Encyclopedia talk:Main Page

Note: A long comment about content development that was added to this page by User:129.78.64.100 was moved to Wikiversity:Content development. --JWSchmidt 14:45, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

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Main Page | talk | Archive 1 (August) | Archive 2 (September) | Archive 3 (Oct+Nov)

Protection

Can we get an admin to please move-protect the Main Page? No reason for anyone but an admin to ever move it, and having that move tab up there makes it rather prone to be put on wheels. (Btw, "move=autoconfirmed" protection does nothing, since non-autoconfirmeds can't move pages any way.) AmiDaniel (talk)

Done - thanks for the heads up, and help. :-) Cormaggio ^talk 10:57, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Modifications to the main page

It is time again to discuss redesign of the main page. Two proposed (at freenode #wikiversity-en) ideas for the redesign are:

Most visitors to the Wikiversity main page are new to wiki and need help to understand what is going on at Wikiversity. The main page needs to be a resource for these new visitors.
It is time to have featured content on the main page with good examples that show what Wikiversity is about.

You can help at Wikiversity:Main page design changes. --JWSchmidt 17:52, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Interdepartmental Linking

If there is a better place to do this, please tell me and I'll move it elsewhere.

It seems to me that Wikiversity can profit by using a lot of interdepartmental linking. Many of the engineering, math, and science departments will share material, especially when it comes to introductory material. It seems to me, that it would be best to not repeat this material over and over in each individual department, but have all of the departments link to the one page, and then add their own supplements as necessary. For example, instead of having the Math, Physics, and Engineering departments each have their own page on how to take a cross product, instead have one page (say in the math department), that the other departments can then link to as a lesson. The more people that see a page, the more edits it will get, and the better overall it will become. Howeman 18:33, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Good point. Feel free to place this reminder on every "School:" and Topic:" content development project page: "Learning materials and learning projects can be used by multiple departments. Cooperate with other departments that use the same learning resource." (source) --JWSchmidt 18:41, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Multidimensional

One thing has bugged me for a while... how are we a "multidimensional social organization"? How exactly does that work?--Rayc 00:13, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I think it is trying to reflect the fundamental role of collaborative webpage editing in a wiki website. We collaborate on many "levels"; in editing individual lessons, working on content development projects in the "School:" and "Topic:" namespaces, at the level of Wikiversity-wide planning and policy and at the level of integrating Wikiversity with other projects. --JWSchmidt 00:20, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

On the phrase itself, I've a feeling that it was one of Reswik's - maybe you could ask him to see what he meant? Cormaggio ^beep 10:43, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Browse link too small?

File:BrowseSize.png

Click on the image to see the full sized image.

well i think that the lik to get to the course content and browse the subject schhols etc is way too small. it needs to be bigger and more centeral in my opinion Tigerboyce 20:37, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Are you talking about the link that is in the left hand navigation side-bar or one of the links that is on the main page? --JWSchmidt 13:58, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

on the main page under the welcome area Tigerboyce 20:37, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I made the text of that section of the main page larger (see image to the right). --JWSchmidt 20:57, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

yep looks loads clearer. good job

Division of Culinary Arts

Hey, I'm starting to work on a division here, and wondered if anyone would like to help. Thanks! Bl a st 15,01,07 2246 (UTC -5)

Question about log-in

I was just wondering..is a wikipedia account the same as a wikiversity account? Are they interchangeable?Please call me cupy.71.143.188.187 03:22, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

No, you have to create a new account here. You can use the same username that you have at Wikipedia. --JWSchmidt 03:25, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks71.143.188.187 03:29, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Help New Wikiversity in Malayalam (ml)

Hi,
I would like to start new Wikiversity in my language (ml.wikiversity.org) from scratch. Can any one help me?
Thank you
--Sadik Khalid 09:38, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi Sadik, you can start an "incubation" of a new Wikiversity at the beta wiki. If that is successful and you get the required number of participants (10), then you can request that it be set up as an individual project on the Meta wiki (requests, instructions). Good luck! Cormaggio ^beep 10:39, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Dear Cormaggio
Thank you very much --Sadik Khalid 14:20, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

