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Course coordinator currently involved in an ArbCom case relating to a course they are teaching
There will likely be an ArbCom case (Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Holocaust in Poland) relating to User:Chapmansh. To rehash the drama, Chapmansh/Shira Klein recently published an article in an academic journal [1] accusing several Wikipedia editors of coordinating offsite to distort facts relating to the Holocaust. This has prompted ArbCom to propose a case in which Chapmansh may be made a party. Needless to say, this is going to be a big case especially given that it involves Icewhiz.
The reason why I'm posting this to the education notice board is because User:Chapmansh is teaching the course Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/Chapman University/Jewish Life from Napoleon to Hitler (Spring 2023). In past iterations of this course,[2] students have edited in the Holocaust topic area.
I would say that if Chapmansh coordinates editing offsite in the Holocaust topic area during this ArbCom case it will probably not be an enjoyable experience for the student editors. Regardless of whether there is a conflict of interest, the students will probably be under a microscope the entire time given how many people are involved in this case. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}}
on reply) 16:58, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- Oy. Well, at least given that the class clearly includes a lot of historical scope prior to the Holocaust, we could presumably direct Klein and her students to stick to the non-Holocaust stuff, at least for this semester? signed, Rosguill talk 17:07, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Rosguill: That's what I would imagine is the best choice here onwiki (as well as to avoid Poland). I'll ping User:Brianda (Wiki Ed) who is the Wiki Ed expert assigned to that course. Chess (talk) (please use
{{reply to|Chess}}
on reply) 17:21, 14 February 2023 (UTC)- Pardon me for butting in, I saw this mentioned at WP:ARC and thought I could help by clarifying a few things. The topic area of the Arbcom case, and the journal article, is not "Holocaust", but "Holocaust in Poland". In Wikispeak, that's part of WP:APL. WP:APL has, since May 2020, been covered by (what we now call) WP:ARBECR, which means that non-extended-confirmed editors can't edit in that topic area. If you look at the "past iterations of this course" link by Chess above, none of the students listed are extended-confirmed, and none of them edited in the WP:APL topic area--all those articles are outside of WP:APL. In sum: apparently WikiEd students already stay out of the topic area, and have for a couple years. Levivich (talk) 17:58, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Levivich: That's true, though keep in mind offwiki coordination by Klein has come up during the ArbCom case. There's nothing wrong with student editors contributing to our coverage of the Holocaust, but the perception that Klein is trying to influence Wikipedia's coverage of certain topics by using her position is something that could be discussed during the case.
- Regardless of whether or not this is true, student editors could very easily wander into a minefield they aren't remotely prepared for. Your claim that
none of them edited in the WP:APL topic area
isn't actually true. ZyerAbdullah123 appears to have removed someone else's talk page comment on Polish death camps during the 2021 course. [3] - While I doubt that was intentional and is very minor (not even worthy of anything beyond a gentle reminder), people have a habit of assuming bad faith during very controversial ArbCom cases. Chess (talk) (please use
{{reply to|Chess}}
on reply) 19:16, 14 February 2023 (UTC)- An unsupported claim of offwiki coordination was made by an involved party, it should not be repeated and has no bearing here. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:22, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- Accidentally removing a talk page comment does not constitute editing in the topic area. And you say "trying to influence Wikipedia's coverage" as if it's a bad thing. I welcome scholars trying to "influence Wikipedia's coverage" by pointing out problems in that coverage. I welcome teachers trying to "influence Wikipedia's coverage" by teaching students how to edit. Levivich (talk) 19:35, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- Although an accidental removal is not topic area editing, I think the point is that these things attract excessive attention during controversial ArbCom cases, and it does no service to students, or to the students' educational experience, to unwittingly find themselves in the middle of that. It's not about whether or not the students do anything wrong, but rather, about trying to keep the students from getting needlessly caught up in wiki-drama. