User talk:ToniSant

Welcome

Hello ToniSant, and Welcome to Wikipedia!

Welcome to Wikipedia! I hope you enjoy the encyclopedia and want to stay. As a first step, you may wish to read the Introduction.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me at my talk page — I'm happy to help. Or, you can ask your question at the New contributors' help page.

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ToniSant, good luck, and have fun. --Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 14:15, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Your class

Hi ToniSant, I saw the thread here and wanted to personally welcome you and your class to Wikipedia. I realize that starting out on Wikipedia can be overwhelming but I am glad you've introduced this project to your classroom. I am one of one of Wikipedia's online ambassadors. I simply wanted to reach out to you and note that if either you or any of your students has a question or needs assistance with your project, please feel free to have them drop a note at my talk page and I will respond as quickly as I can. Alternatively, if you place the code {{helpme}} followed by a question on your talk page (this page here), many editors get alerted and, like magic, one will show up to answer your question. I hope your project goes well; if you have any questions, feel free to ask. Happy editing, Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 18:09, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Hello Shirik, thank you so very much for your warm welcome and words of support. The {{helpme}} code is something I'm sure some of my students will be using in the coming days. Some of them are quite shy right now, but I'm sure they're all quite excited to be involved in this project. My hope is that this exercise will yield at least a couple of new active Wikipedians beyond the class, along with a handful of articles that others will find useful. Anyway, thanks again! --ToniSant (talk) 19:28, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Wiki Projects 2011

Hey, I've had some personal problems going on which I won't go into here but it's meant that I've been slow to start my wiki project, I'll email you a small bit of what I've wrote so far but it needs alot of work so don't panic too much because I am aware of that. There have been little few resources for Applied and Interactive theatre, but I'll show you what I've got so far. Please reply once you've read it and let me know what you think. I was planning on giving a brief explanation/ description of Applied and Interactive theatre and then moving on to talk about the Applied Theatre Guide. (Hannah4000 (talk) 17:56, 29 October 2011 (UTC)) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hannah4000 (talk • contribs) 17:33, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi Hannah, I've emailed you back and also I've left you a very important note on your user talk page. Be careful how much you write about the general subject rather than the guide, particularly since there's already a page on Applied Drama. Good luck! --ToniSant (talk) 18:00, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Mine User:Jessie Megs and Joes User:J.skudkid Arts catalyst Group is wrong on your list, it is actually Arts catalyst with no caps on catalyst, thought I would let you know, just wanted to let you know before the assessment so you and Maria could find it thanks Jess --Jessie Megs (talk) 23:56, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi Jess, thanks for letting me know. This needs to be fixed from your end rather than mine. The proper spelling has a capital C for Catalyst. Doesn't it? So, just use the {{helpme}} command on your talk page (as I explained in my most recent ebridge announcement) and explain that you need to move the article you created to a page called Arts Catalyst to correct the spelling. A WP admin person will do this for you quite promptly. Good luck! --ToniSant (talk) 08:02, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

An offer to help

Hello ToniSant,

My goal is to help any editor, student or not, who is committed to improving this encyclopedia in accordance with our established policies and guidelines. It is perfectly OK if a student is motivated to improve the encyclopedia by the prospect of getting a good grade for doing so. It is not OK for me, though, if a student is motivated to get a passing grade to the detriment of the encyclopedia, or by ignoring our policies and guidelines.

I have been interacting with a couple of your students after Martha Wilson came to my attention at the biographies of living persons noticeboard, which I watch regularly. I am also an Online Ambassador, and attended the Wikipedia in Higher Education summit in Boston this past summer. I need to be honest and let you know that I have some concerns based on what I am seeing so far of your student's work and what I am hearing from them.

Here's a quote from one of your students: "in a perfect world i would take it slower and create a smaller page, but as this is for a module at university i have no choice in the word limit i have to achieve. i hope you understand this. that is also why i ask if things arent deleted straight away i need something to show for my assessment."

I am not an academic, and don't know how you are actually describing course objectives to your students, and that is not really my business. However, I am a moderately experienced Wikipedia editor and a published freelance writer with decades of experience, and this is what I would say in response to the comment above if I was in your shoes: It is far, far better to produce a well-written 300 word article that neatly summarizes the topic from the neutral point of view and has as few as two or three good solid references from high quality reliable sources that clearly demonstrate the notability of the topic; than it is to write a bloated 3000 word article parroting the point of view of the subject of the article, referencing dozens of self-published and primary sources, and leaving many Wikipedia editors wondering if the topic is even notable at all. Experienced Wikipedia editors look at new articles, and the first thing we ask ourselves is, "is this topic really notable"? Notability on Wikipedia is demonstrated by significant coverage in reliable, independent sources, and is demonstrated decisively in an article by using such high quality sources for most of the references. Notability is not demonstrated by endless footnotes to the website associated with the topic, or to closely affiliated websites. Such primary or self-published sources can be used sparingly for utterly non-controversial facts once notability is established through references to genuine and solid reliable independent sources.

