User talk:Dave Braunschweig

Welcome! I look forward to hearing from you. So that we can all follow the discussion: If you post a message on this page, I will reply on this page. If I leave a message on your talk page, I will watch for your response there. Thanks!

We seem to have some very substantial influx of Thai users. It has happened before that some class at a Thai school points to Wikiversity, and I'm suspecting that this has happened.

I'm inclined to keep the recipes here, instead of just transwiki to Wikibooks. Any of these recipes can be copied there. Our organizational structure is quite different from Wikibooks. They have a Cookbook namespace. Recipes are in the Cookbook mainspace, top level. They use categories to sort, it's higher maintenance than what we do.

It is not only recipes coming in. This is pretty clearly a wiki educational project in Thailand. I see that you created a Thailand resource, and linked to the Comparative Law and Justice pages. I thought that was great.

Wikibooks will be focused on collecting recipes, we will be focused on the educational process. Just as Wikiversity has been used to create Wikipedia content, in some cases, we can also do this with Wikibooks. So I'd rather see a "copy to Wikibooks" template rather than a "move to" one. We then maintain a live resource where people can discuss recipes, present alternatives, etc. What do you think?

I also just noticed a page deletion by a global sysop, Line Integral. While it is quite likely that the page was deletable, we are moving toward confirmed deletion, i.e., in general, one user tags a page for speedy deletion, and a sysop confirms. And our sysops also tag, allowing another sysop to confirm by deletion. (Thanks, by the way, for setting that up with Marshall. It helps maintain transparency.) (With spam, I will blank and tag, not just tag, because blanking defeats the usual purpose of spamming.)

Our sysops are locally elected and generally understand Wikiversity policy of high inclusion. Some global sysops don't, and the immediate deletion makes it impossible to verify. The page name in this case could look like legitimate Wikiverity content. Would you mind checking that page to confirm the deletion?

In general, I'd like to consider disallowing global sysops from deleting here, we may opt out of that. Speedy deletion tags, fine. Fine for anyone. If we get overwhelmed, we can ask for help, but I'm not seeing any sign of that. Absent emergency, we should handle deletion locally. Again, what are your thoughts?

I also moved an autobiography to the users' space, that you had moved to a bio project space. Generally, I'd prefer that for autobiographies, leaving the bio project for ordinary biolgraphies, perhaps, though even those might be in user space. The page was blanked by IP shortly after you moved it. I reverted that as possible vandalism, but then moved the page to the creator's user space, welcomed him, and told him he could do whatever he wanted with it, in his user space, and told him how to delete it if he wanted to. But the kid is or wants to be a rapper, and it's about time he learns to be proud! So I also copy-edited the page and would really encourage him to develop it.

This occasionally works. Users get involved, learn wikitext, and even get involved more generally. I won't mention his name, he is very young, much younger than the rapper, but he's fun to have around. It shows some of the potential of Wikiversity. This was supposed to be for all ages, in the original vision. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 18:57, 30 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

Multiple users in a class is a possible explanation. A single user rejected at Wikipedia who is now creating multiple accounts to get around some perceived barrier is another. Some of the early articles were first in Wikipedia userspace for almost a month before they came here. My biggest concern on this one, whoever it is, is that we can't seem to contact anyone and get them to participate as a learning project rather than top-level pages. They're all one-hit wonders. It would be nice to just have an explanation leading into the project as to whether it is a project on how to cook Thai, or how to create wiki articles. If it's just recipes, it seems the content would be better at 'books. If it's a technology project and using cooking as the topic, then here is appropriate, at least until the class is over. I just know that Cooking is a big part of Wikibooks, and I don't see recipes as our area. How to cook in general, absolutely. Recipes to me is just like some of the Wikipedia articles here that are just copies of the original. I like some of the old templates and posts I found about what Wikiversity is and what Wikiversity is not. It's not a copy of Wikipedia or Wikibooks.

