User talk:Cormaggio/Archive 1

Hey. Great thing this finally got started. Now, logo should be applied and everything. But, one thing I was interested in is the admin/bureaucrat status. You should apply now. I think every project should start with at least one bureaucrat and who better than you in this case? Cheers :) --Filip (§) 12:09, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Hey Cormac, Welcome to Wikiversity ;)--Özgür 13:12, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Welcome
Thanks for the welcome! I hope my edit to the Current Events was appropriate. I just think Wikiversity is a really cool idea, and I might be able to help in some way. I have some expertise in a few areas--music, Mandarin Chinese, and perhaps a few other areas. I'm trying to figure out where to start. This is such a big idea; I'm having trouble even wrapping my head around it. :) --Fang Aili 15:53, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * what aspect of music would you be interested in working on in Wikiversity?  Well, I just created Music. Perhaps it should be called School of Music, though. I'm an advanced classical pianist and have some skill with music theory. I can play a bit of guitar and like to dabble with any instrument I can get my hands on. I can sing in tune. But I don't know how to transfer those skills into an online learning format yet. --Fang Aili talk 16:14, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Course format ideas
Right now I'm thinking that perhaps we can create week-long or even day-long courses. This way we start small and it's not so overwhelming. (A "day-long" course would mean, perhaps, 2 hours of learning and study--a time length reasonable to the average person who works during the day.) There could be "weekend" courses too, which are more concentrated, or something. (I am way late coming to this project; I know it's been in the works for some time and perhaps this has all been hashed out from here to eternity already...) --Fang Aili talk 16:14, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Sysop me?
Hi, I am now also here WiseWoman - can you Sysop me, or do we have to have an election :) --WiseWoman 20:59, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Portal namespace
I think Wikiversity should have a portal namespace. I wrote a little about how I think portals would function for Wikiversity. I suspect that "schools" will also function like portals, but there are going to be Wikiversity portals that do not fit into a conventional list of schools. --JWSchmidt 01:18, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Someone already created the Wikiversity "School" namespace. We just need what Wikipedia already has, a "Portal" namespace. The pages in the Wikiversity portal namespace will have names such as "Portal:Learning materials". --JWSchmidt 12:47, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * That was done last night. I'm not sure what use case there is for a separate Portal namespace. Do you have an example? -- sebmol ? 13:01, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I urge we think through the implications of using "school" to title a namespace. I would argue such a name space, if really needed, should be renamed as "subject" (though some might have problems with that term) or "topic" or some other term. Using "school" has problems discussed on the colloq page -- and there are more problems that I don't have time to write about this week. This should be considered before settling on a basic very up front naming convention and structure. Doug 17:08, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Ok, discussion here please - not here :-) Cormaggio 17:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Okies. Regarding the research page issues - I'll look at those next week. Have fun :) Doug 17:58, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Help
It appears we're importing from two different projects... -- sebmol ? 18:10, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

You've...
...got mail! :) -- sebmol ? 11:17, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Could you join us for a few minutes on IRC? -- sebmol ? 13:37, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Great Success with Wikiversity
Hi Cormac, Wishing you more great success in this effort. --Ermeyers 12:04, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Interwiki list
Hi Cormac, I proposed that Wikiversity be added to the Interwiki map at Interwiki map, so that the Main Page can be fully implemented.:) Eric --Ermeyers 15:52, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Research page
I added a lot of issues and some bits of content to the Research page. Reswik 05:37, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

greetings Cormaggio
Hi. Of course I know User:Dbl2010 from Turkish projects. at many places he's kind of ¨the man¨ :). Well I'm not that much into politics and bureucracy of wiki projects. They bore me! I'm only about contributing with articles and having my say in votings pertaining to policy-rule changes and things like that.

I don't have teaching experience myself but at the third year of med school I have a lot of being taught experience! :) First thing I want to do here is to add my lesson plans (as you said) and teaching material I obtained from university resources. I literally have GBs of material almost all appropriate for this place!

See you around!--Suleyman Habeeb 13:30, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

RE:welcome
I know how that is, I'm working on my master's thesis right now. Wikiversity is a distraction to keep me sane after writing all day.--Rayc 14:03, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

hello from smithgrrl (formerly prof chaos). my interests are comp lit, german lit, french lit, lit theory, women's lit, satire, creative writing (avant garde fiction and literary sf). i can read french and german, and my written french isn't bad. so i'll look forward to helping out here at wikiversity!--Smithgrrl 19:43, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Mentors/custodians
Please make sure that mentors/new custodians have both agreed to accept eachother. --JWSchmidt 14:41, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Nomination for checkuser status
I decided to push for somebody on this project to get checkuser status, and I felt you were logical as the first person to get nominated.