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:38, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- I think Levivich makes a valid point that due to not being e-confirmed, the students can't edit this area much even if they wanted to. On the other hand, there are still many minor articles related to this topic area which don't have the right protection level slapped in, I believe, so as Chess' correctly notes with their example, they may occasionally stumble into the "minefield". To add another example: in the companion piece that the authors published in a Polish newspaper a few days ago [4], they actually mentioned that Klein became interested in the Wiki-side of the narrative after one of her students editing the History_of_the_Jews_in_Poland article (which is now e-c portended but wasn't back in 2018) got into a dispute with an editor who told him not to cite historian Jan T. Gross (the authors erroneously claimed that editor was myself, while in fact that editor who criticized Gross was Xx236; meanwhile I defended Gross and helped the student, for which Klein thanked me - see Talk:History_of_the_Jews_in_Poland/Archive_4#Postwar_Antisemitism; that misattribution error confusing me with Xx236 already got fixed in the Polish news article which now sports a small correction note - one error down, dozens more to go, sigh). Anyway, the point I am making is that it is possible the students will occasionally run into issues, but I wouldn't worry to much about it, those have been and likely will be isolated incidents. Teaching experience on all sides, really. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:04, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- Pardon me for butting in, I saw this mentioned at WP:ARC and thought I could help by clarifying a few things. The topic area of the Arbcom case, and the journal article, is not "Holocaust", but "Holocaust in Poland". In Wikispeak, that's part of WP:APL. WP:APL has, since May 2020, been covered by (what we now call) WP:ARBECR, which means that non-extended-confirmed editors can't edit in that topic area. If you look at the "past iterations of this course" link by Chess above, none of the students listed are extended-confirmed, and none of them edited in the WP:APL topic area--all those articles are outside of WP:APL. In sum: apparently WikiEd students already stay out of the topic area, and have for a couple years. Levivich (talk) 17:58, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Rosguill: That's what I would imagine is the best choice here onwiki (as well as to avoid Poland). I'll ping User:Brianda (Wiki Ed) who is the Wiki Ed expert assigned to that course. Chess (talk) (please use
- To be clear, nobody should be going around to stalk/hound these students' edits in the absence of clear evidence of (a) bad faith, or (b) significant policy violations. Their professor writing an article about a topic shouldn't affect the status of their students. The reality, however, is that students in this class will simply be more likely to run into this kind of problematic behavior, and should be aware of what they're getting into. For what it's worth, anyone following these students around and/or undoing their work will themselves be subject to heightened scrutiny, too. A good practice would be to encourage anyone who's wary of jumping in to just edit in userspace rather than article space, moving good content into articles after some review (a good practice with controversial subject areas regardless). But Chapmansh has run many Wikipedia assignments in the past, and likely knows a thing or two about editing controversial topics from both teaching and research, so I don't anticipate anything in this thread coming as a surprise. At the end of the day, if there's something the article and the arbcom case make clear, it's that there's room for improvement in Holocaust-related articles, and it would be great to have additional editors making policy-based improvements. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 23:07, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- I'll confirm here that User:Chapmansh's students will not be working on topics related to Poland. We at Wiki Education understand the sensitivity around this topic, and are working closely with Champansh to ensure students are adequately supported for any edits they make. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 01:33, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
Blocked student
Could a member of WikiEd please take a look at User talk:PKnight2020, who has been blocked for vandalism? They assert that they were making the edits as part of a class project, but they are indecipherable from vandalism. If there is a prof involved, and they are participating in WikiEd, I think someone needs to step in.-- Ponyobons mots 19:45, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Ponyo: - this edit suggests that they actually intended to make their edits as part of a class, but that's not consistent with even a major misinterpretation of any training module of ours.
