Talk:Wikipedia

List of interested course developers
Please add your name and state how you intend to contribute, for example with Beta testing, fact-checking, development of quizzes, discussion problems, practical exercises, etc. See also the to-do list at the talk page.
 * Mange01 13:33, 17 November 2008 (UTC) - has developed the quizzes and translated and extended some of these learning resources to a Swedish university course on Wikipedia that started in September 2009. Originally I intended to develop most of the course materials here, but since so little input appeared here I gave up that strategy. But thanks for the fact-checking - it was helpful.
 * Jtneill - Talk - c 09:31, 18 November 2008 (UTC) - interested onlooker; maybe help with organisation
 * --JoliePA 13:58, 18 November 2008 (UTC)Jolie - interested onlooker; currently focusing on understanding what activities create a good wikiversity course.
 * Piotrus 21:18, 20 November 2008 (UTC) - interested in teaching this in a year or so, will try to continuously update/expand/improve it.
 * Simpy3 of wikipedia Interested in fact checking
 * Copyleft 10:57, 3 August 2009 (UTC) Interessed in interlanguage courses.
 * Abd (discuss • contribs) 16:56, 14 September 2013 (UTC) There is something missing from Wikipedia that is possible on Wikiversity. Let's consider that.

University course on Wikipedia
(This section is copied from w:Wikipedia talk:School and university projects, and provides a background to the web page.)

I am currently developing a Swedish university course on Wikipedia as a phenomenon, and on the usage of wikis. I wonder what similar courses and course material that exists. I intend to develop quizzes/multiple choice questions, Wikipedia edit assignments, a MediaWiki administration lab assignment, video seminars, video conference discussion assignments, text forum discussion assignments, essay assignments, etc, but I first want to check if I there are som already existing material that I can share. A majority of my course material will be open source.

The name of the course is "Informatics A, Wikipedia - Authoring, Reliability and Technology". It will be offered as a distance course, first time during fall 2009. The extent is 7.5 ECTS credits, i.e. 20 weeks part-time studies, corresponding to 5 weeks full-time studies. The language of instruction is Swedish.

Suggestion for content:
 * How to edit and administrate a wiki.
 * How students, teachers, librarians, journalists, etc, can use and relate to Wikipedia and wiki technology.
 * Discussion about to what extent it is considered acceptable to use Wikipedia as a source in an academic essay.
 * The major criticism against Wikipedia.
 * How to measure and improve the quality of Wikipedia.
 * Example of research on Wikipedia.
 * Technology trends

Suggestion for course literature:
 * Lennart Guldbrandsson, Så fungerar Wikipedia, September 2008.
 * Reference literature: John Broughton, Wikipedia – the missing manual, 2008.

Any comments are welcome. Mange01 (talk) 21:47, 6 November 2008 (UTC)


