Wikiversity talk:Research Namespace

Discussion
This is a puzzling proposal! Many of my education resources are derivatives from and participate in original research efforts. This is part of the education about original research. The implication though perhaps not the intent is to prevent education about original research and how to perform it which includes lectures, quizzes, laboratories, lessons, and eventually submitting proposals.

Most if not yet all of my contributions here to Wikiversity undergo peer review by Program Directors, Program Managers and their selected review or referee committees, including WMF. The similar case occurs with submissions to scientific journals. Peer review here would be unacceptable because it could and probably would negatively impact peer review by funding sources. Peer review of my contributions here by Wikiversity contributors who are not on these committees or organization managers is inappropriate and unacceptable. No scientific departments at any university are allowed to peer review. Members of these departments who are on such committees are usually not selected by such managers for reviewing of others from the same department. The now retired editor-in-chief of the Journal of Applied Physics would send manuscripts submitted from within Argonne National Laboratory (the home of the journal) to referees outside the laboratory, DOE, and the University of Chicago to insure independent and impartial reviews. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 16:56, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Also, another critical point is if any potential reviewer here has not conducted, proposed, and published original research, they're not qualified to review it yet.

On our main page we state "Wikiversity is a Wikimedia Foundation project devoted to learning resources, learning projects, and research for use in all levels, types, and styles of education from pre-school to university, including professional training and informal learning. We invite teachers, students, and researchers to join us in creating open educational resources and collaborative learning communities." Restricting any portion of these to a particular namespace is unacceptable.

"Having Research: in the title provides better context to research articles, now that Internet searches are pulling up all Wikiversity pages." We already have categories Category:Research, Category:Research projects, and templates such as. Also, internet searches such as Google pull up Wikipedia pages first (no OR). Our uniquely titled pages such as "Intergalactic medium" pull in a lot of hits, or use to, because the title and page were unique to here not Wikipedia which redirects to Outer space, as now does ours redirect (hits dropped from 6-8 per day to under 1 per day after the redirect.

The University of Florida and Howard Community College activities here do provide learning for others outside their institutions even though that is not their immediate intent. Mechanics of materials is an example. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 17:41, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

On the Wikimedia Main page they state "Welcome to Meta-Wiki, the global community site for the Wikimedia projects and the Wikimedia movement in general. Meta-Wiki's discussions range from coordination and documentation to planning and analysis of future Wikimedia activities.

Other meta-focused wikis such as Wikimedia Outreach are specialized projects that have their roots in Meta-Wiki. Related discussion also takes place on Wikimedia mailing lists (particularly wikimedia-l, with its low-traffic equivalent WikimediaAnnounce), IRC channels on freenode, individual wikis of Wikimedia affiliates, and other places."

As they're leading with the concept of "projects" rather than "education, teaching and research" it seems reasonable they would have a m:Research:Index. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 17:53, 31 March 2016 (UTC)


 * I think its important that research either be in the research namespace, or a subpage of a project devoted to education. For those who don't want to see "Research:" at the top of their pages, note that we can "clean" the title by making the "Research:" part of the title small.  See for example, Second_Journal_of_Science/Past_issues/Editorials/Why_this_journal_was_created.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 17:59, 31 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Research pages under an educational subject are part of what led to the proposal. See:
 * Atlantis/Location Hypotheses
 * HIV/HIV swing effect
 * HIV/Multiple AIDS
 * HIV/The electron of AIDS
 * Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 18:47, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Four potential theory of gravitation was flagged by an expert in the field (see talk), and our lackluster effort to deal with this may have led to his abandonment of Wikiversity. (Added by Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 16:09, 2 April 2016 (UTC))


 * (Conflict with above) Again from our mainpage: "We invite teachers, students, and researchers to join us in creating open educational resources and collaborative learning communities." Bold added. So segregating research from education is not in our mission! I noticed that only Category:Research is included in the intended namespace but not Category:Research projects. Nearly all of my projects, including many of the lectures and perhaps a few laboratories and lessons are already in this category as a subpage or could be. One problem with this was illustrated above by what happened to intergalactic medium by subpaging it. Is this why Category:Research has been removed from some but not all pages or subpages, see the ones from "Astronomy/" or "Dominant group/" for example? I cannot emphasize strongly enough that interference with my original research efforts could seriously jeopardize appropriate external peer review. I've looked at the first two research projects on fr:Wikiversité:Recherche. These two do not seem aimed (initial impression, not final on the last one) at external proposal submission (the second one may be, it's extensive). --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 18:56, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