- They're not enrolled in any class we're supporting, and it's unlikely that they're taking a class we support and just failed to enroll. This edit changing "football" to "soccer", coupled with edits to the Perth Dance Music Awards and Kane Lambert (an Aussie rules footballer) makes me think they're likely to be in Australia. I probably should know who the education programme contact is for Australia, but I don't. I'll find out (though of course, if anyone knows, they can ping them). Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:43, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
- I think WM-AU doesn't have a formal education program, but pinging @Pru.mitchell and Canley: who should be able to better direct the student to someone in Australia for help! --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:23, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
- I am watching their talk page to see if there is anything helpful coming from that user. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:18, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
Surprise, another semester, another undeclared school project making a mess of fashion articles
Fast fashion, slow fashion, a bunch of textile-related articles, etc, and widely spreading from there. One involved editor has now confirmed what several of us had suspected. This happens nearly every semester. Starting tomorrow, I plan to start using a pattern of "warn2 warn4 block+protect", as many semesters of history demonstrate nothing else works. DMacks (talk) 08:01, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
- @Materialscientist and MrOllie: who are whack-a-moling it and have experience with this sort of incompetence. DMacks (talk) 08:03, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
- Example of history of this: Wikipedia:Education noticeboard/Archive 22#Undisclosed art-class (fashion/textile) project is back. DMacks (talk) 08:06, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
- This has happened every April and October for the last couple of years. I suspect if we could figure out which instructor or university was the source one well-written email could solve the issue. Maybe a checkuser could tell by looking at a few IPs, but I'm not sure if policy would allow for that. MrOllie (talk) 13:13, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
- Without making a judgement on this particular set of incidents, I am frustrated that the foundation and its paid employees are not more available to support the project in situations like this where some institutional support seems very appropriate. More specifically, it seems like it would be appropriate for a Wikimedia employee to help identify the likely college or university and reach out to them on behalf of the project. It seems really odd for such a well-funded project to rely on volunteers to do this work. In the absence of such support, our tools are limited - if the disruption is severe enough, we could simply block the entire block of addresses used by the institution until we are assured that the disruption will be stopped. This is, after all, how we deal with disruption from schools and many other organizations. ElKevbo (talk) 23:08, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
- @ElKevbo I'm not sure what powers you think WMF staff have that en-wiki admin don't? It's an undisclosed course, and they don't have any more ability to force students to disclose than we do. -- asilvering (talk) 23:11, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
- Again, I don't know enough about this specific situation to know if this necessary. But in general, when this project is being repeatedly disrupted by editors at an identifiable organization it seems appropriate for someone who represents the project to reach out to the institution to let them know about the disruption, ask them for help, and let them know what may happen if they can't stop the disruption. "I am a volunteer Wikipedia editor..." doesn't carry nearly as much weight as "I work for and represent Wikipedia..." Nor should unpaid volunteers be expected or asked to do something like that. ElKevbo (talk) 23:17, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
- @ElKevbo The problem here is that the organization is not identifiable. -- asilvering (talk) 23:25, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
- Someone with checkuser tools may be able to identify the institution. ElKevbo (talk) 23:35, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
- IPs have been used at various times, which at the times I've looked often have similar geolocation (I'm not a CU). One editor revealed an apparent professor's name last year on a sister-site (need special goggles to see that one). And there is also consistency with other things I have been able to find on various education-related websites. Can't say more. DMacks (talk) 18:21, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
- Someone with checkuser tools may be able to identify the institution. ElKevbo (talk) 23:35, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
- @ElKevbo The problem here is that the organization is not identifiable. -- asilvering (talk) 23:25, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
- Again, I don't know enough about this specific situation to know if this necessary. But in general, when this project is being repeatedly disrupted by editors at an identifiable organization it seems appropriate for someone who represents the project to reach out to the institution to let them know about the disruption, ask them for help, and let them know what may happen if they can't stop the disruption. "I am a volunteer Wikipedia editor..." doesn't carry nearly as much weight as "I work for and represent Wikipedia..." Nor should unpaid volunteers be expected or asked to do something like that. ElKevbo (talk) 23:17, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
- @ElKevbo I'm not sure what powers you think WMF staff have that en-wiki admin don't? It's an undisclosed course, and they don't have any more ability to force students to disclose than we do. -- asilvering (talk) 23:11, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
- Without making a judgement on this particular set of incidents, I am frustrated that the foundation and its paid employees are not more available to support the project in situations like this where some institutional support seems very appropriate. More specifically, it seems like it would be appropriate for a Wikimedia employee to help identify the likely college or university and reach out to them on behalf of the project. It seems really odd for such a well-funded project to rely on volunteers to do this work. In the absence of such support, our tools are limited - if the disruption is severe enough, we could simply block the entire block of addresses used by the institution until we are assured that the disruption will be stopped. This is, after all, how we deal with disruption from schools and many other organizations. ElKevbo (talk) 23:08, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
- This has happened every April and October for the last couple of years. I suspect if we could figure out which instructor or university was the source one well-written email could solve the issue. Maybe a checkuser could tell by looking at a few IPs, but I'm not sure if policy would allow for that. MrOllie (talk) 13:13, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
Gadget to identify students
Re this thread, has anyone tried to write a gadget that will mark editors registered on the dashboard? Administrators don't need to run to their teacher for everything, but it would give us one more tool to use in the unfortunate cases where a student keeps making mistakes but cannot or will not communicate. Bovlb (talk) 15:37, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
- I support making this a thing. Maybe someone could start a bugzilla thread? Piotrus at Hanyang| reply here 05:25, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
- This is also related to what we we are discussing just above. @MrOllie Piotrus at Hanyang| reply here 05:26, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
- If someone works on such a gadget, I'm happy to provide support on the Programs & Events Dashboard side of things. All the necessary data should be publicly accessible, but it might not be obvious where to find it from the Dashboard's API. Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 23:57, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
Scoring for LLM generated Wikipedia Style models.
