User talk:JWSchmidt/4th Qtr 2007 discussions

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Ad hoc medical advice on Wikiversity
You may be interested in a debate on the wikipedia reference desks - W:Wikipedia talk:Reference desk - in which it appears that a user is directing reference desk questioners who have asked for medical opinions, to the Wikiversity help desk, where an ad hoc answer is given. W:Wikipedia talk:Reference desk is also worth a read.

You may wish to consider whether Wikiversity should put in place policy relating to the answering of legal and medical opinion questions, as has Wikipedia. (e.g. # Do not request regulated professional advice. If you want to ask advice that "offline" would only be given by a member of a licensed and regulated profession (medical, legal, veterinary, etc.), do not ask it here. See Wikipedia:Medical disclaimer and/or Wikipedia:Legal disclaimer. Ask a doctor, dentist, veterinarian or lawyer.) --Tagishsimon 23:26, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your support at Wikipedia, JWS. I wish everyone there would just relax a bit and be more like people are here. Maybe we need to give Wikipedia a big sedative...oops, that was medical advice ! :-) StuRat 05:25, 5 September 2007 (UTC)


 * So, if I have this right, you agree with me that listing possible medical conditions that match given symptoms, followed by instructions that they need to see a doctor to establish the exact problem and treatment, doesn't constitute "practicing medicine", and is therefore OK here. I'm a bit worried that using Wikipedia policies directly, without including the Wikiversity interpretation, will result in the ultra-strict Wikipedia interpretation being applied here.  We don't want calls to block users here if they suggest that goose bumps might mean somebody is cold, after all. StuRat 14:29, 5 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Also, it seemed like an ideal solution to redirect unwanted Wikipedia Ref Desk Qs here, since we would very much like to build up our "customer base" and the Wikiversity Help Desk may be a good place to introduce people to Wikiversity. I think you're right that I can't do this on my own, due to all the ultra-strict Admins there, unless I had your help.  I take it this isn't a battle you wish to take on at this time, however. StuRat 15:04, 5 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with what you said on gauging the "audience" and responding appropriately, although I do this a bit differently. Rather than looking at number of edits, I judge them by the language they use.  If they say "I am experiencing pain in the pericardial region" I judge them to be more of an expert than if they say "my chest hurts", for example, and I tailor my answer accordingly.  Perhaps some type of blanket disclaimer could be given first ("answers given here are the opinions of amateurs, and you should always follow up with a professional to get a definitive answer") followed by a list of possible causes.  Would you mind if I add some text explaining that we don't want the strict, broad, inflexible application of Wikipedia rules to apply here ? (Worded a bit nicer, of course.)


 * And yes, I do think if you would support my links to Wikiversity from Wikipedia that would make all the difference. In theory Admins are supposed to listen to the opinions of Editors on Wikipedia, but the reality is that they ignore editors and only listen to the opinions of other Admins.  I once had a complaint on the Administrators Noticeboard and one Admin said something like "100% of the people disagree with you".  I pointed out that several people supported my position and they then said "yes, but those aren't Administrators".  In other words, the opinions of non-Admins count for 0%, no matter how many there are.  On the other hand, if even one Admin supports an Editor, the other Admins almost always back off.  If you would restore this deletion, for example:, I'd bet they would leave it as is, and this would set a huge precedent for allowing links to Wikiversity.  (That deleted link to the Wikiversity Help Desk only points to the radical "medical advice" that cold hands could be a sign of poor circulation, and they should see a doctor.)  StuRat 19:11, 5 September 2007 (UTC)


 * That looks like a good start (although it seemed a bit redundant). I think we should list some specific categories which are not medical advice, but say "this does not mean that medical info not explicitly listed here is to be automatically construed as medical advice".  Some categories I would list:


 * Dietary advice.


 * Exercise advice.


 * Advising people to seek the advice of a doctor or other professional.


 * Providing links to other sites (either sister sites or outside).


 * Relating stories of similar conditions other people have had, how they treated them, and the outcome (but adding "you have the same condition so should (or shouldn't) do that treatment" is medical advice).


 * Listing possible causes of a condition with the usual treatments for each (this is tricky, because listing one condition and saying "you definitely have X and should do Y" is, indeed, medical advice). StuRat 21:49, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks
Thanks for your detailed explanation at the Custodian's noticeboard. I think I do understant where you are coming from. I appreciate that your considerations here extend somewhat beyond mine. As a member of a fledgling project, I understand that you see this in the context of how WV should deal with such issues at a policy level. While I understand that is indeed important, as a mere visitor here my motivation is attempting to minimise the disruptive effect this issue has on Wikipedia.

