Wikipedia talk:Writing Wikipedia Articles course/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Problem watching the video of session 1

Unfortunately, I am not able to watch the video of session one which took place last night from thee to four o'clock a.m. central European summer time. When I follow the link in either Google Chrome or Safari on Mac OS X 10.6.8, a jnlp file is downloaded. And that's all. I gather that this is a course in OER. Could you please upload the videos to Wikimedia Commons in a free format for all to watch? This way we could re-use them in all Wikimedia projects. May I ask why you are using a commercial platform and, what's more, a solution based on Java which is not secure, as we know by now.—Thanks.--Aschmidt (talk) 16:22, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi Aschmidt, thanks for your interest, and sorry for the hassles! We are very eager to migrate to tools that work better and/or are more philosophically aligned with Wikimedia's values. We will be using Blackboard Collaborate for live sessions for the duration of the course, but when we put out specific screencasts we do try to put them in a free format and upload them to Commons. If we can find a good way to convert the archive files to a free format, we would be very happy to do that; I welcome any suggestions (but it might be better to talk about stuff like this on my user talk page, or by email).

Finally, since you are in Europe, you may be interested to take our next session, which will be offered starting in July at a more Europe-friendly time of day. You can get a general overview of the class (which is mainly about Wikipedia, but covers OER as a central topic) here:j.mp/WIKISOO Thanks for your interest! -Pete (talk) 17:04, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

 Done There's now a version of the archive available on YouTube. We still hope to get it into an open format and on Wikimedia Commons, but I doubt we will get to that soon; the 100Mb file size limit on Commons may be a big hurdle. -Pete (talk) 02:27, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

That's really great! Thanks, Pete, for solving this problem. YouTube seems to be a good choice. Pls. also see my response on my personal talk page.--Aschmidt (talk) 19:08, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

I am just trying to note that I also used the Talk to give my appreciation for the archive and also the links to "talk etiquette". I have not found such a link for these types of pages - can you provide info to a link? Or is this just a public (only for the class members though I hope) talk page? thanks Patricia.Loeblein (talk) 19:51, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi Patricia, if I understand your question right, this should help: WP:TALK (talk page guidelines). This page here is indeed public; its purpose is to support our class, but as you can see in a few of the threads, occasionally another experienced Wikipedian might chime in with an answer. Sara and I will be watching throughout the class, so if any confusion ever results from that, we should be able to address it quickly. -Pete (talk) 14:31, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Archive from 1st webinar is now available!

Visit the Week 1 page at Wikipedia:WIKISOO/Week_1 to watch the webinar, check on week one homework, and more. OER Awesome! :) -Sara FB (talk) 19:13, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

And as Pete notes about, now available on Youtube.... -Sara FB (talk) 02:08, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Accounts

I created a P2PU identity when I registered, but it did not follow me to this class. How do I get them to play nicely together? I am lgraham in P2PU, but created a new identity for WIKISOO, GramaLorrie30. Both use the same email. Should I delete the P2PU login?

GramaLorrie30 (talk) 15:27, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi GramaLorrie, unfortunately these two systems are not set up to play together. It's not a problem that you used two different names, though! You don't really need to worry about the P2PU system until you complete the course, if you submit your final project to earn a badge. For now, you can just come directly to Wikipedia each week and for your homework assignments. Hope that helps, and hope to see you in the lab session in about 10 hours! -Pete (talk) 15:32, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Pete. Now, another question - How do I contact the other members of my team? The directions say to click on their name & then click "email this user" - I do not see that listed. Your email is under your picture on the right hand side. Whether I attend tonight depends on when my daughter goes home ; )GramaLorrie30 (talk) 16:21, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

GramaLorrie, I have just posted a short instructional video to get you started. Hope this helps-- and if not, keep the questions coming! -Pete (talk) 17:44, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Busco compañeros de grupo

Hola a todos, quisiera unirme a un grupo pero dado que mi dominio del ingles es muy limitado estoy interesado en formar parte de un grupo de trabajo con compañeros que sepan español para facilitar la comunicación en ambos sentidos. Un saludo. - Cazalinks(Talk)

¡Hola! No hablo mucho español, pero espero que usted tenga éxito en la búsqueda de algunos compañeros que hablan español! -Pete (talk) 21:10, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Pete for the minds, a greeting. - Cazalinks (Talk) 19:15, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Mucho gusto. Yo no hablo español muy bien, pero yo estudio español. Si tu enseñas español; yo gustar traducir su preguntas y clase de WikiSOO ;-) ChristineBushMV (talk) 00:47, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

ChristineBushMV Hi, thanks for your offer. I do not know much English but try to work hard as much as possible. I am at your disposal. -Cazalinks (Talk) 19:19, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Why am I not on the 'enrolled' list?

I just looked at the Enrolled list and I'm not on it. So I went back through the instructions & clicked on "Enroll" and it says I need a token from the instructor. But I signed up through P2PU. Of course, I frequently skim through things until I get to the doing part & then go back to see what I've missed - which usually works just fine. Also, what is the Barn badge thing - I think it says assignement complete?Lorrie (talk) 16:12, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi Lorrie, sorry we didn't explain this more clearly. It's not a big deal that you're not showing up in the list, but it will become important as we get to the final project for the class, so it's a good idea to take care of it now. When you're looking at the main course page, there's a tab at the top that says "enroll" (and also an "enroll" button further down -- it does the same thing). You can actually shortcut to itby clicking here. When asked for a token, enter "WIKISOO" (without the quotes). That's it! -Pete (talk) 20:22, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Enrolled here but not from my user page

I'm on the class page enrolled list, but according to My Courses from my user page: "You are not currently participating in any active courses. You can view the list of courses." I tried re-enrolling fromPete's shortcut (above) then purging My Courses, and the course still doesn't show up. What to do? --Litjade (talk)

Litjade, honestly, I don't know what the problem is -- the system we're using is under development, and out of my control, and I'm not sure what the status of fixing these bugs is. Sorry for the confusion, but -- you shouldn't worry, it won't interfere with you completing the course or earning the badge. The main thing is for me to be able to find you and your fellow students' articles to review, and I can do that just by consulting the list (or, for anyone who has trouble enrolling at all, in response to a talk page message or email -- that would work too!) -Pete (talk) 18:14, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

The token is WIKISOO!

