User talk:Jade Knight/Archives/2009

Coming out from under the rock
Thanks for your long ago note -- I've signed up for the mentor program. I've been away from the wikis (for too long). Historybuff 07:08, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

WV:NOT
Hi Jade Knight. I hope I'm understanding you correctly in that your main objection to WV:NOT is the advocacy clause. Would you feel comfortable supporting the policy with that clause removed? See Wikiversity_talk:What_Wikiversity_is_not for details. --SB_Johnny talk 12:25, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

God'sGirl94
HEY!!!!!!!!! It's me from WIKIBOOKS!! How are ya? --God&#39;sGirl94 13:45, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

French Mentoring / Parainage en français
Hello Jade Knight,

I just saw your message inviting me to mentor a French learning student, months after you posted it (and I feel sorry for that). I have to tell you that I might be able to mentor anyone for the moment: because of my studies, I have much work to do, and if I am still on holyday (and contributing to the French mirror) for the week being, I will soon have no more time to spare for any Wiki. --- Bonjour Jade Knight (enfin bonsoir pour moi),

je viens à peine de voir ton message m'invitant à parrainer un étudiant en français, alors que tu l'avais envoyé depuis plusieurs mois (et j'en suis désolée). Je dois t'informer que je ne pourrais sûrement parrainer personne pour l'instant : à cause de mes études, j'ai énormément de travail, et si je suis encore en vacances (ce qui me permet de contribuer sur les serveurs francophones) cette semaine, je n'aurai bientôt plus de temps pour participer à aucune Wiki.

--Klymene 02:43, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Mentors
Hi! I saw that you've made some edits to the Mentors page a while back. I've been working on bringing the Mentorship program up to the next level. I'm hoping to model it, to a certain extent, on the Learning4Content program over at WikiEducator. I would appreciate your feedback. --AFriedman 17:31, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Project Incubator
Please check Project_incubator for an update on HHF. I'd really appreciate someone's help over here. I have managed to gather some volunteers from my hostel who'd participate in discussion on the HHF/Highschool Help Forum, but I need the project to be set up well for that. Thanks again! --Dharav talk 12:03, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

French Mentoring
Salut— As of right now, I could probably comfortably take two more students, three if they're all beginning level. Eleraama 19:20, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Universitas
No I am not a Classicist, my background was Physics. However if you start digging deep enough you always will invariably end up at the same place. I quite agree with you, everything today is about money, even science, even the search for truth that inspired those who came before us. But there are some signs that are promising. I for one am quite impressed by the "Free Software Movement" (Eben Moglen for example) As Eben Moglen points out this is not free like in free beer but free as it belongs to the Common ( with capital letter)  and from there, it seems to me is but a very small step to the Common Good  the principle Socrates for example was searching for. I think this concept Should be expanded into other/ all areas of human activities. Periodically attempts in this direction are made, but they seem to drown and are not heard of again. This however seems to me no excuse not to try. Wikiversity attracted me as a possible platform to start again such a thing -- make knowledge, experiences, and insights etc practical in the spirit of " Search for the Greater Good " otherwise it is just more free beer. For this reason I am in the process of starting the project: " Designing for the Commons" here on wikiversity I am inexperienced in Computer "Things" thats one reason why it might be slow in getting going but again that is no excuse. In order to attract folks the quality has to be high, in other words it has to be valuable, it cannot be " Underwater Basket weaving" -- nobody gives a dam about..-- I worked in fluid dynamics and came up with the process of Dynamic Containment which I plan to use as a start. ( The picture / movie strips are just a start, no explanations yet, but it is coming be patient) The idea is to use technologies like this to develop actual useful applications collaboratively and free, that can stand up in the market place. I am convinced it can be done. I am also convinced if such practical attempts are anchored in what one might refer to as our Common humanistic inheritance it might influence enough folks so this thing we try to do will develop momentum on its own. I have no illusions that this will be easy or might even be successful, but that should not matter. Lewis Mumford expressed this more eloquently than I can Its taken from his book " The Condition of Man": ( These words accompany by a picture  " Dawn at  Lake George" by Alfred Stieglitz) "......the foreground is dark, and it will become darker before the day breaks. The purging of long accumulated poisons, the healing of ugly wounds, will not be done in a day:  all this needs time,patience, resolute effort, and a willingness to forgo selfish local gains for the sake of a larger common good -- the unification of mankind and the replenishment of life. Nothing that is worth doing in our time will be done easily; that is, without a spiritual rebirth.  Unless the blind recover their sight and the crippled learn to walk our very knowledge will slay us. No peace without struggle; no security without risk; no wholeness without simplification; no goods without measure; no love without sacrifice; no full life without the willingness to accept and transcend death in the very process of living. Those who have learned this lesson may build the City of Man." Altera vista 09:05, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Hi JadeKnight!
Sorry I was out of contact for so long. Just got the computer set up. When are you free again?

