Wikipedia:Education noticeboard

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This page is for discussion of items that relate to student assignments and the Wikipedia Education Program. Please feel free to post, whether you're from a class, a potential class, or if you're a Wikipedia editor.

Topics for this board might include:

Of course, we should remain civil towards all participants and assume good faith.

There are other pages more appropriate for dealing with certain specific issues:

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Managing threads

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Undisclosed Jamaican school writing project[edit]

Further information: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents § Undisclosed Jamaican school writing project

Uncle G (talk) 19:27, 7 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

INFO3504-LGBTQWikiEditing at CUBoulder[edit]

Concerns have been raised about inappropriate categorization & disruptive editing from participants in this WikiEd course at ANI and SPI:

I think some guidance is needed here. Thanks, Spicy (talk) 20:34, 12 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure most of us are familiar with the disruptive editor who bulldozes across Wikipedia making the same edits to many articles despite them being reverted, they just carry on and refuse to communicate. Sadly this well intentioned idea came across like that, resulting in ANI and SPI reports. I haven't looked into the history of this page much to see if something has been suggested, but surely if accounts participating in things like this had a banner at the top of their talk page saying they are participating in a project and to contact [insert editor in charge's name] regarding any problems it would certainly result in a more welcoming response from the community? FDW777 (talk) 20:53, 12 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Accounts involved in a class typically do have a banner mentioning that they're in a specific class (probably automatically added by something?), but I think in this case it was an editathon--I don't know what that would entail if it were related to Wikipedia Edu stuff specifically as the only editathon I've been regularly privy to the existence of is probably more likely to be taken on by people more "into" Wikipedia than most students in classes I see? - Purplewowies (talk) 06:11, 15 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Just confirming this is an edit-a-thon and not a Wiki Education course. Participants in one of our courses do have banners on their user pages, and a welcome notice from a Wiki Education staff person on their user talk page. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:52, 18 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

New Growth Features - Mentorship[edit]

Hello all, please see Wikipedia_talk:Growth_Team_features#Student_editors_being_assigned_mentors. — xaosflux Talk 12:07, 15 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Undisclosed art-class (fashion/textile) project[edit]

Affected articles such as:

students are mostly adding opinions/synthesized ideas and other editorial content. What few facts they include are typically redundant and/or uncited. I finally found this comment, confirming that it's a school project, and left a note for that editor to ask their instructor to at least look at our resources. DMacks (talk) 07:11, 21 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ping User:Roxy the dog, who has apparently also come across some of their mess. DMacks (talk) 07:13, 21 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed yes, that was my impression, a class of some sort, but I couldn’t get to the bottom of it. It has been going on for a couple of months, and a page got protected imho to little avail, as they are sporadic in their editing. I’m in hospital atm, will respond more later on when I get home. Roxy the grumpy dog. wooF 08:25, 21 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
If you're able to find any information about it, we're happy to reach out to the instructor with more guidance. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:21, 21 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I've been thinking about this all day, and I dont think there is much to be done unless one of them responds beyond deleting a template warning with a snarky dismissive message, but lets see if it develops. All the affected articles I saw were on my watchlist, but the course is looking at the fashion/clothing industry historically and ethically. That's a rather pompous assessment from a bit of casual reading though !! I would add to the list of articles if anybody wants me to. -Roxy the grumpy dog. wooF 19:36, 21 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I have taken the liberty of editing the opening post by adding a slightly more indented list of a few more affected articles. There are more. -Roxy the grumpy dog. wooF 20:37, 21 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Lead article -> 3 accounts -> each hits 2 other articles also -> more accounts uncovered -> more articles affected lather/rinse/repeat. I've resorted to level3, treating it as a widespread pool of accounts all working together who refuse to interact and no evidence of improvement. So if we wind up with MEAT-blocks, that will either solve it or induce someone to come to the table to discuss, great. Not sure it's worth a CU to see if there's a central IP to stem it right away, or wait to see if autoblocks help. No objection to keeping a single list to which we all contribute. DMacks (talk) 05:25, 22 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm getting some vibes that it might be based in Los Angeles. That's a lot of schools to consider:( DMacks (talk) 07:48, 22 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Blocks:

Project Submitting Drafts to Update Articles on Species[edit]

There seems to be a class that is submitting drafts to Articles for Creation of expanded articles on species, mostly endangered species. The only problem, and it is a minor problem, is that they are submitting drafts of new articles to AFC, but that is not what AFC is for. I am tagging the existing articles for the drafts to be merged in, declining the drafts, and asking the submitters what the class project is. Does anyone know what the class project is?

