Brianda (Wiki Ed)

CSU/N Gender and culture student welcome

Hi, Brianda. I thought Ian was listed for CSU/N Gender and culture, but I noticed your welcome at this student's UTP. Did you and Ian swap coverage of that course, or do Welcome messages stand outside the remit of content expert coverage, so whoever gets there first does the welcoming? Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 20:52, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Hi there @Mathglot, Ian was assigned to the course first, which is why the dashboard populated his information. We did end up swapping later into the term, but didn't update the course wiki page. But you're ok pinging either of us for any student related concerns. Brianda (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:32, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. Mathglot (talk) 19:45, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Courses and Israel/Palestine

Hi Brianda, just an FYI on this article assignment for Gaza Strip. Even if there weren't technical (protection) barriers, a very bold choice! Best, CMD (talk) 04:34, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Very bold indeed. I have let the instructor and the student know about the protections and overall challenges in this topic area, and recommended the student choose a different article to work. Thanks for flagging it to me @Chipmunkdavis. Brianda (Wiki Ed) (talk) 01:08, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Renamed accounts

Hello, Brianda,

Every term there are about a half dozen to a dozen student editors who immediately rename their accounts. But the WikiEd staff and sometimes the professor continue to post messages on the old user and user talk pages. An example of this is User:Mcming3. I see these pages because I run a Quarry query to find nonexistent User pages and they pop up on the list because there aren't editors with these usernames. Can you think of a way for the lists of students you work with to be updated when a student editor changes their username? Thank you. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:38, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Liz, We do have a FAQ that directs instructors and students to update their username on our dashboard, but we still get these stragglers as you've seen. I don't think we have something at the moment to identify when a student editor changes their username. But I'd be curious to know how you run this Quarry search, or if you'd be able to point me in the right direction to learn more about it. Perhaps that's a tool that we can incorporate to address this? Brianda (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:34, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

There might be something simpler using PetScan and Category:Wiki Education student editors, but I haven't looked into it. Mathglot (talk) 11:12, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Here are the accounts that changed their username where you are posting messages to their old user pages and not their current user pages. Maybe you could copy and cut the content you added and paste it to the correct page: User:Slmnknr, User:Amandapay8, User:Lex Lhotka, User:Raul.rivero006, User:Skylarklocker and User:Ellagiul.

Maybe you could update your records. Ordinarily, these pages would just be deleted but I think if you are going to continue to post updates, they should be going to the correct User Talk pages. Thank you. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 06:37, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

FA article

Hi Brianda, just noting this post for the article Communication. This is already an FA, so probably not the best place for the sort of comprehensive editing a course might look for. The student has two other more appropriate articles selected already, so should be possible to just focus on those. Best, CMD (talk) 20:50, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Gender and Technoculture at Cal State Fullerton =

Hi Brianda. Four of the articles listed on the course page for Cal State Fullerton's Gender and Technoculture course are listed as contentious topics, and probably others not so designated ought to be. These might be difficult for student editors to deal with. Mathglot (talk) 09:46, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Questions from student editor

Hi Brianda! I'm a student editor looking at editing the page "Germans in Serbia" and I have a couple questions: 1. I recently had someone peer review what I've done so far but they could not locate my list of references. I have this in the Bibliography section. Should I have these somewhere else or can they not see this area for some reason? 2. This page I am editing has a lot of questionable references and it says "reads like a resume" or "reads like an advertisement" - is that because of it's lack of references? THANK YOU! Gopp22 (talk) 04:54, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Hi, Gopp22, I'm Mathglot, another editor here, like you, but I've been around a lot longer. Let's clarify what you are asking. I see three similarly-named pages:

1. Germans of Serbia, an article created years ago, and edited once by you on 30 January.
2. User:Gopp22/Germans of Serbia, created by you and edited by you three times containing a peer review of the lead, body, and references of #1, and no article content.
3. User:Gopp22/Germans of Serbia/Bibliography, containing 11 items in the Bibliography section.

Assuming we are talking about the last one, maybe they had trouble finding it because you didn't mention where it was or link to it. The same thing happened to me, and I had to hunt around to find it, but I eventually did.

When you mentioned, "reads like a resume" or "reads like an advertisement", now you are talking about #1, and to answer your question: No, those notations at the top have nothing to do with the references at all; they are concerned strictly with the type of language used in the article. Or to be more precise, with the language used in the article when those notices were placed in June 2019, as it's not accurate now. Looking at the state of the article then, it wasn't true then, either. I've removed the messagges, and you needn't be concerned about them.