When an educational research project leads to exchanges such as at Talk:Nuclear physics, it is no longer focused on education. This has been defined by the author as exclusive research and needs a different namespace. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 18:53, 31 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Sorry, but "As part of my educational objectives using original research preparation and conduction, I create resources such as this in the hopes of getting students and educators to think. So I won't be feeding you "the current understanding of fundamental forces, symmetry laws, quantisation of spin, mass-energy, etc" unless experiments already available help with defeating my hypotheses." from Talk:Nuclear physics does not equal "no longer focused on education" or "defined by the author as exclusive research". --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 19:17, 31 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Here's another applicable part of the discussion "I gather that you have a novel view about the role of hypothesis, perhaps part of a view of teaching and learning opposed to the dismal funnel method." from user Alkhowarizmi. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 19:22, 31 March 2016 (UTC)


 * There are two things we don't want to do: (1) forbid unrefereed research, and (2) and attempt to evaluate ("referee") unrefereed research. But we also don't want to mix unrefereed research with our educational materials because some students are at a level where they help distinguishing between the two.  I do not advocate a hard rule forcing all opinions and unrefereed research into   namespace.  Instead we need flexible policy that also permits such material to be placed in well marked subpages.  The problem with relying solely on subpages for opinions and unrefereed work involves the time required to maintain these pages.  For example, every resource page that links to opinions/research articles must be placed on somebody's watchlist to ensure that these items are properly identified.  Also, some research articles will be time-consuming if not  impossible to catalog.  It will be so much easier to move such material into "Research" namespace.


 * There should be no stigma attached to being in "Research" namespace. The Cornel University Library maintains a useful collection of unrefereed research articles at http://arxiv.org/ .  Here is an example of a valuable but unrefereed contribution that debunks a misconception which somehow achieved prominence on the internet.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 16:45, 2 April 2016 (UTC)


 * First of all let me state that I appreciate your opinions, always have. How would you feel about an "Education" namespace? Departments usually review courses proposed and conducted by members of the department to make certain these live up to the expected reputation and education goals. These courses are expected to deliver the current or close to the current objectives for such a course. But here it would not be appropriate for me to evaluate your courses and vice-versa. We have different objectives.


 * The two examples included by Dave, I thought, were already handled well by putting them as subpages to the main project. No problem! One thing that bothered me when going through the first proposal on French Wikiversity is that it seemed more suitable to directly propose it to WMF. They're asking for proposals. They're capable of evaluating them. Yet that one's never going to go there.


 * I have no statistics on the students who may need help distinguishing between education and research. Wikipedia, which is not a good example, mixes a few facts, sometimes quite a few, with current theories about the facts, as if these theories are facts themselves yet each theory is really research not fact. Many students crave the theoretical explanation, as if it gives them security against the forces of Darkness or some such fantasy or fear. Personally, I see no benefit to an "Education:" or "Research:" namespace. It is a concern that pigeonholing may deter learning and exploration. I hope this helps. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 00:10, 3 April 2016 (UTC)


 * The examples are not handled well, and continue to cause problems. The HIV research was recently targeted again for deletion, even as a subpage. More needs to be done to both protect these resources and help others understand how they can interact appropriately with them. Leaving them in main space where everyone should assume they may participate or argue for deletion is not effective for either the student/researcher or others. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 00:37, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Dave Braunschweig and I agree that the aforementioned articles on HIV, Atlantis, and General Relativity were primarily "research" papers that need to be segregated (and IMHO forgotten). But all good policy needs room for flexibility. Suppose a quality learning resource is written, and students are invited to make specific contributions in subpages? For example, a chapter on formatting Python output could lead to subpages that contain sample code using these commands that students write. Or an engineering resource on wind energy could invite student efforts to build windmills. To keep things under control, we could insist that the pages link out of a section of the resource that clearly identifies the nature of the subpages. We could also require strongly recommend a banner template that goes across the top of each student subpage effort.

