Wikiversity:Colloquium/archives/January 2009

Different welcome templete for IPs
As I see, how we are welcoming also IPs, I think there should be a modification of the welcome template talking about the advantages of registration before e.g. using singnature. Maybe it can be done within the acutual template using a parametr (such as ip or a new template. What do you think?--Juandev 07:19, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Juan, Everybody has his own concept of an ideal welcome message :-) .  There is already the template:welcomeanon.  Equally warm would be to append your welcome with something like "Please consider registering a username of yours to get the full experience of Wikiversity;  it is as simple as choosing a name and a password." Hillgentleman | //\\ |Talk 07:34, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh thanks, I see I should firsty browes the templates we have here on wv and than ask.--Juandev 07:43, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Building from Ideas
I have some ideas for which I would like to obtain positive consideration, constructive criticism and assistance in developing further and was wondering whether Wikiversity is the right place to do that from a protocol point of view. I have read through most of what is provided on this site and I am concerned that I might be violating the accepted objectives of the site. If this is the place then could someone guide me as to where I might detail my hypothesis for review and how the process would continue from there?
 * I think this is the right place. But firstly we would be lucky if you register in here (login/register is situated on the right top). You can choose a user name you want. Maybe than it is important to tell you that Wikiversity content is released udner GFDL licence, which is a free linces. And maybe, you can tell us more?--Juandev 06:20, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your feedback. I have now registered. Now would you be able to advise me where the best area is for putting up my first idea for consideration?

we need new news
The News on the main page is way out of date. I have updated the News to archive some old stuff, and add more recent. The two news pages are out of synch. I'd like to get some opinions on how to keep the mainpage news new. Do we want administrative announcements like policy and custodian discussions on the main page? I'd like to see the main page news focus more on active or startup learning projects that are looking for participants. Ideas? --mikeu talk 14:30, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Not a bad idea, but how to keep it featuring higher quality content than every stub or empty project that wants to advertise? That, I think, might be trickier.  The Jade Knight (d'viser) 23:44, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

User:ArthurBot
This editor claims to be a bot due to the username, however it's just made it's first edit today where about on this site does it say that the bot was approved since it's not in the contributions. DarkObsidian 20:19, 1 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Hello, what's the problem with my bot? --Mercy 20:23, 1 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, if the bot is seen in recent changes, than it doesnt recieved the bot flag yet. See: Special:ListUsers/bot. --Juandev 20:27, 1 January 2009 (UTC)


 * @Mercy, I was only checking to see if your bot was authorized to run on the site - I have no problems with it, but when the bot made its first edit I couldn't find any authorization on this site that a Bureaucrat had authorized the bot to be operational that's all. DarkObsidian  19:19, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Merge template bug
Hello, I have just follow the disscusion from merge template at Topic:Spanish and I have been redirected here: Better one larger section than two less complete sections. Whats wrong?--Juandev 05:57, 6 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Try it again, the editor who placed the merge proposal template placed in some random page which doesn't link to the Spanish talkpage - I've corrected the link and it should work. DarkObsidian  09:11, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, now I see. Maybe we can prevent this directly from the template. Let me see.--Juandev 08:01, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Update: Help Contents
Hi,

I've updated the Help Contents, if anything is missing or needs adding feel free to place it in the correct section - due to the coding which was from another wikimedia project it should be easier to add new page links to the help contents since the old one was complex. DarkObsidian 21:25, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Sounds like a good job.--Juandev 07:54, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

problem here
why can't I get $$Q=Ne-$$ (looks like $$Q=Ne-$$ during editing) to display the way I would like it to? --danthemango 08:02, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

a question from an anon
"what qualities do u think a good representative would have ? why are these qualities important?" --72.51.130.134 01:30, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
 * well I dunno really... Trustworthiness, integrity, diligence, intelligence? they're a good start! - and in other news, this probably isn't the best place to try and get questions answered in quite that way - we're a 'learning community' really, but I hope that helped! (I re-formatted your posts a bit too - hope you don't mind.....) Privatemusings 02:10, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

The Decline of Reading
I recently read an interesting article on both the importance as well as the decline of reading in recent days. It is filled with relevant quotes and statistics, and is fairly compelling in its arguments: The Long Decline of Reading. I recommend everyone take a look at it, and I'd be glad to discuss it. The Jade Knight (d'viser) 23:56, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
 * From my own experience working towards an Education degree (part of a diversion from my normal course of studies), I was very interested in the reading habits of young males. There are many issues involved with the problem and it seems to only cause a great negative in the long run. I'm still in the process of rebuilding data that I lost from my laptop crash, but hopefully I will start up some reading groups. :) Ottava Rima (talk) 21:03, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I would like to join one of your reading groups.--Daanschr 15:37, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

