Wikiversity:Colloquium/archives/December 2017

Commons Deletion Damage
A user is creating a resource and has an image. In some cases, the user actually has full rights, or might be able to obtain permission. So the user uploads the image to Commons, and uses it here. Perhaps years later, someone on Commons notices an alleged license defect. The user is long gone, has no idea there is even a discussion. The image is deleted, and then Commons Delinker comes here and removes the image. One cannot research the original image history, often, because the information has been deleted on Commons. (that is a Commons structural defect, all that metadata should remain public, because it is public domain, having been written under the standard license). Here is an example I just saw, but there are many, many like this.
 * In 2014, Lillie.t [(Contributions)] worked on Upper Limb Orthotics/De Quervain's Tenosynovitis, added a series of images on Commons, see standing Commons contributions and also the deletion discussion, closed November 24, 2017, and then Commons Delinker (a bot) removed the image links from our resource.
 * As is common, nobody with an interest in the usage of these files knew about the deletion request. The copyright argument was possibly sound, possibly not, depending on details that cannot now be seen, and it is entirely possible, even probable, that the user had permission to photograph and use those documents. Commons usually focuses on the photographer, not someone "setting up" a scene. But this is not the point here.
 * Someone who cares enough could ask for the files to be undeleted for review, but that's a lot of work, actually. There is a far simpler solution.

When a file is used from Commons, it could be copied here, so there is a local copy. This is contrary to common practice, it was routine here to delete local copies when images were moved to Commons. However, if there is a local copy, the Commons deletion would have no effect on our resources. What we would want, then, is an automatic claim of fair use when Commons deletes. It is utterly impractical for Wikiversity to manage detailed examination of license issues, and copyright can be extraordinarily complex. But Wikiversity may legally host even copyrighted material under a fair use claim, and if a copyright holder ever objects, the image can be removed (unless a stand is taken that the fair use is to be defended, which is rare, but the WMF has done this on occasion.) Conflict would be very rare.

A bot could copy all used Commons files here, including the license information. A global solution has been suggested, NonFreeWiki, notice the vote, This or the idea here would be completely legal and obviously serve the encyclopedic and educational usages. NFW would not require duplicate hosting all over the place. (I proposed that NFW simply be a namespace on Commons, thus files would be moved, not deleted and copied, which doubles storage space.) Until then, our most valuable resource is user and custodian labor, and the status quo wastes labor -- or trashes standing content. What could have been done in seconds with a bot takes much time. Disk space is cheap.

The automatic claim of fair use would be rebuttable, as with any claim, but the point would be to make it easy for users and for the vast majority of file usages to not require discussion or custodian attention. In lieu of copying all the images here, an agreement with Commons might be possible to transfer any images in use here instead of simply deleting them there. This would simply be a modification to Commons Delinker. The problem with the existing process is that the file and its information are deleted, requiring far more work to fix educational resources using the files.