The alternative is to create a node page in Research-space that links out of the resource, and then place the student efforts into subpages of that node. While this alternative has the advantage of keeping student research out of mainspace, it does require an extra page. Example: Wind energy project contains the resource, and Research:Wind energy project contains a node page devoted that links to all student efforts, e.g. Research:Wind energy projects/Bamboo windimill experiment. Personally, I hope we don't need the extra node page. If the author of a quality resource wants to invite opinions or research as subpages, I hope it does not confuse the search engines too much. In the case of the HIV "research", those in charge of the HIV mainspace page would make the call as to whether proposed "research" into HIV has sufficient pedagogical merit to retain its subpage status.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 03:12, 3 April 2016 (UTC)


 * I may be missing your points, but a separate "Research:" namespace may not be the best answer. Just an aside it seems with reference to Four potential theory of gravitation both User:Hapoth and User:Vttoth have abandoned Wikiversity. I checked contributions by each and User:Vttoth's only contributions were regarding the deletion of this theory. So I would say that was always the user's only intent here. When asked to contribute their disproof somewhat along the lines you suggest above, the user did nothing but continue to argue for deletion.
 * The HIV subpages are just plain weird! The apparent developer keeps stating its IQ is 240! An IQ above 200 just means it can compose questions for IQ tests to a certain level of proficiency (40 out of 100) not that it can solve any problem in reality. They are already marked as fringe science. But here small phrases are continuing to be added. It's like reading announcements that keep giving me a headache. I check the citations and get garbage (GIGO). I'm not certain there's any way students or researchers can contribute to these.
 * The Atlantis project is a lot easier to deal with. Before the last glaciation began to melt there were hominin settlements all over the then exposed continental shelves all around the globe (probably thousands of them). Many with some really impressive stonework. I've seen two documentaries on the History channel. Each focused on a different location in the Mediterranean Sea for Atlantis (Thera, a volcanic island being one). Both were heavily researched and documented. This might be your best bet for an instructional on how students can contribute to any effort like these. In terms of trials to see what works try any of the above on the Atlantis project to see if even one student participates. My impression is that all the students want to do is read or scan, although my classical planets quiz was the first quiz of mine to make the top 1000.


 * I've had a similar problem trying to get students to participate in my laboratories. I present an example on how to test an hypothesis such as I put near the bottom of each original research resource and get nada. If anything you try works I'll be happy to learn from your example! --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 04:39, 3 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Abandoned? Not completely. But it has been explained to me, rightly or wrongly, that Wikiversity's standards are not the same as Wikipedia's, and therefore completely bonkers fringe nonsense can stand as a legitimate entry... hopefully you'll forgive me if afterwards, I felt little inclination to continue. Vttoth (discuss • contribs) 20:29, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Thierry613 (discuss • contribs) 10:04, 3 April 2016 (UTC)-
 * Unfortunately, a "Research:" namespace won't never be a garanty against wacking contributions. The community will always have be vigilant, as for any new contribution. On the french-speaking wikiversity, we are fed up with silly works and strange contributors who come and come again, despite several courteous warning and deletions. So deletions became more drastic than here...
 * As Guy have said, There should be no stigma attached to being in "Research" namespace., which could shelter unrefereed works, whil refereed works could be published on [[Wikiversity Journal of Medicine}} or other wiki journals.
 * Maybe one should make a difference between a simple personal opinion and a consistant research work.
 * One can indicate this difference by using different boxes like "Fringe science" (Is "Fringe" pejorative in english ?). For example, "Personal opinion" box, "Personal work" box, and so on.


