Misplaced Pages

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This page is for discussion related to student assignments and the Misplaced Pages Education Program. Please feel free to post, whether you're from a class, a potential class, or if you're a Misplaced Pages editor. Topics for this board might include: Content issues created by real or potential student assignments Improving student assignment output quality per the RfC Questions about the trainings or any question from instructors or students Discussion of the Wiki Education Foundation or the Misplaced Pages Education Program. Students who have done great work and need {{The Excellent New Editor's Barnstar}} 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: An issue requiring immediate administrator attention → Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents Vandalism by non-participating students from schools → administrator intervention against vandalism. Cut-and-paste moves/history merge → the cut-and-paste move repair holding pen. Students revealing sensitive personal information → requests for oversight. Please DO NOT make such requests here; reports here are visible to everyone. Course announcements from dashboard.wikiedu.org / outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org → /Wiki Ed course submissions Issues related to dashboard.wikedu.org / outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org → meta:Talk:Programs & Events Dashboard For a list of topics that students should avoid editing → Misplaced Pages:General sanctions#Active sanctions			Shortcuts WP:EDUN WP:ENB "Start a new discussion thread". Use an informative title: ==Informative title==. If a thread is related to an ongoing discussion, consider placing it under a level-3 heading within that existing discussion. You should generally notify any user who is the subject of a discussion. You may use {{ping}} to do so, or simply link their username when you post your comment. It is not required to contact students when their edits are only being discussed in the context of a class-wide problem. If no comments have been made within 30 days, your post and any responses will be automatically archived. Please sign all contributions, using four tilde characters "~~~~". If discussion is already ongoing elsewhere or if there is a more natural location for a discussion, please continue the discussion there, and put a short note with a link to the relevant location on this page. If you cannot edit this page because it is protected, please place your comments on this page and they will be addressed. Managing threads If you'd like to make sure a thread does not get archived automatically after 30 days, use {{Do not archive until}} at the top of the section. Use {{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveNow}} within a section to have it archived (more or less) immediately. A brief Archives page lists them with the years in which those now inactive discussions took place. If you encounter new editors who appear to be students in a class project, but they have not identified their class, you can place Template:Welcome student (or, where appropriate, Template:Welcome medical student) on their user talk pages. Wiki Education Foundation only supports classes in Canada and the US. Classes in all other countries are supported by other organizations.

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University of Toronto mega-class controversy

A class at the University of Toronto with 1700 students was instructed by their professor to contribute a fact to Misplaced Pages. There were problems. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:58, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

For what it's worth, my understanding is that they were not "instructed" to contribute. This was an option for something like extra credit. Admittedly, it would be helpful if things were clearer and communications between Misplaced Pages and Joordens had not broken down. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 17:00, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

As far as Misplaced Pages is concerned, the degree of encouragement / compulsion involved isn't really that important -- it only affects what percentage of the students bother. The key point is that the motivation to make the edit and the choice about what to edit did not come from the student like it does with volunteer newbies. This, imo, fundamentally shifts some of the responsibilities for the consequences of those edits from the student to the person assigning the task. Hence the need for something like Misplaced Pages:Assignments. Colin° 17:47, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 18:16, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes if I remember correctly Joordens ask me not to email him any further. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 18:10, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Big problems with neuroscience articles

A very unpleasant situation has developed regarding a range of neuroscience articles. In the past we've had a number of courses where the teachers asked students to create articles, but the topics were always minor, and even though the results were mostly weak, the harm was limited.

Now, however, we seem to have a large group of students who have been asked to make small changes to core articles, such as axon and insomnia. The problem is that the edits are almost all bad and need to be reverted. This obviously isn't a good situation for anybody -- I wonder if there are any suggestions on how to deal with it? (I also wonder whether this is the right place to bring up the problem.) Looie496 (talk) 03:46, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

This is the right place. I browsed through contribs and couldn't find a course page or anything about what exactly the students have been asked to do. The best route is probably to ask the students to put you in touch with the professor, and try to have a discussion here to work out how the students can edit productively. The {{welcome student}} and {{welcome teacher}} templates may also be useful.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 16:09, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Most of these students don't even understand the concept of a talk page, but I'll try that if I have time. For what it's worth, they are clearly at the University of Toronto -- lots of their refs give url's that are only accessible from there. Looie496 (talk) 17:03, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Interesting. It's not definitive, but that's the same university system as this class (and the professor continued doing smaller Misplaced Pages projects without any on-wiki coordination or documentation is subsequent terms). I'll see if I can learn anything more.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 17:13, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

That looks exactly like what is happening here. Looie496 (talk) 17:27, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

• In the lead of Axon: The threshold current that excites an axon also defines the electrical excitability of that axon. To determine this threshold, it is best to use a computer to control the output of the current source, as it is a trial and error process. Irrelevant crap.
• In the "Nerve injury" section of Axon: In diseased or damaged axons, the inability to maintain the conduction of a meaningful impulse train may occur due to disturbed axonal excitability. Quite hard understand what this meaningless sentence adds to the article. The source says "When axons are diseased or damaged, disturbed axonal excitability may result in the inability to maintain conduction of a meaningful impulse train" so basically this student has taken text they don't understand and jumbled the words around.
• In the "Nodes of Ranvier" section of Axon: If the grey matter areas receive and injury then that's a permanent injury as they are not myelinated. Spinal cord contains grey areas as well and that's why if you get an injury in those areas than the person gets permanent paralytic. Where as the white areas injury can be recovered due to myelinated cells coating. Hence, the myelinated sheath cells also plays an important role in healing injuries. The illiterate student comment about nerve injury is not related to the Nodes of Ranvier.

Please can someone just block all accounts and IP access from University of Toronto IP addresses until their students stop crapping all over the articles. I'm serious, Sage Ross, this is just mass vandalism and needs to stop. Colin° 20:01, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Colin, if it is Joordens, we did everything we could to try to convince him to go about it the right way, and his response was to go underground. If the disruption is bad enough to merit admin intervention, it seems like protecting the articles that are being disrupted would be better than blocking the whole university system, in my opinion. (On a terminology note, it's not vandalism, just bad good-faith editing.)--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 20:17, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

This is fascinating as an organizational problem. It might not be unreasonable for someone to send an email or make a phone call to the professor presumed to be presiding over this, but of course I would not want to make trouble for anyone's good intentions. I really am not sure what to do in such cases but I would like to see policy developed toward a recommended response. How was a guess at the originating university made? I see that these edits are from registered users so no IP address is available.

I also do not want to jump to conclusions, but Joordens is notable as someone who has in the past been argumentative about his right to encourage students to do disruptive unproductive things on Misplaced Pages without regard to Misplaced Pages community guidelines. His idea as I understood it was that Misplaced Pages is a community space and that if it helps his students learn, then he need not answer to any community guidelines or consider creating a community work burden. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:23, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Sage Ross, do you realise that the "There's nothing we can/should do" response to bad student editing is based on the "anyone can edit" mantra (quietly forgetting the "The Encyclopedia ..." prefix) -- and your solution is to block volunteers from editing :-) It is quite impractical to block the hundred or so articles that Joordens' monkeys might attack every semester. On terminology, I'm not referring to the individual student edits but to the coordinated gradual destruction of Misplaced Pages articles. Misplaced Pages's admin policies are geared round one editor doing a lot of harm to a small set of articles. I think we need to write some kind of letter to his boss or the press in order to force things. Bluerasberry, look at the first diff and you'll see the student cites a paper within their own university intranet. Colin° 21:52, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Although I didn't specify, what I meant was that the articles should be semi-protected. That should be sufficient, since it looks like these students are trying to make their edits immediately after creating accounts. I agree that full protection isn't appropriate.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 23:16, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

I've been away from this noticeboard for a while, but this discussion header really caught my attention. I'm also very concerned about something I read below: that User:Lova Falk has felt the need to take a break because of the unpleasantness of working with some class projects. For editors who want to "do the right thing", as well as for good-faith student projects (both faculty and students), please point people to the essay Misplaced Pages:Assignments for student editors. But, specifically for cases like this one, where apparently the faculty member chooses not to respect community consensus, we need to establish a commonsense consensus that faculty editors and student editors are not entitled to some sort of special status, making them immune to the expectations that we place on everyone else, out of fear that we might make for a bad student experience. And I'm saying that as a long-time academic myself! See particularly WP:NOTTA: editors are not unpaid teaching assistants. If an instructor reacts badly to polite and constructive advice about policies and guidelines, and then fosters disruptive editing, take them to WP:ANI with no hesitation. If students make bad edits and are not responsive to polite suggestions to fix those edits, revert, revert, revert! --Tryptofish (talk) 21:55, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

The problem with Joordens is that blocking his account would have no effect as he doesn't use it. He's got 1700 fresh meatpuppet accounts to do his bidding every semester. I think we need policy to deal with student edits just as we are supposedly getting serious with COI/paid edits. It involves showing respect to the millions of hours of volunteer time that has gone into this project. About recognising that firstly this is an encyclopaedia to be read, not homework to be written and forgotten. That those running classes have to have competency in what they are assigning: able to edit to a reasonable level, aware of guidelines and policy on content and behaviour, willing to spend the time to review and fix up. About setting assignments that are recognised by the community as worthwhile and having a high success ratio rather than ones that are easy to automark. And that course organisers will be held accountable for their class's work. And that ultimately we will publicly shame institutions who persist in harming the project. Colin° 22:31, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree. Sage, let me suggest that a broad IP block of the university may be needed in this case (not that we decide it here), and is probably going to be more effective than trying to preemptively guess which pages to protect, or trying to communicate with anyone at the university. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:53, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Something does need to be done about this class. There might be a lot of collateral damage from a full UofT rangeblock, though. That's the largest uni in the country (although he appears to be at a satellite campus, which probably makes it more manageable). We need to get the prof engaging with us somehow. The Interior (Talk) 23:05, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm certainly not the one to make decisions about blocking the university's IP range; if it's serious enough and widespread enough (beyond the couple articles brought up here) that range blocks are the only good solution, then it should probably go to AN/I.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 23:12, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

I have a question arising from my lack of familiarity with the history here: has there ever been any sort of RfC/U? --Tryptofish (talk) 23:20, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't believe so. Perhaps we should try to confirm that this is Joordens' class by asking some of the students whose class they are in.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 23:27, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, that's what I suspected. I was trying to asses the extent of past efforts at dispute resolution, because sometimes it can be difficult to get complicated matters dealt with at ANI. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:31, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Come to think of it, perhaps WP:SPI would be a place to start, as an alternative to asking the students (which could end up being a little like "entrapment"). --Tryptofish (talk) 23:34, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

I think a lot of the previous efforts at dispute resolution happened off-wiki; after Joordens' first term participating in the Canada Education Program, he was asked (I think by Jami) to make some changes to his assignment, and when we wasn't willing to do that, he was asked not to do one at all.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 23:56, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Thinking back to what The Interior said above, the students presumably might be at the University of Toronto Scarborough, not the main campus. That might mean that a range block could be feasible without unreasonable collateral damage. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:02, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Putting on my checkuser hat for a minute here, it would be extremely unlikely that there would be no significant collateral damage when range blocking a large educational institution. In order to prevent these students (who have registered accounts, as I understand) from editing, the range would have to be "hard-blocked", meaning that neither unregistered or registered users could edit, and accounts could not be created. As a matter of practice, range blocks of universities are generally measured in hours or days, not months. Risker (talk) 00:38, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Incidentally, blocking the university will gain no benefit. Students are editing from home or from other locations. It is not a solution to anything. Risker (talk) 17:02, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I see, that's true. How about bringing back medieval torture? I don't know, maybe we are coming up against a new kind of problem that will require a new kind of tool to protect against it. I remain deeply concerned about the collateral damage to established editors here. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:03, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, my point was that it is a satellite campus, not the main campus. There's also collateral damage when established editors become unhappy with having to deal with troublesome student edits. It's a matter of balancing the one against the other – the lesser of two evils, if you will. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:09, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

This talk about blocking IPs, doing detective work, and protecting articles is not the most reasonable solution. Should it be the case that some professor is the cause of a problem, and that may or may not be happening in this case, then there needs to be some process for someone with authority to contact the school and negotiate resolution to the problem.

This could start with contacting students, go to contacting a professor, progress to contacting a department chair, and then end at contacting a university ombudsman. As Wikimedia projects do more off-wiki outreach there needs to be more off-wiki regulation. The regulation can either come from a new hierarchical structure or it can be crowdsourced to whoever wants to do complaint management on behalf of the Wikimedia brand. In the past, some complaints against professors have been crowdsourced to a mix of hotheads, trolls, well-meaning untrained and incompetent people, and sometimes people who actually fix the problem. However, crowdsourcing relatively high-profile brand-impacting affairs like outreach to seek discipline for professors at universities probably ought not be haphazard. If this is not something for paid staff associated with Misplaced Pages education management, then it at least ought to be a task for someone who is reviewed in the same way that OTRS volunteers are reviewed if not how sysops are reviewed. Complaining about this is potentially na attack on a professor's livelihood and a university's reputation. This entire situation is trouble if anyone does anything and trouble if no action is taken, regardless of whether anyone contacts the school or professor directly.

There needs to be a system of turning over problems like this to someone who will take responsibility for them. This has more potential for bad media attention than other Misplaced Pages problems, and anyone who cares about the brand image of Wikimedia projects in the media has a stake in the handling of this. I would support the US Education Program having dedicated staff authorized by the community and the organization to receive and handle complaints like these in a standardized, community-endorsed way. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:04, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate the goodwill in what you say here, but I think I need to point out that it's improbable that funds will be provided to hire more professional staff. (I'm basing that claim on recent discussions at the ArbCom talk page, where it was pointed out to me that WMF is unlikely to hire people to deal with some of the things that ArbCom does, even though similar arguments about the desirability of having professionals do it apply there.) As for complaints being a potential personal attack on a professor, comments here on-Wiki are far more benign in that regard than complaints to university administration would be. And frankly, most university administrations are going to take the "side" of the faculty member over that of Misplaced Pages, so we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking that universities will help us all that much. (I say that as a long-time insider in higher education.) What we can control is what goes on on-Wiki. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:21, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Having a designated Education program staff member as an "ombudsman" (or an easier-to-pronounce synonym) is something myself and several others involved with courses have supported. Someone who's main task is spotting problems, communicating with those involved, and good at putting out fires. If there is community support for such a position, I think it can happen. The Interior (Talk) 00:56, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

This is part of what's at stake in the edit I discuss here. Now, one thing is whether the Education Program (and or the Foundation proposed to run it) feels it has any responsibility for classes that are run outside of its remit. It would be nice if it felt it had an expanded remit, or some kind of (let's call it) moral leadership, but I'd quite understand if those involved want to wash their hands of such "underground" classes. On the other hand there certainly should be some kind of monitoring and attempt to resolve problems that arise within the program. This is an ongoing issue that so far the proposed board hasn't, so far as I can tell, wanted to address. See multiple conversations on this page, but also here. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 05:48, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree; whatever happens to the EP, it seems to me that an ombudsman role such as The Interior outlines would be a good staff position to have. I believe Jami had occasion to take on this sort of task at least a couple of times -- for example it's mentioned above that she was one of the people who contacted Steve Joordens. I'd like to see that role continue. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:31, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Reply from WoodSnake

Hey all ... yes those are likely students from my class. May I ask, exactly how wide spread is this problem? I see you noted three or four instances of problems, I assure you that is an extremely small percentage of the edits being made by my students, I assure you there are many good edits, and I further assure you that we are doing precise research on exactly this issue; how good are the edits, and how can we take advantage of the learning opportunity and the opportunity to add expertise to Misplaced Pages while minimizing collateral damage?

My reason for going "underground" was this ... in the previous instance Wikipedians were making vast over generalizations regarding a few problematic edits (see below!). We have been taking steps to further educate our students about Misplaced Pages formatting, editing and culture before asking them to make edits, and we are recording the effects and determining best practices ... and we're doing it in a programmatic scientific way. Yes errors are being made, and yes it's easy to hold a handful to the light and generalize this as just bad, when you're not even seeing the good edits. Did you all not make some errors when you first edited? Let he who has not sinned, and all that. My hope is that by bringing some students to Misplaced Pages, Misplaced Pages will eventually gain a highly educated core of editors with expertise, and this will be to the benefit of the quality of Misplaced Pages. But yes, these students do not begin as perfect beings. So we are researching the best way to in-culture them, measuring the effects, and arriving at best practices.

I am a scientist. I work with samples and means and I don't get all excited or completely upset by a individual datapoints. I'm interested in the big picture, and I'm interested in programmatic study and understanding. The vibe I got very early on is that some Wikipedians view Misplaced Pages as their turf, and believe it is their duty to defend it at all costs. They get immediately negative towards "immigrants", and yes that turned me off completely. Do you even know the rate of your own errors as you were "immigrating"? Would it not make more sense to welcome and assist these new users rather than attempt to drive them out or block them as suggested? I don't have the time or energy to argue over individual data points. I will happily share our data when it's ready to be shared, and I assure you I understand the desire to educate these students as much as possible before having them edit. But people learn from experience and from useful feedback from those who know. I would love to see some of that from the Misplaced Pages community instead of this strong push-back reaction.

That is my perspective ... my students represent a potential resource ... I have the responsibility of introducing them well and learning how to do so while causing the least damage. I do not think any of us should jump to conclusions before we really understand the whole picture, and that's what I'm trying to do. But you all should, in my opinion, also play the role of welcoming the immigrants and helping them to adjust to the culture. Marking something as "irrelevant crap" is not helpful and makes me really not want to discuss these issues. If you'd like to have reasoned discussion, then I'm interested, although please also understand that my life is extremely busy!

So let me leave you all with this question. Let's say 100 students make edits on my class. Some percentage of those edits are problematic, and the people who make them never get involved or change their edits to correct them. Let's call them group A. Some other percentage do the work OK, add some useful information at a decent rate, but then just go away from Misplaced Pages. Let's call them B. Finally, some percent of students really enjoy the experience, do it well, and continue to edit articles as you all do as they proceed through their studies. The become great Misplaced Pages citizens who make expert contributions. The vibe I get is that you guys want 0% As, which is probably never going to happen. We can minimize A, but we won't get to zero, ever. Is that really your desired criterion? Or would you be willing to put up with some percent of As (representing short term annoyance) for some other percent of Cs (representing long-term quality contributions). What percents would make you happy? Have you even thought of the upside of what I'm trying to do? WoodSnake (talk) 14:47, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

WoodSnake, many of us took psychology articles off our watchlists as a lost cause. How widespread is it? Give us a list of the articles edited and we'll look. We can't generally go around guessing that so-and-so is one of your students because that might be interpreted as outing. While I appreciate you've fallen out with the education programme, there is no reason, per transparency, for you not to list which students are in the class. Because you are responsible for their edits. You asked them to make them. Are you cleaning up their mistakes? No. Saying there were "a few problematic edits" with your class is not helpful. We need to you be honest with us here. The huge problems with your class in the past are well documented and on a large scale. The "add a factoid to Misplaced Pages" class assignment is not helping Misplaced Pages and never will no matter what analysis you perform on it. Misplaced Pages is not an experiment lab.

The edit (first diff above) to the lead of Axon (an important topic that gets over a thousand hits a day) was "irrelevant crap". There's no other way of spinning it. If the student was a plain vandal writing "Jonny is gay" then at least the reader could skip and it would be trivial to spot and remove it. Instead your students are damaging Misplaced Pages articles in an insidious way. It is quite clear your students generally haven't a clue what they are writing about. There's no point suggesting we "welcome and assist these new users" when they don't identify themselves, don't use talk pages, and their accounts are very temporary. We need you to open up wrt the classroom assignments you are setting. You don't need to do it through the programme, just a list in your user space would help. The community has no way of properly analysing their work otherwise. Is there an upside to what you are doing? Are there any of your "add a factoid" students in category C at all? Please I'd love to have even one example from your "mega classroom". Colin° 16:07, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

"We need you to open up wrt the classroom assignments you are setting. You don't need to do it through the programme, just a list in your user space would help." I very much agree with this. At present it feels as though these students are less "immigrants" than secret agents. Moreover I think it would help you, them, and everyone else if there were one place in which discussions that arise from the project could take place. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 23:04, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

You're talking about reducing the bad edits to 0%, but in my experience they approach 100%. Look at the recent history of axon, insomnia, action potential, cerebral hemisphere, corpus callosum, and neurogenesis -- what fraction of those edits improve the articles? Looie496 (talk) 19:42, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

WoodSnake, thank you for coming here to comment. Please do me a big favor, and read Misplaced Pages:Assignments for student editors, and especially WP:INSTRUCTORS. As it happens, I'm an academic scientist too, many years tenure at a large US research university. Sure, I made mistakes when I first began editing. I still do! But I always try to listen to people who tell me I have made mistakes, and try to work with them cooperatively, not go underground. You are mistaken to think that Wikipedians regard the project as our turf that we have to defend from new editors. It's quite the opposite. But, like any other human institution, we have norms and rules. Our principle goal is to create an encyclopedia, not to provide you with an experimental protocol. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:32, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

"How I incorporate Misplaced Pages assignments in my mega (i.e., 1800 student) Introductory Psychology class" was the description of the 2013 talk at this workshop. I would be really curious to hear what kinds of things the professor said. I presume that this presentation was about the benefits of doing this. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:51, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Bluerasberry, thank you for not seeming so much like a villager with a torch and pitchfork charging up the hill to my residence! Guys, my intentions are good, and I am very open to working with the community to find ways to assess and maximize the quality contributions while minimizing negative effects on Misplaced Pages. Heck, part of my goal is to better spread knowledge about psychology via Misplaced Pages so I also want the quality to be high. That said, yes I do also come at this from an educational psychology bent ... if you want a taste you can search YouTube for my TEDxUTSC talk that relates to the use of Misplaced Pages in education. All that said, I have very strong negative reactions to what I see as the cyber-stalking of my students. I consider it improper and borderline (or not) illegal ... in fact in one recent case a "defender" acquired username information from a student in one of my classes so they could check up on edits. That is simply improper. BUT this is not to say we can't come up with appropriate ways of satisfying my goals and the larger goals of the Misplaced Pages community, and I am meeting with some people today to describe a proposal that would involve community members if they're willing to participate in a proper manner (i.e., research, not witch hunting). Here is the idea ... we give you a list of articles, with specific edits highlighted. Some of those edits were performed by my students ... others by Misplaced Pages editors at a similar (early) experience level. You guys judge the quality of those edits "blind" and therefore without bias. My Ph.D. student compiles the data and shares the results. We will choose student edits randomly, and will choose the control articles randomly, and we'll see how bad things really are. If there is truth to your concerns (and I do not suggest there are not ... I just trust cumulative data over witch hunts) then we will at least have a measure of how big the problem is, and whether we all can think of ways of reducing it ... not to zero, but to culturally accepted (i.e., control group) levels. If we deem that impossible in some cases (e.g., my very large class) then I can be convinced - by the data and not by the pitchforks - to give up on it despite the learning potential. But let's do this scientifically, shall we? I have invited a long term Misplaced Pages editor (and administrator) who approached me without pitchfork in hand to be part of the meeting along with another long term editor (and I think administrator) who is associated with UofT. So what do you say, do we approach this rationally, or do you want to continue with the cyberstalking and threats of IP blocking? WoodSnake (talk)

WoodSnake, thanks again for engaging here. I have a couple of comments in response. First, I'm not sure that selecting other users at a similarly early level is an appropriate control group, because editors who edit without external prompting via a class are self-motivated, and probably more likely to remain as long-term editors. The reason that experienced editors are glad to help new ones is that some of them will turn into productive editors. What data we have to date suggests that the retention rate from student editing is close to zero, which makes them not comparable to a control group of new editors. I think some consideration of retention rate would be necessary to make the two groups comparable. Second, new editors typically do not start by trying to add a single cited fact to an article; early edits are more often typo fixes and so on, which makes it easier for the editors to learn. This may make it hard to find a comparable control group, and might make it hard to interpret the results.

The most important point, however, is that the work your students are doing really is doing harm right now. I don't want to see a witch hunt, nor a block, but I do want to see some cooperative movement towards a better way of engaging your students. The evaluations that have been done on your students' work so far really are quite alarming -- surely you would agree that if the plagiarism rate does turn out to be over 80%, as the initial results indicate, then that can't be a positive outcome under any circumstances? I think some experiment such as you describe could be valuable, but given the feedback you're getting here -- both anecdotal and, to some degree, data-based -- it seems to me the right thing to do would be at a minimum to scale the experiment down to a size that, if your critics are right, is too small to cause significant damage. There are real people, all volunteers, having to do tedious work to correct the mistakes your students are making. We'd all be delighted if the upside happens, but please look at the data we have so far, and comment on that before going ahead with the next class or experiment.

Speaking for myself, I'd be willing to participate in an experiment such as you describe but only if I felt you had genuinely considered the data we are trying to assemble for your review, and only if I felt confident the scale was small enough that it would not be very harmful. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:42, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Woodsnake, let me see if I'm understanding you correctly. You're "very open to working with the community", except when the community asks you to not do something you want to do, at which point you're not interested in listening to what the community is asking you to (not) do. You believe we are illegally cyber-stalking your students by attempting to clean up after the edits they're making, but you don't believe that you are in any way misusing our servers or volunteers by forcing through edits which you have repeatedly been asked to stop having your students make, and which need significant editor time to correct. You want to work "scientifically", in a "research"-oriented manner with Misplaced Pages to evaluate your students' edit quality, and you want to do this by operating a non-blind study in which you, the interested party, pick the data, and your student, another non-blind interested party, analyzes the results and presents Misplaced Pages with a fait accompli. Do I have this all correct? So basically you're going to do what you want, when you want it, even if you're asked to not do it; you're going to make borderline legal threats to those who attempt to clean up after you; and your idea of a compromise on these matters is a "study" the design and independence of which would get laughed out of town by anyone with so much as Psych 101 research experience. I don't even know how to respond to an overture like that except to say that all it appears to do is demonstrate even further how little you're interested in cooperating with Misplaced Pages in any way. It would be a catastrophic shame if Misplaced Pages was forced to block IPs belonging to your campus, or to contact someone higher in your department, because those things have serious consequences both for Misplaced Pages's openness and your ability to teach as you see fit, but if this is your best offer as far as minimizing the damage done by your students you may be leaving us little choice. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 17:32, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree 100% with Fluffernutter, and I'll point out one more thing. In any study involving human participants, there is an ethical and moral requirement for informed consent. It seems to me that WoodSnake has already gotten very far into this "study" without any regard whatsoever for the consent of all the humans here at Misplaced Pages who have been confronted by the student edits. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:57, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

See meta:Research:Committee to contact the research board for ethical approval. I suggest that any professor doing this appear here with ethical review from the university's own human subject research board so as to bear the most of the burden of research review. I agree that this project has already put a substantial work burden of at least 100 hours on this volunteer community, and other people may have other estimates. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:19, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Per Misplaced Pages:No legal threats (plus the huge damage his class has caused) I've reported User:WoodSnake at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Class of 1700 students fill Misplaced Pages with plagiarism. Response from prof is accusation of illegal behaviour by editors. -- Colin° 19:04, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi Woodsnake, may I make a suggestion here? One of our biggest concerns is over plagiarism, now we may or may not have enough datapoints to prove that your students have as big a problem here as one of our recent bad experiences with undergraduate editing. But it would be very helpful if on your part you changed the metrics of your project to count undetected plagiarism as a bad edit instead of a surviving and therefore "good" edit; Remind your students of what plagiarism is and tell them that their edits are likely to be checked for it. And if you are going to get some PHD students to check samples of your students edits it would be much better from our perspective if you arranged for them to revert or correct those edits that they considered bad. ϢereSpielChequers 20:05, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

WereSpielChequers, tweaking the assignment in a minor way won't help. The main point of the exercise is to set assignments that don't need to be assessed by a paid human-being from UoT. See the "Note from Misplaced Pages Education Program" below. Such large scale unsupervised assignments don't work on Misplaced Pages. In addition, the whole concept of adding a factoid to a serious article topic as a means of improving Misplaced Pages is fundamentally mistaken. As someone elsewhere commented, this doesn't create an article, it creates a collage. Colin° 07:52, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi Colin, perhaps I was drawing too many parallels between this and the Indian Education program - but I think one albeit disputed allegation is that 85% of these edits involved plagiarism, so in my view it wouldn't be a minor change to try and fix that. Now there may be other changes that he also needs to make, but I think it would be helpful if we were very clear both as to the changes that we want made to this program and the measures that we will otherwise need to take. Personally I'm quite happy to semi protect articles being damaged by this and also would support a general block of the Toronto area, but only as a last resort after trying to persuade this Academic to bring his program into line with our policies. When it comes to adding missing facts to articles, well this is a crowd sourced site, if someone makes a minor improvement to an article, whether by fixing a typo or adding a missing factoid then we should support that. If the information is incorrect, irrelevant, spammy or as alleged in this case, largely plagiarism then we don't want it and we are of course entitled to defend the integrity of this site through our usual tools of protecting articles and blocking accounts and IP addresses. Where I suspect we need to develop policy is in the issue of compulsory editing. We are a volunteer site, and we should embrace new goodfaith volunteers even where they make newbie mistakes. But students on an assignment are not volunteers, they may not have the commitment to quality that we expect of new volunteers who are making edits for purely altruistic reasons, and our investment in cleaning up after their initial edits is unlikely to be repaid in future high quality contributions. Perhaps we need to change our policies to "any volunteer" can edit, and specify that students editing under instruction to do so are only welcome if their instructor checks their edits; But I'm not aware that we already have that as explicit policy rather than our implicit policies about disruptive editing. ϢereSpielChequers 20:42, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

See Misplaced Pages:Assignments which is my attempt to draft a policy that addresses precisely this fact: people editing under instruction are different and the responsibilities don't fully lie with the editor. As for minor tweaks, I agree that eliminating plagiarism would be a major bonus (but insufficient to make me happy with the assignment goal) but adding a stick to the process is insufficient -- the assignment design is almost guaranteed to produce plagiarism in all but the most talented and wise of students. Colin° 20:59, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Hello all ... you're friendly neighborhood villain here. After speaking with Philippe yesterday I think I have a much better understanding of how all of this controversy came about. I'm not going to speak directly to some of the claims that are being made because I think they are mostly wrong but, more importantly, that they miss the main point. I've prepared the following piece and this is what I am sending to any reporters or the like who ask for my perspective. I humbly ask that you guys just read it with an open mind. In the immortal words of Frankenstein, I am not a monster ... and we are not enemies. OK, here it is ... WoodSnake (talk) 16:33, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Misunderstanding of Intent and Capacity

I added an optional Misplaced Pages editing assignment to my extremely large (i.e., now 1900 student) Introductory Psychology course; what was I thinking, and why did this result in so much outrage on the part of the Misplaced Pages community directed towards me and my institution? Part of my course includes a discussion of the scientific method, a discussion that ends with me highlighting the responsibility of all researchers to communicate the results of their research with the world: so-called dissemination of findings. I thought that adding a Misplaced Pages assignment, one that asked students to my small scale edits (i.e., add one new piece of information) would directly involve them in the process and – assuming that most did their edits well – that in the process we would be enhancing the quantity and quality of Psychology related information on Misplaced Pages. My students would gain a great learning experience that would bring their learning to life, and Misplaced Pages would benefit in the short-term (via the edits made) and perhaps in the longer term as well (via some students perhaps becoming long-term editors). This is what I was thinking.

