Wikipedia talk:Online Ambassadors/Guidelines

Protecting newbies

That all looks good, Sage. "Protect the newbies from being bitten by others" is hard to argue with, but different Wikipedians will have different conceptions of what it means to be bitten; some will feel it's their job to delete a page, when we might think the end result is counterproductive. I think we're dealing with matters of negotiation between two very different cultures, and we'll have to see how it goes. - Dank (push to talk) 00:55, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Welcoming students

I think we need to expand on how to welcome students, specifically to include instructions of how to use talk pages. From my experience and from comments from the students at the summit, students may have been taught how to use talk pages, but explicit instructions on their talk pages will help reinforce that. While On-line Ambassadors should be writing individualized welcomes to students, I think each welcoming message should include the Ambassador's user name, an explicit link to their talk page, a reminder of how to use talk pages, how to contact the Ambassador by e-mail (most ambassadors will probably want the students to initially use the on-WP email link rather than publish an email address), (link to) how to use IRC, and an indication that the Ambassador will not just be waiting for the student to contact them, but will be maintaining a dialogue with the student. If not pushed, many students will ignore their mentors. I know that I was not pro-active enough with my mentees. -- Donald Albury 14:55, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Office hours

Some professors at the summit were asking about Online Ambassadors maintaining office hours. I personally think that is asking a lot of volunteers to commit to being available for specified time periods on a regular basis. Some professors were also unhappy with the available means of communicating with Online Ambassadors. We need to have very clear and easy to use procedures for communication between Online Ambassadors and instructors. -- Donald Albury 23:06, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]