To accomplish the task suggested here would take a bot, to search for images on all WV pages, and copy them, with all the information, from Commons. It would not take a bot having admin privileges on either wiki. This action itself is obviously legitimate because Commons is allegedly a repository of --Abd (discuss • contribs) 20:08, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
 * If anything, we should have a local copy and then delete that so that it's technically saved locally and can be undeleted but so that any revisions and improvements to the "master" file on Commons will display here. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:39, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, not a bad suggestion, it would be superior to the present situation, but it would still require maintenance. When Commons changes a file, they really should change the filename. I am not sure what the software displays when there is the same filename here and on Commons. Any custodian can test this by creating a local file with the same name as a Commons file and a test page to display it. What I'm looking for is thinking toward reducing maintenance labor. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 01:14, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, I don't think there is a silver bullet solution here. By definition, reproducing Commons 900 times on every project is adding a lot of work. :/ —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:25, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
 * If it is to be done manually, yes. This suggestion is only for en.Wikiversity, which has, in practice, liberal fair use allowance, compared to some other wikis. That is why the suggestion is to copy all files, so that there is a local copy of all used files. There are many possible ways to implement this. But bot-copying is essentially set and forget. It is very little work. Then Commons Delinker would come, sometimes, and remove the links and another bot following up on CDL could simply restore them and add a generic fair use rationale. Those could readily be reviewed if it's decided to do so. A reviewer would have the Commons discussion to look at. The problem, Koavf, is that many or even most of the files Commons deletes and Delinker unlinks are actually usable here. They need a rationale, which wasn't put in because the user thought the file was free, or didn't realize that there was some defect -- or Commons simply makes mistakes. And then, with no file here, finding the file again is a piece of work, if it can even be found. In the example above, the files would not necessarily be available anywhere, the creator of the files uploaded them and apparently only for usage here.
 * Not a magic bullet, simply a possible solution that could avoid a lot of work. Presently, most of that work is simply not being done, so educational resources are damaged. I and some others have done some restoration work, but all that would be unnecessary if we did this.
 * What I would see is that we would encourage users to upload to Commons if the licensing permits. Only upload here if a non-free use rationale is needed. The problem here is not inappropriate non-free use, which is highly subjective (and therefore tends to waste time in conflict), but usage believed to be free.
 * Commons represents itself, on the home page, as "a collection of 42,983,133 freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute." That is basically BS. It's a large collection of files that might be free and might not.
 * There is no process in place for systematically vetting the free use status of all files and warning people about possible non-free status. It's a wiki, and haphazard. So, years after upload (three or so in the case described above), someone notices a problem. And then the file disappears. Sometimes the problem is quite obscure and even silly. A generic solution, far more efficient than what I suggested here, called Non-Free Wiki, has been proposed on meta and had majority support, but there is no sign that it's likely to happen. Until then, we could do what I suggested and if the WMF doesn't like the extra file space being used, they might look again at NFW, because there are a huge number of files that have been uploaded directly to encyclopedias for fair use, and they are duplicated on hundreds of wikis. We would be small potatoes. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 22:30, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm not even sure that you're wrong but this is primarily a Commons problem. I've had a virtually identical conversation at en.voy within the past three months. Unfortunately, this comes up routinely and it seems like there should be 1.) some extra scrutiny at Commons for files which are being used on WMF projects and 2.) some kind of courtesy notice from a bot at Commons that alerts local wiki communities if a file in use at that community is set to be deleted. At en.wv, we can't control the former but we could at least make the latter and see if the Commons community can oblige us. Maybe it could be a standard to have a page like "foo:Community Portal/Commons alerts". —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:18, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
 * That idea is proposed at 2017 Community Wishlist Survey/Bots and gadgets/Commons deletion notification bot by Doc James. I do agree that deletions from Wikimedia Commons should be discussed by the affected communities, and local copies are already allowed at many Wikimedia projects such as English Wikipedia so I would think that it's a good solution. --Donald Trung (discuss • contribs) 12:06, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Is This Wiki Underutilized?
I look at sites like Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, and so forth; they are massive platforms.

Wikipedia is a huge encyclopedia. It benefits many.

This wiki exists to develop learning and teaching activities? And to publish and create research? Is my understanding correct?

It seems that if this wiki becomes huge and popular and contains copious amounts of content related to learning, teaching, and research, then this could really benefit humanity. Am I wrong?

Is this wiki experiencing linear or exponential growth?

If the amount of visitors this wiki has increases, does that mean that there will likely be more people to create material related to learning, teaching, and research?