What was I not thinking? Well, I now realize, after a discussion from Philippe Beaudette from the WikiMedia Foundation – the first individual that seemed to tolerate a reasonable exchange of views on this issue – that I held an assumption that was simply incorrect. Specifically, what always amazed me and so many others about the success of Misplaced Pages is that it stood as a clear demonstration of the power of crowd sourcing. When an editor changes a Misplaced Pages page, they usually improve it (i.e., add “signal” to the information) but they also sometimes do something problematic like post mis-information, improperly cite, fail to use a neutral voice, and yes even copy/paste in someone else’s words (i.e., noise). But the beauty of crowd sourcing is that as other eyes assess the edits then slowly, and thanks almost totally to the existing editor base, the noise gets cleaned up. This iterative process ultimately leads to very strong articles, at least in areas where the current editor base has the expertise to tell signal from noise. In fact tied to my intention was the idea that perhaps we would induce more psychology students into the editorial fold and that, as they developed their skills, they would be the ones ultimately “cleaning up” the psychology related articles, articles that are sorely in need of work (see the APS Misplaced Pages Challenge for more information on that).

But here was my mistake: I assumed that the current core of editors was extremely large and that the introduction of up to 1000 new editors would be seen as a positive. However, the current core of editors turns out NOT to be that large, and even if my students were bringing signal along with noise, the noise was just too much to deal with on the scale it was happening. Thus what I interpreted as a resistance to Misplaced Pages “immigrants” was really a resistance to the sheer number of immigrants arriving at once. I was expecting too much of the current Misplaced Pages community, they became annoyed and frustrated and thanks to what I now view as our mutual misunderstanding of the problem, things became heated to a point I personally found somewhat ridiculous.

Now that I understand the constraints of immigration, and now that at least some members of the Misplaced Pages community are putting down their digital pitchforks, it is becoming more and more obvious to me that we all share the same goal of improving the quality and quantity of information on Misplaced Pages, and if we could find ways of working together while also being respectful of one another, we could really do some great things. That means me being more respectful of the capacity limits of Misplaced Pages, and being even more aggressive in terms of trying to pre-train editors before they edit. Some training was in fact part of the learning experience, but I have no doubt we can do better, and I simply will not unleash large numbers of new editors if the capacity of Misplaced Pages cannot handle it. So I need to respect that.

In turn, the Misplaced Pages community needs to afford more respect to my students, if not to me. A core responsibility of mine is to protect the privacy of my students. Wikipedians have asked for all their usernames and I have refused. But I do not refuse to be obstinate. Rather I am bound by law to protect the privacy of my students and given that some of them have personally identifying information in their profiles I simply cannot provide usernames. Moreover, if I did I know what would happen because I’ve seen it. Each username would be traced in a quest for the noise, noise that would be held up and exaggerated as if it were the most horrible piece of information on the planet, as if the majority of new editors didn’t produce the very same errors early in the game. This is not being respectful, nor is it being honest. The problem is not that some of my students produce some noise, it is that there are simply too many students. I hope we can all agree on that.

So what is the solution? Well, IF the noise could be reduced to a very low amount via better training then MAYBE introducing large numbers of editors to Misplaced Pages could be managed without overburdening the current group of core editors. But any attempt in that direction would require closer oversight than it has been given to date. We have been collecting data, and I will present some below. But given the distrust that at least some members of the Misplaced Pages community have for me, it is clear that we either stop doing this with my large class, or we do it in close association with the WikiMedia foundation, while also allowing the WikiMedia foundation to shut things down should they deem that necessary. I am OK with that. With the right ethics protocol in place I think we can share username information with them, and perhaps with help from the Misplaced Pages community we could assess the overall effects of this on the health and wellbeing of Misplaced Pages.

So let me end this by coming back to the original point. One responsibility of a scientist is to share their data. My Ph.D. student is now writing up a full description of our study and I will share that immediate with Philippe when it’s done, and he can share it from there. But I want to highlight the following. Of those students who did do the Misplaced Pages editing assignment, 32% continue to edit Misplaced Pages articles after the course was over. In fact, in total, 910 articles were edited for grades, and 530 were edited thereafter by students who became interested in editing Misplaced Pages articles. We are bringing new editors into Misplaced Pages. Moreover, of the 910 articles edited only 33 were tagged, only 3 for vandalism or suspected vandalism reasons. Of the 530 edited by students outside of the course only 3 were tagged, none for vandalism (1 section blanking, 2 categories removed). So the larger point is that good content is being added, future editors are being attracted, and if we can further reduce the signal to noise ratio then the model I am presenting to the Misplaced Pages community could be a strong positive influence. That’s a strong change of attitude for me to hope for, but I’m a positive guy in general.

So let me end then by apologizing for not fully understanding the capacity issues, and for not addressing this issue as well as I might have earlier on. Frankly, I didn’t understand the problem, and now that I do I better understand the frustrations that my assignment gave rise to. I would love to continue to run these assignments because, from my perspective, they provide a great learning experience for students and they benefit Misplaced Pages. I am happy to perform direct research with the WikiMedia group to find ways of doing this that do not strain the capacity of Misplaced Pages, assuming that is possible. If we can find such ways, and if the Misplaced Pages community can be convinced that I am not a monster, then I sincerely love the idea of all of us working together to create a model that will strengthen Misplaced Pages and ultimately reduce the workload on current editors by bringing in new ones with unique areas of expertise. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.1.98.60 (talk) 16:22, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

WoodSnake, thank you so very much for your thoughtful and detailed reply here! And thanks as well to Philippe for his excellent efforts! This is my reaction to what you said, one editor's opinion only. I think that the direction you are now taking is a very good one. I also ask you not to lump every Misplaced Pages editor into a single category, and recognize that we are not all running around with pitchforks. If you look at what I, individually, have said to you earlier in this talk thread, as well as what numerous other editors have said, you will see that this is true. Again, I will ask you to please read WP:ASSIGN, because I think that will go a long way to help you understand Misplaced Pages's perspective. I'll also ask you to think about informed consent for your experiment, as it applies to the editor population here. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:35, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

As the editor who first raised this problem (for the current iteration), let me say that I did so because I hated having to revert all those student edits, but I felt that I had no choice. My goal through all of this has been to make sure that it doesn't happen again, and so the one remaining thing I ask for is an unambiguous commitment not to carry out any further mass editing projects without approval from Misplaced Pages's education board. That could be read as implicit in what you wrote, but I think at this point it needs to be made fully explicit. Regards, Looie496 (talk) 16:48, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm also very pleased to see this olive branch from Woodsnake. However, I don't think supervision of his students' edits should be negotiable - if students are somehow creating personally-identifying usernames or user pages which cannot be linked onwiki, the solution is to caution them against releasing that type of information, not to deliberately obscure their connection to the project. We even have a policy which will let us permanently delete from history any such disclosures by students who didn't understand the magnitude of what they were disclosing. They by no means have to identify who they are in the real world on Misplaced Pages, but they have to identify themselves as editing from an education project. The history of the Education Program, in general, and Woodsnake's classes, in particular, has shown us that is is important to have experienced editors keeping an eye on student editors, because when large (or even small or medium-sized) groups of new editors are sent here with limited familiarity with our policies, problems are inevitable. That means someone experienced has to be watching, to prevent damage to the project - someone who has experience with wikipedia, not just a professor or TAs who mostly don't. Now, we don't need the students' real names, or their addresses, or their ages, or anything like that, to do this watching. All we need is their usernames, which can be absolutely as obscure and non-identifying as the students wish them to be, and for which Woodsnake can use a private rubric we don't need to see linking which username goes with which student's real name - but we need to have that username list if there's any hope of supervising the assignment(s), which I, at least, feel is a non-negotiable aspect of any class being allowed to run classroom projects on Misplaced Pages. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 20:25, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree with all of that. Identifying the students by user name has nothing to do with identifying them in real life. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:55, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

+1. Identifying large student groups making similar edits is necessary. So is a central point of contact for the class. @Woodsnake - tracking contributions from a cohort of editors is not "cyberstalking"; it's unkind to suggest such a thing. If you are concerned about students' work being tied to their real names, advise them in choosing pseudonyms. – SJ + 08:54, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

indeed. A little late to the party, but one thing that I try to convey when teaching Misplaced Pages is that you are entering a real-world editorial environment. Imagine putting all those students into the newsroom of a working, high-quality newspaper. Some stuff would get kept, some would be mercilessly cut; a learning curve is implied, but is necessarily steep and short. For what it's worth, that's largely what Misplaced Pages is like day to day, but with the additional problems of very large scale. I also agree that your students should be advised that they should choose an appropriate pseudonym, or if they use their real name it will probably become the highest google hit on their name (whether or not you consolidate this information; that's just the nature of Misplaced Pages). -- phoebe / (talk to me) 20:08, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Steve (if I may): I likewise welcome your lengthy response. Nor is this the first time that you've come to this page to explain where you're coming from. I very much think that it's better if any projects such as yours take place in the open, with the responsibility and accountability that that entails. And yes, though there are many thousands of Misplaced Pages editors, this is a big place and it can't be assumed that mistakes will always swiftly and effortlessly be corrected. Ironically, this is especially true when it comes to the correction of sourced material: while it's relatively easy for outright vandalism to be reverted (there are even automated processes to do that), the kinds of mistakes that many of your students have been making are much less likely to be spotted, and more time-consuming to fix. In some ways this means that the well-intentioned editor can cause much more damage than the malicious one. Which is why people have reacted rather strongly against the notion that Wikipedians can and should simply clean up after a project such as this one.

To be honest, I'm not sure that a Misplaced Pages assignment makes sense in a class as big as the one you're teaching. I'd love to be proved wrong, but I don't see it. Myself, I'm currently teaching a course that's much larger than those I usually teach--and to make matters worse, it's on texts and authors that are much more mainstream and canonical than those I usually cover. Finally, it's also a first-year class, rather than the upper-division seminars that I tend to have. Hence, though I'd love to find a way to use Misplaced Pages in this course, I've decided it's simply impossible. It's both much more likely that student contributions will tend to be unhelpful rather than positive (through no real fault of their own); and it would also be much more difficult for me to have any reasonable oversight of what they are doing. And I think you do need real oversight, because as has been pointed out proxy indicators such as whether or not an edit "sticks" simply aren't reliable enough.

But yes, this is a conversation that should continue. I hope it does. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 11:49, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

It's good to see the class's work being analysed by two very different groups (a grad student working with the prof, and editors here). I hope the raw data is shared so we can compare the results; right now the rough estimates of the two different efforts are quite different. – SJ + 08:54, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Further replies to Woodsnake

(creating a break because the section was very long)

I'm glad to see one light bulb has gone on, though many more are needed IMO, to appreciate all that has gone wrong here and what is acceptable never mind desirable. Yes, there are only a handful of editors supervising the whole of psychology and neuroscience between them. I think LovaFalk in particular is owed an apology after her watchlist burnt out with the strain and she (rightly) went on a Wikibreak unable to cope. I don't see any offer help clean up the mess that has been made.

I think you need to reflect on your response to the reaction you got here (way back to 2011). What I continue to see in your writing is that because you think you are doing a good thing, those jumping up and down and trying to stop you must be crazy, irrational, misguided, ignorant and dangerous. Your comment about Phillipe ("the first individual that seemed to tolerate a reasonable exchange of views on this issue") reflects your own psychology where you continue to treat editors here as noisy children. Without diminishing Phillipe's skills in negotiation, the prime reason IMO you listened to him was that Phillipe is an authority figure you had to treat with respect. What needs to change, WoodSnake, is for you to treat us Wikipedians with respect and not as children. Those involved in this discussion are mostly professionals with degrees who are intelligent and rational. Many of us have experience with teaching and assessing student work. Some have run classes on Misplaced Pages that have been successful. You grudgingly admit to one (whopper of a) mistake but still maintain everything else you are doing is great. Let me make it clear that your class exercise is a textbook example of all the things that can go wrong with student editing and should be avoided. Truly a car crash of an assignment.

Your assumption "that most did their edits well" is just one other fundamental flaw to take as an example. There are pretty obvious reasons why your assignment would generate bad edits. We highlighted many of them in 2011 but you chose not to listen.

Wrt the signal/noise analogy, many factors concerning your assignment guarantee that more noise will be created and that such noise is in fact not detected or fixed. Take one example. Even among those students who actually managed a useful citation, we frequently see them source their work to your class textbook. Do you realise there is not a single editor on Misplaced Pages who has this book, who is an experienced Wikipedian, who understands psychology/neuroscience and who has the time to review hundreds of edits all made on the 22nd March 2013. Not one. And plagiarism is just the worst of the many flaws in the edits being made.

Wrt privacy. Your students are editing a public website. We absolutely reserve the right to review these edits and to analyse editing patterns. If you aren't prepared to release your class list in future then don't edit here. Simple as that. Not negotiable. We can't have guerilla class assignments. The other classes working with the education programs see no problems producing class lists, so I see no legal or ethical problems with this here. If you continue to "fly under the radar" then your account will be blocked and efforts made to prevent students from UoT editing.

You say the "noise held up and exaggerated " and this is not "being honest" and "The problem is not that some of my students produce some noise, it is that there are simply too many students. I hope we can all agree on that." No we can't agree on that. And calling us dishonest is no way for you to begin to mend relationships here. Until you appreciate the sheer awfulness and harm of the student edits made by your megaclass, we can't really move on.

I can't comment on editor retention figures because they aren't public. What is clear is that none of your students continue to edit using the accounts made for the class.

Wrt quality, you say "of the 910 articles edited only 33 were tagged, only 3 for vandalism or suspected vandalism reasons... So the larger point is that good content is being added." The reality-distortion matrix that must be in place round Toronto is especially strong today. I don't know how you are detecting "tagged" articles, as you put it, but your measure of quality is quite inappropriate. Really, it looks like you are saying that unless some bot tagged the edit with "suspected vandalism" or "section blanking" that you think the edit is "good".

It is clear that you have not accessed the quality of writing or amount of plagiarism with your own eyes or those of your assistants. Your PhD's analysis, using some computer program, is utterly worthless. I can't stress this enough. Until you appreciate that edit quality can only be assessed by a human who is (a) a Wikipedian and (b) knowledgeable in the subject matter and (c) has access to the source and (d) has a lot of time for this (i.e., it is their job) then your impression of what good or bad is being done is simply worthless.

The "strong change of attitude" you desire needs to come from you, I'm afraid. You've got a long way further to grasp the reasons why your assignment is hugely flawed and your mechanical assessment approach is worthless. -- Colin° 12:04, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Colin, as an aside—while I appreciate and generally endorse your frustration with Woodsnake's conduct and responses to criticism, it would be helpful to dial back a just a touch on the broad-brush sarcasm ("the reality-distortion matrix...around Toronto") and implied threats ("efforts made to prevent students from UoT editing"). Toronto is North America's fourth-largest city (bigger than Chicago, smaller than Los Angeles), and home to hundreds of self-identified – and probably tens of thousands of not-specifically-identified – Misplaced Pages editors. The University of Toronto is Canada's largest university system, with more than eighty thousand students and some thousands of faculty spread across many different campuses and locations. Damning all of them because one professor demonstrated poor judgement is unfair, and threatening to block them all isn't even technically credible. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 12:52, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate you are trying to be diplomatic and nobody will ever give me the barnstar of diplomacy, but cut me a bit more slack will you. I've just been called a criminal and a liar by this professor, after spending my Bank Holiday weekend reviewing his student's edits and this all after my 2011 report on his class was utterly ignored and dismissed by him and (some within the education program). The reality-distortion comment was pretty mild considering what could be said about his "worthless stats => good content" analysis. I agree blocking most of Toronto is unwise but there are other ways of preventing his class editing Misplaced Pages. That wasn't an implied threat or an idle one.

Perhaps folk here want to reflect that most of the 910 articles these students have edited now have copyright violations in them. A good third perhaps from one textbook. A large proportion of those edits have no citation or some random impenetrable url within the UoT intranet. Is anyone doing anything about that? Is Joordens, now that he appreciates there are about three editors watchlisting psychology articles and not three thousand, going to employ someone to work with Misplaced Pages to review and fix this? Perhaps they could write up their findings and publish them. Or do we all shrug our shoulders, kiss and make up, and hope next time isn't as bad? I don't see this happening while Joordens continues to believe his students did good work according to his mistaken method of assessing student edit quality. And I'd bet his PhD student's work is founded on this too along with some up-and-coming academic paper. To quote one of Doc James' inspriations:

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it. -- Upton Sinclair

Colin° 17:34, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

TenOffAll review some of the edits in question. It will help you make an informed decision. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 01:10, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

I am grateful to both Jmh and Colin for the time you have put into these classes, from 2011 to the present. I also second TOA's request to calm down. You are both being just a bit more angry and dramatic than is helpful. – SJ + 23:58, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Let me put it this way. If you aren't angry about this, you haven't really understood what has happened or you don't care. I don't think the latter applies to you, so... Colin° 07:12, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't see how anger is productive here: it is not helping get through to the professor or class in question. On the other hand, there are things we can do to ensure that the prof in this case, and future profs, don't make the same mistake; and to catch this sort of mistake in progress. – SJ + 10:57, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Colin's dead right on this one. We have had similar experiences (never so many students though) on the articles supervised by WP:CM. Professors need to be willing to take responsibility for the results of such assignments. As it stands, it makes of the volunteer editor community forced teaching assistants, correcting, in effect, their students work. The professor's response is conciliatory, certainly, but Colin's core points are exact. Eusebeus (talk) 11:22, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Wow, this debate is truly hilarious! As an educator, I've been griping about students plagiarizing content FROM Misplaced Pages for years and now the Misplaced Pages community is griping about students plagiarizing academic content TO Misplaced Pages!

From my perspective, It seems that Misplaced Pages as a whole is much more of a blight on academia than academia could ever be on Misplaced Pages. It presents information on important topics in such a surface-level manner that it is almost useless for all academic intents and purposes and, more importantly, the contributors are vetted only by their standing on Misplaced Pages itself! Are you really a doctor? I don't know… nobody does! And if you are, what kind? Is a general practitioner qualified to write about colon cancer? I don't know, and Misplaced Pages doesn't care!

When it comes to the plagiarism debate, I believe Misplaced Pages and it's editors share equally in the responsibility with academic institutions by making the information readily available to students. It's like Misplaced Pages editors are the drug dealers tempting our children and instructors like Mr Joordens are the negligent parents who send their child out into the world and only say "be good". Like it or not we are all responsible for what we put out into the world. Misplaced Pages editors should be held accountable for how people use the information they publish in the same way that Mr Joordens and any educator who directs his or her students to edit Misplaced Pages should be held accountable for how the students edit the articles. While I understand that enforcement of this "high responsibility" would be next to impossible for an educator as you don't know what students will do until after they do it (or is precrime detection a reality yet?), it would be somewhat easier to enforce amongst Misplaced Pages editors in cases where ambiguous edits or outdated information posted on Misplaced Pages lead to personal injury or loss by a consumer of the information (e.g., medical or financial information). Let's face it: Misplaced Pages has no place in academia just like academia has no place on Misplaced Pages. Thus, I agree that Misplaced Pages should implement an IP block: not just of Mr Joordens students, but of all academic institutions globally. Students are not qualified to edit Misplaced Pages articles and they definitely should not be using them to complete assignments, so why even make it accessible from these locations? Likewise, any institution that wants to maintain academic integrity should implement an IP block and restrict access to Misplaced Pages.

Anyway, that's just my two cents. I don't mean to deride Misplaced Pages… I use it all the time for quick reference on non-critical topics. It's just to say that until Misplaced Pages vets it's editors and limits their contributions to the scope of their expertise (and maybe even adopt in a peer review system, that's "peer" not "user") it will not be up to academic standards and thus incompatible with any meaningful academic endeavour. This whole debate proves what I've been saying for years: students should not be allowed to use or edit Misplaced Pages under any circumstance (except for looking up fictional characters from their favourite TV shows of course). I think that to prevent plagiarism and to truly increase the quality of information on Misplaced Pages the registration and editing process should require real names and personal information (e.g., supported by government-issued identification and professional registration). The contributions could still be anonymized by account name, but at least Misplaced Pages could then limit the scope of the user's editing rights on the back end and have a greater degree of quality control and assurance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.246.43.68 (talk) 10:46, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, plagiarism is an issue for both academics and Wikipedians. I've been saying for ages now that this is one good reason to make common cause, instead of both sides viewing each other with such suspicion. For even if you wanted to ban Misplaced Pages from academia or vice versa, the geni is long out of the bottle. More useful, indeed, is to teach students how to read Misplaced Pages (and by extension any similar text) critically and thoughtfully. I have found that the best way to teach students how to read Misplaced Pages is to show them how it works; and the best way to do that, is to get them editing.

Incidentally, this is where I somewhat disagree with Misplaced Pages:Assignments. I don't see any particular reason why "The purpose of assignment must be to improve Misplaced Pages as an encyclopaedia. Any other purposes are secondary..." Depending on the context, other purposes may be primary: I don't think we should second-guess the kinds of assignments that might or should be set. The point is that the bottom line is that any benefit to Misplaced Pages should significantly outweigh any costs. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 11:32, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

That page is very draft. But "improve Misplaced Pages" is just that -- a fairly easy hurdle to achieve. It isn't to "make Misplaced Pages great" or "write featured articles" or anything else one might argue is starting to get in the way of students learning or classroom practicalities. Once your intention is simply to improve Misplaced Pages, then you can have all sorts of other priorities. Colin° 12:10, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

To the IP editor who commented, your "blight on both houses" post raises a lot of interesting insights. But we here at Misplaced Pages are only a blight on academia to the extent that the professoriate allows students to cite us. As much as I hope that, someday, Misplaced Pages will become an academically reliable source (and I believe it's continually inching closer), I never allowed Misplaced Pages as a source for college papers by my own students, and I'd discourage it for anyone else's students. It's useful to use Misplaced Pages as a first read, to get an overall feel for a subject, before turning to academically solid sources that one will ultimately cite. I also said once, when I spoke about Misplaced Pages to an academic audience, that if you read an article here, it's a good idea to come back and read it again a few days later, in case anything got corrected in the mean time. You may be interested to know that the kinds of medical or financial how-to information you describe correctly as having the potential to do real-world harm is prohibited by policy here. That doesn't prevent such edits from showing up, but experienced editors will try to delete it when we find it. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:43, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Another section break

Let me just respond to a few of the points here. Maybe other professors have shared their class usernames but according to our Freedom of Information and Privacy Protection law in Ontario, I just can't do that (and yes I have double checked). Despite the warnings I could give students posting their usernames might lead to their identification, and especially when the goal of providing student names is so clearly to track down mistakes, I am sure no ethics committee would allow them to be shared publicly. Perhaps the other professors's schools have different privacy protection laws or perhaps they just haven't looked into the issue deeply and, once they do, they might see the potential problem. That said, Philippe and I have discussed ways in which some people at Wikimedia might have access to usernames as long as our Ethics committee recognizes them as an "honest broker". I'm looking into this now. If their privacy can be protected I have no problem with their edits being looked at en mass, or even being randomly sampled to assess accuracy (an appropriate method). I do have a problem with editors intent on finding problems tracking down usernames one by one with the clear goal of finding individual problematic edits rather than looking at group trends. This is the witch hunt process that feels so offensive.

Let me also say that I didn't just decide to do a Misplaced Pages assignment on a whim. I was invited to a summit sponsored by Wikimedia wherein they were encouraging these kinds of assignments, and I even asked one high ranking member point blank whether it would be a problem to try small edits with my huge class. He encouraged me to "go for it". Never was the capacity issue mentioned, and never was it even suggested that specific editors would be overburdened. To those that were I do indeed apologize ... I had no idea this would cause the stress it did. This "get students editing" message was echoed by the APS Misplaced Pages Initiative, again without any warning about capacity limits or stressing editors. To the uninitiated, the whole crowd-sourcing thing does seem a little magical. There is certainly a vibe of "get people editing and good things just happen", a message that is fueled largely by the success of Misplaced Pages. To me, the message was "Misplaced Pages wants students editing, APS wants students working on Psych related articles, I see all the great educational benefits of doing this ... why not?"

Yes I was "warned" of a problem last year, but the warning was phrased in the same tones as Colin is using here, tones that make it hard for anyone to comply with. Note that, it was never made clear to me that so few editors were be so heavily taxed by my classes' work ... that THAT is what made my students different from any other new editors. Instead, as was the case here,everything was completely focused on how bad my students' edits were. I have great students for the most part, and I know the vast majority care about their work. And I'm sure every new Misplaced Pages editor makes mistakes as they learn, why pick on my class? The claims being made were (and remain) ridiculous (85% plagiarism?) and only based on usernames they tracked down ... how? ... because there were problems? Doesn't that process cause one to find a high level of problems? So pardon me if I took the claims of the magnitude of the problem as massively overblown, and if I thought the mere occurrence of problems was a natural first step of crowd-sourcing knowledge. But, despite the tone I did indeed heed the call to try to improve edits. We enhanced training, requiring all students to go through training items and score 100% on a multiple choice test covering editing, proper citations, and Misplaced Pages format and culture. So yes I tried to improve quality, and more can be done there ... I just wish the real problem had been more clearly presented.