I can't find anything on Line Integral. There's no history on that page and nothing in the logs that I can find. Note that based on our abuse filters, sometimes pages look like they were created when there was only an attempt, but the attempt was blocked by the filter. Most of the stewards are quite good about tagging or tagging and blanking rather than deleting outright. I'd rather try to educate first instead of explicitly blocking assistance.

Separately, feel free to take a look at some of the Category:Candidates for speedy deletion that I've tagged. If you edit and save to confirm deletion, I'd accept that as a second pair of eyes.

Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 19:22, 30 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

Okay, found it. It was Line integral. It was gibberish and a valid deletion. Let's see how this goes for awhile first. In principle I fully support multiple looks, but only if there are enough of us looking and deleting to make it work. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 21:05, 30 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

Any resource here that is "just a copy" of something on Wikipedia or Wikibooks can be tagged for speedy deletion, unless there is some reason to think it's up for deletion there. However, we are also here for users to learn wikitext, for example. I do suggest we consider how to engage these users. Identifying a Thai user to coordinate might help. Meanwhile, little or no harm is being done. To me, what is most important is that Wikiversity is open and welcoming.

Speedy deletion tags get local attention fast. The issue, as you know, is not that particular deletion, though thanks for looking. In any case, I will look at any open speedies and if I agree, edit them as requested. I'll confirm in the reason. Right now, I see no Deletionists on a rampage, but we are paving a secure road for the future. I already see Wikiversity activity expanding and I think you know my long term vision has Wikiversity being larger than Wikipedia. We are nowhere near ready for that! But we can get started.

On the issue of global sysops, there is no sign of a major problem at this point. What I'm always looking at is structure. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 00:22, 4 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

• Done. All speedy deletions reviewed, all are confirmed. Ones by you I edited, and touched a few others. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 00:34, 4 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

Hi. I created a filter for recent spam. Please review and feel free to disable it. PiRSquared17 (discuss • contribs) 23:53, 31 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

Fine with me. I might merge it into one of the other filters at some point, but that's good for now. Thanks! -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 00:09, 1 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

https://en.wikiversity.org/w/index.php?title=User:Goldenburg111/List_of_presidents_of_Maybeury_Elementary_School_and_soccer&action=edit&redlink=1 - thanks! --Golden_burg111 15:27, 7 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

There's a lot of personally identifying information on that page. Rather than restoring it, I have used the 'Email this user' feature and sent you a copy of the last content before deletion. Feel free to recreate the page and add back what you wish, but I don't recommend adding any content that would identify you or refer to any real-world people under age 18. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 16:25, 7 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

Aiight, thanks for the help. --Golden_burg111 23:14, 11 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

I already have a request for custodianship open, may I ask for a mentor? --Golden_burg111 14:25, 12 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

Of course. You can always ask. You should probably ask directly, rather than in the custodianship request, however. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 14:28, 12 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

Alright, then may I ask for you to be my mentor for my custodianship request then? --Golden_burg111 14:33, 12 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

I appreciate how you have grown and matured over your tenure here at Wikiversity, and I particularly appreciate your desire to improve our learning environment. However, I do have some concerns about your dedication to the task. As is common and to be expected of young people, you tend to move around to different projects, looking for exactly where you fit in, what you enjoy doing, etc. I personally would like to see custodians with a consistent history of editing rather than those who are here for awhile, go off to other projects, and then come back again. I also have concerns about attention to detail. For example, I recently noticed that you moved Federal Writers' Project - Life Histories to the Biographies project, without addressing the 94 subpages that were left abandoned and without a project anchor.