Do individuals here have a vision as to what they might want this wiki to look like in 5, 10, or 20 years? What might that vision be? I hope these questions are useful to think about. I'd be curious to read your thoughts on this. Thanks! 🖖 Michael Ten (discuss • contribs) 04:54, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
 * In a short answer: yes. I think your understanding is definitely correct but the problem is attracting a critical mass of editors who have something valuable to add. The growth at this site has been very incremental and small, unfortunately. I am not necessarily convinced that more editors will lead to more content nor that more content will be more quality. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:17, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I am on Reddit frequently. There is a sub-Reddit called Theory of Reddit. It's interesting. Check it out maybe. In my estimation somewhere between 5% and 30% of content on Reddit might be related to research, teaching, and learning. So maybe as just a ballpark figure, maybe 10-15% of content on Reddit might be appropriate for this wiki, in theory? Reddit is massive and humongous. What if instead of posting to Reddit, users submitted that content under Creative Commons? That could benefit a lot of people potentially. Just some thoughts. Cheers. 🥦 Michael Ten (discuss • contribs) 18:46, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
 * My focus is on college teaching, and I think two factors are inhibiting the growth of Wikipedia (and Wikibooks). The most severe is a disinclination on the part of the academic world to embrace the concept: Instructors, textbook writers, those who manage colleges and universities see no advantage to changing the status quo.  When I mention to colleagues that textbooks, lesson plans, and even exams and study guides could be all provided under CC, they often bring up the impact this will have on employment.  I believe (hope) that this can change, and I am seeing a growing interest, for example in the use of OpenStax textbooks (although the majority of instructors still have little interest in these materials.)
 * From my perspective, another problem with Wikipedia is that despite our best intentions, education is a competitive endeavor in which students compete for the best jobs and careers. This can be alleviated by the use of private wikis where students can write essays without seeing each other's efforts.  That is why I am such a strong advocate of Miraheze, which uses wikitext in a way that would naturally permit the importation of student projects onto Wikiversity under CC-BY-SA.  A year ago I introduced this node as a platform for students to write projects in an environment that minimizes plagiarism between competing students.  Last Fall, I temporarily ceased this activity in response to a critical administrator.  But after some thought, I realized that my status as a tenured professor should protect me in this.  And, if the administrator continues to object, I would welcome public debate on this issue.  21:39, 9 December 2017