Pete says this above, but I wanted to add it in BOLD text. :) To appear on the class list at the bottom of the Wikipedia page, simply click "Enroll" on the main course page and use the token WIKISOO. Welcome!!! = Sara FB (talk) 18:46, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Editing your signature line?

A student asked me about how to sign her real name instead of her username when signing a post, e.g. when using - ~~~~ on a talk page. I do this myself; when I sign my name you see "Sara FB" even though my login is "snarfa." Here's what I did to make this happen -there may be other ways, so feel free to jump in (Pete?).

• Log into your account (top right)
• Choose Preferences (top right)
• Scroll down to "Signature" and paste this into the blank line under Current Signature:

[[User:YourUsername|NameYouWantPeopleToSee]] ([[User talk:YourUsername|talk]])

• Tick the box that says "Treat the above as wiki markup"

That's all! Then when you type - ~~~~ after something you comment, your preferred name will appear, with a bonus link to your talk page. These are great questions to post RIGHT HERE in this tab by the way, or bring to Thurs/Fri lab sessions. - Sara FB(talk) 21:56, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Sara, that method works fine, but it's slight overkill for this purpose (clicking "treat as wiki markup" is intended to allow you to do stuff like specify a color or font, etc.) A slightly simpler way to do it is simply type in what name you want, and don't click "treat the above as wiki markup." -Pete (talk) 01:13, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Example of how to use color here? - Sara FB (talk) 21:37, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Shortcut or redirect for class home page

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T50406

Can there be a redirect from the old class page to our current class page, like the redirect to the current class talkpage? Or a new shortcut altogether, like WIKISOO2, for our class? --User:Litjade (talk)

Hi Litjade, good suggestion -- but unfortunately, the "Education Program" pages we are using have some weird bug, so that redirect pages don't work properly. (I did create WP:WIKISOO2, you can click that to see what I mean.) This is a known bug, and it's being worked on…but probably won't be fixed during our course unfortunately! -Pete (talk) 01:11, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

I was about to ask; I monitor the reports for broken redirects and wondered what the issue was. :) ·Salvidrim!· ✉ 00:14, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm going to assume it is because this seems to be in the namespace "Education Program", which appears to be causing issues in the system. :) ·Salvidrim!· ✉ 00:17, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that's correct. This is a known issue, hopefully there will be a fix before long! -Pete (talk) 00:29, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

I've changed it to an actual soft redirect so that it at least gives some explanation to unsuspecting students; feel free to change it back once the bug is fixed. :) ·Salvidrim!· ✉ 00:32, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

How to add a new "Contents" category?

I am on the Talk tab, not the Education Program tab, and wanted to see if this is how to add a category to the "Contents" box. It appears that the nomenclature is "New Section" . I realize this is not a discussion thread, but am not sure how else to get discussion for the class since there is no blog and not everyone on my team has made a User Page, so I don't know their email. Anyone have a better way?Patricia.Loeblein (talk) 19:58, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

I found a great article called Help: Using Talk Pages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Using_talk_pages and there is information about adding "Sections" Patricia.Loeblein (talk) 21:42, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi Patricia! This is indeed the discussion page for the class. It's in the same format as the various talk tabs for all Wikipedia articles. So please do discuss everything right here on this page. Creating other pages for other purposes is also very easy, so I will ask Peter to address this in class today. And see the new section below on contacting other users directly... - Sara FB (talk) 21:45, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Contacting other users

Re Patricia's question above, to contact other users directly, leave a message on their User talk page - even if there is no content on the user page (yet!), if they have linked their account to an email address, they will be notified of the message. For example, feel free to contact me on my talk page anytime. :) Or if you prefer to contact them privately, go to their user page (whether they have added content or not), click on the Toolbox in the panel at left, and select "email this user." Hope that helps. - Sara FB (talk) 21:45, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Is this page only visible to class members?

I am thinking that at last weeks webinar, we were told this is a space for learners. Is that right?Patricia.Loeblein(talk) 20:01, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Petty much everything on wikipedia is globally visible, transparency is how we work. If you do/say something that you later regret you can remove it. If you do something with a strong negative impact on third parties, it can be removed from the page and page histories usingWikipedia:RFO. Probably what was meant by 'a space for learners' is that it's a forgiving place to experiment, which it is.Stuartyeates (talk) 20:15, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. I am not worried about being rude, but I do need to practice - I guess I will delete all my edits sometime during this class. Do you know if there is a way to start a Talk page for our team?Patricia.Loeblein (talk) 20:24, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Patricia, let's ask Pete to address this issue of WP talk pages for individual teams in class today. It's a great idea! If you are very concerned about privacy, you can always use an account which does not reveal your real name. But most users' first edits are kinda silly (mine were *especially* silly). It's all part of the learning process in this wild new medium... -Sara FB (talk) 21:50, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

How do we get credit (badges) for viewing and reading?

I have been doing lots of the homework, but sticking to the readings and videos after finding nothing to edit on Community Portal. Can I still get a badge at the end of the course? I plan to attend all the webinars too Patricia.Loeblein (talk) 21:00, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Related question: how do you or myself keep track of the 200 or more edits, starting a new Wikipedia article, and/or improving an existing Wikipedia article? Redwellie14 (talk) 21:12, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi Patricia, Hi Redwellie. These are great questions and it's great that you're using this talk page for them!

• On the community portal, if you scroll down to the "Today's articles for improvement" section you can usually find something that needs a little help. If this isn't doing it for you we can look into other options - please let us know. (Personally I also like the "random article" link at left for finding things to work on.)
• Pete can review the process for obtaining the WIKISOO burba badge in class today. You can also read about it on theclass home page or theP2PU web site.
• When you are logged into your user account, there is a link at top right called "Contributions" - if you (or any user) click(s) this, you can track all of your past contributions. Pete and I will review these when you apply for the burba badge.