One question might remain to be resolved: I don't know how the Germans of Serbia was chosen, whether you picked it, or maybe it was assigned to you because of the maintenance templates, indicating that there were some problems in the article, ideal for a student editor to investigate. If that is the case, you can tell your instructor that those messages at the top were placed in error, and have been removed. That doesn't mean the article can't be improved, and anyway, those messages had nothing to do with the state of referencing, as I mentioned, so imho you can keep on improving the referencing without worrying anymore about those maintenance templates that used to be there. Good luck in your course! (talk page watcher) Mathglot (talk) 08:23, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Mathglot thank you. What you explained makes sense; however, I am now confused on another level - you say there are three pages. There is only one page I was hoping to work on (#1) but for our student platform it includes links for our assignments that say things such as "work on your bibliography here" and the here will link to a page (#2 and #3 for example were links I followed to create a bibliography and to add content). To me, at the time, I understood these to be working pages, like areas to create drafts. Maybe that is what they are for purposes of our class projects. I will ask my instructor. I appreciate the response. I have never used Wikipedia to edit anything, so this is all new for me. Thank you! Gopp22 (talk) 20:44, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Gopp22 You're welcome. Sorry for any confusion; I edit Wikipedia directly and not through the platform, so some of the details of how it is presented to students is opaque to me. You're right about #2 and #3 above being working drafts in your user space at Wikipedia, and from what you say it sounds like your student platform gives you links pointing there, which is great because it simplifies things for you instead of having to figure out where to put stuff (and also makes it easier for the instructor to manage when all the students do it the same way). So, yes, afaik they are working pages/drafts/sandboxes or whatever you want to call them, where you can semi-privately develop stuff before it is ready to be moved to the live article online.

Maybe the confusion is just between the words page and article. The word article (short for "Wikipedia article") is any of our 6,819,493 articles on encyclopedic topics visible to anyone on the Internet, like Eiffel Tower, or Germans of Serbia. Notice that I only used the word article for link #1 above. The word page (short for "Wikipedia page") is any page hosted at Wikipedia, even development or discussion pages like your Bibliography, my user page, Brianda's talk page where we are talking right now, the Wikipedia:Tea house where you can go to ask questions, and many, many more. Those are all pages, but not articles, and there are about 60 million of them. Does that make more sense now? Brianda will be better able to answer specific questions about Wiki Ed and the student plaform, which I am unfamiliar with. Hope that helps, Mathglot (talk) 21:01, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

This is all really helpful, thank you so much! Gopp22 (talk) 01:45, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Student Editor (Internet Security Awareness: Cybersecurity Public Awareness Campaigns)

Hi Brianda,

Thank you for your greeting in my Talk page. I would like you to please review User:Sjirapanjavat/Cybersecurity Public Awareness Campaigns on its content via my sandbox. During the training, I am allow to make just small edit so I think my contents would be beneficial to others, however, I would like you to review my work prior to publish on the live feed.

Respectfully yours,

Sapol Jirapanjavat

Sjirapanjavat (talk) 22:34, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

How is an ESL and college composition course allowed

I imagine everyone knows how detrimental I think WikiEd is already, but this really takes the cake. A course for ESL students to practice their English and learn American college essay composition writing, a style actively discouraged. Either the students are going to be prompted to clean up their work and not learn what their college wants, or Wikipedia is going to be left with some essay attempts to clean up. I mean, perennial problems with WikiEd but this time you're encouraging it. Kingsif (talk) 23:56, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

@Kingsif, If you take a look at the course description, the instructor is having the students focus on research and contributing reliable sources to existing article topics. They also emphasize the informative style of writing required for this project.

If you have any concerns about the course once students begin editing, give me a ping. Brianda (Wiki Ed) (talk) 23:59, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Or we can treat these students like regular editors, remove their work, tell them what to do if they want to stay, and that their college course doesn't excuse them from this, their instructors are too inexperienced to help. Yeah. Kingsif (talk) 00:47, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks

...for your kind email, and thanks for all the fine work you do here, shepherding the kids. I was one myself once, and can confirm that I was unbearable. Cheers, Wikishovel (talk) 00:23, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Bibliography feedback requested by Student Editor

Hello Briana! Thank you for the greetings! I'm a student editor and adding to the topic about vanity sizing and was wondering if you can please look it over and provide any feedback to User:Leil4hhh/Vanity sizing/Bibliography Any feedback would be appreciated, thank you!

Sincerely,

Leilah G Leil4hhh (talk) 00:14, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) Hi Leilah, I'm Mathglot. I saw your message here, so I looked over your Bibliography sandbox. I notice that you copied it to Vanity sizing in this edit. I'm not sure what your goal is at that article, but so far those references don't appear to be used to verify any specific content in the article, so I've moved them in this edit to a new, § Further reading section, where I think they fit better for the time being. If you plan on expanding the article using these refs, or using them to cite existing content, just move them up from Further reading to the body of the article where required. If you would like to share your plans for the Bibliography below, Brianda may be better able to help you further. Good luck in your class! Mathglot (talk) 02:54, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Charles McGruder III moved to draftspace

Thanks for your contributions to Charles McGruder III. Unfortunately, I do not think it is ready for publishing at this time because it needs more sources to establish notability and please look at the notability criteria WP:NPROF. There is nothing in the current draft, e.g. awards & citations that qualifies. You may be able to add, which is why I have moved it to a draft so you can. I have converted your article to a draft which you can improve, undisturbed for a while.