 * See WP:ACST for a good coverage of academic papers on Wikipedia. I'd very much like to see your final syllabi and other materials for that course; you may consider using Wikiversity to develop it collaboratively with others (I'd be happy to help!). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 00:38, 7 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for encouraging response, and helpful links!
 * A first step would be to collect links to existing course material on Wikipedia and wikis. Where can we put that link list? I have not found any existing wiki page or wikiversity project with that aim.
 * I have an idea that this course one day could function as some kind of wikipedia/mediawiki "administrator certification course". Is that a realistic idea? So it would be helpful to agree on a list of wiki terminology that an administrator must have full understanding of. Then I can author quizzes that checks this understanding.
 * Next step might be to develop parts of the course material collaboratively. It would be an interesting new experience.
 * There is no Swedish wikiversity name space, so I intend to put my Swedish course material on a local wiki, and on a local Moodle server. But perhaps some of my course material can be written in English and placed at wikiversity. Mange01 (talk) 11:44, 8 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Starting a new course page on wikiversity would be a good first step. I n There is some interesting material here for early intro to wikis, there is also useful material on wikibooks - .I think a good idea is to take this tour and start a new course on Wikiversity, where we can work on the materials for the course you've planned. I do agree that a list of terms is a useful subproject, although I think some may already exist (and if it doesn't it makes a notable article to create on Wikipedia - like Glossary of blogging). I am not sure how to go about starting a Swedish wikiversity - and I couldn't help with it as I don't know the language - but I am sure it could be done. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 17:54, 8 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Thnx for great ideas! I have actually compiled a list of useful video seminars, slides, assignments, etc, at Wikipedia, and started to develop quiz questions. Feel free to improve it further. In case I see that others contribute, I will continue to develop a major part of the course there, otherwise it will be advantageous for me to keep most of my material to myself. Mange01 (talk) 17:53, 14 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I think that page needs to be restructured as a course, currently it reads like a giant list of see alsos. I will be happy to contribute, but it needs to be restructured (and perhaps, moved/renamed). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 18:37, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Page organisation
If this is supposed to be a course about Wikipedia, shouldn't we start with some syllabi? At the very least, some description of the course and objectives? --Piotrus 18:21, 14 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanx for your contributions Piotrus!
 * I have suggested a syllabus at Wikipedia/syllabi. Don't hesitate to improve it.
 * The "learning resources" section of this page serves as an inventory of existing learning resources related to Wikipedia, and is organised after resource type rather than subtopics. I believe such a list is useful - I have not found any link collection to videos, lecture notes and assignments anywhere else.
 * A hierarchical list of resources organised after subtopics, course modules or sections might also be developed, but I don't know if it should be placed at this page or somewhere else at Wikiversity. Quizzes and other learning materials developed at Wikiversity should have file names or paths that reflects the course organisation.
 * There are other Wikiversity pages and projects with similar aim, for example Wikipedia service-learning courses where course modules and topics are suggested. However, most of these projects have generated very little course material and provides very few external links. Should we place our course material there? Hopefully their members can come here and discuss the issue. Mange01 20:57, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Organization of all the wiki related resource pages, courses, portals, categories, topics and projects etc
No IMHO, I don't think you should do much over at the service courses until you have defined this course thoroughly. You are developing content rapidly, I appreciate that. I am would like to be a prospective student.--JoliePA 14:16, 17 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I want to somehow involve those who have started the development several overlapping courses, but in most cases seems to have given up. Can this project inspire them to continue the work? Mange01 22:53, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Consider perhaps moving Wikipedia to Wikipedia studies and building there. Category:Wikipedia studies already has some useful material. The Wikipedia page might be a kind of portal-type eventually, with a basic description and links to more information, courses, etc. Just a thought. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 12:08, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Also, some info might go or come from Topic:Wikipedia studies, which would be about organisation of Wikipedia study materials, including possibly the participant list. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 12:11, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
 * and the "task list". -- Jtneill - Talk - c 12:13, 18 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I.m. equally humble opinon, there are way too many overlapping Wikiversity pages, portals, etc, related to wiki right now. For example, I don't understand the difference between Category:Wikipedia studies and Category:Wikipedia. Wikipedia and Wiki have similar "see also" lists for the moment. Portals should be wide, so I don't see the point of having one Wikipedia portal, and one Wiki portal. Etc. As you can see I’m a mergist or inclusionist. All pages should have one well-defined aim, and pages that can not be clearly delimited from each other should be merged. Merging courses instead of inventing new ones all the time might make people who developed the old ones motivated to contribute.


 * Right now the Wikipedia page has two aims: (a) Serving as a link list and a repository for all kind of course materials, so that teachers can select materials that fits into their own syllabus, and (b) as a project place for the collaborative development of a specific university level course, which also cover other wikis than Wikipedia. I agree with you that this page should only have one of these two aims, the other should be moved to another page. But I think aim (b) is the one that should be moved.


 * The reason is that I believe that if people enter the Wikipedia article, they don't expect to find a specific course, since "Wikipedia" does not have the character of a course name. I think they need a navigation guide to all Wikipedia related pages on Wikiversirsity, such as the Wikipedia link list, or one of the portals. When I was newcomer to Wikiversity, I found it really hard to navigate at Wikiversity, that's why I compiled the list. The syllabus and assignments should be placed in some other page, with a name that is a course name. One suggestion is Wikis and Wikipedia - authoring, reliability and technology. Even better would be to use an existing course page, or rename one.


 * However, this issue needs a lot of discussion before we do anything. A first step is to link between all related pages, and clarify the aim of each category, portal, project and page.


 * There are too many fantastic plans for courses, still without real content, at Wikiversity. So let's not get stucked on the page organization issue, but prioritise the actual development of exercises, assignments, slide shows and other "real" course materials. Be brave - every suggestion for discussion topic or quiz question is appreciated! Mange01 17:30, 19 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Responding to message here, that project became inactive because it became dominated by a few parties that had what were apparently personal disputes, ending with the blocking of one party and the other parties then left the project. Merging it in and cleaning it up seems a good idea to me, since the issues brought up do have merit in understanding some of the difficulties that have come about on Wikipedia. --SB_Johnny talk 14:44, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Course Invite
I have been thinking alot about what it means to define a wikiversity course.. see the template

I guess my major question is _ is this a course for wikiversity OR is this a course for you swedish university Utilizing information from wikiversity to definte it.

that is a really big difference, because generally you can't really have a TRADITIONAL course here utilizing wikiversity participants. However you CAN have a Traditional course USE wikiversity to communicate and think (this is sometimes called a 'tame audience').

