Wikiversity:Colloquium/archives/December 2009

Undoing renamed page
Someone (remi/Emesee/mcormack) renamed my pages so that they no longer make sense. I'm coming back to add stuff but can't if people completely rename everything making it both confusing and unusable. I can't talk with these people because Mccormack is on break and Emesee/remi is apparently no longer as he/she has no talk page.

Can someone help?

Pages:
 * 1) http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Elementary_Science_K
 * 2) http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Elementary_Math_3

These are all linked from:
 * 1) http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Harriska2
 * 2) http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Elementary_Curriculum_and_Training

Harriska2 15:54, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi Harriska2!

I can't speak on behalf of others, but it seems you have a name and numbering scheme in your head that you think makes the most sense. Here at Wikiversity (and at most of the Wikimedia wikis, I think), we encourage you to use descriptive names for your learning resources.

For example, "Elementary Science" is a great name. It seems you have a few lessons related to this learning process, so it might seem like a good idea to name them Elementary_Science_1 .. Elementary_Science_5. This being a wiki, though, we'd encourage you to name the lessons. You can also take advantage of the power of the wiki, by making these pages "subordinate" to your Elementary Science page. So, instead of Elementary_Science_1, it would be something like "Elementary_Science/How_light_works".

I believe that these pages were moved in this spirit. I double checked a few of them, and it appears that they have been properly re-directed, so none of your learners would be confused. (I'd also say that "science for kindergarten" is much more likely to be searched for then "Science K". I had no clue what your K stood for, to be honest, at first).

There are certain conventions that we've agreed to on capitalizing and tenses, so we don't end up with "Elementary Science", "elementary science", which are all the same topic just inadvertently created by different people. We are here to try and collaboratively come up with the best content, after all.

Please do let me know what is confusing and unusable about the current naming, as we definately do want to make our content User Friendly and as accessible as possible. Thanks, Historybuff 17:18, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Sandox Server renewal
Hello folks. I am coming here today, to warm you up for a discussion about a renewal of Sandbox Server. Sandbox Server was something, which for the last 2 years was a place, where people can took a part of Moodle courses, where people deployed their files and experimented with MediaWiki or Moodle. This time I am proposing to open this concept to cover participants of all Wikiversities and interests. If you are interested in this, come to Wikiversity Beta (<--this is a link there) to discuss and help to set it up. On the other side have a Marry Christmas and Happy New year!--Juan de Vojníkov 19:59, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Converting Radio waves into D.C Electrical energy
Hi! Can u please help me in guiding [U][COLOR="Red"]how to Convert Radio waves(U.H.F) into D.C electrical energy of 800mAh 4.2V [/COLOR][/U]please reply me with all the accessories required for converting it and the procedures to do it..[/U] am under an innovative project please help me dude...... --Prab00 13:34, 25 December 2009 (UTC)


 * This forum us for questions about Wikiversity. For general knowledge questions, please post on the Help Desk.  I will copy this Q and answer it there.  Oh, and Merry Xmas. StuRat 13:50, 25 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Here it is: Help_desk. StuRat 13:58, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Best Educational Wiki 2009
See I am just wndering why WV was not nominated... --Gbaor 15:43, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
 * But look, our long life rival/friend Wikieducator is on the list of the page. Well, it show us we have to work hard. But, hey, thx for the link. I didnt know, there are so many educational wikies.--Juan de Vojníkov 20:56, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * After browsing the winner, I'm not certain we would want their award.--John[[Image:bessa66.png|12px]]Bessatalk 00:11, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
 * He he, right. Its kinda dicey competition.--Juan de Vojníkov 22:48, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

WV pages
Main page says that WV has "Special:Statistics learning resources and growing." A quick question: These "content pages" include also sub-pages? --Gbaor 09:34, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I think so. But I think there are count problems, if subpages are not in categories.--Juan de Vojníkov 20:54, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd actually like to know how these are counted, I have no idea and am wondering if maybe the system needs an overhaul. Or maybe we could include a link to a "breakdown" of learning resources on the main page? Anybody want to take this conversation to the Main page learning project? --Trinity507 05:39, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, this is a technical question, which could be replayed on irc.freenode.net #mediawiki, if you have that opportunity.--Juan de Vojníkov 22:52, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Is there any place we could ask about this? On WP or Meta? --Gbaor 12:53, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
 * As I said #wikimedia opst: #mediawiki. There are also other possibilities where to ask "staff", all this via mediawiki.org. Some information might be found here: w:Wikipedia:Statistics and here: statistics.--Juan de Vojníkov 22:52, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I have found some info here and here. It seems that "The conservative number for the Wikipedia excludes redirects, discussion pages, image description pages, user profile pages, templates, help pages, portals, articles without links to other articles, and pages about Wikipedia." So the subpages should be counted if they contain an internal link (If the rule is the same on WP and WV). --Gbaor 16:50, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Swedish course
--71.31.237.17 23:50, 31 December 2009 (UTC)This course has no sound link that I can find. It would be very useful to have sound so one could know how the Swedish is pronounced.
 * There is some Swedish pronunciation of words available. Please check this category and add it to the courses here on Wikiversity: commons:Category:Swedish pronunciation.--Juan de Vojníkov 22:59, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Introducing Annotated Bibliographies
Note: I need a little help designing a format for the titles of the pages and the root index.--JohnBessatalk 22:43, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I will (over time) attempt introduce the idea of  annotated bibliographies as mediated support material that can contain varying critical interpretations of important cited text.