I am happy to assist students, to answer their questions, and to help them through the Wikipedia learning curve. I am not willing to accept, though, and you will find very few experienced editors here willing to accept poorly referenced articles larded with superfluous words that are written with little regard to our policies and guidelines just so a student can get a passing grade. I hope that you, as an academic, can understand that this collaborative project is all about providing high-quality encyclopedia articles and not at all about providing a publishing platform for student work in progress.

I look forward to your thoughts, and want to emphasize how willing I am to help any student who is trying to write a halfway decent article in accordance with Wikipedia standards. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 01:34, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Hi Cullen - thank you so very much for all this. It is greatly appreciated! The points you raise are all quite important and I'll be engaging with you further in the coming days. The work I'm developing with the students is getting better with every round, and there are obviously some students who get it more than others; ironically the same could be said for the institutional structures within which I'm able to produce this sort of assignment. It certainly doesn't end when the current group of students hand in their work. For now, I simply wanted to acknowledge your willingness to help and your generous spirit with what I'm trying to do over all. Anyway, I'll most certainly be in touch again soon. --ToniSant (talk) 08:01, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Theatron (and other articles)

Hi Toni, I've recently come across some of your students working on THEATRON (software) and there have been some problems, which I feel I should let you know about. Firstly, I think it's great that you are encouraging students to write articles, but I think you should go about things more carefully in the future, as I am seeing major problems with the articles being worked on. It seems to me as if the students you're working with have been given inadequate advice on (a) what Wikipedia should have articles on and (b) how they should be written. Unfortunately, this may mean that a lot of time and effort has been wasted. Just looking at those listed on your userpage: Vaneeesa Blaylock has no reliable sources (and I can't find any either), likewise with Avatar Body Collision. Digital Performance is written like an essay, Stuart Harris doesn't meet WP:BASIC etc. etc. Perhaps most worrying is The Applied and Interactive Theatre Guide which reminds me a bit of this and is seriously lacking independent coverage, sufficient to be included per WP:GNG. I hope that there is some way of resolving some of these issues, but it looks likely that some of the articles will have to be deleted. In the future, I would advise that you make sure that students fully understand what wikipedia is and how articles should be written before starting, and that you ensure that there are sufficient sources available so that WP:GNG is met and they won't be deleted. Please let me know if I can be of any further help. SmartSE (talk) 17:53, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Hi Smartse, thanks for getting in touch with me. I really appreciate your input on the work my students have been doing. Your observations about the students' work are excellent, and most certainly justified within Wikipedia policies and guidelines. However, rest assured that I've carefully considered and explained to the students (a) what Wikipedia should have articles on and (b) how they should be written. Still, I can always do with more pointers on how to get things to work better for everyone. I think most of them have a hard time explaining notability, for example. As I've said to another gracious and generous Wikipedian who has been helping my students over the past several days: there are obviously some students who get it more than others. My instructions were that they should complete solid stubs in a sandbox under their user space before moving them to the main space. Feel free to edit any of the articles as you see fit - and if necessary do not hesitate to mark articles for deletion; I'm sure you'll do this appropriately and with great consideration. It's all part of the learning process anyway. No student should be treated any different than any other bona fide Wikipedia editor. It's with help from people like you that people like me are able to remain sane when explaining to students how Wikipedia works. And the point you illustrated through the PhD comic is well taken...particularly since it's not actually the case in this instance. I'll be sharing that cartoon widely! It's up there with the famous dog on the Internet cartoon from Peter Steiner. :-) --ToniSant (talk) 18:15, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Move to Wikia?

Hi! I noticed that a few of your students are adding pages and having them deleted because they're not meeting wikipedia guidelines. Is it possible that they might want to try working on [www.wikia.com/wikia Wikia] rather than on Wikipedia? It would allow for more freedom and when/if the pages meet Wikipedia standards, they could be moved over here? I just mention this because they've recreated an article that's already been deleted once in the AfD process and it's up for deletion again. It might save more time for them if they were to create the articles and fine tune them on another source before creating articles here. You might also want to have them look at the Articles for Creation process, since they can start and work on an article without it actually getting posted directly to Wikipedia, it'd go through a review process and get looked at by other editors as to how Wikipedia worthy it is and get input on that. It might save them some time and trouble if they were to do either of these things rather than just post articles onto the wiki Tokyogirl79 (talk) 05:03, 12 November 2011 (UTC)tokyogirl79

