User talk:Prof Haeffel

Please leave me comments with your signature , Thank you Prof Haeffel (talk) 04:04, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

United States Education Program

Hi Jerry! We don't currently have any ambassadors stationed at Notre Dame; I'll put up a geonotice now and see if we can't recruit a couple between now and the training session later this month. Thanks for your interest in our program! Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 02:51, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi again; I just spoke with Chanitra (your regional ambassador, User:Etlib) earlier this week, and she said she's not had any applicants yet from South Bend, but she'll keep an eye open. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 02:27, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Greetings from down state

Hi- I see that you are also jumping in to the APS initiative this semester. I'm doing likewise with my Industrial Psych students at Ball State. I'm hopeful it will come together well, but I hope I can recruit some good wikipedia ambassadors to assist. I'll be interested to learn how it goes for you and your students. Best, -Mike Mjtagler (talk) 22:36, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Hello professor Haeffel I am very excited about researching the Dodo Birds. Ltilmans (talk) 04:20, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

First Talk

Hey Professor Haeffel! I hope to uncover some interesting and reliable sources regarding the myth about winter suicides! DavidlawsonND (talk) 17:52, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

That's awesome that you know what topic you're going to cover on Wikipedia, David. I'm still trying to narrow down my options! Acal26 (talk) 21:08, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I am not sure exactly what topic I am going to work on either, but I'm excited to hopefully figure it out soon and get started! Kfe117 (talk) 23:01, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

It is hard to choose with so many great options! Dancingsneakers (talk) 19:41, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Etiquette

that's right! i forgot. i'll go back and fix that! thanks! Vmansoor (talk) 04:42, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Hello

Looking forward to narrowing down article topics this week! Mnortonb (talk) 04:53, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I also look forward to narrowing down the topic of choice that we will be working on this week! Jmatulis (talk) 17:53, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

A pie for you! thanks!

Gucci Mane La Flare Ltilmans (talk) 21:08, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Welcome

Hello Prof Haeffel, 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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Prof Haeffel, good luck, and have fun. --Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 03:36, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

First Talk, 2013

Hey Prof Haeffel, making my first talk post here. Editing Wikipedia is a lot more complicated than I expected. It will be cool to figure all this stuff out! Bpfeife1 (talk) 03:47, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree! I didn't expect Wikicode to be as complex as it is. It will be exciting to finally understand it all. Epeter11 (talk) 04:59, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm eager to keep learning more about Wikipedia too! It's been a lot of fun exploring the site and figuring out the tricks-now I can't wait to start working on our articles! Lrague (talk) 05:12, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Yummy!

Here is a delicious pie for you, Professor! And its your favorite kind. Just use your imagination... Kmorri11 (talk) 05:24, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I just noticed that you have already received pie, oops.

This past weekend I uploaded a photo that I took on a fishing trip last summer onto my user page. I have also organized my user boxes into a collapsable table! It took hours for me to figure everything out but I am making some progress! --Kmorri11 (talk) 05:32, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Do you know what's even better than pie......?

Fried Ice Cream!!!

Jyi2 (talk) 17:43, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia is confusing at first but I think I;m getting a gold on it!Domer64 (talk) 18:50, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi Professor Haeffel. I had no idea Wikipedia was so complicated! Tkcrown (talk) 19:31, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Pitch Perfect

Actually, no, I'm never sarcastic when it comes to Pitch Perfect. My quad (and pretty much my entire dorm) is completely obsessed with it; I think we've watched it at least 4 times a week since we've been back at school. It's actually scary how much we like it, and one of our friends is planning an intervention haha. You should watch it and let Lisa and I know what you think! Epeter11 (talk) 19:57, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Talk Assignment

Hello Professor Haeffel! Hope I'm doing this right. Also, is there a list of the usernames of our class anywhere? PseudoPsych (talk) 03:24, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

PseudoPsych

Hi Prof Haeffel, couldn't help but notice all the pies you have on your talk page, pretty nifty. Aphilli5 (talk) 20:03, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Go Badgers! Kreiser15 (talk) 00:59, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