You're welcome! If you want to ask any more questions, you can ask me directly on my talk page, or post them to the Colloquium. Cheers, Cormaggio ^beep 16:03, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

would like to join santhosh

Domain name

Hello. In exploring things related to Wikiversity, I figured this would be the best place to post this message. The domain www.wikiversity.com is owned by the Wikimedia Foundation, but it leads to a page saying "This wiki does not exist", and a list of sister projects. Shouldn't this be corrected, to lead to the same place www.wikiversity.org leads to? Alex43223^{Talk | Contribs | E-mail} 21:48, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

The page that is shown at www.wikiversity.com should probably be updated. Hopefully anyone seeing that page can just follow the first link on that page to the more modern list of Wikimedia Foundation projects. --JWSchmidt 22:22, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

"Without having seen this I'd say from a newcomers perspective this would be very confusing, wikiversity needs to have simple access... people will continue going to wikiversity.com I'd say the only other way to go would be wikiversity.edu I'm not sure what the rules are for obtaining a ".edu" address, but besides ".com" that would be the only thing people will remember. Good Luck and Thank You to the Creators of Wikiversity! What an exciting project. - Student in Central California :)"

Wikiversity, as a Real University

What I hope to see about this Wikiversity project is that it might (I hope, and with a lot of time an effort) end up like a real recognized university. And perhaps in the near future, form specialist all around the world at no cost and no discrimination on the past scholastic performance of the student. Since this would be the university that everybody contributes to, everyone could teach and everyone could learn. Ideally, the teachers should have some kind of formation in that domain for teaching but no actual teaching permit would be required. It would simply be the sharing of knowledge from those who know to those who want to know and have a degree in some profession regardless of the individual.

Also, this university could publish some research done by researchers. The researches would simply edit the research they would publish and only they would be capable of editing this specific research on wikiversity. In the end, wikiversity could go very far and become that Utopian university we all dreamed of.

The focus here is towards nurturing healthy and active online learning communities. What learning materials would you like to see here? --HappyCamper 17:00, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

See also: Wikiversity:Creation of Free Online University. The Jade Knight 18:47, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

this is a ridiculously naive idea Template:Unsigned

I'd like to tease out why you think that. What is a university? What parts of universities would be impossible to replicate? What aspects of universities are desirable, and how could they be replicated/interpreted? Cormaggio ^talk 10:05, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Hm maybe as a doc I have doubts about learning processes that do not involve any real-world practice. I know some exist, but I'd say they stay only at the discourse level.

And of course, as we're here, there is such a thing as peer reviewing and institutional quality control of teaching. Xyzt1234 19:30, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

...and anonymous editors should have a say without compromising their identity, if they so desire. But how? - given the Nature of MediaWiki...

Top pre-prep school in London

Dear all,

I will be moving to london next month and I wanted to get some information regarding the best pre-prep schools. Is it better to choose private or public school? is there a ranking list of the pre-prep and prep schools?

Hi

Hi, everyone, can I ask what is Wikiversity and what can I do in the Wikiversity? Thank you very much. --Chaplin 08:19, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

One starting place: Wikiversity:About. --JWSchmidt 13:46, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Small bug?

For some reason, when I click on the "Main Page" button on the toolbar, the tabs above only say "Login/create account". Yet if I click on any other link it says I'm logged in. Any explanation?--Markozeta 23:43, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

That does not happen for me using FireFox. What browser are you using? Are you using the default "monobook" skin setting in your user preferences? --JWSchmidt 00:12, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Internet Explorer, 6.0. And I'm using the default setting. --Markozeta 00:50, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I rebooted and it's no longer a problem. Must be a bug for when you first create an account for a new wikipedia sister site. --Markozeta 01:18, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi everybody greeting of the day.

Yes I had the same problems for more I can't find "the list of my school's books, this is very hard boys!!. --Ultrasunshine65 31 March 2007 (UTC?)

The same problem

Oopss I had the same problem and also i can't found my school's books. Good bye Andrew

Wikinews

The brief explanation under the link for Wikinews at the bottom of the main page is incorrect. It looks like an explanation of Wikibooks was mistakenly displaced. Mirwin 19:17, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Fixed! The Jade Knight 22:56, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikiversity embodying the concept of "University of the World".

I just added this sentence: "Interestingly, Wikiversity embodies James Grier Miller's concept (1982) of the University of the World." to the Wikiversity article in Wikipedia[1]. I intuit that a lineage of associated thought and discourse will be brought to light as Wikiversity and Wikipedia become more rigorous. Should there be a "Philosophy of Wikiversity (Antecedents)" article or other somesuch?

