[4] He also questioned your judgment regarding copyvio at another point.[5] Rather than repeating attacks against me, I urge you to understand the copyvio, close paraphrasing, copy/paste, plagiarism, POV, OR and other issues involved so you can get your article passed as a Good article. Best wishes, MathewTownsend (talk) 17:21, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
  • You are correct, I should have questioned your approach with the initial question in the beginning. I was puzzled with the indirect question, which seemed much like an accusation at the time and an odd way to start a review, but I blew it off with a joke. I should have asked for clarification, rather than revisiting it in hindsight. For that, I apologize. Yes, I agreed with Worm's assessment. Yet, while there was close paraphrasing, there was no copyright violations or plagiarism. While the terms are often confused, they are not the same as close paraphrasing and certainly nothing was intentional. Franamax asked what I meant when I wrote "no copyrights," and I simply clarified that I meant that I corrected the above indicated sentence. (It was already attributed.) She didn't question my understanding of copyvio, but required clarification of my statement "no copyrights," which was entirely feasible for her to ask. Derrick gave some input which was very helpful and to which I agreed, rather than argued. The thing I appreciated about Derrick was his ability to provide solutions and examples to what he was saying, rather than simply state that it was all wrong. In response to his feedback, I requested the hold. I guess where you see arguments, I see a discussion, clarification, and an opportunity to learn. I requested clarification from Derrick on the following notation: He stated that the sentence "In 2003, author Jeff Benedict wrote No Bone Unturned: Inside the World of a Top Forensic Scientist and His Work on America's Most Notorious Crimes and Disasters, which shared indepth background and details of Owsley's life and career." was a close paraphrase of "A biography of Owsley, No Bone Unturned: Inside the World of a Top Forensic Scientist and His Work on America's Most Notorious Crimes and Disasters, was published by Jeff Benedict in 2003," when the only information duplicated was the name of the book, the year of publication, and the name of the author. Derrick never responded to my request for clarification. I have appreciated the input by Worm, Derrick, and Franamax. I also appreciated your work, repeatedly stating as such, but you have continued to berate me and claim that statements I have made even thanking you have merely been attacks. Have you taken these statements as sarcasm? My appreciation expressed has been sincere. I think it would benefit the discussion for you to revisit the dialogue attempted at my talk page to which you ignored. Again, I understand copyright violations and close paraphrasing from a legal standpoint, however, the only "legal" information that I brought to your attention was the information from WP:PARAPHRASE. These were not my words, but those deemed important by the WP community. I have never made a copy/paste or intentionally included POV or OR in any articles. There is none in the Owsley article. There were areas in the article where Nikki was uncertain and due to other articles remaining on hold for way too long, the GA reviewers had decided to refrain from putting articles on hold when the length needed to resolve issues could not be easily determined. She opted to quickly fail the article without discussion. I don't fault her for that at all, because she did what she was told to do and communicated her intentions appropriately. I have appreciated and continue to appreciate her help. She's recommended including more personal background about the subject that I was earlier told was unnecessary. I think the addition has greatly enhanced the article. I have also made several other changes to expand the article overall. I'm pleased with how it is continuing to evolve. I've never accused you of bad faith for failing the article. I took offense at the manner of communication and the attempt to influence how the article could be made "perfect", in accordance with how you would have written the article. Reviewers should aim to review and advise on content and form, rather than to impose their preferences and outright revise content void of discussion. This is not said to point blame or attack, but attempt to open dialogue and let you know where I'm coming from. While some of your edits were brilliant, I found others quite puzzling. (I kept the brilliant ones.) The issue with Pine was in accordance with guidelines for copyright violations... to bring it up when in doubt or uncertain. The information in the article was identical to the content on the website for which the website owner claims authorship and copyright. When I initially approached Pine, she never offered a credible reason for the duplication outside of claims that the website stole her article. The website owner claimed that Pine stole her article. I brought the information up to the OA application board to which others identified credible rationale for reverse infringement. This is how the process works. It's a collaborative discussion and I agreed with the findings. While I did not find that Pine met the selection criteria for OA, I have recommended her to the SC and WMF to serve as a Regional Ambassador, which I fully support. I also support any input you may wish to provide the Steering Committee and Ambassador Program in the development of training materials pertaining to copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing for review by Ambassadors that you believe may benefit the program. I am aware that User:Epistemophiliac approached you about this possibility. I would encourage and welcome your support in this area. Best regards, Cind.amuse (Cindy) 21:50, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Walls of text like the above are TLTR and not an effective way to communicate. Please just read Let's get serious about plagiarism, especially the section called "Spotting plagiarism". If you're going to be an Online Ambassador, then you'd better learn to spot these things like Rapid maturation. If you're overly sensitive about asking pertinent questions (or being asked them), then you're in the wrong job. MathewTownsend (talk) 22:06, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