So the real question for me now is this. Assuming we (myself, my student and individuals from WikiMedia) could come up with some process wherein they help us to further ramp up training, wherein they have oversight with respect to the edits, and wherein I agree to cease and desist if they deemed the edits a problem ... is this something you guys welcome or not? Colin seems to want me and my class (and my city? Colin, come to Toronto, we're nice people!) gone from Misplaced Pages, and would consider that a victory for Misplaced Pages. Philippe (and some others here) seem interested in the notion of using my class as a test-ground for the proper introduction of new editors and new training methods. Now that I better understand the situation it sounds to me like a new group of Misplaced Pages editors with expertise in areas like Psychology might be exactly what Misplaced Pages needs ... to me it seems to be one answer to your editor shortage, and it would be great to feel like my class is helping with that too because I believe in what Misplaced Pages is all about and I very much would like to see good Psychology articles there. But I thrive on working "with" people. Working "against" people is not my idea of a conducive environment for solving problems and coming to innovative solutions. So, in the immortal words of The Clash, should I stay or should I go? Let Philippe know what you think. I'll communicate directly with him from this point forward. For what it's worth though (Buffalo Springfield), I think it would be great if we could all work together on this. WoodSnake (talk) 13:53, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

I can only speak for myself, obviously, but here are the concerns I would need to see resolved - ahead of time and solidly - before I would be comfortable with you resuming your class projects. Some of these you've addressed in general terms, some you haven't, but all would need to be addressed in specific terms for me to be comfortable:

1. Supervision. You and I (and others) have addressed this in general terms already, but I would need to see a solid plan, in place and staffed, for how some sort of non-privacy-violating supervision mechanism would work. It sounds like you think the WMF could do the supervision, but WMF is very, very careful to have nothing to do with content work on these projects, so unless there's something they're not telling us, that won't be a solution. If your local privacy laws are as draconian as you say, it may be a regretful fact that there's simply no way for you to use Misplaced Pages for educational assignments.
2. Purpose. You've hinted previously about this project being something you and your grad students plan to analyze for scientific purposes, but the Education Program isn't here to be a convenient way for professors to do research - it's here to engage students. If you're doing this work to teach your students, and maybe get some Misplaced Pages experience for yourself, great! But if you're doing it, even partially, hoping to get a paper out of watching it all happen and analyzing your students and/or the community here, that's not ok with me (and, I suspect, the community). Researchers are required to get approval (completely separate from the Education Program) through the WMF to conduct research upon the Misplaced Pages community, and until you do that you haven't got the right to use Misplaced Pages as an experimental venue.
3. Flexibility. Because we know we've run into problems before, any plan for resuming your classes' editing must be flexible on short notice. You must be able to start and stop the assignment on the spot in response to community concerns, and you must be prepared to deal in a timely manner with any student or students who are misusing their editing rights. "The semester is almost over, the editing will stop then" or "Well I talked to the class, it's not my fault if they don't listen" aren't going to be acceptable - if there's a problem, there's no project until that problem stops. This probably also means working from nothing up (pilot with a few students, then if that works, another pilot with more, etc, rather than dumping a whole class or section onto the thing at once) so you can pinpoint the point at which you lose that flexibility. Which leads into...
4. Responsibility. It will be your responsibility to make sure your students, both individually and as a group, are under control at all times with regard to the way they treat the resource you're asking them to work with. This also means that if someone approaches you on Misplaced Pages with a concern, even if you feel they approached you uncharitably or rudely, it is still your responsibility to address that concern. You can't do the thing you appear to have done up to now, which is write off the "complainers" as a bunch of rude crackpots who specialize in overreaction, and therefore justify writing off the problems they were pointing out, as well.

In short, I'd be willing to see your students return to similar projects, but I would expect to see a solid-as-rock project plan beforehand, and I would then expect you to adhere to the responsibilities of that project plan. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 14:42, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi WoodSnake. With regards to usernames, you're asking your students to contribute to a collaborative project where their work effects other users. The consequence of giving a student an assignment that has an impact on the real world is that the student's actions can have consequences beyond the classroom. I don't think its unreasonable for other editors to be able to see where the edits are coming from and to contact the editor - that's just part of working in a collaborative environment. I don't see why the students can't have usernames of the form UTPsych1 through UTPsych1700. I don't know what Canadian law specifies, but I've looked at the relevant US law (FERPA) and my understanding is that directory information about students can be made public as long as the student has the option to opt out. (See for instance, this FAQ from UTexas or this FAQ from UWashington). I don't see how a randomly-assigned username with no personally identifiable information would be problematic.

I would also advise you to consider whether the assignment design you've chosen is the best approach. Given that this is an introductory level course, do you feel that students have sufficient experience as writers or sufficient experience with the topic to feel comfortable contributing without plagiarizing or closely paraphrasing? Would it make more sense to use this assignment with a more advanced course or with an honors section? Do you feel that your assignment design gives students enough motivation to make a meaningful contribution? It sounds like you're asking students to add a fact to an article for extra credit. Is this worth enough to the students for them to take it seriously, or is this something they're planning on knocking off in 10 minutes without really thinking too carefully about?

I'm currently a campus ambassador for courses at two prestigious universities, and I think the students in my courses have been, overall, quite successful. I know that there are some limitations here - you can't do the same things with a 25-person course that you can do with a 1700-person course - but I'd encourage you to think about how these professors have designed their assignments, because they have been very successful. In my course on the History of the American West at Boston College, the professor is using this assignment as the equivalent of a term paper - something that the students worked on for several months. The students' assignment was to expand articles that are currently stubs. The assignment proceeded in stages: first, the students identified sources, then they drafted an outline, then they wrote a draft in a sandbox, then they reviewed each others' drafts and, finally, they will integrate their sandbox drafts into the article. The students understand that this is a major assignment and they are taking it seriously. There have been a few areas that have caused confusion - such as some of the technical stuff around citations - but the quality of the student work has been very high. Since the students have drafted the content first, the course staff has an opportunity to gently consult with the students if some aspect of their work is problematic before it reaches the general wikipedia community. Also, the students are working on articles that are very much under-developed. The potential to cause problems is pretty minimal, since nobody has done anything significant with these articles. It looks like your students are working on articles on major topics like axon or insomnia, where the articles are already well-developed.

Going forward, what I'd like to see is a collaboration between the course staff and the community on how we can make this project more successful. I think people contribute to this noticeboard because they want to see more classes use Misplaced Pages, not because they want to keep teachers and students away. We should focus our discussion on what we can do to make this work in the future, not on the details of what happened. GabrielF (talk) 14:46, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Woodsnake, just a quick note of explanation, as I think the "85% plagiarism" number was taken from a post I made to your talk page. What I said there was that of 19 student contributions for which we'd been able to look at the source, 16 had been found to contain some form of plagiarism. That was true then; the numbers now are 19 out of 23 -- that is, of four more for which the source has been examined, three contained plagiarism. I would not be surprised if the final percentage was much lower than this -- this is a small sample. What I called it on your talk page was "discouraging", which I think is true. I can see how you might regard this as a witch hunt, but from my point of view what I was doing was trying to gather data to help you and us agree on the impact your students were having. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:36, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

WoodSnake, I agree very much with Fluffernutter's numbered points. About student confidentiality, you can advise students to use usernames that are non-identifying: I challenge anyone to figure out who Tryptofish is in real life! I can sympathize with the conflicting messages you have gotten, so, just as you are coming to realize that the enthusiasm of the person who encouraged you to "go for it" is not universally shared, please understand that neither is Colin's tone. The way Misplaced Pages works, you are not guaranteed that everyone who responds to you will be either representative of everyone else, or that they will be pleasant to deal with. There's no admissions office here. But if you blow off what other people say, when they say it in a way that you dislike, you may well come to find that there was something you would have benefited by listening to. And that goes for your students too, when they encounter established editors here. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:58, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Response by Colin

The data and methods and commentary made by me and others here are plain for anyone to see and review and repeat or reject. Was I "intent on finding problems tracking down usernames one by one with the clear goal of finding individual problematic edits rather than looking at group trends". Go judge for yourselves. Was this a "witch hunt" by a "cyber stalker" keen to "exaggerate" and be "dishonest" with the figures. Or just an honest, if limited, attempt by several editors to review the edits and test for plagiarism.

There are several claims by Joordens: "I had no idea this would cause the stress it did", "it was never made clear to me that so few editors were be so heavily taxed by my classes' work", "I just wish the real problem had been more clearly presented", and that prior warnings were in "tones that make it hard for anyone to comply with". So look at the previous assessment from 2011. Among the conclusions are "The experiment assumed that bad material would not survive Misplaced Pages's quality control, and that edit retention could be used to semi-automate the assessment of students. This is a flawed assumption. Psychology is a neglected subject. And even on popular subjects, the actual number of committed Wikipedians able to police edits is generally over-estimated.". On the talk page, Mike Christie commented "I'm very pessimistic about the chances of success with such a large class. To be honest, I don't think the experiment should be repeated; instead we should focus on classes where there is some expectation of engagement with the professor online, and where the number of students won't overwhelm the limited number of helpers." And we know from what other have said that Joordens was specifically asked by the education program not to run any more huge classes on Misplaced Pages. Are people going to continue to blame my "tone" as a convenient scape-goat, or could it be perhaps that the message was one Joordens did not want to hear?

The claim is there only one difference between this students/assignment and the others -- the big one about class size. At the risk of repeating myself, this is merely one of many flaws in the assignment:

1. Size. Yes the huge size of the class has problems both for Misplaced Pages's ability to absorb edits and review them and for those running the class to supervise the edits. So they didn't.

2. Assignment. The "add a factoid from an academic source to Misplaced Pages" assignment is flawed. It doesn't build articles and it is almost guaranteed to produce plagiarism when given to editors with no real understanding of their subject matter.

3. Class year. First-year undergrads picking the easy module is a poor workforce.

4. Supervision. None. This is terrible. Even if the class size was 20, the attitude that reviewing and fixing the edits is Misplaced Pages's problem is a bad one and doesn't scale to the "what if everyone did that" stage.

5. Responsibility. None. Nobody has taken responsibility for the bad edits made.

6. Training. Poor. Many of these students are editing Misplaced Pages for a second time (also last Nov/Dec). These second-go students are no better than the first. They are making mistakes that would be simple to teach them to avoid. Mistakes that were pointed out in 2011 and mistakes that would be glaringly apparent if those running the class had actually looked at the edits.

7. Assessment. This is an automated assessment based on revert or bot tagging of the edit. Well I'm not going to repeat how misguided that is.

What is needed is to start from zero again with the education programme in a fully transparent and open manner, where the community is listened to.

The concern about student privacy protection is rather demolished by the suggestion above to use numeric usernames (though they shouldn't be re-used so the semester/year would need to be added to the name). This solution is so straightforward and obvious it forms yet another example of how working with the community and listening to them solves problems while going-it-alone makes them.

The one area I do agree with Joordens is that he was (initially) encouraged by the WMF who didn't appreciate what they were doing either. The WMF panicked when they saw editor numbers diving and saw students as a huge untapped resource. I'm sure Joordens class looked pretty attractive and all critical faculties were lost for a while. Joordens, you can take comfort that you are not alone and the community is pretty pissed off at them too. At least now, we've got a clear message from Rod Dunican Wikimedia Director, Global Education Programs. Anyone who thinks that it is just me making strong statements about the megaclass being unwelcome can look at that message.

The 85% plagiarism figure is claimed to be an exaggeration. No, the students weren't discovered or chosen because they caused problems. It was rather easier to find them than that. I agree we don't have a fully accurate class list, and our attempts to discover plagiarism are greatly diminished by the poor citations and our own lack of access to paywalled sources or to the class textbook. I see Mike Christie getting cold feet about the plagiarism figure. Let me say that my own analysis of edits where the source was fully available online gave a figure of 88% (15/17) and that further ad-hoc examinations have only confirmed near universal problems. If 17 sounds a low figure to draw results from, then combine it with Mike's and remember I had to plough through perhaps 100 edits to find just 17 with sources I could read. So I agree with and support the 85% figure. More extensive analysis would only confirm the ballpark I believe. These students either copy/pasted their source or thought jumbling some of the words around was sufficient. A minority fully wrote original text and most of them screwed up as a result and got their edit reverted as being incomprehensible. I will say I saw one edit where the student actually condensed a page of text into a few sentences and did a good job. Anyone with better access to sources or the student textbook is welcome to repeat the analysis and publish their findings (with both student text and source text) -- please read the plagiarism guideline and also the essay on close paraphrasing for advice.

I don't wish to see Joordens personally gone from Misplaced Pages but yes, I think his megaclass of 1900 first-year undergraduates is really unlikely to be beneficial to Misplaced Pages. And in that opinion, I'm far from alone. However, if there are small classes of final-year students or postgrads, then we'd love to have them edit provided they get the right training, the right supervision and the right assignments that actually improve Misplaced Pages. Unsupervised megaclasses are not an "answer to editor shortage".

Colin° 21:47, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

I didn't think I was getting cold feet; I thought I was just being politely cautious. 23 students is a small sample of the class, and I was concerned that in cases where I couldn't find plagiarism via a web search for the text, it was because the student had not in fact plagiarized. Your additional number do make the 85% more plausible but I still think it's best to be cautious; the number could well be lower. Sadly, it couldn't be much higher. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:59, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Articles affected

Looie496 pointed out student edits going on at two articles. Guerillero has semi-protected those two. Are there any others we've identified?--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 23:52, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

• Axon - semi-protected for one week
• Insomnia - semi-protected for one week
• Will someone please semi-protect Childhood obesity. It has had about a dozen editors from Joordens' class crapping all over it for all of March and I think User:Cresix needs a rest. Colin° 21:50, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

I've listed articles and students at User:Colin/Introduction to Psychology, 2013. The list is far from complete and just a start really. Anyone wants to help me list and analyse the edits, drop me a message on my talk page or email. I've done a few so far and glanced at the others. If this was one editor they'd have been banned long ago. Look at the article histories. Our articles are under attack from this class. I can fully see why LovaFalk is on wikibreak. Her watchlist must be on fire. Colin° 23:45, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

So far I've located about 120 students editing 75 articles. But the interative process of detection continues to find more students and articles. I reckon there are several hundred. Clearly we aren't going to analyse all their edits. In fact, nobody is, especially not Joordens. What is clear is that the accounts last for minutes (though some are picked up again in a few months if they repeat the assignment). I see no reason so far to assume the dire statistics from 2011 aren't repeated. It does look like the most of the edits stopped around the 23rd March. I hope this is the end of this semester's assignment, and not just a pause for breath. There is no way this can be allowed to happen again. We will create new policy to prevent it if necessary. Colin° 22:18, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Not true on the data analysis part. I have seen the data in person that Joordens' asked his graduate student to compile for fall 2011 & winter 2012 course (using similar metrics used by WMF). OhanaUnited 00:29, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

I'd very much like to see that data. Is it available? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:35, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

It was a powerpoint slide that he showed during the presentation in January. I only remember some of the results vaguely. The metrics used were characters added, # of articles edited, and something to do with whether the info was retained or reverted (forgot the timeframe or how to assess the info retention rate). He mentioned that more students participated in the fall 2011 term than winter 2012, even though the class size was comparable and the winter 2012 class was a continuation (2nd part) of the fall 2011 class. Another thing to he mentioned is that students actually went through a module (designed by his grad student who compiled the data and not the WMF module) before editing. OhanaUnited 01:54, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

I'd suggest then that the metrics being used to determine whether or not an edit is "useful" are part of the problem. Retention of the edit (i.e., a failure to revert it) does not mean that the content is useful, as anyone who's ever actually edited articles would know, particularly over the very short duration of these classes. We know that from our own prolific script-using editors; when their script fails to function correctly over the thousands of edits they can do in a day, it can take weeks to clean up, and that's when we have a single, unified contributions history to review. Risker (talk) 02:08, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Like I said earlier. It was few months ago and I can't remember exactly which specific metrics were used. The only ones that I am confident are the # of characters added and # of articles edited per account. OhanaUnited 04:50, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

What do you mean by "Not true on the data analysis part."? Yes, see below for a paper based on this nonsense about edit retention == edit quality. Perhaps someone could write a small essay on that and publish it on wiki. Then we can pass it to all the journals to stop them publishing this nonsense. The same goes for silly stats like characters added or # articles edited. Who gives a **** about characters added to Misplaced Pages? What is that a measure of other than that fingers were pressed on keyboards? I fully expect Sue Gardner and others to quote that "Undergraduates produce material indistinguishable from PhD experts" line. I seem to remember she gave some talk showing reams of paper representing student contributions. All nonsense. It just depresses me the level of junk science going on here. Colin° 08:14, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

It would be good to have a published paper demonstrating the weaknesses of some of the metrics that have been discussed. I suspect one reason the edit-retention metric gets used is because it does usually have a positive correlation with quality, because if a hundred experienced editors each add text, then it's true that the best text is more likely to be retained than the worst text. I'm having some trouble putting my finger on exactly why this breaks down for classes like Joordens', but I suspect that the correlation only shows up strongly if you have a range of contributions of varying quality. If all the contributions in a sample are poor quality, then random variation, and factors such as the overwhelming of the editors watching those articles, will cause some edits to be retained for longer periods. It's incorrect to then assume that these edits are as good as the best edits in the "experienced editor" sample. I agree with Colin's points elsewhere on this page; the edit-retention metric does miss a lot of factors, but it's still true there's likely to be a positive correlation for experienced editors, and that's something we have to address.

I'm glad Joordens cited the paper that justifies his methods; I agree with Colin that it appears to be wrong, but it gives us the opportunity to rebut the conclusion via better-designed studies. I'd like to see the WMF support more research of this kind to try to dispel some of these incorrect ideas. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:36, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

One can imagine examples of great edits that are retained for a long time. And harmful edits that are quickly detected and removed. It may well be that edits of extremely short lifespan are generally of the harmful kind. But once you get above vandalism, pov-pushing and good-faith-but-hoplessly-misguided edits, is lifespan a measure of quality as most people use the word (i.e. goodness, not badness)? In my 2011 analysis, I'd often see dreadful text entered that wasn't removed until I looked at it. During that time, wikignomes came along and fixed the citations, spelling, grammar and added wikilinks. Sometimes the text was changed more substantially. Then I see it is copy/paste from source and needs to go. Were all those wiki-gnome edits poor? They all had a shorter duration that the original copyvio. The edit retention metric can only look at words-added, and I strongly suspect, only at words kept within the article. So all those copy-edits where somebody reduced the words you wrote and thus made the sentence stronger, well I guess they have no value at all. Or when someone takes your brilliant prose and moves it to a daughter article. I guess your brilliant prose doesn't look so brilliant now.

The edit-retention value measures the inertia in an article. The fewer watchlisters, the less controversial, the less polished already, the more likely that a poor edit is retained. Someone can dump a mediocre factoid on a psychology biography and it is the same turd-brown as the rest of the article, but do the same on Autism or Water fluoridation and it duration will be measured in minutes. I wouldn't mind if they used the edit retention metric wrt measuring the quantity of harmful edits made by various groups. But measuring the quality of edits. And saying that this metric is so powerful that two edits with the same value are "indistinguishable" in terms of quality. Now that is just ridiculous. My second issue is the way these papers build upon one another. The edit-retention myth is just an assumption. Then someone cites another paper and it becomes a proven fact according to peer-reviewed literature. Follow the chain back and you find nobody had actually reviewed the quality of the edits by, you know, looking at them with eyeballs connected to a brain capable of judging quality. Colin° 13:18, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

All true -- my point is just that I strongly suspect that you would find a positive correlation between retention and quality if you looked at yours or my edits -- not 100% correlation, but statistically significant. If I'm right, it doesn't invalidate any of your points; it's just a fact that we have to deal with, and in particular it's a fact that causes mistaken approaches to student editing such as Joordens'. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:25, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, I didn't want to say but, yes 100% quality = 100% retention. Probably doesn't hold for lesser Wikipedians :-) Colin° 13:44, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Just found some of my old notes from that workshop. These are *some* of the metrics Prof. Joordens used (because I only written down a few): # of edits, words inserted, words deleted, (and again one metric to do with information retained on the article after certain period, but can't remember how it was measured). OhanaUnited 21:29, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Discussion elsewhere

There is a thread for this on the admin noticeboard. User:Philippe (WMF) states in that thread that he has contacted the professor and the department chair. I propose that the issue of how to immediately respond to the problem described in this thread be closed on this noticeboard as that responsibility has been taken up elsewhere. It is my opinion that there is no outstanding request for action in this thread.

In the admin noticeboard thread someone mentions that this is discussed on Hacker News and on Reddit. I think that the talks on those external discussion forums give insight into the non-Wikipedians' thoughts on Misplaced Pages and could be used to guide policy to prevent future misunderstandings about the education program. Blue Rasberry (talk) 01:27, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I skimmed through the discussions at Hacker News and Reddit, and it is indeed very informative to see how folks outside the Wiki are interpreting the situation. What I saw at Reddit sounded pretty reasonable to me, but the discussion at Hacker News was full of stuff to the effect of aw, that so-called plagiarism wasn't really so bad, everybody writes stuff that way for school and it's no big deal, and those Wikipedians are just a bunch of rigid jerks with pitchforks. I suspect that a lot of the public, and a lot of the students in the class project, would agree with that characterization, however unenlightened it may be. When I used to teach college, I found that most students arrived in class with similar perceptions, held in good faith. I would spend a lot of time at the beginning of the semester not only explaining that plagiarism would result in a failing grade, but explaining why, how it harms other people, and students invariably reacted that no one had ever explained that to them before and how it really opened their eyes and changed their minds. Anyway, I strongly urge that we all, and especially anyone thinking of contacting the press, think carefully about how people in the real world may not share our past experiences, and therefore may not share our perceptions. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:44, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes most people couldn't care less about copyright issues and are happy to copy everything they can. That is more or less part of being a hacker so not the least bit surprised Hacker News see it this way. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 19:22, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Very true of hackers, but it's not by any means limited to them. Lots of people who sincerely mean well think that way, because they just haven't had the opportunity to hear the opposing argument. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:36, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Reaction from the Education Board please

How does the Misplaced Pages:Education Board react to this comment? What lessons, facts, or perspective, etc. would someone (or multiple people) from the board like to emphasize in response to this type of comment by a community member? Biosthmors (talk) 16:59, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Speaking for myself, the first step would be to figure out which class or classes is causing Lova headaches, and what has gone awry there. I've gone through their recent edits, and am having trouble linking any of the accounts reverted to a registered class. One clue that links to the above discussion is User:HassiniUofT, presumably a member of Prof. Joordens class. My impression is that we need much stronger guidance for courses working in medical areas. They need to work with O.A.s and C.A.s and interact with editors. As a community, we also have to decide what to do when a class works outside the system, and doesn't take responsibility for negative effects. Its very troubling, and I'm sorry to see Lova Falk taking a break because of it. The Interior (Talk) 18:15, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

I already commented at her user talk, but I'm deeply concerned about this issue, too. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:04, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Prof. Joordens students have caused some significant issues the last few years. A number of us found a very high rate of plagiarism within their edits. There was little to no oversight of their work. He appears to be using us as his experimental playground. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 04:39, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Doc James, that psychology course with Prof. Steve Joordens took place before I took on as campus ambassador. There shouldn't be similar problems now that I'm onboard. And no, Tryptofish, User:HassiniUofT is not a member of Prof. Joordens' class (neither as undergrad, graduate student nor TA) because Prof. Joordens hasn't used Misplaced Pages as teaching tool since last summer and we don't have an individual called Hassini from the psychology department from our campus. Why not contact this individual and ask him/her instead of doing the guesswork (which ended up being wrong anyway)? So far, neither the four of you involved in the discussion attempted to communicate with him through his talk page (see that it's still red? maybe, just maybe, talking to the individual will clear things up) OhanaUnited 06:22, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

OhanaUnited, your comment that "Joordens hasn't used Misplaced Pages as teaching tool since last summer" doesn't square with Joordens' admission here that the students causing big problems are likely to be his. See User:Colin/Introduction to Psychology, 2013 for a growing list of students editing March 2013 from the University of Toronto doing exactly the same assignment (it appears) as Joordens set in 2011. Some of those students also edited in autumn 2012 (and haven't learned anything from it it seems). OhanaUnited, do you realise that the accounts used in this megaclass have a Wiki-lifespan of minutes? The traditional mechanisms for welcoming and educating newbies just don't work with these temporary accounts and "log in, dump plagiarised text, go down pub" activity we're seeing. Have you looked at the edit history of childhood obesity for example. Do you think spreading WikiLove to all the dozen editors who crapped on that article would make them come back and contribute properly? Please can you explain your involvement with this class.

I'm absolutely convinced that Joordens' class was the last straw that forced Lova Falk's wikibreak. There is another psych class that is proving to be a handful, with a very defensive prof, but it is the sheer quantity of crap being dumped in the psych-domain from Joordens' class that would cause anyone who cares about those articles to throw up their hands in despair. Colin° 08:27, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Colin. It seems like I was uninformed by anyone yet again even though I am the campus ambassador. I met Joordens as recent as this January at this workshop and there was no indication that he would be doing it yet again. During the workshop, he did mention that he had done a course (class size <30 students) by flying under the radar last summer. OhanaUnited 19:22, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

A couple of points. OhanaUnited, in your now-struck comment, you attributed something to me that was actually said by someone else. I think that the instructor's lack of openness with the campus ambassador is a symptom of something wrong at the instructor's end. Also, I see above that a class with 1800 students may be involved. That number raises at least two issues that I can think of. One is that it is near to impossible for editors here to monitor that many student edits. The other is that it is also near to impossible for the instructor to do it, either. (Having done a lot of teaching myself, I can sympathize with how hard it is to teach huge classes, and how tempting it can be to simply set the students loose on Misplaced Pages. But that is merely trying to use volunteer editors here as unpaid TAs, and this talk thread shows that one editor found that to be a dysphoric experience.) I know that there were objections elsewhere in these discussions to the idea of a hard block of the entire satellite campus, but considering the "collateral damage" here at Misplaced Pages, I think it's an option that we are going to have to consider seriously. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:08, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

I too am sorry to see this happen. I don't really know enough about the connection between the course and the editor's decision to take a break to comment on that, but it saddens me to see someone who is obviously valuable to the editing community feel overwhelmed. --Bob Cummings (talk) 17:33, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

I sent this prof some advise over a year ago. He got pissed off at me and said he was not going to edit again. I have seen an email from him afterwards were he boasts about his ability to "fly under the radar". What he has going is more or less a giant meet-puppet. Once we finish the analysis started by Colin we will need to look at publishing our findings. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 18:25, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Note from Misplaced Pages Education Program

As the Misplaced Pages Education Program Director, I would like to reiterate that Steve Joordens is currently not part of the Education Program in Canada run by the Wikimedia Foundation. We do not support or condone his activities on Misplaced Pages. We are big proponents of testing, and in the fall term of 2011, we worked with him to see if large courses would work with our program. Overwhelmingly, the results showed that large courses like Professor Joordens' would not, and we asked Professor Joordens to cease his students' work on Misplaced Pages. We have reiterated this to Professor Joordens repeatedly, and asked him to not conduct Misplaced Pages assignments with this large of course. We support any action the Misplaced Pages community deems necessary to handle the situation. Rdunican22 (talk) 04:54, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks appreciate hearing your position. We knew that he was not officially involved but did not realize that you had requested he not edit Misplaced Pages with his large class. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 05:11, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Proposed new policy

It is clear from discussions on this page that Misplaced Pages lacks the necessary policy to deal with student assignments that go wrong, to discourage the kind of assignments that tend to fail and to clearly indicate the sort of assignment that Misplaced Pages wants. The Misplaced Pages:Assignments for student editors essay is a great resource and I encourage its development into a guideline. But I think Misplaced Pages needs a new policy to handle assignments. The relationship between the community and those involved in setting and performing the assignment is completely different to the one we are used to with volunteer editors. We simply can't handle the case where 200 students create accounts and make a handful of edits over the space of minutes and then log off again never to return. There is no policy at present to deal with that.