First Wiki Message

Hi Professor Haeffel - am I supposed to be using specific formatting in messages to or is it just a free for all here? I should chat with you soon about topics because I'm having trouble finding one that I'm excited about and that has room to expand.66.138.168.78 (talk) 02:55, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Darnit - I was the one who wasn't logged in right. It says in the upper righthand corner that I'm logged in now, so let's hope that this works right... Nperez27 (talk) 20:26, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

PseudoPsych Class Message

That's weird, why do some people's timestamps show up here as the 27th, when today (sunday) is the 26th? I have ideas for which articles I might end up choosing, but I feel like they'd be too broad or too narrow, as far as researching them; and I am an indecisive person. Btw, be safe driving to campus tomorrow with this weather! AmBarbaraK (talk) 04:17, 27 January 2014 (UTC) Hmm, my timestamp is off too...and the timezone is UTC...Idek what that means... AmBarbaraK (talk) 04:21, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

First Message

Professor Haeffel, Hi! Really excited about being able to develop a page for this class. I've got a few ideas for what I want to do, but haven't finalized anything yet. See you in class if the weather isn't too crazy! -- Mrussel8 (talk) 04:48, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Sorry this is late

Hi Professor Haeffel, sorry about doing this last minute. Also, I'm just following the format that those above me are doing. Is that okay? See you next class! Fmontez94 (talk) 05:38, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Save the Best for Last... Right?

Professor Haeffel,
I'm not even sure if I'm the last one to leave you a message on your talk page. However, you needn't worry any longer! I've posted. See you in class tomorrow. Meghancleary (talk) 20:59, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Explaining

I patrolled your students' pages. I went through the enormously-backlogged list of newly-created pages and confirmed that the pages were okay: not spam, not an attack page, not a copyright violation, not any of the other reasons for which I would delete someone's page without asking. Then I clicked "patrolled" to remove them from the list of "pages that have not yet been patrolled", and moved on to the next entry. That's all. DS (talk) 03:21, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Spring 2015 Messages

Hi Professor Haeffel, this is a sparse comment for your talk page. --Marigold Measurer (talk) 02:08, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Greetings!

Hello, Prof. Haeffel! It's quite chilly outside. Hopefully it'll get warmer again soon. SilverCirclet (talk) 18:17, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Hoping this works!

I got a respectable B in my C++ programming class in high school and I still can't figure out this website. Let the struggles begin! Danigrover (talk) 01:11, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Happy Sunday!

Hi Professor, I hope you had an enjoyable weekend. Looking forward to narrowing down my potential project topics this week! NatalieLaura (talk) 03:33, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Llamas!

See you tomorrow Prof. Haeffel. Down with the Badgers!.....please don't fail me Yankee422 (talk) 03:41, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Confession Time

All this Wikipedia editing takes me back to my 7th grade days spent working on my Myspace page. Glad I can put these old, basic html skills to use again haha. Gmercuri (talk) 06:43, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Science & Pseudoscience

Hi Prof. Haeffel,

I'm just practicing writing on talk pages. I also think that you should add more flare to your user page like the spinning ballerina.

Jmoreno3 (talk) 16:09, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I Was Too Distracted By Basketball To Do This Earlier

Sorry for the delay, but I'm still figuring out Wiki-Markup as I go! Not as easy without an added incentive of candy though... Gramos3 (talk) 19:12, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Just Figured This Out

Go Badgers Sfische4 (talk) 02:26, 27 January 2015 (UTC)Sfische4(talk)

Finally found your page

I feel like finding specific user pages isn't as intuitive as I expected. Oh well, see you tomorrow! Griffoman444 (talk) 00:12, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

To my dear Haeffel, sup. Yours forever, Lan Blackfang81 (talk) 20:33, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Sorry this is so late!

Hi Professor Haeffel, Sorry I wasn't able to make it to class last week. Catching up on all the work now. See you Monday! Gbunsa (talk) 20:24, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Dispute resolution for "Safety Behaviors"

Requested a dispute resolution here for an outside opinion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#Talk:Safety_behaviors If you can, please add your side of the dispute so that this problem can be resolved. Thanks! GoldenCirclet (talk) 02:44, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Hello, from a DR/N volunteer

This is a friendly reminder to involved parties that there is a current Dispute Resolution Noticeboard case still awaiting comments and replies. If this dispute has been resolved to the satisfaction of the filing editor and all involved parties, please take a moment to add a note about this at the discussion so that a volunteer may close the case as "Resolved". If the dispute is still ongoing, please add your input. Rider ranger47 ^Talk 21:21, 14 May 2015 (UTC) Rider ranger47 ^Talk 21:21, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Hi!

