Welcome!

Hello, Rslough, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{help me}} before the question. Again, welcome! - 2/0 (cont.) 12:33, 14 January 2011 (UTC)Reply

TUSC token 47f315563c1cff08abcbd57bc5cd3ab2 edit

I am now proud owner of a TUSC account!

TUSC token 47f315563c1cff08abcbd57bc5cd3ab2 edit

I am now proud owner of a TUSC account!


Hi Rachel! I am getting used to doing things on Wikipedia. I uploaded a user image to Wikipedia Commons and I've been playing around with other things this afternoon.

Bhmarshall (talk) 21:46, 22 January 2011 (UTC)Reply

Wikipedia Ambassador Program Newsletter: 28 January 2011 edit

 




This is the first issue of the Wikipedia Ambassador Program newsletter. Please read it! It has important information about the the current wave of classes, instructions and advice, and other news about the ambassador program.





Delivered by EdwardsBot (talk) 00:34, 29 January 2011 (UTC) Reply

Wikipedia Ambassador Program Newsletter: 13 February 2011 edit

 




This is the second issue of the Wikipedia Ambassador Program Newsletter, with details about what's going on right now and where help is needed.



  • Userboxes and profiles - Add an ambassador userbox to your page, and make sure you've added your mentor profile!
  • Be a coordinating ambassador - Pick and class and make sure no students fall through the cracks.
  • New screencasts - Short videos on watchlists and a number of other topics may be useful to students.
  • Updates from Campus Ambassadors - Ambassadors are starting to report on classroom experiences, both on-wiki and on the Google Group.
  • Other news - There's a new on-wiki application for being an Online Ambassador, and Editing Friday #2 is today!
  • Things you can do - This is just a sample; if you're eager for something to do, there's plenty more.

Delivered by EdwardsBot (talk) 18:25, 11 February 2011 (UTC) Reply

Wikipedia Ambassador Program Newsletter: 21 March 2011 edit

 




This is the third issue of the Wikipedia Ambassador Program Newsletter, with details about what's going on right now and where help is needed.



Delivered by EdwardsBot (talk) 22:26, 21 March 2011 (UTC) Reply

Wikipedia Ambassador Program Newsletter: 22 April 2011 edit

 




This is the fourth issue of the Wikipedia Ambassador Program Newsletter, with details about what's going on right now and where help is needed.



Delivered by EdwardsBot (talk) 16:36, 22 April 2011 (UTC) Reply

Please take the Wikipedia Ambassador Program survey edit

Hi Ambassador,

We are at a pivotal point in the development of the Wikipedia Ambassador Program. Your feedback will help shape the program and role of Ambassadors in the future. Please take this 10 minute survey to help inform and improve the Wikipedia Ambassadors.

WMF will de-identify results and make them available to you. According to KwikSurveys' privacy policy: "Data and email addresses will not be sold, rented, leased or disclosed to 3rd parties." This link takes you to the online survey: http://kwiksurveys.com?u=WPAmbassador_talk

Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments, Thank You!

Amy Roth (Research Analyst, Public Policy Initiative) (talk) 20:44, 24 May 2011 (UTC)Reply

Region 5 announcement edit

Hey there; you'll want to add our region's noticeboard to your watchlist: Wikipedia:Ambassadors/Great Lakes. Anything that needs to be handled at a regional level will be posted there. Bob the WikipediaN (talkcontribs) 18:21, 11 July 2011 (UTC)Reply

Ambassador Program: assessment drive edit

Even though it's been quiet on-wiki, the Wikipedia Ambassador Program has been busy over the last few months getting ready for the next term. We're heading toward over 80 classes in the US, across all disciplines. You'll see courses start popping up here, and this time we want to match one or more Online Ambassadors to each class based on interest or expertise in the subject matter. If you see a class that you're interested, please contact the professor and/or me; the sooner the Ambassadors and professors get in communication, the better things go. Look for more in the coming weeks about next term.

In the meantime, with a little help I've identified all the articles students did significant work on in the last term. Many of the articles have never been assessed, or have ratings that are out of date from before the students improved them. Please help assess them! Pick a class, or just a few articles, and give them a rating (and add a relevant WikiProject banner if there isn't one), and then update the list of articles.

Once we have updated assessments for all these articles, we can get a better idea of how quality varied from course to course, and which approaches to running Wikipedia assignments and managing courses are most effective.

--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 17:29, 27 July 2011 (UTC)Reply

Come hang out with us online! edit

Hi! I wanted to let you know that we have created an IRC channel for "countering systemic bias one new editor at a time", aka closing the gender gap! Come hang out at #wikimedia-gendergap if that subject interests you. We hope this channel can serve as a safe haven to hang out, talk about Wiki, brainstorming, women in Wikimedia, article alerts and foster friendships. I hope you join us! (And if you need any IRC help, just let me know!) See you there! SarahStierch (talk) 13:24, 13 September 2011 (UTC)Reply

Survey edit

Hi Rslough!

