User talk:Shalor (Wiki Ed)/Archive 3

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Need help request from Ds3630 (talk)

Hello.

I need help with my article on LGBT rights/people in Ayiti. I want to make sure it is suitable for publishing.

--Ds3630 (talk) 04:07, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

• Hi Ds3630, where are you going to post User:Ds3630/sandbox? If it's going to be posted to the Haitian Creole Wikipedia then we will need to make sure that there isn't a page for this topic already on this language's Wikipedia. Offhand I'm concerned that this comes across like original research in many places and is written in a relatively casual, essay-like style. I think that you would be better off doing a translation of LGBT rights in Haiti, to be honest, if you wanted to add this content to the Haitian Creole Wikipedia. As far as I can tell, that page has no corresponding article on the Haitian Creole Wikipedia and they actually seem to lack overall coverage for LGBT content as a whole. While you wouldn't need to research new sourcing per se, translation is still fairly difficult and as such, your teacher will likely be OK with you just translating an existing article - I would still ask them first, however. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:46, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

Stray student

Hi Shalor. I may have come across a stray student wandering the halls of Wikipedia. Would you might taking a look at User talk:Marchjuly#Katryn Tappen photos and seeing if you have any suggestions for this editor. Apparently there have been some cases of company interns, etc. editing Kathryn Tappen in the past, but I'm assuming good faith that this editor is a student working on a project. FWIW, I don't think they are participating in a WikiEd project, but not sure. Thanks in advance. -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:16, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

• I don't see anything in their edit history that shows participation in a Wiki Ed classroom assignment - typically they will have an edit to the Wikipedia page for their class showing that they've enrolled. I'll leave a message on their talk page, though. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:40, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

• Also, Marchjuly, I'm going to send you an email about this. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:53, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for taking a look at this and helping to explain things to that editor. -- Marchjuly (talk) 21:28, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Signatures in Visual Editor?

Hi Shalor. Do you know if I can enable signatures for the page User:Reagle/QICs? Students like VisualEditor, but my understanding is no VE on talk pages, and signatures are grayed out on that user page...? I thought maybe there had been a change in policy, and surprisingly, there *is* an insert signature option in VE on that user page, but it is grayed out. -Reagle (talk) 21:44, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

• I'm actually not sure - I was going to post a question at the VE page, but it looks like you've already done that. I'd like to know that as well! Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:54, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Just testing

Thanks Sharon--Esamikhafe (talk) 03:09, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

• No worries! Welcome to Wikipedia! Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:48, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

New student editors

Hi there, Shalor. I have noticed by going through your contributions over the past few days that you have welcomed hundreds of students to Wikipedia. As far as I can see, their universities provide special training on Wikipedia and sooner or later they are encouraged to write articles of their own. I'm not sure how many actually progress to the stage where they write articles but it strikes me that at least some of them, especially the women, may be interested in reducing the gender gap on Wikipedia by writing biographies of prominent women in their field of study. I was wondering if it would be useful to draw their attention to WikiProject Women in Red which would provide them with the necessary background information and offer assistance to any who join the project. I'm not sure whether it would be useful to mention WiR in you welcoming message or whether we should leave it to a later stage when they have already come to grips with the Wikipedia essentials. Any ideas? Do you maintain an index of the universities and colleges participating in this initiative? Perhaps they could be sensitized to the problem too. Btw, I see that as Tokyogirl79, you have written quite a few women's biographries yourself and that you are on the main WiR mailing list.((cc Rosiestep--Ipigott (talk) 11:20, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

• Hi Ipigott! I mention WiR quite a bit with educators - I'm definitely a staunch supporter of the project. :) I don't know if we can drop a note about it in the message or not - I can bring this up with my co-workers to see if there's any place we could have a more regular place to mention the WikiProject. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:08, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for taking this up. Please let me know if you take any action. WiR itself could perhaps help you along.--Ipigott (talk) 14:10, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