Can you see this?

-EJEsmith26 (talk) 21:41, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Figured it out

Hi Prof Haeffel! Super stoked for this class. See you Monday! CPsychND (talk) 01:45, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

I Hope I'm Doing This Right!

I've never related to my parents' confusion with technology...then I met Wikipedia! Arie828 (talk) 03:34, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Hey!

I feel like I'm doing this right. Mdaly9 (talk) 20:50, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi!

Your talk page is much more crowded than mine Aphilli8 (talk) 22:49, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Good Morning!

Happy Monday Prof Haeffel! ChristinaGotcher (talk) 15:27, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Hello

See you in class soon.

--Cjwilliams00 (talk) 17:38, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Hello There

Boy I hope I'm doing this correctly! See you soon!

Three8 (talk) 20:12, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Learning Wikipedia is Certainly a Process

After stumbling around Wikipedia for longer than I'd like to admit, I finally found your talk page! The upside is I now feel like I have a much better handle on navigating the site! I've got a few pages saved to my Watchlist that could potentially work for the project...

• Cognitive slippage
• Splinter skill
• Comparator Hypothesis
• Backward inhibition

I'm going to keep looking to make sure I'm not missing any really cool topics before I formally decide next week. Right now I think I'm leaning toward Splinter skill or Cognitive slippage. Both seem really interesting and I was able to find some sources in my quick preliminary search of PsycInfo. Any thoughts on either topic? Comahgoodness (talk) 06:34, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Assignment for Thursday!

Hello Professor Haeffel! I don't think my message can live up to Colleen's... I'm pretty sure I'm still doing muscle dysmorphia.

See you tomorrow! Ivid11 (talk) 21:51, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Hello!

See you in class tomorrow! AttackMoose22 (talk) 00:40, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Hello

Hi Professor Haeffel! See you bright and early(ish) tomorrow!

Sbernar1 (talk) 02:05, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi

See you tomorrow! Dmcapotos (talk) 04:43, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi Professor!

Crossing my fingers that I'm doing this right... CSD96 (talk) 06:00, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Hey!

I just figured out how to do this! JohnnyWick13 (talk) 14:34, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Better Late Than Never?

Hey Professor Haeffel! If you're reading this, then I must've figured it out. Thanks again for meeting with me to discuss my statement of purpose. I'm feeling much better about it now. Have a great weekend!MaysonND1010 (talk) 23:42, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

It's been quite a day...

Hey Prof Haeffel! Hopefully the rest of the semester goes smoother than my attempts to figure this out and pick a topic...don't worry though, I got this. See you Tuesday! Pnatale (talk) 03:58, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Wikiedu

It looks like you're using Wikipedia assignments in one of your classes. In case you weren't already aware of it, Wikiedu has some great training modules for college-level Wikipedia assignments. It also has a Blackboard-like interface for keeping track of student assignments on Wikipedia. Have a nice day!Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 19:34, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Return of the Quiz Ninja

Greetings professor, it is I, the Quiz Ninja. I have returned to give Logan extra credit points. BEWARELogan McAbee-Thomas (talk) 15:43, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Hello!

Hello, Professor Haeffel! I'm excited for our class this semester.

Dmaynd2019 (talk) 16:28, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Hi Prof Haeffel

Annaleisg (talk) has given you a plate of hummus! Hummus is a specialty of the Middle East. With some pita bread, they are delicious and promote WikiLove. Hopefully, this one has added flavor to your day.

Spread the goodness of hummus by adding {{subst:Hummus}} to someone's Talk page with a friendly message! Give a plate of hummus to someone you've had disagreements with in the past, or to a good friend.

I spent too much time figuring this out and it also made me really hungry. Enjoy the hummus! Annaleisg (talk) 22:24, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Hello!

What a cute puppy!