  • Sorry, guys. I tried, but clearly attempts to communicate with Mathew are futile. Hey Mathew, the problem here is that you talk, but fail to listen. I also think you're looking for WP:TLDR. ;) Best regards, Cind.amuse (Cindy) 22:58, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
Cindy, you have put up 10,000 bytes of wordage in your two posts. No paragraphs. That's not communication! MathewTownsend (talk) 23:05, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Not to jump in on this delightful argument you two are having, but...no, I take that back. I am hereby jumping in on this delightful argument you two are having to say: Cut it out. You're both obviously unhappy with each other, you're both convinced you're right, and this is not the place to be having a free-for-all mudslinging match. Use dispute resolution. Use the formal case MathewTownsend appears to have filed. Heck, hire out a paintball course and shoot each other black-and-blue if you'd like. Just stop doing this here, or even better, stop doing it at all. It's disruptive to the actual business of this page, which doesn't exist to settle personal disputes between users. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 23:36, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

  • Hey Fluff, sorry about the public display here. I understand and sympathize with your frustration. I opted to stay out of the public bickering for weeks. I'm not convinced I'm right. I learn something new everyday. I have shortcomings just like the next person. I'm not shy to admit when I'm wrong. And when I'm wronged, I generally believe truth will rule in the end. It was recently suggested that I attempt to engage with Mathew to work toward constructive conversation, leading to productive resolution, but he failed to respond, choosing to continue complaining in public places. I've admitted my faults, apologized for miscommunication and misunderstandings, acknowledged Mathew's gifts, and encouraged him in his work. He took it all as attacks. It was recommended due to his desire for transparency, that I respond in a public forum. Thus, the attempt made here. Since further attempts have clearly failed to bear fruit, I will not post here regarding this issue again. Please accept my apologies for adding to the frustration. (I do like the paintball idea though.) Best regards, Cind.amuse (Cindy) 16:10, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
Well, Cindy is presumably responding to my formal complaint that I filed through the "draft" recall process, referred to below as a murky backwater. The other two editors who have complained about her have refused to answer her. I am the only one responding. I would like to hear from someone else besides Cindy, although I realize she is on the committee that is "discussing" my formal complaint. Because the process isn't transparent, I have no way of knowing, other that Cindy's outburst, what is going on. MathewTownsend (talk) 23:55, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
I am disgusted with this feuding and petty personal attacks by MathewTownsend -- he makes the same point dozens of times over and over, and is degrading the quality of this forum. He does not appear to have the personality and respect for colleagues required to work with students or professors, so I wish he would just go away. Rjensen (talk) 00:13, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Prerequisites, we need them