• I dropped a message on the office Slack channel. :) Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:48, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
• Hi! We can't really add specific mentions of this to any of the template messages that we send out to people. We do have quite a few classes that have made articles about women in specific though, such as this class that created 30 new articles on women in the field of psychology. :) Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:36, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) :*Hi Shalor! Thanks, Ipigott, for circling me in. I could see how it would be problematic for an employee of Wiki Edu to send a welcome message to these WikiEdu students which includes mention of Women in Red. In her role as [[User:Shalor (Wiki Ed)]], she is reaching out to students who are part of a specific university class which has a Wikipedia assignment. For this reason, the students should stay focused on their assignment, so mention of Women in Red might be confusing. That said, if someone in a "volunteer" role -you, me, Tokyogirl79- sent a communication at another time (May/June... end of semester) regarding Women in Red, that might be nice. If you think it would be worthwhile, we could continue this recruitment discussion at the Women in Red talkpage for broader comment? --Rosiestep (talk) 17:42, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Rosiestep: This seems to be a case of nothing ventured, nothing gained. I just noticed that a fair proportion of the students receiving Wikipedia training are women. Maybe it would be possible to include something on the gender gap in their courses, around the time they are beginning to create articles. This may provide some of them with more incentives to continue Wikipedia editing after the end of their course. As far as I can see, not many do so. By all means bring this up on WiR. We can continue the discussion there.--Ipigott (talk) 11:42, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

See: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women in Red#New student editors. --Rosiestep (talk) 14:27, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

• Hi guys - I'll actually let my boss LiAnna (Wiki Ed) know about this so she can participate. She's the one who would really be the person you need to talk to. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:05, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

• Nice! Thanks, Shalor. As I'll see LiAnna (Wiki Ed) in Berlin in a few weeks, maybe we can talk about it more there, too. --Rosiestep (talk) 18:16, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

• Wunderbar! :) Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:18, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
• Happy to talk more in Berlin, Rosiestep! --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:28, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Need help

Hi Shalor,

This is Shayla from a University class assignment group. I'm still new to using Wikipedia, and I am trying to figure out how to create a section in my sandbox to title it "Article Evaluations". Do you know how I can do this?

Thank you in advance for your help,

--Shayla — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shaywah (talk • contribs) 19:32, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

• Hi Shaywah - how cool is it that our names are so similar? In any case, you can create a new section in your article in one of a few ways:

1. Write the subsection name out like "== Article Evaluation ==" (minus the quotation marks, of course). This should create a new section using source code.
2. In VisualEditor there will be a toolbar at the top of the page. If you click on the page you will see a box that has "paragraph" written in it. Clicking this box will bring a pull down menu like the one pictured here. Selecting "heading" will bring up a section heading. With this you can write out "Article Evaluation" in the article space and it will appear as a new section. Click below the heading and you can start your evaluation.

If you don't have VisualEditor enabled, you can re-enable it by following these directions. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:11, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Need help request from Nickn99 (talk)

Hello.

I need help with... creating a section in my Sandbox for Article Evaluation.

--Nickn99 (talk) 19:41, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

• Hi Nickn99! I just posted a set of directions on this above. (It was after you'd posted here, of course.) Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:13, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Ve'ahavta deletion

Greetings, thank you for advocating for the student work to be restored. I cannot believe how quickly this transpired. I quite disagree with you that the article is a mess. I've been working with students writing about organizations for years and have never had an issue like this. I see very little detail presented to justify G11. Generally the issue is a lack of external sources, which this article does not suffer from. This seems very hasty, and I am frankly troubled by the deletion of seemingly everything, including the student sandbox without any form of respectful, civil engagement. I have yet to hear a detailed argument as to why this material violates any Wikipedia policy. If the only definition of neutrality is that there must be criticism, then I would like to hear someone say and defend that. --Jaobar (talk) 20:52, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

• Hi Jaobar - I wouldn't say that the article was a mess. It was more of a case of the article having a very persuasive tone that, when mixed with words that Wikipedia sees as buzzwords, comes across as promotional. For example, more detail is given than is really necessary for Wikipedia's purposes. An example of this is the activities section. The section contains a lot of overall information about issues that isn't really necessary in a Wikipedia article. One of the specific examples I gave was the International Crisis Response section. There isn't a need for a detailed overview of what this part of the organization has done in various countries and the reasons for them reaching out to these areas - that's seen as a bit indiscriminate, as far as Wikipedia goes, and can actually make a page unintentionally promotional when paired with cpersuasive writing.

I'm in the process of trying to get a sandbox version restored at the moment and I'm going to go through the page and help pare down some of the content that likely caused Largoplazo to see the page as promotional. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:07, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

• Essentially, I think that the main cause for concern is a difference in writing styles - the article's tone is one that wouldn't be problematic elsewhere and wouldn't be seen as "sales-speak" in another setting, but on Wikipedia would come across as such. It can be difficult to pick this out at times, especially if this is a writing style that people are used to writing on a regular or daily basis. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:13, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
• Hello. In case you didn't see my comments on the article's Talk page, the issue is that the article was written in the form of an appeal from the organization to the reader, as outreach, a means of engaging the reader to appreciate the organization and be inspired by its mission, and to call attention to the plight of the homeless. There's nothing wrong with that kind of outreach—on the contrary, it's admirable—and the organization merits it through appropriate vehicles, but that's a distinct purpose from that of Wikipedia, which doesn't advocate or justify or appeal. The article continually worked to share the organization's vision, to provide lots of background (such as a couple of paragraphs about other programs related to the homeless in Toronto) to frame how important its work is, to describe each of its activities in minute detail worded so as to inspire admiration. I didn't see any way that the article could be converted into a neutrally written reference article without starting from scratch. I'm sure that a fine article that meets Wikipedia's guidelines could be written about this organization. Largoplazo (talk) 21:17, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