 * I hesitate to advocate separate "Opinion:" and "Research:" subpages due to the organizational complexity associated with distinguishing between the two.  Regarding the need for diligence in deleting the whacky, I am afraid that you are correct.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 13:16, 3 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Here's a couple of concerns regarding "Fringe science":
 * "Fringe Science: are the corollas of Nymphoides (Menyanthaceae) flowers adapted for surface tension interactions? JE Armstrong - American journal of botany, 2002" from Google Scholar, and
 * "Fringe Science: Defringing CCD Images with Neon Lamp Flat Fields SB Howell - Publications of the Astronomical Society of the …, 2012" also from Google Scholar. "Fringe Science" is a real science, though not the one apparently intended. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 01:41, 16 April 2016 (UTC)


 * See Fringe science. The actual science relating to fringe would be a disambiguation. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 02:12, 16 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Fringe theory:
 * "A fringe theory is an idea or viewpoint held by a small group of supporters. Fringe theories include the models and proposals of fringe science as well as similar ideas in other areas of scholarship, such as the humanities. The term is commonly used in a narrower sense as a pejorative roughly synonymous with pseudo-scholarship. Precise definitions that distinguish between widely held viewpoints, fringe theories, and pseudo-scholarship are difficult to construct because of the demarcation problem. Issues of false equivalence can occur when fringe theories are presented as being equal to widely accepted theories." --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 12:15, 16 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Pejorative:
 * "A pejorative (also called a derogatory term,[1] derogative term, a term of abuse, or a term of disparagement) is a word or grammatical form expressing a negative connotation, a low opinion of someone or something, or showing a lack of respect for someone or something.[2] It is also used as a criticism, hostility, disregard and/or disrespect. A term can be regarded as pejorative in some social or cultural groups but not in others. Sometimes, a term may begin as a pejorative and eventually be adopted in a non-pejorative sense (or vice versa) in some or all contexts." --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 12:15, 16 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Perhaps we shouldn't be using "fringe science" to categorize anything. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 12:15, 16 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Here's an example of one thing that's bothering me with putting "Research:" in a resource title: (these are advanced searches on Google (not Google scholar)
 * "Research: Astronomy" - 28,800 hits, mostly about research in specific university departments versus
 * Astronomy - 101,000,000 hits. It's likely going to kill our hits.


 * Here's on Google Scholar:
 * "Research: Astronomy" - 847 and
 * Astronomy - 2,810,000. It looks like your gonna murder our readership! --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 16:25, 3 April 2016 (UTC)


 * There will very likely continue to be a learning project on Astronomy. It could also contain a link to any Research:Astronomy research projects. This isn't a search engine issue. It's a content and content management issue. Separating research projects from learning projects helps both content authors and users interested in learning about that content. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 17:25, 3 April 2016 (UTC)