Due to the different nature of the project goals, it is clear what is permitted, even encouraged, here is not always welcomed on Wikipedia. I think it is entirely possible that Wikipedians have, and continue, to game this system to suit their own ends, that are not in the interest of either project. Its interesting that you mention that you chose not to action prior to this because you didn't consider it to cause undue stress. Quite the opposite, actually. This as been a topic of debate among Wikipedians for sometime. The existance of the personal comments here have been viewed by all those involved from day one. Its my view that the entire point of all of this was to goad Clio and those so-called "biased admins", by jumping across here and making the sort of personal comments that caused the problems in the first place, fully in the knowledge that we could see them but have no control over him making them. The consensus among the admins at the time was to let them go, since they were off-WP. However, they continued to agitate the situation, which is why I eventually chose to bring the matter up here.

Getting to the point. Its not your fault of course, that we didn't let you know these were causing us a problem as soon as they were made. That was our decision, but we made it on the basis that such personal slights were clearly not within the remit of WV, and someone here would act independent of us pointing that out to you. The combination of both these positions meant they remained, causing stress. It is my opinion that assuming they were causing no stress, and choosing not to act on them on that basis is perhaps not the best benchmark for action (though I suspect you may disagree and you are more familiar with WV than I). However, if that is the way it works, then obviously we should be informing you of cross-wiki issues much sooner in future.

Anyway, I wish you the best of luck here. Its an exciting project and a worthy one. Perhaps adminship at WP has made me a cynic, but I feel it is a little too idealistic to be successful on a large scale, but I hope i'm wrong. Rockpocket 02:57, 10 September 2007 (UTC)


 * RP, can you explain how "they continued to agitate the situation", even though no comments were made by Lewis in August or September ? It seems to me that, to be an "agitator", one must, at the very least, speak. StuRat 16:20, 11 September 2007 (UTC)


 * JWSchmidt, I am not aware of any other account other than the one you mention.
 * StuRat, If Loomis had taken his leave over the issue then this would not be happening. However, he continues to complain about Clio, by email, and appears to be in email discussions with your colleague A.Z. about efforts to have himself unblocked. Clearly Clio is irked by the comments here, therefore I took the decision to bring this to the attention of the custodians when the cross-project issue about medical advice reared its head. Rockpocket 17:49, 12 September 2007 (UTC)


 * If someone's e-mails annoy you, why not block e-mails from that address ? And why would Clio only have become annoyed recently at the Wikiversity discussion, after Lewis has been long silent here ?  That part doesn't make any sense to me.  (It's not that she only recently saw the material, she announced long ago that she was watching it.) StuRat 19:53, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikiversity Flyer

 * Woops. I entered the link wrong. It should be here. Thanks. --Remi 04:50, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I'll be around later today...
Feel free to run a check on me for practice. The mailinglist is here... might take a few days to fonfirm you though (actually it took about 3 months for me, but it's improved of late). --SB_Johnny | talk 07:35, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Okay...I got a quick reply to my email to the CU list. re9iaskjwed --JWSchmidt 14:57, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Congrats on C/U status
May your troubles be less, May your blessings be more, And may nothing but happiness Come through your door.

(Portal? Access? Brouser?) Sincerely: Good Luck! Shir-El too 04:53, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Introduction to Computers/Peripherals
Hi JWS. Does the edit history and edit style of the above page strike you as slightly weird? My guess is that it's a bot which creates multiple users and expands the same wiki page all the time, trying to look like a group of real users. But is it a good bot or a bad one? --McCormack 04:21, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your reply. In the meantime I had realised that Ariel23 was probably the person to ask - I've left him a message. I'd say I am "curious" rather than "concerned". If there's bona fide weird editing, we ought to know about it, so we can better distinguish it from truly weird editing! --McCormack 06:30, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