This page's interwiki
It seems as if there was a problem with doubled interwiki links on this page. In my opinion, they're inherited from a template that I was unable to find. Anyone to fix this? Regards, --Mercy 12:14, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The page is Colloquium/Header. I think that the reason for putting the links in that transcluded page is that another bot achives the discussions on this page, and sometimes sends the interwiki links to the archive.  --mikeu talk 14:31, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Finnish Wikiversity
Congratulations to the Finnish Wikiversity, which will be opening soon! --mikeu talk 04:26, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Second opinion needed
Recently, I went through the CAT:CSD to clean out any pages. I found a series of Spanish pages that serve no more than as link spam. However, each has a unique PDF (from what I can tell), that could be used as informational on another project if, and only if, it is legal to rely on them. The PDFs are in Spanish, and, from my reading over them, could be relied on as part of a page. However, they are right now out of scope based on their spam like material and the fact that they are in Spanish.

I need second opinions on the matter, and here are a few possible solutions: delete en masse, transwiki to es wikiversity, or save the pdf links/notify Spanish wikiversity and delete. Please provide any other possibilities if you can think of any. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:11, 16 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I would recommend that those pages get transferred to the Spanish Wikiversity project - and be removed from this project due to the pages being non-english. The editor who created them was warned by a Custodian but so far they've seemed to have ignored the Custodian's warning. DarkObsidian @en.Meta-Wiki 22:26, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

doubt about a licensing
I have a doubt about the licence about this file nothing indicate that is from US-Governement. So, what do you think.Crochet.david 08:43, 17 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Have you checked with the uploader, and remind them that they must have a valid Licensing policy before uploading images. DarkObsidian @en.Meta-Wiki 10:03, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Basic Template/parser Question (answered)
How to convert spaces in template parameters to underscores?

If anyone is interested: solved via. K 05:46, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

The case in point was (e.g.) the link to "Activity Detail" in the table footers on this page when the activity title included spaces. Kim 09:47, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Sharing school projects
Hello!, I was just working on a school project and I was looking for ideas to put in my presentation, so I was looking for some kind of website for school students and helping ready-made ideas or a community website which has member who are willing to help. Unfortunately, I could find nothing of this sort not even on wikipedia!( I was expecting to find something here- I usually find what I am looking for here). My point is: why not make some place on wiki for sharing projects and seeking for help when needed?. Also, people can talk about their experience in doing projects and how they could handle it when they had only a day or two to finish an important project. Just an idea, I dunno if u people here find it useful. Thanks for reading! --unknown001 11:04, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Hi, I think this is a good idea. But there is one big problem. Wikimedia projects are under free licences such as GFDL or CC-BY-SA 3.0. Most of the students projects are not, when distributed via this way "free". And that is the problem. I know many servers in my language (Czech language), which distribute students projects. On the other side, forum might work in here. There is a special extension (=addon) to MediaWiki core, which can create a real forum on the page.--Juandev 06:17, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't see that as a problem at all. So long as the students are okay with licensing their works, it should be ok.  The Jade Knight (d'viser) 23:49, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi again!.Well, I am happy to hear from you Jade knight. Concerning this topic, it would be nice from you if you give me some addresses that you have for the servers. I also found this website on which presentations can be put: www.slideshare.net. I don't really know in what way does that help but maybe we can organize some kind of place for presentations submitted by wiki users. Thanks!--unknown001 16:34, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Photoshop designs and license
Hello, I was just uploading one of my photoshop designs onto wikipedia and I was just wondering if there was some kind of license that doesn't give the ability for anyone to copy these works without permission from the owner. So can anyone help me with that?? --unknown001 18:15, 24 January 2009 (UTC)


 * It really depends on exactly where you are uploading, but most of the Wikimedia sites are GFDL, and that means that people are free to copy without permission (but they do need to attribute). The idea of the GFDL (and most copyleft licences) is to allow others to use works you want to make public for alternative or derivative works. I'm not even sure the Creative Commons licences (which have a number of varied restrictions) force people to obtain permission prior to use. Historybuff 19:45, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

So, there is probably no such a license. Any way, it doesn't matter, I was just asking because I am planning to making some kind of pictured lessons or animation and I don't really like the idea of other people just selling it. Special thanks to Juan de Vojníkov and Historybuff!.--unknown001 12:00, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * There are such a licenses. But in the case of Wikiversity and other WMF project, these files cant be placed here as we are open society generating free educational and information content. Free in this case means, that you can change it and redistributed freely fullfiling some of the point of each license. This works for everybody, also commercial sector.--Juan de Vojníkov 19:44, 25 January 2009 (UTC)