 * I think there's some confusion here, hopefully not all on my part. First the Category:Research has about 70% resources I've contributed to. But of the three examples cited above
 * Atlantis/Location Hypotheses
 * HIV/HIV swing effect
 * HIV/Multiple AIDS
 * HIV/The electron of AIDS
 * Four potential theory of gravitation, none are in this category. The HIV resources are not research, they are theory only (and not much of that either, mostly buzz words and claims), no apparent facts to support, as is the Four potential theory. The Atlantis resources are theory supported by some historical facts and current maps so it is research but not in the category. The best name space for the last four in the list is "Theory" (probably the best to use) or better yet "Conjecture:" (maybe not so good). The Atlantis project is historical research about some portion of the Paleolithic (prior to the melting of the glaciers). Putting the namespace "Historical research:" or "Paleolithic research:" might even be agreeable to the researcher. That's actually the best content management I can suggest based on reading the resources. In fact, there are other theory only, or conjecture only resources, that could be here with those namespaces. An example is Dewey B. Larson's theory of motion. Because I'm educating about original research which involves education, research, and originality, my resources seem okay in Category:Research and/or Category:Research projects but the current breakdown seems okay. I believe the best way to handle what may appear as wacky science or theory is to assess on a case-by-case basis rather than adjusting a large amount of resources to accommodate some apparent exceptions. Are there any others here? --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 22:32, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Worse case scenario regarding the four potential theory is that it is an advertisement to buy a book. I've found no way to access the information for supporting facts. The three subpages of HIV are even worse and thereby even a worse case advertisement where the sources are inaccessible even to fair use. My gut response is to delete these four as solicitation and waste no more time on them. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 12:08, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I believe the best way to handle what may appear as wacky science or theory is to assess on a case-by-case basis rather than adjusting a large amount of resources to accommodate some apparent exceptions. (Marshallsumter) : I do agree. --Thierry613 (discuss • contribs) 12:37, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
 * From user JackPotte's suggestion with special:search (on 6/6/16):
 * entering "research" without the quotes returns 222,722 resources,
 * entering "education" without the quotes returns 106,323 resources,
 * entering "teaching" without the quotes returns 16,136 resources, and
 * entering "notes" without the quotes returns 3,939,368. Now these include categories, files, probably any page that contains these terms. So, if there's no stigma to putting "Education" or "Teaching" in the title, I'd suggest starting with one of these, rather than "Notes" or "Research". Singling "Research" out for special attention doesn't follow! --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 15:58, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Here's a breakdown by content pages:
 * "learning" - 6,863,
 * "research" - 6,075,
 * "education" - 4,348, and
 * "teaching" - 1,812. So, once again, singling out "research" doesn't follow! Voting to change the titles of resources in the Category:Research to contain "Research" in the title means having to move resources out of this category to prevent bot retitling so that only "student assignment activities" will be so titled, as I understand this. I'll start removing the resources I've been contributing to from this category per consensus, although it seems to me simply adding "Research:" to the titles of "student assignment activities" would be more efficient and easier. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 16:52, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
 * We can also consider putting only "new" research works in the spacename "Research" and keeping research categories for the "older" ones ? --Thierry613 (discuss • contribs) 10:38, 11 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the comment, but as I mentioned above "Most if not yet all of my contributions here to Wikiversity undergo peer review by Program Directors, Program Managers and their selected review or referee committees, including WMF. The similar case occurs with submissions to scientific journals. Peer review here would be unacceptable because it could and probably would negatively impact peer review by funding sources. Peer review of my contributions here by Wikiversity contributors who are not on these committees or organization managers is inappropriate and unacceptable." And I can add "unless invited" as there are some here whose expertise may apply. I'm telling you the truth! This is not something for anyone here to consider. If you will not allow what I've asked then I have no choice but to remove any past, potential or current proposal submittal resource and its educational derivatives from this category. Sorry! --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 12:15, 11 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Just FYI but I was using the categories to direct readers to the resources so that they could learn about research. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 12:36, 11 April 2016 (UTC)


 * If you are receiving funding for editing efforts on Wikiversity, you need to disclose this per Terms of use/Paid contributions amendment. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 12:26, 11 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Thanks but I am already aware of this. When that occurs for that specific project I will be happy to! --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 12:36, 11 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Just FYI but the funding agencies I submit proposals to require a statement something like "This research is funded by Agency under contract number XYZ." This would appear at the bottom of the page. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 12:58, 11 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Above you twice wrote, "Most if not yet all of my contributions here to Wikiversity undergo peer review ... by funding sources." Now you write "When that occurs for that specific project I will be happy to!". You can't have it both ways. Either most if not yet all of your contributions need to note your paid contributor status, or it hasn't occurred and your argument is based on a false premise. In either case, this disclosure greatly complicates the entire discussion, and suggests that your objections are self-promotional rather than on behalf of the community. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 12:48, 11 April 2016 (UTC)


 * It isn't both ways it separate steps in the process! NSF has already reviewed Dominant group but considered it out of scope and suggested funding agencies perhaps more appropriate. NASA has already peer reviewed another proposal in their phase I process which it passed now that proposal is undergoing phase II review. My objections are based on a need for openness here. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 12:58, 11 April 2016 (UTC)


 * With respect to "suggests that your objections are self-promotional rather than on behalf of the community." My resume takes care of all the "self-promotion" I need. You know my real name, just do a Google Advanced Scholar search and you'll see a lot of it but not all. The biology and psychology/psychiatry is not mine. It lets funding agencies know I will accomplish what I state I will. On behalf of the community I create learning resources that hopefully get as close to the state of the art or science as possible. The proposals are for work perhaps beyond that which I believe should also be here as will any publications in free form. I also record here each and all steps in the entire process. The agencies know my pseudonym here and my real name. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 23:15, 11 April 2016 (UTC)