No Need To Beat Me With A Fish
School:Free Content :) Thunderhead 21:18, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Color Problems
I discovered that some of the (numerical, not named) colors that I use do not show up correctly on Windowx XP with Explorer 7. The very light colored backgrounds appear as solid black. Therefore, the table on the main Wikiversity page cannot be viewed correctly on some computers. Almost the entire table appears as solid black. Since this is currently protected, how do I change this table? I have created a new table but I am still testing it (namely, I have to go to the Library next week and try their computers to see if the colors show up.) ~ Robert Elliott 07:52, 23 September 2007 (UTC) 
 * [[Image:IE 7.0.6001.16510 on windows Server 2008.jpg|left]]
 * I could reproduce this also on my system (Microsoft® Windows® Server™ 2008 (Code Name "Longhorn") Datacenter, 64 bit, 6.0.6001 Service Pack 1, v.126 Build 6001) with IE 7.0.6001.16510 and Opera 9.21. With firefox 2.0.0.7 and safari 3.0.3 (522.15.5) this did NOT happen. The new table looks good on IE7 and opera. I can unprotect the table and we can test it then for these 4 browsers. Also some other browser testing would be nice. What do you think ? Erkan Yilmaz ( evaluate me!, discussion ) 08:07, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
 * So, I replaced it with your new table. Looks ok now in all 4 browsers, please inform us about possible side effects. And ... thank you for informing. Erkan Yilmaz ( evaluate me!, discussion ) 08:14, 23 September 2007 (UTC)


 * [[Image:New table with IE 7.0.6001.16510 on windows Server 2008.jpg|left]]
 * Since Robert asked, I also upload the new view. Could be that the view differs and let's find this out now. Erkan Yilmaz ( evaluate me!, discussion ) 08:25, 23 September 2007 (UTC)



Hello, I have some recommendation: click the picture please. Perhaps the arrow which leads to a link could be changed ? In some browsers it is not complete seen and also it is not so good viewable (blue color on blue background). What do you think ? (btw: the color of the links is different, because I clicked the links in firefox - the main browser I use). Erkan Yilmaz ( evaluate me!, discussion ) 08:51, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
 * How about also aligning the icons ? Making the icons appear in one lign instead of such a disorder :-) Perhaps could be put at the begin of each row or at the end. someone would have to experiment how it looks like. What is your view ? Erkan Yilmaz ( evaluate me!, discussion ) 09:13, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
 * So, have edited myself - nobody wants to talk with me :-) How does it look like ? If not wished, just revert. Erkan Yilmaz ( evaluate me!, discussion ) 09:59, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

 Well the following aligning approach for the icons did not look that good :-( Also some icons seem not to fit the link content from a laymen view, and this disturbed me a little since the icons are seen before the reading of the link titles, so I reverted it. Erkan Yilmaz ( evaluate me!, discussion ) 10:23, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I copied this thread to the Colloquium. --JWS 14:18, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

 I, too, have moved to Colloquium. ~ Robert Elliott 15:44, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Nstab-user
I know there was a discussion about the tab names, and that they were changed from what I'm guessing is the default. Apostrophes in a username, for example, don't render properly in the tab; have a look at User:Mike's bot account. I submitted a bugzilla request, but I think Brion wants it to be fixed locally since it's a custom tab. – Mike.lifeguard &#124; talk 20:22, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
 * No, I only registered an account a day or 2 ago. I really have no idea about the inner workings of the PAGENAME etc. templates, so I doubt I'll be much help. There are a few technical tidbits from Brion on the bugzilla page, and he may be able to help sort it out. – Mike.lifeguard &#124; talk 20:52, 26 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Fixed. I seem to have solved the problem. --dark[[Image:Yin yang.svg|12px]]lama 21:38, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Import
Would you please import that template from Wikibooks? I need to use it, and I'd rather have the full edit history, since I may need to revert portions of it. Thanks! – Mike.lifeguard &#124; talk 20:31, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Portal skeleton
Hi JWS,

My previous version was based on Template:Box_portal_skeleton that skeleton

So far I do not know of a neat skeleton for something like this. For now I have just based mine on the free software portal on Wikipedia. It would be great if someone could make a skeleton for it - perhaps Template:Tabbed_Portal_Skeleton. I am not sure how to do that and don't have time right now to figure it out.

Please let me know if you find/make something.

Thanks

Kim

PS I am also grappling with issues like:
 * finding a consistent way to have a snippet in a portal box with a link to 'more ...'.
 * how deep to make hierarchies (I guess no more than 3 levels is a good rule of thumb.

Tabbed Portal Box Template etc.
Thanks for the hints and links to other templates of interest.

Regarding "consistent way of linking to 'more ...' ", what I mean is: if we have many portlet boxes each with a short piece of content and a link to 'more' - there might be a way that a Tabbed Portal Box Template could generate the 'more' links as (e.g.) //more - but there seems to be an inconsistency when the box appears on a higher level page. So, it will take time and thought to get it right.