Hope that helps! - Sara FB (talk) 22:00, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

I can't speak to how the course evaluators will be evaluating the course, but there are some pretty straight-forward links to see who's edited what. For example all my edits are listed at Special:Contributions/Stuartyeates and there's a birds' eye viewon toolserver. If you substitute your own name (or anyone else's) into those URLs you'll see their work. Certain things are not shown (edits on other language wikipedias; deleted edits; edits on deleted pages; and maybe oversighted edits), but most are. Stuartyeates (talk) 22:47, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Are the Instructors contacting participants?

I am wondering since there is no P2PU blog, how instructors are helping the new learners. There are people on my team that have not made users accounts.I totally understand why they may have not yet done this because I have spent several hours doing my homework. It seems taking a class by using the thing you are trying to learn has benefits and pitfalls. I have used guided inquiry as an instruction model for three decades, so I believe in learners owning their path to knowledge. Having no way to contact the instructor directly does feel somewhat overly difficult. Although I am a self-directed learner, I do feel the need for some feedback. How will that happen? I can't attend the lab, but will attend the webinars. Respectfully,Patricia.Loeblein (talk) 21:32, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi Patricia, these are all great points. I thought I had greeted all new students on their TALK pages but it looks like I missed yours - my apologies! It is true that most of the 1:1 feedback is given during the labs, but you should feel free to contact me orPete anytime on our talk pages. We'll also contact you on your own, or using the email option detailed above. Hope that helps. BTW, we'd love to have your ongoing feedback about communications as we are new instructors ourselves. - Sara FB (talk) 22:15, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

I cannot get into session 2

I have been trying since 30 minutes before the class started, but it keeps taking me to the week 1 Blackboard Collaborator session.Lorrie (talk) 01:19, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Dear Lorrie…this is our fault…I am very sorry to waste your time like that! Please expect an email explaining, and with a link to the archive of the class session, in the next 10-12 hours. (The archive will also be linked here when available: WP:WIKISOO/Week 2) -Pete (talk) 02:54, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

What does it mean to be reviewed?

I got an email notification that "User:Litjade was reviewed by Wikipedia user DragonflySixtyseven:". I've no idea what that means, nor who DragonflySixtyseven is. When I went to my userpage, I couldn't see anything different. Any ideas? User:Litjade (talk)

I'm not sure why you got this message, but User:DragonflySixtyseven is an experienced editor, if it bothers you, you can ask him about it on his talk page. Stuartyeates (talk) 02:23, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

All new pages are reviewed as part of new pages patrol to ensure that they're not spam or vandalism or other bad content. You created a user page here on the English Wikipedia on May 18, 2013.DragonflySixtyseven reviewed your new page (User:Litjade) on May 20, 2013 and marked it as "patrolled" (i.e., it was marked as being acceptable to be here). Hope that helps. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:07, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks MZ and Stuart for helping out. Litjade, the thing that was reviewed was your user page, not you as a user -- which, to be honest, threw me off too. Yes, it's normal for new pages to be reviewed for major issues (nonsense, libel, etc.) -- and you were just getting notified that the reviewer (Dragonflysixtyseven) didn't find any of those major problems with it, as a routine part of Wikipedia looking after itself. -Pete (talk) 03:33, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks to everyone from the clueless (me)! Glad I fixed the hyperlink on my user page by the time it was reviewed. (Maybe there's a shiny smiley face icon that says something like 'this page has been reviewed'?) In message threads like this, do we just keep indenting as we respond? Since I'm kind of 'replying all', I thought it best to start anew. --Litjade (talk)

Ejade, FYI, I would keep indenting until we start another topic. -Sara FB (talk) 18:30, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

open education articles

Just to clarify, Is it okay to edit/add articles that are not about open education for homework?MJMcGowan (talk) 02:11, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, you can edit any article you like -- especially in these early stages where it's more about getting a feel for Wikipedia than anything else. We encourage, but don't require, students to take on articles in the open education realm for your final projects. -Pete (talk) 02:47, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Conflict of Interest

Hi pete,

I think that I am having a conflict of interest problem that you spoke about in class tonight. I was trying to add a exhibition section to the Royal Ontario Museum page and was told it sounded too promotional. This was not my intention. However, I don't understand what I did wrong seeing as I was just trying to write factual information. This is what I wrote: Mesopotamia The Mesopotamia exhibition will be at the ROM from June 22, 2013 in the Garfield Weston Exhibition Hall located in the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal on Level 2B until January 5th 2014.[80] The exhibit showcases over 170 objects from the collections of the British Museum.[80] Urban civilization started in Mesopotamia where the first cities and complex forms of organization and economic activity emerged. The exhibition will teach people about Mesopotamia’s social and technological developments through time in ancient Sumer (4000-2000 BCE), the dominance of the Assyrian World Empire (1000 – 600 BCE), and the rise and fall of Babylon (600 -540 BCE). [80] Exhibition highlights include gold jewelry found in the tombs at the Royal Cemetery in the city of Ur, several artifacts illustrating the accomplishments of King Hammurabi (1792 – 1750 BCE), and a statue of King Ashurnasirpal II. A piece from the ROM’s collection is the Striding Lion that once adorned the throne room façade of the palace of Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar II (604-562 BCE). [80] The exhibition also touches on the rediscovery of Mesopotamia by the west and the catastrophic impact of the 2003 looting of Baghdad’s Iraq Museum and the destruction of numerous archaeological sites had on Iraq’s culture.[80] Mesopotamia has various interpretive elements such as a 3-D fly though of Babylon featuring the Tower of Babel and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, touchable reproductions, interactive touch-screens, translation of ancient texts, and audio explanations. [80] Programming for scholars, adults, and families will also take place during the exhibitions time at the ROM. Mesopotamia is presented by the British Museum in collaboration with the Royal Ontario Museum.[80]

Could you give me some tips regarding this problem? Thanks MJMcGowan (talk) 02:40, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi MJMcGowan, great question -- thanks for bringing it up! (For other students reading along, I copied this question, with MJMcGowan's permission, from my talk page, so everybody can learn from it.)

First, a couple technical details:

• As you likely noticed, you lost some line breaks when you asked the question. Confusingly, wiki syntax will run text together on the same line unless there are two carriage returns.
• When asking a question or making a comment about stuff that happens on Wikipeia, it's always a good idea to include links that help the reader see for themselves what happened. (This isn't a criticism -- it takes a while to pick these things up.) But in this case, thediff link showing the changes when this other Wikipedia editor reverted your edits is a particularly helpful one. I tracked it down (by looking up the Royal Ontario Museum article and looking at its "history" tab, like we did in class yesterday). Once you're looking at the "diff", you can copy the URL and paste it, like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Royal_Ontario_Museum&diff=556201155&oldid=556201101 which will enable anybody following the discussion to see for themselves what happened.