 * So, "all of my contributions" is really only two learning projects, neither of which has been accepted or funded (yet). Thanks for clarifying the scope of the impact of this proposal. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 13:26, 11 April 2016 (UTC)


 * No! Reviewers are free to look at whatever they want. When I've reviewed for NSF I look for anything that helps me decide what I need to decide. Some six or seven proposals have been submitted and reviewed or are still being reviewed. Acceptance is not a guaranteed process. NEH rejected my dominant group proposal because (3 out of four reviewers) did not consider Wikiversity as an appropriate "university" setting. The fourth liked it being here. But one is not enough. I hope this helps. If there's anything you or anyone else wants clarified I'll be happy to comply! --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 23:15, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

I continue to support, despite two recent strong opposition statements, not because I believe research namespace is a magic bullet, but because I don't see how it could do harm. I translated this page to English and saw no evidence of harm (e.g., on it's empty talk page). Regarding the "magic bullet", we need a way to separate the "conventional" from the "unconventional" because most (but not all) of the latter is of very low quality. I believe the solution is more cultural than technical, meaning that we need to find policies not tools (e.g., research namespace) that solve this problem. But as we search for policies, we want every possible tool we can make available. And, while there is no evidence of harm done by this namespace, there is definitely harm in doing nothing.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 14:48, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

List of relevant pages on French Wikiversity
Here is a list of pages I looked at (using Google Chrome auto-translate). Perhaps someone who looks more carefully or who understands French can find something, I don't look that carefully. Feel free to add to this list. --Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 15:18, 15 May 2016 (UTC)
 * fr:Projet:Wikiversité/Espace_de_noms_«_Recherche_»_2
 * fr:Discussion:Travaux_de_recherche

Summary Discussion
Community consensus is pretty clear at this point. I would encourage anyone who has concerns with the proposal to focus their comments on specific content / language improvements they would like to suggest before a Phabricator request is put through. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 02:16, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Support

 * 1)  tentatively (pending a reason not to) --Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 17:54, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
 * 2)  because it deserves to give it a try. --Thierry613 (discuss • contribs) 11:13, 2 April 2016 (UTC) updated the 12:38, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
 * 3)  to allow everyone to be able to split or merge them into special:search. JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 13:08, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
 * 4)  yes this would have been useful a while ago when working ona modern art project. Leutha (discuss • contribs) 09:25, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
 * 5)  as proposer. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 02:18, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Oppose

 * 1)  for all the reasons stated in the discussion. The Category:Research contains 26 subcategories with 1693 pages and 987 pages in the category itself for a total of 2680 pages that in the near future will have "Research:" on their title line as a result of this proposal. Some of these include Bloom Clock and the subpages of BCP, Fruit Clock, IT vendor management, and NEES, to name a few. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 00:04, 11 April 2016 (UTC) Just FYI but point 2 of the Guidelines is a good idea. Point 3 would be good for returning Intergalactic medium to its own page rather than as a subpage. User:Guy vandegrift's suggested resolution of the Intergalactic medium is still much appreciated! Point 1 has two serious problems: (1) who decides this and (2) an appearance of inappropriateness with inhouse reviews. I don't have access to the full letter but some pointers can be found here A Review of Peer Review by Steven J. Rothman, former Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Applied Physics. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 19:43, 14 April 2016 (UTC) Here's another good review of peer review Wall Street Journal op-ed: “Corruption of peer review is harming scientific credibility” from 14 July 2014. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 20:26, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
 * 2)  I havent found a reason, why to do so. What benefits will come with new ns? If none, its not neeed than.--Juandev (discuss • contribs) 12:32, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Tentative oppose. I am not convinced of the need for a cordon sanitaire around unreviewed research. Many law reviews in the US, such as the Harvard Law Review, don't have peer review, and are still perfectly respected, and we don't know if our volunteers are qualified to do peer review, as we don't know who they are. You might also like to read "Peer review: a flawed process at the heart of science and journals" by Richard Smith, or similar literature. James500 (discuss • contribs) 11:51, 9 May 2016 (UTC) I am afraid I am going to have to move to very strongly oppose. Even if there was a case for loudly indicating that research is unreviewed, there is no case whatsoever for trying to hide it by making it unsearchable with the default settings of our internal search engine by excluding it from the mainspace. This is an attempt to create a compulsory Wikiversity version of 'Articles for creation' (WP:AfC). AfC was a complete fiasco, an unmitigated disaster that seriously harmed Wikipedia. If you wanted to indicate that a piece of research is unreviewed, you could do that by putting a template on it. Problem solved. James500 (discuss • contribs) 02:01, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
 * See comment to my support above.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 14:19, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Request to postpone the Phabricator request and reconsider
I would like to briefly reconsider this proposal if it has not already been submitted to Phabricator. I have not softened my "hard-line" position on the need to solve the problem we are attempting to solve, which is that Wikiversity is cluttered with resources that will not be of interest to most readers. If the Phabricator request has been submitted, then we should not reverse that request, IMHO. But I have an alternative proposal that would be easier to implement.