Some of the articles have been:

This is basically good, because it is adding content to the articles, although AFC submission via draft is not the way that AFC is meant to be used. Who is the instructor? Robert McClenon (talk) 04:11, 29 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't look like they're connected with Wiki Education in any way. If you find out more details of the instructor and university, please let us know! --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:56, 29 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No sig means assignment templates converted to sections don't get archived[edit]

Hello! Are you a student in CMN2160B at U. Ottawa, and you're wondering why you were pinged here? It was a mistake, my apologies! Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 22:42, 3 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sage (Wiki Ed), The sort-of Rfc on Wiki Ed assignments decided in favor of Option 3: Put the template in a new section, and update it as needed. However, this option did not include the addition of a standard user signature, which is required for bot archival. So, it seems to me, that this whole development has replaced what the majority of users originally saw as an undesirable accumulation of dashboard templates inside the Talk header that rarely got removed (but which were often collapsed), with a scheme where each assignment template gets its own section header as an independent discussion section, but no signature. Upshot: they stuck around forever before the change, they stick around forever after the change (but take up a lot more vertical space than before). Remind me why we did this, again? Or, did I miss a piece of the story? Mathglot (talk) 10:40, 3 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Mathglot: They can still be manually archived. Maybe the archive bot could be updated to detect the new format as a valid archive-able section even without a signature? I might be able to add a signature from the first user who adds the template, without breaking the ability for the Dashboard to update the template to reflect subsequent changes (like other usernames being added or removed). Cleanly handling the removal of the section including a signature (for when a course is no longer planning to work on that article) would be a bit complicated, though.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:42, 3 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I seriously doubt the archive bot would be updated to do that, as it's not its charter to do so and would open it up to all sorts of special requests, but feel free to check at User talk:Σ. If you can add a signature just from the first user who adds it, that would guarantee eventual archiving, although if the course were 4 months and archiving delay was 3 months, it would be archived before the course ended. Ideally, you should add a signature either: 1) every time the assignment template updated (there doesn't have to be any content, just the sig is enough), or 2) just update the sig line, keeping only the last one. Here's what it would look like for the top assignment section at Talk:Communication if every update was signed (example constructed from actual updates of the top assignment template):
mockup of course assignment section with {{unsig}}-style signatures added

Here's what the top section at Talk:Communication would look like, if every update to Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/University_of_Ottawa/CMN2160B_(Winter) were signed in the style of Template:Unsigned:

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

Sciences humaines.svg This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 12 January 2022 and 22 April 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Zc012. Peer reviewers: Yingzhuo Yang, Ayeesha.t. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zc012 (talk • contribs) 17:53, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Ayeesha.t (talk • contribs) 20:42, 3 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Minhhang1406 (talk • contribs) 21:23, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Yingzhuo Yang (talk • contribs) 07:00, 25 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Jiang jiteng (talk • contribs) 21:39, 7 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Jiang jiteng (talk • contribs) 18:27, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Minhhang1406 (talk • contribs) 04:35, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Minhhang1406 (talk • contribs) 04:35, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Cecilia226 (talk • contribs) 08:13, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Darkbolt21 (talk • contribs) 18:49, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Or, another way to do it: just keep the last update, and drop the "unsig" code and use your own:

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

Sciences humaines.svg This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 12 January 2022 and 22 April 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Zc012. Peer reviewers: Yingzhuo Yang, Ayeesha.t. — Assignment last updated by Darkbolt21 (talk • contribs) 18:49, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Note the wikied-dashboard class in the <span> tag above; this facilitates the bot finding it, and permits users to adjust visibility, if they so choose.