Annotations that have differing critical approaches will help support wv's structure by creating back-linking maps to other threads on similar topics, as the different topics will link to common supporting material.

This extends the "conceptual complexity" idea that I described below in the linking discussion. It should help add another dimension of value to the wv. This "loosening" of the purely hierarchical wiki format will also support the idea of multiple threads of research that can help prevent the types of conflict that plague WP.--JohnBessatalk 14:54, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

This is the list of annotated bibliographies I want to import from their present location:
 * Japan, From Will Durant's Our Oriental Heritage
 * The Life-Giving Sword by Yagyu Munenori
 * Carl Rogers on Personal Power
 * Technics and Civilization by Lewis Mumford
 * The Information Society by Christoper May
 * Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
 * The Farther Reaches of Human Nature by Abraham Maslow
 * Prisoners of Hate by Aaron Beck
 * Carl Rogers: Dialogues with BF Skinner
 * On Becoming a Person by Carl Rogers
 * Cognitive Therapy by Aaron Beck
 * Politics and Innocence: A Humanistic Debate by Carl Rogers
 * The Carl Rogers Reader
 * B. F. Skinner by Daniel W. Bjork
 * The Control Revolution by Andrew L. Shapiro


 * Hi! Quite a long blog. First of all the copyright issues should be clarified. For the titles I would suggest to keep the pesent ones + put something behind, like Japan (bibliography), The Life-Giving Sword (bibliography)... Put them into one category and fing a place in WV category system, where your cat. can fit in. In case you are not satisfied with either page or cat. name, you can adjust those later. Also I would put a link to these pages on your user page to be able to find them very easily. --Gbaor 11:39, 19 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Thx, Gbaor. Just for future reference, as this is my stuff, all of my stuff either goes w/ the accepted license or is public domain. (Photos are different, as I am selling them now.) The WP just puts the title, and then will "disambiguate" if there is a conflict.  I am not sure we have a surplus of those resources, so my thought is to put the author in the title, but how to punctuate it, possibly "Good_Book_by_Good_Writer_(annotated_bibliography)."  I am not sure "annotated bibliography" is a great descriptor as a "bibliography" is a collection of titles, and "annotated" isn't the word most commonly used to describe critical inquiry.


 * Categories should be the fun part, as my goal is to create a tagging/linking effect from what we rely on for validity: supporting information. I want to introduce the idea of a complexity such as in concept mapping (or webbing for the K-12 set) where back-links such as common citations actually become focal points for developing new information from critical comparison. Here is an extensive document on "thought linking" that I wrote a few years back when I really obsessed about the topic.--John[[Image:bessa66.png|12px]]Bessatalk 15:47, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Mediated Citations(?) I first heard the word "mediated" applied (complainingly) in terms of Information to the Internet community of Care2 by a hippie in front of the Savanah, GA library a few years  back. "What a funny use of the word" I thought, but it stuck with me to mean a layer between social action (here critical comparison) and actual fact (the cited text). And not mediation in the sense of avoiding a court battle.--JohnBessatalk 15:38, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Alternative title ideas might be "John_Bessa's_review_of_Shakespeare_works" or "Review of Shakespeare's works/John_Bessa" for examples. The later could be useful for collecting together reviews or annotations by multiple authors. -- dark lama  19:33, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Darklama wrote: "useful for collecting together reviews or annotations by multiple authors" Your suggestion would have exactly the opposite effect I am looking for; if you present the work as personal and not collaborative, it will never become a group effort.--JohnBessatalk 00:15, 2 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Something like reading groups? --Gbaor 08:31, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah. The focus would be on specific citations, rather than chapters.--John[[Image:bessa66.png|12px]]Bessatalk 21:46, 17 January 2010 (UTC)