I've made a start: Misplaced Pages:Assignments. The nutshell is "If you give someone an assignment to do on Misplaced Pages, you are responsible for their actions." The page is deliberately general and not specific to professors/students, which I think is appropriate for policy. It is obviously very draft at present. What do people here think? Would such a policy help? I think it would clearly prevent the sort of assignment where the prof makes no effort whatsoever to review and fix the edits. It forces class sizes down to the level that can be managed in-house rather than using us Wikipedians as classroom assistants.

If this proposed policy looks worth pursuing, then I'll move it out of user space and let the community work on it. Colin° 09:10, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

• Comment. This is interesting, though I don't think I could support it. I wonder what those who are putting together the Wiki Education Foundation proposal would say about it. Most of the educators on that board would clearly be unfit to set Misplaced Pages assignments from your perspective: they do not "have the time, degree of competence on-wiki and subject-knowledge in order to review and correct" their students' edits. But then by affiliating with the Education Program, does the burden of responsibility shift to that Program? I'm not sure that the proposed WEF wants to take that burden on. But there's also a more fundamental philosophical issue here: Is a teacher responsible for whether or not a student follows his or her instructions? Is he or she obliged to ensure that the student passes? Obviously not: that would be crazy. (Though there are plenty of students who do think this way--they believe that it's up to the teacher to ensure that they succeed!) I guess the issue here is what happens when a student's failure has real-world consequences. Is that balanced by the fact that a student's success will also have real-world consequences? --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 13:43, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

This is the key point, though. If a student gets an D grade on their essay then that is only so much ink on paper in a drawer. But if they change axon so its lead is D-grade unintelligible or is brilliant but plagiarised text, who is responsible for fixing that? All classes will have good and bad students. But if the assignment is such that even good students fail miserably, who is responsible? The issue with Joordens class shows that one invoke the creation of hundreds of temporary accounts, inflict insidious damage to a whole domain of articles, and we have no policy at present to do anything about it. Do you have a solution?

I certainly think there is a role for the teacher to recruit assistants who may have the necessary skills on wikipedia and subject. Perhaps that should be included in the text.

I don't think the teacher is responsible for lifting the student text to acceptable standard. Some assignments may do that as part of some iterative rework. But in the bad case, that D-grade work is now on Misplaced Pages. Who is responsible for doing something about that? I think for too long educators have seen Misplaced Pages as a common resource like the air we breath. It isn't. Colin° 14:04, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

It's tough, I think. I've certainly had students who have plagiarized on Misplaced Pages. (I have also had students who plagiarized in essays; as it happens, it's generally easier to spot on Misplaced Pages, but that's another matter.) The most egregious examples took place on the Spanish Misplaced Pages, rather than the English one, but so be it. In some ways, I don't take responsibility for that plagiarism: I totally disapprove of it, and the students know that; I also teach them to understand what plagiarism is and how to avoid it. On the other hand, I've definitely gone in and made sure that that plagiarism doesn't endure. I've personally fixed the articles myself--especially when (as has happened a couple of times) I've only identified it after the course is over. But having taught a fair number of classes that use Misplaced Pages, there's no way I can put my hand on my heart and say that I have caught every single plagiarized sentence or passage. Or (less seriously perhaps--but only perhaps) that my students always understood their sources and paraphrased or interpreted them well. (For even when students are being ethical, they are not always right.) But on balance I think (I know) that the impact of my students on Misplaced Pages has been far more for the good than for the bad: they produced a bunch of featured articles and even more good ones; even those articles that haven't passed such tests have demonstrably improved, often by leaps and bounds. So it is a question of balance. We can't have zero tolerance here, much though we (everyone involved) might like that. And if this sounds a little like Joorden's argument above, then so be it. What's at issue is less the argument per se than the question of whether or not individual classes actually are on balance improving the Encyclopedia, and how much. If the improvements exceed the mistakes only negligibly or by a small margin, then the class has gone wrong, clearly. (It certainly sounds like this is the case for the UT class.) But if the improvements are significantly more substantial than the extent to which articles have suffered (as I'd say was the case for my classes), then the project succeeds. We can't be absolutist. At the same time, we can't be satisfied with merely a "net benefit." We need more than that. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 16:21, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Jbmurray, it sounds very much like you already assume some kind of responsibility for your class's actions. Yes this isn't absolute responsibility for ensuring all their actions are a net benefit and fixing every single mistake. Remember, this is just an early draft and so the language might not be helpful or some of the concepts need kicking around a bit. At one extreme, we've got a mega class where the prof takes no responsibility at all and fully expects the community to review and fix the edits. At another, we've got tiny classes where the students work alongside the prof on assignments, and the class is so well designed that no student is doing damage but some are doing better than others. A problem we have is Joordens also "knows" his class is a net benefit. We'll see what this year's class's stats look like when we've looked at more students, but 2011's analysis was a clear net damage and with far more hours spent reviewing and fixing the edits than the students spent themselves on the assignment. I fully agree with you that we need more than just a mere net benefit. Damage limitation -- are there mechanisms in place to catch the really bad stuff?

I think I get the bit about you not being personally responsible for someone's plagiarism -- you did the best that can be expected to prevent it but ultimately it was the student's "sin" and not yours. However, you also removed it. Why? Can you put in words what made you feel you should do that -- so we can indicate this is desirable? On the other hand, someone who fails to properly educate their students on plagiarism, say, and fails to check to some degree that they have understood it before editing, and fails to review their work at all, is surely responsible for the frequent problems that occur. I'd appreciate your help finding the balance and the words to use. You are welcome to edit the draft in my user space, or use its talk page. Colin° 18:18, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

I've been trying to think of a solution to the "professor dispatches 200 students to wreak havoc" problem recently too, but I keep running into the same problem that your proposal runs into, Colin: the professors who are doing the "bad" professoring (and, really, most of the ones doing the "good", too) aren't editing Misplaced Pages, anyway. And given that our last line of defense against disruptive editing is to block or ban the responsible editor, which in this case would be the professor who's not editing anyway, making them responsible for their students' edits is unenforceable by any sort of sanction on the professor. If they disdain Misplaced Pages enough to send their unprepared students this way, they disdain it enough that whether they're blocked or not, they'll continue to do so, because a block on the professor has no effect on the dispatching of students to edit.

The only other possible solution I've come up with is much, much more extreme - a variation on CSD criterion G5, which allows for the deletion of content submitted by editors in violation of a block/ban: "If a professor fails to be responsible for his students' problematic edits after , all edits and account creations by any editors determined to be that professor's students (and who are editing at the behest of that professor) will be treated as the actions of a blocked user and those edits will be reverted and the accounts blocked accordingly." It's draconian and it bites students who may not have done anything wrong, but it would be the only way to hold professors accountable on Misplaced Pages for failing to prepare their students, and it would be our best chance to prevent ongoing damage by those students. Blocking a professor who doesn't edit anyway won't stop the disruption, but blocking anyone identified as one of their students would. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 14:18, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Took the words out of my mouth. We need a process to determine somehow whether or not a certain professor should be topic-banned from educational assignments due to irresponsibility. After that, a (existing or new) CSD criterion and RB would be allowed to revert all of their edits (except for ones that they wish to make a null edit taking responsibility for, if any deserve it). After that, if a professor continues this, we can and should contact the university in question, just like Abuse Reporting for organizations goes on now, and notifying the Dean/Administrators that they would be able to have access to data if needed to determine (if not obvious by username(s)) what professor/students are doing this. I think we need to encourage and help educational assignments here. But when professors blatantly disregard our offers of help and/or don't tell their students how to edit, we need to stop it, and if that means we go to their supervisor and get them to stop that way, so be it. It's like I said a while ago: We should not care what happens in the school's disciplinary side of things, only what happens on the Misplaced Pages side of this professor's classes. If he gets reprimanded, given less pay, etc., so be it, he should have realized that having students make crap edits after he was asked not to without teaching them first wouldn't work out well for anyone. gwickwire_editing 14:51, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

The proposed policy doesn't state (currently) what sanctions would be imposed, merely where the responsibility lies. Currently, responsibility for edits lies with the person making them -- but they've gone down the pub and were "only following orders". I agree that, for example, blocking User:Woodsnake would have no physical effect as he doesn't use the account, but it would have a psychological/social effect. Would you do a class assignment if you knew the prof was banned from Misplaced Pages for running that class assignment? Would the dean be happy to have profs running assignments on Misplaced Pages when they are currently a banned user? I think this would be significant enough to have an effect. Additionally, the students could have a message posted on their pages (like the suspected sockpuppet message) "We suspect you are part of a class assignment that has been banned from Wikpedia. Please confirm if you are ....etc". I'm sure word would get round that they weren't welcome. The proposed policy does state that the institution is ultimately responsible, which gives us room to block IPs should there continue to be disruption. I would hope that wouldn't be necessary for any reputable organisation. But more importantly, if this were policy, an assignment like Joordens simply wouldn't get off the drawing board. It would be completely clear that mass directed editing with no supervision isn't allowed on Misplaced Pages. Colin° 15:58, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

I tried to emphasize some of this responsibility in the lead of the essay, for a start. Biosthmors (talk) 19:14, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

• Support I support this beyond the education program and into Wikimedia chapter business. The general rule that I would like to see is that anyone who is claiming credit or benefit for a project on Misplaced Pages should also claim responsibility for it. The professors who do harmful things on Misplaced Pages often express that the Misplaced Pages community should be grateful to them, and historically the Misplaced Pages community's response has been to clean the mess and take no further action. I am not sure what action should be taken, but I would like to state that it is not okay for anyone to exploit the Wikimedia community's good will by abusing it. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:01, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
• Fluffernutter is right about the lack of feasibility of enforcing policy against instructors, unless we figure out some way to block edits from a campus and the surrounding residential community, and that's not going to happen easily. In contrast to Colin's opening premise, I think it's useful to try to address these problems via a guideline, rather than policy. After all, we already have the rationale to pursue administrative action in cases of WP:Disruptive editing, which includes chronic ignoring of behavioral guidelines. I think we should start by establishing behavioral guidelines that have wide community consensus. With those in place, we can then, as a second step if needed, establish any new policy for which a need emerges. I've started a discussion at WT:Assignments for student editors about promoting it to a guideline, and I'd welcome input from the editors here, there. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:16, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

I fully support "Assignments for student editors" being developed as a guideline. Guidelines apply to specific areas and offer advice. Policy sets the ground rules upon which we operate. I think unsupervised mass assignments, with no appreciation of responsibility, is a fundamentally bad thing. Joordens represents the extreme end of the scale. No guideline is going to influence someone like him. But we've had other classes in the past where the prof was utterly unprepared to understand what their students should be doing, let alone take responsibility for doing any degree of tidying up afterwards.

I disagree that such a policy can't be enforced. I've commented further up. I think that such a class, if disallowed by policy, would ultimately lead to the blocking of the professor and notices on the talk page of any suspected students. A message would be sent to the dean also. I find it hard to imagine students performing an assignment where their prof is banned and where their own accounts get blocked (even if they get blocked after their edits). Who wants to do an assignment as a guerilla terrorist? Colin° 09:11, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

• We are finding a fair bit of plagiarism from a U of T psychology class (about 30% of contributors right now). I plan to report this prof to his dean and his school to the papers. He has been warned in the past that his activities were not appropriate. Rather than address the criticism he became more secretive in editing activities. We seem to have another recurrence of the "India issues". Those involved in the India Program can take heart that it is not just those in the developing world that struggle with copyright but also those at one of Canada's most prestigious universities. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 11:06, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Wow – and please understand that I'm not objecting at all to that! In the end, a hard block of the campus will look like a much gentler option. I'll be watching with great interest to see what ends up happening. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:56, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Doc James, that percentage did sound high until I did some research on this issue. A Canadian government's arms-length organization found that 53% of undergraduate students surveyed admitted plagiarizing at least once. Another study placed the value at 23-25% for graduate students in American & Canadian universities. Is 30% plagiarism severe? Yes, for me, one instance is far too many. Is it causing so much concern and different from other courses that we should be screaming like headless chickens and calling for actions? No. The percentage suggests this is not much different than any other science courses and actually appears to be performing better than the average when we compare the 30% course average to the 53% national average for undergrads. Mind you, this is a first-year introduction to psychology course and we all know that high school doesn't treat plagiarism seriously. I'll be more concerned if this happens in an upper-year (3rd and 4th year) course. OhanaUnited 02:23, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

So if those are indeed the stats than we should probably call off the education program. In textbook or scientific journal publishing the rates are not so high. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 13:20, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Actually, the plagiarised text is the stuff that reads well and makes some sense. The incoherent illiterate stuff is the original student writing. OhanaUnited, I think you are failing to appreciate the utter drivel that this class is writing on Misplaced Pages. I do wish folk here would taken their statistics and shove them where the sun doesn't shine. Go look at the edits. Colin° 13:48, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

The difficulty is that we are comparing apples and oranges. The stat above is 50% have plagiarized at some point in their life at least one. What I care about is what percentage are plagiarizing right now. And I may be more lenient if a lot of great content was being created. So far I have found a couple of passable edits but nothing great (in percentages that would be 0%). Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 13:56, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Colin, Doc James said "We are finding a fair bit of plagiarism from a U of T psychology class", not "We are finding a fair bit of incoherent illiterate stuff from a U of T psychology class" (emphasis added). Plagiarism includes both coherent and incoherent writing. Plus, nowhere in my numbers said it was based on incoherent writing and I strongly doubt that there are studies out there that looked at just undergraduate's writing quality on a large, representative scale. It's reasonable to assume that students write better as they progress in universities. That brings me to Doc James part. Again, I made a reasonable assumption that the majority of the 53% plagiarism will take place early on in university (1st & 2nd year courses vs. 3rd & 4th year). The time of plagiarism occurrence tends to be positively skewed. OhanaUnited 15:43, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Wider input on the quality of the review Ohana is doing might also be useful.. The first user I looked at added refs to work that was previous plagarism by someone else. Most of the rest of the refs were to a Misplaced Pages talk page. I would not describe this as positive but as either neutral or negative. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 16:38, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

OhanaUnited, can you please just lay off the stats. Also remember that whenever these students cite a paywalled article or a book, our ability to detect plagiarism drops to zero. Which is why it is essential these courses are internally supervised by those the same access to the sources as the students. Can you explain what wikipedia classes are running at UoT and more about the class you and James are reviewing. What degree of supervision did they get? What year are they? What were they asked to do? Are you aware of any change to the instructions or marking scheme used for the megaclass compared to 2011? Colin° 17:06, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I don't have the tools to check for copyvio, so I used a crude metric of examining revert summary, article talk page, and user talk page. Regarding that individual in question, I don't see the part that you said "Most of the rest of the refs were to a Misplaced Pages talk page". The revision you provided all point to specific journal articles. And Colin, please, don't boss me around on what I can do and what I can't do. If you bothered to check that page which Doc James provided provided, you would have found what year, which course, the course description, and support provided. It clearly shows you didn't even make an attempt to examine that page that before attacking me. OhanaUnited 17:12, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

If you look at you will notice this page referenced half a dozen times . Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 17:20, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Those revisions are from different page! Your first revision link was from audience effect, and now your revised link was from Motivational interviewing. No wonder I can't see what you're describing when you provided the wrong link.

Sorry for the confusion the link provided was to the editor that added the plagarism before this student edited. I have added the appropriate link. I have reviewed 4 editors so far. Ones edits were minor, ones edits were clear plagiarism, another editors edits were very close paraphrasing (not sure if it reaches the level of plagiarism or not, last editor some positive some neutral / negative IMO. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 17:50, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

OhanaUnited, do what you like on Wiki but if you want a conversation with me about how students are doing, then quoting stats about the general issue of plagiarism in undergraduates and implying that means everything is hunky-dory with the Toronto students, is really not the way to go about it. I'm sick of the crap science round here. So you don't have the tools to check for copyvio either and are just relying on other wikipedian's revert summary to work out what was wrong. Have you not listened to anything we've said? Unless you have the tools to check for plagiarism, your stats suck. What is the point of writing "Clearly net positive" if you can't check? And as for the WikiScholar course, I asked a straightforward question, not an attack, and you haven't answered it. I can't figure out from that page any of the answers to the questions I asked. I fear from the description "This course will allow students to take on the role of student-educator, working collaboratively to examine, enhance, and create Misplaced Pages entries related to a set of psychology topics." that these students are peer-reviewing each other and there is no expert supervision nor wiki supervision. Colin° 18:17, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Going through these edits is taking a huge amount of time. The fifth user is sort of on the edge with this article IMO . While if one paraphrases a couple of lines like this I would have no issues. But do things change if one paraphrases a whole paper and uses the same outline? And why paraphrase a 1983 article when there is more recent literature on the topic? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 18:25, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Next two I reviewed appear to also be plagiarism. I however need help I do not have access to this textbook Bartol, Curt R. (2002). Criminal behavior : a psychosocial approach (6th ed. ed.). Upper Saddler River, N.J.: Prentice Hall. ISBN 9780130918376. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help) I think it is page 5. Edits are these ones . Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 19:19, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Colin, I didn't provide the 30% stat from this class, it was Doc James who provided it. I provided the 53% national average stat. Calling "your stats suck" is incivil. And based on this thread, I seriously have to consider your competence on attributing statements to the correct user, finding info based on links provided by people on your side, and your ability to communicate with others who hold opposite views without descending to the level of making incivil comments. I strongly urge you to retract that statement. OhanaUnited 02:56, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

I haven't attributed statements to the incorrect user once yet repeatedly your responses have been to wrongly attribute other's statements to yourself. You seem to be trying your darnedest to take offence. How about if I translate to the Queen's English: "Unless one has the tools to measure plagiarism, one's stats are sub-optimal". Or, if we're having a conversation in normal everyday English: "Unless you have the tools to check for plagiarism, your stats suck." No retraction required or offered. Please can you get above your defensiveness and try to help here. Can you answer my questions about the course. They would help us understand if there is anything coming from UoT that is worth retaining. Colin° 07:59, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Class size and supervision

• I'd like to throw out another idea, and see what the reaction is. It seems to me that the major disruption occurs when a class with a very large number of students is set loose on Misplaced Pages, because the instructor is less likely to supervise each of them in a responsible manner, and because the large number of student edits in a short period of time puts particular demands on established editors. (I fully realize, of course, that just a few students making lousy edits on a page on one's watchlist, and being uncooperative about fixing their edits, can be a pain. But that disruption is more delimited, and we already have ways to deal with it.) The discussion above shows how difficult it can be to enforce policy against instructors or students, when the policy relates to editing conduct. In contrast, we can draw a "bright line" based on the number of students enrolled in a course. We could establish a maximum number of enrolled students that would be permitted in a recognized class project. Perhaps we could spell out requirements that would have to be met if an exception is to be granted. And perhaps we could make a formal policy about what to do if the instructor, instead, goes underground. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:34, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
  • I originally thought smaller class size would be more beneficial. But from what Doc James showed, that's not exactly the case. Smaller class size does produce more quantities of high-quality work (e.g. DYK), but doesn't necessarily reduce the plagiarism rate. OhanaUnited 03:15, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
    • The common factor between Joordens small class and the large class appears to be both are completely unsupervised. The later class might be doing some peer review. He has form here: see peerScholar. The aim, either with peerScholar or these wikipedia assignments, appears to be to run large classes and set huge assignments without the need to pay for teaching assistants. We've seen other small classes do badly when the instructor isn't up-to-speed with wiki or when the class edits outside of the instructor's abilities wrt subject-matter. But the damage is limited there (though of course, if everyone did that, the damage wouldn't be limited). So I still feel the issue at hand is those directing assignments without taking some degree of responsibility for the result. Since Joordens can't possibly take responsibility for 1700 students (and that would require a lot of staff) his megaclass simply can't be allowed on here. Colin° 08:05, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
      • Both of those replies are helpful, thanks. I agree that there is no correlation between class size and plagiarism, or for that matter between class size and any number of conduct issues. My thinking, however, is that plagiarism by a small class is easier to repair than is plagiarism by a large class, and for me that's an important point. If we're trying to think of things we can set policy on, I think it's important to address the problems that our current ways of doing business have had difficulty dealing with. Colin is quite right that supervision by the instructor is key. That, right there, might be an alternative thing we might want to make policy: never grant the course instructor privilege without a plan by the instructor to monitor every edit. And getting back to class size, it's possible to meet that requirement in a smaller class, whereas it's usually impossible in a huge class. I really cannot imagine a situation in which a class with over a thousand students can be part of a class project that doesn't dump a ton of pain on the Misplaced Pages community. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:45, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

• I think this approach is much, much too complex. All we really need is to remember that "The use of multiple Misplaced Pages user accounts for an improper purpose is called sock puppetry" and that 'improper' is defined by us, not by the institutions who are taking students money and expecting us to baby sit them. Stuartyeates (talk) 22:04, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Someone started an SPI case about the class, and the consensus there was that this situation does not really fit the generally understood definition of sock or meatpuppetry. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:45, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
• The issue is not just class size, it is also the level of the course and the background of the students. Students need to have some background with writing at a college level and they should know enough about research in general and their field in particular that they can have confidence to write without plagiarizing. An intro to psych course is likely to be taken by students very early in their college careers, before they've had much writing experience. A larger course is fine as long as (1) the course staff knows what they are doing and are monitoring the students closely (2) the students have enough experience to edit well and (3) the assignment is designed so that the students will be successful, including perhaps peer-reviews, drafts and other opportunities for students to practice and learn. I feel that the UT staff set their students up for failure by designing the assignment so poorly and ignoring the community's experience and input. GabrielF (talk) 21:37, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
  • I agree, of course, that all those other things are important. However, what I'm trying to figure out here is what we can make policy, in a way that it can be enforced by administrators. Class size is a bright line, whereas student preparation isn't. And there are some fairly large classes where the three things you describe can indeed make the difference. However, above a certain size, it stops being practical or even possible (unless there is a large staff of TAs). Here, it's not clear that there even are any TAs, and 1700 students is such a huge number that I do not believe close monitoring or meaningful peer review is possible. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:45, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
    • I'm curious if anyone has any insights on the Harvard sociology class that had a Misplaced Pages assignment last semester. I think they had several hundred students and there were no complaints that I recall. GabrielF (talk) 21:49, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
      • Yes, that would be very informative, as it might provide hard data on the differences between what does and what does not work. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:56, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Gabriel - we could probably find out more about the sociology class directly. Some of the larger classes make a point of having TAs act as on-wiki reviewers. I think this could even be done by a subset of the students themselves. – SJ + 00:03, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

The importance of minimizing drama

I am starting a new section because I think this point needs emphasis. If education projects are going to happen at all (and clearly they are), then our response to problems needs to be focused on minimizing drama. Harsh actions taken toward people who cause problems are likely to generate repercussions that will reflect badly on Misplaced Pages as a whole. We can't allow our important articles to deteriorate, but in my view we should look for the quietest and least dramatic approach that maintains their quality. Looie496 (talk) 17:15, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree with what you're saying. We definitely want to be polite and not bite as this suggests. Did you have anything specific in mind, or did you just want to generally caution against overreactions? I think the overreactions tend to come from experienced editors who first encounter these assignments. They find the source of the perceived harm to content and are frustrated at what appears to be a lack of supervision. Biosthmors (talk) 19:01, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I agree too. It's a balance that we need to get right. After all, we already have a lot of consensus that WP:BITE is part of how we try to do things here. I'm in favor of guidelines that include advice to editors, along with advice to instructors and students. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:07, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is real live publishing that can result in real live consequences. If you are referring to the above issues my position is we cannot allow universities to come and add content that is 30% plagiarism. If we know of this issue and do not address it / nip it in the bud less drama now will result in greater drama in the future.

If 5 years down the road the media catches on that we knew of universities adding large volumes of plagiarized content and we did nothing about it the negative repercussions will be far greater. The prof in question had been warned a year or two ago. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 11:12, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Myself, I agree simultaneously with both Looie and Doc James. The specific U of T case is a real stinker. At the same time, there really are student editing projects that have been a pleasure to work with – I speak from personal experience. We need to deal decisively with users who disrupt Misplaced Pages, and at the same time, we need to remain welcoming to those who improve it. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:52, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree that we must encourage positive engagement and discourage negative engagement. If this gets some press this will make sure that future classes and profs take Misplaced Pages seriously. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 01:11, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

So everyone's aware, this is now a national news story: Toronto professor learns not all editors are welcome on Misplaced Pages, National Post. Comments are interesting reading, although many are about Misplaced Pages in general rather than this situation. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:00, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

I thought the news report itself was pretty fair (didn't read the reader comments). --Tryptofish (talk) 20:08, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

There's a response to that piece at Yahoo News Canada which is critical of Joordens. Shame the "Of the 910 articles edited, Joordens told Canadian Press that only 33 were flagged for problems." silly stat gets repeated. It only shows how bad his quality detection methods are. And no mention anywhere that Misplaced Pages had previously formally asked Joordens to stop and refrain from repeating his "experiment" that backfired in 2011, or that he was running the 2013 "experiment" under the radar. Colin° 12:24, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

• I'd say Misplaced Pages got quite favorable coverage here: . --Tryptofish (talk) 23:47, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

U of T courses in Psychology

Per evidence building here and here and previous evidence here we need to do something about the situation in question. This appears to be a repeat of the India Education Program issues with fairly high rates of "copy and paste" . In this case it is occurring in the areas of psychology that is poorly watched. I have spent two days analysing the edits in question. While there is a fair bit more analysis / work to do IMO we have enough evidence that we should act. Thoughts?

Background: We have a psych prof who is having his 1700 students edit Misplaced Pages's psychology content. There is little to no review coming from the class itself. When concerns were brought to the profs attention a year ago he went "underground" making a community review more difficult. There is further discussion above. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 19:27, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

I think it is worth collecting enough to provide a summary of the class situation. I'd like to try to finish locating all the students so we have some idea of numbers and number of articles affected. If we publish a summary and present that to the community (e.g. ANI, etc) then see what reaction we get. Colin° 20:43, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

I guess I should make this more of a call for help in the analysis. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 20:48, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Can I help if I don't have access to JSTOR and so on? I'm concerned I won't be able to detect plagiarism or copyvio if I only have Google, so I might end up concluding an edit is OK when it isn't. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:20, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm nearly finished collecting all the students I can find. After that I wondered about taking a bunch of edits where the student cited a website or a paper that was free-online or otherwise readable. Perhaps 20-30 edits. Then working out the degree of plagiarism in those edits. Even if we had sources, many of these students are citing an impenetrable url in their intranet (and the exact same students did so last year so they haven't learned) or a Harvard ref like "Walker 1958" that is of little use without the rest of the citation. In fact, I have sometimes been able to identify the citation by Googling for plagiarism !!! Another figure it would be useful to gauge is what degree of edits are being reverted by the community (ourselves included). There are plenty students in the "More students to assess" table that you could stick your name against. Thanks. Colin° 12:35, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Class has been reported to Sockpuppet investigation here Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 00:52, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

I see checkuser reports that not even hard-blocking the entire university will stop them--but the question then becomes whether there is any other way to get attention to this? The problem is particularly difficult because the instructor seems to refuse to understand the harm he is doing. DGG ( talk ) 05:02, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

I've posted a note to Joordens' talk page asking him to stop his students on the basis of the analysis done so far; at my last count, 16 of 19 students for whom we could make a definite determination had plagiarized their source. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:23, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

We're seeing about 85% plagiarism in the edits we can check against sources. In much of the remainder, the attempt to put text into the student's own words has failed to some degree. Either the text is incomprehensible, or it has significant errors. Some editors wrote very little (a short phrase). Exceptionally, editors wrote something original and useful and well sourced with a proper citation. This is on top of all the other problems we are seeing that would be an issue even if the added text was original, coherent and accurate. I've counted over 400 students editing 250 articles but that is likely to be a significant under-estimate based on the 2011 analysis of edit patterns and the limitations of our method of detecting students. The real numbers could be double that.

Joordens has been running this assignment since 2011, though I think this year's could be the biggest. A minority of this year's students also edited in November/December 2012. All told, these assignments could well have involved a thousands students editing and a similar number of articles.

