User talk:Sheddedl

Welcome!

Hello, Sheddedl, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:

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Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing 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 for help on your talk page, and a volunteer should respond shortly. Again, welcome! Home Lander (talk) 15:40, 31 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Are you professional?

Hi, are you professional? Your supposed students are causing chaos! Do you even know what is going on?!? MPS1992 (talk) 23:46, 22 April 2019 (UTC) It would be much more helpful to have specific examples of what you are referring to. My students have been working very hard on their projects which are due this evening Sheddedl (talk) 00:02, 23 April 2019 (UTC) wow, no surprise there then. MPS1992 (talk)[reply]

I am not tempted to cite specific students of yours and their disruptive editing. I realize that they are doing the best that they can. But the "last minute" behavior is annoying and disruptive. Please make sure that this does not happen again. MPS1992 (talk) 00:09, 23 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This is most certainly NOT last minute behavior. They have been working on this project with me looking over their shoulders once a week, every week for months. They know to use proper sources and have worked with the college librarian. I would need to know specifics of the problems that you are finding. Sheddedl (talk) 00:14, 23 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Please explain how this is not a last-minute edit, after already having been told that it was not appropriate, more than five hours earlier, in this edit. MPS1992 (talk) 00:20, 23 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Incidentally, I don't want that student penalised for their Wikipedia edits -- but I did look at the edits of other students and I was concerned. I think students on this course are not yet suited to involvement with Wikipedia. That's just my opinion, with which you may disagree. MPS1992 (talk) 00:30, 23 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I am not going to penalize my students. It would be very helpful to know your specific concerns rather than having you attack me. This is a learning process for me too because this is my first Wikipedia course, and I am having trouble seeing what you feel that my students are doing wrong. In the case of my young Spanish major working on Tupac Amaru II, she went to great lengths to find the information that she did. She translated it herself and then COMPLETELY REWROTE it, just like you would do for an English source. She has not plagiarized. We discussed her edits and your concerns today. There is nothing in the WikiEducation training pages saying that information from foreign language sources is forbidden.Sheddedl (talk) 00:48, 23 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I am sorry if I over-reacted. I will reply later about the Tupac Amaru II issue. To a very large extent, I think you have been misled about how useful Wikipedia is for students at the level you are teaching. MPS1992 (talk) 00:59, 23 April 2019 (UTC) (I am a volunteer, it is after 2am here right now, I have to get up for work in a few hours. MPS1992 (talk) 01:02, 23 April 2019 (UTC))[reply]

Hi, this is a Wiki Education supported course. Shalor (Wiki Ed) is the Wikipedia Expert working with these students. She was out sick yesterday and is currently addressing the student contributions. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:35, 23 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I've looked over the content and there are some issues that do need to be addressed. I'd missed the exchanges that occurred over the weekend - I'd been sick over the weekend and had to take out Monday, so I'm just now able to address things. It looks like MPS1992 has gone back and left a message on the student's talk page. There are some good notes there and the two most major I'll mention here is that the student looks to have removed content from the article (most likely by accident) and their writing style was a little too casual for Wikipedia. I do see where the student was trying, however I know that adapting to the writing style is something that is really difficult for many new editors. With my main volunteer account I've come across many instances of people, not just students, struggling to really get used to Wikipedia's writing style. The main thing to keep in mind is to assume good faith, especially as adapting to Wikipedia can be a bit of a culture shock since some of the guidelines can be very different from what is typically used in academia. I know that from personal experience that terminology means very different things depending on whether you're looking at this from the perspective of a Wikipedian, student, or historian, for example.

As far as how useful this can be, it actually can be of good benefit for a few reasons. The first is that this shakes the student up. They're not writing for themselves or the instructor, but rather for a larger audience, so their work can be more beneficial and be read beyond the student and instructor. They also have to think of things in a different way than they would for a typical paper. Not only can they not synthesize new work, but they have to create summaries that represent the general consensus of what is known about a given topic without giving undue weight to anything and still taking into account smaller yet still important facets that should be included. Depending on the topic, they also have to take things in a global perspective. This obviously challenges their writing skills, but definitely their research skills since researching for Wikipedia can be more difficult than researching for an academic paper. For the paper they more or less can pick and choose between sources based on their own ideas of merit, whereas with Wikipedia there's more of a definite idea of what can and should be used in an article. For example, you can use a study as a source for a paper whereas it can only be used on Wikipedia in extremely specific and selective circumstances - and even then, it has to be used very carefully.

I hope that this explains the reasons and also helps resolve the issues here so things can get more on track. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:37, 23 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks so much for responding. I am sure that the student did make some errors and we will sit down and discuss them. Yesterday, I just wasn't being told what those errors were which made it hard to help. I agree that an informal style is inappropriate, as is removing earlier material that had citations. I am getting ready to start grading these, so hopefully my comments will help the students improve. I guess what has been hardest for me is editors telling me multiple times that my students and myself don't deserve to be on Wikipedia because we don't understand it. None of us can learn in an atmosphere of such confrontation. To me, Wikipedia is as much about learning as it is about knowledge. How does Wiki Education deal with obviously a large, angry contingent of regular participants who don't want newcomers there? Sheddedl (talk) 20:30, 23 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sheddedl, I am another volunteer editor here. I'm sorry about this kerfuffle on your talk page, please don't let it bother you too much. I know there's a lot of work involved in planning a course, and guiding a group of students towards editing in what for them, and perhaps you, is a very different environment than academia. Please keep in mind that there are over 5 million editors here, and you never know who's going to respond to what, or why, or whether they had a bad day. Sometimes, a thick skin is necessary if you bump into someone with an attitude.

By the way, I think your initial response requesting specifics of what MPS1992 objected to, struck exactly the right tone. And responding to your last question above, they broke some core Wikipedia behavioral guidelines such as WP:CIVILITY, and WP:DONTBITE in addressing you the way they did. Everyone was new here once, and even seasoned editors run afoul of some rule or guideline or recommendation or another, there are so many of them. There's even a guideline called BE BOLD, to let you know, basically, not to worry too much about making mistakes. Might that ruffle a few feathers sometimes? Sure; so what. Making mistakes is how we all learn. There's a proper way for an experienced editor to advise an editor who has made some kind of mistake, and the comment that led off this section, is not it.

I haven't had a chance to look at the specifics of these edits yet. If you need an objective analysis of these or other specific edits by your student(s), the criticisms above, or anything else, feel free to call on me. (I also speak fluent Spanish, if that's any help.) If you want a response here, please {{ping}} me below. If you write me on my Talk page, no need to {{ping}}, but please include a wikilink to the Talk page, or article page, that you are discussing. If you want to link to a particular section header on a Talk or article page, you can do that; see MOS:SECTIONLINKS. You can also ask for help from a pool of experienced users, by creating a new section here on your talk page, asking your question, and adding the token {{Help me}} somewhere in your message. Pinging Shalor.

Hope this helps, Mathglot (talk) 10:37, 28 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks so much for your kindness. It was all a good learning experience for my students. We were able to have some nice discussions about the role of evidence in what we write, especially on social media where people get quite angry quite quickly. We also talked about how their contributions help Wikipedia even when they make mistakes. I am helping this student with her page and I think that we are all good now. The WikiEducation support people have been very helpful as well. All of this will not keep me from attempting a similar project with another class next spring.Sheddedl (talk) 13:23, 28 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Mathglot! Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:33, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

different section heading

I apologize for the section heading that I used earlier. It was unduly confrontational. MPS1992 (talk) 00:27, 23 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]