No reputable college would have a Journalism class without requiring prerequisites, probably basic English courses, right? So why do we have ostensibly graduate level students, (both the Indian students from last year and some American students from this year) who are going for a Master's degree, getting dumped into a situation where they're trying to bring Wikipedia articles up to a higher standard without first checking these students for basic prerequisites?
Time and again, in other people's Ambassador classes as well as my own, I've seen students who later appear to not know what they're doing and the students won't ask for help. We're not psychic and we're not there in person. We don't know why a person isn't contributing, whether they're busy in real life, whether they don't care about the class, whether they're having trouble, unless they speak up, especially when we point blank invite them to ask questions.
I think the only solution is to do what so many college programs are doing -- to require basic assessments before the program can be entered. If the student doesn't score well enough then they are respectfully invited to go learn the foundational skills that will be required to be successful in the class before they waste time/money on the class itself.
These people are floundering. Since they obviously don't already know how to edit and write Wikipedia articles (or they would already be Wikipedia editors), they need prerequisite classes. The assessments should cover basic English and basic Wikipedia editing (how to click Bold and Italics on the edit bar and how to click the Advanced label to get section headers and lists). These people aren't asking questions, even when prompted, and if they won't do that and they don't meet the basic prerequisites, then we're not able to really help them and they likely won't succeed. Banaticus (talk) 07:55, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. I found attempting to deal with such systemic non-communication quite frustrating, to the point I quit trying to do this. Perhaps simply creating a Wikipedia account and making 100 constructive edits should be required. User:Fred Bauder Talk 10:03, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
The problem is that we're not offering a Wikipedia class. What we're offering is a place to handle some of the assessment requirements for an existing class. Presumably that class has its own entry requirements, and we can't reasonably add more barriers to entry, as once a student is enrolled in a class, that student must be provided with equal access to all expected assessment requirements.
If, on the other hand, you wish to argue that the course perquisites need to be aligned with Wikipedia's requirements, and if we are willing to deny ego ahead on their own.ntry to courses that don't (for example, perhaps we will argue that Wikipedia editing must be a second or third year task, not a first year one), then I think that may be easier to implement. Alternatively, I've previously suggested (and started developing) a course covering basic Wikipedia editing and policy, but while doing such a course could be a necessary requirement, it would be difficult to make passing it one. - Bilby (talk) 11:30, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
On one hand, we have been recruiting classes for the program, and if we do require such prerequisites, we might reduce some of the problems we've seen by restricting recruitment to classes with students that are reasonably well prepared. On the other hand, professors are using Wikipedia in courses anyway, and if we deny them access to the Education Program they will likely just go ahead on their own. We cannot stop professors/instructors from assigning work in Wikipedia even if the students are not prepared for it. We can try to help them, however. -- Donald Albury 13:53, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
A proper course will have intro-level assignments for students, see for example Wikipedia:School_and_university_projects/User:Piotrus/Fall_2011. I don't think we can however force the teachers to do what's good for them; some will just ignore our advice. Ditto for ambassadors, unfortunately (again, the issue of campus ambassadors who have very little experience editing - how they can help if they are newbies themselves?). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me 15:15, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Online Ambassador Check-In on IRC

Ambassadors, I'd like to facilitate a check-in with Online Ambassadors (or any interested Ambassadors can attend) in IRC (wikipedia-en-ambassadors) on this Tuesday, April 3rd from 1-2PM PST. This will be an opportunity to discuss OA orientation needs as well as how we can continue to support students this semester. I'm open to having another check-in at a time that works for people. If that time doesn't work for you but you'd like to contribute to this conversation, please fill out the Doodle form with your availability. Thanks! JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 19:04, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

The green link opens in your browser, and the blue link uses your default IRC client: #wikipedia-en-ambassadors connect Rob SchnautZ (WMF) (talk • contribs) 18:28, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
Thanks to everyone who attended this! I'll gather some notes from the IRC transcript and post them. I thought this was super helpful and collaborative. JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 19:35, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Online Ambassador Recruitment Team

Hi, all. After meeting with the Steering Committee last night, we've decided to get the ball rolling on recruiting Online Ambassadors for the coming semester. Since the process hasn't been extremely clear in the past, we are creating an informal group of volunteers (let's call it the Online Ambassador Recruitment Team) to collaborate about outreach and then implement those ideas. Please see the preliminary collaboration page to contribute ideas, indicate interest in participating, and/or actively begin recruiting for next semester. Thank you! JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 21:21, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Sandbox template

I'm seeing a bit of confusion arising from the use of {{my sandbox}} on student user pages. The way that template is set up is that it links to the sandbox of whoever clicks it. This makes it impossible for other students and the prof to review draft material in the sandbox, which is part of the process in two of my classes. Maybe this should be noted in orientation materials, and profs/CAs should be aware when instructing students how to set up their userspace. The Interior (Talk) 18:35, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

"My sandbox" looks like it's a new development that cropped up in the last few weeks. I don't think our campus ambassadors were warned about it, but it would be a good idea for us to inform them now so they can keep their students and professors on track. Rob SchnautZ (WMF) (talk • contribs) 19:32, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
I specifically ask my students to use a traditional [[Wikilink]] rather than this template for this reason. MyNameWasTaken (talk) 04:08, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps each class should have its own private space for getting started, so students, prof & ambassadors can critique progress before getting tossed into the deep pool. Rjensen (talk) 11:57, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Be Counted in the Online Ambassador Census!