We asked Joordens/Woodsnake to stop and work with us after 2011's analysis. Instead he decided to "fly under the radar". Do these comments mirror what we're seeing here and earlier here?

Is Misplaced Pages going to just accept that level of damage to our articles? Per Misplaced Pages:Plagiarism and Misplaced Pages:Close paraphrasing such content isn't acceptable. What to do? Is Joordens or the University of Toronto responsible? Or each individual student? Or just our open editing policy? Do we shrug our shoulders or demand something be done?

Colin° 17:49, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

A soon-to-be-published paper on psychology students working on Misplaced Pages said:

"In the eight months the has been active, at least 36 classrooms involving 640 students have used article-writing assignments. In addition, other classes used article-writing assignments because of the APSWI, but did not use the tools we provided; therefore, the behavior of the students in their classes was not recorded in our data. For example, we know of the instructor of an introductory psychology class of 1,700 who had students read some primary research related to a Misplaced Pages article and add a citation to the article. Overall, the students whose behavior we captured have improved over 840 Misplaced Pages articles and have written over 1,200 pages of text, more than the content of a psychology textbook."

It is interesting to consider that this "class of 1,700" has perhaps achieved the opposite. They may well have taken 800 pages of their class psychology textbook and scattered little bits of it largely unchanged all across Misplaced Pages. -- Colin° 21:58, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

• I've read the now-archived SPI page, and I've been thinking hard about the issue. I see that there is a pretty extensive administrative consensus that "collateral damage" would preclude a widely-cast hard block (and also that there is some proportion of students who seem to be editing from so far outside the campus that some would slip through any conceivable block). It seems increasingly to me that we are encountering a new(ish) kind of problem for Misplaced Pages, and that our existing administrative mechanisms just don't include an appropriate tool to deal with it. I'm pessimistic that the instructor will decide to become more cooperative with us, because that's not where his professional incentives lie. From his perspective, what he needs to do is to get the course taught with as little hassle to himself or to his department chair or dean as possible. I have no idea what kind of effect Doc James' planned letters to the university and the press will have. There's certainly no guarantee. I know that our existing blocking policies place a high priority on avoiding "collateral damage", but here I think we need to recognize that the situation is different and somewhat new. There is real collateral damage to the project here, to editors who are having a hard time cleaning up, and, in at least one case, have been so aggravated that they temporarily left the project. That's collateral damage, too, and we need to consider it seriously! It doesn't really make sense to think that collateral damage to editors who want to contribute from around the campus is somehow more important than collateral damage to the rest of the editing community. I am coming to believe that we need a consensus to change our rules about hard blocks. A hard block across the satellite campus may well be the one way to shift the "hassle" back to the instructor and the university. It would stop most of the student edits (albeit not all), to a degree that students (along with other, collateral damage, people in the block range) will complain in a way that would force the instructor to do things differently. Letters to the university and the press may or may not have the desired effect, but a hard block, done properly, would immediately have the effect that we need. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:14, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

  I basically agree with all that, but I'd like to add that I am opposed to letters to the press. Given the general ignorance of the press about Misplaced Pages, that amounts to firing a cannon in a random direction -- there is no telling who will get hit. It is entirely possible that the professor would be portrayed as the innocent victim of Misplaced Pages's weirdness. If any direct extra-Misplaced Pages action needs to be taken, a letter to the department chair is the way to go. Looie496 (talk) 15:50, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

A department chair does not necessarily have much control over the way a tenured faculty member teacher their course, and is very likely to respond accordingly. I think this has to be done on a personal level--and I suggest some we try to find some respected colleague in his own field who does understand WP. Otherwise, I think we may indeed have to hard-blcok the campus. DGG ( talk ) 19:17, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Department chairs usually have a lot of leverage, trust me on this. They can't hire or fire, but they can usually determine who gets teaching assignments and other important things. Anyway I'm not necessarily advocating that, just saying it is better than gambling on the press. Looie496 (talk) 19:32, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Looie that department chairs (and deans, and so forth) can exert a lot of influence at most universities, but more importantly, I also agree with Looie about the possible boomerang effects of trying to resolve the problem via the popular press. I've been thinking about that danger ever since Doc James brought up the idea, and Looie's saying it out loud really drove it home for me. Doc James: please give this concern some thought (and if you go ahead with your plan anyway, please keep in mind that you will be speaking as an individual editor, and not as a spokesperson for the Misplaced Pages community). --Tryptofish (talk) 20:04, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunate real-world events have taken me away from Misplaced Pages related things for the past few weeks, which are likely to continue for at least a bit longer unfortunately. I have not been able to read the full set of events and look over diffs yet, but: holy shit. This looks like the exact type of nightmare situation I had been hoping would not come out of the USEP. As someone who has spoken vigorously in defense of the program here previously, I just want to say that from what I have seen of this situation so far, I fully support the most vigorous action necessary to stop the disruption, even if it involves temporarily hardblocking the campus. This is the kind of situation that absolutely no one involved in the education program wants or is okay with. I have some serious RL events going on right now, but will make an active effort to be on-wiki to help deal with the cleanup of this. (I also agree that press appeals are actively bad, and contacting a department chair potentially actively good. Looking at ANI, it looks like GoPhightin has taken that step already.) Kevin Gorman (talk) 20:39, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, per the very active thread at ANI, Philippe from the WMF is in contact with the department head as well as the instructor, and contacts with university counsel are also possible. I strongly urge holding off on anything involving the press until after these steps have been followed. (And Kevin, I hope your real life stuff works out OK.) --Tryptofish (talk) 21:10, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

• The class is over, so I'm not sure how much urgency there is. I also think that constructive engagement is generally better than threats of any sort: better than contacting either the press or departmental heads. Moreover, my general view is that's it's best to have people inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in. Note that Joordens was at the Boston event organized by the WMF, and in the general atmosphere of celebration and self-congratulations no hard questions were asked of them. (The people involved in the Pune project were there, too, and that was cited as a great advance for the program; I believe that Frank and others had just come back from a trip to India and were very excited about it all.) If the Education Program is to continue, and whoever runs it, there needs to be a much more hard-nosed and thoughtful approach to things. Though it is, frankly, grand that Joordens has come to this page twice already (better than many profs), I also strongly believe that this kind of thing can sometimes best be managed in person than online. Joordens is clearly serious about continuing his research on Misplaced Pages. If the WMF or the nascent WEF had the funds, I'd suggest they organize some kind of summit or workshop in which the contrasting views could be discussed seriously. Anything else at this point is going to confirm the notion that Misplaced Pages is simply full of people with pitchforks who go after anyone who does things in an unconventional manner. And things are already getting a little unpleasantly personal. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:12, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

  The research aspect seems interesting. Both the Pune project and the UToronto projects had potential and positive energy when they started - but the response to them (including at the last workshop! as Jbm notes) oscillated switched from early enthusiasm to later dismay, without in the meantime learning how to run a successful large-class project. We could use a more realistic discussion of potential and pitfalls for large classes, with metrics and spot-checks that make sense to active editors. – SJ + 23:58, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

  The sociology class Gabriel mentions might make a good complementary study, if we can track down its contributor pool. – SJ + 09:47, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

• I became aware of this issue because I had photoreceptor on my watch list as one of the spectroscopy articles I follow. To me it looked like one editor with several socks stubbornly adding references to a DAB page. I reverted the page but this seemingly stubborn editor kept coming back so I started a SPI. After learning about what is going and thinking about it, my suggestion is to bundle class user accounts in some way so that experienced editor feedback is in one place: a common username prefix or userbox and a common talk page of some sort. This would alert experienced editors to the fact that the new editor is part of a class and would distribute potentially valuable feedback (e.g. no refs in DAB articles, no close paraphrasing, local links to refs don't work, etc.) to all members of the class and not over and over to the individual editors who (in this case) are done with their two edits anyway. This would require a software modification, but I think that something like this is worth considering. --Kkmurray (talk) 15:30, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

  I like this idea of a tool that makes it easy to give feedback to a cluster of editors (and to experienced reviewers looking at their work). This could help with more than just classes : any time a homogenous group is being introduced to a wiki for the first time, including at an editing workshop, they tend to have similar systemic biases / confusions / blind spots. – SJ + 09:47, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

• What has happened is more or less like me and 800 Wiki friends showing up at the U of T, pushing profs out of the way, and taking over the microphones all while shouting gibberish. When security shows up to toss us out they are referred to as "people with pitchforks" by the surrounding community of the campus. If Joordens wish to play around wiki Wikimedia software he is more than welcome to start his own site and do so. My issue is that he is using us to mark his students work. If we do not remove the poor quality edits this is deemed a success. However I have just found large amount of plagiarism that was missed. This stuff stayed in this article for 8 month until I came across these widespread issue and reverted it. The longer plagiarism stays in place the harder it is to remove and the more work of subsequent editors gets lost. If we simply let these issues continue what is the media going to say about Misplaced Pages when a couple years form now large portions of it is simply copied and pasted from other sources? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 17:40, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Yes, that's true. In fact, it occurs to me that a student in the class could probably tell the instructor that the student had done the work on Misplaced Pages, and get the class credit for it, without ever having made an edit on Misplaced Pages, because the instructor clearly is not really monitoring every student edit. Of course, that's not our problem, but it speaks to the shoddiness of how the students who do edit are being guided, and of course that's very much become our problem. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:50, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

A plea for assistance in evaluating the edits

Colin set up an assessment page to assess the work of (what we think are) Joordens' students. If we want to persuade others, particularly people outside the community, that the effect of Joordens' class was very negative, the more data we have, the better. Please consider evaluating a half-dozen or so students. The format is fairly easy to follow; take a look at the section I'm working on to get an idea, and grab a few from the section after that. If you do assess a few edits, please make sure to (a) check edits from this semester only (some students edited last semester too); (b) check every edit this semester (for most students there are only 2 or 3 edits; (c) try to check for plagiarism from the source -- and note whether you found plagiarism, or determined that the student had acceptably rephrased the material from the source, or that you couldn't tell whether the student plagiarized or not; and (d) note if the student added anything useful (i.e. that was worth adding and wasn't reverted). Revert the student yourself if necessary.

If everyone would do a dozen or so, we'd have a lot more data. I will try to do a few more myself over the next few days. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:12, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

• I have done a half-dozen or so thus far; tomorrow it looks like I will have a little time during which I will try to review another half dozen. Go Phightins! 01:16, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for doing this, Mike & Colin. It seems to me key issues are 1) finding a way to correct bad mental models of "what helps Misplaced Pages", and 2) finding a way to ask project-groups clean up after themselves.

1a) First, clarify that groups of contributors should not only try to add knowledge, they should contribute to the review/proofreading workflow. Some % of all contributions should go towards checking that they integrate well with the rest of the wiki.

1b) Problems have been noted with some current metrics for estimating contribution quality. It's worth laying out "metrics guidelines" on a separate page, and asking any researcher in the area to review and comment on those guidelines. Since some community researchers have used some of the challenged metrics in the past (characters added; edit retention), you might start by working things out with them.

2) Even with the limited data we have already, we can ask the professor to help clean up the plagiarism. It would be nice to have a simple process for summarizing any unintended problems caused by a class, with links to how to fix such problems, and asking their point of contact to do so (after the class has started; before it is over).

In this case, I would recommend that WoodSnake ask his students to review their own work, review what counts as plagiarism (a useful first-year exercise) -- and remove any material they added that is a copy/paste or close paraphrase. Then he or a TA can run an automated plagiarism check over the remaining contribs. Unlike us, they have access to both the full student userlist and to the source text.

– SJ + 17:58, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

A broken course page?

When I try to view Education_Program:Marquette_University/Neurobiology_(Spring_2013) I get an error. When I try to view other Special:Courses I do not (random example: Education Program:Williams College/Using a Computer to do the Math You Cannot Do (2013 Q1)). Is this error for the Marquette page reproducible for others? Biosthmors (talk) 21:39, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

As far as I've seen, it only affects that page (so far). It's been going on for a few weeks (see Template:Bug). We have a fix coded for it now, but it's a complex update so it's taking a while to get through code review before it can be deployed.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 21:53, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

We've now applied a workaround to get this and another affected page working again. If anyone notices other course pages that show an error when you try to view them (which may happen when students' articles get deleted), please let me know quickly and I can try to have the workaround re-applied. Also, the patch to fix the fundamental cause of these problems has been merged, but won't deploy for another few weeks.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 21:30, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

I believe this is fixed for good now. :) --Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 16:06, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

What do you want to know from a student survey?

Soon, I'm going to deliver an invitation to take a survey about their Misplaced Pages assignment experience to all the students in classes this term (the ones using the extension course pages). In the past, we've sent out fairly elaborate email surveys that got passed to students by the instructors (like this). But the data from that hasn't been particularly useful, so this time around we want to try having the survey completely on-wiki. This way, everyone can see the responses as they come in and learn what we can from them. It also gets us a more representative set of responses, since each student gets invited in the same way and at the same time.

Here is the set of survey questions:

Which class were you in?

...

What did you have the most trouble with?

...

Did you take the "Training for Students" before you started your assignment? If so, how well did it prepare you for editing?

...

Is there anything you really wish you'd been told right when you were starting?

...

What kind of feedback did you get from classmates and other Misplaced Pages editors? Did you review the work of other students?

...

Did you get specific instructions about copyright and plagiarism before beginning your assignment? How does Misplaced Pages's treatment of copyright and plagiarism issues match up with what you expected?

...

Did you follow what happened to your article and its talk page after you made your edits? Do you plan to keep an eye on how it evolves after your course ends?

...

Did you feel that your work on Misplaced Pages mattered? Did it matter more or less than a regular term paper or essay?

...

Do you plan to keep editing Misplaced Pages on your own? If so, what will you work on? (If you'd be interested in training to become a Misplaced Pages Ambassador to help other students get started on Misplaced Pages, say so here and we'll follow up with you.)

...

Are there any editors you'd like to thank for their help?

...

Any other feedback you'd like to share?

...

--~~~~

Suggestions for improving the survey questions are welcome. I'd like to spam the students (using this invitation delivered to their talk pages) on Wednesday, April 8.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 14:43, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Presumably you meant Wednesday, April 10. Looie496 (talk) 15:35, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Whoops! Yes, Wednesday the 10th. Thanks for any feedback you guys can give us. JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 16:45, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

The level of collaboration and peer review within each class seems critical. You might consider asking some of the following:

• Did you work alone or in a group? If a group: what size? automatable
• Did you review the work of other students?
• Did you get feedback from TAs or professors while you were working? ask TAs
• Did you edit continuously or in a few brief bursts? automatable

– SJ + 16:52, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Hmm. Can you say why the more complex questionnaire wasn't useful? Too many free-form answers? Anyhow, I'd like to know:

• Do you know what a "watchlist" is? If so, did you have one? Did you check it?
• Did you feel that your work on Misplaced Pages mattered? Did it matter more or less than a regular term paper or essay?
• How would you describe the differences between writing on Misplaced Pages and writing a regular term paper?
• What criticisms do you have of Misplaced Pages as an encyclopedia and source of information?
• Do you think that Misplaced Pages has a problem with plagiarism?

I fear, however, that we run the risk of making this (again) a rather complicated survey. But I guess I'd like to know in general terms a) how comfortable they felt with the technical processes of Misplaced Pages (I found that rather few of my students were ever really very comfortable with everything from templates to talk pages to watch lists) and b) whether their attitude to writing on Misplaced Pages is different from their attitude to other forms of academic writing--and whether that might make them more or less likely specifically to plagiarize.

As an aside, I should say that I think one of the problems is that students think writing on Misplaced Pages matters less, for a variety of reasons some of which are "our" fault (e.g. when we point out, perhaps trying to reduce their initial anxiety, that anything can be reverted); I suspect that a higher incidence of plagiarism is one of the consequences of this attitude. But I don't know, so would appreciate a well-designed survey that looked into this. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 17:22, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

To clarify a bit, it was useful the first few times we used it. But now the responses are fairly stable from term to term and we're not getting as much useful information from it that can be used to adjust the program. The free-form details in the student responses are interesting each term, but they aren't easy to share when we do the surveys through Google Docs and aren't easy to aggregate.

@SJ, much of that information can be easily found out by looking at which class they were in and what their assignment was. Do you have a particular reason that you want answers to those things in students' own words?

@Jbmurray, I particularly like the "did your work matter?" question, and your hypothesis that the usual answer is that "it matters less than other assignments" is worth testing. The general question of how comfortable they feel (by this point in the term) with the technical aspects of editing is also interesting, although with the Visual Editor hopefully in place by the the 2013 Q3 term, making specific interventions based on answers to that question is probably moot). The others seem like they are more aimed at testing students' understanding of Misplaced Pages rather than soliciting feedback that can be used to make changes on our end. I'll add the 'how it mattered' question now.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 18:16, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

FWIW, the watchlist question is trying less to test their understanding of Misplaced Pages, than to see how they approach the editing. I think most (at least at the beginning, but perhaps also near the end) plunge in and out. I think it's worth teaching them to see what's changed (probably there should be a question about whether they understand the "page history" or "diffs") and whether, for instance, there is new discussion on a talk page. I found that this took a long time for students to understand, and this prevented them sometimes from interacting well. But there are no doubt better ways to get at this. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 18:49, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

I'd like to hear which students feel they reviewed the work of others. Some will simply have been reading their classmates' work, others may have been asked to or may have had a close partnership with one other student. The rest seem automatable (from the course description) or a question for the TAs. But useful data to be aggregating. – SJ + 18:23, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

I've added a somewhat broader questions, with that as one part: "What kind of feedback did you get from classmates and other Misplaced Pages editors? Did you review the work of other students?". Sound good? --Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 18:40, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Broader and better. – SJ + 04:36, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

You know, one thing I wonder regularly is whether the students are searching for existing articles before they start creating a new one/editing in the sandbox. You can tell pretty easily in some sandboxes that they have copied the existing article there first before expanding, but you can also see, at least as frequently, completely new text on existing topics. I think this could be useful to add into the training, but we may not want to take time to add that in if it turns out most students are doing the necessary Misplaced Pages research in the first place. So maybe we could add something like "Did you search Misplaced Pages for articles related to yours before finalizing a topic?". I think professors assume their students will do that, but I'm not sure it's always the case. This would seem helpful to me, though maybe not enough to add to a brief survey. JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 19:12, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Sage, thanks for asking here. Some things I might be interested in are:

• Did the students edit under their own names or under made-up user names?
• Did they feel that their personal anonymity was adequately protected?
• Did anyone explain to them ahead of time about copyright and plagiarism?
• Did they feel that their teacher or teaching assistant actually read what they wrote on Misplaced Pages?
• After making their edit(s), how many times did they look back to see if there was any reaction to what they did?

--Tryptofish (talk) 20:20, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

That's a lot of questions. Could you expand a bit on why you're interested in these ones and how they might inform how the education program is run? (They are interesting questions, but I'm inclined not to include most of them for the sake of a survey that isn't inordinately long.) I do think that some kind of question that gets at students' perspectives on plagiarism and copyvio would be a useful addition, since (as we've solved other problems) copyvio and plagiarism has emerged as probably the most significant area that needs improvement in the education program. Getting some detailed feedback on that point from students could help us revamp the training materials and recommendations for professors. It's interesting that many students say after finishing the student training that the copyvio/plagiarism section was unnecessary (because of course, that's just common sense), but we know from experience that it's quite necessary in many cases.

I'll try to think of a more general question to elicit students' perspectives on copyright violation and plagiarism.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 14:30, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I added this: "Was copyright violation or plagiarism an issue for your class? How does Misplaced Pages's treatment of copyright and plagiarism issues match up with what you expected?" I'm not entirely happy with the wording; alternative suggestions for getting at this issue are welcome.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 14:37, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

"copyvio and plagiarism has emerged as probably the most significant area that needs improvement in the education program." Indeed, and this has been the case for some time... at least since the Pune project. Moreover, it was (as I recall) the main thing that came up at the RFC on the Education Program. As I've said before (and I feel I say "as I've said before" so often that I need a template so I don't wear out those particular keys on my keyboard) the irony is that plagiarism is also probably the number one reason why Misplaced Pages is distrusted in academia. Academics worry that students will plagiarize from Misplaced Pages, and feel that Wikipedians don't much care. Wikipedians worry that students will add plagiarism to Misplaced Pages, and in turn feel that academics don't much care. What ensues is a dialogue of the deaf with mutual recriminations. And yet at root both sides share the same concerns. What to do about this? I think there should be a proper dialogue, and no doubt decent research. But probably also some kind of "plagiarism summit" in which the issues are addressed at length and disagreements are aired openly. Anyhow, just my .2c. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 16:09, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I'd only add that the other problem that (it seems to me) perennially plagues education projects is a failure of communication. Wikipedians are frustrated when students and/or professors don't use talk pages and/or other customary means of communication on-wiki. Students and academics find precisely those customary means of communication cumbersome and frustrating. This leads to break-downs in communication that only worsens other issues that come up. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 16:09, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm largely in agreement here on both points (without quibbling over when plagiarism became the most significant problem for the US/Canada programs). I'm very hopeful that the Notifications (formerly Echo) features will do a lot to improve the typical communication problems. LiAnna and I are also looking into some ways to get a better quantitative picture of the plagiarism issue.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 16:37, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

A lot of people would be interested in hearing more about that. I was thinking just before you posted this that the next time the EP hires a statistical analyst, the thing to focus on would be the incidence of plagiarism. It's incredibly time-consuming work, though. What do you have in mind? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:47, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't want to set too high of expectations, because we're not yet sure that all the parts of it will come together and produce usable results. But the basic idea is to contract out that incredibly time-consuming work of checking individual articles for plagiarism, and compare students' articles with those of other cohorts of editors.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 16:59, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I think the statistical analysis is important, but I'm convinced that this is a cultural issue. (I would say that, wouldn't I?) I.e. it's a question of how students see their contributions to Misplaced Pages (and indeed also to their other work at university) plus how that work is framed by those of us who teach educational projects. I also think that there are many different things going on, which makes things more complex. But most of this is a hunch, which is why I welcome and am interested to see the results of such surveys. On the other hand, I suspect that focus groups (organized and facilitated with care) might be a more effective way of getting at things... which also fits in with the notion of a "plagiarism summit." --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 17:01, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm not really sure what comparing plagiarism rates of students with other cohorts will tell you. It would be extremely difficult not to bring in other confounding factors such as pop-culture topics vs "serious" topics, literature topics vs science topics, levels of education, and fluency in English. Then there's the variability of actually being able to detect the plagiarism. There's a tendency here to compare student editors with newbies that I think is unhelpful as often it seems the main purpose is to prove they are no worse than newbies so "that's all right then" or that we should treat them just like newbies (and be criticised if we don't). What interests me wrt plagiarism is designing assessments and training that help students both learn about plagiarism and to avoid it. For example, if one is condensing several pages of source text into a few sentences, it is far easier to avoid plagiarism than if one is writing at the same level of detail as the source. If one is already a subject expert (and merely using the source to confirm the facts rather than learn them for the first time) it is far easier to write original text. If one has access to several sources rather than just one, it is easier to achieve original text without introducing errors when trying to alter the language used. And so on. The UoT class assignment is a good example of an assignment with all the variables set to guarantee high levels of plagiarism. More advanced students, writing material that condenses multiple sources should therefore have lower rates of plagiarism. Colin° 13:40, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

I think you're replying to Mike, rather than to me... But let me say that I'm less interested in comparing student editors to other Misplaced Pages editors (though I do find that interesting, for other reasons; we should also want to know when and why other editors, newbies amongst them, plagiarize) than in comparing student behaviour on Misplaced Pages and off. Yes that may bring in "other confounding factors," too, but I think that's important. And yes, there's the matter of teaching them what plagiarism is and how to avoid it. But Joordens tells us (and I have no reason to doubt him) that his students were indeed told what plagiarism was and told not to do it; but they went ahead anyway. Finally, I'm not particularly sure it's about beginning vs advanced students: you'd like to hope so, but some of the worst plagiarism I've had in my Misplaced Pages classes has come from graduate students. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 15:01, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

My point about beginning students perhaps applies more to technical writing than other topics -- they have none of their own knowledge and understanding of the topic to fall back on when trying to write original text. Many of Joordens' class seem to have very poor English skills too (international students?). This makes it very easy with technical writing to make a substitution that completely changes the meaning of the text -- something much less likely to happen with a biography, say, where the writing is everyday English. I think it a little unfair to say they "went ahead anyway" without seeing what teaching material they got. Some students (elsewhere) have commented they thought that the citation was sufficient attribution to allow them to copy/paste. My feeling is only exceptional students would have managed that assignment without plagiarising. I'm disappointed that you've found more senior students with this problem as they should have more experience in avoiding it and less excuse for finding original writing hard. Anyway, my overall point is that assignments should be designed to minimise plagiarism -- it clearly isn't effective enough to just hand students a plagiarism handout or do a 20 minute talk. And again, my feeling is that it is entirely the college/class responsibility to detect plagiarism because it is nearly impossible for Wikipedians to do this effectively, even if there were enough of them and they were motivated to do so. Colin° 19:12, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm responding here to what Sage asked me. First, as I'm sure you already realize, I'm not insisting on any of those questions if they would make the survey too long. I was just reacting to what you asked in opening this thread. But here are my reasons, some of which have already been brought up by other editors just above. The user names and confidentiality questions come out of what WoodSnake has been saying about his objections to letting us know which users are students in his class. I think we agree that a question about copyright and plagiarism is useful. Where you ask about the wording of your version, I'd be disinclined to ask students whether it was an issue for them, so you might perhaps substitute my suggested question for your first question, while retaining your second question – that combination would get at how well or poorly we are getting students to understand the issues. My second-to-last question gets at something many of us wonder about: whether sometimes instructors just dump their students on us. But of course it's not something we can directly control. My last question interests me because it gets at whether students just make an edit to get their course credit and then go away, or whether they stick around to make sure they can respond to any concerns brought up by other editors. Speaking personally, if I were to prune my list to two questions, it would be that last one plus the copyright and plagiarism one. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:31, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, that's helpful. I've reworded the copyright question, and added something along the lines of your last one. I'll be setting a bot to deliver the invitations soon, so we can watch Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages Education Program/Surveys/Students as responses come in. (We could also change the questions at any point, if it seems like specific questions aren't generating useful answers or could be reworded to focus on key issues. The questions are preloaded at the time the user clicks the "take the survey" button.)--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 14:37, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, it looks good! --Tryptofish (talk) 22:41, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Survey tool?

Are you considering using Jeroen's survey tool, or securepoll (used here in transparent mode :)? That can be easier than responding to a talkpage section, even if the results are all freeform answers. – SJ + 18:30, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

I hadn't, for this time around. How hard is that to set up? I was going for something barebones, since it's been successful so far with the training feedback system in my opinion. (See the end of the training, and the feedback page.) But for the future, I'm talking with Yuvi Panda about finishing up the work he did with Steven Zhang to generalize the .js behind the dispute resolution request form so that it could be used for user-friendly input forms for populating complex templates, completing surveys like this, and all kinds of other stuff.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 18:40, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

The Survey extension should be easy to set up: http://www.mediawiki.org/Extension:Survey (you might ask Tim Starling what he thinks about this use case, since securepoll is already installed on en:wp whereas the survey extension is not.) – SJ + 04:35, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Survey Proofreading

For the heck of it, I just did a little proofreading on the Google Docs spreadsheet survey form, and in the section regarding online ambassadors, "assignment" is incorrectly spelled "assignmnet". Before we give this out, it would be good to check spelling :) Go Phightins! 19:40, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Whoops! I'm not sure who gets blamed for that one, but that's the version that went out last time; we're not planning to use Google Docs this time around.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 14:12, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm sure it was me :). JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 17:10, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Invitations sent, responses coming in

The invitations to take the survey got delivered to the talk pages of the ~1200 students current enrolled on EP: course pages. You can monitor responses as they come in here: Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages Education Program/Surveys/Students. As I noted above, we can change the questions at any point and the most recent version will be used for each student who clicks the "take the survey" link.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 19:02, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm curious what % of the grade could be classified as one's own "publication" vs. one's own review of other articles. I am under the impression that, system wide, a larger emphasis on the quality of peer reviews should be boosted in the terms of the grade %. Let's ask: What percent of your grade was based upon either 1) you peer reviewing articles you did not contribute to and 2) you addressing the reviews of others on an article you edited? Please add these two components, if they exist, together. Biosthmors (talk) 23:09, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

I made that edit. I copy-edited one question into the one I asked. I think the reviewing portion should be at least half. In my mind, an ideal assignment might be 25% for your contribution to an article (and prose could be reduced if that improves the article). 50% for posting reviews. 25% you addressing reviews and making further changes to articles. Biosthmors (talk) 23:16, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Isn't that really a question for the professors (and/or could be answered by looking through the course pages)? What do you want to learn specifically from a student perspective with that question?--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 23:52, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Good questions/points. It seems better leaving it out. Biosthmors (talk) 01:00, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Funniest answer

Did you take the "Training for Students" before you started your assignment? If so, how well did it prepare you for editing? No, but I did attend training sessions. They were fun, but I was already familiar with the basics of Misplaced Pages editing and its format, having been an anonymous contributor since I was a child.