 * What about using the Commons:Copyright_tags will these help. DarkObsidian @en.Meta-Wiki 12:48, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, I am not sure if I correctly understood the topic in link you gave, Dark Obsidian, but in the country which I live in which is United Arab Emirates, the tags are only for old stamps and photos and I could find nothing for the normal designs and works :(. I would be really thankful if somebody found me some kind of proper license. Any way, thanks for all who tried to help :).--unknown001 15:02, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Policy on banning editors from editing
Wikiversity has no policy for bans. In the past some bans have been imposed at Wikiversity without any basis in policy. A proposed policy for bans is now available for development at Bans. I encourage all Wikiversity participants to help develop this and other needed policies. --JWSchmidt 22:29, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

addendum: wiki for textbook solutions
Some time ago, I suggested a place where users can add solutions to textbook problems. It seems Wikia now has a wiki specifically for this purpose, even though it isn't very popular right now. --Ixfd64 04:59, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Best Educational Wiki
Are you aware of a Best Educational Wiki contest where Wikiversity is not even listed yet? I think applying Wikiversity (at least for 2009) would be a good idea. Or do you know why Wikiversity is not listed there? I am wondering why they know WikiEducator etc. but doesn't seem to know us!? --- Best regards, Melancholie 01:03, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Community review, please comment
Please share your thoughts here: Community Review/Status of Moulton. Thanks! --SB_Johnny talk 12:01, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Personal monobook
Hi, I would like to ask you, where I can study, how to create my personal monobook.js? The current I have I am modifying, without understanding what the marks mean. I have some more ideas what I can do with that (I saw them somewhere so I know, the work), but I dont understand the language of this feature.--Juandev 08:29, 8 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't know if this is helpful, but have you viewed the Media-Wiki Manual:Contents which contains some instructions of what certain coding means. DarkObsidian @en.Meta-Wiki 20:48, 16 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Your monobook.js page is intended to contain javascript that you want to be run whenever you load a page, rather than wikitext. Monobook is the name of the default skin, if you are not using the Monobook skin, you will need to edit a different page, such as simple.js, classic.js, modern.js, etc. You can tell what skin you are using by looking at the skin section of your preferences. If all you want to do is change the appearance of pages you could instead edit monobook.css which is intended to contain text for a Cascading Style Sheet. --dark[[Image:Yin yang.svg|12px]]lama 14:44, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

On external accreditation
Recently I've been working to expand the School of Nonkilling Studies with new materials, that have been released under under GFDL and Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0 by researchers working with the Center for Global Nonkilling (website under construction at www.nonkilling.org). The Center is fully committed to the GFDL approach to knowledge and would like to help to expand resources on nonkilling and nonviolence through Wikiversity and Wikipedia.

One thought to involve others in further developing knowledge through the School of Nonkilling Studies was to offer some form of "accredition" (even if symbolical) in relation to the learning materials that are offered. "Accreditation" would involve a reading list and completing a paper that would complete or modify existing resources or establish new ones. Of course it would be the Center for Global Nonkilling rather than Wikiversity who would extend a certificate.

The question is if this is in conflict with Wikiversity's non-accreditation policy, as in this case it's not Wikiversity at all who extends the accreditation. We simply see as a form to make the School more dynamic and bring critical views on the concept of nonkilling.

Please share your thoughts on this possibility.

--Cgnk 18:49, 31 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, I think acreditation and certificates are within the Wikiversity environment not possible. It limit users and give borders between them. But if you need to limit the participants of the course you can do it (e.g. saying, at one time only 15 participants can participate, because of...) Others should wait till/or might go to simmillar course. If you would like to bring wikiversity participants from here to external website to recieve certificate. Than I dont know.--Juan de Vojníkov 15:14, 2 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Wikiversity is open to experiments. It sounds like you are suggesting that a Wikiversity participant could do some editing on pages of the School of Nonkilling Studies (maybe add a new learning resource based on a relevant course at some educational institution?) and then the Center for Global Nonkilling might decide to "extend a certificate" or in some way recognize it as a meaningful contribution. One traditional wiki way of giving recognition is to nominate learning resources for featured status. It seems like you could keep your own list of "featured" contributed Wikiversity resources and contributors at your website. One traditional wiki way of giving recognition to editors is to say "thanks" and place a "barnstar" on the editor's user talk page. Potentially you could make a "barnstar" specifically for Wikiversity participants who have been "extended a certificate" by the Center for Global Nonkilling. --JWSchmidt 15:50, 2 February 2009 (UTC)