I am part of a team at a University where we are building a LLM style model which will be given a topic and will generate different subtopics and then text in order to write an informative article. We are going to be using several different types of scoring mechanisms, but we would ideally like to have frequent wikipedia editors collaborate with scoring the articles. Our goal is only for educational research, and we are not intending to try to publish these LLM generated articles on Wikipedia. Our LLM will ideally generate Wikipedia style articles with citations, and different sub-points. We will also have an automatic scorer that will score the essay based on 1. Well Written, 2. Verifiable with no original research, 3. Broad in its coverage, and 4. Qualitative comments (The first three metrics for a Good Article + Qualitiative comments). We would take a subset of our articles produced and score them by actual Wikipedia editors as a way to verify our scorer is within reason. We will have about 20-30 articles to be scored, and will be able to monetarily compensate scorers. Terribilis11 (talk) 20:02, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
- What is the purpose of this educational research? What are you going to be using this LLM for in the future? -- asilvering (talk) 23:13, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
- User talk:Terribilis11, do you have ethics approval for this research? If so which ethics board? Stuartyeates (talk) 20:22, 29 October 2023 (UTC)
Problematic course, still
- Course: Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/North Carolina Central University/Artificial Intelligence and Law (Fall 2023)
- Professor: User:9Starbucks
- Wiki Ed: @Brianda (Wiki Ed), Ian (Wiki Ed), and Helaine (Wiki Ed):
- Student: User:Oabrown23 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
- Articles: (among others) Ralph Gilles, Melanie Harrison Okoro, Valencia Koomson, April Gordon Dawson
- Images: Copyvio thread at Commons: Class uploads (multiple deleted or submitted for deletion)
See this discussion from 10 November where Brianda (Wiki Ed) indicated she had spoken with the professor and asked that articles be kept in draft space.
I am still working on the image copyvio concerns, an AFD, and yet today, April Gordon Dawson (or questionable notability and with another likely copyvio image) was moved to main space. The professor has not responded once. Wiki Ed; please engage here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:23, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
- Hi, Brianda (Wiki Ed) did email the instructor on Friday, and we have yet to hear back from her. I just emailed her again to ask her to have her students cease moving their work live right away. Thanks for letting us know, and we'll let you know when we hear back from the instructor. We're at WikiCon right now and may be a bit slower to respond. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 04:40, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
- Thanks, Helaine; the students I've encountered have been eager, polite and willing to learn, but appear to have been given no instruction regarding image copyvio, which as of now, is the biggest problem (besides the incommunicative professor). The content problems are fixable, but I'm not active on Commons, so getting the images dealt with has been time consuming. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:46, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
- I'm helping User:MathDementor with an article on Siobhan Day Grady, but unfortunately that one is likewise unlikely to pass the notability standards (I've just done my best effort at the checks you'd do in an AfD, and it doesn't look good). I worry that the student may have been given an impossible assignment here, since no amount of hard work or skilled editing can change whether a subject meets the criteria for inclusion. UndercoverClassicist T·C 10:44, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
- And this is the very troubling aspect of this course; the students I've encountered have been wonderfully responsive, trying their hardest, and it bothers me to think that an unresponsive and ill-prepared-for-Wikipedia professor, would give a student a bad grade because they have been setup to edit problematic topics. Were these students allowed to choose their own topics, or did the prof assign them? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:58, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
