Wikipedia talk:Ambassadors/Steering Committee/Ambassador Recall Process

Approval discussion

The steering committee is recommending this proposed recall process for adoption by the Wikipedia Ambassador Program. Discussion will be open until the next Steering Committee Meeting (currently set for September 30th 2011), when if approved by the community, the policy will be formally adopted. Epistemophiliac (talk) 20:24, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Commentary

Who does "Ambassadors falling under the Steering Committee's jurisdiction" refer to? —Emufarmers^(T/C) 22:12, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Just a future-proofing clause, not all classes in the future may fall under the same Steering Committee, hence in order to avoid confusion if/when that occurs, this would mean an Ambassador working in the US, would be held accountable to the US Steering Committee, not the Indian one for example. Epistemophiliac (talk) 01:33, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Support I was thinking that a regular RFC would do the job, and that we do not need any more procedures and policies and guidelines. However what you have there is probably better than leaving it up to consensus of the Wikipedia community. The consequences could go beyond en.Wikipedia. I would imagine that the main problem will be slackness, but there could be all sorts of other misbehaviour inappropriate for Ambassadors. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 09:57, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Problem with am Ambassador on the Steering Committee

Hello,

I've posted this multiple places but received no satisfactory reply. I reviewed a good article nomination by one of your Online Ambassadors who is on the Online Ambassadors Steering Committee. The article failed because the ambassador doesn't understand what copyvio/plagiarism/close paraphrasing was. See Talk:Douglas W. Owsley/GA1. The ambassador attacked me for my review. Now a second reviewer has failed the article for the same reasons. See Talk:Douglas W. Owsley/GA2. This Online Ambassador does not understand how to write an article without misusing sources. Please address this issue.

I have just now been told to post my problem here.

Thanks, MathewTownsend (talk) 22:10, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

As mentioned before, would you like to consider this a formal request to recall Cindy? Or just re-iterating your current position, which we are trying to fix the underlining root cause of? Epistemophiliac (talk) 01:29, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm not interested in any "formal action". Rather, my concern is that Cindy has not been screened/trained sufficiently. This was only brought to my attention through her two recent failed good article nominations. Cindy clearly is not familiar enough with the requirements of article writing on en:wp to be in a position to help students. I would like this to be recognized, addressed and remedied. Perhaps the application process need to be stricter, and more intensive training given to Online Ambassadors. MathewTownsend (talk) 14:40, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

In that case then, this is not something that will be fixed overnight - and we will continue to focus on improving the training (and screening process) given to Online Ambassadors. Realistically this will not get fully implemented till the summer, and I will consider the matter resolved in the short term. Epistemophiliac (talk) 17:09, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

ok, but I think Cindy should be made aware of the problem as she continues to deny it. Perhaps someone could look at the two GA nomination examples and give her some instruction, since she is active and needs to be giving students correct information. Thanks, MathewTownsend (talk) 17:45, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Addendum. I think someone should speak to Cindy, since she continues to assume my review of her good article nomination was done in bad faith, harassment and hounding.[1], when in fact she continued to berate me after the review was over. e.g. [2],[3][4][5][6][7] It is because of this that I looked into the "Online Ambassador" business and began to think the selection process was inadequate. One of the "second opinions" she requested, User:Dcoetzee also said she was unfit as an Online Ambassador.[8] And SandyGeorgia said Cindy was the single editor in change of an online class was the one she had the most problem with Please, make sure this doesn't continue. Thanks, MathewTownsend (talk) 18:09, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Discussion on administrator noticeboard

I raised this same issue on the English Wikipedia Administrator Noticeboard for Incidents. A lot of people commented on this. There are several issues, inluding this specific complaint and the complaint process in general. Something which I got out of this discussion is a desire to separate issues so that they can be more easily managed. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive742#problem_in_the_online_ambassador_program Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:52, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Formal complaint

If the only way I can be assured that Cindy receives some feedback about her problematic editing, her lack of knowledge about copyvio/plagiarism/close paraphrasing, is if I file a formal complaint, then I wish to do so. I wish to file a formal complaint. Thanks, MathewTownsend (talk) 21:31, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

As mentioned in the few other places you also posted this (Seriously for my own sanity, can we keep this to one place only?) I will get the ball rolling on this.Epistemophiliac (talk) 23:07, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Sorry! And thank you so much. I'm still not clear where this should be filed. So here is it? Cindy has been notified, though she deleted it from her page.[9] I also notified another ambassador, as the directions said to notify two.[10] MathewTownsend (talk) 14:33, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

I said I would take care of it! :) Cindy mentioned the both of you had started a discussion here and after a brief chat, the Steering Committee (sans Cindy) thought while we were waiting for her formal reply (which she has up to 7 days to do), that we would let the two of you have a quite conversation, without everyone else needing to give their 2 cents. Epistemophiliac (talk) 15:10, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Mathew, with all the other talk happening, would you mind if we held off ruling on this? Right now I can tell you on a preliminary consensus is that we do think Cindy was perhaps in the wrong, but not necessarily enough to ask her to resign as an Ambassador. At the same time, I can tell you that there is a lot of talk on how to train Ambassadors - and since you seem quite passionate about the subject I would like to invite you to the conversation. Epistemophiliac (talk) 18:06, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't mind. Where is this other talk happening?

