Wikiversity:Featured/Archive/Delisted

This page contains the discussions of proposals for featuring where the proposal did not make it through. The reasons why an item is placed here are many. It doesn't necessarily mean that an item was not considered good enough. For example, an item might also be delisted and placed here because it is referred to in another feature, or co-featured with something else, or falls to close to another featured course.

War Seminar
- study of the causes of war and the history of attempts to limit the number and destructiveness of wars. [Proposed by an unknown contributor]
 * Seminar is perhaps less than 10% complete and is inactive. --McCormack 17:20, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Hitler's Germany
- a course in Nazi Germany (covering economics, politics, and more), involving research and discussion. [Proposed by an unknown contributor]

Spanish
- Spanish language learning material and the most visited article during December. Featured at Portal:Humanities. [Proposed by an unknown contributor]
 * There is very little content here. --McCormack 16:39, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I would remove it. There is no progress even it could be wanted.--Juan 21:40, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Introduction to VB6
- provides and example of a navigation template. [Proposed by an unknown contributor]

Portal:Reading groups

 * reading groups on Wikiversity have come up quite a bit of late in the blogosphere. [Proposed by CountryMike]
 * I think that it would be better to highlight one ore more groups, but do not highlight whole portal.--Juan 21:41, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with Juan. We shouldn't be featuring portals. After looking through the individual projects here, they are very varied in their state of development - some are just skeletons, others are very well-planned but rather fizzled out. A featured reading group really needs to have some substance and some evidence of success. The other thing that comes to mind about reading groups is that many of them are events, tied to specific dates, and therefore of lesser value after the event. Events should perhaps be advertised in different ways. --McCormack 07:41, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Introduction to Elasticity

 * From the looks of this, it appears to be rather well done in many respects. --Remi 21:44, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes - this is another of User:Banerjee's mechanical engineering mega-projects (see below for more). I'd suggest featuring ONE of these projects and then referring (in the flyer) to a (new) page which lists the other ones as well. The project below (nonlinear finite elements) is slightly better due to the bibliography. --McCormack 07:57, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I have linked to this from the feature for one of User:Banerjee's other projects - i.e. a link to this now appears in the text for another feature. I'll therefore close and archive this suggestion for now. --McCormack 07:55, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War

 * This group seems to work. They are reading and they are talking. There are more participants. I have noticed that, they were disscussing on IRC. The only problem for new participants might be, the the group is in the 3rd book, but why not to have a look and open my own RG or found Group 2 wich will start to read it from the beggining since the next Monday?--Juan 09:08, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
 * My impression from IRC was this was "barely working" - i.e. few participants and occasional cancellations. Perhaps it was fun for the few who participated? But are the logs really worth featuring? The event is perhaps worth drawing attention to, but is the featured project box right for events? With these IRC reading groups, I reiterate my previous point: surely there is a better way to promote events (e.g. news, colloquium announcements, site notice)? --McCormack 09:12, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
 * How many times have you seen cancelation? I saw the groups having discussion more times. I think there is no need to see the log. I dont think so that featured content is just about "what you can see". I think its about communities which works and it takes them sume educational experience.--Juan 09:23, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi Juan. Please read my post with the emphasis on alternative ways to promote events. I like the reading groups idea, and it's worth promoting. But events are best promoted in other ways. Featured projects go into a rotation on an automatic daily basis - the probability is that if a reading group was a featured project, it would appear on the main page on a day when the reading group did not meet. I have previously discussed this with Erkan - especially the idea of using the site notice on the day when a reading group meets. Perhaps this would be a positive and more constructive way to promote reading groups? --McCormack 09:37, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Maybe. Its your opinion.--Juan 10:16, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
 * We are at a "summer break" at the moment :-) For me some reasons were: I have discovered another book I am reading at the moment and also I have started some other activity which takes time. But the reading group can be revived again (see here) - also started right from the begin. It shows how people can use the medium IRC to participate interactively. Both of you are using IRC and know the advantage of it. I think we should use more tools than just static pages from WV to increase the learning experience. The problem is just that people don't know either the IRC or can't think how it can help the learning. So far I am not sure if one learning ressource we have shows with examples how people can use chats to support their learning experience ? More ideas about the chats here. More info from me about the reading group here. Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat (try) PS: Tag a learning project with completion status !! 09:51, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
 * A major reason why the community was active for several months is, because i joined Erkan in his idea to read and discuss Thucydides and that we both continued doing that. During the sessions some other people joined us. Some 5-10 other people. My suggestion is that people join into the plans and communities that poeple try to build. On Wikiversity, there are too many startups of only one person who is waiting for others to join. It is possible to join yourself and help someone else with his or her idea.--Daanschr 20:52, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment: archiving this as a "failed" suggestion for now, particularly as the main coordinator doesn't seem to actively support it's being featured. Perhaps revive when the course revives? --McCormack 07:58, 27 July 2008 (UTC)