Hello Tokyogirl79! Many thanks for your comment on the work I've been doing with some of my students as well as your useful suggestion. As I see it, getting your pages deleted is part of the learning process with Wikipedia, but it does seem a waste of resources to completely discard the data gathering from various sources that anyone does in the hope of having it included on WP. Still, I'm not sure that the Wikia suggestion is suitable for the sort of work I've been trying to do with students. I would have thought that the review process happens by WP editors within Wikipedia itself rather than on a separate site. We've been using sandboxes in the user space for exactly the same purpose you describe (as you can see here), but I do like the idea of having the articles systematically reviewed rather than simply dumped in the AfD process. --ToniSant (talk) 11:41, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

I would heavily recommend having your students create an article via the Wikipedia:Articles for creation process. It'd be helpful because they'd be able to continuously edit the page and have it looked at by other editors. If it passes muster, it gets made into an official page. If it gets declined it won't be deleted, unlike a page going through AfD. That means that your students could continue to edit the page and then resubmit it as a page. As far as Wikia goes, it's generally the same thing as Wikipedia, just with ads. It's not a complete replacement for Wikipedia but it'd allow your students a bigger place to experiment as far as pages go. (And then add the pages onto Wikipedia once they've perfected them.) You guys might also want to try keeping the info on your user pages (WP:USERFY) since this would also allow you guys to keep the page up and continue to edit the pages without it actually being deleted. The only problem with continually submitting pages to Wikipedia proper is that they could continuously be deleted and that's a little time consuming since traditionally it takes about a week to properly vote and go through the motions. I just don't want anyone to get in trouble since a lot of the pages that were previously created last semester ended up getting deleted, recreated by this semester's students, and then put up for AfD again, especially when there are easier ways to go about it. I don't mean to sound pessimistic or anything, I just want to save as much time and trouble for everyone as possible. Tokyogirl79 (talk) 21:24, 13 November 2011 (UTC)tokyogirl79

This is all very helpful! I'll make sure to modify my working process with my next group of students. Thanks Tokyogirl79! --ToniSant (talk) 09:04, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

PoIB sessions

Please feel free to talk to me here if you're working on the assignment for Psychology of Internet Behaviour.

• If you leave me a message: I will answer you here (on my talk page), then place {{Talkback|ToniSant}} on your talk page.

• If I left you a message on your talk page: please answer on your talk page, then place {{Talkback|your username}} on my talk.

THE MESSAGES IN THIS SECTION WILL EVENTUALLY BE ARCHIVED ON THE TALK PAGE FOR THE CLASS

--ToniSant (talk) 11:33, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Preliminaries

Hi Toni, Please let me know if I have missed anything important out on my user page. Thanks. Bossplw (talk) 12:05, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

The user page is a work-in-progress. Keep adding to it and/or amending it as you see fit. --ToniSant (talk) 15:50, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Toni, if you notice on my user page, I have linked your name to your user page and the others in my group, but I think I have gone the long way about it, could you maybe advise the easier way to do it, as the link look different to others. Danpickup1986 (talk) 11:57, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Dan, since it's on your user page, I suggest you play about with it. If you're still not pleased with it, Darren or Tony will engage with you at the next workshop. --ToniSant (talk) 15:24, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Betti Szabo and I are looking to work on Online Identity but are having trouble finding anyone else to join us. Will we be able to continue with just the two of us, or should we endeavour to find a new topic or... persuade someone to join us? Ace Jon (talk) 12:05, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Stay with the topic you've picked and I'm sure there will be at least one other student who will join you later. If not, we'll address an alternative solution at that point. --ToniSant (talk) 15:24, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

There are details on my group outlined on my wikipedia user page.Benparcell (talk) 12:09, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Ben. Noted. --ToniSant (talk) 14:36, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Toni, Jason, Dom and I would like to work on the page for eMusic if possible - the page is marked as needing some work doing to it, and we will be able to make use of factual research we've already undertaken for the eBusiness module. EisenEimer (talk) 19:07, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

If all three of you can agree to wok on this topic then that's fine by me. --ToniSant (talk) 19:22, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Toni, Is it a problem if you dont get feedback from wikopedians? I made some edits in my sandbox and invited people to view on the eMusic page but had nothing back? Yorkshiregeek (talk) 12:12, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Nothing to worry about...these will most probably come later once you start editing directly on the page. Feel free to take the plunge if you feel you're ready, and particularly if no one said anything after you invited comment on your sandbox. --ToniSant (talk) 14:30, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Can we take the plunge even if its clear that a section has yet to be completed...? Or will we get destroyed by other wikipedians saying "you clearly haven't finished!" and just delete it Jack Greenaway (talk) 19:04, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't think there's a right way to do it. It's up to you and your comfort level on dealing with other Wikipedians who may be deletionists. :-) --ToniSant (talk) 11:45, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Toni, If we decide to take the plunge will there be anyway of getting feedback into why it has been deleted if it does or will we just have to go blindly about fixing it Kate Carter-Rigg (talk) 16:28, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Toni, Don't worry about answering my question, I approached the Teahouse with my question. For anyone else curious on the matter the response i received was:

