User talk:Jtneill/Archive/2015

Concerns
Please see my comments on the Request custodian action‎ board. Jameskeptic (discuss • contribs) 20:52, 13 December 2014 (UTC)
 * There is nothing here worth your time, James. Dave responded, and so did I. This is utterly out of place, Jameskeptic is an SPA that only exists globally to attack one of our users, who has done nothing improper here. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 22:47, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi
--Jthomas15 (discuss • contribs) 02:57, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Probationary custodian ready
Guy vandegrift has a mentor, please implement. Thanks! --Abd (discuss • contribs) 14:29, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks, James. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 14:16, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Action on probationary custodianship
Please implement Candidates for Custodianship/Abd 4. Thanks. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 11:29, 11 May 2015 (UTC)


 * As mentor let me also ask that custodian tools be activated for Abd to begin a probationary custodianship at your discretion. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 21:03, 11 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Given that it's his 4th go, I'd like to see 4 mentors. Seriously JT, please let's not go there again without at least trying to amend the (never-approved) policy to include lessons learned. I'm quite sure Mike and Seb will agree on this. --SB_Johnny talk 23:32, 11 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Bureaucrats serve the community, which has expressed consensus in policy. Sebmol is no longer a 'crat, SB Johnny is out-of-touch, not engaged in building this community, other than drive-by actions, for more than five years. Mike is very inactive. SBJ says "never-approved." That was his position when he deprecated the policy to "proposed", while it had complete consensus when tagged policy, which has been used for at least nine years or so, routinely, since proposed by Sebmol. We have a policy, then, in fact.
 * There is no showing of harm, no risk from my having tools. SB Johnny suggests 4 mentors. I have agreed to the Standard stop agreement which allows any custodian to stop me dead in my tracks. That's like making every custodian my mentor, more than four. I work closely with the active custodians. Only SBJ pops out of the past, to oppose based on what happened four years ago, instead of letting active Wikiversitans run Wikiversity.


 * By all means, policy can be improved. "Lessons learned." What lessons, learned when? I haven't asked for tools for four years, nobody worked on fixing the policy. It's your choice, James. You are not a robot, no matter what policy says. Policy is only important as it represents community consensus, established practice. We could also ask Mike. Because it might make a difference, I'm going to undo that deprecation of our policy, we will see what happens. SBJ has written that he supports the closure of Wikiversity. Will those who actually care about Wikiversity prevail? I suppose it may be time we find out. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 00:17, 13 May 2015 (UTC)


 * I only "pop out of the past" when things spin out of reason, control, and/or logic. That policy shouldn't be policy, and Abd is the classic case of why it needs to be made more sensible. (Abd, your reaction to my comments confirms (to me) that you're just as dangerous to community health as you ever were.) --SB_Johnny talk 00:40, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Exactly. SB Johnny is the only one who can save Wikiversity from itself (or from me). That's my point. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 05:16, 13 May 2015 (UTC)


 * I have been reviewing the history of policy development on Wikiversity, and of probationary custodianship. The full study is currently at User:Abd/Policy development. I intend to summarize that.


 * In particular, there is a review there of all probationary custodians. The claim that there is a problem with the custodianship policy has no foundation in fact, beyond some features that are missing and easily supplied, such as using the Standard stop agreement, which is broader than what SB Johnny often did: require a mentee to agree to desysop at mentor discretion. There have been 39 probationary custodians (not counting the present one). Of these, 33 were confirmed as permanent. Of the 6 who were not, it could be argued that two were disruptive, and only one -- not me -- wheel-warred, which would be truly serious disruption.


 * The biggest problem since 2012 has been a dearth of candidates, exacerbated by bureaucrat or mentor inaction. In 2014, we were down only one active custodian, so there was nobody to mentor others.


 * Policy suggests fast action on a mentor agreement, and this was done from 2006 on, even if, sometimes, there was opposition. Always, it was assumed that a mentor could handle problems if they arose. This only broke down when mentors were absent, and failed to either rein their mentee in, or to support the mentee against unwarranted attack.


 * SB Johnny has suggested a special user group, and that is worth looking at, but, meanwhile, we can accomplish very similar results with documented agreements, allowing any permanent custodian to stop a probationer, with prompt steward deysop if the probationer doesn't stop.