One feels really old after reading that...--Garrondo (talk) 15:04, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

I tried to 'like' your comment and then remembered we don't have that feature :). JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 21:21, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Like --Tryptofish (talk) 21:42, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes! JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 00:41, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Another problematic page (and class?)

See Talk:Female_genital_mutilation#Plagiarism. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 18:50, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

I'll ping Mike, who is the OA for that class, as well as the professor. Thanks for bringing it here! JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 19:21, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm in meetings all afternoon but have been in contact with Diana; can't post more now. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:16, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm the professor for this course. The student's postings have been removed and she has also apologized on the talk page. I've asked the student to confine future work for the class to her sandbox. We take plagiarism very seriously at Rice, which has very explicit policies. Additionally, the TA and I are auditing the work of other students.DStrassmann (talk) 00:02, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi! Thank you very much for your vigilance. We greatly appreciate it. Go Phightins! 00:45, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you from me, too. I think everyone here appreciates it very much when an instructor responds so helpfully. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:17, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I heard earlier today that the TA for the class has checked the work of six students in each section and found no more plagiarism by the students, though she did find some pre-existing plagiarism. I'll get the details on that and will revert it if it hasn't already been removed. I'll also do a couple more spot-checks myself. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:35, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

It turns out that in fact the pre-existing plagiarism found by the TA was not by an editor -- it was plagiarism of Misplaced Pages by the external website. The article is domestic worker, and much of the article is repeated word for word on this webpage. I've added {{Backwardscopy}} to the talk page. Is there more that should be done in a case like this? Do we bother to complain when a website copies from Misplaced Pages without attribution? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:15, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Ha! Reminds us that the plagiarism issue goes both ways. Me, I suspect it's too much hassle to complain in such cases. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 16:14, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into it, Mike! JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 17:09, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Same class, another plagiarism issue: Template:Did_you_know_nominations/Gender_disparities_in_health. Three checked sources all had significant issues, and there are a number of offline sources I'm not able to check. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:40, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

I've emailed Diana; I'm traveling so can't do much else at the moment. I haven't had time to spot check other students in the class but will do so when I can. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:42, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for calling this to my attention. This student is in a different section of the course. The instructor and I will address the situation promptly. Please stay posted. DStrassmann (talk) 13:22, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Update: the relevant sections have been removed; the instructor is in conversation with the student, and is checking other sections of the work as well.DStrassmann (talk) 22:57, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation update

There is now a page listing public WEF documents, including minutes, and the bylaws, which have been approved. There's also a link to the minutes of the last few meetings.

A quick summary: the bylaws are approved and we hope the final applications will be turned in to the Affiliations Committee and to the Grant Advisory Committee within a week. I'll post another note here when the grant application goes in so that those interested can see the application and comment at the relevant page. If there are any other questions, let me know. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:11, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Honestly, I need to know what the Foundation will be doing for professors in the fall. I understand that this is necessary, but I get emails almost every day from professors who want help with assignments. It is frustrating to me that I can't tell them anything certain. It seems to be that this transition process will do a great deal of harm to the encyclopedia, as many professors will have no help. How can we avoid this? Wadewitz (talk) 20:03, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

If the WEF gets funded and things go as we hope they will, there will be support this fall as there has been this spring. If it doesn't get funded or we're unable to hire someone who can take on the support role, then I don't know what support the Foundation will provide. I know they have no budget for that role but I don't know if they would feel compelled to try to find a way to help. The WEF applications for funding and affiliation are done; I don't know how long that process will take, but I would think it's a minimum of a couple of weeks. Sorry I can't be more specific -- all I can say is that we're trying to fill that role. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:45, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Best course pages?

Ideally, I think we should have a variety of good course pages that the community highlights as examples for instructors to copy, paste, and adapt (as long as that's not plagiarism ;-)). I know we have Misplaced Pages:Ambassadors/Courses/Trophy case. Maybe we could put a list of high-quality course pages there and/or elsewhere. What course pages do people think are the best examples? Biosthmors (talk) 21:33, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages:Canada Education Program/Courses/Present/North American Environmental History (Tina Loo) Strong points: Topic selection, development of bibliographies before writing, use of sandboxes, interaction with editing community. The Interior (Talk) 18:42, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Might be more useful to use a Course Page that is within the new education extension, since, presumably, that's what the new professors would use. Diana's Course Page isn't bad, at least as a model for having students enroll, select articles, and review each other's work. JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 20:04, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

I suggest we have a variety of models, from within and outside the education program. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:44, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

That makes sense. Just remember that any educators can use the education extension, whether they're affiliated with the program or not. It's seriously been such a useful tool for me, and I'm excited that we're going to put more work into making it even better over the summer. I'm also hoping to put together some tips on using it effectively, since I know I've already been using it every day. Hopefully we'll encourage all educators to use it at that point. JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 00:40, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Students editing sexuality, biology and hormone articles related to physical and mental health

I stated most of this at WP:MED, but I decided to state it here as well because I may get more help by posting it here. The thread will certainly last longer here than at WP:MED. This is what I stated there:

Some of you already know that we seemingly have a higher influx of students editing such articles, especially psychology articles, this year. I've guided some editors, such as this one, and more help from this project is definitely needed on this matter.

Very recently, I've tweaked the edits of, and guided, these two editors: Jameson.thomas52 (talk · contribs) and 8bjr4 (talk · contribs)

There are some articles that I'm either not heavily involved in editing or don't edit at all, and these articles could use more WP:MED eyes to assess whether some of the additions to these articles are appropriate (whether there are grammar or other formatting issues, irrelevant additions, WP:UNDUE additions, additions relying too heavily or solely on WP:PRIMARY SOURCES, or additions that have plagiarism problems). The Sexual dysfunction article, which I edit sparingly thus far, is a good candidate. And so is the Hormone replacement therapy (menopause) article, which I never edited until (to clean up some things), and the Androgen deprivation therapy article. A few of you are already watching the Female genital mutilation‎ article, and it may be best to wait until the students are done editing that article (whenever that is) until substantial cleanup takes place at that article; still, there has been general cleanup going on at that article following student edits, and SlimVirgin, who is a regular editor of that article, has done substantial cleanup of it following student edits.

And for a student editor problem that I did not note at WP:MED, and just got through dealing with, see here. I'm confused by the editor -- User:Cjacob44 -- having added an incomplete WP:SANDBOX version into the WP:MAINSPACE. It appears that the editor needs a lot of guidance on correct formatting, and that his or her reviewers (shown on his or her user page) should have guided him or her better.

Anyway, thank you for any help you are willing to provide on these matters. Flyer22 (talk) 01:32, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Also looking at Cjacob44's user page, he or she may set out to edit the following articles as well: Schizophrenia, Lucid dream, Behavioral contagion, Synesthesia and/or Looking glass self. The Schizophrenia article is of WP:FA status, and should stay that way. Flyer22 (talk) 01:44, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately this hasn't gotten any replies yet. Does anyone know what class these editors come from? Has anyone been in contact with that instructor so that the same mistakes aren't made again next semester? Biosthmors (talk) 21:09, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, Biosthmors. Cjacob44 identifies on his user page that he is from Clemson University. I now refer to that editor by male pronouns because he seems to make clear that he's male with this title on the Masters and Johnson talk page. And the aforementioned class that took on the Female genital mutilation article identify as being from Rice University. I'm obviously not sure about the others that I pointed to or directly noted above. But, as seen on Jameson.thomas52's talk page, I did query whether or not Jameson.thomas52 is from the same class as User:Abbie.dodz after seeing the Sexual Interest/Arousal Disorder link Jameson.thomas52 added (it still isn't an article yet). Flyer22 (talk) 23:14, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Hong Kong course?

Is anyone aware of a Hong Kong based course running at the moment? I've just come across this, which was distinctly remeniscient of this; both look a lot like class projects (there's a note confirming this at Talk:Feng Yu bo). No major problems yet, but if we're going to see an influx of articles on minor Hong Kong "characters" it would be good to know in advance. Yunshui 雲‍水 13:04, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Tsim Tung Brother Cream may be part of the same class project, if a class project it is... Yunshui 雲‍水 13:08, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Online Ambassador application: The Illusive Man

The Illusive Man

The Illusive Man (talk · contribs)

1. Why do you want to be a Misplaced Pages Ambassador?

   I am extremely interested in new editor retention, especially at the caliber of researchers and academics that this project strives to bring to the project. We need to welcome and include these students of higher learning as much as possible.

2. In three sentences or less, summarize your involvement with Wikimedia projects.

   As an articles for creation reviewer, I have reviewed several hundreds of articles for quality including Manual of Style, copyediting, researching and including valid sources while removing impertinent ones, etc. As a counter vandalism editor I often encounter first time editors who make good faith/mislead test edits to Misplaced Pages, always encouraging them to create an account and participate at a higher level. These are my major roles on the English Misplaced Pages.

3. Please indicate a few articles to which you have made significant content contributions. (e.g. DYK, GA, FA, major revisions/expansions/copyedits).

   Impossible to say, I have reviewed so many articles, mostly of start or C-Class, that it may be entirely possible some have been upgraded to GA class+, but I can not recall any specific examples. My core strength is definitely in familiarizing newcomers with the fundamentals of on-Wiki activity and assisting in the very beginning of editor's editing careers, IMHO the most important and volatile period in an editors life cycle where one unsavory experience can result in permanently leaving the project.

4. How have you been involved with welcoming and helping new users on Misplaced Pages?

   As a prolific vandalism and test edit reverter, I often catch brand new editors to Misplaced Pages trying to make their mark on the project and explore key functions of the software. I always make the point of presenting these editors with information templates and a follow up means of communication, instead of an (often harsh) default warning level template.

5. What do you see as the most important ways we could welcome newcomers or help new users become active contributors?

   An honest collaboration between an experienced editor and the newcomers in a way that engages the new editor, such as direct assistance with an article the new editor is trying to edit, helps the user learn the Wiki markup (often the biggest obstacle to editors with no markup language experience). It also proves that somebody on the project cares and is willing to help, assisting with the all too familiar "it's me against them" breakout mentality of most first time editors, who often experience a sense of lash back from established editors, citing policies they often can't have the experience to interpret "correctly", etc.

6. Have you had major conflicts with other editors? Blocks or bans? Involvement in arbitration? Feel free to offer context, if necessary.

   I've had several bouts with editors who seemed to not be interested in developing an encyclopedia as much as raising a ruckus, but I've always responded in a calm, civil and constructive manner, well past even the point that project administrators have blocked the confused new editor. I have never needed arbitration in any content or behavior, as I always take a step back and reach a consensus on content development when one of my changes is disputed. Fortunately, most editors who do edit more than once, are committed to the same quality upping belief as I, and this allows a common point for intelligent to occur.

7. How often do you edit Misplaced Pages and check in on ongoing discussions? Will you be available regularly for at least two hours per week, in your role as a mentor?

   I almost could be called a discussion troll; I check all the noticeboards, the help desks, the talk pages of major projects and Misplaced Pages discussion boards up to eight times a day, often from different locations, even in a read-only mode. I appreciate any chance to educate myself with on and off-Wiki discussions and events. I have recently finished radiation therapy for a brain cancer, and will be available no less than 6 hours per week, every week.

8. How would you make sure your students were not violating copyright laws?

   Collaboration is key. I make no claim to be an authority on any such issue; While I can certainly recognize attribution laws and copyright rhetoric, discussion with the student as to the sourcing and status of the referenced materials, and in working with other online ambassadors and the concerned WikiProject members, I feel like we can ensure students are consistently writing high-quality, very free articles.

9. If one of your students had an issue with copyright violation how would you resolve it?

   If it is identified as a copyright violation, positively, then the material must be removed and this fact communicated to the student, who can then either find free materials to substitute, or begin contact through the open ticket response system (OTRS) to gain such authority to use the non free material under the banner of Misplaced Pages's own in house model. I would of course be willing to assist the student in discussions with copyright holders, as I have done successfully on many occasions in the past.

10. In your _own_ words describe what copyright violation is.

    A copyright violation is the usage of any attributable material, no matter how slight, including text, graphics, data, etc, that is not released under the public domain or under a license that allows it to be taken from its source and freely redistributed either as is, or as a component of a different work. This is a fairly more conservative definition than most look for, with many fewer exemptions, but in my opinion, it is better to exclude a dozen ambiguously free resources than to have one complaint from copyright holders for damages or misuse of their proprietary information. Misplaced Pages, in my opinion, is damaged severely in the eyes of copyright holders and the public in every case of violation, and strides should, again in my opinion, be made to ensure this never happens.

11. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Misplaced Pages Ambassador?

    I am passionate about online education, myself having been involved in a degree of divinity program online that required the production of dozens of high quality, attributable papers on the principles of spirituality and religion. While there are definitely big leaps between the two, I feel my on Wiki experience and my experience gathered elsewhere in online mentoring relationships, makes me an ideal candidate for this simply delightful initiative. Thank you to all who have read my application, this means a lot to me.

-T.I.M 18:40, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Endorsements

(Two endorsements are needed for online ambassador approval.)

• Endorse--Great contributions and a passionate desire to help new Wikipedians...just what we need! —Theopolisme (talk) 19:55, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
• Endorse I don't recall interacting with them previously, but reviewing their edits suggest enough work in reverting vandalism and AFC to suggest they know their way around. Stuartyeates (talk) 03:54, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

• Wow, I am honored by both endorsements. I thank you both for taking the time to review my contributions, I am very proud of them. I have read all the literature that exists on the Education Program; What can I do to start helping? -T.I.M 19:59, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

• Great question. =) Here's my stab. Thanks for signing up! There are likely many students out there right now (or soon to be) who could benefit from feedback, encouragement, and ways to improve their articles. (There might be a planned update to Special:Courses to show ambassadors.) I'm pretty sure Jami signed up for several classes because the community hadn't made itself explicitly available. A needed activity in my mind is also for more Wikipedians to establish working relationships with instructors off-wiki (along the lines of WP:CLASSAMBASS). This could involve a Skype meeting or several, emails, phone calls, etc. When Wikipedians who understand quality content have good relationships with instructors, assignment design can be improved even during the semester sometimes. And when students get good instruction, they can hit the ground running, and everyone will have a more pleasant experience (including readers). Best. Biosthmors (talk) 21:07, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

• That's fantastic! Thank you. :) When an Admin can come around and assign the bit, I'll jump in headfirst! -T.I.M 13:00, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

• This is the standard welcome message for new ambassadors, which anyone should feel free to change and update. I'll go ahead and assign T.I.M. the course online volunteer right. Biosthmors, note that you and any other course coordinator (or admin) have the ability to do this as well. (Go to a user's contributions, then click "user rights management" near their username at the top.)--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 13:06, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Evolutionary psychology / Psyc452

There has been an influx of Evolutionary psychology articles from usernames starting with Psyc452. There's a thread at WikiProject Linguistics. One is already at AfD. Stuartyeates (talk) 07:12, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

After a quick look to ] and their contributions, it seems most articles are overly specific topics with "evolutionary psychology" in its title and huge "essay-like" tone. 20 more useless articles that are going to be abandoned and nobody is going to read as soon as the students leave. There seems to be a teacher User:PsycProf51.

--Garrondo (talk) 10:12, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I've plastered eductaion welcome templates around liberally and invited the Prof here. Stuartyeates (talk) 10:31, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Some new articles vs existing material

• Evolutionary psychology of non-kin group interactions vs Reciprocal altruism
• Evolutionary psychology of language vs Evolutionary linguistics
• Evolutionary psychology of Personality essay containing some general Evolutionary psychology and Big Five personality traits
• Misplaced Pages talk:Articles for creation/Evolutionary psychology of cognition

There seems, once again, to be an emphasis on writing essays on subjects close to existing articles, rather than improving the existing articles. And once again, the students write about the Big Five personality traits as if Misplaced Pages has no article on the topic. The teacher account has no edits. Colin° 12:51, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

I personally prefer it this way. Most student articles are going to be weak, I'm afraid, but there is not much harm in having weak articles if hardly anybody reads them. The students learn something, and all we suffer is some clutter that we can easily ignore. I'm much more disturbed when students who don't know what they're doing try to make changes to articles on important topics. Looie496 (talk) 15:27, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

No this is terrible too. It is very hard to delete stuff on Misplaced Pages. So the reader will end up with five billion essays on the Big Five and various evolutionary psychology articles on topics that Wikipedian's have already created. Endless deletion and merger discussions. Endless crap to wade through if anyone actually decides to write a proper article. Filling wikipedia with crap essays isn't a solution to anything. Which is why I'm opposed to the general emphasis on writing new articles and adding new content -- we've got enough crap content as it is. Students should be improving and expanding existing articles to the point where new articles become necessary rather than new articles being the starting point. Colin° 15:57, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Looie: that is like saying that we would rather be without them, but since we cannot ban them lets put them to a corner... If educational assigments are going to be of some use what we should change is how are they performed: there should be some way of having less quantity in dark corners of the wiki and more quality in the open. Regarding this case: it is the perfect example of crappy crap and maybe we should send them all for deletion, or edit them to leave only those 2 or 3 lines of each article that are worth it... If not this time that moment should come some day. --Garrondo (talk) 16:41, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

As a purely pragmatic approach to these pages, I suggest waiting until the editing quiets down, and then WP:PRODing them. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:40, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

I do not believe that waiting serves any purpose except to send a message to the Prof and their class that this use of WP is acceptable. WP:PRODing should be done sooner rather than later. Stuartyeates (talk) 23:57, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

I actually agree with you. My intention was only to avoid having a challenged PROD, which would make AfD necessary. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:00, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I believe an immediate PROD helps give the students (Me!) a better sense of what to improve on in order to meet Misplaced Pages guidelines. If you wish to condemn all this, in your words, 'crappy crap' and strike the articles down once the editing is finished, our semester ends in May.Psyc452-GGeorge (talk) 23:32, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

On deletion. What happens is lots of students write essays on the Big Five. Or on evolutionary psychology as viewed from certain angles. All independent of each other. Someone nominates one for deletion. The class and the education folks get over-defensive. One of them writes a academic paper mentioning the issue in a completely biased manner. Wikipedians get viewed once again, as villagers with pitchforks rather than folk who want to create an encyclopaedia with articles people enjoy reading, rather than a dumping ground for D-grade student essays:

In an essay describing his Misplaced Pages editing experience, one PhD student complained about an experienced editor who deleted a large proportion of his team’s editing with the comments, “Please fully source the article at the VERY least,” even though the team had added 20 citations to an existing article, and “Blech. This really needs WP:TNT,” which is Misplaced Pages’s jargon for “Blow it up and start over.” An article on “Dimensional models of personality disorders,” which a PhD student in another class had substantially improved, was proposed for deletion by an experienced Misplaced Pages editor. Her rationale was that the article did not meet Misplaced Pages’s standards for general notability, even though, according to the course instructor, “dimensional models of disorders may be the hottest topic in abnormal psychology for the past ten years.” The nomination for deletion led to a vigorous debate, consisting of rational argument, references to policy, presentation of evidence as well as vicious name-calling. In both of these cases, students who were the targets of these attacks were understandably upset. As one student remarked, “To have as much work as we did deleted, and then to hear the suggestion that the rest of it be removed as well, from someone who does not appear to be an expert in the field, is disheartening, aggravating, de-motivating and representative of all of these things as we have discussed them as being detrimental to newcomers on a site over the course of the class.”

We're just going to see this again. All sorts of "articles" with subjects already covered by Misplaced Pages are going to be created and will cause grief as they get deleted. And don't forget the waste of time these articles are to all the wiki-gnomes who go round fixing citations and adding wikilinks. The solution is better education of instructors so their assignments don't end up being misguided. Where is the Wiki page where this class assignment is laid out? Where is the proposed work discussed with anyone who actually edits Misplaced Pages? Where is the sense of Wikipedian-responsibility for the assignee's work? Or is this just another case where well-meaning but utterly clueless people turn up and dump on us? Colin° 07:31, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I've already PROD'd all of the articles I'm aware of in this batch, which will save the wiki-gnomes some work. As for whether there's a class page, I don't see one on-wiki. Stuartyeates (talk) 08:14, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the PROD-ing. Colin, we really shouldn't feel badly just because someone writes an essay critical of Misplaced Pages. Heck, there are websites dedicated to criticism of Misplaced Pages. And the best way to minimize those perceptions about pitchforks and all that, is to be civil and polite to those editors. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:20, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I thank you for the civilness you've displayed towards us. We (the students) were fully informed that our articles would be edited mercilessly and/or deleted. I can't speak on behalf of my peers or instructor, but I don't believe that I (or any of them) are the pitchfork raising types. The articles we've submitted are not intended to be D- essays, however realize that most or all of us are inexperienced at writing articles in encyclopedia style. The onus was on us to meet Misplaced Pages Guidelines. The burden is on us to prove that these articles are valid expansions of the topics and not merely content forks. By posting PRODS or other warnings (instead of a speedy deletion), you help to educate us. In the end, even if these articles only end up having a few lines that are included in the main Evolutionary Psychology article, that's a success, right? Personally, I'm trying my best to be courteous and save the wiki-gnomes some time by adding wiki links myself. I did this because someone helpfully left a cleanup tag that told me that wikilinks needed to be added. Lastly, I'll let my instructor know about Colin's valid questions.Psyc452-GGeorge (talk) 23:32, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

In the end, even if these articles only end up having a few lines that are included in the main Evolutionary Psychology article, that's a success, right? That depends on how many hours we have to spend cleaning up mess and how many of your classmates end up as long-term editors. See opportunity cost. Stuartyeates (talk) 03:11, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

The main Evolutionary psychology article is already past the WP:TOOBIG limit so it doesn't need more lines. It is already split into sub-articles. The topic needs rationalisation and in-article improvement, not just the accumulation of more material. Psyc452-GGeorge, we know most of you don't intend to write D-grade essays, though stats will show a few do and hey! they're on Misplaced Pages not in some prof's drawer with red pen all over them. And history shows that it is volunteer Wikipedians who end up having to clean up the D-grade work, not those running the assignment. Is that fair? And even an A-grade essay isn't what we want. We want better articles. The assumption that class assignments should unthinkingly create new articles is harmful. Colin° 07:34, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Let's try not to be too down on Psyc452-GGeorge in particular for the broader actions of their prof and classmates; the fact that Psyc452-GGeorge has engaged with us here is a huge start towards winning them as a long-term editor. Stuartyeates (talk) 08:09, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Indeed you are right. The problem is that WP:BITE makes our response to classroom assignments impotent as, like here, the students are the visible face of the assignment and bear the fallout when it goes pear shaped. Which is why we need a policy (Misplaced Pages:Assignments) and specific guidance (Misplaced Pages:Assignments for student editors). I see from the external website mentioned below that these students are being asked to create articles and then perhaps incorporate material into some parent article. This is backwards and only ends up creating lots of tangential articles that repeat existing material. I fear this is being done to simplify marking rather than because it helps Misplaced Pages. Colin° 10:59, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

I consider it to be very nice and very welcome that Psyc452-GGeorge has taken the time to discuss the issues with us here. I appreciate it very much! I'll also make an observation, that he is being very honest with us in saying "...our semester ends in May". From a student's point of view, that's just as valid as is, from an ongoing editor's point of view, a concern about dealing with what remains here in June and beyond. This isn't about who is a good person and who is a bad person. It's about how we at Misplaced Pages should best deal with how to advance the project of encyclopedia creation. We shouldn't try to change the way students prioritize things. Indeed, we cannot. But we need ways of dealing with realities. Students who edit because their professor requires them to edit are fundamentally different from most other editors, in that someone has told them to edit, instead of them deciding on their own to volunteer. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:15, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Copyright problem at Evolutionary psychology of Personality

Text from : https://syllabus.byu.edu/uploads/b0cEWAOU57aJ.pdf (Evolutionary theories of personality) is too close to the writting of our article. Some sentences obtained after copying a paragraph into google and the paragraph of our article:

Our article: potential proximate mechanisms governing personality structure, aspects of developmental environment should be expected to affect, the degree that individuals should be affected by different environments, and why personality traits are responsive to environmental modulation.

The source: personality differences develop and explain the proximate ('how it works') ... mechanisms governing personality structure; (c) what aspects of an individual's developmental environment should be expected to affect that individual; (d) how and to what degree individuals should be affected by different environments; and ...

Taking a look at other sources I have not found other problems(which of course does not mean they are not there), so it may indicate an unintentional mistake while paraphrasing the source.

--Garrondo (talk) 13:45, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Online Ambassador application:Santhosh

YOUR USERNAME HERE

Santhosh (talk · contribs)

1. Why do you want to be a Misplaced Pages Ambassador?

   I wish to know current stuffs & like to act as a Misplaced Pages Ambassador.

2. In three sentences or less, summarize your involvement with Wikimedia projects.

   YOUR ANSWER (OPTIONAL)

3. Please indicate a few articles to which you have made significant content contributions. (e.g. DYK, GA, FA, major revisions/expansions/copyedits).

4. How have you been involved with welcoming and helping new users on Misplaced Pages?

   YOUR ANSWER (OPTIONAL)

5. What do you see as the most important ways we could welcome newcomers or help new users become active contributors?

   YOUR ANSWER (OPTIONAL)

6. Have you had major conflicts with other editors? Blocks or bans? Involvement in arbitration? Feel free to offer context, if necessary.

   No

7. How often do you edit Misplaced Pages and check in on ongoing discussions? Will you be available regularly for at least two hours per week, in your role as a mentor?

   If i may be...i will do...

8. How would you make sure your students were not violating copyright laws?

   According to my view our students were not violating copyright laws.

9. If one of your students had an issue with copyright violation how would you resolve it?

   I will solve the problem in different way...

10. In your _own_ words describe what copyright violation is.

11. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Misplaced Pages Ambassador?

    Im keen in wikipedia ambassador...

Endorsements

(Two endorsements are needed for online ambassador approval.)

• Oppose: Application added by an IP (117.201.16.141) with no contribution history. Application in the name of Santhosh (talk · contribs), but that user has no recent edits as the last was in 2009. Application provides little detail, but the comment "According to my view our students were not violating copyright laws" is a concern. EdChem (talk) 14:58, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
• Speedy close per above. —Theopolisme (talk) 15:09, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose: as per the answers to question 8 and 9. Stuartyeates (talk) 01:30, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

An external course page

An external website lists some student articles and a classroom assignment. I suppose linking there might be considered "outing" by some. Any comments on that issue?

Articles listed include:

• Male Waist to Chest Ratio, Male waist to chest ratio
• Reproductive Value Theory, Reproductive value theory
• Epigenetics and Homosexuality, Epigenetics and homosexuality
• Paternity Insecurity and Child Favoritism, Paternity insecurity and child favortism
• Waist to Hip Ratio, Waist to hip ratio
• Factors Related to Female Attraction to Males, Factors related to female attraction to males, Sexual_attraction#Sex_and_sexuality_differences_in_sexual_attraction
• Male to Female and Female to Male Sex Reassignment, with Sex reassignment a parent disambiguation page
• Sex Differences in Consumption of Pornography and Erotica, Sex differences in consumption of pornography and erotica

Students have been instructed to create user names that start with psyc452. Searching for "psyc452" at Special:ListUsers yields about 20 names, created during this semester. Searching for "psych452" gives a few more. Has anyone happened to have any productive conversation with this professor? Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) 22:45, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

There's a thread about this above. Stuartyeates (talk) 22:52, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

See #Evolutionary psychology / Psyc452, above. Cnilep (talk) 02:11, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) 20:29, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Instructor guidance needed at AfC

Demiurge1000 pointed out on my talk page an issue with a class: Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Articles for creation/Help desk#Class project. Help guiding the professor toward best practices and the trainings would be useful.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 03:33, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I went ahead and created the page. Wikification would be useful. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 04:59, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Direct interaction with the teacher concerned (User talk:ProfDavis) would be a good idea, but it's beyond my competence, I'm just the AfC Wikignome.