Hey, Kate, welcome to Wikipedia! As far as getting feedback, it really depends on the kinds of edits you make. You might not always get it, especially if there's nothing *seriously* wrong. But what you can do is ask anyone who does undo your work for advice. What you'll want to do is, if your work does get undone, go to the "View history" tab and see which editor undid your work. You can tell which entries in the history tab are what by clicking on the "prev" links next to any of the entries; this will give you a page highlighting the changes in that particular entry. Once you find the person who undid your work, you can go to their talk page by clicking the "talk" link next to their name. Once you're there, you can add a new section with the "New section" tab and ask them for advice on why they reverted you, and what you can do to improve. Hope this helps! Thanks! - Kate Carter-Rigg (talk) 09:40, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

That's great! Thanks for letting me know. --ToniSant (talk) 09:42, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Toni. Me and Nick have been working on the Kimberly Young page. We are a bit confused as it was a stub but we can no longer see any signs of the stub. Could somebody else have taken the code away for the stub? Thanks. --Thomascatterall (talk) 11:46, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean. The page is evidently no longer a stub. You can see whatever happened on the page through the history tab. --ToniSant (talk) 12:02, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Difference in writing styles

Hi Toni, Im having some problems with other wikipedians in relevance to my writing being more essay writing that encyclopedia writing. This is the feedback I recieved.

The article looks good, but is written a bit too much like an essay, rather than an encyclopedia article, I'll make a few copy edits to show how it should be changed and hopefully you can do the rest. SmartSE(talk) 12:27, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

This morning I put in some subheadings to give you some idea for how the info could be broken up into sections, and I also reworked some of the prose to make it clearer and a little more concise.

I do agree with Smartse that the article still reads far too much like an essay, and not nearly enough like an encyclopedia entry, which is what it is supposed to be. An encyclopedia entry consists of setting out useful, well-organized information for the reader to easily access, in a clear and usable form, based on reliable sources. An essay on the other hand is a flowing and sometimes elegant discussion on the theme of the topic. They are not the same thing at all. If you need me to explain this a bit more, let me know.Invertzoo (talk) 13:28, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

I asked them to explain further but I'm just getting further confused. Im beginning to wonder if it may be because I am the only person to put up any content on the page but if not how do i change my writing style. If you wish to review the page I am working on Internet relationship. Thank You Kate Carter-Rigg (talk) 15:05, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Invertzoo has given you an excellent pointer: "An encyclopedia entry consists of setting out useful, well-organized information for the reader to easily access, in a clear and usable form, based on reliable sources." I suggest you engage with this Wikipedian on this matter. In some cases, less is more. Ultimately, your assignment gives more weight to engagement than to understanding or content. --ToniSant (talk) 15:25, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

I no but with my contribution list being over 100 and 75% or so of that is engagement so i wanted more to concentrate on the understanding and content but i have trouble understanding the other wikipedians. Kate Carter-Rigg (talk) 17:01, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Make peace with the fact that this online experience is probably not too different from other offline experiences. This, in fact, is one of the essential aspects of the module we're doing on Internet Behaviour. In the end it's all human behaviour. --ToniSant (talk) 17:09, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Just fell over your project while stub-sorting...

Hallo Toni, I came across Adam Joinson while stub-sorting, tidied it up quite a lot and left what ended up as a great long spiel of comments on the talk page, but have a couple of comments.

• Shouldn't the "this is an educational assignment" banner have a link to your project page at Wikipedia:School_and_university_projects/Psychology_of_Internet_Behaviour_2012? I only traced the project by seeing that it was you who had added that banner!

• In general Wikipedia editors choose to make their real name available or not to do so, but your project page lists all the students' names along with their editor names. I wonder if that's a good idea?

I hope the comments I gave on that article were useful and not too offputting - I did some cleanup-type editing but not all that needed to be done, as it was non-standard in various ways I've mentioned. Perhaps you could remind the students, probably for the umpteenth time, that one of the ways to learn how to create good Wikipedia articles is to look at existing articles, especially Featured Articles, and pick up style, format, etc from them. Or alternatively to read the various help files etc! They shouldn't be adding big bold title headings, dates in brackets, strangely formatted references, if they've really looked around and seen how things work. Lots to learn. (And to think that when I was a student all our computing was done offline with 80-column punched cards for input!) PamD 20:17, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Pam - Thank you very much for your kind comments. The two points you raised are very well taken. I'm in the process of discovery along with the students, even though I've done this before. I'll make sure that all future educational assignment banners include links back to the project page. I believe the template has a parameter for that sort of thing anyway, so it should be easy enough. As for the list of student names, it's a very interesting point since we're currently discussing online anonymity and how it alters online behaviour, particularly in the renegotiation of private and social spaces. I'll bring it up again and see what the students make of it. I can already sense a hefty "meh!" coming my way.