• Largoplazo, thank you for your comments. Let me begin by saying that I think efforts to remove the article, student sandbox and discussion within an hour of the edit, without thoroughly presenting a merit-based argument (and allowing a productive discussion) demonstrates a disheartening violation of a number of Wikipedia conduct policies. I did see your comments on the article talk page, and your reference to G11 (to which I responded), and I think you are incorrect. G11 states "This applies to pages that are exclusively promotional", which the article was not. Your comments on this thread, justify, at most, a flag that I'm sure you are familiar with, suggesting that the article is overly promotional and should be amended. This, more WP:Civil gesture, would encourage the editor and others to make corrections, in line with WP:AGF. Speedy deletion on the other hand ignores months of work, the possibility that others have debated the language and see it differently, and assumes an almost editorial control that also violates WP:Own. I'm sorry but I do not share your concern about a connection between the presentation of vision and a description of the organization's work. The organization is described this way in reputable external sources, which support the assertion that this presentation is in line with WP:Verify. Again, while I appreciate your efforts to protect the integrity of the encyclopedia, I do not agree with the merits of your argument. I hope you will reconsider. Sincerely, --Jaobar (talk) 21:40, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

• I do feel that it was exclusively promotional. The language was written, end-to-end, in a manner that elicited admiration for the organization and suggested an appeal for readers's support of its mission.

You are arguing that by invoking G11, I was inherently violating WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF and exercising WP:OWNERSHIP. If that reasoning held, it would render G11 inoperable. Since G11 is an extant guideline that is invoked frequently, it is clear that good-faith invocation of G11 is not considered a violation of WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF or an exercise of WP:OWNERSHIP. If you would like to make the case that G11 shouldn't exist because it's a violation of WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF and an exercise of WP:OWNERSHIP, that's a matter to take up at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion or elsewhere on a project discussion page.

I have no doubt that many of the sources underlying this article describe the organization and its activities, deservedly, in glowing terms, but only the factual information, not the glowing terms, should become part of the language used in a Wikipedia article. Articles here serve a different purpose and are governed by different policies and guidelines and speak in a different one and from a different perspective from many of the sources from which information on this website are taken.

Since I take no issue with the truth of any part of the article, I'm not sure why you're bringing up WP:Verify, unless you believe that passing WP:Verify is sufficient to qualify an article. But while verifiability is required, it isn't the only criterion. Largoplazo (talk) 21:57, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

I was considering whether to suggest that the heavy attention given in the article to Ve'ahavta's cause, the plight of the homeless, amounted to a WP:COATRACK issue. I was just browsing through the WP:NOBLE essay on writing about "noble causes", and noticed that it covers that point in the first list item under the heading WP:NOBLE#Writing about a non-profit organization. (On the other hand, a neutral reference article on Homelessness in Toronto might itself be a good topic for a Wikipedia article.) Largoplazo (talk) 22:11, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

• I think that a large chunk of the content in the activities section of the article could be placed in an article that is generally about the homeless population in Toronto, or at the very least, in a subsection in the main article for Toronto. Part of the issue here is that this information doesn't really belong specifically in an article about a non-profit. Non-profit content should be specifically about what the organization is doing, such as "The organization does this, this, and this." The first two sections in the activity portion under the title "Street Outreach and Homelessness Response" are very general and do not mention the organization. While yes, the information is why they're doing what they're doing, it isn't considered pertinent for an article that's specifically about an organization. To use an example, in Wikipedia's perspective it's akin to discussing the history of African-American performers in an article about Will Smith. While he is an African-American performer, this information would be superfluous in an article that is specifically about him.

I highly recommend, at the very least, creating a section about the homeless population in Toronto in the main article and merging the general information there. If possible, an article about this would be even better. I'm going to remove this information from the article on Ve’ahavta, although I will try to work it in as needed into other sections. 22:41, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Heads up

Just in case you miss it on your watchlist - see here. - Sitush (talk) 01:02, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

• Thanks! Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:54, 19 January 2018 (UTC)