- @SandyGeorgia The tone and language you use are very matter of fact but are not accurate at all. I appreciate feedback as it is an opportunity to learn and grow but there are assumptions being made here that are simply not true. The list I provided students was from here: Wikipedia:Meetup/DC/African Americans in STEM Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon . I shared this with @Brianda (Wiki Ed) from Day 1 and she attended my class and has worked with my students. To my understanding we are part of an initiative to work towards getting more BIPOC articles completed. I have no issue to remove articles drafted about myself or others but to try to disparage my response rate and to imply that I am not setting students up for success is not appropriate. I will meet with @Brianda (Wiki Ed) and @Helaine (Wiki Ed) hopefully later today. Additionally we will work with students to make sure they address all concerns however, this is all of our first times working with Wikipedia ask that you extend some grace as we are not Wiki experts yet. 9Starbucks (talk) 13:51, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
- Another troubling aspect of this course is that it relates to law, and yet we have half the students uploading copyright violation images. One would think a law course would hammer home the importance of respecting intellectual property rights. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:10, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
- And this is the very troubling aspect of this course; the students I've encountered have been wonderfully responsive, trying their hardest, and it bothers me to think that an unresponsive and ill-prepared-for-Wikipedia professor, would give a student a bad grade because they have been setup to edit problematic topics. Were these students allowed to choose their own topics, or did the prof assign them? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:58, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
- I am very responsive. I responded within 24 hours in email but was not able to access my computer over the weekend to respond here. @Helaine (Wiki Ed)@Brianda (Wiki Ed) @SandyGeorgia 9Starbucks (talk) 13:44, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
- I'm helping User:MathDementor with an article on Siobhan Day Grady, but unfortunately that one is likewise unlikely to pass the notability standards (I've just done my best effort at the checks you'd do in an AfD, and it doesn't look good). I worry that the student may have been given an impossible assignment here, since no amount of hard work or skilled editing can change whether a subject meets the criteria for inclusion. UndercoverClassicist T·C 10:44, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
- Hi Helaine (Wiki Ed), I'd also like to raise as a concern the fact that the instructor of the course has apparently assigned students the task of writing an article about her??? And SandyGeorgia since you've been assisting with the Siobhan Day Grady article, you should be aware too: the class dashboard shows the instructor's name as Siobhan Grady. That strikes me as completely beyond the pale. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 05:14, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
- OH my ... I had completely missed that aspect. Those poor students; talk about COI affecting their grade ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:14, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
- @Helaine (Wiki Ed) please respond to my email so that we can meet sooner rather than later. I have worked with @Brianda (Wiki Ed) and this thread is very alarming. 9Starbucks (talk) 13:53, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
- @SandyGeorgia I did respond on Saturday and asked my students to stop moving things to the main space. @Brianda (Wiki Ed)@Helaine (Wiki Ed) . I want to ensure we are respectful when reaching out to my students. They are new to the community and excited about completing this work. They will work to address any concerns. 9Starbucks (talk) 13:42, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
- Thanks, Helaine; the students I've encountered have been eager, polite and willing to learn, but appear to have been given no instruction regarding image copyvio, which as of now, is the biggest problem (besides the incommunicative professor). The content problems are fixable, but I'm not active on Commons, so getting the images dealt with has been time consuming. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:46, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
Hi all. I just had a great conversation with 9Starbucks and hopefully the concerns raised here will be sorted out. A few specifics
- With regards to having students edit her biography, as she mentioned higher up this page, this wasn't something she assigned them; they found her name on the list from the Meetup. She has told her students not to move that draft to mainspace
- She tried to respond to this thread over the weekend, but found herself caught behind an IP block. I've given her an IP Block Exemption, though I hope she never actually has to make use of it
- With regards to the copyright issues - despite all of our best efforts (including instructors) students run into problems (as do many new editors). She said she will send out an email to her students this morning with reminders about the copyright issues.