I'm sure the students will appreciate your input on the Adam Joinson talk page. I have a feeling they'll even be grateful if you engaged with them further, after they address some of the amendments you've recommended. They should indeed have followed the pointers I gave them during the various workshops we've had, which include precisely the ideas you mention. There's also an ambassador community for educational assignments that we could be making better use of - but the Wikipedia UK Education Programme is hardly as developed as the one in the US or India. I'm hoping to follow this up in the coming months as I'll certainly be running further Wikipedia assignments next year. Anyway, thanks again. --ToniSant (talk) 20:41, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Toni, Thanks for getting back to me. Quick point: if you put a "Talkback" on someone's talk page, please put it at the bottom of the page. Otherwise it might not be noticed, especially if someone else has added a recent message too! I think some UK editors are in the Online Ambassadors scheme. As for Adam Joinson... it's on my watchlist now, so I'll see what they do with it and might well chip in again! PamD 20:58, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Psychology of I.B - Presentations

Hi Toni, I am just curious whether we hand-in a printed copy of the article to you or is it just the presentation? Thanks, Bossplw (talk) 12:15, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

There's no hand in, it's just a presentation we're doing this week. --ToniSant (talk) 12:23, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Toni, I'm just wondering if presentation times have been posted somewhere, or if we find out in the morning, Thanks Danpickup1986 (talk) 17:50, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

We've decided to go with the list as it appears on the class page, starting with having everyone load their PPTs on to the podium PC at 9:15am and then have 4-minute timed individual presentations until we've gone through the whole lot; there will be a comfort break somewhere in between, of course. --ToniSant (talk) 19:24, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

So just to be clear, we're all supposed to have individual powerpoints? I thought it was a group presentation, but we're marked individually, sorry, I'm confused now Danpickup1986 (talk) 20:08, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Nothing to be confused about - it's as per the module handbook. --ToniSant (talk) 12:47, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Online auction changes

Hello, I just thought that you should know that our group’s additional pages should be (online auctions and Auction Sniping, including Reverse_auctions) because we deleted the business model page and redirected it to the Online auction page. Callum.moore (talk) 19:38, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Cullum. Please make sure to indicate the appropriate links on the class page. --ToniSant (talk) 12:47, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Most recent questions etc.

Hi Toni, Im having a problem with a person who is editing my page, normally i wouldn't mind but hes changing it so it goes against the style guide and I'm afraid I'm going to lose marks for it Kate Carter-Rigg (talk) 17:34, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Stand up for your work if someone is misbehaving! You can also report someone to administrators if they're editing things against the style guide. There are several ways to go about this. Someone in the Teahouse should be able to help you. --ToniSant (talk) 11:27, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Toni, sorry, I couldn't be there for the last part of the lab, had to run home. I uploaded that screenshot of the website that you mentioned and it was speedily deleted. See here: | My Commons Discussion Page. What action would you suggest I take? As I created the screenshot in question (and made the website if that also helps?) --spamoom (talk) 11:30, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

I suggest you follow the Wikipedia guidelines and ask someone at the Teahouse for help if you feel lost. --ToniSant (talk) 11:27, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Toni, I have a fear that I'm not going to get any contribution from external Wikipedians (basically someone who isn't on PoIB) and I was wondering if you had any suggestions as to how we can get some outside participation. I'd like to assume my initial entry was so good that no one had any reason to remove/edit/criticise but that would be a bit naive. Cheers in advance --Craigjp88 (talk) 20:06, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Craig - you do not need contributions from other Wikipedians outside of PoIB on your article, what you need to do is demonstrate engagement. This can be done in way's I've described during the workshops. I suggest you try branching out from your page with cross-links and related pages etc. Good luck! --ToniSant (talk) 11:27, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Craig, Sorry to butt in but i saw your question to Toni and i recieved some advice from a Wikipedians outside of PoIB that i think can help you here. The message i got was:

Hello Kate, me again. I wanted to just let you know that when you are completely stuck and don't know what to do, you can put helpme with curly brackets on either side on your talk page, just like a regular message, and someone should show up fairly soon to try to answer a question.