Please check in at the Great Online Ambassador Census of 2012, an effort to document the continued participation of Wikipedia Online Ambassadors in the current semester. Let us know if you are assisting any courses (or not!), and also the subjects you would most like to help with. This is all part of the larger WikiProject Academical Village initiative.--Pharos (talk) 10:40, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Education peer review launches!

We are now starting a process of 'Educational peer review' for select wiki-courses in the ambassador program:

Please review a course today!

To do so, just add a paragraph or two on the talk page giving your general assessment of the wiki-course so far:

And feel free to add the {{edu review}} template to whatever other courses you feel might benefit from reviews, including your own :)--Pharos (talk) 15:37, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I need an ambassador!

I could do with some help regarding a thread that started at WP:AN but is mostly being developed at User talk:Sitush#my Distance Learning edit. Can anyone assist, please? - Sitush (talk) 20:46, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Looks like this student is in the U.K.; you'll need to go through user:MartinPoulter with Wikimedia U.K. They're working on launching the U.K. Education Program in the near future. Rob SchnautZ (WMF) (talk • contribs) 18:19, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
Comment retracted because I clearly misread the statement "I'm in the UK!" as having been the student.
Oops, that would be an American class. Anyway, the WEP isn't the only option for courses to contribute to Wikipedia; it's only a guided program that offers various resources to make sure the course outcome is of the best quality possible. Our campus ambassadors generally only support WEP courses, but the online ambassadors have been known to support courses outside the program. Any online ambassadors willing to help out with this course? Rob SchnautZ (WMF) (talk • contribs) 18:27, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
Having semi'd two of the articles for a short period, it is clear that the class has moved on to, for example E-learning. One contributor to that today is in fact the person who was engaged in the thread on my talk page. - Sitush (talk) 21:22, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

The future of our program

Ambassadors,

The United States and Canada Education Programs are at a turning point.

When we started the U.S. program as the Public Policy Initiative pilot in 2010, we had no idea if it would work. But it succeeded, so much that we've had to turn away interested professors because we didn't have enough Ambassador resources to support the demand. It's a testament to the work you've done over the last two years that the program has grown this much.

Given the enormous interest in the program, we need to start thinking about its future. While the Wikimedia Foundation is fully committed to the long-term success of the program, we believe that the Education Program should be led by our volunteers who have made this program successful: the Wikipedians and the academics.

We would like to form a new Working Group body, made up of 7 Wikipedians, 7 academics, and 2 Wikimedia Foundation staff, who will guide the formation of a new "Education Program Structure" to take over the program beginning in May 2013. The details surrounding this structure will be up to the Working Group to decide at a Kick-Off Meeting in July 2012.

That's where you come in; we need volunteer Wikipedians and academics to be part of the Working Group. If you want to help shape the future of Wikipedia's use in higher education in the United States and Canada, please join us.

More information about how to apply.

We encourage you to start thinking about what the future could hold for the United States and Canada Education Programs, and join the Working Group to make this happen.

Frank Schulenburg, Wikipedia Education Program Director
Annie Lin, Wikipedia Education Program Manager
Jami Mathewson, U.S./Canada Program Associate, JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 23:24, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia Education Program Metrics and Activities Meeting Reminder - April 2012

Anyone who's interested can take a look at outreach:Wikipedia Education Program Metrics and Activities Meeting. The next meeting is April 23. You can also add your name to the list here to get meeting announcements in the future. meta:Global message delivery/Targets/Wikipedia Education Program meeting. Pine(talk) 09:58, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

DYKs and students

Fit of cranky that I have expressed at Wikipedia talk:United_States_Education_Program/Courses/Personality_(William_Fleeson)/Articles but I think I will go into more detail with here, because this is a huge problem.