My concern with the proposal as it stands is that moving pages is a complex task compared with the insertion of a "Research" template. And because it is more complex, there is likely to be more debate before that step is taken. Above all, we need to keep such discussions to an absolute minimum.

My proposal is to create a template and adopt the following four policy changes:
 * 1) Require that all such pages be subpages of conventional Wikiversity resources.
 * 2) Create a banner template that identifies the page as research. The current  places the announcement in a textbox that is not easily noticed.  To illustrate how this banner would appear, inspect this random WP permalink and note the banner that starts with the words " This is an old revision of this page "
 * 3) The banner template would also lead the reader to an explanation. We could have different banners and different explanatory links for the different types of "research" (student research, opinions, etc.).
 * 4) The presence of two "titles" (banner and page-title) is likely to confuse first-time visitors. To alleviate this, we can probably include in the template the reduction of the page-title to smaller font.  For an example of how page-title fonts can be modified, see Special:Permalink/1505924.


 * Discussion
 * Implicit in my proposal is the belief that Google is sufficiently intelligent that it will eventually adjust by reducing the rank of Wikiversity pages that are subpages. If this belief is not correct, then perhaps I should withdraw this suggestion.
 * One reason for this proposal is that some such efforts belong as in mainspace as subpages. For example, a traditional science lab belongs in mainspace.  Failures, partial successes, and other student efforts are significant to the lab, and belong as subpages to that lab.  With this major exception to the rule that research belongs in a separate namespace, perhaps we should rethink the rule.  *My main reason for supporting this alternative solution is that placement of the template is likely to incur less debate because the action is easier to perform and reverse (e.g. no redirects to deal with).  And, the template can remain in place as the proponent of the page attempts to defend it.


 * To reiterate:
 * If the Phabricator request has been submitted and is in progress, I'm not sure we should withdraw it.
 * I strongly support the need to deprecate non-standard Wikiversity pages, but just have doubts as to whether a research namespace is the best way to do it.

Yours truly, Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 15:57, 24 April 2016 (UTC)


 * The phabricator request has not been submitted yet. But by bot, moving pages takes the same amount of effort as adding a template would, so that's not really a benefit one way or the other. Moving subpages as a custodian/curator is much easier than editing each page individually. So this isn't / shouldn't be a workload issue.
 * Google will do whatever Google will do. But moving pages to a namespace other than the main namespace takes them out of the default Wikiversity search list.
 * I'm not sure I agree that student lab work belongs in main space. If their efforts are critiqued and offered as learning opportunities for others, that's fine. But just having dozens of uncritiqued attempts at the same exercises, such as the University of Florida engineering assignments, doesn't appear to add value. The same is true of some of the current Linux networking projects.
 * Let's clarify. Is having this content in the default Wikiversity search beneficial or detrimental? If separating it is desirable, is Research: the best name for this space, or is there another name or names that would be better? -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 19:18, 24 April 2016 (UTC)