I used this help me coding to ask if someone could help me to read through the stuff i'd written and help with style if theres any pointers on top of the style guide. By doing this, I now have three other Wikipedians outside of PoIB engaging with me. Hope This Helps :) - Kate Carter-Rigg (talk) 12:07, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for that Kate, it's quite useful to share such information. Indeed, the {{helpme}} function/template is among the things listed under Personal help on your talk page on the simplified help page available through my user page. I didn't mention it as it did not seem pertinent to your question, but perhaps I simply misunderstood you question. Anyway, Kate's suggestion is also helpful. --ToniSant (talk) 12:28, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses guys I appreciate it. The helpme is a great idea and I think i'll try and make use of that where I can. I did also place a message on the teahouse asking for people to get involved with us on the online auction page and I received some good feedback there and also some good tips! What I meant by contributions was them actually bothering to talk to us as it seems they don't want to get too involved with some at the moment! But all seems to be looking up, thanks again! --Craigjp88 (talk) 12:43, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Toni, I was supposed to be working on the page for eMusic before Other Stuff got in the way. However, Jason & Dom seem to have done a pretty good job on that page - so much so that I was wondering if I could work on another page instead, since they seem to have covered pretty much everything that needed tweaking. I've been making some alterations to the page for Gordon-Smith Guitars outside of project work anyway; would it be okay to work on that page instead? If so, I assume I would need to adapt the educational assignment template to state April 2012 as well... EisenEimer (talk) 20:58, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Hi Paul, I understand what you mean. However, it's best if you discuss the situation with Jason & Dom in the first instance, if you haven't already done so. Content is only 20% of your mark, so I would suggest putting the emphasis of your attention on understanding and engagement which carry 30% and 40% respectively. What I'm saying is that the content is less important than ensuring you understand how Wikipedia works (and demonstrate that to us during your presentation - which is worth the other 10% or your mark) and what level of engagement with other Wikipedians we're expecting of you in the whole exercise. I hope this helps you focus on the task at hand. --ToniSant (talk) 10:02, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

In the interval between my original message and the reply, I've been researching for and amending the GSG page anyway, so I'm going to stick to that now rather than go back to eMusic - I appreciate that the content isn't the main focus of the assignment, but I feel that I'll have a better understanding of the wiki-ing process if I have plenty of research and editing to do. EisenEimer (talk) 17:54, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Hi

Hi, I found your userpage on someone's talk page and thought I'd ask you. I've been editing Wikipedia for close to 7yrs now. I'm a student. I wanted to know if you could give me a few ideas on getting more students to join here. --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 10:15, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for stopping by. Did we meet at the Wiki Conference in Mumbai? I'm not sure where to start with your question as the answer can be very broad. The best way I've found to have students become wikipedians is to integrate the creation and/or editing of articles as a class assignment. I'm obviously able to do this as my main line of work involves working with students in a university classroom. I wonder what our friends involved in the Wikipedia India Education Program would add to what I've just said. --ToniSant (talk) 10:45, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

We didn't meet. I had boycotted the event as a sign of my protest. As for Editing Wiki in class, I'm strongly against it. If I was for it, I would have quit editing Wikipedia last year as the students from Pune got university credits for editing Wikipedia which I did not. Personally, I hate the IEP, and I hope there isn't a sequel to it. It did nothing but screw up existing articles. Ask any Online Ambassador, they'll tell you about the janitorship they ended up doing. I doubt that we can take this conversation forward as we are on the opposite sides. Cheerio, --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 05:56, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

There's no need to end this conversation simply because it would appear that we're on opposite sides of this matter. I respect your position and I'd actually go even further and say I'm quite intrigued by it, especially from a professional perspective. I have no problem with the fact that that you boycotted the Wiki Conference in Mumbai, nor that you have serious objections to the IEP. Would you care to elaborate more on what it is you're seeking to do with students outside the IEP? I am genuinely interested in learning about your point of view, even if it contrasts with my own and seems rather extreme or somewhat aggressive at face value. --ToniSant (talk) 09:59, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

I must first apologise for my rudeness. Let me start with my involvement. I've been on Wikipedia since I was 13. In my school days. I became active in outreach during my pre-university/higher-secondary days in 2009. I feel giving incentives to students, especially university grades is bad thing, atleast in India, where, having lived here all my life, I know the seriousness, or rather lack of it, students show when it comes to assignments. Much before the IEP, I have done my serious bits of editing, and unlike IEP, I don't edit articles related to what I study. That I feel is the biggest difference. Editing articles outside ones rationale of study/profession is important. I hope you are able to understand what I'm attempting to convey here.