There would be no real reason to use the "unsig" style wording, you could use a standard sig of the same style as ~~~~ with your own lead-in text, so instead of "Preceding unsigned comment added by..." you could have, "Assignment template updated by...". Further, instead of signing it every time, you could just replace the sig each time (Assignment template last updated by...") which is all that the archiving bot cares about.
The current situation seems untenable to me. We went through this whole process to get rid of assignment templates from the page, and the current procedure does not do that, but rather, it makes it worse wrt to vertical page height, scrolling, and unwanted visibility of templates that stick around forever.
Yes, of course, they can be manually archived, but before we started all this, they could have been manually removed from the header (in a much simpler operation than manually archiving a discussion) but people were complaining then that templates stayed on the page forever (even if collapsed) and it wasn't good enough to be able to manually remove them, so we went through the Tfd, and then the "Rfc", and bots were unleashed on existing pages to convert them, and dashboard procedures were changed to match, and after all that, it's not better, it's worse and doesn't respond to the initial motivation that started all this.
We need to go the last mile, and tag the individual discussions with sigs so the bots can archive them. (Unless someone has a better idea.) Either a sig-every-assignment-update approach, or just a replace-the-last-sig approach works for me. The only thing that doesn't work, imho, is what we have now where converted assignment sections stay on the page forever. Mathglot (talk) 22:24, 3 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Adding signatures[edit]

I'll work on this next week. (I'm on vacation to attend my sister's wedding until then.) Thanks for bringing this up, Mathglot.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 00:38, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure imitating the output of ~~~~ or ~~~~~ (including whatever prefixed boilerplate you want) will work. If in doubt, check with User:Σ. Enjoy the wedding! Mathglot (talk) 01:05, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Something will need to be done about existing sections too, I think, to make sure they can be archived by bots. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:52, 5 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
If we don't really care about the actual timestamp, I can have a bot go through and put a ~~~~~ at the end of the extant template uses. Primefac (talk) 14:47, 5 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That'd be fine with me. Maybe a short note to make it clear it's not the actual timestamp (like unsigned. 17:38, 5 May 2022 (UTC)) ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:38, 5 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Signature count and style[edit]

As usual, there's more than one way to do it, so I invite comments on what the signature text should look like, and whether it should leave a new sig every time (half a dozen or more updates to an assignment are not rare), or just keep one sig showing the last update, whenever it was, and by whom, replacing all earlier ones. Mathglot (talk) 04:17, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep the last sig only – I vote for keeping the sig representing only the last update to a given assignment template, as shown in the bottom example in the show/hide section under #No sig means assignment templates converted to sections don't get archived, above. No reason to keep all of them, and it will just uselessly expand the page even further. All other edits to the template are in the page history.
  • Use this text – As for the text, I vote for the text in that same example; like this:
<span class="wikied-dashboard" style="font-size:85%;">— Assignment last updated by [[User:Example1|Example1]] ([[User talk:Example1#top|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/Example1|contribs]]) hh:mm, dd Month, YYYY (UTC)</span>
which resolves to: — Assignment last updated by Example1 (talk • contribs) hh:mm, dd Month, YYYY (UTC)
If you have an opinion on the signature text or how many signatures should be kept, please share it below. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 04:30, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that it should just be the "last updated by" signature. The other way wastes too much space, and there is still the editing history. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:17, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Course wizard and Template:Course page[edit]

Are these and their subpages still used? I am cleaning up uses of the cmbox class. While these pages use the class when they should not and should either be using inline styles or no styles at all, from what I can tell they are made for the old system of course integration and so TFD or redirection in some way is a valid way to deal with these as well. Izno (talk) 19:16, 5 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure they're not, but when Sage (Wiki Ed) gets back from the vacation he mentioned in the prior thread, he can confirm. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:55, 5 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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