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User talk:Snarfa

Hi Sara, thanks for the welcome and advice. Great course! --Nick (talk) 15:56, 22 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for giving me the advice!!! Jroxychix (talk) 02:15, 17 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Snarfa and thanks for the welcome. If I can help in any way please let me know, Kind regards (and PS I hope this talk works) Anna Daniel (talk) 00:26, 9 February 2013 (UTC)AnnaAnna Daniel (talk) 00:26, 9 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for sending me a welcome. I get to try to "respond to a talk using talk" whoa that's sound crazy. Please feel free to tell me when to be less visible. See you tonight!! Patricia.Loeblein (talk) 22:17, 21 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

BTW: You might have missed me because I joined the class a couple of weeks before it started. Originally, the first webinar was scheduled for 5/7. I was all ready to attend late that night when I found out that there was a change to help more people attend and that the class was changed to start on the 14th. I think this was a nice thing for you to do - I know it means you have to present twice a week. I am one of hte people who really benefit, I kow I will be more able to learn earlier in the eveing. I am really excited that many OER groups are getting this training. Our group certainly was not prepared to embark without this support group. Patricia.Loeblein (talk) 23:39, 21 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for welcoming me to the session and thanks for your help and support. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Minh207 (talk • contribs) 19:40, 24 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Sara, just wanted to let you know -- Wikipedia:Education noticeboard is where people bring stuff up about Wikimedia education stuff. Might be a useful resource for us as we refine our course page: Education Program:Peer to Peer University/Writing Wikipedia Articles (2013 Q2) -Pete (talk) 18:01, 2 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Sara. My name is Javier (Cazalinks), I am student in the course "Peer to Peer University / Writing Wikipedia Articles (2013 Q2)" I just want to show the first project I've been working these days to exchange views.

It comes to a translation of the course itself "Peer to Peer University / Writing Wikipedia Articles (2013 Q2)" to Spanish: Wikipedia:Programa de Educación: Peer-to-Peer University / Escribiendo artículos de Wikipedia (Q2 2013)

What do you think? A greeting. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cazalinks (talk • contribs) 12:28, 18 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Javier! What a truly wonderful idea - I'm directing this to Pete for further discussion! If you approve, we can move this to the Talk tab for the course, so all can participate! - Sara FB (talk) 18:50, 19 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Sara, I keep waiting for news about the opinion of Pete - Cazalinks (Talk) 21:43, 19 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi again Sara,

I have problems with a couple of links that do not work and are not sure why: The problem is in the second of my projects "WIKISOO/Semana 1" specifically the banner link『Escribir artículos de Wikipedia』It should link to "Programa de Educación: Peer-to-Peer University / Escribiendo artículos de Wikipedia (Q2 2013)" and also in the links titled『 página principal del curso』which also should link to the same site. What do you think i'm doing wrong?. A greeting. --Cazalinks (talk) 11:48, 21 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

 Done The link are fixed. I can do it. A greeting--Cazalinks (talk) 15:49, 23 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Sara...thanks for the advice! Still learning about editing wikipedia... --Kathy (talk)

Hi Sara...if you have any suggestions on the PhET Article that I'm working on, I'd love to hear (see) them! Klidessau (talk) 00:54, 5 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Sara,

Sorry for my late response to your welcome.

I didn't have a chance to ask about this last week, but re: signature, why is it necessary to enter a signature when doing edits? In my past edits prior to the class, I always signed in my Wikipedia account so the edits would be identified as mine. I haven't accrued that many edits so I think I can go back and insert my signature retroactively if necessary -- do you advise doing that?

Same question about entering my signature when making comments on a Talk page.

Hope my questions make sense.

Really enjoying the webinars.

Cammie Camellia wagashi (talk) 02:37, 29 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Cammie, I tried to answer this on your talk page. Hope it helped. -Sara FB (talk) 02:07, 5 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Sara,

Appreciate your messages and have been following on lectures on youtube and am learning a great deal. I saw the message on fixing user name but am not following what I need to do. Please advise. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Melisse May (talk • contribs) 14:59, 3 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Sara, For the Final Project can I do a Spanish article? Hope to hear your reply soon. Jroxychix (talk) 20:37, 5 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have volunteered as an online volunteer for your course. I know I am in a little late, but you have not started the final project yet, which is likely where your students will need assistance. Please feel free to ask me any questions, or direct your students to ask me any questions at my talk page. You also have an excellent administrator as your co-instructor, so I am sure you are already well in hand. If you need anything, let me know. Thanks. Go Phightins! 13:35, 8 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I replied at my talk page to you. If you want me to participate in your conference tomorrow as a resource for questions, I can, but based on your course page, it looks like you are pretty well covered with people much more prestigious than myself :) -- but if you want me, I think I am free around 9 PM EDT. Go Phightins! 01:09, 11 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Sara, I wonder if you are having trouble getting this week's archive up? Patricia.Loeblein (talk) 02:42, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like Pete covered this already. :) -Sara FB (talk) 13:12, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sara , On the Phet Interactive Simulations article talk section, I added a disclosure statement and wanted to link back to the course, but it appears to have some block. can you check my coding - or is it ok to leave it a red link? (learned what that was last night at lab) PS I wanted to explore including Pete in this talk, so I put this in his talk page too.