NB: I have the same user name in Wikipedia. Blessings B9 hummingbird hovering 09:41, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Philosophy of Wikiversity (Antecedents) sounds great. I have been intending to start the A. S. Neill School of Free Learning at Wikiversity (where learners would be explicitly encouraged to collaborate as they explore the topics that are of greatest personal interest). It would be great to have a page that systematically explores the ideas of educators who might have loved to have the chance to participate at Wikiversity. --JWSchmidt 14:14, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

New Wikipedia project

Would it be possible to get a link to Wikipedia:WikiProject Classroom coordination on the Main Page, under the Related links section on the right of the page? The project was newly formed to help coordinate with instructors who plan to incorporate Wikipedia writing assignments into their lessons. We already have 17 members (project started April 12) and are in contact with 2 professors. Mr.Z-man 21:05, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

There is a link at Wikiversity:School and university projects#External Links. Can you state the case for a link on the main page? --JWSchmidt 23:56, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

General Question: is there some mailing list or forum for wikiversity?

Good morning all

I am fairly new here and have a kind of general question: are discussion pages the main way for written communication that is summed up in a kind of mailing list archive (are there no forums or so?) and is there no such thing as a community interface (where I easily can see profiles of other with same interests etc.).

I mean I like Wikipedia for it's purpose and I also believe that wiki's can work out for educational content (the easy update and collaborative editing just rocks), but to communicate and get in touch with the other - and to learn from what others learnt - I think it's not enough.

Certainly I am not the first to ask this, so if there are already answers to it I would be more than glad to learn where to find them!

Cheers Andreas

Hi Andreas - well, there is a kind of "forum" at the Colloquium, which is used for general discussion and announcements. There is also a mailing list, but it is not so active. Talk/Discussion pages are generally related to the subject of their related page - for example, Talk:Build a basic web page is for discussion related to Build a basic web page. However, discussions are often distributed across various pages, so it takes a bit of knowledge of how wikis work to get used to it. As to finding people with certain interests, it might be a good idea to start up an initiative like this - in the meantime, you could go to pages you are interested in and see who has signed up as participants, who is posting to the talk page, and who has edited the page (by clicking on the "history" tab to the right of the edit tab). Feel free to ask any more questions on my talk page. Cheers! Cormaggio ^talk 12:46, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

A system is under development that uses "userbox" templates to help Wikiversity participants find others with related interests and skills. See User:Teemu for an example of how to use these templates. See Wikiversity:Userboxes for a starting point on finding these templates. --JWSchmidt 13:26, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Hello to both of you and thanks for the prompt reply! If I would apply the floss structure at a wiki than the discussion page would apply to the “commented code” at a file – but than most of the “interaction” happens at mailing list (developer) and forums (user). This also facilitates it to find other people, since most forums software has profile functions “on-board”. Plus: those written conversations are very important knowledge bases (content) itself – and they are full searchable, grouped, can be flagged, etcetc. If we look at all the community pages out there (linkedIn, Orcut, Myspace) than we also get an idea on how people get networked. So combining those types/tools might be a good idea. I haven’t used tikiwiki so far – but the type of UI and integrated tools might be an idea. Anyone experiences with that? Other interesting communities to look at might be oscommerce (uses a wiki as a knowledge base but forum software fas a community page) or www.bitweaver.org (less profile functions but uses an integrated wiki for personal pages). I also saw that wikkawiki as an example offers integration of popular forum software, like phpbb2. As mentioned earlier I am new at wikiversity and don’t know about the philosophy here, like “we only use our software” policies. Btw: “Learn to learn the wiki way” is an interesting title, we are up to something similar this summer called “learning the open source way”. Btw2: there is no notification option on responses – right?

Cheers --andreas 18:39, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

notification

Is there some way we could improve our documentation so people won't have misunderstandings such as "there is no notification option on responses – right?" ?

The current wiki software can notify you of a response in 3 different ways:

After you log in to wikiversity, you will immediately see short notification if anyone has left a comment on your user "talk" page.
After you log in, then click on "my watchlist" at the very top of the page, you will see links to each page in your watchlist that has changed.
You may receive email from anyone who visits your user page and clicks the "email this user" in the left column.
Some wiki installations have an extension allowing you to "subscribe to email updates" about a page. Whenever the pages you have marked are changed, the wiki software sends you a notification by email. (This is currently "turned off" at wikiversity, right?)