- As for the source that started it all - I've never heard of attorneyatlawmagazine.com, and tbh, the main thing that stands out to me that it might not be a real source is the lack of an editorial board or policy in its "About" section. (Yes, the tone makes me suspicious, but so much these days is written in that "puff" tone, even in reputable sources.) Without understanding concepts like WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS (a problem that's not unique to new editors), when people see the existent sources used on-wiki, they (not unreasonably) assume that those kinds of sources will work.
- Finally, I think it's a bit unfair to characterise someone acting in good faith the way she has been here. Though new to the community, 9Starbucks is interested in improving Wikipedia, and plans to learn to edit herself.
I'm sorry this spiraled as it did, and that's my fault for not being around. It's also unfortunate that it happened during WikiCon when Helaine and Brianda weren't available. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:57, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
- Ian, thanks for jumping in, with your usual efficiency. I hope the prof knows her students have been wonderfully responsive, and their grades aren't affected. What is WikiCon? And in terms of responsibility for the big picture, just looking at articles of questionable notability at Wikipedia:Meetup/DC/African Americans in STEM Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon and all of these mean there is probably a) a very bad model of notability for these students and Edit-a-thon participants, and b) massive cleanup needs. Meanwhile, the image issues have been all cleaned up, best I can tell. It's unfortunate the prof was caught behind a proxy; that happened to me once when traveling and using a hotel internet connection. Perhaps this would have unfolded differently if not for whatever WikiCon is. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:18, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
- Also, would any Wiki Ed staff with admin rights like to go ahead and delete this image? I don't know how that works. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:19, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
- Thanks SandyGeorgia. Sorry about the abbreviation, it's WikiConference North America.
- I've deleted the image. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:00, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
- Also, would any Wiki Ed staff with admin rights like to go ahead and delete this image? I don't know how that works. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:19, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
@Helaine (Wiki Ed), Ian (Wiki Ed), and 9Starbucks: On the bigger picture, I am not any less concerned than I was when User:LEvalyn pointed out the astounding conflict of interest. The explanations above (that the student picked the article from a list of suggestions of possibly dubious notability) does not minimize the severity of the COI concerns. It should be self-evident that grading a student who is writing an article about yourself introduces a conflict as well as raises ethical considerations. One big reason we have a COI policy is it can be hard to be neutral when you are close to a subject. That seems to have happened here, and it's concerning that a prof would put themselves in the position of grading a student writing about the prof. I accept that MathDementor's first edit was on November 9, so 9Starbucks might not have been aware she was picked as the topic by a student, hence may not have been entirely responsible ... but it would have been prudent, indeed professional and ethical, to make sure the students understood they should not pick their professor to write about. That's one COI too many, on top of an entire Meetup group that is promoting articles on subjects of possibly dubious notability already, based simply on demographics (leading the community to have to do extra work to deal with notability issues). It's not hard to see how the students were doubly misguided by this venture, and wonder what they could learn from it, or how Wikipedia could benefit. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:28, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
- More broadly, there may be a learning point here (for us and for instructors working with us) that any sort of "choose your own article to create" list would benefit hugely from being pre-reviewed by someone who understands Wikipedia's notability criteria before being released to students. There's no reason that 9Starbucks should have thought of that, but perhaps we could do something to flag it through whatever process Wiki Ed has for onboarding new instructors and explaining how this place works to them? UndercoverClassicist T·C 19:57, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
- Yes; for example, I believe Ian (Wiki Ed) does that with medical content-- steering students away from certain topics. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:52, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
- I want to make sure that everyone understands that the work the students are completing is to enhance, create, and or develop articles for underrepresented groups on Wikipedia. I appreciate the feedback but want to ensure it is not lost on what my students are trying to accomplish. @SandyGeorgia, as you are just meeting my students, yes, they are all quite pleasant. This is why I ask you to be thoughtful in your responses to my students and understand the importance of tone and the use of language. This is their first time working in such a large collaborative community.