This is nothing that you can't overcome in time, but for now, I would encourage you to do your best to improve Wikiversity without being a custodian. Tag the things you would address as a custodian so that we can address them. If in May or June you have a solid track record of helpful participation, without attracting some of the drama that followed you here a couple of years ago, I would be happy to consider your request at that time. Thanks for asking! -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 14:51, 12 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

Alright, thank you very much for the advice :-) I'll leave the request until next year. No problem also. --Golden_burg111 14:55, 12 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

I have a unique perspective on Goldenburg, having welcomed him to Wikiversity under very unusual and difficult conditions. His learning and development are deeply gratifying. Once he realized that I was working to support him in doing what he wanted to do (while at the same time protecting the wiki from problems), in pursuit of our "learning by doing" mission, he became completely cooperative, and I'm happy to see this continuing. He responded to "No" here in a way that will eventually lead to "Yes," with high likelihood of success. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 21:01, 12 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Do_Coach_Outlet_Better_Than_Seth_Godin - Do we put the "Prod" template on it? --Golden_burg111 11:33, 13 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

Prod is for pages that might possibly be improved. This page was spam, so I tagged it for speedy deletion with {{delete|spam}} Thanks for catching it. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 11:50, 13 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

It's spam? I never noticed that haha. What about pages with another language? Thanks for correcting me Abd. --Golden_burg111 12:08, 13 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

This is the English Wikiversity. Unless the other language pages are teaching that language to English speakers, the pages generally belong on a different wiki. But there are a few exceptions. There is currently a multilingual project being developed where the main page is English, but subpages are mostly Spanish or Portuguese. If in doubt, you can tag a page as Delete | Not English and we'll take a look. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 14:09, 13 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the templated "advise" stuff, but it's not a dup of any other project information at this time.

Thank you also for moving the page to an appropriate subpage format, most appreciated. :)

Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 23:52, 26 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

It just appeared to be more of a Wikipedia project rather than a Wikiversity project. I'll trust that the learning part will come along in time. Thanks for responding! -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 01:24, 27 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

I think it's relevant to several of the learning projects listed in the See also section. But yes, I'll think of some additional ways to incorporate further learning projects. No worries, -- Cirt (talk) 01:25, 27 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

y Dave, we promised to update and clean up the documentation of the MOOC interface in the past two weeks. Though we did not reach our goal (to finish yesterday) we managed to document the MOOC creation process and the addins' architecture and tidied up. The community poll was moved to the interface's talk page but is still linked on the landing page. We are happy with the documentation so far but we try to provide some screencasts, where it's reasonable, in the near future. If you have any suggestions or find the documentation lacking in aspects you think of, please let us know. --Sebschlicht (discuss • contribs) 17:47, 28 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

hey Dave and seb thanks also from my side for this great collaboration. For the great implementation and documentation work of sebastian on one hand but also the great support, feedback and suggestions by Dave on the other hand. If there is anything else - but creating oer learning content - please let me know. --Renepick (discuss • contribs) 22:45, 28 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

Thanks! It's all good for now. I wish I had time to do a code review for you, but I think you've got plenty of web science students who can do that. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 03:47, 29 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

Do not close discussions which you are heavily involved in. - Sidelight12 ^Talk 10:16, 5 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

There is no discussion. There hasn't been any for weeks. Abd's request and your requests are closed. You are welcome to pursue your request for a review of my actions, but you need to stop harassing other users. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 12:57, 5 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

Involved closes are possible. Generally, they are allowed where the discussion has been open without continued discussion for a substantial time. Sidelight is obviously talking about [1]. Whatever might be legitimate about a claim that that an involved custodian cannot close would also apply to an involved user editing to keep a dead discussion going. Revert-warring with anyone is not a good idea, but revert warring wtih a custodian is a very Bad Idea. I have argued that the behavior of Sidelight is not an emergency, since he's no longer a custodian, and since he has not been spreading disruption widely. However, he has been engaging in blockworthy behavior, and recusal policy is not an invincible shield that can be used to prevent administrators from using tools in defense of the wiki. Sidelight has been operating completely outside of community support, and is not here for his own learning, nor is he hear to build educational resources. It's obvious from Special:Contributions/Sidelight. Nobody has been harassing him. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 03:15, 6 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

You've revert warred. Someone needs to look over it. - Sidelight12 ^Talk 10:30, 7 December 2014 (UTC)Reply