If you ask a question on some page, you probably want to add that page to your watchlist. If anyone later answers that question, then that page will be visible in your watchlist. (Unfortunately, if anyone makes any change to that page -- whether or not it is an answer to your question -- it will pop up in your watchlist. The wiki computer is not smart enough to tell the difference between someone answering *your* question, someone answering someone else's question, or someone asking a new question).

If you post an answer on one page, and you want a certain person to see it next time he logs in, I suggest you also post, to his user page, a link to that page.

--DavidCary 00:06, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

At the Wikia wikis, there is a preference that can be activated for "E-mail me when a page I'm watching is changed". I do not recall seeing that as a preferences option at a Wikimedia Foundation wiki project. I think it should be available as an option. We can try to find out if this can be added as an option to Wikiversity. It would also be nice to have a real threaded discussion system built right into Wikiversity. See Topic:MediaWiki for efforts to make software changes at Wikiversity. --JWSchmidt 00:35, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

It's enabled on meta, but not on most other WMF wikis due to concerns over server load. Given the size of Wikiversity, it would likely be relatively easy to convince the powers that be to enable it here if we're willing to pursue it. AmiDaniel (talk) 01:20, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi David / all Thanks for picking this up! --andreas 08:50, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Old logo

someone needs to change the old logo at [2]

Bottle up arse

Surely someone must have noticed that by now.

A general question about Wikiversity

What do you exactly do in wikiversity? --69.208.240.12

We are exploring ways to use wiki technology to facilitate learning and education. Since the Wikiversity project is new, many people are starting collaborative learning projects that allow them to pursue their personal interests and learning goals. --JWSchmidt 02:13, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

teaching

At least some pages read like encyclopedia-entries. I can see little point in such material's being published on this site. Should not each entry be part of a course which, ideally, should not just involve the student's reading material but also his or her doing something with that material and receiving feedback on their work from tutors? One could carry on typing text, but that wouldn't make this a university. There could well be parts of the site where actual study and teaching are happening and I should be most interested to see them. -80.189.79.242

There are many Wikiversity learning projects where learners can participate in the Wikiversity learn by doing style. Some Wikiversity participants find it hard to escape more passive approaches to learning and we welcome good suggestions at Wikiversity:Content development. --JWSchmidt 17:48, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Editing in Wikiversity

Wikiversity may be an excellent resource for learning, but there seem to be no tutorials for editing it.

There seem to be no tutorials for making cool pages in wikiversity. --Drnoitall.hello 08:46, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Getting help: There are no real tutorials. Some of the HELP pages are useful for getting started. You have to look at examples of coding in the help section and figure out how to do this on your own. Click on HELP on the left. Robert Elliott 10:02, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I absolutely agree that this is top priority - putting together a set of tutorials that help people get oriented, find materials, and start editing... Cormaggio ^talk 10:47, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Where should we organize the project? We've been discussing cleaning up the help pages on wb for some time, but if there was a cadre working on it here, perhaps wb could just import it. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 11:48, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I started the Wikiversity:Introduction Overhaul Taskforce a while ago with more or less this in mind. Please feel free to adapt or rename that project if you feel it would be useful. I've also started a Wikiversity:Adding content tutorial and created Category:Wikiversity tutorials. Cormaggio ^talk 12:46, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

There are some tutorials that i've been helping develop on WikiEducator that may be of some help; they're basically wiki editing tutorials; see: http://www.wikieducator.org/Wikieducator_tutorial . They could even be ported over to Wikiversity I think if Wikiversity can deal with the CC-BY-SA license. Countrymike 07:24, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Refine the slogan a bit

This might seem a bit trivial... but in my opinion, the slogan should have a capital 'S' at the beginning and be italicized. The italicizing seems to make it 'look more free' in accordance with the statement.

206.130.173.38 16:16, 16 May 2007 (UTC) Amal I.

Information Theory

I Think there is no way that any information about anything get lost in universe even if it is in a blackhole. someone sometime will find required data about it.for example consider a blue plastic cubeit has many properties like colour, shape, size, weigth etc.When we look at the cube we can retrieve some information about it like it's colour but what if we were blind? Nothing has changed (cube is still blue)but we did not know this fact.Who knows? Maybe someone will know what i am thinking right now. But what about wrong information? Is that cube realy blue or it seems to us blue?