Mind you, this is something that shouldn't take too much time, but it is added responsibilities. It is also something that I think is going to take months to accomplish as the bar for acceptance has been set way too high. Yes, I've complained openly and loudly on Foundation-l about this topic. I should have screamed even louder when the policy was being made, but I was very busy at the time. --Robert Horning 16:03, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Further details.....
 * I added your nomination to Candidates for Custodianship. Mind you, I am not even sure if your candidacy will be successful, and I expect this nomination to be here for over six months.  By that time you might not be quite so busy?
 * The actual duties I would imagine would be quite light, and comparable to the actual bureaucrat-only functions in terms of the tools only very rarely ever being used. See also Checkuser Policy
 * Some of this is also political, as I would like to see some people other than on Wikipedia projects get this status. This has been an ongoing issue for both Wikibooks and Wikisource, who have both tried unsuccessfully to get candidates nominated with this status.  We really need two very strong candidates to get this to work, even if all you are being here is just a "trophy" nomination.  --Robert Horning 16:58, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi
Hey man. Thanks. Yea I got home today and thought I'd do something constructive with my time. Just writing the main article now, and creating some images for it to help explain it... I'm in deep though and trying to explain it is coming hard but don't worry, I enjoy the challange ;) --Dom0803 16:52, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks!
Cormaggio: thanks for letting me know! I'll do my best and hope I don't let you all down! Atrivedi

Bot
Hi; I don't know yet what its purpose will be :) Maybe it will just stay here wearing its boots if nobody needs it. I intend to write a short policy about bots and request bot status for it to prevent it from cluttering recent changes if somebody needs its help. guillom 09:51, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I beat you with a match or something if you make another policy page ;-) Let's just have one page for bots that shortly explain what they do and how to request status. -- sebmol ? 09:58, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree with Keeping It Simple (Stupid). Cormaggio 10:03, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
 * We've actually already been ridiculed for having more policy pages than content and getting bogged down with policy discussion. -- sebmol ? 10:09, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
 * We need to focus on content - absolutely. But we also need to get set up. But have we been ridiculed? Where/by whom? Cormaggio 12:02, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree. Setting up means IMO figuring out a set of principles of what the project is (we have that) and the foundation of how we treat each other (we have that too). A lot of the small stuff that's listed on the policies page is premature, I think. In regards to ridicule, I'd rather not give names, but this isn't some random user either. I'm at a point actually where I'm considering deleting the list of proposals and moving all the discussion to the right talk pages. -- sebmol ? 12:22, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I've made it as stupid as I could :) Here is the draft : Bots. I've proposed it as a policy just to make sure other people than me agree with it. guillom 11:25, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Btw: from the very beginning I've been saying let's have content, we'll see later for other stuff. guillom 11:28, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi
Hi Cormaggio, thank you for your greetings. It is just so exciting to see the first steps of Wikiversity. --Javier Carro 10:47, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Ooooooh...it's blue!
Hi there! Thanks for the welcome :-) I was surprised to see the new messages bar blue in colour, as opposed to orange. Yes, I worked on the Reference desk for quite a while over there. It's still one of my favourite pages. Your name sounds really familiar to me, but I'm not sure if we have interacted much on Wikipedia. Maybe we'll get to know one another better here!

I'm really excited about this project - at the moment, I am sort of wondering whether to focus on developing course notes to accompany content on Wikibooks, or whether to try an entirely different approach. I'm not sure what exactly needs to be accomplished here, but my approach at the moment is simply to publish material, and get feedback from that to move forward. Ah, it should be fun the next few months! --HappyCamper 12:15, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

hello
I'm a Candidate for Custodianship....I done all perfectly for the request? bye --Dario vet 14:21, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks!
Hey! Just wanted to thank you for the nice note. I hope I'm up to the challenge! I'm trying to figure out what to do now :) ~ATrivedi