Cgorman4 (talk) has given you a doggy!
Doggies promote Wikilove and hopefully this one has made your day much better.
Spread WikiLove by placing a doggy on other user's talk pages by adding {{subst:Doggy}} to their talk page.
Happy editing!

Annaleis' gift inspired me, so here is a doggy! Cgorman4 (talk) 00:16, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Good afternoon!

Good afternoon professor, thanks again for the snacks given in class! Atrevizo (talk) 23:04, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Hi!

Hi Professor! See you in class tomorrow. Evelyn Emcmanus1 (talk) 23:50, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Talk Homework

Bwilli18 (talk) has given you a fresh pie! Pies promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by giving someone else a piping hot pie, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Bon appetit!

Spread the tastiness of pies by adding {{subst:GivePie}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Bwilli18 (talk) 00:49, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Hello!

Hi Professor Haeffel! See you tomorrow. Brittanygrimes3 (talk) 01:14, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Hello!

Hello Professor Haeffel! See you in class tomorrow!CloayzaND (talk) 01:48, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

E720 > B15

Very thankful for our new classroom. See you there tomorrow!Mmakasia (talk) 03:40, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Yes, this new building is impressive!Amanecerotravez (talk) 14:19, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Training your students

Your students seem to be unaware of the conventions for editing about health and medicine in Wikipedia, and this is a) wasting their time and b) wasting the time of volunteers.

There is training for students here.

Really key things are:

• We almost exclusively source such content from high quality secondary sources (defined in WP:MEDDEF); we don't write mini-reviews based on research papers. Please see also WP:EXPERT, which you might find useful.
• We use the pubmed ID in citations as it is useful for many reasons.
• Ways to generate well-formatted citations very quickly are described in WP:MEDHOW
• We never use the word "patient" (see WP:MEDMOS
• We have a standard way that sectioning is done, also described in MEDMOS.

For what it's worth I suggest you ask your students to pause and do the training and then reconsider what they have been doing. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 15:55, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

I pasted the response here, from my talk page where it was given Jytdog (talk) 17:07, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for your message. Given that Wikipedia is supposed to be a community of people working together to advance knowledge, and that no single person is in charge of Wikipedia....please allow me the liberty to retype your message in a way that would allow for a productive and collegial interaction:

"Thank you and your students so much for their work on a variety of Wikipedia pages. I can tell that they put significant effort into updating the pages to reflect the most rigorous and up-to-date clinical science. I was particularly impressed that EVERY SINGLE citation in EVERY SINGLE article came from a high quality peer reviewed secondary source. Also, I appreciate that pages were edited to remove other sources (e.g., webpages and advertisements) and factually incorrect information. The content that was added is accurate and certainly not worthless. The additions to Intuitive Eating and Subcortical ischemic depression were very well done. However, there was some variation in the quality of contributions, and I think there are a few things you can continue to work on. For example...XXX. That said, even the contributions with problems added content that makes the article better, and it is certainly worthwhile to remove incorrect information. I know that sometimes there are implicit biases against student contributors, so I just want to reiterate that we want as many people as possible to be a part of our community and mission to disseminate accurate scientific research. Please let me know if I can further help you and your students better prepare upcoming articles. Happy to answer any questions that I can. I understand that Wikipedia can be an intimidating place and insulting people does little good to help provide quality Wikipedia contributions."

Sincerely, Prof Haeffel (talk)

Our mission is to provide the public with articles with articles that summarize accepted knowledge. Primary sources or predatory journals are not where we find "accepted knowledge" and as I am sure you are aware, much research is not replicable or ignored by the field. Presenting the public with content based on primary or other unreliable sources is not an improvement; in the field of health and medicine it is sloppy at best and actually harmful at worst.

More broadly responding -- everybody here is a volunteer. You and your students do not deserve any special "attaboy" for doing what we all do. That sense of entitlement is simply vulgar.

You do not seem to understand what a "secondary source" is in Wikipedia, nor what all the criteria are, for something to be OK per WP:MEDRS. Please do actually read WP:MEDRS and WP:MEDDEF in particular.