 * That seems to make sense. Of course, this is something I was think of for the near future. The Center for Global Nonkilling has just be reconstituted last December following the preexisting Center for Global Nonviolence. The website is also still under construction but an Acknowledgment section had been planned (where School contributors could certainly be recognized) and a section related to the School of Nonkilling Studies will also be featured, with news and updates. On actual "accreditation", symbolical or honorary to some extend, it should blend in with Wikiversity's guidelines and "traditions" (the barnstar seems appealing). We could also explore the possibility of some form of honorary certificate, that could favour attracting people still not familiar with the School or Wikiversity to visit, explore and contribute. Definitely no intention of limiting number of participants, on the contrary. --Cgnk


 * There are a number of school and university projects that are (or have been) active on wikiversity. We encourage classroom instructors to assign contributions to wv as part of a class that meets in a bricks 'n mortar institution.  In these projects the students are obv. getting credit for the work they do here.  That credit is granted by the external institution after the student completes the coursework (which includes wikiversity editing) at the discretion of the classroom instructor.  I don't think there is anyone in the community here that has an issue with that.  What you seem to be suggesting sounds similar to thtat.  However, as part of the Approved Wikiversity project proposal it states "Wikiversity will not confer degrees or any other academic qualifications..."  As long as it is clear that it is not wikiversity that is granting the certificate I think your suggestion looks fine.  You could link from a learning project here to a page at the external website where you list people who have been certified by you as having completed the course material.  Using a barnstar is another good idea for use locally on wv user pages to acknowledge participants who have contributed.  Feel free to post any other ideas that you have as you develop the program.  I think it is great that you are releasing the material under a free license and encouraging people to develop it here at wikiversity.  --mikeu talk 12:05, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Thank you! I think this summarizes the different possibilities and how to develop them. A resource guide to follow the course could also be developed in the future as a form of suggesting different paths to approach the School's contents. Wikiversity guidelines are clear in relation to accreditation. On the other hand, it should also be noted that this would be (at least initially) more of a symbolical incentive and award, as the Center is not and does not intend to be a formal educational institution. More contents will be inserted in the months ahead and hopefully we will start editing them more carefully. --Cgnk 19:08, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Merging accounts with differnet usernames
Hello, I was trying to make a global account using my this username, but it seemed that another user was using the same name in some wiki project. So, I created another account in wikipedia and I checked that no one had the same user name in any wiki project. The problem I have now is that I don't want to lose the things I have in this account which I am using now (unknown001). I could find no way of merging these 2 accounts. I will be really thankful if someone would help me in any way.Thanks!--unknown001 12:58, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * You can request that the old username be renamed to the name that you are currently using. This will preserve the contribs history.  See Wikiversity:Changing username.  --mikeu talk 18:33, 27 January 2009 (UTC)


 * If it's a SUL problem you can also ask on Steward requests/SUL requests they'll then fix the problem. DarkObsidian @en.Meta-Wiki 18:36, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank You all for help :)!!. The best thing in wiki is that I always feel that everyone here is willing to help :).--;Hiba;1 15:44, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Aligning text in quizzes ?
Hello, I have problems aligning text in a quiz (Brezhoneg Unan/Lesson 1/Saludiñ/Quiz). Does anyone know how to do this ?--AC&#39;hM 14:41, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi, mm.. I am not quiet sure, but I couldn't find out where the problem is actually. It would be helpful if you would just give some more details so we can help.I hope your problem will be solved soon!--unknown001 16:40, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Sure. I am trying to align the check boxes in the quiz quoted above. What I have done is align them by entering spaces but that does not work so well ...--AC&#39;hM 20:30, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, I was just trying to help. Mmm.. I am not sure if it really looks good, but I tried my best to make it look so, I just added and removed some dots form here and there, and you can just check it and see if it is better or not, but I personally think that there is some way you can align them. I am not really sure but maybe the 'geeks' here have some more-professional way ;) .--unknown001 18:09, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

That's my hope too ! Thanks for your help !--AC&#39;hM 17:50, 26 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't see any check boxes on the page you linked to. --dark[[Image:Yin yang.svg|12px]]lama 00:40, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Right, these are not checkboxes, rather "entry boxes" ?--AC&#39;hM 21:20, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I just updated your quiz to align the entry boxes. You can add most wikitext inside quizzes. I hope that answers your question. --dark[[Image:Yin yang.svg|12px]]lama 22:41, 29 January 2009 (UTC)


 * That's OK now. I still have one more problem : There are two quizzes in the page. When I answer to the first one, I can see the corrections to the first AND second quiz ! Not so nice ...--AC&#39;hM 17:18, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

ArchiveBot test
This is a test of Auto archive (using a fake date in the sig.) Please ignore, and do not edit this section. Thanks. --mikeu talk 00:00, 1 Jan 2009 (UTC)