Anyway, on to the substance of your question. First -- great work in figuring out how to add that much to the article! You're making great progress in learning how to add content and citations, and your effort to discuss the disagreement on the article's talk page was exemplary. Kudos to you!

I'd say this isn't quite a conflict of interest issue, but it's somewhat related. You are correct that your additions were factual; but it gets a bit more complicated than that. There are two (related) issues coming into play here:

• Wikipedia's purpose is for the most part to capture knowledge that is timeless, not just what is of interest at the present moment. So for an article about a museum, it would be important to establish that the exhibit is not merely current, but that it's a significant part of the museum's overall history. You might find this page useful on this subject: What Wikipedia is Not
• Sourcing: While we haven't discussed this much in class yet, the sources we cite are a huge part of determining what does or doesn't go into Wikipedia, and how it is covered. In this case, you have done very well by adding a number of citations; but the citations are all to the museum's own web site. In order to make a reasoned judgment about how significant an exhibit is, we would want to see coverage in independent media sources. Has the local newspaper of record devoted a feature piece to the exhibit? If so, including that as a citation might justify more extensive coverage in the article. There's lots of info about sourcing here: WP:RS -- and it's something we'll get into in more detail as the course progresses.

Thanks for bringing this up -- good work, and a good question! Does this answer it sufficiently for you? -Pete (talk) 19:58, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

One more thing -- if you're going to continue working on this article, it may help to have an example of an article about a museum that has been through one of Wikipedia's peer review processes (which we'll discuss in class next week). The Indianapolis Museum of Art is such an article -- and actually, the process used to write the article, spearheaded by my friend and colleague LoriLee, has been written up as a case study: GLAM/Case studies/Indianapolis Museum of Art. I hope this makes some interesting reading for you! -Pete (talk) 20:13, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Thank you so much Pete! This was extremely helpful and answered all of my questions! MJMcGowan (talk) 03:53, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Incidence on archive of first lab (week1)

The youtube`s video about the week´s one lab has no sound--Cazalinks (talk) 20:16, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, apologies -- I had a technical problem and didn't notice until after I uploaded. I thought I had removed all links to it when I discovered that, but must have missed one. I'll delete it now, and hope to post a repaired version this afternoon. -Pete(talk) 20:30, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Presentation of the project: Translation of "Writing Wikipedia Articles (2013 Q2)"

I just want to show the first project I've been working these days to exchange views. It comes to a translation of the course itself "Peer to Peer University / Writing Wikipedia Articles (2013 Q2)" to Spanish: "Programa de Educación: Peer-to-Peer University / Escribiendo artículos de Wikipedia (Q2 2013)"

At this time I've been made ​​a translation of the main page in this link , and the website of the week 1 in this other link Semana 1

Today I will start the translation of week 2 in Semana 2. Any help or suggestions are very welcome. A greeting--Cazalinks (talk) 19:25, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Cazalinks, thank you -- this is a wonderful and unexpected project! I think you have taken on a very big one, but wish you well, and will try to help out as I can. I changed a table from HTML to wiki syntax on the Semana 2 page, using a free web-based "table converter". Maybe this tool will make your project a little easier?

Also, a nice little trick -- when you want to link to a different language version of Wikipedia, instead of an external link like the one you used, you can use what is known as an "interwiki link", such as: w:es:Wikipedia:WIKISOO/Semana 2.

Good luck, and thanks for taking this on! -Pete (talk) 16:47, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Very thanks Pete, try to put into practice your advice, a greeting.--Cazalinks (talk) 20:05, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi from Italy

Hi all, or better "Ciao a tutti" :-) I'm from Milano Italy. I joined the class and I hope will be possible for me to be "in course" :-) P.S. excuse me for my "rusty" english :-) Franciaio (talk) 07:33, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Welcome Franciaio! We have covered a lot of ground, have you been able to catch up? Hopefully these links will help: -Pete (talk) 16:29, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Writing Wikipedia Articles: The Basics and Beyond
class page	Week 1 14/16 May	Week 2 21/23 May	Week 3 28/30 May	Week 4 4/6 June	Week 5 11/13 June	Week 6 18/20 June
class archive	Blackboard YouTube	Blackboard YouTube	Blackboard YouTube	Blackboard Youtube Wikimedia	Blackboard Youtube Wikimedia	Blackboard Youtube Wikimedia
lab archive	Blackboard YouTube Wikimedia	Blackboard YouTube	Blackboard YouTube	Blackboard YouTube Wikimedia	Blackboard YouTube Wikimedia	Blackboard YouTube Wikimedia
course discussion page • course final project description

Welcome, Franciaio! Your rusty English is fine. Since I've never been able to learn another language, I am in awe of people who are able to learn other languages! Enjoy this class & hope to see you at the class. Lorrie (talk) 17:10, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

A new "Open educational resources" article review now available

I have written a review of the Open educational resources article on thetalk page for the article which I hope you will find helpful.ChristineBushMV (talk) 20:02, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Great! Thanks Christine... -Sara FB (talk) 18:45, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Copy Editing

I am enjoying doing copy edits to help reduce the backlog. Thank you, Peter, for suggesting we check the Community portal for projects to work on. There, I found the backlog for copy editing, which is great for someone who doesn't have the time to get into researching the citations and other details. Clarity, correct form, etc, are just fine with me. I will endeavor to join this eveing, internet and links willing ; )Lorrie (talk) 15:37, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Got brave enough to do some clarification editing - Genome project article that is quite lingo-heavy & decided not to wait for someone else to clarify a confusing paragraph structure. I'm sure that the powers that be will revert if they feel it's not a good fix.Lorrie (talk) 17:09, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

That's great Lorrie! Yeah, just dive in and copy edit to your heart's content... a GREAT way to get comfortable on Wikipedia. -Sara FB (talk) 00:31, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I found edits you made -- while I'm not familiar with the subject matter, it certainly appears you've improved the average reader's ability to understand what's presented. Good work! -Pete (talk) 20:24, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Something to look at