I hope you will ensure that you and your students become more familiar with the policies and guidelines for editing about health. Jytdog (talk) 17:12, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I see this: "Scientific journals are the best place to find both primary source articles about experiments, including medical studies, and secondary sources. Every rigorous scientific journal is peer reviewed. Be careful of material published in journals lacking peer review or which reports material mainly in other fields. (See: Martin Rimm.) Be careful of material published in disreputable journals or disreputable fields. (See: Sokal affair.)". No need for "atta boy" and also no need for insults. Please provide an example of a source that does not meet the above criteria. That would help us understand your problems with the citations.Prof Haeffel (talk) 17:21, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

I have your page watchlisted and I will see your replies. There is no need to have this discussion in two places.

You are missing the thrust of MEDRS, which is that we use secondary sources as much as possible:

• A secondary source in medicine summarizes one or more primary or secondary sources, usually to provide an overview of current understanding of the topic, to make recommendations, or to combine results of several studies. Examples include literature reviews or systematic reviews found in medical journals, specialist academic or professional books, and medical guidelines or position statements published by major health organizations.
• In contrast A primary source in medicine is one in which the authors directly participated in the research or documented their personal experiences. They examined the patients, injected the rats, filled the test tubes, or at least supervised those who did. Many, but not all, papers published in medical journals are primary sources for facts about the research and discoveries made.

MEDRS goes into a lot of detail about what we mean by that, and goes some into why we do that. The main thing you should understand is that MEDRS has broad and deep consensus in the editing community. Going against it, will be beating your head against the wall. Really just a big waste of time. Lots of experts who come to WP find this frustrating or annoying. They want to write reviews themselves like they do in their professional work. WP doesn't work that way, and this is by design. It is what makes WP possible.

You might find the essay WP:EXPERT helpful, broadly.

If you want to understand why we emphasize high quality secondary sources so much for content about health and medicine, please see WP:Why MEDRS?. Jytdog (talk) 17:30, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

You asked for examples.

See this diff, which added citations to PMID 23544035 and the paper by Hantouche, each of which were published in Neuropsychiatry (London), which is published by OMICS, the poster child for predatory publishers.

This diff added citations to primary sources PMID 24091304 and PMID 18077000.

In general, if that student been trained to format citations as described in MEDHOW, it would have saved me time reviewing their work (and would have made the work much more useful for anybody coming after them, since links to pmid and doi allow people to quickly to find the source if they want to learn more or verify the content.) It takes only a few seconds to use the tool described in MEDHOW -- it is faster than doing them by hand. Everybody wins.

this diff added content that I am worried is copied from DSM-V (I still need to check) APA enforces its copyright on DSM fiercely.

They also used words like "patient", and editorializing comments throughout, that needed to be cleaned up. Those are typical new editor mistakes. Not horrible but something that training would help them get right the first time, saving both them and everybody time.

here is another large edit by a different student. If you look at the history you will see where I went through and fixed things, removing primary sources etc.

I am just asking that you make sure your students do the training - with specific focus on WP:MEDRS, WP:MEDMOS, and WP:MEDHOW. Those are three main guidance documents that the training tries to explain. Jytdog (talk) 17:44, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

I just want to add that the education program can be a great thing. We are always hopeful that students get engaged with the mission of Wikipedia and start to volunteer regularly. What happens too often, however, is that students are not trained well enough in what we do here, how we do it, and why we do it that way, and the whole thing ends up being a negative experience for the students and for experienced editors. It gets really ugly when students focus on class requirements and getting their grade - this turns into an overt conflict of interest situation, where their external interests (the class) obliterate their responsibilities as individual Wikipedia editors.

The better oriented you, as their instructor, are to those three things (the mission, how we realize it, and why we do things as we do them), the more your students will be, and there is a better chance that everybody can have a better experience, and the mission (which is what matters) can be advanced efficiently and happily.

