User talk:Leighblackall/2009

'''Hi there! I look forward to talking with you. Please add new topics at the top of my talk page. Thanks :)'''

User page structure
Re: your preference for new talk messages at the top (and more generally, searching for better ways ), I thought you might be interested in this user talk page which uses topic headings: m:user talk:Pathoschild. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 05:54, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Very nice. Think I will adopt that style. Amazing to see such a huge talk log too. Nice for assessing learnings within wikiversity I would say! We should organise wikiversity days at uc hey? Leighblackall 09:11, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Nomination for full custodianship
I've nominated you - Candidates for Custodianship/Leighblackall - you should try to be available during the next five days to answer any questions. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 23:25, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks JT, Will do my best. Am on the road with my android phone (still no Internet in my new home :( and will jump on any network computer I see free. Watching --Leighblackall 04:46, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

WYSIWIG editing
I know this is something you'd like to see: Proposal:WYSIWIG default editor -- Jtneill - Talk - c 02:13, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
 * It will make a big difference hey! --Leighblackall 02:39, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Catalysts
Hi Leigh. I wonder if you could support the role of "catalyst" in some formalized way having to do with online facilitation and some of the other realms of virtual group dynamics into which you delve. I know you are "hip" to this thinking and I thought we (v:) could establish some formal methods to use here at home and abroad. See the discussion in a broader context CQ 11:59, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Good suggestion CQ. I'll pass this message onto the course facilitator.. they need ideas for Facilitation of Wikis. --Leighblackall 02:42, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

OER Search and Discovery
Followup to the twitter note - there is a thread at Colloquium that I started, if you'd like to discuss OER search in more detail. --mikeu talk 10:03, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Nomination for Probationary Custodianship
Hi Leigh,

I've nominated you here for probationary custodianship: Candidates_for_Custodianship. Could you indicate there whether you accept and who you would like to be mentored by? Sincerely, James - -- Jtneill - Talk - c 01:31, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Hey Leigh, that's great news - check out the link above - just add a "yes please" to that page and hopefully we can get underway . Sincerely, James - -- Jtneill - Talk - c 04:05, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

✅ This begins the 4 week period of probationary custodianship. Good luck with the mop! --mikeu talk 12:45, 8 July 2009 (UTC)


 * If you have any questions or would like some advice you can drop by #wikiversity-en, where you can frequently find me and other custodians. Also, please add yourself to WV:STAFF as a probationary custodian with timezone and babel info.  --mikeu talk 12:59, 8 July 2009 (UTC)


 * BTW, babel refers to language fluency. EN is native speaker of English, and FR-1 is basic knowledge of French.  See User:Jade Knight's page for an example of how this is sometimes used.  It is a very handy system on multilingual wikis like  or for language learning project participants.  --mikeu talk 01:33, 9 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi Leigh, whilst by no means compulsory, also consider participating in, and contributing to, this learning project: How to be a MediaWiki sysop. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 23:55, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm keen if you are to get you involved as a "participant" in this project and in so doing so, hopefully to improve it. What do you think? -- Jtneill - Talk - c 12:57, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi Leigh, as discussed off-wiki, I've recommended an extension of your custodian probationary period to allow some more time to develop your use of Wikiversity. If you think it would be helpful we could brainstorm a list of things to tour and learn more about - we could do this on Skype if you like!? -- Jtneill - Talk - c 07:47, 5 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks James, just at the moment (and for the last month or so) I've been a bit tied up with work to focus on Wikiversity based work. We are currently running the Facilitating online course - which has a number of participants, and soon to run Composing educational resources. AFter I am back from the Open Education conference August 25th, I will be able to focus a lot more on this. It is my intention to spend at least a year with Wikiversity is my primary vehicle for online educational development, and compare and contrast the experience with Wikieducator --Leighblackall 05:10, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
 * No worries, Leigh, when you're back around more, let us know, and we can discuss next steps . -- Jtneill - Talk - c 13:01, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Hi Leigh, there seems to be support for an extended probationary period - could perhaps post to Candidates for Custodianship/Leighblackall with a proposed time-frame that could work for you? Basically IMHO we need sufficient time for you to try out / demonstrate use of the custodian-level tools and for you to demonstrate the kind of editing/projects/maintanence work you intend to be involved with. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 23:35, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Hi James, I could use a Skype call (or Gizmo if you'd like to record it) to discuss these questions. Let's email a time and record a talk, adding the link here for others should anyone else be in this position some day. For me, its a case of not knowing what I don't know (and not making/having time to find out what I don't know). --Leighblackall 00:16, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Whoops, I only just now saw your reply - sorry - will email/skype. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 23:29, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * What are you thinking about bringing your custodian probationary status to a close soon since we've run well over the typical period - would you like to be nominated for full custodian - do you feel ready? Is there anything else you'd like to "cover"? From my point of view, you seem to understand the tools and policy well enough to not abuse them and also know how to ask about something if you don't know. So, I don't think we need to string this out any further if you agree and are willing to make effective and good of use of the custodian-level functions if and when the need arises. As I mentioned in talking, for me custodianship, at least initially, was mostly just about being able to clean up my messes when I made them. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 22:34, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks JT. I think we may as well close it and see what others think. I am willing to take the responsibility, and answer any questions regarding the status assigned. As you say, it is mostly about the added flexibility it gives me in my own work. But if there are things that need to be done, such as helping others without the flexibility to manage their pages, I am more than willing to help. Generally speaking I have a no deletion policy personally, and would rather see things built on than deleted. That said, there have been several times I myself have created a page with teh wrong name or whatever, and wish for it to be deleted. That to me is pretty straight forward. What next then? --Leighblackall 22:57, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Explicit content
Good questions/comments. I'm not sure, but I've asked about more about this here: Request custodian action. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 07:06, 5 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I have added that image to MediaWiki:Bad image list which prevents it from appearing in the page history . We don't get this sort of activity very often, but it has occured a few times recently.  As Jtneill mentioned we are discussing ways to prevent this in the future.  Wikiversity custodians don't have any direct control of what is hosted on commons.  However, anyone at wikiversity can go to commons and request that a file be deleted.  The official policy on such matters can be found at Commons:Project scope which in part states:

"'The counterpoint to that is that the statement “Commons is not censored” is not a valid argument for keeping a file that falls outside the permitted Commons scope, as set out above. Photographs of nudity and male and female genitalia are sometimes uploaded for non-educational motives, and such images are not exempt from the requirement to comply with the rules on scope. Often (but not always) such images add nothing educationally distinct to the stock of such images we hold already, and hence fail the test of being realistically useful for an educational purpose.'"


 * Given that this image is not used on a single wikimedia project and that Commons also has a policy about "Files apparently created and/or uploaded for the purpose of vandalism or attack" should make this is a good candidate for deletion.  Having said that, I have also seen debates on wiki where the justification for keeping such material is based on rather spurious arguments.  --mikeu talk 20:54, 5 July 2009 (UTC)


 * If an image is in MediaWiki:Bad image list that will prevent it from appearing on any current page or any history page. The image will simply not be visible anywhere on wikiversity.  However, this is not a manageable solution to the problem.  Trying to keep up with the new images that get uploaded to commons would be impossible.  And mostly pointless, since almost none of those images get used to vandalise a page here.  (There are only 5 entries on the bad image list, just to give you an idea of how rare it is.)  I see this problem as being a subset of a larger problem which is malicious editing to disrupt the site.  This might also be done by inserting vulgar language or by changing the layout of the page so that it is unreadable, for example.  In a few recent cases there were users who inserted these images in many pages.  The response we take is to block the user from editing and cleanup the mess.  There are some automated methods for preventing this.  But mostly we really on volunteers to quickly stop and revert this activity.  Given the small size of our community it is not always possible to handle this as rapidly as we would like.  I'd be interested in exploring other possibilities for handling this.  There have been many discussions on wikimedia sites about explicit images and vandalism.  I'll try to find some links to those pages.  --mikeu talk 22:47, 5 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Here is a page that summarizes some of the previous discussions on the topic. While much of it is specific to wikipedia, there are some points that are more general about wikimedia sites.  There is also a discussion on implementing a technical means to filter out explicit content.  BTW, I did tag the image that was on your page for speedy deletion, FWIW.  --mikeu talk 13:33, 6 July 2009 (UTC)


 * The file has been deleted from Commons for being "out of project scope."  --mikeu talk 22:16, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Talk
FYI, I redesigned my talk page header a little - see what you think possibly as a template for others. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 00:56, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

The heck with the page header... This is about feedback. Anyone with a dog named LEGO has my vote! -pbr http://reiber.org

Lecture 2.0
Have you got some ideas for Lecture 2.0? How does Otago do it? -- Jtneill - Talk - c 01:54, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

RSS feed
FYI, unfortunately, the RSS extension is not currently available on WV. It is available on the sandbox server (which you can access), but I'm not sure how useful that is. Unfortunately, further, when I looked into it, it seemed unlikely to get approved by WMF because it would mean unable to directly control content on pages - e.g., if the feed is spammed. Sandbox server: http://www.sandboxserver.org/wiki/index.php?title=RSS_Reader -- Jtneill - Talk - c 06:17, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
 * This has been updated on the sandbox server; now see Extension:SimpleFeed -- Jtneill - Talk - c 10:34, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Talk link in signature
Go to Special:Preferences. In the Signature field, add something like -- Jtneill - Talk - c, tick the box, and save. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 09:36, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Greetings
It's nice to see you being active on the site... Sj 08:45, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Course journals
I'm curious to follow up your ideas about emerging academics publishing coursework into journals. Perhaps we could add ideas about this to a page (course journals?) but also wanted to check what you'd call this? And we could add examples. I kind of tried in 2007 with social psychology (psychology) - e.g., see +  - but I'm keen to find other/better ways. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 07:42, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Maybe course journal systems - goes nicely with open journal systems? -- Jtneill - Talk - c 07:43, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, remembering that the first principle in the idea (from my perspective) was to dissolve the perceived relationship between student and teacher, and reinforce the relationship as Academic and Emerging Academic. These terms were inspired by a hidden, but locally vocal researcher in Otago named Russell Butson. He has some very advanced thinking about deschooling higher education. But one idea he has trialed has been emerging academics taking their existing essays forward into a journal - just as you say - a course journal. The only thing I bork at is that the word "course" reinforces that student/teacher paradigm.. or an idea that "this is not serious". I think it is as open journals by emerging academics, as in emerging artists, writers, sports people etc.--Leighblackall 02:32, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Welcome aboard
Hi Leighblackall. You are now a "full custodian" (and sorry about the delay!).

Please make sure to update your status on Support staff, and put WV:RCA on your watchlist.

Congrats! --SB_Johnny talk 18:42, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes! I'm very happy to see you've got the position. Best wishes and I'm sure you'll do a great job! --AFriedman 01:39, 25 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, welcome aboard to adminship. As you know, this is serious business:

If you should stuff up, then a serious trout slapping and time in the village stocks may be applied. Hope we can continue to learn together. Sincerely, James -- Jtneill - Talk - c 23:25, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
 * James said it best :) Sj 00:21, 3 November 2009 (UTC)