The biography of David A. Wiley, a pioneer in Open Educational Resources, currently has a banner at the top saying there aren't enough references. But the article does have some references. Maybe one of you wants to take a closer look and see if you can figure out how this happened, and whether it might be worth doing something about it? I don't have a specific approach in mind here -- in particular, I'd point out that I haven't looked closely at the references used, to see how well they comply with Wikipedia's guideline on reliable sources etc. If you choose to take this on, you might want to make use of the article's history page, its talk page, etc. Enjoy! -Pete(talk) 23:14, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

The problem is not the number of sources, it's their nature. What we're looking for are significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. Most of the references are written by the subject and many of those that aren't are either passing mentions (not significant) or interviews (not independent). Stuartyeates (talk) 07:21, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Uploading photos and OTRS

In doing the homework to upload a photo, I used a book cover image which came directly from the publishing company and was so designated. I put it in Wikimedia Commons and then embedded in my own user page. It was very quickly flagged for removal by another user because it wasmissing permission information, and it seems the next step is applying for OTRS ticket. Understand the importance of rights issues, and have already sent an OTRS back to wiki permissions so they will be reviewing it. Don't mean this to sound like a personal question because I thought several aspects would be of general interest: 1) Can you explain OTRS process on images that are not already clearly creative commons or fee use?; 2) Since there is not really a talk/discussion page about a particular image, is there a proper wiki etiquette when something like this has happened as I await OTRS response - should I note on my user page, or on the user page of the user who flagged it, that something is in process? Thanks! -FEProctor (talk)

Hi FEProctor -- a book covery is typically covered by copyright, even if it is considered acceptable to distribute its image widely. So it's a special case: Wikimedia Commons, where most photos and media go, does not permit media that is protected by copyright. But the English language Wikipedia does permit such files, in limited circumstances, under the principle (in U.S. law) of fair use. So a file like this should be uploaded directly to Wikipedia, and it needs to have an accompanying non-free use rationale placed on its page. (You don't need the OTRS system for any of this -- I will come back with a more thorough answer about OTRS later.) The best way to figure this out is probably to look at an existing example. I just pulled up Abbey Road, the Beatles album; if you click through to the album cover, you will see it has three separate non-free use rationales on the page associated with the image, each relating to a different Wikipedia article. (This is a kind of tricky and technical task, so if it seems daunting, that comes with the territory! I'm happy to work through this with you if you like, but you could also feel free to pick a different task, for instance taking a photo of your own of something in your neighborhood and uploading that.) -Pete (talk) 16:46, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Pete! This is a very helpful answer. It is something I would like to understand better at some point but for now, since I'm still just practicing, will just try uploading a different image. -FEProctor (talk)

PDFs in Wiki

Hi, Sorry to miss lab last night. My daughter frequently visits on Thursday evening - and she didn't leave until about 10 last night.

Could you tell me how PDFs get embedded in Wikipedia? Do they have to be "out there" or is there a way to direct Wikipedia to another source? Is this something that has to be done through Wikimedia Commons? Thanks, Lorrie (talk) 17:57, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

No worries about missing the lab -- but I think it was a good one, so if you get a chance, be sure to check out the archived session!

PDFs (and images more generally) must live on Wikipedia or on Wikimedia Commons in order to be embedded; and in order to live on "our" sites, they have to adhere to high standards. In short, Wikimedia projects aim to present images (and text, for that matter) that can be freely reused with very little restriction; so images must be either in the public domain (i.e., exempt from copyright, generally because of their age or because they were produced by the U.S. Federal government) -- OR -- they must be explicitly released by their owners under a free licensewhich explicitly invites people to reuse them, even in commercial contexts.

This can be frustrating at times, when there is very useful stuff that would greatly improve an encyclopedia article, and when we're pretty confident that the owners would be delighted to see it put to that use, but have not explicitly made such a release. There's no perfect answer to this conundrum, but it's something we wrestle with in many contexts as Wikipedians. I hope that helps, and let me know if there are specific files you are trying to upload, and we can take a more detailed look. -Pete (talk) 22:24, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Pete. That makes sense, probably citing the source of the PDF would be a better way to use PDFs as references - just like a journal article from EBSCOHost in a research paper.Lorrie (talk) 14:59, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Moving images around

I have used wiki media commons images (uploaded a photo and a used a flower from the wiki media collection), added user boxes (thank you Bron), but now I want to rearrange the images on my user page. Please tell me how to do that!!! having so much fun with this.Lorrie (talk)

Hi Lorrie, I found this page very useful Wikipedia:Extended image syntax. Hope it helps you too. C01Clem (talk) 01:33, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Great suggestion, Clem -- thanks for that! Lorrie, does it make sense to you? I see the page is a little thin on examples, so it might be a little tricky to figure out. Let me know if you need further tips. It looks like you have been doing some good things on your user page. A couple specific notes:

• Positioning userboxes on the page is handled differently than images and image thumbnails; it can be a bit tricky. One useful trick is the{{clear}} template. If you copy-and-paste that (just this much: {{clear}}) between two userboxes, you will see that it separates them so one appears above the next. This template is useful in cases where you want everything after it to come below everything before (for instance, if an image is undesirably pushing down into the text below and causing it to wrap).
• I see that an image you uploaded has been flagged for copyright reasons. This is something I didn't fully prepare you guys for; Wikipedia and Wikimedia have very strict standards around copyright, and even images that could be freely uploaded to sites like Flickr or Facebook without anybody caring will typically be deleted from Wikimedia sites if it is not clearly demonstrable that they are in the public domain, or have been explicitly released under an acceptable free license. I don't know the origin of this file, but my guess is that it will need to be deleted. Do you have any of these flowers, or live near a place where you could photograph them yourself? If so, the best thing might to be to upload your own picture! Let me know if you have further questions.

