User talk:Sgelbman

I saw that your sample citations were done manually, so I was wondering if you were aware of the citation templates here on Wikipedia? While no one system of citations is preferred on Wikipedia, people often use the {{cite web}}, {{cite book}}, and similar templates for their ease of producing citations. The list of elements on the template pages also serve as a helpful guide to what information is useful in a citation (for example, for a complete citation to the internet, you need both the the date the material was published and the date you last accessed the material, but people often forget one or the other). People rarely use all of the parameters (ISSN, especially, is rarely used) but it still provides a useful guide.

An example usage of {{cite web}} would be <ref>{{cite web|url=http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2011/09/16/democratic-senator-to-resign-leaving-slim-majority-in-jeopardy-gay-marriage-vote-possible/|title=UPDATE: Senator resigns, leaving slim Democratic majority in jeopardy; special election Nov. 8|last=Clayworth|first=Jason|work=[[Des Moines Register]]|publisher=[[Gannett Company]]|date=2011-9-16|accessdate=2011-9-16}}</ref> which would appear in the references as ^[1] Good editing! --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 09:33, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

I think in any case when someone makes an edit and a talk page explanation, it is best to respond first on the article talk page.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:11, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Just drop me a note, or refer students to me. --Orange Mike | Talk 21:15, 12 October 2011 (UTC) (English-language Wikipedia admin; Campus Ambassador; history major, poli sci minor; Democratic nominee for the Tennessee General Assembly at the age of 20 with experience in other parties as well)

No problem; always glad to get my poli.sci. geek on. --Orange Mike | Talk 21:29, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi -- thanks for the note that the students are about to get started. I've added all their talk pages and all the articles being worked on to my watchlist and will try to keep an eye out for things I can help with, but if you see anything that would benefit from a helping hand please let me know. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:56, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm localizing the party links in some Iowa articles so that links referring solely to the Iowa Democratic Party or to the Republican Party of Iowa actually point there instead of inappropriately pointing to Democratic Party (United States) or Republican Party (United States) as they tend to do now. While this will direct more traffic to the state-level articles, you shouldn't notice anything; I just thought you might want to know. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 07:55, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

There have been quite a few changes to Kansas Republican Party, which is assigned to one of your students, AdrienneAAnderson (talk · contribs), but the changes are all by an IP. If this is Adrienne, you may want to remind her to log in -- assuming you want to be able to tell whether she was the one making the changes (e.g. to decide whether to give her credit for the work). I will leave her a note on her talk page too, but if she's not logging in she won't get the note, of course. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:01, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks - I'll check in with her. Sgelbman (talk) 01:09, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Turns out it wasn't her edits. Strange. Sgelbman (talk) 20:35, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

It happens; a good thing for the encyclopedia, of course, but it might make it harder for her to find useful contributions if someone's doing a lot of work on improving the article at the same time. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:44, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

I've left a further note on User talk:Masuhi#Democratic Party of the State of Mississippi, in response to your suggestion about the Sandbox. The short version is that copyright violations are not allowed even in Sandboxes, but you may wish to take a look at the comment itself. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 13:19, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Professor Gelbman, I noticed that you commented at WT:USEP in the ongoing discussion about how best to continue the education program. There's a section of the discussion here that specifically talks about instructors, and I would be interested in your opinion on a couple of points, if you have a moment. I apologize for the length of these questions.

You mentioned in your earlier comment that you feel orientation for instructors would be worthwhile. Can you tell me what the content of that orientation should be, in your opinion? For example, should it focus on the policies -- verifiability, reliable sources, neutral point of view, and so forth? Or on the mechanics of editing -- how to insert section headings, add references as footnotes, create tables, upload images? And what level of expertise do you think is necessary for an instructor before they run a course like this one?

One suggestion that has come up a couple of times is that instructors who have direct experience with Wikipedia are much more likely to be successful, and to need less support. Do you have any interest in working on a Wikipedia article and getting it to good article status, as some students have done? Do you think this would be a worthwhile thing for instructors to do? Should we ask instructors to do this (and offer support, of course)?