Logo
Thanks, but believe me, it was really nothing to do, one click was enough! guillom 12:50, 21 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I hope she wasn't waiting for this page ;) guillom 16:36, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Exams
I've just talked to some of the devs, and they gave me some good links to look at with respect to exams/quizs, Quizzes, m:User:Sent/Poll. They said to ask you about it. I also am going to put a note on the computer science topic takl page, see if anyone wants to start work on this.--Rayc 01:31, 23 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm also tracking the idea of providing quizzes via a special page extension; posted some comments on the Colloquium. robchurch | talk 11:48, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Username change
Hello Cormaggio! I wonder if you could help me out here. It looks like User:Rayshan would like to be at User:Ray Shan instead. Could you check this out, and see if this is what the user would like to do? I left a message for them to come over here, but I thought I might add this little tidbit here as well. Cheers, HappyCamper 13:53, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Image:Wiki.png
guillom 19:48, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Copied from User talk:David Levy
Hi David, welcome to Wikiversity. Hope you stick around :-). What's your interest(s) you'd like to pursue here? Cormaggio 11:00, 24 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Hello! I'm particularly interested in media studies (my academic concentration at the college that I currently attend).
 * Thanks for the kind welcome (and for injecting some much-needed sanity into the "rounded corners" debate). &mdash;David Levy 11:25, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Re: Blocks
I had blocked User:950855 because the name appeard to be a random string of numbers. It appears that such blocking isn't in the username policy any more. What should I do?--digital_metalk 00:57, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks from Ray
Thanks for trying to rename my userpage (although I don't think you actually accomplished it). Looking forward to working with you on this great project. Rayshan 22:11, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Main page redesign
Hello again! You commented on the proposed main page design, so I'm inviting you to view a modified version that I created. If you have the time, please post your opinion at Wikiversity talk:Main Page. Thank you! &mdash;David Levy 08:38, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Re: Hi
Hi, I'm from Didsbury originally with my own house in victoria park. I'm resitting first year exams at the moment. Electronic materials and devices caught me out by 4%. What is your dissertation on? Unsigned comment by RobLevy, 26th August, 2006

Thanks for the welcome
Thanks Cormaggio for the welcome! I'll move the 3D Algebra learning project out and park it under Maths? Still uncertain how things work here, but learning happily. I was just uncertain about this learning project because I'm trying to make a low entry point, but this means going against some of the normal conventions for Geometric Algebra (for eg, I'm using $$\mathbf{x}, \mathbf{y}, \mathbf{z}$$ as the basis vectors rather than the de facto $$\mathbf{e_{0}}, \mathbf{e_{1}}, \mathbf{e_{2}}$$, because x,y, and z, are much more "visualise-able" to high-school maths students). Other people who are already familiar with Geometric Algebra might not appreciate it... oh well, guess i'll find out.

I'm still a bit confused with a few things though:
 * Can a Learning Project also be a Research project? Because I think that's what this will be?
 * As it's a research project, I guess it shouldn't have the "Topic:Investigating 3D Geometric Algebra", but instead be simply "Investigating 3D Geometric Algebra"? Is that right? *confused*.

Thanks for any help, and thanks Cormaggio for the encouragement. Michaelnelson 21:05, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Reply to "Imports and custodians"
"moving work from Wikibooks and getting it in order here." <-- I am not sure if you have seen this: Help with the migration of Wikiversity pages from Wikibooks. I wish we had started such a system for getting the help of non-custodians long ago.

"monitoring this process closely" <-- I have a specific priority import mission right now. The Wikiversity community previously developed a list of schools and I am trying to get all of those pages imported to our new "home". I hope to finish this task today, doing so will probably depend on how much community support I get through this.

"recommend people to become custodians or offer to mentor" <-- While I favor systems that make it relatively easy for people to become custodians, I will not mentor someone who shows no true interest in the project. I tried to recruit User:Rayc as a custodian but we will apparently not have this valuable participant around much in the near future (real world duties). I am willing to mentor User:SB Johnny, who is a new administrator at Wikibooks. Please use your promotion tool to give User:SB Johnny sysop status (see:Probationary custodians).

"need new custodians" <-- I think we do need more custodians since many of our current custodians are not active.

"let me know if you need me to do anything here" <-- I think it is useful if you can continue to keep up your contacts with groups like the special projects committee, as long as that does not take too much of your time. Sebmol has really saved the day down here "in the trenches" from the technical angle.