 * My vision for Wikiversity would have there be a resource here (or a mechanism for quickly creating a resource) for every Wikipedia article, as a place to discuss and learn about the topic. As it is, people try to discuss article topics on a Wikipedia talk page, and are told they can't do that. I have never seen such a user be pointed to Wikiversity. There are sister wiki templates on Wikipedia, and they are used occasionally, but whenever an attempt has been made to point to a resource here from a battleground article on Wikipedia, the dominant faction there has removed it, claiming that Wikiversity resources are "self-published," which is highly misleading: that would forbid referring to other Wikipedia articles.
 * Nevertheless, this would drastically change the scale here. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 00:53, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
 * "people try to discuss ... on talk page, and are told they can't do that. I have never seen such a user be pointed to Wikiversity" — I did it (pointed them to WV) several times (and was not reverted). A link to WV from a WP talk page is OK as long as it is not an argument to change the WP article accordingly, but an advice to use WV (rather than WP) as a forum.
 * Moreover, a link to WV from a WP article is possible. "This option is rarely used, but here is a recent example: the Wikipedia article "Representation theory of the Lorentz group" contains (in the end of the lead, and again in Sect. 3.2 "Technical introduction to finite-dimensional representation theory") a link to Wikiversity article "Representation theory of the Lorentz group" (quoted from here).
 * Yes, WP articles are self-published. But! The WP principle "everyone can edit" is balanced with "verifiability" (="no original research"). Everyone can edit toward reliable sources (rather than toward his point of view). WV is not protected from cranks; this is the problem. Cranks are numerous and passionate. Several times I guessed that a problematic WP editor is not quite a crank, and I got into a long discussion with him, striving to understand, is it possible that I understand the matter very well and still cannot convinced him. Alas, all my attempts failed, see here.
 * Wikipedia's goal "to inform, but not teach, wide public" is definitely unattainable in mathematics, and maybe in hard sciences. You cannot inform wide public that "a continuous function on a closed interval is bounded" without teaching the meaning of these words in this context, with informal explanations of the intuition, examples etc. For now, mathematical articles on WP either violate the rules, or rightly revolt people; usually do both, as a compromise (quoted from here again). I like the idea of a "companion" to WP, as long as it is reasonably protected from cranks. Boris Tsirelson (discuss • contribs) 06:22, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
 * One who reads Wikiversity should know and understand that content may not be neutral, it may represent opinion, and we do not delete content because it is unverified or unverifiable. (Wikipedia seeks neutrality in all encyclopedia pages, but there is also no guarantee of it, the structure doesn't create that.) However, if content at the top level in WV mainspace is not neutral, any user may address and fix this. We resolve content conflict by genuine consensus, normally. Wikiversity is neutral by inclusion, not exclusion. So it is far more like academia than an encyclopedia Anyone, no matter what their POV, may study a topic here, and write essays. Any user may move these to subpages with attribution. (If it is still problematic, it can often be moved to userspace, until and unless there is consensus for presentation in mainspace.) "Crank," in actual application, is a personal attack and an ad hominem argument against content. Bad idea. Arguing with cranks on Wikipedia is useless, and can get you blocked there (along with the crank, perhaps). On Wikiversity, it can actually create deeper content. It is rare that good-faith content is deleted here. Even if the author is a raging crank, as long as they avoid personal attacks, like calling other users "cranks." --Abd (discuss • contribs) 15:38, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I also responded to Tsirel on his user talk page. It may be of interest to some. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 18:19, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Well, I am not (yet?) an active user of Wikiversity, and I have only a slight idea of the rules here, but I do know about "neutral by inclusion, not exclusion" and all that. And for now I did not call "crank" any user of WV (and really I do not intend to do so), but I still think I can use this word generally (not personally). My main interest is, a "companion" to WP linked from WP articles and useful for students. WikiJournal could be used this way due to expertise of its authors, referees and editors. About WV (as of now) I doubt; you guess why, don't you? Boris Tsirelson (discuss • contribs) 19:08, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is a giant Encyclopedia. Its Companion could be a giant Textbook. Content forking is needed, since different students need different explanations. Indeed, in the "real world" a lot of textbooks are available for every important subject. However, all textbooks are written by experts; and they seldom represent many conflicting points of view, at least in mathematics (about other disciplines I do not know). Likewise, the Companion could mostly describe a single mainstream point of view adapted to different students. Boris Tsirelson (discuss • contribs) 20:01, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Textbooks are for Wikibooks. Wikiversity is for "educational resources" and "learning by doing." In academia, students write research papers. They learn to be experts by writing and discussion and research (only partly by "being taught." There are seminars and colloquia, etc.


 * I have found that experts are mostly reluctant to put in the work on wikis for free (in academic publication, the career effect is compensation, but that doesn't apply to wiki publication), but sometimes one can get them to comment. There are some exceptions. And some experts are cranks, wouldn't you agree? I agree with you that Wikiversity is not for what you call the Companion. Wikiversity might incubate it, though, but Wikiversity was an offshoot of Wikibooks. Some kind of publication imprimatur and nihil obstat from the Great Church of Scientism might be set up here or on Wikibooks using experts, but who gets to decide who the experts are? And is it the First Church or the Reformed Church? And then there is that nifty quote from Feynman. Did you know that I sat with him for two years in 1961-63, in the Feynman Lectures? I learned to think from him. And also to be very skeptical of stuffed shirts and imposed authority. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 01:41, 11 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Yes... but I dream of a giant Textbook (call it WikiTextBook), a collection of units (call them resources, articles, sections, explanations, essays or whatever) such that
 * a unit is usually shorter than a book (otherwise it cannot be created wiki-wiki);
 * a unit is usually created by experts, or at least supervised (refereed, observed) by experts (otherwise it cannot be linked from Wikipedia) (and students expect textbooks to be professional) (WikiJournal may help).
 * It seems to me that Wikiversity and Wikibooks stay underutilized as long as they miss this mission. Boris Tsirelson (discuss • contribs) 14:50, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Textbook, or not textbook: that is the question
''Textbooks are for Wikibooks. Wikiversity is for "educational resources" and "learning by doing."'' — Really? If so,


 * what about "Hilbert Book Model Project"? Is it an educational resource? Is it a textbook? Is it "learning by doing"?