Cindy's "response" to me at User talk:Cindamuse/MathewTownsend is one long rant, blaming me for things she has already blamed me for before. This is a reprise of her many blaming statements made at the time on several different talk pages. She prefers to attack my review, rather than address the concerns. There's no point in my engaging there. I don't want to continue interaction with her. (I have conducted almost 80 Good article reviews with no problems.) The fact that she failed Talk:Douglas W. Owsley/GA2 for exactly the same reasons (plus POV) that she failed Talk:Douglas W. Owsley/GA1 shows she has learned nothing.

I would merely suggest that Online Ambassador's have substantial article building experience, plus understand copyvio etc. and interact with students, which SandyGeorgia also suggested in her response to Cindy [11] I would just encourage you to look at Cindy's contributions (which seem to be mostly speedy deletion of articles, and very little article building experience). Dcoetzee, one of the people she solicited for a second opinion on Talk:Douglas W. Owsley/GA1 also thought she should be removed: [12]. There is nothing to suggest that she is qualified for the position of Online Ambassador, nevermind being on the "Selection Committee".

But all that is up to you guys. I'll have no further comment on Cindy. MathewTownsend (talk) 19:00, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough on Cindy - but for copyvio... what do you think would be the best way to train Ambassadors? As for the side conversation, it has been mostly off-wiki since we are just throwing ideas around and haven't had anything stick on a good way to train (and then either grade or insure it's happened without creating a huge burden on the recently trained) Epistemophiliac (talk) 19:13, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

You could ask User:SandyGeorgia and User:Moonriddengirl for ideas, as they're on the front lines. Besides the policy/guideline pages, (Wikipedia:Plagiarism, Wikipedia:Copyright violations, Wikipedia:Copy-paste, Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing), there's Let's get serious about plagiarism.

My opinion is that you need to select Online Ambassadors who already know this stuff, as I don't think it is something that can be learned in a few days or weeks by wading through policies and guidelines. It comes from years of experience. Many of us have had it drilled into us from elementary school and so it is second nature. It appears, from reading the descriptions of problems in the education program, understanding not only copyvio but plagiarism and close paraphrasing are among the most pressing issues regarding student editing.

Maybe you need two types of Ambassadors - those that deal primarily with evaluating content, and those that do the friendly, supportive stuff - it may be different skill sets. You have to be sure that the online ambassadors that deal with content understand and actively engage with students on these issues. I know that WMF is concentrating on "editor retention", but if the en:wp community continues to be hit hard on NPP, on medical and psychology articles etc., it will harm the community. MathewTownsend (talk) 19:56, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

As much as I would be willing to entertain the idea of breaking down work more - with the current number of Online Ambassadors - it's not feasible. I will look into getting a hold of Sandy & Moon - and like I said you have any implementable ideas on how to teach users about this, I am all ears. Epistemophiliac (talk) 00:15, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I think it's fairly hopeless. Cindy continues to post long rants against me - 10,000 bytes of unparagraphed text.[13][14] I presume this is meant as a response to my complaint? SandyGeorgia hasn't responded to the wall of text posted at her place by Cindy requesting a retraction and apology. I can see there's nothing to be done. MathewTownsend (talk) 00:28, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

• Hey Mathew, to improve communication, one has to actually respond constructively, working toward a productive end. I was encouraged to respond to some of the accusations and inaccuracies being spread about me. I attempted that at User talk:Cindamuse/MathewTownsend, but you chose to ignore it. Yet, you continued posting about me all over Wikipedia. It boggles my mind that there are always some people that will forever want to complain about anyone and anything, but never want to be part of the solution. People can complain all they want all the time, but if they're not willing to step up, engage in conversation, and work to improve what they see as "wrong", then it just becomes a time suck. As far as ignoring attempts at communication due to a lack of paragraphing, the guidelines on talk page guidelines may be beneficial. While some people prefer whitespace, it is really not necessary. It is also often discouraged, due to messing with the html code. I apologize if my long post only served to frustrate you. I chose to consolidate my responses to your accusations in one public (transparent) place, rather than hunt down the million other places you have posted about me on Wikipedia. Best regards, Cind.amuse (Cindy) 22:34, 21 March 2012 (UTC)