Please see more information at Help:Unreviewed new page. When the article is ready for publication, please click on the "Submit your draft for review!" button at the top of the page OR move the page back. Ldm1954 (talk) 23:32, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

neutrality for wikipedia

hi Brianda , im editing an article on hunza valley and I wanted to know if the following paragraph is neutral enough for wikipedia and some feedback

The establishment of community schools that provide high quality education ,and the influence of the Aga KhanMirs , contributing towards building universities for higher education have directed towards the high literacy rate in Hunza Valley , especially for girls. RachelKarenG (talk) 15:16, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

CTOP

Just a heads-up that some of the students in Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/Kansas State University/Introduction to Digital Humanities Spring 2024 (Spring) have chosen a page that is under the GMO CTOP. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:37, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up @Tryptofish. I recommended the student choose a different article to work - hopefully the message is received. Brianda (Wiki Ed) (talk) 00:02, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! --Tryptofish (talk) 20:33, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Trevor David Rhone moved to draftspace

Thanks for your contributions to Trevor David Rhone. Unfortunately, I do not think it is ready for publishing at this time because it needs more sources to establish notability and it is WP:TOOSOON, he does not meet the bar for academic notability. I have converted your article to a draft which you can improve, undisturbed for a while.

Please see more information at Help:Unreviewed new page. When the article is ready for publication, please click on the "Submit your draft for review!" button at the top of the page OR move the page back. Ldm1954 (talk) 03:16, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Arturo Elizondo Bibliography

There's an article being worked on by your students on Arturo Elizondo Bibliography in quite poor shape in the main space in the NPP queue. I'd draftify it, but there has already been significant movement of the page, and I'm loathe to create more of a tangled web. Key issues are title (began sensibly, but now inappropriate), inappropriate template text in the article in mainspace, and some other issues. Perhaps your guidance of the student might be better than someone like me adding templates. Klbrain (talk) 17:16, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up @Klbrain. It's definitely not ready for mainspace. I'll reach out to them and sort this out. Brianda (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:43, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Giuseppe Musolino Edits

Hi Brianda,

I am running into an issue where a user keeps changing one thing I am writing in my article to something else specific that is objectively false; an author I'm referencing mentioned two specific countries in a text important to my subject, but this user keeps changing one of the countries.

I have been working on an article for Giuseppe Musolino for my class, and I am referencing a famous Italian criminologist, Cesare Lombroso, who wrote about Musolino. Lombroso said that Musolino was destined to become a criminal in part because of the Greek and Albanian heritage in his region; however, a Wiki user keeps changing "Albanian" to "Sicilian." I tried changing it back, and I mentioned how Lombroso specifically said Albanian, not Sicilian, and even translated/used/pointed to the original Italian text written by Lombroso to prove that he said Albanian. This other user responded with an unsourced history of Sicilians and Albanians in the region to demonstrate how I can't be right in mentioning Albanians; however, the author quite literally said "Albanians," not "Sicilians."

What do I do in this situation? I know for a fact that I am correct here, but this person (who is not logged in and uses a different IP address each time) keeps changing this one specific thing. It shouldn't be a subjective matter. I want to avoid an "edit war," but this user seems intent on disseminating false information.

Thanks! WUSTLWikiWarrior (talk) 16:48, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Just as to clarify: I originally used a text from a different author that spoke about Lombroso's work, which mentioned that Lombroso said Greek and Albanian. However, once this user made the change to Sicilian, I found the actual article from Lombroso, translated it, verified that it matched up with the first text I used (by saying Greek and Albanian), and even changed the citation in my article to the original text. Yet, the user went back and changed it again. Lombroso said what he said; there is no room for interpretation. Someone in my class joked that the user might be Albanian and as a result is taking offense to what I wrote, but it seems like there might be something to that. The other user seems to be taking this as oddly personal. WUSTLWikiWarrior (talk) 16:58, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

I just changed it back to "Greek and Albanian" so it is correct for the time being, but I expect that user to change it to Albanian and Greek again. WUSTLWikiWarrior (talk) 17:13, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

@WUSTLWikiWarrior Start a discussion on the article talk page, explaining your edit and the source you are using to support your content. This will provide the opportunity for other editors to chime and have a discussion.