-Pete (talk) 22:17, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, I used it and was able to move things around on my user page!Lorrie (talk) 14:27, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Editing Evolutionary anachronism

Hi everybody, as part of my project I decided to continue editing this article, maybe with someone of my team we can arrange to do editing in colaboration Fernando Lopez Anido (talk) 10:28, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Fernando, what a cool article to work on!!! Lorrie (talk)

Yes, a fascinating concept I had never heard of. I see you have already done some good work to improve the article! -Pete(talk) 19:40, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

How to claim my article?

I can not claim my article on the main page of the course, there is an error with the server. What I can do? This is the page i want to claim Programa de Educación: Peer-to-Peer University / Escribiendo artículos de Wikipedia (Q2 2013) and this is the error that appear:

"WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION Error Our servers are currently experiencing a technical problem. This is probably temporary and should be fixed soon. Please try again in a few minutes.

You may be able to get further information in the #wikipedia channel on the Freenode IRC network.

The Wikimedia Foundation is a non-profit organisation which hosts some of the most popular sites on the Internet, including Wikipedia. It has a constant need to purchase new hardware. If you would like to help, please donate.

If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. PHP fatal error in /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.22wmf5/includes/logging/LogEntry.php line 394: Argument 1 passed to ManualLogEntry::setTarget() must be an instance of Title, null given, called in /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.22wmf5/extensions/EducationProgram/includes/Utils.php on line 32 and defined "

--Cazalinks (talk) 19:45, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi Cazalinks, unfortunately the platform we are using is not set up to work with other language editions of Wikipedia. But it's not a problem: it preferred, but not essential, to "claim" your article on that page. When the class concludes, you can submit an article even if it is not officially listed on our main class page.

You are clearly learning a great deal about wiki editing in the process of translating the class, I am very impressed with your work so far! But the final project assignment, and the goal of this class, is really to work on Wikipedia articles -- a somewhat different thing from working on a class about Wikipedia. Is there an article you can work on as well? One idea would be to improve the Spanish article on OER:es:Recursos educativos abiertos This article is much shorter than the English language version (Open educational resources), and could really use some expansion. Perhaps you could work a bit on that article for your final project? One thing you could start with would be to simply translate sections from the English language version. I think you might find it fairly easy to bring this article up a level in the quality ratings, alongside your excellent work on our course. -Pete (talk) 19:38, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

This suggestion seems interesting, i'll look. Thank you very much Pete, a greeting--Cazalinks (talk) 21:49, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Class Project on New Article Discussing PhET Interactive Simulations

Hi Everyone: I'm working on a new article for submission on PhET Interactive Simulations from the University of Colorado Boulder and Pete suggested that I post a link here to my sandbox. Suggestions are great appreciated. FYI...as you can see from myprofile I am with PhET but am trying to keep within the policies and neutrality of Wikipedia. And so, community edits are appreciated! Thanks -Klidessau (talk) 19:59, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

(To all, for context: we have continued to discuss this a bit on our user talk pages, and Kathy just took the plunge and published the article here: PhET Interactive Simulations)

@Klidessau: Congratulations on posting this! I'm sure you've noticed, but you already have a nice positive comment on the article's talk page: Talk:PhET Interactive Simulations -Pete (talk) 20:53, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Please help: I added a significant amount of material to the OER Teaching Community section. I would love someone to review it. I have barely started a paragraph about commercial publishers for teacher ideas. This makes me wonder if I need to change the section title? thoughts like should I leave out commercial references or change the title or leave as is? thanks Patricia.Loeblein (talk) 22:26, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

More help needed. Much of what I added last time was not up to par. I added new material today to the OER community section. Also, last night at lab there were some good ideas for titles for this section, but I have settled on one yet. Ideas are welcome. I need to watch the archive because I couldn't get enough notes while watching and listening.The idea to use CiteSeer was especially helpful. Thanks to my classmates, Sara, and Pete for helping this novice get a little into WP. Patricia.Loeblein (talk) 19:11, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Creating an article from scratch...but it was deleted 3 years ago

Hello. I really want to build a wiki page for my university's student union. 3 years ago though, it was marked for deletion and after some discussion, the verdict was to delete. See details here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/UWM_Union

The school recently voted to build a new union though, and I am pretty sure this is now a relevant article to publish. What is the best way to get this discussion going again? There are a few 'types' of deletion and the process is confusing.--Johnnytecmo (talk) 02:02, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

It comes down to sources. Do you have independent sources for this student union? That's in depth coverage not written or published by the union (or their members or office holders), the university (or it's members or office holders) or local media (I would regard anything with circulation of less than 100k as local). Stuartyeates (talk) 02:14, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm afraid I would tend to agree that a student union does not meet the criteria for being sufficiently notable to be considered encyclopedically relevant. It would need to be the site of an historically significant event, or the organizing base for an important political movement which garnered national attention, or something similar, to be considered notable. The suggestion to integrate this topic into the existing UWM article seems reasonable to me. ChristineBushMV (talk) 18:10, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that assessment seems about right. It's possible that this entity clears the notability threshold for reasons that are not immediately apparent; but even so, I usually suggest that new contributors avoid grey areas like this until you've worked on several other articles. Getting into debates about whether or not something is notable isn't the most satisfying or educational experience, and you might want to hold off on topics that will invite that kind of pushback. -Pete (talk) 20:49, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

How to add pronunciation key

I'd like to create a pronunciation key for Phalaenopsis_hieroglyphica. How do I go about it? I found Template:Respell but must be missing a step. --Litjade 02:35, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi, I copied the template for one of the pronounciation keys & then replaced their word with our word. I might actually be getting the hang of these templates (she says, confidently, before her next desperate cry for assistance) See if you think it's okay.Lorrie(talk) 14:55, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

You guys are doing great, keep up the good work! I moved the pronunciation key into the lead sentence, hope that wasn't too presumptuous of me :) I also put a suggestion on the article's talk page: Talk:Phalaenopsis hieroglyphica -Pete (talk) 20:45, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Egad! you edited out work on a site that allows that???? All I can say is - Thank you!! Wasn't sure where it should go.Lorrie (talk) 14:51, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

What's your favorite WP help page?