It is my belief that if an instructor wants to do WP:DYK with students, the following conditions should be met:

  1. An ambassador should be assigned who has extensive experience with WP:DYK both as a nominator and as a reviewer.
  2. Any class wanting to do WP:DYK must first require students review one to two DYKs before nominating their own. This will teach the students what the criteria for WP:DYK are so that students are intimately familiar with what they are doing. Their DYK reviews should then be checked by their campus ambassador to make sure they checked an article against all the criteria at DYK. Only after they have reviewed an article their ambassador has signed off on should they be allowed to NOMINATE their own article.
  3. All articles students will nominate MUST be checked and verified by their ambassador BEFORE they are nominated.
  4. The ambassador is paid the local rate for a teaching/graduate assistant during the DYK period.

I can't realistically see the personality class getting more than one DYK through. One of the articles would have required expanding the article by 16,000 words. It has added a large number of DYKs that just were NOT ready and in some cases will never be ready to the pile. These criteria will likely discourage professors from doing DYKs because this isn't the point of the class. If they do not feel like learning how to assess articles should be part of the class, DYKs should not be included because it is more than creating content and creates undue burden on unpaid volunteers, ambassadors may not have the relevant experience with DYKs to guide them through, etc. Better for them to improve content then create a mess trying to get on the main page. --LauraHale (talk) 03:15, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