Cheers for now Ktucker 15:30, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for this. It will be much easier for all of us next time round :-) Ktucker 14:02, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Hello again... and goodbye
In the last few weeks I've become more and more active on WP {same user name}, together with the realization that I don't learn well in this WV environment; I've been too unstructured for most of my life, so the stimulus of a buffet works better for me. But I didn't want to leave without saying goodbye - and thank you - and hope to meet you around the Wiki-universe 'sometime again.' Be Well and God Bless, Shir-El too 02:55, 22 October 2007 (UTC) PS I left a more detailed explanation on Erkan Yilmaz' talk page.

Thanks
For the message on my talk page. I'm not really to interested in becoming a sysop here at the present time - just creating a few courses on stuff I partake in at the commons and en.Wikipedia. I've sort of got a vague idea outline which I'm messing around with on my userpage although I'm not too sure how the courses are set out, etc. Maybe an example course would be good, linked from an intro page so developers know what to create so courses are in a standardized format, and what future students could expect to go through. All big ideas for the future- it's amazing how far this place has come since I was last a user here (User:Bennyboyz3000) - not that I did anything then. BTW, you're metaphor of the evolution of WikiVersity on your userpage is brilliant :-) Pumpmeup 01:52, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Cheers, thanks for your valuable input. If only there were more nice and constructive people like you on every wiki - the world would be a better place. Cheers, I'll keep it in mind and thanks for pointing out lots of ways for me to get involved and help Pumpmeup 02:25, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I would also like add my thanks for the welcome I received! Lady Aleena 05:56, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikiversity and Wikibooks
Thanks for your detailed and historically situated comments on Wikiversity and Wikibooks, John. Care to notify the wikiversity-l list about this post? (I'll be happy to point it out myself, though it might be better coming from you...) Cormaggio talk 21:01, 14 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Just sent your email through now - sorry for delay. As for a "proper threaded discussion system" - have you seen Liquid Threads in action on Wikieducator? It's pretty cool... Cormaggio talk 18:22, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Permission to Proceed
Could I possibly make an attempt at restructuring Oncology and Psychiatry in a similar style as the work I did on Haematology, Cardiology and Vascular Medicine, Respiratory Medicine, Gastroenterology,Endocrinology, Nephrology, Neurology and Obstetrics and Gynecology? DónalMcK 09:18, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Trying to reach you ...
I'm having a really hard time getting in touch with you. Your email is not working, IRC does not send messages to you (not sure why; i did register) and this talk page is constantly time-outing. But I'm still trying. :) I wanted to ask you, if you could help me get through the "propose new language" and "set beta pages" thing on wikiversity. I really want to make it right, but I feel, like I'm doing something wrong. Since I have problems getting to you, maybe you can get to me. On IRC wikiversity-en I'm murban- and my email is matej.urban on the Gmail email. Thanks!

Diploma
Initially, I agreed with you about diplomas. I saw no reason to have them.

However, I am now having second thoughts. This is for two reasons :

In my courses, there is a beginning and an end. A diploma might help create a tiny amount of motivation as the student nears the end of the course. For my lessons, the level of difficulty increases dramatically at the end so any motivation, no matter how small, is good.

Diplomas are much more important overseas. If you have ever tried to get a job in Japan, you know about having to carry your diploma with you at all times like a second passport. Therefore, a diploma for a course (or certificate of completion) could be valuable for people outside the USA. Robert Elliott 13:32, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Ages of Rock
BTW, that article on the ID astronomer was very interesting. Have you seen Rock of Ages, Ages of Rock? --mikeu 16:38, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Stubs
Hi! Can you please write your opinion about the stub types? If the form of the template is correct. Next week probably I will have some time, so I could play with the stub sorting. Thx! --Gbaor 10:27, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Barnstar Awarded
For tireless thinking, discussion, experimentation, and propagation of best results to all at slightest provocation or stimulation. JW, there was not really a barnstar applicable to an effective founder and tireless custodian who helps set the tone, methods, technologies, and atmosphere for Wikiversity in general in addition to specific interest zones .... and from before the official project proposal or start, but this one seemed closest ....


 * Seconded :-) McCormack 06:12, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

User:76.247.222.101
Hi JWS. Quick question: you blocked this guy as a multi-wiki vandal a few weeks ago with a 6-month period. He's repeatedly using his talk page for obscenities, and as he can't be blocked from using the IP talk page, I came up with the idea of semi-protecting the talk page, and did this. Wiki-way, or wiki-no-way, in your opinion? After all, it could hardly be a tougher gag on his free speech! McCormack 06:12, 20 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the link! Looks like I was on the wiki-way. McCormack 16:49, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

"... and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest..."


May you and yours have all the best of this Season's Greetings: a


 * Very Merry Christmas


 * and a


 * Happy New Year.

Shir-El too 01:02, 23 December 2007 (UTC)