Wikiversity:Junk or treasure

Anyone who has taken on being a custodian or recent changes patroller on any of the wikis sees plenty that is easy to classify as junk, and the modern usage of "junk" is equivalent to "worthless, a nuisance, in the way, get it out of here." However, there are still junkyards where what is of no use to one is collected for use by others. It used to be easy to find shops where there would be row after row of old fixtures and other discarded items. Now, we "recycle" them in a different and more energy-intensive way, by reducing them to component materials, or we still bury stuff.

One man's junk is another man's treasure.

Shall we ... modify ... this very old proverb to satisfy contemporary sensibilities? I'm not going to, but feel free. Please annotate and attribute what is not original. Searching for source, I came across the wikiquote page for Camille Paglia. OMG, I had no idea. There is a lot that is readily accessible on Wikiquote and Wikipedia, but she is a fountain of quips that cut deeply into reality. Behind that, she tells a story, as quoted in her Wikipedia article:


 * A crucially significant event for her was when the outhouse exploded after she poured too much lime into the latrine. "It symbolized everything I would do with my life and work. Excess and extravagance and explosiveness. I would be someone who would look into the latrine of culture, into pornography and crime and psychopathology... and I would drop the bomb into it".

She goes way beyond recycling mere junk. She turns excrement into excellence.

Now, where were we? Ah, junk or treasure. Ontologically, things are neither junk or treasure, those are relationships, plans, ideas, interpretations, not things. The attempt to classify edits into junk and treasure is doomed, if we think that the qualities are those of the edits. They are, instead, qualities of our relationship with the edits, and that is personal.

To begin this conversation, here is a blanked edit from the Colloquium today:

hi my names is katrina.

== hi my names is katrina == اريد التحدث بموضوع التاريخ

== hi my names is katrina ==

Marilyn Monroe Marilyn Monroe[1][2] (born Norma Jeane Mortenson; June 1, 1926 – August 5, 1962)[3] was an American actress, model, and singer, who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s and early 1960s.[4]

[this was followed by the lede from Marylin Monroe, without attribution. Horrors! Copyvio! Should we revdel it? (Sorry, that's another discussion!).]

And then: Big text  Big text Italic text  ]] ]]
 * 1) REDIRECT [[
 * 2) REDIRECT Target page name
 * 3) REDIRECT [[
 * 4) REDIRECT Target page name

This is readily identified as inappropriate. That, as well, is not a quality that is in the thing itself. Did "Katrina" know it was inappropriate? Was it deliberately inappropriate? And does it matter?

The edit was reverted without comment, only the automatic revert edit summary. I was notified of the edit by email, as was anyone who has set up email notification of edits to watchlisted pages. The revert is totally normal and routine. On en.wikipedia, the BON -- that is "I'm an insider"-speak for an IP editor, i.e., a "bundle of numbers" -- might get a semi-automated notice thanking them for their test edit, unless a pattern has been established.

What I have learned here is that this practice is likely useless, and causes a (small) harm. IP editors are not notified by email (nor, for that matter, are registered editors who have not set email up), the chance of the IP editor seeing the notice is slim. Good practice here: either no edit summary other than the automatic, or something neutral and relatively inoffensive like "rv test edit." We can consider other responses that might be more effective in engaging a new user in Wikiversity, but first to the central issue:

Is there something that can be learned from this edit? Wikiversity is for learning by doing, and all of us, or at least the best of us, in my opinion, are here to learn. If we have adequate life experience, we know that one of the most powerful ways to learn is to teach, but if we are settled in the opinion that we are experts and have nothing to learn, but, being good people, we want to give others what we have learned, we are probably arrogant, at least on some level, and may have become stuck: that is why we have nothing to learn, because we have shut down the possibility. So, in my opinion, the best teachers are also students, and if they expect their students to pay attention, they likewise do that. When a student comes up with a dumb question, a good teacher sees that as an opportunity and sets aside the possible irritation.

First of all, to me, people are important, much more important than "stuff." Who is this? There are several possibilities:


 * A troll, poking Abd. It happens. There are users who think my highly-inclusive approach is ridiculous, and there may be one who decides to provoke. It's unlikely, and if I believe this interpretation, it would give me zero power. Power is the value of interpretation, not truth. Interpretation leads to action, and what action would this interpretation suggest? Essentially useless waste of time, and it would tend, if I'm emotionally reactive to being poked, some of the possible outcomes would be damaging to me, not to mention Wikiversity. So, having raised this possibility, I'll set it aside.
 * Someone intended to provoke or test the defenses of Wikiversity. Ah, a violation of the Terms of Use! This is also a disempowering interpretation, generally, it leads to no good. Mature Wikipedians follow w:WP:RBI, if they are admins, and just RI if not. Even reporting crap can encourage a troll, "Look at them scrambling! Bwahaha!"

Now we come to the good faith interpretations, and evidence:

The IP is wireless broadband from Meknes, Morocco. I've been to Meknes, it is the site of the University of al-Qarawiyyin, founded in 859 ... by a woman ..., which I visited, the "oldest existing, continually operating and the first degree awarding educational institution in the world," according to some sources. The competitor is the Zaytouna mosque-school founded in 703 in Tunis. Every step of my research on this takes me to learning opportunities, reminds me of stories from my past, with connections. I could write a book about what I've found so far. Would that be of value to others? Maybe, maybe not. I've always had fans who read most of what I write, when it is readily accessible to them. I have, since being a teenager and probably before, had a mind that finds connections of interest to me, that are meaningless to others. The habit of following up on these probably is at the root of the high intelligence by tests, and other conditions in my life that, well, give me joy.

The first paragraph is in Arabic. It means
 * I want to talk any more about history

And then she proceeded to give some history, and on the face of it she wants to discuss it. Wikiversity is for that, among other things. I have a long-term project to encourage people who want to discuss topics to come here, instead of attempting to do it on Wikipedia, where it only irritates the natives. So she is indicating, with her first edit, an educational intention, discussion.

But there is a problem. She has not registered an account. The BON has a prior edit to ar.wikipedia, but that is probably meaningless, this would not be fixed IP. So, I'm learning something. I started out with the opinion that the revert was completely proper, and it certainly was not improper. But it was not welcoming, and if we want these projects to be as they claim to be, universal, we must be welcoming to people from all cultures and languages. This is an English project, so our resources will be in English, almost exclusively, but that does not mean that we will not welcome users whose English is poor. Personally, I will use Google translate, which is usable for almost all languages to show up here. I do cross-wiki work and the only time language has been a serious problem has been with the Pashto wiki. No google translate for Pashto.

So my nutso study of "junk" is now leading me to edit the Colloquium. It is the only possibility I see of engaging this user. I'll come back! --Abd (discuss • contribs) 15:53, 5 August 2015 (UTC)