 * I hadn't appreciated that Bots can do the work of moving. What is certain is that something needs to be done to keep low-value resources from diluting high-value resources.  Also, I don't see how changing the name to something other than "Research:" will accomplish anything.  A significant fraction of the low-value pages is this so-called "research", and attempting to remove all such pages from Wikiversity is futile because we lack the expertise and resources to properly referee.  Even Cornell University's highly respected ArXiv has allowed low-value papers to pass their filters (the filters being a system of "moderators" and "endorsers" that we are not in a position of duplicating at Wikiversity).  I think I already mentioned this example of "fringe" research: http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0703179


 * Also, I have no objection to requiring that student labs be placed in research space, since it would be easy to create a page called Research:Student Labs at Wright State University Lake Campus.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 01:52, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Dear fellows, I'm surprised that nobody talked about the French Wikiversity which created this exact "Research:" namespace several years ago, and then decided to add it to all search engine requests by default (in Phabricator). You can test it:
 * [//fr.wikiversity.org/w/index.php?title=Sp%C3%A9cial:Recherche&profile=advanced&profile=advanced&fulltext=Search&search=chemins+du+langage&ns0=1&ns104=1&ns106=1&ns108=1&searchToken=3vv8pr04bx32r6k6pfx9mh5u1 a default research].
 * [//fr.wikiversity.org/w/index.php?title=Sp%C3%A9cial:Recherche&profile=advanced&profile=advanced&fulltext=Search&search=chemins+du+langage&ns0=1&ns106=1&ns108=1&searchToken=1nxhv4c0cwcb619l8teswhtoe a research with this namespace unticked].
 * and it's still in Google after.
 * This Phabricator operation was quite simple for us, and I consider that the result fulfills all the different needs.
 * Moreover, if the "Research:" prefix becomes undesirable, a simple javascript could change it in the titles.
 * Personally I'm neutral concerning its default exclusion into the search engine, but this should be another vote. JackPotte (discuss • contribs)

Thanks to all, my doubts have been erased and I continue to support the proposal to create a "Research:" namespace. --Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 13:49, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Implementation
I have moved the proposals for the implementation details to a new page Research_Namespace/Implementation. I think that it will be easier to discuss the details on its talk page than here, and when there is agreement the result can be added to the main page.

If this is considered not the best way, I hope that whoever reverses it will do something better than restoring the present situation which is so confusing as to hinder discussion.--Alkhowarizmi (discuss • contribs) 10:48, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Peer Review?
Why does the proposal mention peer review?

I'm fairly new here, and one of my as-yet unpublished first impressions was confusion caused by the proliferation of pages that were not really teaching/learning resources.

The new namespace immediately had appeal as an attempt to fix this. However some aspects I found confusing, and the discussion amplified this. An example was when Marshallsumter argued the inappropriateness of attempting peer review here. I failed to see the relevance, which at last sunk in when reading the objection by James500.

The proposal effectively states that peer-reviewed research will not be in the research namespace!

To have a separate research namespace and then keep original research in the main resource space, on condition that it is (by whatever means) refereed is surely absurd. Moreover it invites further argument over what constitutes valid peer review.--Alkhowarizmi (discuss • contribs) 22:24, 9 May 2016 (UTC)


 * The research namespace would not be searchable. Research that is complete and ready for "publication" should be available as searchable Wikiversity content. If you have a suggestion for a better name for this namespace, please provide it. If you are concerned about what constitutes valid peer review, please provide suggestions. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 23:01, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
 * If the research namespace would not be searchable, is it a choice or a technical restriction ? I think it should be searchable, as it is on the french-speaking Wikiversity. However, that does not address the problem of the valid peer review... --Thierry613 (discuss • contribs) 09:06, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
 * isn't there a way to search such a space under "search prefix"? Also, regarding the issue of peer review, I think that should be done informally through Wikiversity Journals.  The process is informal because any person or group can start a journal.  We don't have enough administrators and custodians to do peer review.  And getting volunteers to peer review would be a real mess.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 22:54, 10 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Yes, a special search would work, but just as Topic: now isn't included, other namespaces such as Research: wouldn't be included in the default top-of-page search. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 00:27, 11 May 2016 (UTC)