 * And what is "Quantum Mechanics Beyond Textbooks"? I really like it; but the three questions (above) apply.


 * The same applies to "Making sense of quantum mechanics". I would be happy to see it (and "Quantum Mechanics Beyond Textbooks" as well) integrated into (the hypothetical) WikiTextBook. But does it fit Wikiversity? Can WikiTextBook incubate inside Wikiversity, or not?


 * And what is "Open Quantum Systems"? Oh, I see: Type classification: this resource is a course. — How nice... It is evidently a book. If this is a course, then every book is a course, isn't it? Well, really, I do not object; do others?


 * Also "Quantum Simulation"; this resource is a course, this resource is considered to be complete. Its units are  lectures or lecture notes. OK, I am happy with this; lecture notes are allowed on Wikiversity. Really?


 * Turn from physics to mathematics: "Numerical Analysis/Computing the order of numerical methods for ODE's". Again, I would be happy to see it inside WikiTextBook. It could be a companion-to-Wikipedia unit, couldn't it?


 * On one hand, What Wikiversity is not: A post-secondary institution. Wikiversity is only a university in the sense of... Well, I see. On the other hand, "Quantum Mechanics Beyond Textbooks": this is a tertiary (university) resource. Hmmm... inconsistent, is it?

As for me, it means that sprouts of WikiTextBook are making their way on Wikiversity (demand creates its own supply!) ; they should either be uprooted or watered. Your decision? Boris Tsirelson (discuss • contribs) 17:47, 14 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Learning by doing depends on who (whom?) is doing the "doing". There are textbook projects that belong at Wikiversity because students are or were activity creating the content. Motivation and emotion is the best example of this. There are other projects that could be moved to Wikibooks to provide a wider audience, with lessons developed here based on the Wikibook.
 * But before getting too invested in these, I would ask what the demand is for the given resource. For example, Quantum Mechanics Beyond Textbooks has almost no content, no subpages, and averages 0 readers per day. I wouldn't spend any time on it unless it is further developed and draws user interest. Open Quantum Systems is a little better, but not yet a book from my perspective. Perhaps that should be be up to Wikibooks. Yes, lecture notes are allowed on Wikiversity. Many of the good "courses" at Wikiversity effectively are or started as collections of lecture notes.
 * Is there a specific problem you'd like to solve, or are you just expressing frustration with the relatively-difficult-to-classify nature of Wikiversity content? Note that there is a template for content that doesn't belong. Posting a request at Wikibooks can get content imported over there if someone there believes it is appropriate. Most of us here don't have import rights at Wikibooks. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 23:54, 14 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Yes... A general (mega)problem I'd like to solve is, "WikiTextBook" as described (very shortly) above. And a specific (sub)problem is, where to try incubating: here, on Wikibooks, or on WikiJournal (if/when it will be independent). The "relatively-difficult-to-classify nature of Wikiversity content" obscures... Boris Tsirelson (discuss • contribs) 07:01, 15 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Wikiversity is currently amorphous...difficult to define or describe. That is not necessarily a bad thing.  I think of Wikiversity not as an organization, but as a part of the world-wide-web (internet) that contains material that is both CC licensed, and easily either edited, or copied and edited on a parallel pages.  Most of the web is useless to me.  Yet I could not function without those portions of the internet that I do use. The "problem" isn't with Wikiversity, but with an educational community that has not yet recognized the value of making these resources freely available and easily modified.  Perhaps it's best not to worry about the bad pages, but on improving the good ones.  Personally, I never initiate the deletion of a low quality or misleading resource.  Nor do I interfere with the efforts of those who do try to clean out some of the trash that seems to permeate Wikiversity.


