User talk:Ian (Wiki Ed)

Repeat: Abandoned course at University of Southern California? And offer to help with sanitation-related articles

Hi User:Ian (Wiki Ed), I had put this on your talk page on 20 December but it was moved to the archive without an answer. So I am copying it again. If my question is not appropriate please let me know on my talk page. Otherwise, I'd love to see a response from you: Hi Ian, I come from the WikiProject Sanitation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Sanitation). I saw on the page on groundwater pollution that a student from this course: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/University_of_Southern_California/Ecological_Factors_in_Design_(Spring_2016) was meant to work on that page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Groundwater_pollution). Seems like nothing has happened though (since February 2016). I couldn't figure out from the course page if the course was abandoned or if just this one student abandoned the assignment? Could you let me know and perhaps also say something on the course page about it? - I also have a question where to find good example pages of where university instructors have successfully involved their students in editing Wikipedia articles. I've started a little list here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Sanitation#Student_assignments But I am sure you probably keep more comprehensive lists? If any university people are interested in getting students to work on pages that are tagged with the WikiProject Sanitation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Sanitation#Lists_by_content) I would be happy to help, e.g. with regards to content, photos, structuring, referencing. EvMsmile (talk) 13:21, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi EvMsmile. Sorry about that - I saw your message and meant to get back to you, but it slipped my mind (and I missed it when I was archiving).

So the student who worked on groundwater pollution was BriManly, and they did end up making some edits. The course page actually has a link to the Wiki Ed Dashboard for the class, up in the top left. For this class, it's here. (Maintaining the education program extension wasn't on WMF's priorities, so we built our own. WMF now runs an implementation of it here; you can read more about it at meta:Programs & Events Dashboard.

As for compiling a more complete list - I should be able to put together a list of sanitation-related articles that students in courses that worked with us have done. I'll get back to you on that. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:28, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. I look forward to seeing your list (it doesn't have to be a list of sanitation-related articles but a list of university courses in general where lecturers have used students to edit Wikipedia articles). If it was part of those dashboard links that you sent, I couldn't quite figure out how to find what I was looking for. EvMsmile (talk) 22:02, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Moving images to be next to corresponding paragraph

Hello,

I am editing the Bird anatomy page and I have contributed an image of a dissected pigeon sternum. I have successfully uploaded it to the page but I am having a hard time moving it to be next to the paragraph it correlates with. Please let me know if there is a way to fix this. Thank you. Bazinga2018 (talk) 04:38, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Replied on their talk page. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 12:51, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

Need help request from Laura.smith450 (talk)

Hello.

please review my draft article in my sandbox titled "rough draft article" and provide notes, comments, suggestions.

I am making notes in my bibliography section and will need to get items cited properly, that is a work in progress.

Thanks so much for your input!

--Laura.smith450 (talk) 04:30, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Replied on their talk page. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 12:51, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

Need help request from Alissa Yap (talk)

Hello.

I need help with...

--Alissa Yap (talk) 12:35, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

Hi @Alissa Yap:. Do you have something specific I can help you with? Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 12:50, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

Need help adding a caption to a map

Hello Ian,

On my sandbox I added a map that pinpoints the location of my topic (Sacramento Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant). There were no usable wikipedia pictures of Elk Grove, CA for my topic so I decided to just put a map (from Wikipedia) to show where the plant is. My problem is that I cannot add a caption to it like I see on my fellow classmates pages, and I have the feeling that is because they were able to use wiki pictures. Is there any way to put a caption under the map showing the coordinates, address, city, etc? I would very much appreciate your help. Thank you and have a good day.

Sincerely, Aspease (talk) 15:51, 10 May 2018 (UTC)Alison Spease

E.A Fairbairn Water Treatment Plant

Hi Ian. E.A Fairbairn Water Treatment Plant appears to have been created a student participating in Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/California_State_University_Sacramento/ENVS_135_(Spring_2018). The article was moved directly moved by the creator from their sandbox to the mainspace with all sorts of formatting errors, etc. These have been cleaned up by another editor, but I still think the article has questionable notability and might not meet WP:ORG. There are sources provided, but these mainly appears to be primary in nature and are not really helpful in establishing notability. Some of the content has also been removed per WP:COPYVIO and WP:C-P because it appears to have been directly copied and pasted from an external source.

I understand that the students participating in these projects have good intentions and that part of the assignment sometimes includes them moving their work to the mainspace, but personally I think they would be best for them to submit these things for review to WP:AFC since AFC reviewer should be able to catch major problems before the drafts become articles. My initial thought was that this should probably be userfied to let the student work on it some more, but the copyvio content might require a WP:REVDEL and anymore found would also need to be removed. Would you mind taking a look at it and see if it can be saved? If it can fine, but there will still be some issues which need to be addressed and the student should be advised about copy-pasting content into articles, etc. Also, pinging Helaine (Wiki Ed) since she is also listed as a Wiki Ed advisor for the ENVS 135 project. Thanks in advance. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:18, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Clong6496

Hi Ian, Just a heads up but Clong6496 is indeffed for citation spamming as well as socking, I'm by no means telling you how to do your job but If this is your student then I would kindly advise you tell all of your students that cite spamming isn't the way to go nor is creating another account to continue it (If this wasn't your student then ignore this), Many thanks, –Davey2010^Talk 20:21, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) This is just a suggestion and I'm not sure if it is in accordance with proper Wiki Ed protocol. The student seems to belong to Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/Widener University/POLS 215 Environmental Politics and Policy (Spring 2018) so it might also be a good idea to let the course instructor know about this as well. Perhaps the course instructor can stress that mistakes are OK to make, but WP:SOCK is not going to be tolerated in any shape or form. If this student is getting graded on their Wikipedia work, then that is likely their main concern and they will probably try to continue to edit in some form as long as the course is still ongoing; so, the instructor's interventation might be needed to get them to stop. It might be best to let the instructor know by email (if possible) to avoid any unnecessary public shaming of the student and to better ensure the instructor is made aware. -- Marchjuly (talk) 21:31, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Hi, Sorry I've only just seen this (and accidentally too) - I've removed their name from that course but yourself or the instructor is more than welcome to revert,

Inregards to emailing - Hindsight's a lovely thing . Happy editing. –Davey2010^Talk 14:59, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

@Davey2010: I was only making a suggestion; it was not my intent to criticize, so I apologize if it came off as such. These students often don't seem to have a good grasp of what's going on with respect to Wikipedia; most seem to mean well, but just go about doing lots of things the wrong way. Sockpupperty, however, is pretty serious stuff; so, the quicker it's nipped in the bud, the better. Since we as editors typically can only interact with these student via their user talk pages, their instructors might be better off following up the messages we leave with an explanation face-to-face. -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:33, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

Huh. Thanks Marchjuly and Davey2010. I can't quite figure out why they were citation spamming, but I will definitely get in touch with the instructor. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:48, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

FWIW, the class appears to be done, so the odds of it cause problems for the student as a student are probably slim. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:57, 21 May 2018 (UTC)