I'd also be interested in your opinion of the level of support you would like (and the level you have received) from the ambassadors. The current course load has meant that there are far more students than the ambassadors can directly interact with. In the past we've tried to have only two or three students per ambassador, but we had far too many classes this time to do that, and in any case that led to under-utilization of the ambassadors since some students never do much online. Ideally each ambassador has time to review every single student edit, fix technical problems, and provide advice on sourcing, prose, and article organization. Currently we have too few ambassadors for that to be possible. So the related question is: do you think that ambassador support is valuable to the class, and would you like to see every single student communicating with a Wikipedian on the article talk page? Or do you feel that the ambassadors are only necessary for occasional questions? The underlying issue here is whether we should restrict the number of classes in order to better support them.

There is some interaction between the two issues -- the expertise of the instructor and the amount of ambassador support. It seems likely that an expert instructor would need less support, but on the other hand I don't want to encourage instructors to become more knowledgable about Wikipedia solely in order to withdraw support from their courses. Any thoughts you have on that interaction would be welcome too.

Thanks very much for any time you can spare to answer these questions. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:25, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

On the content of orientation for instructors, I'd emphasize policy over mechanics, but that could just be a reflection of my own starting point when I decided to do this with my class. I had already done some light Wikipedia editing and I'm pretty good at learning markup languages on my own, so I was (and still am) a bit more shaky on the policy issues, but I know some other professors who are doing this for the first time now or are planning to in future semesters who'd probably appreciate some basic editing instruction. As for required expertise, or what professors should have accomplished themselves on Wikipedia before beginning a project with students, I think that depends on what their goals for the students' work are. If they're expecting students to produce certified "Good Articles," then I guess they should have gone through that process themselves so that they know what it entails, but I'm also skeptical that achieving "Good Article" status should be an expectation for student projects in most classes.

I've been generally happy with the level of support I've received for my course - the OAs especially have been very responsive whenever issues have come up. I will say, though, that things would probably be running even more smoothly than they are (and they basically are, from my standpoint) had that support system been in place much earlier. For example, I was ready to start setting things up weeks before the semester started, but I didn't have trained campus ambassadors until the first weekend of classes or online ambassadors until even later than that, and I had to do quite a bit of nudging to receive information about getting the ball rolling on my own (e.g. where to go to set up a course page). Having courses lined up and "pods" filled out well in advance would probably go a long way towards getting courses off on the right foot. While a smaller ambassador-to-student ratio might be ideal, I actually don't think it's necessary or practical (though I do think OAs should be allocated based on class size). In my course at least, I think one ambassador per 2-3 students would have been a huge waste of manpower (20+ OAs!) given students' work habits and expectations. Sgelbman (talk) 15:50, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks -- that's very helpful. I was thinking about 15 students to one OA would be the right ratio, so perhaps three or four OAs (who have no other classes to help with) would be the right ratio. And I agree that Good Article (GA) status is hard for most students, though it's certainly been done by some classes. If you have an ambitious student, let me know -- I'd love to work with someone on really improving an article. Were you at the Wikipedia in Higher Education Summit in Boston this summer, by the way? I was there and I am wondering if we met there. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:48, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm linking to this conversation from WT:USEP, by the way; I hope you don't mind, but it's very helpful to that discussion to have commentary from participants. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:59, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Sure, no problem. I was at the summit in Boston; we may have met there, though your name didn't ring a bell when you signed on as OA for my course. Sgelbman (talk) 16:00, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Hi -- I've added some more notes for Mcberli at Talk:Tennessee Democratic Party; I will keep watching that page. I'm afraid that what she's done is really not that relevant to the article -- it's not neutral, but more to the point it's not really about the party itself. I found a source that should be helpful, and I'd be glad to work with Mcberli to use that material in the article, but I won't be too surprised if another editor removes her additions as not directly relevant.

I think you mentioned that more than one student was having issues with their articles; is there any other article you'd like me to check in on? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 03:04, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps Kansas Republican Party? I spoke briefly to the student working on it today about it, and she could probably use some guidance to avoid the sort of copy-and-paste work that's been happening in the "Stance on issues" section. Thanks! Sgelbman (talk) 21:51, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that really does need to be removed. I've left a note on the talk page and a note for the student, and also found a book on Google Books that would be much more helpful than the state party websites. I also wrote a couple of example sentences that I think could be the basis of a usable "Stance" section. I'm afraid I will have to delete Adrienne's work as a copyright violation, though I'm willing to give it a day or so since I think it might be less discouraging for her if she made the changes herself. Let me know if you think she will do that, or if I should just go ahead and cut that material out. And of course let me know if there are other articles you'd like me to help the students with. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:00, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Adrienne has responded positively; see here. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:20, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Great, and thanks again! I may borrow your explanation of how to address correspondence between state and national party platforms in discussions with some other students who have been trying to figure out how best to do that without "original research." Sgelbman (talk) 21:03, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Glad it's helpful. If any of your students would like me to review what they're doing, tell them to leave a note on my talk page. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:23, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