My POV (non-expert, as a somewhat inactive ambassador and user with only a few DYKs, and just one under the new system): basically, there is absolutely no way that a class which intends to use Wikipedia as a side-project (i.e. the subject of the course is not expressly "editing Wikipedia") should be allowed to have DYK for all students as a goal. That quality isn't going to be achieved. In the DYK of three years ago, maybe; today's system, not at all. If a couple of students reach a point where the ambassador feels comfortable suggesting that as a bonus to strive towards or try, sure; but the responsibility for this is on the CA/OA in question and it should not be required. An entire class doing it at a certain deadline is bad for DYK, if not bad for morale on the student side of things. sonia (talk) 03:43, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I know this might be unpopular to say, but expecting students to get through any community-driven process (whether it's DYK, RFA, Featured Articles, etc) as a part of the course is probably going to end in tears. Perfectly good candidates might get disqualified on a technicality or because the reviewer is having a bad day, or candidates that aren't quite there might sail through because the reviewer has a lapse of concentration. Many of our processes are highly arcane and fulfilling the sometimes arbitary criteria of a process like DYK might not actually have that much bearing on the academic outcomes that a course coordinator has in mind. Students should be encouraged to consider nominating their articles after careful examination of the criteria to make sure that they do meet them, but it should not be mandatory or even "highly recommended". Lankiveil (speak to me) 03:45, 15 April 2012 (UTC).
The reason I proposed paying the ambassador is because a DYK review requires a lot of work. It takes five to ten minutes to do an easy DYK review. It can take me a half hour to do a long and complicated DYK review. (I think I spent about an hour to eighty minutes on one, though it had 10 articles in the hook.) This requires a lot of work for the ambassador... and if ambassador is not doing it, it falls on volunteers so it won't be done in a timely manner. Beyond that, unless the ambassador has vetted it, this will be painful as the student may not realise they will be expected to watch the page and ideally respond in 48 hours. If the article is complete crap, which the case of the article requiring expansion to 16,000 words might be an example, it is a deliberate situation where the student is being set up to fail either by the course instructor OR the ambassador... and the rest of the community has to take responsibility for it. DYKs should 100% absolutely be out of this programme unless serious changes are made to the backend. --LauraHale (talk) 03:51, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure that paying an ambassador to review a classworth of DYKs will meet with much positivity from the community. sonia (talk) 04:04, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
I think any expectation of a good job being done on the part of volunteer contributors dealing with a classroom full of students (and an instructor being paid to teach the course), especially when it comes to knowing how to navigate various parts of archane policy is a bit unreasonable. If campus ambassadors were viewed as "teaching assistants" or "graduate assistants" in the class, it might make things easier... WMF shouldn't be paying for this, but the university in question. --LauraHale (talk) 04:12, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
I searched through the archives and was surprised that this hadn't come up before. LauraHale raises some valid concerns from the perspective of a DYK reviewer. While I can see that DYK is a great carrot to offer, the standards expected there can be beyond the capability of many newcomers to the project (though I'm sure this would vary considerably by class/student/subject). Maybe this is just a matter of toning down the DYK uptalking at the beginning of the course or setting down some (more?) guidelines surrounding whether and how DYKs can be incorporated into a syllabus/lesson plan. Points 1 and 3 from above seem workable, but I don't see why student contributors should have an extra quid pro quo requirement that other new users don't, especially if they are receiving guidance from ambassadors. Paying ambassadors also strikes me as inadvisable, regardless of where the money comes from. Gobōnobo + c 05:57, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
While the QPQ is not a requirement for new users, most users involved in the process of creating new articles tend to have some one guiding them and the first nomination or two related to them are often done with the help of another user. Most of these users also READ the guidelines and are often motivated to respond. In the case of the class in question, none of them appeared to have any familiarity with the WP:DYK rules. The way to get them familiar with these rules is to have them participate in the process by having them actually review an article against the criteria. If the learning objectives for the course are to prove subject knowledge expertise by improving a Wikipedia article, then no way should they be doing WP:DYK AT ALL. If the learning objectives include understanding the processes of Wikipedia, then reviewing T:TDYK is ESSENTIAL to understanding the process. In any case, the instructor is being paid to teach the course and the campus ambassadors have volunteered to help with the process. The ambassadors need to actually do this and should absolutely 100% be prepared to review every single DYK nomination if required and not provide additional disruption by having a class full of ill equipped students nominating inappropriate content for one of Wikipedia's assessment processes where the system is already over taxed where the volunteers did not ask to work with non-voluntary contributors with out an incentive. --LauraHale (talk) 09:41, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
Without looking at this class's work I don't think students should be nominating their own article for DYK unless they know what they are doing. If what is happening is true then they whould be declined with the appropriate reason, as students will not likely now have the time to get it up to scratch. It would be better to let the ambassador do the nominating. Actually I am going to dump a bunch of nomination on there soon for students work from Nanjing Normal University. But this will only be for stuff that is big enough and properly referenced. I would say it is extremely difficult to get a DYK for expansion, it would really have to start with stub sized to get a chance. Also asking students to review DYKs will not be good due to their lack of experience and it would take up even more class time to explain what this is about. The DYK should only be a bonus and not an expectation. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 06:19, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
Agree that focusing on DYK/GA/FA is a little too ambitious for the classes. It's good to have those standards in mind, but piling on the requirements of those processes on top of the already steep learning curve of basic WP editing isn't reasonable for most students. There will be keen students who can definitely pull it off, and CA/OA's should encourage that, but it should not be part of a curriculum. The volunteers at the peer-review projects shouldn't be burdened with poorly prepared noms. The Interior (Talk) 15:58, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
I agree with the first three points, abstain on the fourth one (like the sentiment, consider it impossible). I'd also add that I am a strong advocate that the instructor should never ask for what s/he has not done, so if they want student to write DYKs, they should have at least one of their own. (I say this as an instructor who asks students to do DYKs and GAs, but has written numerous articles of both categories himself). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me 16:07, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
I generally do not mention DYK to students or even suggest it to a professor as a goal. My feeling is that it creates a perverse incentive to deploy articles late in order for articles that are developed over weeks to months to be "new" enough for DYK. The result is sharply decreased communication with and feedback from the community, immediately counter to our goals. If there is a star student who is both fast and interested in DYK, and asked me about it, I'd help them out, but I think the vast majority of students will just have to settle for long-term readership numbers, not short-term. That said, if we just want to draw attention and readers to new WEP articles, why not have a portal just for them that we can all watchlist and visit? It wouldn't attract the same number of readers but I think they'd be more likely to get people willing to collaborate/offer feedback. Dcoetzee 11:38, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
I recommend we redirect any classes requiring DYK nomination to {{edu review}}. We simply can't require students to nominate their articles for DYK in order to get a review on the article. I highly encourage any ambassador who doesn't mind helping out with reviews to do so. Rob SchnautZ (WMF) (talk • contribs) 20:48, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

A big problem with this course (and most of the psych courses) is that most of their articles shouldn't exist, and much of their writing is based entirely on primary sources. They seem to be unaware of Wikipedia's sourcing policies on the correct use of primary, secondary and tertiary sources, so their work amounts to original research. A good deal of it needs to be deleted, although there is some content that can be salvaged and added to the appropriate articles. I've left comments on two talk pages, but I got the usual sense of non-responsiveness one gets when dealing with student editing. They just don't seem to understand that Wikpedia primarily reports on secondary sources, with limited use of primary sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:31, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

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