 * Please follow the clear policy and tradition, and implement my probationary custodianship. I am committed to it being uneventful, just ordinary uncontroversial actions. We now have reliable attention to the wiki, something that was not available too many times when I was a probationer four years ago. I won't need to take "emergency actions." --Abd (discuss • contribs) 19:49, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

If it makes any difference
If we get the new user group currently under vote as started by SB Johnny at Colloquium, I agree with this edit that, if I am made and still am a probationary custodian, not permanent, I will promptly assign myself the Assistant user group, and go to meta and resign as a Custodian. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 13:25, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

fix links?
Saw this:. From my experience, the space between the asterisk and the text or link makes no difference in display or link function. Am I missing something? --Abd (discuss • contribs) 13:19, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks, you're right, that edit didn't work. I think the next edit made the links active . -- Jtneill - Talk - c 23:02, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
 * For me, the links worked from the beginning, and were active in all versions. I checked them many times and just checked them again, from, just before your edit. They are links within the same subspace as Abd 4, using the .. pseudonym. I do notice an odd behavior. The links display as the full pagename, correctly parsed. When I hover the cursor over the links, however, my browser, currently Chrome, displays the pseudonym as the URL to use, not the full URL, but then, within about a second, shows the correct full URL. I thought maybe if I quickly click on it, it might produce an error, but, no, it works. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 12:56, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Motivation and emotion
hi jtneill, I was a bit confused and created a personal account (inderelli) rather than an student id account (u943390) and now I have two accounts and only need one! oops. Anyway, there is only one of me and I have registered for a book topic, I am already really interested in it! Cheers Tara U943390 (discuss • contribs) 05:05, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

an open probationary custodianship with you as mentor
Candidates_for_Custodianship/Leutha. This was apparently accidentally archived by Draicone in September 2011.. I've re-listed it.

In October, 2011, you commented to Leutha that you were not ready to approve. At that point, you were aware of the archiving, and so was Leutha. My impression has been that probationary custodianship candidacy pages are left open and listed until resolved, which was supposed to be fairly quickly in the original concept, and that this slipped through the cracks shows why that is needed. There is left no clear sign that the probationer is not permanent, and seeing Leutha in the Staff list over the last couple of years, I simply assumed he was permanent, since he wasn't listed on the Candidates for Custodianship page.

This is a loose end. I have seen no problematic use of tools from Leutha, though a little sign that his understanding of the Wikiversity community is not high. If mentorship is to be continued, I'd think he should obtain a more active and attentive mentor, which I'm sure could be implemented on request. What do you think? --Abd (discuss • contribs) 01:50, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Request for guidance
Hi, I would like some guidance for dealing with Abd who I am finding disruptive. I see that he is imposing his own ideas of organisation on everything and suggests that he is expressing "the will of the community". I feel this will lead to a very pyrimidical way of organising open educational resources which means that new initiatives involving partners with clear organisational goals will become jeopardised.

I have worked using Wikiversity with a number of organisations (SPIR608 Political Simulations and Gaming, Portal:Simulation and Gaming Archive) and used it for a number of presentations ([], User:Leutha/E4D presentation April 2015/Intro). Previously I have felt sufficiently confident that this would work OK even in a live situation. In fact I have felt that it is important to help promote Wikimedia, particularly amongst academic circles, and I feel that it is important for us to develop partnerships with a range of different organisations. One such organisation is SUSTAINed who wish to develop their handbook with us. However Abd has moved their page without proper consultation. I have opned up a discussion with a couple of peopel from SUSTAINed to clarify copyright issues, but I am finding Abd' contribution unhelpful. He seems unhesitant in suggesting his views are those of the whole community and tends to lead the discussion off into very wide ranging discussions which would, I feel be better located somewhere else so that those people with a particular interest in them can develop them with him there.

Dave Braunschweig has already experienced problems with Abd to the point of being subject to personal attack (see Colloquium. I am concerned that an aspect of Abd's behaviour is that he can be provocative, and then when people respond in a reasonable manner, he then dramatises matters in the way Dave describes. I would be grateful for any advice you have in this matter.Leutha (discuss • contribs) 09:33, 1 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Jtneill, as you know, Leutha is your mentee. I have seen no problematic use of tools, though I have not looked deeply. However, I have seen some very odd behavior. I raised the copyright issue and resolved it. Leutha made a positive suggestion which I underscored that would nail it. However, he has become hostile and oppositional. I used "we" once to describe what, in fact, has been going on, on Wikiversity, for some years, with wide approval and usage and extremely low conflict. Leutha has now created conflict, and refused to explain, and complains about explanations in the other direction. There is no problem with the SUSTAINed community, who have begun what could be quite an exciting project. Leutha seems to have a problem.