"fully into everything by the end of September" <-- We are well into the shake-out period of finding out who really has an interest in the project. Many people are still dejected and bewildered by the fact that Wikiversity is not going to be an instant ("Just add water!) free university granting online degrees. My main regret at this moment is that I do not have time to develop the kind of exciting learning projects we need to attract Wikiversity participants....I am too bogged down in tasks like importing pages from Wikibooks. I think it is useful if you can continue to "voice" support for learning projects that might grow into the kind of "pilot projects/demonstration projects/proof of concept" projects we dreamed of long ago. In addition to the needed "service projects" to guide Wikiversity participants towards work in support of Wikipedia and Wikibooks (which I have not had time to set up) I am ready to make a major push for a Wikiversity emphasis on "debate clubs".....these will be "seminar type classes" with stimulating topics that will attract participants. Anything you can do to help spread the idea of "learning by doing/talking/editing what you love" will be a help.--JWSchmidt 12:52, 27 August 2006 (UTC)


 * "the word about learning by doing etc. goes, well, that's one of the main messages that needs to be heard by all newcomers. I think we need to really work on making Wikiversity understandable and usable for the newcomer I really should put it all into one of our introductory pages sometime soon" <-- Maybe a good start would be a statement from you about this at Colloquium. --JWSchmidt 17:47, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I put some thoughts about "the main messages that needs to be heard" in Portal:Education. --JWSchmidt 16:39, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

re:Block me
Thanks for bringing that to my attention. I added Template:checkuser because...Ican't remember. I use a version of it at Wikipedia to check my logs etc, but this version is not the best way to go here. I don't know why I didn't notice it before. And I think perhaps a vesion of Welcoming committee should be set up here. Starting from the early stages of the project allows us the ability to ensure that every single account gets a warm welcome. - Trevor MacInnis 20:18, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Sure, but I've actually updated Template:Welcome to the same format as my subpage, so you can make your edits there. As more Policy and help pages are created they should of course be added in. - Trevor MacInnis 14:22, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Hello
I don't imagine I will be very active here. I am definitely committed to Wikisource and I already have more projects in mind than I can complete there. Not even counting the time it takes to keep up with foundation issues (which is unfortunately necessary). But I probably will pop-in and check on policy stuff. At Wikisource it is hard to get people to chime in on policy issues, much less find dissenting voices. So I tend to watch other projects to find a wider opinions on policies. Still I hope to find an exciting program here that I can't resist taking part in at some point. Another WS contributer put a note about some work being done at WS which I think might be more suited for a research project here. It really doesn't fit the inclusion guidelines at WS. I would appreciate it if you could take a look. Let me know if you have any questions.--BirgitteSB 01:42, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Sexist Language
"I've already seen sexist language used as what a user thought was the purpose of Wikiversity" may have been a reaction to: "the goal of this project is to teach a man all the things (positive ofc) possible". --JWSchmidt 10:50, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Journals
Thanks for your response to my suggestions - I was wondering whether a few pages could be created, maybe one concerned with the expansion of resources available to wikiversians in general, and also subsidiary pages concerned with specific aspects of that - e.g. a page devoted to the discovery and communication of where freely available online journals are and a page devoted to increasing the numbers of specialist books available to wikiversians (perhaps by some of the means I have suggested)?

Jimbobalina2005 19:05, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

IRColloquium
I was thinking of posting a notice to create a monthly or bimonth meeting on IRC that would act as a brainstorming meeting. I also want to find out if off site meeting notices would work. In the future, we could have three times on the same day, and have on wiki voting to deterime the topic. What do you think of the idea?--Rayc 00:35, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Bureaucrat action required
I am willing to mentor User:Draicone as a probationary custodian. Please activate User:Draicone as a sysop. --JWSchmidt 01:17, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Someone else took care of it. --JWSchmidt 13:16, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * "Sorry for not being to hand in time" <-- It was no problem. I guessed you might be back today. Somebody must have gotten impatient and posted a request for help at the meta wiki. See you next week. --JWSchmidt 14:27, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Will you join us again sometime in IRC? -- sebmol ? 06:40, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

New broom
Hi Cormac. Well, I thank you, this was very quick! I don't know if I deserved such fastness, but thanks.

I have talked to Kevin on IRC and we'll talk together when he comes back to Toulouse, so as he can tell me what you've talked about.

Cheers! :) guillom 22:54, 28 September 2006 (UTC)