P.S: My boycotting had nothing to do with IEP. --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 11:59, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

This is a very interesting alternative perspective on student involvement with Wikipedia. I can completely understand your concern with assignments in India, of which I have limited experience, from my own interactions with students in the UK and USA. I've been exploring the possibility of having students work on pages that are not about what they are studying, and while this works well (or even better, in some cases) from a Wiki perspective, it's probably not as academically appropriate and/or beneficial, at least in the short term. It's a good and important point that you're raising here and I'm more than happy to engage in conversation with you further on this. Ultimately, from my perspective, it depends on the desired learning outcomes for the students. As a lecturer I am equally interested in teaching students about how Wikipedia works as much as I am about teaching the subjects that my students are getting degrees in. --ToniSant (talk) 09:18, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, to be honest, I'm not looking at a purely academic outcome. --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 11:02, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Special Barnstar
	Thank you so much for inspiring me in real life to work closely in student environment.I am hopeful to see you in India soon. and All the best for Wikimania 2012 :-) Keep Supporting, Keep Inspiring! :) AbhiSuryawanshi (talk) 15:10, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you! You're very kind! The inspiration is reciprocal, my friend. In fact, I plan to catch up with you privately too over FB in the coming days as I have some questions for you that we can then move back to share on our WP talk pages, and possibly elsewhere. --ToniSant (talk) 10:20, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

EduWiki Conference 5-6 September in Leicester, UK

I am writing to you as you have signed up to the Education Meetup at Wikimania 2012 and perhaps are interested in how Wikipedia links to education. Wikimedia UK is now running a education related event that may be of interest to you: the EduWiki Conference on 5-6 September in Leicester. This event will be looking at Wikipedia and related charitable projects in terms of educational practice, including good faith collaboration, open review, and global participation. It's a chance to talk about innovative work in your institution or online community, and shape the future of Wikimedia UK's work in this area!

The conference will be of interest to educators, scholarly societies members, contributors to Wikipedia and other open education projects, and students.

For details please visit the UK Chapter Wiki.

Please feel welcome to register or promote within your network.

Thank you, Daria Cybulska (talk) 16:22, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Questions and comments from AIT2 (2012)

Hello students! Please feel free to leave your comments or questions for me here. (This goes for all other Wikipedians too!) --ToniSant (talk) 09:17, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi Toni, I found you... --NomNomNomNathan (talk) 09:21, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Nathan, I've replied on your page! --ToniSant (talk) 09:25, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

I am finding this good :D --Jamiecarl1992 (talk) 09:20, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Sorry i was Late --MRPERRY145 (talk) 09:24, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Hello, ToniSant. You have new messages at Dregan Phillips's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Blanking pages leads to deletion

Hi. This morning, a number of your students seem to be creating pages or talk pages with just the "Educational assignment" template and then immediately blanking them. Because new users or vandals very often create something and then blank it, one of the criteria for speedy deletion is WP:CSD#G7 sole author requested deletion or blanked page, and in fact a "Bot" automatically tags such pages for deletion. No harm done, but a certain amount of waste motion; you might explain to them in case they are puzzled.

Also, an "Educational assignment" template placed on an article talk page before there is any content on the article page may be more or less automatically deleted under WP:CSD#G8 talk pages with no corresponding subject page; best to wait until they have something substantive to put on an article page and then add the "Educational assignment" template to the talk page. Regards, JohnCD (talk) 10:32, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi John - Thanks for this. I really appreciate it. Yes, there are various things that my students still need to learn, but I'm sure that with the help of generous Wikipedians like you they'll eventually get there. I'm sure that some of them will so get the hang of it over the next few days that they will be awarded Barn Stars quite readily. :-) --ToniSant (talk) 10:59, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

No worries! Do they know about Help:Userspace draft? If you go there and fill in an article title, it sets you up a draft page, like a sandbox, in your user space where an article can be developed without the risk of premature deletion. When ready, it can be moved directly into the main encyclopedia space, or there is a "Submit the page" button to send it to WP:Articles for creation where (after some delay, because they are very overloaded) an experienced user will look at it.

Another thought. I'm probably telling you nothing you don't already know, but this is an issue that has given trouble on some educational assignments: do get them all to read Wikipedia:Copy-paste, and emphasise that copying material into Wikipedia is a no-no and if repeated will lead to accounts being blocked. Even if you're sure the source won't mind, even if you plan to re-write it after copying in, don't copy, write in your own words. Copying gives us continual problems, and both human and automatic systems have to put a lot of effort into watching for it. JohnCD (talk) 11:19, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks again John! Help:Userspace draft is indeed one way of going about creating a new page, and some of them are aware of it. For the most part they're all working in their individual sandboxes right now because other other than the novelty of creating a new article they're also grappling with wikitext and other WP delights, of course. The main exercise this current group of students is not necessarily to create a successful page but to understand how Wikipedia works by attempting to create a new Wikipedia article. They are fully aware of Wikipedia:Copy-paste but I don't exclude the possibility that one or two of them will attempt to do this anyway; either because they missed my explanation of this or because they simply want to learn how the system works by seeing it in action. Please feel free to point out any other things you think are essential for students working on Wikipedia within a university environment. I'm hoping to recruit one or two ambassadors from the Wikipedia Ambassador Program later on today, as I've had a couple of promises previously but I naturally need to follow up on that. Cheers! --ToniSant (talk) 11:36, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

A few more points come to mind, in random order:

You should make sure the students understand that anything they post is irrevocably released under the CC-BY-SA license, which means that any reader of WP can copy, modify and re-use it for any purpose including commercial. The details are at WP:Copyrights#Contributors' rights and obligations. There was a row (on another project, not WP) when a student wanted to withdraw her paper, was told she couldn't, and complained that she had not been properly warned.