I think it might be fun to hear from classmates what pages they especially like. There are so many great internal help pages about WP. Here's one of mine Wikipedia:Article titles (Ironically I was searching to find out if WP is the accepted abbreviation for Wikipedia)Patricia.Loeblein (talk) 18:42, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi Patricia, The two I have found most useful so far are: Wikipedia:Digital Object Identifier, where a bot comes along and fills in the reference details; and Wikipedia:Extended image syntax, as I couldn't work out how to link to an image without it appearing on the page. I've been adding to a list on my talk page; although I guess these might actually be better suited to a section on my actual user page.C01Clem (talk) 02:56, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi Patricia and Clem - Great resources. I like the manuals from the Wiki Copy Editors, Wikipedia:Manual of Style

I think that WP:NOT is the most important (and least read) of way, way too many guidelines. WP:TOC is also an important and useful guideline. It is tricky to find because it actually lives here and is not obvious to implement, in part because it is designed to auto-generate after X number of headings have been added to an article. (Like many features on Wikipedia, the article TOC has been implemented to ease the workflow of frequent contributors rather than to be intuitive for new contributors.) ChristineBushMV (talk) 21:29, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

WP:42. Stuartyeates (talk) 20:32, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

I've been biting my tongue here, such a great opportunity for me to learn what people actually find useful! Keep the suggestions coming guys, this is becoming a great list. -Pete (talk) 20:46, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

I just stumbled across Wikipedia:Please_clarify which is useful because it provides several more nuanced, less obtrusive indicators to request further attention to a particular sentence instead of making an overall claim or assessment regarding an entire article. (It is also unusual in that this particular re-direction alias uses the word "please" -- a rare example of civility intruding into the syntax of the Wikipedia editorial discourse.) ChristineBushMV (talk) 17:48, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

These are great - my favorite shared one so far is WP:NOT. I am so new to WP and am basically a digital community introvert that I worry too much about stepping forward too fast. I have had to miss a few classes, so I am using this talk page to gather info in addition to watching the archives. BTW. I recently asked Pete about Talk etiquette. He has encouraged me to use this page to share, I read some of the links provided and believe it is ok to quote him here: "You asked about the etiquette of user talk pages -- sorry for the slow reply on that! The software is frustrating: there are advantages to replying on your own talk page (keeping the discussion together) and also to replying on the other person's talk page (alerts them more prominently). You can do either; some people will respond on their own talk page and then put thetalkback template on the other person's page to alert them. (There are currently changes afoot to how notifications work on Wikipedia, so perhaps this will all get easier soon!)Sorry there isn't a simple answer to that one; but you seem to be doing fine with it. Keep the questions coming -- and feel free to ask them at WT:WIKISOO, I think your fellow students like seeing various questions answered there!-Pete (talk) 15:42, 10 June 2013 (UTC)" see the "Hi Trish" sectionPatricia.Loeblein (talk) 01:38, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, of course quoting this is fine! I took the liberty of linking the relevant section of your user talk page above, Trish. -Pete (talk) 18:11, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Suggestions

Hi guys. I would really like some feedback on the Charles Trick Currelly article I have been working on. I plan on adding more content and pictures but I would love feedback on structure and anything else you think necessary. Thanks MJMcGowan (talk) 02:00, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

(a) Currently most or all of the references appear to be assocciated with the Royal Ontario Museum, which he founded. Thus none of them are independent sources. You need to cast a far wider net. (b) Royal Ontario Museum needs to coordinate better with Royal Ontario Museum(currently it doesn't mention him). (c) The article needs at least basic coverage of his religion. (d) Do not use acronyms, use 'the Museum' where you current use 'ROM.' (e) Lots of the proper nouns need to be links. Stuartyeates (talk) 02:20, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Amalgamation?

Excellent presentation respecting a few projects with very similar objectives especially OER. Question: If Wikipedia really is essentially an OER repository ( and a MOOC) Why separate projects?

One of the strengths of wikipedia is that it's lots of different things to lots of different people, a huge range of people contribute different things for a huge range of different reasons. This is also one of it's weaknesses. See also Wikipedia is an MMORPG (which is a non-cannonial restatement of policy). Stuartyeates (talk) 03:30, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Sources, Sources, Sources

Hello everyone! I am Go Phightins! (feel free to call me Ben), and I am currently your only course online ambassador (though I see Stuartyeates here as well, so the two of us ). Anyway, I see several questions related to sources. At Wikipedia, we like secondary sources as well as independent sources rather than sources affiliated with the subject. When thinking of the term reliable sources, look for third-party, independent sources. I know you are all interested in open educational resources; these can serve as great sources when working on Wikipedia as well, though one issue with them is, in my limited experience, they are often primary sources, which is fine, but require a degree of care so as not to synthesize and interpret data ... we have a policy against original research and synthesis, which tends to ensue when using primary sources. Hence, secondary and even tertiary sources, which interpret primary sources for us, are often better and more reliable for our purposes.

On another note, I see a lot of discussion in your teams and on talk pages, which is great. Wikipedia needs more exciting and focused collaboration, but at the end of the day, I would encourage all of you to be bold. If you see something you think you can improve, go for it! The worse thing that can happen is that you completely ruin the article, and your edit can be undone in one click. Not a big deal at all. Discussing changes and getting consensus is terrific, but often even better is boldly making an edit, then if someone disagrees, reverting and then discussing. We call this the bold, revert, discuss cycle, and it is really helpful when working on content.

I don't want to overlink here, so I will wrap up now. I do want to say that I hope many if not most of you stick around after the conclusion of your course to continue to contribute. When you think about it, Wikipedia is the sixth most visited website in the world, and you, like everyone else, has the opportunity to help improve it at your leisure. So find an interest area. Maybe it's OER, maybe it's something else. Join aWikiProject. Be bold, and make edits to improve what we already have. If you ever need any help, your two course instructors are great Wikipedians, I can help at my talk page or at this course page, or you can ask a question in a friendly, collegial atmosphere at the Teahouse. Wikipedia needs you! Happy editing, and best of luck on your final project. Don't hesitate to let me know if you need any help! Your online ambassador, Go Phightins! 03:17, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Ben, for this get-your-feet-wet intro to sources! When you have a chance again, would you take a look at theReferences section for Phalaenopsis_hieroglyphica? I've divided it into Notes (citations used) and General reference (for readings to come back to, that might be useful for building more text). Suggestions greatly appreciated! --User:Litjade (talk page)