After that, if the content is reverted again, I think another revert is appropriate, this time with an edit summary pointing to the talk page discussion and asking for further changes to be discussed there first. And if at that point an IP editor keeps changing it, it would be appropriate to request semi-protection so that only logged-in editors can edit the article. Looping in @Outcasts&Outlaws. Brianda (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:20, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. I just made the talk page post. WUSTLWikiWarrior (talk) 19:03, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Erich Dublon Article

Hello Brianda, I recently published a Wikipedia article on Erich Dublon. Shortly after my article was published, it was removed by a user. The user did not explain why they removed my article and also did not comment on my talk page. All the user said was my article was not ready to be published in the main space. I am looking for clarification as to why my article was removed. I would greatly appreciate it if you could provide feedback on my article and clarification as to why it was removed. Thank you for your help --Madisonokon (talk) 22:26, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Stochastic parrot

Hi Brianda, Just to let you know that we had a little conflict with an editor regarding students' additions to this article. It appears we disrupted an established reference structure regarding how to use a "works cited" rather than a list of references. He removed all student edits. Here is the discussion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Alleeejandro It has been resolved now and students' edits have been mostly returned. We all learned something new about different types of reference styles on Wikipedia! 1namesake1 (talk) 16:30, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Moving My Article to the Public

Hello Brianda,

I am having some issues moving my article to Wikipedia from the sandbox. I have tried a few different things but nothing has worked. Any help would be much appreciated. Here is the link to my sandbox: User:Samvr2001/Treaty of Trentschin Samvr2001 (talk) 21:48, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Samvr2001, The Treaty of Trentschin already has a Wikipedia article. Instead of creating a duplicate article, you need to make improvements to the existing Wikipedia article. If you need a refresher on how to do this, please review this training module or this video.

Remember: When you add content to an article, think about how they work with the rest of the text. When you add information, make sure that information isn't already presented somewhere else in the article. If you're replacing text, make sure you don't remove anything important (unless it's not accurate). Brianda (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:39, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

GA article selection

Hi Brianda, heads up on this course where Whale shark has been selected. It is a well-developed article and unlikely to be helpful for the stated goals of learning to find sources etc. There are many animal articles in need, but not this one. CMD (talk) 01:37, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up @Chipmunkdavis. I reached out to the student and the instructor letting them know. Brianda (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:09, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Argh!

Hello, Brianda,

We are getting a lot of students moving their student sandboxes into the main space of the project. And they have a few things in common, they have page titles like Brianda/Sandbox, they still have sandbox tags on the page and they are in no shape to be in the main space of the project. Most page patrollers are good natured about returning them to User space but it gets harder towards the end of the term when students seem desperate to move them and may do so several times, despite experienced editors moving them back.

So, for the future, please a) tell instructors to tell students that they don't need their student coursework in main space to get a good grade and b) inform student editors about submitting their work to WP:AFC so that their sandboxes can be reviewed by experienced editors prior to being moved to main space. To be positive, I've seen about half a dozen of excellent articles that are suitable for main space but that is probably 1 out of 7 articles I've seen moved to main space. Somehow, students are just not getting the message that anyone can move any draft to main space when they want to without any article review. Even experienced editors often submit their drafts to AFC so it is not out-of-line for beginning editors to be asked to have their first time drafts reviewed.

Thanks again to you and the WikiEd team for the work you do. Have a fun summer break! Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:50, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) Liz, Otoh, I get why one might want to urge instructors to tell students that they don't need their student coursework in main space to get a good grade, as it has obvious benefits for those of us having to do cleanup after student editors who move them there prematurely; but otoh, telling them that seems to violate WP:NOTWEBHOST. After all, if they are just using Wikipedia as a platform for expository writing practice at a RW non-university platform with no real intent to ever publish, that seems like a classic WP:NOTHERE position, and we routinely block users for that (not right away, but still). So, I'd feel queasy about telling instructors that. Otoh, anything not ready for mainspace definitely should not be moved there, so no argument there. Mathglot (talk) 07:39, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Peer Review

Dear Brianda,

Upon reviewing my peer review grade, I noticed that I received an F grade, which was unexpected as I submitted the assignment on time and put considerable effort into it. However, when I logged in to the Wikipedia page where we conducted the peer review, I couldn't find my work. After some investigation, I discovered that the person I peer reviewed had changed their username, which caused my work to disappear. With this information, I kindly request your assistance in retrieving my work for grading.

Please let me know if there's any additional information you require from me to resolve this matter.

Thank you for your attention to this issue.

Sincerely,

Moza Alshamsi Pause and Peruse (talk) 19:39, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Pause and Peruse, I believe this is the page you are trying to access. If you check out your user contributions, you are able to see all of the pages you've edited before. Brianda (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:00, 1 May 2024 (UTC)