If you like please read User:Jytdog/How, which I wrote to try to help orient people to those three things... Jytdog (talk) 18:02, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Those were very good examples. Thank you. Is there anyway on here to send you a quick message not visible to public?Prof Haeffel (talk) 18:04, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Sure! In general, if you go any editor's userpage or talk page, over in the left margin you will see "email this user", if the person has enabled that in their preferences. I have that enabled, and you do too. I have already sent you an email. Jytdog (talk) 18:33, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Canvassing and student editors

Hi Prof Haeffel, I see that Jytdog in the comment just above this has already addressed some of the special challenges of both student editing and medical editing on Wikipedia, and particularly doing both at once; he is far more experienced than I in how WP handles medical material, so I wanted to reach out to follow up on a more general topic that it would be great to have your students be aware of, namely WP policy barring canvassing (see also--and it's unfortunate there isn't a more neutral name for this--meat puppets). The issue came to my attention because (you're probably aware), some of your students made nominations to the Did You Know? main page feature and then approved several of each others' nominations. I imagine your students likely just weren't aware this would pose any issue, and indeed in a classroom environment I can imagine it actually seemed appropriate/desirable for them to work collaboratively; however, within Wikipedia (and I apologize if I'm reiterating policy you're already aware of yourself), seeking out sympathetic evaluators (or volunteering yourself as a sympathetic evaluators) in order to get content promoted, rather than leaving the decision to an uninvolved editor, is viewed as disruptive. Insofar as it comes off as "gaming the system", it undermines community trust in the involved editors, and more importantly it's detrimental to the encyclopedic project, because such conflicts of interest diminish the quality of the evaluation given to the material at hand.

In terms of making students aware of this issue, and the considerable number of other editing policies that are rather counter-intuitive and likely to trip up new editors, potentially creating large snarls when groups of new editors arrive all at once via coursework on WP. Do I understand correctly you haven't been involved with WikiEd yet? If not, I'd highly recommend it. The foundation is dedicated to helping instructors incorporate WP into coursework as smoothly as possible--and it's wonderful they're available, because, as I see you've encountered, it can sometimes become a source of conflict to rely on regular contributors to address course-related editing problems, since students are getting course credit and faculty are getting paid to teach, but the rest of us are not compensated for the time we volunteer to the project. The guidance, trainings and other assistance offered by the WikiEd staff can ease this tension considerably. If I'm not mistaken, Ian (Wiki Ed) is the liaison for science topic so he may be a good person to be in touch with for your courses' material, or perhaps he could point us toward the right person if there's someone else more appropriate to reach out to.

Thanks all. Innisfree987 (talk) 05:14, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

(Pasting in the reply from my talk page so we may keep the conversation together--please feel free to reply to me here, I'll watch the page. --Innisfree987)

Hi, thank you for your message. Yes, I am aware of the 3 instances of canvassing for DYK. This matter was taken very seriously and wrongdoing was discussed with the students. Thank you for your attention to this matter. And yes, I have also been in contact with the WikiEd people. Obviously we will continue to improve as we become more familiar with all of the wikipedia rules. Having done this for about 5 or 6 years, it does appear that students have become more of an easy "target" for criticism recently (likely given the larger number of students contributing to wikipedia because of the different educational initiatives). I'm not saying that students and new wikipedia editors are not making mistakes and that it is not annoying to veteran editors; but, I think it's important to make sure that the rules aren't used as a method of exclusion. I have edited pages under a different username and also have seen students do the same, and anecdotally, there is far less scrutiny in these situations. I just hope we are not holding students to a higher standard than a general community member because they are easy to identify in a class setting and may hold biases against them (e.g., only motivated by grades, etc.). I would suspect that the extremely small fraction (relative to the population) of volunteer editors are a rather homogenous group. College students may provide more diversity (though likely not as much as is needed) to the group of editors. Plus, students tend to have an advantage over the general community member because they tend to have higher IQs on average, are better writers, and have access to scholarly journals (which essentially no regular person has). Plus, they are the future of wikipedia so I hope that they can be taught the rules, but also want to continue to participate in editing. Thank you again for pointing out the canvasing issue and we will try to ensure that does not happen again. Prof Haeffel (talk) 14:50, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

First: thank you for disclosing that you and some of your students have second accounts. In that case, you and they should please review WP:Sock_puppetry and if at all possible, go ahead and disclose your other accounts on your userpages, or confidentially if circumstances require. After the issue of (I'm sorry, I really do think this is such an unhelpfully negative term but I don't have another) apparent even if unintended meatpuppetry, any whiff of sockpuppetry is only going to make matters more difficult.