That's certainly fine. Often times, for sources like this, we call "general reference" "further reading". I see this in a lot of biographies (see James Buchanan, for example), but what you've done I think works as well. Good work on this so far. Now that you have the references, it's content, content, content, not sources, sources, sources . Go Phightins! 13:44, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Okay, I've managed to get totally confused after reading through WP:LAY: How do "General reference", "Further reading" and "See also" differ? --Litjade (talk) 00:31, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't see this. Mind asking in lab tonight? If you aren't there, I will address at your talk. Go Phightins! 00:47, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Just now saw your reply. Please feel free to address on my talk page. Thanks! --Litjade (talk) 16:36, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Linking to this course page

On the PhET Interactive Simulations article talk section, I added a disclosure statement and wanted to link back to this course article, but it appears to have some block. can you check my coding - or is it ok to leave it a red link? (learned what that was last night at lab)

thx Patricia.Loeblein (talk) 20:34, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

All set now -- you had just left out the very end of the page title, "(2013 Q2)". -Pete (talk) 21:03, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

thanks I had tried including the "(2013 Q2)" one time and thought the parenthesis were causing the problem. Then I thought the link was broken if I wasn't logged in. After several hacks and reading homework, I decided to ask for help. I believe my basic problem is that sometimes I copied the name of an article from the hyperlink which included "_" between words. If you get a chance: check out my new (hopefully improved) section on PhET Interactive Simulations called "OER Teaching Community" Patricia.Loeblein (talk) 21:42, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

List Defined References - Tidying up the edit page

I felt that having the full content of references in the body of the text was making the edit page overly hard to read (and edit). Thus toavoid clutter, I reformatted the article as per the List Defined References (LDR) guidelines.

In future I will add the full content of the reference (with a ref name), to a reference list at the base of the article and the shorter<ref name="Refname" /> tag within the body of the article. For example, in the edit page it looks like this:

'''Open Educational Practices''' (OEP) are teaching techniques that draw upon open technologies in order to facilitate collaborative and flexible learning.<ref name="JISCOEPbrief" /> They may involve students participating in online, [[peer production]] communities <ref name="COLTdef" /> within activities intended to support learning <ref name="OPALdef" /> or more broadly, any context where access to educational opportunity through freely available online content and services is the norm.<ref name="JISCOEPbrief" />

==References==
{{Reflist|
refs=
<ref name=JISCOEPbrief>{{cite web|last=Beetham, H., Falconer, I., McGill, L. and Littlejohn, A.|title=Open practices: briefing paper|url=https://oersynth.pbworks.com/w/page/51668352/OpenPracticesBriefing|publisher=JISC|date=2012|accessdate=13 June 2013}}</ref>

<ref name=COLTdef>{{cite web|last=COLT|title=Open Educational Practices|url=http://colt.olemiss.edu/open-ed/oep/|work=Center for Open Learning and Teaching|publisher=University of Mississippi|accessdate=13 June 2013}}</ref>

<ref name=OPALdef>{{cite book|last=OPAL|title=Beyond OER: Shifting Focus to Open Educational Practices|year=2010|url=http://www.academia.edu/1002959/Beyond_OER_Shifting_Focus_to_Open_Educational_Practices}}</ref>
</ref>
}}

(Note that I have formatted the code here using<nowiki></nowiki> so that it will display in the post).

I hope you also find this useful (I recommend starting this earlier than later) and, you might want to discuss this on the Talk page first. You are of course welcome to visit Open Educational Practices and view the full edit page. (Thanks Pete for suggesting I write this up here). -C01Clem (talk) 23:50, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for writing this up, Clem! I had not seen this particular variant on reference formatting, and it seems like a very good approach. I'm sure others will be pleased to learn of this option! -Pete (talk) 20:41, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Using a Spanish Wpdia link in an English Wpdia article

In the article Phalaenopsis hieroglyphica, there's mention of the botanist Herman Royden Sweet. There's no English-language article on him, but there's one in Spanish. Any advice on how to make the link so that the reader can see that it's in Spanish? For a bonus barn star, should I try to create an English page on him, based on the Spanish? --Litjade (talk) 16:37, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Hmm, that's a little tricky. Different language editions of Wikipedia have somewhat different standards for inclusion, for sourcing, etc. From doing a very quick search, it appears to me that HRS is likely notable enough for an entry on English Wikipedia, but finding enough sources to clearly demonstrate that might take a little digging. (I found a little bit by searching books.google.com; searching news.google.com or library databases might reveal more.)

If you can demonstrate notability, I'd advise creating a stub in English. That will provide a straightforward way to establish a link to the Spanish version, and allow you to connect these related pages.

Another option, on a technical level, you can create a link to Spanish Wikipedia like this: w:es:Herman Royden Sweet. But I'm not sure where you would best include it. Perhaps in a "See also" section? -Pete (talk) 20:38, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Tricky, indeed! I came across a P. hieroglyphica entry in the Philippine Wikipedia, and it's more about Phals than about this particular species of orchid. Since it's in English, would it be best to place it under External links? --Litjade (talk) 22:57, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Obits are great for this kind of thing. I can find two. Orlando Sentinel [Orlando, Fla] 03 Oct 1991: B6. and NICKERSON N. SWEET,HERMAN,ROYDEN (1911-1991) - IN MEMORIAM. Rhodora. 1992; ISSN: 0035-4902; 94:396-396. Given that his professional obit (by an org he was an office-holder in) is a single page, I'm not hopeful. Stuartyeates (talk) 23:43, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Interesting, Litjade -- that site is actually not "the Philippine Wikipedia," but a separate site that uses the same software as Wikipedia. Since the Philippines have a number of languages (including English), there would be a number of Wikipedias relating to the country. A wiki that is open to anyone editing it is generally not considered a reliable source for Wikipedia articles; we are supposed to look for sources where the publisher holds themselves accountable for the content, as opposed to merely maintaining a platform where anybody can contribute. This may seem ironic, but Wikipedians have long considered it very important to base our articles on information that is strongly verifiable. -Pete (talk) 00:06, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Well, go figure! And yet I kinda wondered why the "W" icon didn't show up on my browser tab. Thanks, Pete! --Litjade(talk) 00:41, 18 June 2013 (UTC)