 * In the fields that I teach, the effort to create quality textbooks seems to succeed most at OpenStax. When summer vacation arrives, I hope to contribute lesson plans suitable for Openstax physics and astronomy textbooks. Many of the OpenStax textbooks have only recently been made available.  For example, OpenStax Astronomy came out only last year (2016).  But one 18 year old student wrote a wonderful studyguide one chapter: Life in the Universe.


 * We are like little ants here on Wikiversity.  No ant is bringing a significant amount of food to the colony, and there is little evidence of organization.  But enough is coming in to keep Wikiversity alive.  I don't expect anything exciting to happen here in the near future, but remain cautiously optimistic about what might eventually evolve on this wiki.  --Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 19:13, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

New user in need of help
Cross-post from wikibooks:Wikibooks:Reading_room/Assistance

I was contacted recently by, who had an article he wanted to share with the Wikimedia community. Since its' description suggested it's out of scope for Wikipedia (OR), I suggested he published it at Wikibooks, but they don't allow OR either. The article is currently in the author's sandbox (User:Adam.bednarczyk01/sandbox), including contact details and whatnot. Any help in bringing the article up to wikiversity's standards and moving it to the main space highly appreciated. Halibutt (discuss • contribs) 13:30, 14 December 2017 (UTC)


 * OR is allowed here! If the contributor is here the Wikibooks resource can be imported by any Curator or Custodian! --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 16:10, 14 December 2017 (UTC)


 * , The content should be added as a subpage of Global warming. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 23:36, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Launching of a new project research: Internationalisation of Programming Languages
Hello everybody,

I'm new in the English Wikiversity, but I have already been active on the French version for some times now. Today I start contributing here with a research project: Internationalisation of Programming Languages. Anyone interesting is welcome to join in participating, be bold. Moreover, as I'm new here, there might be some habits I'm not accustomed to, while I'm willing to respect specificities of each project version. So your comments aiming at guiding me to better integrate with locales customs will be very welcome. As an example I have in mind, I launched the project in the main name-space as it seems to be the case for all resarch projects run in this Wikiversity, while in the French version they all are in the "Recherche:" name-space. Also, the title of the research is in British English, not American English, but I don't have any strong preference here, so if there is a consensus on using a specific English locale, I will willingly follow it.

Cheers, Psychoslave (discuss • contribs) 15:36, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

Community Review
I noticed that there is an old review that is still open. There are a number of fundamental questions about Wikiversity scope and organization that go beyond the specific example that led to the review. I encourage everyone to contribute ideas. In my answers I explicitly ignored the origin of the review as the questions are worded broadly enough that they don't require familiarity with those details. --mikeu talk 03:21, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Making policy in the absence of specifics is a formula for perpetuating ignorance, knee-jerk opinion. When Wikiversity was created, the concepts were vague in many ways. As experience accumulated, much became clear in practice that was never enshrined in policy. How to encourage the use of Wikiversity for its several missions became much more clear. How can the expression of opinion, which may be biased, be reconciled with neutrality, a fundamental WMF policy? It can be done, easily, but there has always been a faction that wants to exclude opinion that they disagree with, instead of studying it, understanding it, documenting it, and covering it with high neutrality (as determined by discussed consensus). There have always been administrators who would use their tools to enforce their own vision of Wikiversity without deferring to genuine consensus. It is a wiki problem, who watches the watchers? Only the community can do it, but the active community has become very small and effectively dominated by administrators -- some of whom take on the heavy responsibility of extensive monitoring of content ... and who burn out and become impatient. Finding genuine consensus is famous for requiring extensive discussion, and they don't have time for it, and, besides, with their extensive experience, they may readily believe that they know better than a few dissidents. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 13:51, 31 December 2017 (UTC)