In my experience (which is not insignificant) the support systems for educational projects is very poorly connected to the "regular" editor support systems on en.WP. Very few people who handle questions at the various help pages are even aware of the existence of the academic support systems. These systems/projects have a huge job of expanding and maintaining an awareness and presence/connectedness internally throughout the various "regular" editor support systems of WP, in addition to the job of reaching out externally to academic institutions. This arguably requires more direct hands-on involvement and support from WMF. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:11, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Concerns about Wiki Education Foundation

The following is a fork from a thread at Misplaced Pages:Education_noticeboard#Instructor_guidance_needed_at_AfC. This discussion had little to do with the concern in that thread, so I split it. For context, users are discussing the proposed meta:thematic organization described at meta:Wiki Education Foundation. The initial statement says that involvement from the Wikimedia Foundation will not happen then is self explanatory for the rest. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:06, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, that's not going to happen, I'm afraid: the WMF is busy offloading the Educational Program, and those setting themselves up to be responsible for the new version of the EP aren't on the whole comfortable or interested in working on-wiki at all. In fact, if anything they're actively hostile to what they call "restrictive Misplaced Pages norms." --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 17:03, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I disagree that the board as a group is 'on the whole' hostile about interacting on-wiki. In fact, the vast majority of board members have been championing for getting classes more involved in the Misplaced Pages infrastructure, including WikiProjects, this noticeboard, and utilizing talk pages. No, I don't think any educational initiative would ever promote students getting super involved in the bureaucratic processes, simply because that will only meet their learning objectives in a few disciplines. Still, if we can engage these new editors on-wiki in a more positive way, they just may stick around to get involved on the back end of things. Jon, thanks for working with User:ProfDavis. I sent an email to see if I can help connect him/her to better resources and materials if s/he does this again next time around. JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 17:18, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I think it's pretty clear that most of the putative board members are uninterested and/or uncomfortable about working on-wiki. Just look at their contributions histories. (Which will also reveal the notable exceptions, of course.) And their hostility to Misplaced Pages processes is documented. None of this has anything to do with getting students (I agree) needlessly over-involved in Misplaced Pages processes. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 17:28, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree with jbmurray. It's clear that the WEF board members have no interest in discussing matters pertaining to Misplaced Pages on-wiki. From the minutes of April 8, 2013: "The board discussed ways to handle informal communications with the Misplaced Pages community." ... ... ... AND?! What's to "discuss"? How about typing letters that form words which are grouped into sentences and then posting those sentences somewhere for the Misplaced Pages community to read and respond to them? That's how communication generally works. I also agree that it's ridiculous that people are organising something that affects people who do actually edit, and people who will be helping students edit, when they have no substantial editing experience themselves. --Geniac (talk) 23:37, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I guess I've been labouring under the illusion that it was this site that I've devoted the majority of my free time to over the last five years. It must have been some other site. I guess you guys are free to characterize this group of people how you'd like, but try to remember, they are volunteers like yourselves trying to improve the troubled current state of student editing. And from my experience, they're all very committed to the project. Jbmurray, I'm deeply hurt by your statement that, "if anything they're actively hostile to what they call "restrictive Misplaced Pages norms." I love restrictive Misplaced Pages norms. They're my bread and butter. You've used quotes here, who are you quoting, and what was the context? The Interior (Talk) 02:01, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

C'mon, Interior, don't be disingenuous. You know you're a notable exception to the majority who (as I said) are both uncomfortable and unwilling to work on-wiki. And you know equally about the hostility to (the board's phrase, not mine) the supposedly "restrictive norms of Misplaced Pages." And yes, I'd like to know what those are, too! Transparency is one, I presume. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 02:09, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Geniac, I wrote those minutes; I can expand on them if you like, to the extent of my memory. I didn't (and don't) think the board meetings are worth memorializing in a lot more detail than that, but if you want to know more, please ask. On the "informal communications" topic, the question was whether there was a need for any sort of resolution on how we communicate with Misplaced Pages; there didn't seem to be a need to be so formal about it, so no resolution was passed. I and a couple of other board members (such as The Interior) have volunteered to do most of the on-wiki communication, largely because we're the most familiar with Misplaced Pages and the community. Jon's right that the board members span the spectrum from experienced Wikipedians to editors with very few edits, though I don't think there's anyone on the board who could be fairly described as hostile to Misplaced Pages processes. Jon, since I know you've had some conflict with Mike Cline, I might as well mention that Mike Cline resigned from the board after the 8 April board meeting. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:21, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

"because we're the most familiar with Misplaced Pages and the community." -- And that's the problem. People who are not familiar with Misplaced Pages and the community should not be making decisions that affect Misplaced Pages and the community. --Geniac (talk) 03:43, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, I also think that people who are not familiar with the educational world should not be making decisions that affect that community. That's why there are three seats on the board for Wikipedians and three for educators. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 04:19, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

@Geniac, I question your conclusions, and above all your premise. I also agree that it's ridiculous that people are organizing something that affects people who do actually edit, and people who will be helping students edit, when they have no substantial editing experience themselves. Of the WEF board members as of last week there was substantial editing experience: Mike Cline (39,788 edits, editor since Jan 2007, 63% article space); Mike Christie (24,648 edits, editor since April 2006, 47% article space); Pharos (32,292 edits, editor since Sept 2004, 35% article space); TheInterior (17,698 edits, editor since Dec 2008, 56% article space); PJthepiano (846 edits, editor since August 2010, 15% article space); Bobcummings (83 edits, editor since Apr 2005); DStraussmann (259 edits, editor since Apr 2011); Jami Mathewson (1,949 edits, editor since Nov 2011); Etlib (148 edits, editor since Aug 2010)

PJ and Etlib are both successful campus ambassadors, an important perspective the WEF needs. Etlib is also a professional university Librarian. DStraussmann and Bobcummings are both professional educators with successful use of Misplaced Pages in their classrooms under their belt. Bobcummings is also a leading force in the Open Education Collaborative Documentation Project, a subproject of the Open Education Resource Foundation. Of course Jami represents the WMF on the board.

Your premise is flawed when one examines the mission statement of the WEF.

The Wiki Education Foundation supports innovative uses of Misplaced Pages and related projects in communities of teaching, learning, and inquiry in the United States and Canada. The Foundation aims to improve the breadth, scope, and quality of Wikimedia content; enhance student information fluency; and increase the number and diversity of contributors to the free knowledge movement by engaging educators, researchers, and students.

— WEF Mission Statement

The WEF mission goes well beyond just “editing Misplaced Pages”. Most succinctly, the mission of the WEF is to encourage and support the use of Misplaced Pages in education to achieve learning objectives. Such encouragement and support undoubtedly leads to students contributing to Misplaced Pages. Such contributions should comply with Misplaced Pages norms and there is an abundance of evidence that such contributions can be successful in an educational setting. However, student contributions to Misplaced Pages should be seen as a valuable by-product of achieving learning objectives in the classroom, not as the primary goal of the WEF as there are many ways in which Misplaced Pages has and will continue to support learning objectives that don't require student editing.

The current board brings all the necessary perspectives to bear to make that a reality. Even Jbmurray (the only current contributor to this noticeboard that even bothered to weigh in April 2012 when the WMF was contemplating the WEF) had this to say: The only real stipulation is that both the working group and the finished program should represent both the Misplaced Pages and the academic communities. Indeed, from the university side, it should also reach out to the various elements that are likely to be involved or concerned: not simply tenure-track faculty, but also instructors, TAs, educational technologists, and others. --Mike Cline (talk) 16:25, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

As I've been interpellated here, I'll respond... I think it's a great pity that there's been disengagement from both "sides" (and I don't much like the talk of "sides," but you get my drift). On the one hand, those involved in what was the working group and is now the putative board of a new organization have on the whole been uncomfortable working on-wiki, and the result has been a lack of clarity and transparency but perhaps more importantly what I think is a pretty weak proposal (still manifestly unfinished). Especially ever since the failed RFC (closed as "no consensus") there's been a progressive drifting away, and now they have set up their own site elsewhere. Meanwhile, however, there has been little engagement from regular Wikipedians, either. For a long time it was just User:Biosthmors; for a while it has effectively just been me, and since the Board left meta I'm no longer much interested in continuing.

Wikipedians must take their share of the responsibility: there certainly have been opportunities for them to have their say, and though there was clearly resistance on the part of the working group / board, it may have had some kind of effect had they spoken up. It's honestly hard to know who to blame here. On the one hand, the disassociation between Education Program and Misplaced Pages was inscribed in the structure of things by the WMF; on the other, the working group / board has, I think, felt burnt in discussions here on-wiki, and has tended therefore to retreat to its own internal communications and structures. But it is equally true that ordinary Wikipedians tend only to take notice of the Education Program when something goes wrong: they (we) react noisily to scandals such as the recent Toronto-based Psychology class, and respond by trying to raise obstacles to class projects, but take less interest otherwise. (There are notable exceptions, of course: I'd point not only to User:Biosthmors, but also to User:‎Tryptofish, for instance, and the work done on Misplaced Pages:Assignments for student editors).

Overall, there's been little attempt on anyone's part to join up the dots, in precisely but not solely the ways that User:Dodger67 enjoins us in the comments that sparked this discussion. I fear that, not for the first time (see my comments here) this is a case of resources wasted and opportunities squandered. I hope that things look up, and I know that there are good people on the board (I'll single out User:Mike Christie and User:The Interior). But it seems to me that above all there's a lack of vision and a fundamental (small "c") conservatism, expressed in part in a preference for legalism, technocratic tweaks, and jargon that's part of the problem, not the solution.

Again, all this is a tremendous pity when there are important issues at play that affect Misplaced Pages and academia alike. And there's no doubt more to say, but perhaps this isn't even the proper forum: I wish there were such a forum somewhere; as I've said various times, I'd have thought that one of the first things something like the WEF could do would be to create one. Anyhow. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 18:48, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! --Tryptofish (talk) 22:04, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

And thanks from me too for the positive comment. I agree with some of your comments, but rather than pick nits with you, I'd like to try to start the conversation over. The putative WEF board (which I'm just going to call the board, for brevity) really does want to do the right thing. If we can talk about what that right thing is, that would be terrific.

One specific response: I think this page is the best place for a discussion by Misplaced Pages editors with (and about) the WEF -- not a separate project page, not meta, and not another Wiki. This page has the highest volume of interested editors and that trumps all the other considerations, I would argue.

At the moment we're trying to get funding from the WMF via the GAC; trying to get affiliated; and figuring out what we can make do with by way of infrastructure. We don't want to spend any more money than we have to on overhead like accounting and HR, so we're looking at being "hosted" inside another entity -- e.g. Wikimedia DC, or a university.

I don't think that sort of thing is likely to be of much interest to most editors here, though, beyond an assurance that we're trying not to waste money. Are there particular topics that we could discuss that relate more directly to education? Such as what, exactly, should the new organization be doing with classes, with training, with resource development and so on? There have been a lot of those discussions here but the consensus has been more about what classes should not do, not about what a support organization like the WEF should do. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:56, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

You know actually, as I suggested above, I'm no longer particularly interested in discussing with (or about) the WEF. I feel I've tried to engage with that initiative (if "initiative" is even the right word), but have found it too dispiriting. As I've indicated, I've also found those discussions to be far too limited. One of the most disappointing of interventions on this page has been Rod Dunican's sole edit outside his own userspace, which essentially amounted to "It wasn't me".

I would, however, be interested in discussing Misplaced Pages and Education with you, and indeed with anyone else here. That's the conversation that should be started over. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 08:25, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

A question relating to the comment ...there's been a progressive drifting away, and now they have set up their own site elsewhere. Is there any sign that the board understands that the en.wiki community systematically ignores opinions expressed elsewhere and that this is a logical consequence of our anti-harressment work, which condemns "opposition research"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stuartyeates (talk • contribs) 20:57, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Can you clarify the question/how it applies here? I want to make sure I understand you before trying to address it. JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 20:51, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

What I mean is that a large number of en.wiki editors will never access https://wikiedfoundationusca.atlassian.net/ because WP:OUTING tells us that checking an editors' opinions or stance on any off-wiki site and referring to it on-wiki is harassment, unless each editor specifically tell us to in each particular context. Stuartyeates (talk) 02:56, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

I wouldn't have thought OUTING applied here; it refers to "dredging up their off line opinions", not to referring to a site which has been set up to provide information. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:41, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Exactly. One editors information is another editors opinion. Stuartyeates (talk) 10:01, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Well I don't particularly feel like saying "Thanks!" to JBMurry for his "who shall we blame" post above. Mike Cline's "even bothered" comment is pretty negative too. I guess I'm just a noisy obstacle to class projects. This is a volunteer community. I'm here because my watchlist, and the watchlist of other medical editors, regularly gets hit by student edits. For me, this is mainly psych classes straying into neuroscience / neurology topics where they come unstuck and their prof isn't even able to help assuming they actually planned to. I'm not here as an class ambassador or member of some board or a prof running a class. My biggest disappointment continues to be that classes view wikipedia as a huge cloud-based homework environment where they can do pretty much what they like with no consequence. And the WMF seem happy to let them. Nobody is cleaning up Joordens mess and nobody is changing any policy/guideline to prevent that sort of thing happening again. Time and again we see classes come here with a clueless prof and add problematic material that they need/expect us to fix. It really makes one want to give up.

The most problematic classes seems to be ones that aren't part of any programme or working on-wiki. It seems to me the WMF has encouraged education establishments to come to Wiki to do their homework assignments and then failed to support them. Were they told it was easy and you could do it yourself? Plenty seem to be trying. We now have hoards of colleges doing ad hoc assignments without any proper guidance or on-wiki transparency or interaction with the community. The second problem that I see is that most assignments seem to involve posting new material with some wikilinks rather than appreciating this is an interactive collaborative wiki where existing material is built on and improved alongside other editors.

This noticeboard may be the most used/watched page wrt education but ultimately it isn't really used/watched by many folk at all. How many distinct contributors come here? It bet most people know everyone else by now. There's a bias towards medical editors here perhaps as a consequence of the problematic APS initiative. Why is the Misplaced Pages community at large not interacting with education programmes or classroom assignments? Colin° 07:49, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Ha! You may not want to thank me (I'm not asking you to), but I do think we're basically saying the same thing. It's to nobody's benefit to be merely reacting to what's going on. That's demoralizing and dispiriting for everyone concerned. We do need to find ways to improve the interactions between "the Misplaced Pages community at large" and "educational programmes or classroom assignments." And I recognize that your work on Misplaced Pages:Assignments is an attempt to do that, too. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 08:18, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Jon's distinction (in his post further up) between discussions with the WEF and discussions about the education programme and class assignments is valid, of course, but there's a related point that I think is not clear enough. I've been arguing for years that the Misplaced Pages community needs to be more proactive about the education programme; that this is a programme that will have a huge effect on the community and we need to be prepared. I'm a member of the Misplaced Pages community and I'm very interested in those discussions.

The WEF is, or will be, a nonprofit that does not cater solely to Misplaced Pages's needs; it will be trying to serve both the educational community and the Misplaced Pages community. The board won't be composed just of Wikipedians or just of educators, though no doubt we'll end up with some board members who are both; both constituencies have to be represented because their needs are not the same. I don't see the WEF staff reverting bad edits by students or professors, except incidentally; that's not a good use of money because it doesn't scale and doesn't solve any future problems. I may be reverting bad classroom edits, but I'll be doing it as a member of the community, not as a WEF board member. The WEF can't take any sort of "official" on-wiki role because there's no such thing as an "official on-wiki role". What it can (and, I hope, will) do is put resources into outreach -- for example, I would like to have the resources to go to the APS and try to prevent another class like Steve Joordens', and work with them on making future classes more productive. Those are off-wiki activities that an organization like the WEF has a much better chance of getting done than any individual Wikipedian.

I haven't commented on some threads here -- e.g. FLyer22 and Yunshui's notes about potentially problematic classes -- because I don't see much the WEF can do about them. I could so something about them personally, as a volunteer editor, but I haven't commented in that capacity because I am fully booked on-wiki already.

Colin, I've been following your (and others') work on Misplaced Pages:Assignments. I don't think the WEF can contribute much to that because it isn't a part of the community; it's a non-profit. To me that essay is part of the input to what the WEF does -- essays, and more importantly guidelines and policies, and inputs to the WEF's plans. But the WEF has no right to have input into that essay -- its board members, as individual editors, might edit it or comment on it, but that's not the WEF's role. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:10, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Colin, you know that I am concerned about many of the same problems that concern you. I'll be a bit uncharitable in saying, about where you said that you may be "just a noisy obstacle to class projects", that you are certainly noisy, but you're not much of an obstacle. Sorry, but I'm trying to put in a word for editors not getting stressed out by student edits. No matter how much some of us get upset, the student editors are not going to go away. So it does nothing constructive to feel stressed about the students. All it accomplishes is having editors conduct stress-filled conversations amongst ourselves. Outside of the Joordens debacle, I've seen a good number of very helpful student editors. Within the debacle, the best way to mop up is to revert, and then move on without giving it a second thought. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:27, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't think that reverting whatever hits one's watchlist and moving on is an appropriate response to Joordens exercise, and you were among those calling for a block on the whole uni. That was over 900 articles and thousands of edits. And still nobody is doing anything about it. Has anyone asked Philippe what is happening with Joordens? What is the WEF doing about it? All those edits sourced to the class textbook -- we have no policy that allows/suggests editors just revert them, and WP:AGF actually prevents us from assuming they may be bad. So articles will fill up with plagiarism or dubious facts made by editors working beyond their abilities and without proper supervision.

If we revert we get told off for WP:BITE. If we interact with the student, we often just waste our time or become unpaid classroom assistants. If we try to find out who is running the class, we could get blocked for WP:OUTING. I strongly feel there is a need for specific policy that deals with assignments and puts an end to off-wiki and unofficial classes, and gives the WP community some power to deal with classes that can't take responsibility for their work when it goes pear shaped. Such a policy is more important IMO than the structure of some board, especially if that board just washes its hand of any troublesome classes saying "not one of ours".

We need to get to a situation where when one sees a student edit occur, we know what assignment this edit is being done for, when the assignment is due for, what class the student is in, and who is taking charge. Without these things, student edits will remain stress-inducing because they different from normal newbie edits. Without a policy for such assignments, I see large parts of WP (like psychology) being WP:OWNed by education and the volunteer community will abandon them to it. Colin° 09:19, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

I think that's just highly unlikely. Sometimes it's a challenge for me to track down every user name of classes where the profs do want to participate. Fortunately, the extension has made that so much better this term. But it's simply unrealistic that we would ever be able to identify every student. And since this is an open encyclopedia, I'm sure there will continue to be classes who edit, whether they exist within the confines of an official program or not. JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 16:30, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Colin, indeed it was me who pushed for a very broad block. As things stand now, I am watching attentively to see whether or not Philippe's discussions with Joordens result in a correction of the situation. I see no reason to conclude one way or the other about success or failure, but if the future reveals failure, you'll see me at the front of the line calling again for a broad block.

You express concern that reverting leads to accusations of WP:BITE. I did what I did in the talk thread directly below partly in order to test that exact hypothesis. So far, nobody has accused me of that, but let's all see what happens. But I think there's a critical distinction. If, hypothetically, my revert had been the first thing I had done at that page, then I think there would have been a reasonable case that it would have been bitey. However, if you look at the attempts I made first to explain my concerns politely and helpfully, I believe that that makes all the difference. And it took hardly any effort at all on my part. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:52, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

A case study

I decided to put my money where my mouth is, with respect to my having said a bunch of times that it's OK to revert student edits, and I've decided to show here what I did, and invite reaction. Animal ethics is on my watchlist, although it's not a very high priority for me to spend a lot of time on. There was a student project there this semester, from Ball State University. I saw student edits, and saw some problems, although there was also a considerable expansion of the page with sourced material. I didn't revert anything, but I tagged the page: , and explained (hopefully in a very non-BITEy way) on the talk page: . Someone from the class replied: , and I replied in turn to them: . Up to this point, I'm pretty sure everything would be considered to be by-the-book and noncontroversial. But the issues I raised really didn't get fixed. So today, just after giving a somewhat opinionated reply to Colin just above on this noticeboard, I decided to go back to that page. I reverted all of the student edits: , and again explained in talk: . I'll fully admit: my reverting was quite WP:BOLD and quite WP:IAR, and some editors here may feel that I went too far. Please feel free to say so, as I've created this discussion to invite you to do that. But I personally don't feel bad about it at all, and I hope that this discussion will help other editors deal with after-student clean-up without feeling bad either. For me, the key point is that I began by trying to be helpful to the students, and I think that I unquestionably did that – but after not seeing things get fixed, I neither felt obligated to fix them myself nor felt obligated to ignore it. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:59, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm the ambassador for that class, and I have no problem with your approach there. I told that particular group that that topic was so broad as to represent a major challenge for editors who don't know the topic well. There is some content that could be salvaged from that content, but it would take considerable time to weed it out, and it's up to the editor who wants it on the page to get it up to scratch. That class is well led by the prof, and engage on wiki to some extent, and I think an improvement for them would be to post their content earlier (I know it's difficult in a three-month course), so that students would have more time to redraft and rework their content to get it up to community norms. I've done the same in the past. The students will be disappointed, but if they really want that content up on the page, they can log back in and work with your suggestions. The Interior (Talk) 00:28, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

If the topic was so broad as to represent a major challenge for the student editors, why as the ambassador did you approve it, or at least not try to discourage them from attempting it.? The key role of the WP-savvy ambassadors, as I understand it, is to help the class fit their work into the context of WP, which first of all means selecting appropriate topics. DGG ( talk ) 01:32, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

I discussed the topic with the professor, where I indicated it would be a challenge. He felt they were bright students, and up for a challenge. I put a lot of work into helping the prof and students choose appropriate topics, this was one article where that didn't work out. I don't have the power to "approve" what anyone works on, I can only give advice. If it's not followed, what can I do? The Interior (Talk) 01:43, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Reverting seems like a sensible step to me. The article was a collection of well-sourced related information, but not structured as an encyclopedia article. Stuartyeates (talk) 09:20, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Would it be appropriate in a situation like this to post the removed information (the well-sourced part) on the talk page with a note that someone may be interested in integrating it into the article, but it's not quite yet in a state that should be in the article namespace? Not even from the student's perspective; just from the perspective that somebody put some work into researching missing information, and maybe somebody else will want to come along and work it in. JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 16:46, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

That's an interesting question, about moving it to talk. It hadn't occurred to me. I did say explicitly on talk that anyone could get it back by reverting my revert. If I had moved it to talk, it would have been a very large block of text (and it's all reasonably well-sourced but badly written). Also, I'm deliberately trying to see what happens if I do this in a manner that involves a minimum of effort on the editor's (in this case, me) part, because I'm trying to identify how, within community consensus, an editor can deal with this kind of situation without getting "stressed out". --Tryptofish (talk) 17:58, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Moving to talk is what I have found to be the best approach when dealing with suboptimal but well intended editions, and specially work from classes. It gives the text a second opportunity since it is not lost in the previous versions and it can be used as a raw version for future improvements by either the person who added it in the first plce, the primary editor of the article, or any other who may come in the future. In the talk page it becomes a pointer to some potential interesting content and even to some preliminary refs (usually primary). It is also less disruptive for the student (or any other editor) since it gives the message that there is some potential in the addition but that the text is not "yet there". In the worst case scenario in which nobody does anything it will be finally archived in the talk page. In summary it has several advantages: 1-less violent for the first editor (less biting). 2-Since text is potentially interesting still improving the wiki, since content is keept in a draft stage for future improvement. 3-Easy to carry out by us. --Garrondo (talk) 10:02, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

WEF Bylaws

Just figured since Mike Cline commented on my talk page... I would ask some better questions here:

1. How may I join the organization as a member? (Every other chapter aside from Wikimedia Russia is a membership organization with the elections going through the member process. Rationale desired beyond "The limits we placed on ourselves by our decision to incorporate on the USA mean this.")
2. How may members of the community hold the board accountable through board procedures? Is there an option for the say some one like me, a Misplaced Pages administrator, a student editing on Misplaced Pages to get a number of others together to put a resolution before the board or call for an extraordinary general meeting to hold the board accountable?
3. How can I run for the board? How can any other contributor to Misplaced Pages run for the board?
4. What is the rationale for requiring constituent members on the board? What existing chapters that are recognised by the WMF did Aff-Comm model this approach on?
5. Given the lack of a membership model with no accountability, what steps is the current board taking in terms of outreach to the Misplaced Pages community at large?
6. Would WEF consider itself a model for others applying for affiliate status through aff-comm and the WMF? If yes, in what regards? If no, why not? --LauraHale (talk) 01:26, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

I'll post my thoughts in response, but would you mind fixing the name above? I'm Mike Christie, and I'm the one who posted on your talk page; Mike Cline is no longer on the board of the WEF.

1. The WEF is not planned to be a membership organization in the sense described here. There were several reasons for the decision; we felt we had to incorporate in the US (we're a US/Canada organization, and need to be able to accept tax-deductible donations), and this means we have to abide by US non-profit law. (We plan to incorporate separately in Canada in the future.) Membership organizations have some obligations that we felt would be unacceptably expensive and very difficult to administer -- if we make membership completely open to all Misplaced Pages editors, we would be obliged to deliver notice of an AGM and to host an AGM for those members. In addition, we wanted to support two largely separate constituencies -- educators and the Misplaced Pages community -- and we wanted them to elect their own board members, if possible. There's no way to separate franchises with a membership organization. The result was that we took the same route as the WMF: we are not a membership organization, but have mechanisms for electing board members to represent the constituencies we hope to serve.

   This is clearly confusing. WM-NYC and WM-DC are able to function in this way. I admit to a large degree about wanting to make a joke comparing (English)Wiki(pedia) Education Foundation and Soviet Russia. The page on meta says "The WEF will follow the principles of the Wikimedia movement: it will be community-based and open." but aff-comm specifically says on their page "While not all legal systems and cultures allow for a membership organisation to be created, we strongly recommend that this model is at least investigated. Membership organisations usually include a board elected by the members, ensuring change and scalability (if a member of the board is not active any more, they can be replaced, for example)." I am completely unclear on 1) why WEF is not following aff-comm advice, and 2) why open membership and hosting an AGM is problematic. Perhaps you could go into greater detail on why these things would be difficult for you to do, when every chapter EXCEPT for WM-Russia (which appears to have every reasonable justification for their position) and every proposed affiliate follows this model. Do you have a link to the planning page where this was discussed? Because I am still unclear why holding an AGM is a bad thing and why a membership organization could not be created with different types of members. --LauraHale (talk) 06:24, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

   Affcom hasn't approved the WEF yet, and may not, of course. I can't speak for other board members, but when I voted to approve the bylaws, the primary reason was the franchise, which is discussed further down this section. The cost issue was because of the requirement in Delaware law that all members be notified of the AGM; the notification can be by email, I believe, but it meant that if we have any implicit membership rule such as "all editors with more than 250 edits are automatically members" we would have to find some method of contacting those people; I don't think talk page notification would be enough, legally, though I am not a lawyer and didn't ask that question of the lawyer. That seems like a good deal of effort and expense to make that happen, when we could simply put up a watchlist notice or something similar. I voted to approve a non-member-organization because I felt we could provide the franchise by other means, without the legally binding overhead. As I said earlier, I'm open to changing to a member organization if someone convinces me it achieves the same results without adding significant extra cost. I would want to be convinced that it would still give us good representation from the education community. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:07, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

   I also remember speaking (with somebody on the board, if not with the entire group) about the successful membership orgs. of WM-NY and WM-DC. One of the concerns for us to try to put on an AGM was that we're not actually restricted to one city or even one country. The cost would be much higher to host an annual general meeting, either for the organization or for members. I believe those on the board are interested in trying to spend that money on an annual conference to bring people together in a way that will be constructive toward programmatic work. JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 17:30, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

   @LauraHale. As you note, AffCom suggests that a membership organization is at least investigated. We investigated it and decided that it wasn't the right approach for WEF. It works with WM-NYC and WM-DC because they have a smaller universe of participants. WEF will be an international organization with many more stakeholders. As Mike Christie noted, our counsel recommended that in order to comply with Delaware law without incurring the expense of holding a general assembly, we not establish WEF as a membership organization. That said, I am not sure this really has much of an effect for the stakeholders since, as the bylaws state, we will still hold elections for the Board slots. Pjthepiano (talk) 03:36, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

2. If anyone wants to bring a matter to a board member, I would expect that board member to respond and if appropriate take the matter to the rest of the board, though of course there's nothing to stop anyone contacting all board members rather than just one. I would hope all the board members are responsive in this way. If a board member needs to be removed, the mechanism for removal is either replacement through elections or action of the board by a majority of directors.

