[Foundation-l] Term papers on Wikipedia

[Marc Riddell]

> David Gerard wrote:
>> On 30/10/2007, Sage Ross <ragesoss+wikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> From what I've seen surveying the various classroom projects people
>>> have tried, the most successful are ones where some effort is made to
>>> screen topics for encyclopedicity and gaps in Wikipedia's coverage,
>>> and/or the assignments are focused on interacting with the Wikipedia
>>> community (i.e., content is posted early and students follow the fate
>>> of their work over the semester).
>>> 
>> Yes. Rather than just telling the students "go write something", send
>> them to a wikiproject's list of redlinks, or to the missing articles
>> project:
>> 
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Missing_encyclopedic_artic
>> les
>> 
>> With university research facilities onhand, writing some decent
>> articles with good references shouldn't be much work at all. We'll get
>> more good content and they'll get a good introductory experience to
>> Wikipedia.

on 10/30/07 11:37 AM, Ray Saintonge at saintonge at telus.net wrote:

> Indeed, and this sort of thing should be encouraged, and we need to
> accept that some contributions will be dogs.  Nevertheless, the social
> graces of some of the people who review these contributions leave much
> to be desired.  They do little to help these people to improve their
> contributions. 
> 
> There was a time when the primary outside criticism of Wikipedia had to
> do with the accuracy of contents.  I seem to encounter more these days
> about the social environment.  It would be great if more Wikipedians
> understood the implications of that.
> 
Yes, Ray. Besides becoming a less and less pleasant place be and to work in,
we are providing our detractors with an awful lot of fuel. And how do you
encourage someone to join the Project when you have to tell them to bring
along a helmet and padding?

A problem appears to be that any subject or posting related to the social
environment within the Project seems to be taboo. I have noticed that, on
the Wikien-L List (which is the one with which I am most familiar), the
subject that many people reject the most, and declare "off-topic", and "not
appropriate for the List" are those posts related to the Community itself.
The participants appear very uncomfortable talking about interpersonal
issues related to the Project. This has a great deal to do with the
emotional age of many of the participants. This can be solved by those who
are more comfortable with the subject raising the issues, and being patient
with those who have more trouble with it.

The more we take care of our own Community, the less vulnerable it will be
to those who would want to destroy it.

Marc Riddell