Second, I would stress that the idea editors who are being compensated (whether with pay or course credit) are juggling interests beyond strictly those of the encyclopedia is not bias; it's fact. Such editors do have additional interests at play and the challenge, as in all conflicts of interest, is how to manage this. Viewing education as part of the project's mission, Wikipedia make deliberate efforts to facilitate constructive editing for course credit, including via paid staff at WikiEd. It is something needing facilitation though, as students' obligation to complete their assignments is not automatically consistent with community policies on the construction of the encyclopedia (as I think you are encountering, WP operates very differently from academia, for instance). In cases where school assignments and WP policy are not aligned, or simply that new student users are not given sufficient preparation on WP policies, this can mean a large number of new editors arrive in one specific area all making the same mistakes, and doing it like its their job, because it sort of is (in contrast to new volunteer editors who tend to go at a much slower pace and be dispersed across an array of topics). This can quickly and considerably overwhelm volunteer capacity of experienced editors in any given topic area to check citations, revise problematic new material, advise students on policy, etc. etc. etc.

Naming that this can become an issue does not imply we have something against college students; it means we have a logistical problem in how best to on-board a cluster of new editors with little to no experience and a simultaneous mandate to make sometimes-significant changes all in the same focused area. When regular editors bring you concerns about how this is going for your course, I would really urge you to have a re-read of WP:AGF and try to focus what solutions can be found, rather than alleging bias. It'll keep you on the right side of the WP:ASPERSIONS line for one, but moreover, AGF became a guideline because we truly do find it's the best way to keep moving ahead constructively. And then I can't help reiterating what an important resource WikiEd is for getting course-related editing off on the right foot, as well. I'm glad to hear you're in touch with them and hope you'll consider using their structured program for introducing students to editing in the future. It is not a fail-safe against all issues but it's a great place to start.

Best wishes, Innisfree987 (talk) 21:55, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

I did not mean to imply that we had different log in accounts but rather when edits have mistakenly been made while not logged into our accounts...when the tag says anonymous. I'm not sure I agree with the idea that the additional interest of students and teachers make their wikipedia contributions any less valid or that their contributions are somehow plagued by theses interests. As far as I know there is no data on the issue and any implications regarding the effect of external motivation on quality is conjecture. I'm not sure its useful to single out these particular conflicts of interest when all editors have biases, motivated reasoning, and other factors that drive their reasons for editing this encyclopedia. Some editors makes mistakes because they dig in their heals due to overconfidence and lack of expertise; are those mistakes somehow more acceptable than ones related to getting a good grade? Does calling wikipedia contributions pieces of "shit" align with wikipedia policy? All humans have biases; to borrow your language, it's a fact. That said, I understand the problem of timing can cause. Having a significant amount of content emerge at once likely does cause issues. We started editing articles 6 years ago because we have an ability to make a contribution that is unique. Most of the experts/academics/professors who know the most about these topics do not edit wikipedia articles. And, most people do not have access to peer review journals.

With regard to the recent feedback by Jytdog, there is a reason that wikipedia prefers review articles to single studies and that should be kept in mind in this case. We have edited approximately 50 articles over the last years and have aggregated a good amount of positive feedback. We have also participated in the APS wikipedia initiative which provides educational resources. The outlier in this feedback is from Jytdog. I think it is easy to take this most recent feedback as being more important or more valid than the prior 5 years of feedback because of its aggressive tone and ad hominem style. There is a reason that editors of scientific journals are not anonymous as it is too easy to take this approach given anonymity. And you're right that I should not assume bias overall because we had never received such feedback until now. But it sure seems hard to understand how a regular editor who is a stickler for rules would not know that pages aren't deleted for imperfections, or that the intuitive eating article did not meet criteria for speedy deletion, or that other articles have similar numbers of primary and secondary sources. Thanks again for your feedback; this has been a wonderful experience for our students. We talk a lot about scientific communication, biases that affect behavior (e.g., confirmatory bias, etc.), and how to best get people to alter their beliefs, etc. This all has provided a great deal of real life case studies for discussion.Prof Haeffel (talk) 02:33, 19 May 2018 (UTC)