I have put together a survey for female editors of Wikipedia (and related projects) in order to explore, in greater detail, women's experiences and roles within the Wikimedia movement. It'd be wonderful if you could participate!

It's an independent survey, done by me, as a fellow volunteer Wikimedian. It is not being done on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation. I hope you'll participate!

Just click this link to participate in this survey, via Google!

Any questions or concerns, feel free to email me or stop by my user talk page. Also, feel free to share this any other female Wikimedians you may know. It is in English, but any language Wikimedia participants are encouraged to participate. I appreciate your contributions - to the survey and to Wikipedia! Thank you! SarahStierch (talk) 21:47, 4 October 2011 (UTC)Reply

Wikipedia Ambassadors update edit

Hi! You're getting this message because you are or have been a Wikipedia Ambassador. A new term is beginning for the United States and Canada Education Programs, and I wanted to give you an update on some important new information if you're interested in continuing your work this term as a Wikipedia Ambassador.

You may have heard a reference to a transition the education program is going through. This is the last term that the Wikimedia Foundation will directly run the U.S. and Canada programs; beginning in June, a proposed thematic organization is likely to take over organizing the program. You can read more about the proposal here.

Another major change in the program will take effect immediately. Beginning this term, a new MediaWiki education extension will replace all course pages and Ambassador lists. (See Wikipedia:Course pages and Help:Education Program extension for more details.) Included in the extension are online volunteer and campus volunteer user rights, which let you create and edit course pages and sign up as an ambassador for a particular course.

If you would like to continue serving as a Wikipedia Ambassador — even if you do not support a class this term — you must create an ambassador profile. If you're no longer interested in being a Wikipedia Ambassador, you don't need to do anything.

Please do these steps as soon as possible

First, you need the relevant user rights for Online and/or Campus Ambassadors. (If you are an admin, you can grant the rights yourself, for you as well as other ambassadors.) Just post your rights request here, and we'll get you set up as quickly as possible.

Once you've got the ambassador rights, please set up at a Campus and/or Online Ambassador profile. You can do so at:

Going forward, the lists of Ambassadors at Special:CampusAmbassadors and Special:OnlineAmbassadors will be the official roster of who is an active Ambassador. If you would like to be an Ambassador but not ready to serve this term, you can un-check the option in your profile to publicly list it (which will remove your profile from the list).

After that, you can sign on to support courses. The list of courses will be at Special:Courses. (By default, this lists "Current" courses, but you can change the Status filter to "Planned" to see courses for this term that haven't reached their listed start date yet.)

As this is the first term we have used the extension, we know there will be some bugs, and we know the feature set is not as rich as it could be. (A big wave of improvements is already in the pipeline. And if you know MediaWiki and could help with code review, we'd love to have your help!) Please reach out to me (Sage Ross) with any complaints, bug reports, and feature suggestions. The basic features of the extension are documented at Wikipedia:Course pages, and you can see a tutorial for setting up and using them here.

Communication and keeping up to date

In the past, the Education Program has had a pretty fragmented set of communication channels. We're trying to fix that. These are the recommended places to discuss and stay up-to-date on the education program:

  1. The education noticeboard has become the main on-wiki location for discussion of the Education Program. You can post there about broad education program issues as well as issues with individual courses.
  2. The Ambassadors Announce email list is a very low-traffic announcements list of important information all Ambassadors need to be aware of. We encourage all Ambassadors (and other interested Wikipedians) to subscribe to the list; follow the instructions on the link to add your email address.
  3. If you use IRC regularly, or need to try to reach someone immediately, the #wikipedia-en-ambassadors connect IRC channel is the place to find me and fellow Ambassadors.
Ambassador training and resources

We now have an online training for Ambassadors, which is intended to be both an orientation about the Wikipedia Ambassador role for newcomers and the manual for how to do the role. (There are parallel trainings for students and for educators as well.)

Please go through the training if you feel like you need a refresher on how a typical class is supposed to go and where the Ambassadors fit in, or if you want to review and help improve it. If there's something you'd like to see added, or other suggestions you have for it, feel free to edit the training and/or leave feedback. A primer on setting up and using course pages is included in the educators' training.

The Resources page of the training is the main place for Ambassador-related resources. If there's something you think is important as a resource that's not on there, please add it.

Finally, whether or not you work with any classes this term, I encourage you to post entries to the Trophy Case whenever you see excellent work from students or if you have great examples from past semesters. And, as always, let students (and other editors!) know when they do things well; a little WikiLove goes a long way!

--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 20:45, 14 January 2013 (UTC)Reply