Princeof500 07:57, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not on Wikiversity much either. But i do happen to have an MSN account, it is princetkmk@yahoo.com but I don't really go on that either. 203.219.84.197 04:40, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Re:Wikinews DR
I happened to notice your open Dispute Resolution comment on Wikinews, so I replied to you there. Sorry that took so long, it's just that the need for DR rarely comes up on Wikinews, so we tend not to check that page very often:P. Gopher65talk 01:29, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I understand your point of view, and that is something that we are working on. I have a couple points:


 * 1) We can't publish substandard articles due to the fact that we are now listed on Googlenews. If our quality drops below a certain point, we'll get booted off. This means that when an article doesn't meet our pre-set criteria, it will have its publication delayed until it is fixed. Unfortunately the amount of time that it takes to fix an article is sometimes great enough that an article can no longer be published. This is unavoidable. That's just how news is.


 * 2) As I stated before, news is by definition new. It can't be old. Wikinews is in direct competition with major news outlets, so we have to get our news out as quickly as possible. An article might takes months to write on Wikipedia, going through major rewrites and copyediting cycles; all of that needs to be done in HOURS on Wikinews. So, yes, it is a more stressful, less friendly environment to write an article in, but that has nothing to do with the people on Wikinews. That's just the way news is. If you'd ever been in a commercial newsroom you'd understand just how laid back we at Wikinews are;). There is constant pressure to get the story out ASAP. Again, that's just the nature of news; it can't be any different. Gopher65talk 22:24, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Sorry for bugging you, but I just thought of a point of confusion that you might have. There are 2 types of articles on Wikinews: rewritten articles and Original Reporting. Rewritten articles are when you take an existing story that was run by several competing news agencies and rewrite it in your own words. These stories can be no more than 3 days old. However, with Original Reporting there is no time limit. If you go out and do real research for a story, interview, etc, there is no time limit on how long it can be in development. Sometimes such articles spend weeks or months being researched and written. Gopher65talk 14:53, 11 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, that point was mentioned in the last comment by one of the admins who commented on your DR request. He commented that people were rather rude and unhelpful in the Deletion Request. Personally, I suspect that much of that rudeness comes from the fact that most of the core Wikinews community (the kind of people who vote on Deletion Requests) has been around for a while, and they all know all the rules. They mostly deal with each other, and (with occasional exceptions), their rudeness is tongue-in-cheek. They also seem to assume that any new person who writes an article will have read all the help pages, and will know what to do. Clearly this doesn't happen, and they should adapt their actions to suit the situation. Some of us are trying to change this attitude. Time will tell if we'll succeed.


 * As to your criticism about our policies not existing, I will note that these policies *do* exist in writing, and they lay out EXACTLY what is allowed and what isn't. They are easily accessible from either the sidebar or the welcome message for anyone who wants to read them. Unfortunately most of the people who come to Wikinews come from Wikipedia, and they assume that because they know the rules of Wikipedia, they will be fine on Wikinews. They assume that this means that they don't need to read the help pages, and can just jump right into editing. Wikinews has darned near opposite rules to those on Wikipedia (except for obvious things like vandalism), so following Wikipedia rules on Wikinews is a good way to not get published.


 * Anyway, while I respect your decision not to edit Wikinews anymore, most of your issues are either being addressed, or never existed in the first place. Gopher65talk 02:46, 17 February 2009 (UTC)


 * It is stated in the Content Guide, which is linked to from the Welcome Template, which all new users (should) get on their talk pages. Gopher65talk 15:10, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I've decided that I'm going to create a "policies in a nutshell" page, which will essentially be a bulleted list of all our critical policies. I'll see if I can get it listed on the left-hand side toolbar, as well as in the welcome template. That should make it easier for new users to find key policies, but it won't help people who choose not to read the policies in the first place.

I'm also going to try and push for a "Welcome-bot" that will automatically post the welcome template on the talk pages of new users in order to ensure that they have easy access to the detailed list of policies, should they desire it. Currently the welcome template gets posted on the pages of users who manually create accounts, and on the pages of people who chose to edit, but it doesn't get placed on the accounts that are auto-created by the Global Accounts system. Gopher65talk 15:59, 1 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Annnnnnnd, Wikinews FINALLY has that welcome-bot up and running smoothly. Well, welcome-extension now, which is better than a bot. The "policies in a nutshell" page idea was replaced with further revamps to the welcome template, which links to all critical policy-in-a-nutshell pages. Hopefully this will help prevent bad experiences like yours from recurring:). That took a while, huh? We move almost as fast as the speed of committee over there, heh (though not because of bureaucracy (unlike wikipedia) so much as because we have a very small userbase and a very long to-do list). Gopher65talk 01:10, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Mentoring
Hi,

Sorry for the long answer time, I have been very busy lately. I am afraid I won't be able to monitor people this year, because I am working on a double degree, thus I have a lot of work. I think I will unsubscribe as a mentor for this year, but I hope I will have time later for this. Xzapro4 19:49, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi,

I would be comfortable with one or two students to begin with. However, I won't be able to chat using audio. Text chatting using googleTalk and e-mail will be ok. As for the level of the students, I think I would be better with non-beginner students, I'm not sure I would be proficient in teaching from scratch.

I also talk almost fluently Spanish, so if some students are from a spanish-speaking country, I can teach in Spanish.

Keep me posted. Albane69 17:34, 29 March 2010 (UTC)