I just found out about this page and thought you might find it useful; it shows all changes made to any page that is linked on your course page. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:51, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Ah, custom watchlists. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 18:56, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

This is a bit better; it's limited to just the articles and students. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:10, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! Sgelbman (talk) 15:01, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

I took a walk through the last dozen or so articles worked on by your students, and have made a few changes and posted some notes on the talk pages. I hope these are useful. About the only article (of the ones I looked at) that I didn't have to tweak in some way was North Carolina Democratic Party but in fact if you look at that one you'll see some uncited claims in the added text. I will have a think about a good way to explain that to the student and try to post something before Monday. I hope you're enjoying your Thanksgiving! Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:03, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you! I really appreciate how much work you've been putting into this! Hopefully the students will use your advice well as they wrap up their work on this project over the next couple of weeks. Sgelbman (talk) 21:10, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

I just posted a fairly detailed note on Talk:Georgia Republican Party to try to clarify to one of your students how to take a source and rework it into one's own words. Please take a look and let me know what you think -- if this is in line with how you are trying to teach the students, it would be great if you'd like to use that as an example for others in the class who are struggling with this. Rewriting a source in one's own words is not so much a difficult skill; what seems to be difficult is getting editors (not just students) to understand that the intermediate step between the source and the created text is comprehension; if you comprehend the material it's quite easy to rewrite it; if you don't, it's almost impossible. I tried to write the example in such a way as to reinforce that idea.

I'll take a look at your other students' work as I get time this week. If they have insufficiently rephrased their sources by Wikipedia's standards, I can't really leave it in place until you look at their work; and I would imagine you would want to know if that's the case anyway. I think the value of working on Wikipedia, for the students, is that it enforces collaboration; in this case I hope they are learning.

Let me know how you'd like me to proceed; we can talk by phone or some chat mechanism if that would be helpful. Mitchell indicated on my talk page that he was worried about failing the class if I ripped out all his work again; I don't want to make students fail, but we also need the students' work to meet minimum standards, and I'm sure Mitchell isn't the only one with this problem. So let me know what you'd like to do. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 03:47, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Mike! For some reason, this sort of paraphrasing has been a bigger problem than usual (and not just in the Wikipedia assignments) this semester. I'm not sure where the failing concern is coming from either, being that quantity isn't really one of my grading criteria and that I've mentioned in class several times that I can see article page histories and contribution logs (and of course that lifting material from other sites isn't acceptable). I have no problem at all with removing inappropriate material (and have removed some myself from several articles). I'd be happy to chat sometime, though this week is a bit more hectic than usual. Sgelbman (talk) 02:08, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

OK, I'll go ahead and remove it. No need to chat unless there is some coordination required. I will go back through that article and leave a note for Mitchell saying I spoke to you about this. Thanks. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:11, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I've created a stub page at Experimental political science; could you take a look at it (although I know right now is busy in academia - I'm giving an exam tonight myself, in Human Biology...)? Thanks! Allens (talk) 15:14, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up on this. This is a crazy week, but I will do my best to make some time to take a look at it. Sgelbman (talk) 01:58, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Ping? Thanks! Allens (talk | contribs) 21:13, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Sorry for letting this go. I just made a small addition to the external links; I'll try to make some more substantial edits soon. Sgelbman (talk) 00:20, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I fully understand, there's a couple of discussions/pages I need to get back to... thanks for the edits! Allens (talk | contribs) 00:46, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I've been working with Mike Christie to fix some of my paraphrasing. Ground Zero recently removed my "issues" section after I redid it to focus more on the Georgia Republican Party instead of the Republican Party like you suggested in the recent evaluation. He/she claimed it had nothing to do with the Party and belonged on their website, but I feel that if someone wants to know where the party stands on these issues when going to vote, this is a great place to learn too. I undid their removal, and I feel I was in the right with my new material as it focuses on my states party and no longer a vague generalization of the national party. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MitchellLarkins (talk • contribs) 18:59, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure I follow. I put the text in my own words and followed Mike Christies instruction to not paraphrase badly. MitchellLarkins (talk • contribs) 18:59, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Hello Sgelbman. I am really glad to see the expansion of the state party articles that your students are undertaking. A lot of these articles have been really sparse, so the additions are very much welcomed. There are a few areas where the contributions could be made better, if you are able to discuss these with the students.