- Additionally, there is nothing wrong with ANY of the persons on the listing I shared with my students. They may not meet Wikipedia standards, but they are all quite deserving of being recognized for their work. My student’s grades are intact and not dependent upon their work here, so please have no worries. As @Ian (Wiki Ed) indicated, the article about me will not be submitted, but I appreciate my students’ work. I have concerns about the language and exclusive rather than inclusive commentary on this thread, especially given that you all have placed my real name here, yet I do not know yours. I will continue to work with the Wiki Ed Team (@Helaine (Wiki Ed) @Ian (Wiki Ed) @Brianda (Wiki Ed)) to finish out the semester with my students and address ALL concerns raised. It is excellent if any of their work makes it to the main stage, but if nothing more, they and I have learned valuable lessons about Wikipedia. @UndercoverClassicist @LEvalyn 9Starbucks (talk) 20:13, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
- @9Starbucks thanks for your hard work with your students, and for participating in the discussion here. I hope your students learn a lot and contribute well, and it is always valuable to have new editors. I agree that all of the listed biographies are of worthy scholars who merit recognition, though I would note that the purpose of Wikipedia is not to provide recognition but rather to provide an informational reference. In general I'd say it's rare for a professor to be "ready" for a Wikipedia article before they have tenure, and the average Wikipedian sees a lot of paid self-promotional garbage that gets their hackles up when they encounter biographies of anyone early in their career (aka, under 45). A more effective and less frustrating approach can be to guide students towards improving existing articles, especially articles on the subjects to which the scholars have contributed-- e.g., not just improving Chanda Prescod-Weinstein's biography, but ensuring her work is addressed appropriately at axion and dark matter. It can also be very effective to direct students toward book articles, since the inclusion criteria for books is more clear-cut (two independent book reviews) and students can provide information of real value just by summarizing the book. For example, I can't believe we have no article on Prescod-Weinstein's Disordered Cosmos!! I wish you and your students good luck and happy editing with the rest of the term.
- @Ian (Wiki Ed), also, a note to the WikiEd team: WikiEd might want to re-evaluate the way they handle posting professors' names. It sounds like 9Starbucks was surprised by the fact that their real name would be visible to the Wikipedia community through the WikiEd dashboard. (I would support fully suppressing that info in this thread.) I myself, as a more experienced editor, was also extremely surprised to find my own full name publicly posted when I taught with WikiEd last year, especially since posting it in conjunction with my university & class and adding the class to my userpage made me as an individual fully identifiable (down to the physical classroom I would be in, if someone consulted my university's catalogue!) Even editing under a username that I expect to be identifiable, I wasn't entirely comfortable, and would have appreciated at least a notice/warning that my name would be so public. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 20:47, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
- Real names of profs bothers me just as real names of students do. With students, it's doubly problematic, as they are young, they make mistakes, and those mistakes often involve plagiarism or copyright violation. Mistakes of youth shouldn't be recorded for the rest of their lives on the internet; I'm fairly sure that over the years that Wiki Ed has understood this, and steered students away from using their real names, as they often did in the earlier years of Wiki Ed. I don't see how the use of real name can be avoided for a prof, since anyone can look up a course syllabus at a given school. But personally, I use the editor's username here for that very reason; I refer to 9Starbucks here and the real name isn't recorded in my memory (I'd have to go look it up to remember it). They are learning, too. Separately, 9Starbucks, I'm sorry the conference meant a few days without communication. Regular Wikipedians face multiple situations of COI, copyright, non-reliable sources, etc every day, and when it appears (perhaps unfairly in this case) that there's a communication breakdown, frustration grows and we jump to stop what could turn in to disruption (and in past cases have). Alternately, here, your students were responsive; our communication gap was hopefully all due to the conference and travel. But we need to be clear that moving non-notable bios in to main space creates extra work for regular Wikipedians, who are all volunteers. I hope someone can find a way to deal with that Meetup List of articles, because it looks quite problematic based on those I've checked. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:04, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
- @LEvalyn: - it was before my time, and I don't know the details, but I believe having the professors' real names accessible was one of the conditions for the community to agree to the education programme in the first place. It might be time to re-evaluate that, but it's not for me to decide. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:05, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
James Coburn MISSIJNG in his TV credits. He made an appearance in an episode of "The Rifleman" with Chuck Conners>
Find the episode of James Coburn in "The Rifleman" with Chuck Conners. 206.146.80.175 (talk) 21:15, 13 November 2023 (UTC)