 * As a probationary custodian, it is extremely important that he be able to discuss issues when they come up. Dave, however, considered discussion to be "badgering." We either let this go, or we will examine it.
 * I urge you, James, to review the recent activity of your mentee and advise him. I do not expect you to intervene in unripe conflict. That can require research and a lot of time. Thanks. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 14:50, 1 September 2015 (UTC)


 * This disruption is impacting users trying to prepare Wikiversity for their students. See .  I would warn, but I'm already 'involved'.  -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 11:41, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Dave filed a WV:RCA report over a "conflict" that I was unaware of, opposition to two edits that appeared last night, and the report was filed before I could even see them and handle the problem (which I have now done with both issues). Dave has become reactive, and is obviously looking for "something wrong with Abd." As always, I will welcome your advice. However, Dave has gone off the rails. Always, previously, he was amenable to advice, so I assume you could also advise him. Thanks. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 14:50, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Developing Partnerships
On a more positive note I feel that it would be useful to work on a clearer way we can relate to educational establishments and groups like SUSTAINed. On Wikipedia I had some experience working on the Education Program while employed by Wikimedia UK. Part of the problem experienced there was ensuring that new groups acted in a way compatible with the platform and were not the subject of disruption. I feel the future of Wikiversity lies in developing a range of relationships including formal partnering, but I think we have some way to go before that can be effectively achieved. I would welcome your comments on this.Leutha (discuss • contribs) 09:33, 1 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Leutha is correct to note the possible importance of collaboration with SUSTAINed. However, this is actually an ordinary learning project, very new, created by some users without a lot of Wikiversity experience. They need assistance, community support, and I've been providing that. "Formal partnering" can create some issues, if it creates page ownership without explicit attribution.


 * Out of a developed understanding of conflict resolution on Wikiversity, and neutrality policy, my position has become that mainspace pages cannot be owned, unless very temporarily, with an under construction template (and it may be better to develop such pages in user space or as attributed subpages.)


 * The users did not seem to be aware of how to use subspace, and appeared to be contemplating development of all content, for what could become a deep Handbook, on the same page. I moved SUSTAINed Handbook to Sustainability/Handbook, which would have zero negative impact on the ability of the SUSTAINed people to work on the resource, and which could empower them. Leutha opposed that, and suggested a long and largely redundant name. I explained, and Leutha has not responded further. Placing SUSTAINed, the name of an organization, in the title, would limit the resource. by title, to what that specific organization does. However, as Sustainability/Handbook, this is a general handbook for sustainability, which then can be developed by SUSTAINed -- and anyone else. If they want an exclusive space, they can say so and I'll create it. But I don't think they do. I think they want collaboration, and I find it exciting.


 * The users obviously accepted the move, because they did not object, and linked, on their web site, to the moved page. This gave me the opportunity, then, to resolve the copyright issue -- they had copied material from their web site without attribution -- by, first, attributing it myself, and second, by noting the link as reflecting the permission of those who control the website content. Good enough for Wikiversity, if not for Commons (which might want OTRS confirmation). Leutha's suggestion, that the web site explicitly release their content under a free license, would fully resolve this, even Commons would accept it. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 15:22, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

The situation is rapidly deteriorating. Please see Request_custodian_action. Thanks Leutha (discuss • contribs) 18:22, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

This Month in Education: August 2015

 * James, we have a community subscription to this newsletter, at Newsletters/This Month in Education. I created that to avoid unnecessary traffic on the Colloquium. Anyone may link to it on the Colloquium if they think content deserves special notice. (This was discussed a bit.)
 * So you may see the issues as they come in by watchlisting that page. The edit above caused an edit conflict for me, and creates user page traffic not related to the purpose of your talk page. (I.e., it lights up my watchlist, I get an email, etc.) It's up to you, obviously, but thought I'd point out the alternative. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 15:28, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Nominations
While archiving some old discussions I just noticed that Leutha was still under Requests_and_Nominations_for_Probationary_Custodianship. As mentor, would you like to nominate for full? --mikeu talk 20:03, 25 December 2015 (UTC)