1. The first is that some students are cutting-and-pasting platform or ideology sections from party websites or other sources. This is not really helpful. They wouldn't do this for a paper for a class, so they should not do it here either. In addition to WP:COPYVIO issues, we end up with Wikipedia just being another platform for a party to promote its agenda. If the information is on the party's website, there is no value in duplicating it here.
2. The voice we are writing is also an issue: it is not appropriate for an encyclopedia article to talks about "our state" or "we are committed" when many readers are not Georgia Republicans, for example. Students should focus on synthesizing the platforms in neutral language, rather than regurgitating what they've found on the party's website. This requires a better understanding of the issues on the part of the student, but it also produces a more useful result for the reader.
3. Spelling and capitalization are recurring issues. I'm not perfect either, but I have reverted a couple of students' contributions when it has been obvious that they have not put any effort into writing correctly, or into proofreading their own work.
4. Capitalization of headings: this is a bit of a nuisance because Wikipedia has chosen, for better of for worse, a style (see WP:HEAD) that is different than the one the students seem to be most familiar with. The Wikipedia style for capitalizing headings is to use "sentence case" instead of "title case", e.g., Important things to know about this subject not Important Things to Know About This Subject.

I do my best to raise these issues with students individually, but there are many of them, and there is only one of me and one Mike Christie. I expect that Mitchell Larkins is not the only student who has been frustrated by having their contributions reverted. That, however, is a fact of life in Wikipedia, "the encyclopedia anyone can edit". All new users experience this frustration to varying degrees as they learn Wikipedia's rules by trial and error. I certainly did when I began editing. Thanks again for supporting the students' contributions to Wikipedia. Regards, Ground Zero | t 13:12, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the note and for your work on these articles. I'm sure you're at least as frustrated as the students are. I've addressed these issues both in class and in comments to individual students, and I'm planning to talk about it again as they get ready to finish up their work for the course in the next week. Hopefully it will sink in this time. Sgelbman (talk) 13:47, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure what to do about this article: Rhode Island Republican Party. I don't want to revert the whole thing, but these edits simply can't be left as-is. I'm going to be offline for the next week and a half, so i will not be able to assist this student, whose challenges go well beyond a lack of familiarity with Wikipedia policies or style. Ground Zero | t 08:02, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I've removed quite a bit of it as irrelevant. I left in some material that is unsourced and poorly written as it might have some value if it can be cleaned up; the student also added some state office holders that might be worth keeping, and some external links that I haven't reviewed. Professor Gelbman mentioned above that she can use page histories to look at student contributions if necessary so I don't think we should be shy about removing unsuitable material. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:20, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Good Afternoon Prof. Gelbman, I have recieved comments on my talk page from groundzero, and I see that the user reverted most of my article. I will work on it in my sandbox and hopefully post it on main page before Thursday afternoon's deadline. I appreciated the constructive critisim, and I also wanted to keep in contact with you. Anasantiagoisu (talk) 20:12, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I am writing to you as you have signed up to the Education Meetup at Wikimania 2012 and perhaps are interested in how Wikipedia links to education. Wikimedia UK is now running a education related event that may be of interest to you: the EduWiki Conference on 5-6 September in Leicester. This event will be looking at Wikipedia and related charitable projects in terms of educational practice, including good faith collaboration, open review, and global participation. It's a chance to talk about innovative work in your institution or online community, and shape the future of Wikimedia UK's work in this area!

The conference will be of interest to educators, scholarly societies members, contributors to Wikipedia and other open education projects, and students.

For details please visit the UK Chapter Wiki.

Please feel welcome to register or promote within your network.

Thank you, Daria Cybulska (talk) 16:21, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:46, 24 November 2015 (UTC)