I love to hear from you (and I will assume You ALSO want to begin a wikiversity course)--JoliePA 07:16, 17 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Thnx for the response!
 * I don't intend to invite my Swedish students here. In case we succeed in attracting a lot of contributing people here, I will use this site for collaborative development of the major part of the course material. Later, I will translate the material to Swedish, supplement it with more material (exams, video conference lectures and seminars etc) and organize the materials the way that suits my needs. The quizzes will be imported or translated into our local Moodle server, where the quiz result will automatically be registered in the grading database. I will either use the Moodle XML based quiz format, or Flash/SCORM based interactive quizzes with drag-and-drop pair matching. Mange01 07:35, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Textbook(s) on wikis and Wikipedia
Although I find it a little confusing, we should remember that textbooks for courses are developed not on Wikiversity, but on Wikibooks. Currently, Wikibooks has just a table of contents for a proposed book on Wikipedia - it may be useful for some topic ideas for the course. There is some more developed wikibooks on wikis: Wiki Science; Starting and Running a Wiki Website; Wikis in the Classroom and Future Media Topics.--Piotrus 21:27, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Collaborative slides
A big thing in modern courses are presentation slides. As you may or may not know, Google Docs allow collaborative editing of slides. Perhaps we should try it, developing slides for this course? --Piotrus 21:29, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Interesting idea. Why not?
 * I just wrote a few suggestions for essays. Mange01 21:43, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

BEST ENCYCLOPEDIA NO DOUBT IS BRITANNICA
Britannica is always neutral unlike wikipedia, seldom gets things right!

many times scientists if they cant explain via encyclopedic way complicated events, they use intelligent design theory to justify their points universe's, scientific, nature's actions! additional info on allsites r 100% truth in regards to lowlywikipedia, it can be found wikipedia-watch.org lol! ALLRIGHT!!!
 * The above edit was reverted without stated cause in 2010 and Markoril was indef blocked, talk page and email access prohibited. It is important that we understand that Wikiversity is not censored, and that actions that create an appearance of censorship should be avoided. Some editors who have been blocked or banned on Wikipedia have become productive and cooperative users here. We give them an opportunity to do this, by discussion, supporting legitimate concerns, and warning where necessary. If Markoril had made that edit to the resource itself, and I'd seen it, I'd have reverted it, moving it to Talk. Blocking is an action of last resort, and even then we will generally leave Talk page and email access open. I'm permanently banned on Wikipedia, but I still have email access there, because I never abused it. On meta, I was blocked for a time with email shut off, and that was reverted by a steward, again, because there had been no abuse. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 15:31, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
 * For reference, the site Markoril referred to was http://wikipedia-watch.org, which may have been globally blacklisted at that time, I haven't checked. However, it is not a violation of policy to add a relevant link to a "spam" site, or to similarly mention a blacklisted one. The site is actually linked in the current version of Wikipedia. So if it is currently relevant there, it would also be relevant here on this talk page.
 * (I am not recommending the site, and the post above was not necessarily a valuable contribution to our resource; however, I read it as a possible participant here blowing off some steam. If someone here does nothing but frequently complain about Wikipedia, it would be inappropriate, that's not what Wikiversity is for. But we could, for example, have a resource on Wikipedia criticism. From much history here, we would first need to establish ethical guidelines or be very careful about avoiding personal attacks, etc., and the site mentioned could be considered to contain personal attacks. As the Wikipedia article shows, though, simply mentioning or recommending that site is not a personal attack, nor was it vandalism.)
 * --Abd (discuss • contribs) 01:21, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

Stats need update
Wikipedia has more than six million articles in many languages, including more than 1.5 million articles in the English-language version and more than half a million in the German-language version — these need to be updated as this data. I am not doing it straightaway because I am not sure if it will be okay to update it (considering that in some time even this data will be outdated and it will again need an update, so needing a response). Lightbluerain (discuss • contribs) 11:55, 11 May 2022 (UTC)


 * @Lightbluerain: Be bold! -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 12:27, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅ Lightbluerain (discuss • contribs) 12:48, 11 May 2022 (UTC)