   Except this really does not address the issue. What mechanism does the English Misplaced Pages community have for removing a board member since the organization is not a member one? This seems to rest on the premise of "Trust us. We, the board, are completely trustworthy on this issue." Are there plans to build into the bylaws some way of holding the board responsible? Or if we have another situation when the board appears to have been involved on some level with an instructor that had a class introducing large amounts of plagiarism, do we sit back and go "Well, nothing we can do but trust these people"? You are not really affirming any benefit of having a non-member driven organization. Instead, you appear to be making it more clear that a better model would be a model that requires an AGM so that the membership can be involved and pro-active. --LauraHale (talk) 06:24, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

   The mechanism for recall doesn't involve an AGM, so if, for you, an AGM where members can elect the board is an absolute requirement, then you could not be happy with our proposed model. I think it's worth repeating at this point that the WEF is not the Education Programme. The Education Programme is an on-wiki activity; it consists of activity by students and professors, and by other editors working with those classes; it also includes some things such as the courses extension. The WEF won't be "authorizing" or "approving" any class activity, and nor will its staff, if it should have any. If the community elects board members that convince the rest of the board to shut down the WEF and cease its operations, that wouldn't stop the EP, because the EP is an activity on wiki, and the WEF is just a support organization. If the community decides that it no longer wants classes to work on Misplaced Pages as they have been doing, the community would not need to address that with the WEF, because the WEF has no authority in that (or any) area; the community would have to figure out how to shut down the EP. What I hope the WEF will be able to do is provide resources for training professors, classes, campus ambassadors and others in what makes a successful class. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:07, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

3. There will be an on-wiki election; we haven't worked out the details but personally I hope we can use something like the arbcom election method. Like arbcom we will probably have some minimum level of activity to permit voting; perhaps a minimum number of edits or time since first edit. Any suggestions for this would be great. I don't know when the first election will be; I think if we successfully incorporate and get funded and get a program director hired, we should be in a position to plan it for later this year. That's up for discussion too.

   So the educators will be elected on Meta? On English Misplaced Pages? The educators will be required to have a minimum number of edits? (How does an educator differ from a Misplaced Pages editor? I have an MSEd in Instructional Technology and have worked in schools. I do curriculum design at times. Am I an educator? Or am I a Wikipedian?) The WMF board will be participating in this online for the selection of their seats? How will the English Misplaced Pages community be notified?

   I posted a request for feedback on these questions here and got some responses; more responses would be good. None of the questions you asked are settled, but I'd like to hear your suggested answers, along with those of others. Not sure what you mean by "WMF board"; did you mean WEF board? If so, the answer is yes; all the board members will be standing for election (if they wish to continue) as board members. If I decide to run, I'd be running for a Wikipedian seat. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:07, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

4. I think I answered the question about rationale -- we're trying to serve two constituencies, and I think they need independent representation. Affcom hasn't yet approved our application for affiliation, so I don't think the second part can be answered; Affcom didn't come up with the model in any case -- we did on advice from our (pro bono) lawyer. I don't know of any other non-membership-organization applications to Affcom.

   Well, no. Not certain I see the rationales here. I think a better view would be to recruit people to run for the board who have backgrounds in education and are contributors in good standing on Misplaced Pages. There is a constituency in this group and while their interests may be divergent, by over emphasizing the educators group without a requirement for core knowledge of Misplaced Pages editing, you appear to be violating the principle of "improving the quality and scope of Misplaced Pages content and improve Misplaced Pages participation through collaboration with institutions, educators and librarians in higher education" and " it will be community-based and open." How are you going to improve things? There appears to be a limited perspective provided on Wiki Education Foundation in that it provides only positive information on the program's activities in terms of Misplaced Pages editing. The metrics which suggest the project has been a negative have not been included, or research has not been conducted by members of the groups on the less than positive aspects. (Is that 2011 study the only one done?) Also, why are you ignoring aff-comm advise and working with your pro-bono lawyer first? Especially if you are indeed following: "The WEF will follow the principles of the Wikimedia movement: it will be community-based and open." --LauraHale (talk) 06:24, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

   I wouldn't agree that we're over-emphasizing the educators; there are only three seats reserved for them. I agree that an educator who has no idea what Misplaced Pages is about is unlikely to be very useful on the board, but I don't see that as likely under any of the proposed election mechanisms. I wouldn't rely solely on edit count to determine this; some educators who have been running productive classes for years have few edits, for example. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:07, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

   @LauraHale. I do want to note that I think the non-Wikipedian educator perspective is important to have on the Board. As you rightly point out, we want to improve Misplaced Pages participation by collaborating with institutions, educators, and librarians. If we only include educators who already are Wikipedians then we're probably not maximizing success in this area. Having both non-Wikipedian educators and Wikipedians at the same table will be beneficial. Pjthepiano (talk) 03:36, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

1. With regard to outreach, this noticeboard is the main location. Not all board members are experienced Wikipedians (some are primarily educators, not primarily Wikipedians) and The Interior and I volunteered to hang out here and try to field questions and keep a dialog going. We're open to any suggestions on how to improve this. I like this board as a location because it does seem to have critical mass; it's the place with the highest density of Wikipedians interested in the education programme.

   How does this work with "The WEF will follow the principles of the Wikimedia movement: it will be community-based and open." if the members are not community based and not held accountable to the community? And isn't the location based rather USA centric in thinking? Maybe I missed it: Where was the research on education programs in other countries and languages other than English? Or is this an example of USA exceptionalism? --LauraHale (talk) 06:24, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

   I think for the organization to be open does not mean every member needs to be. For example, plenty of Wikipedians edit in the article namespace without ever participating in/reading discussions, but I don't think that makes Misplaced Pages any less open. Also, I want to be sure I have the second part of your question right, but this is a US/Canada support organization. This organization aims to support US/CAN educators to have their students make positive contributions to Misplaced Pages, namely ENWP. JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 17:43, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

2. Not sure what you mean here, but if you're referring to the membership structure, then I think any other organization with multiple constituencies or which is likely to have a very broad membership is likely to face the same issues we did with a membership organization approach. I don't think it's a coincidence that the WMF also decided not to become a membership organization; I think it would have been unmanageable. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:04, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

   Except you are not the Wikimedia Foundation. You are the only organization affiliate group application wise BESIDES WIKIMEDIA RUSSIA, that is not membership based. "We wanna be like the WMF. We do not want to hold AGMs." Membership organizations allow some degree of accountability. There is no process for community accountability with yours, and I do not understand this need at all. (Especially given the huge community pushback and the apparent lack of responsiveness when problems happen.) There is no way for the community to run for the board. We cannot hold the board accountable. Seriously, I am completely at sea here. I really, really, really do not understand this. I am working with others to create such a model, and this was an issue that never even occurred to us that we would not model ourselves using a membership organization. As an educator, as some one used to writing instructional objectives, did not you not look at all the boxes you needed to tick, see the part about being a membership organization and go "k. We can do that."? This seems like a case of WEF reading that, and as students wanting an A+ grade saying "You know, that part of the rubric doesn't apply to us." WEF has historically had community problems. And the solution for WEF people to negative community pushback appears to be to create a way to be less open, less collaborative and to keep the board lock. (Though to be fair, I can totally sympathize with the control freak aspect that makes that position favourtable.) --LauraHale (talk) 06:24, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

1. @LauraHale. Actually, the bylaws state that there are three spots on the Board elected by and reserved specifically for the community. So it is incorrect to say that "There is no way for the community to run for the Board." Pjthepiano (talk) 03:36, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

   "WEF has historically had community problems": do you mean that the Education Programme has had community problems? The WEF doesn't even technically exist yet; we won't incorporate till we get grant money, and when we do, we won't become the Education Programme -- see my comments above. The Education Programme has had some problems, such as the IEP, but the WEF won't be running new programmes, or managing existing ones, beyond the US/Canada EP coordination function. The community doesn't currently have the resources to do the research that you (and others) have asked for; I would like to see the WEF fund that research. There is a need for outreach to groups such as the APS who are encouraging professors to run classes on Misplaced Pages; those have had a low success rate and it would be great if we could figure out how to improve that. There are certainly things the WEF could do that would be likely to be harmful, such as publicizing the "Misplaced Pages in the classroom" approach without any guidance on how to make it work, but I would hope we'd have more sense than to do something like that. But as of now we haven't done anything, because we don't yet exist. I would really like to get more feedback on what the community would like to see the WEF do to make the EP more successful. Surely, unless the EP is shut down, the WEF is a resource for the community that can help make the EP less of a burden and more a source of good edits and retained editors. But if you do want to shut down or change the EP itself, the WEF is not your target; we are (or hope to be) a support group. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:07, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

   But let me try this last one again: I am working with others on going through the process to get recognition for The Wikinewsie Group and we plan to have a strong educational aspect down the pipe. A preliminary piece of research on that is Wikinews Review Analysis. What have you learned from the WEF process that would be useful to TWG in speeding along our application? --LauraHale (talk) 06:24, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

   I'm going to defer to Pharos on this; he was the board member who guided the AffCom application. I'll leave a note on his talk page. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:09, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

   Hi Laura. WEF's application process is somewhat unusual, in that we are proposing a new thematic organization to take over what was previously a WMF function. So parallels to the proposed Wikinewsie group with its more innovative initial program are limited, but I would suggest it is important to develop pilot programs (which you have certainly already been doing!), and even perhaps to establish some long-term partnerships to lay the groundwork for an application. That, and try to gather a large and diverse group of interested participants. Also, I would recommend talking to AffCom members at an early stage, perhaps on an informal basis, to see what qualities they would be looking for in your group's application..--Pharos (talk) 22:10, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Mike, this is all a little disingenuous. As I say, I don't really want to discuss the WEF. But for those interested, some more light on the board's thinking can be found in this document which, until recently (until, that is, I quoted from it on this page, when it was suddenly removed), was one of the "public documents" to be found on the WEF's private wiki. It gives only a glimpse, but certainly more of a glimpse than anything else we've got over the past year. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 02:40, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Hmph. Apparently building the city on a hill of educational innovation requires some distance from the autochthons and their barbaric customs. I'm actually sympathetic towards some of the implicit criticisms embodied in alternative 2: Misplaced Pages has tremendous social inertia (hey, look, RfA reform failed again), a complex tangle of both written and unwritten rules for editors, the occasional wandering monkeywrencher, and editors are generally not that interested in Innovation. But the big problem with alternative 2 is that, having declared that "Misplaced Pages skills alone are unlikely to produce any innovative uses of Misplaced Pages and related projects in communities of teaching, learning, and inquiry," it fails to recognize the reverse. Sitting around in a cozy-little off-Wiki forum with a bunch of educators who have never edited Misplaced Pages about what you think might be a useful innovation is going to generate a bunch of high-sounding nonsense which will be bounced out of Misplaced Pages as fast as it gets in. Useful innovation in the educational use and editing of Misplaced Pages needs to come from people who both understand, through experience, Misplaced Pages editing as it now exists and desire to improve it. If you don't spend some time "endur Misplaced Pages norms" among Ye Salvages, it's unlikely that your new ideas will be workable. Choess (talk) 06:33, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Choess, I agree that if we were just "sitting around in a cozy-little off-Wiki forum with a bunch of educators" then we'd be in trouble. That sounds awful. But we're clearly not doing that. We have several respected Wikipedians on the Board. And we're here, debating these issues on the noticeboard, which I certainly wouldn't characterize as "cozy." As you say below, we can't innovate in a vacuum and we certainly don't intend to do that. Pjthepiano (talk) 03:36, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Welcome to the noticeboard, PJthepiano! I note that these are your first edits to the page. If this discussion is attracting members of the putative board to start engaging on-wiki, then that's very welcome indeed. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 15:52, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

That document was written by Mike Cline, and doesn't represent more than his view; I'm not sure why he posted it to that page, or why he removed it. (Mike is no longer a board member, by the way.) My reaction (you'd have to ask the other board members for theirs) is similar to yours: yes, there are some implicit criticisms of Misplaced Pages there that are real, but I would agree that useful discussions require a heavy dose of existing Misplaced Pages experience. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:16, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Mike. I did assume that this didn't represent operative policy, but I wanted both to make the point that you can't "innovate" about Misplaced Pages in a vacuum, and acknowledge that the criticism of how Misplaced Pages functions had some merit, even if it wasn't pitched in a way to attract support on-Wiki. More positively, I have pulled together some notes on what I think might be productive directions for the WEF or any project looking to link educators, but they'll have to wait a bit, as I have a search committee meeting in a few minutes. Choess (talk) 12:40, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

It should also probably be noted that Mike Cline's comments there were actually meant as his criticism of aspects of the existing WEF proposal.--Pharos (talk) 22:22, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

MOOCs and the like

If we are going to be proactive and far-thinking in our discussions about Misplaced Pages and education, I think we need to consider the recent massification that reaches its apogee with phenomena such as MOOCs. I don't think it'll be long before a MOOC comes along with an assignment to edit Misplaced Pages. What happens then?

We can see this in nuce with Steve Joordens's famous class. After all, the first question to ask about that is precisely why there are today college classes with 1800 or so students. What's going on? Clearly, this is driven by economics: the university receives 1800 quanta of tuition dollars and only has to pay one or two professors, plus a small army of poorly-remunerated TAs. In some ways, such classes are MOOCs avant la lettre. It's only the next step to take away the real estate and make them completely online.

And if you're put in charge of 1800 students, then it only makes sense to try to use whatever technological fix you can think of to make the class manageable. No wonder that Joordens decided to introduce a Misplaced Pages assignment: it came directly from the logic of the situation he was put in. Moreover, it's part of the constant drive to use technology as a means to improve efficiences and up revenue.

As this drive is ongoing, and indeed has gathered around it some kind of aura of sexiness (see all the discussion of MOOCs everywhere from the New York Times to edublogs), it will only continue. And talk (promoted by the WMF) of using Misplaced Pages in classrooms only enhances this aura. We've been saying for too long: "this is cool; this works." No wonder Joordens thought he had the green light (and indeed he did) when he was at the Education Program's Boston Jamboree. And despite the poor press that he received, his will be only the first, I suggest, of many such M(OO)Cs to hit Misplaced Pages.

The question is: what to do about it? Is there anyway of confronting this situation that isn't simply defensive, reactive? --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 02:58, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm in no way a supporter of what Joordens did, but I have to defend him in this regard. I don't believe at all that he did the Misplaced Pages project in order to save work -- in fact, having taught large classes myself (nowhere near as large as his), I'm sure the logistical demands were quite formidable. It would have been much easier for him to do the usual lectures+tests thing. Looie496 (talk) 03:23, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

That may be so; I've never had anything like so large a class. But to clarify: I wasn't particularly trying to attack him; if anything, the contrary. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 04:12, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Looie, I'm not so sure about it being easier to just do lectures+tests. It all comes down to how student work is evaluated, and how students are advised. If, hypothetically but plausibly in terms of what we saw with Joordens, the students received relatively little question-answering about how to edit and how not to edit, and if nobody really reviewed their edits here, instead just giving the extra credit points if the student claimed to have made the edits, then it would be a massive effort-saver for the instructor and any TAs. And, as Jbmurray described so accurately, academia has massive albeit cynical incentives to do just that. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:10, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) In my view the WMF's behaviour in the regard is meatpuppetry: They take action offline and without the consensus support of en.wiki, which results in mass semi-coordinated edits which are to the detriment of en.wiki content and en.wiki community. They keep doing it when made aware of the choas they're causing. We've blocked meatpuppets in the past and should build a consensus to do so in this case. Stuartyeates (talk) 03:30, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

I think Joordens class was a mix of good intentions scuppered by ignorance (partly his fault and party WMFs), of not thinking things though outside of his own concerns (what if everybody did this, Tragedy of the commons, etc) and not listening to advice he didn't want to hear. Taking these three issues, we need to clear up any mistaken beliefs about the volunteer community's abilities. For example: it simply doesn't have the (willing) resources to cope with your huge class. Outside of hot topics, many articles are tended by one or two editors and some articles might be effectively unwatched at all. And the hot topics are probably best avoided anyway. Our editors are often at a disadvantage compared to students wrt access to sources, so can't check facts or plagiarism. That you shouldn't treat WP as a place to simply upload new material with a few links, but as encyclopaedic articles to be improved and a community to be interacted with. That ultimately we exist to be an encyclopaedia to be read, not for giving marks to students. Secondly, we need the classes to consider the effect of their size and what happens when they all do this. Is what they are doing fair on the volunteer community? How can they give as well as take? What resources can they supply to help? It would be great if they could help fund access to journals for volunteers, for example. Or donate images. And thirdly we need policy to deal with classes that won't listen. Because we can't block 1000 student accounts that aren't actually editing any longer. I know this last thing is defensive/reactive but the point is that if such policy is in place in the first place, then hopefully action will be needed less often. Like the speed limit sign makes you slow down to a sensible speed. Colin° 10:04, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

In response to Because we can't block 1000 student accounts that aren't actually editing any longer. We block inactive sockpuppet/meatpuppet accounts all the time, it's inactive vandals that there's no consensus for blocking. Stuartyeates (talk) 21:00, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

My Misplaced Pages MOOC plans

As I noted here a while back, I've been trying to organize a Misplaced Pages MOOC. The grant proposal on Meta gives a decent, although somewhat disorganized, overview of how far the plans have developed. There are a lot of experienced Wikipedians who are eager to help with it, but I won't have the capacity to coordinate it without some kind of funding, so it's still an open question whether it will actually come together with the ~September 2013 timeframe for running the course. (The proposal was not funded in the recently concluded first round of the Individual Engagement Grants program; I'm exploring and applying for other grant options now.)

So obviously, I think there's a lot of potential for a Misplaced Pages MOOC, if it's done right. From my perspective, first and foremost that means steering clear of assignments that might break Misplaced Pages or overwhelm its existing community. The plan for my course is to focus on exploring Misplaced Pages from many different angles with an emphasis on understanding how Misplaced Pages its community works. Recruiting long-term editors is the goal, but the class itself would only have the most basic requirements in terms of making edits outside of sandboxes.

There is a big difference between a huge quasi-traditional university course like Joordens' and a MOOC on Coursera or edX. MOOC students are largely self-motivated to learn about the subject of a class they are enrolled in, and there's little incentive to bumble through assignments they don't want to do or are not interested in. This is why you see a typical Coursera classes with 50,000 students, but only 1,000-2,000 remain active to the end, and maybe half that many do the assignments. Of course, many do them very badly even still, but that's no different from the baseline influx of Misplaced Pages newbies. The difference from other classes is that incompetent or uninterested students don't have the same kind of grade pressure to press on anyway... and if the assignments are designed well, the burden on the community will be very low anyway. In my MOOC plan, in contrast to the Misplaced Pages Education Program approach, the impact would come from what the students choose to do on their own after they learn the basics through the class, rather than from the things they are explicitly assigned to do for class.

I think Jbmurray is probably right that some kind of Misplaced Pages MOOC will happen sooner or later. I'd like to set a good precedent for it, so that we don't have the first Misplaced Pages MOOCs come from people who don't know enough about how Misplaced Pages works not to break it.--ragesoss (talk) (aka Sage Ross) 14:20, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Just quickly, and to clarify: I am of course aware of Sage's efforts, and while I had them partly in mind my comments above weren't meant as a criticism (implicit or otherwise) of them. I agree very much with the last paragraph here, and think that if anyone is going to make a MOOC work on Misplaced Pages, it's probably Sage. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 14:59, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

It seems to me that, for the large online enterprises such as Coursera and edX, if only a small percentage of their (initial) students really follow through on what they've been assigned, it's going to be awfully difficult to have quality control for the edits that do reach the Wiki. (I agree 100%, by the way, with Jbmurray's characterization at the top of this discussion, of the economic drives behind MOOCs in universities.) In that regard, it may be a mistake to assume that Coursera and edX will prove to be any different than what Joordens did, although I'd be delighted to have Sage prove me wrong. In thinking about MOOCs, we may have to consider an alternative that I raised a while back: setting a policy limiting class size, above which a student project would be considered disruptive. The key to avoiding that, I think, will be to figure out how to construct the assignment so that it does not overwhelm existing editors. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:03, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

the difficulty is that though the class project may be disruptive, the individual editors still have the right to edit as long as their work individually is not disruptive. An individual who makes a poor edit in good faith is not being disruptive unless they continue after warning. (The suggestion of treating the students as meatpuppets, would be very unfair to them.) The maximum class size obviously depends both on the assignment, and the extent of instruction and supervision. We can and must keep the bad work out of WP, but unless we want to change the rule that anyone can edit, we will have to deal with whatever the outside world sends our way. This is inevitably harder the better known we are and the more attractive editing here becomes.

What I hope Sage can do is find some way of screening the material, or advising the students so effectively that the work is good. If he can manage that, perhaps we can figure out how to apply it to ordinary new editors. DGG ( talk ) 04:34, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I think that you make a very useful distinction there, between the effects of an assignment and the editing privileges of individual student editors. Student editors should be welcomed if they are trying to edit in good faith. But another important distinction is that "typical" Wikipedians choose to edit, each for our own reasons, whereas student editors come here either partly or entirely because their instructor requires them to, rather than because they, themselves, chose to. Consequently, that requirement to edit – the assignment – becomes all-important, and it needs to be the focus of what we might regulate by policy or guideline. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:37, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

I find both the "anyone can edit" and "sum of all human knowledge" mantras to be frequently cited in a harmful way. The fact that we have behavioural and content policy and guidelines that ultimately block people and limit or remove knowledge shows both statements don't hold up to close scrutiny and are half-truths and spin. Yes, in a broad sense any person can come to Misplaced Pages and edit it. But then we immediately dictate how they must behave and what they can write. We do question "why are you here" with our policies on COI, meatpuppetry and POV. Often I think people silently append "for any purpose" to the "anyone can edit" statement. This isn't an open wiki for folk to edit in any direction or for any purpose. It is an encyclopaedia. Misplaced Pages was designed as a volunteer-driven wiki. That is the assumption that all our policies and guidelines operate under wrt editors at present. A student assignment isn't wholly meatpuppetry but neither is it wholly voluntary. There's a degree of compulsion involved that makes the student do things they wouldn't have considered. This can be good, but can also mean they write beyond their abilities or about topics they know nothing or push a POV they don't actually believe in, etc. In my view, our thinking about students and what to do with them is limited by trying to apply policy designed for volunteers to these editors. Instead we need policy for the class, the assignment and those in charge of the assignment. Hence WP:Assignments. It doesn't require changing the "rule" that "anyone can edit" but it requires thinking of other ways to manage such assignments. I'm not wedded to the wording in that essay but do feel we need something to tackle this paradigm-shift in the editor-base and from volunteer-led to assignment-led editing. There's a shift of responsibility from the person directly making the edit to the person (or people) directing and supervising them. There's a huge shift of scale, where 900 articles can be edited in the space of a few days. There's a shift of account lifespan down to potentially just minutes. And so on. And we have no current policy that deals with this shift. We need to think about this differently. Please help out at WP:Assignments. Colin° 09:43, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

HIST 406?

Does anyone know what class these users Special:Contributions/Hist406-13110480303kennetheley, Special:Contributions/HIST406-13kjknlee, Special:Contributions/HIST406-13awatkin1, etc. are from? It seems to be a recurring class, given the user reg dates. -- phoebe / (talk to me) 20:13, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

This appears not to have been the first time this course has been run this way. Stuartyeates (talk) 20:41, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

I've given all users without talk pages one fo the standard welcomes. Stuartyeates (talk) 20:50, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

• A bit of fancy detective work tells me that it's a graduate course at the University of Maryland called History of Technology, with about 35 students, taught by a professor named Robert Friedel. Looie496 (talk) 21:46, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

  I was tempted to do some "detective work" but it seems like WP:OUTING to me, so I refrained. Stuartyeates (talk) 22:38, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

• Based on the writing I've seen, I'm skeptical that this is a graduate history class; undergrads, maybe. Anyway, they've not been disruptive; I was just wondering if we could help them out. -- phoebe / (talk to me) 16:06, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

• I'm afraid you have an exaggerated opinion of the writing skills of the average graduate student. Even the native-born English speakers are often pathetic writers, and many graduate students come from other countries. (For undergraduates, it's good fortune if they can spell their own names correctly.) Looie496 (talk) 16:43, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

• Now, now :) I work with grad students and undergrads all day long; I'm pretty familiar with the species. And University of Maryland appear to follow my alma mater's system, in which the 400-level classes are advanced undergrad and the grad classes start with the 5/600-level. Anyway, none of this answers the question of whether there's a class page, etc. -- phoebe / (talk to me) 20:06, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Another psychology class in action?

I just came across Automatic and Controlled Processes (ACP) in new page patrol which is looking very duck-like. Stuartyeates (talk) 08:49, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

A few observations about a recent event

Please take a look at WT:WikiProject Disability#Disability culture, a brief discussion about an "edit-a-thon" by a class and how it affected (or rather failed to affect) a WikiProject. Please also see the external site mentioned in the discussion and the comment I posted there. It's an example of how disconnected educational editing is from the mainstream Misplaced Pages community. I believe my comment at the external site may have some value for this Educational Project. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 12:07, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

That was very interesting reading, thanks. I suppose a small but reasonably helpful impact, as here, is a much, much better result than a large and unhelpful impact like that of some student assignments. I'm reminded of a few years back, when the Society for Neuroscience set up a project to get neuroscientists involved with Misplaced Pages. Looie496 and I worked quite hard, along with a couple of other editors, to make that a success. Briefly, there was immense enthusiasm from the Society. However, over time relatively few new editors really came here as a result (see Category:Wikipedian members of the Society for Neuroscience Misplaced Pages Initiative), which somewhat resembles your experience. I still think these kinds of outreach are very good things, but the fact that anyone can edit does not mean that anyone wants to edit. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:46, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Interestingly, I see that HASTAC is involved in that project. I've repeatedly said that the proposed WEF (or any other similar body) should reach out to HASTAC. (Both HASTAC and select representatives of the WMF Education Program were at Barcelona, as I mentioned here, however, that opportunity was well and truly wasted. HASTAC were far more impressive than Dunican and his folk.) Indeed, if I were involved, I'd immediately try to get Cathy Davidson as one of the co-opted board members. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 17:14, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Former ambassador re-apply?

As a former ambassador that left in good standing who was around when the project kicked off, am I required to re-apply the same as other applicants or can I simply request to re-join? Regards ZooPro 13:31, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Where's the line of being attentive to one's students' contributions?

After seeing drama over yet another poor student article cross my watchlist today (AN discussion, Ambassadors post, DRV), I find myself wondering where the line is that we expect professors to tread with regard to engagement with their students' articles. In the huge drama up a ways on this noticeboard, we had Woodsnake, who felt he was not required to supervise or engage with his students' contributions at all. Today, we have Piotrus, who is going to bat, hugely and somewhat aggressively, for an article written by one of his students. Where, exactly, is the line? It may be helpful in the long run if we can enumerate for professors exactly how much involvement from them in student articles is ideal.

Which of these are we/they doing now? Which should we/they be doing? A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 15:24, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

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