One difference between a WP article and a student paper is that often the point of a student paper is to draw a new conclusion from existing facts, but in Wikipedia that is prohibited as WP:SYNTHESIS, part of the WP:No original research policy: "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources."

It is good that your emphasis is on understanding how Wikipedia works: my next point was going to be, encourage them to see it not as a website to be edited but as a community to be joined and collaborated with. If they get talk page messages they don't understand, ask whoever sent the message (unless the username ends in "bot", indicating an automatic system!)

It is a fundamental principle that nobody "owns" a Wikipedia article; once an article is put into the main encyclopedia space, others are quite likely to edit it, and "please leave this alone till it has been marked" may or may not get a sympathetic response. Generally, I hope you will find people friendly and helpful, but they will be unwilling to allow the project to compromise the quality of the encyclopedia. "Please don't delete this, I need the marks" will cut no ice. This is partly because of a disastrous project last year when 800 Indian students were let loose with inadequate briefing and support - you may have heard of it, but if you want your flesh to creep, read the beginning of Wikipedia talk:India Education Program/Archive 1

It's always a problem to find one's way through the jungle of advice and policy pages: there is a useful one-stop guide at WP:PRIMER.

Regards, JohnCD (talk) 22:16, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi John, thanks for all this. It's really great! I'm fully aware of the Indian education project. I was invited to Mumbai last November to present at the Wiki Conference. I also mentioned this experience at the presentation I gave at the University of Leicester during the first EduWiki conference last month. You may want to watch the YouTube video for that presentation here. If you have the time/patience to sit through it, it will give you a better picture of where I stand vis-a-vis Wikipedia in higher education.

I'm 100% with you on the "jungle of advice and policy pages" and this is why I've created a simplified help page for my students. I'm still tweaking it, of course, and this is why your advice is very helpful. Thanks again! --ToniSant (talk) 09:06, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Draft article Helen Varley Jamieson

Hi Toni, please could you have a look at my sandbox. User:Franbundey/sandbox Am I ready to make my article public? Franbundey (talk) 14:07, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I would not recommend putting out the whole article all at once. Start with a topic sentence right away (perhaps as a stub) and add bits to it as you go along. Have a look at what one of your classmates is doing here. I also suggest you take a look at the Manual of Style as this will help you improve your writing. For example, don't refer to the artist as 'Helen'.  :-) --ToniSant (talk) 14:12, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I have created my article and only included a small section to start with. I will re-read the Manual of Style to help me improve my writing. Franbundey (talk) 14:28, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Good! I saw that. This is more than enough to get started with - and I've tried to clean up some of it for you because you had some parts of it that could attract a nomination for speedy deletion. Perhaps you can consider marking what you've published as a stub too. Have a closer look at what one of your classmates is doing here. --ToniSant (talk) 14:34, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) References 2 and 3 are not real books, but copies of Wikipedia. See VDM_Publishing#Wikipedia_content_duplication. This makes them unsuitable as references. SmartSE (talk) 17:28, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Stephen A. Schrum Academic

Hey

You told me early that I could look at adding my page to the academics and talking with them about my topic. However I am having difficulty finding this page on academics again can you tell me how to find it please or send me the link.

Thank you LydiaRDoyle1992 (talk) 17:08, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I think I was referring to Categories. Do you understand how these work yet? If you do, have a look at this page linked here. If not, feel free to ask at the Tea House.  :-) --ToniSant (talk) 17:14, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I have asked at the tea house for more information on categories. : )

LydiaRDoyle1992 (talk) 10:49, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Draft in Sandbox

Hi Toni,

Can you have a look at my sandbox please and tell me if it is ok to go on the actual Stephen A. Schrum page.

Thank you.

LydiaRDoyle1992 (talk) 11:04, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi Lydia - I'm not the best person to ask.  :-) Go ahead and do whatever you've understood to be good practice with Wikipedia (this is part of your mark). I also suggest you interact with other Wikipedians rather than just me (this too is part of your mark. I'll react to your work as soon as it's available to the broader Wikipedia public. Good luck! --ToniSant (talk) 11:53, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Contribution to wiki meta page

Hi Toni, I recently contributed to a wiki meta page (that you can find here) that I was invited to on my talk page but it doesn't seem to have come up on my contributions, is there a reason for this?