thx Patricia.Loeblein (talk) 20:32, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there, Sara! Are we not having our class reunion this evening? I haven't seen anything posted to the class page. Hope all's well with you. --Litjade (talk) 00:56, 17 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Snarfa, I was registering for the WIKISOO course, and in the enrollment page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Enroll/School_of_Open/WIKISOO_%28February_2014%29), I found that (In order to enroll for this course, you need a token provided by your instructor or one of the volunteers for your course.) I am not sure where I can get this from. Can you please advise on that? Thanks a lot. HWteam (talk) 19:04, 10 February 2014 (UTC)HWteam 19:04, 10 February 2014 (UTC) 19:03, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there HWTeam and welcome! Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:School_of_Open_course/February_2014 - the token is WIKISOO. Looking forward to "meeting" you when the class starts. - Sara FB (talk) 22:12, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Returning classmates[edit]

Hello. You have a new message at Litjade's talk page.

I am working on several stub articles:

• AnHSPH faculty member who is a 'first' at Harvard
• A Faculty member in a progressive NYC school who recently died, but who was famous in his own niche (vegetarian history), but the article was declined on February 14th.
• The reputed founder of the Boston University School of Public Health (then as part of Boston University Medical School), and all I have now are Internet articles and the transcriptions of three audiotapes (which have been released into public domain when the UNLVR oral history program was shuttered because revenue stopped after the sequester.

I need someone to review my work to give me advice on working on only one or two of them, and what to do on the article(s) that I submit for my course project.

I've sent myself this message from the past! In the future, ____. - Sara FB (talk) 20:50, 4 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Much obliged @Pete! - Sara FB (talk) 01:59, 12 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, not too sure what I'm doing. Thanks Pete and Snarfa — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.161.51.238 (talk) 16:59, 12 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone in WIKISOO interested in the MOOC article? Please sign your names here with a brief note about your interest/experience. Thanks!

• User:
• User:
• User:
• ...

- Sara FB (talk) 03:45, 25 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Sara (Snarfa). I'm really glad because I moved my project from the sandbox to Wikipedia, and here is the result so far: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refugio_Reyes_Rivas
I have learned a lot in the WIKISOO course.--Luisalvaz (talk) 16:35, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Luisalvaz, That's great! A terrific-looking article. :) Post a bit about your experience on the TALK page if you haven't already!! - Sara FB (talk) 22:50, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Sara, thanks for teaching the class. I just tried to apply to the badge but after filling out the data and clicking Create a project, it just reloads the same page and no confirmation message that it actually got through. I included a link to a diff between my final project page before my first edit, with my latest edit before start of the last class today. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nothing_to_Envy&diff=602337914&oldid=587834143 . By the way, I'd also apply to the Burba badge, but don't have 200 edits yet. (Are there any badges for higher quality edits?) If the article got bumped up a notch on the quality scale if it qualifies, that would be nice. DavidBoudreau (talk) 04:08, 2 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@DavidBoudreau, thanks for checking in. Can you try another browser if this remains a problem? Someone else had this error but was able to submit in the end. If it persists we should notify P2PU however. Right now, Signator and Burba are the only two badges for the class. Do you need help determining whether you're in the vicinity of a quality bump? Keep in touch. - Sara FB (talk) 02:42, 5 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Sara FB Thank you. I tried it with Firefox and Opera, but still no dice. Clicking the button after filling in the fields just reloads the same form, with all the data that I filled in, but doesn't seem to be getting sent on through. I just dropped them an email. re: quality bump, sorry I will figure that one out (I planned on delaying that process until I applied for the badge but that's not so important now... in any case, my diff should be there in the histories even if it doesn't make the quality scale bump). Thanks DavidBoudreau (talk) 14:54, 5 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

DavidBoudreau, how weird - and frustrating! Could there be a strange character in your submission? Or is the text unusually long? Any reply? - Sara FB (talk) 00:28, 7 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Sara Yes, I heard back from them and this time, added an image as suggested. It worked! DavidBoudreau (talk) 03:13, 9 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. You have a new message at Litjade's talk page.

Hi Sara, thanks for your messages. I have some trouble the past month to make my homework in the course. Can I complete all my assigment the next week? I actually want to complete the course, but my work and the venezuelan situation don't help me. Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rsael (talk • contribs) 06:00, 4 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

HiRsael - thank you for writing. Yes, of course you can take as long as you need - but we do find that students who do not finish quickly, may not finish at all! Post any questions to the course talk page, and keep in touch as you try to finish up. Remember to apply for your badges as well! And, when leaving a message, remember to sign it yourself with the four tildes (~). Good luck! :) - Sara FB (talk) 02:37, 5 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

	WIKISOO Signator Badge
	You have earned the WIKISOO Signator Badge through your (extensive!) participation in the online course Writing Wikipedia Articles.

Sara, you have been an incredible co-instructor. Glad to award this badge, which barely scratches the surface of your accomplishments :) You may want to place the badge above on your user page. Also, as a badgeholder, you are now able to award the badge to others who earn it. -Pete (talk) 23:49, 4 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Pete and Sara: My article on Open Course Library (OCL) -- written from scratch -- is just about done and rests in my sandbox -- I have more references to add -- and I'll do that over the next couple of days. Would you please take a look and tell me what to do now? If it's ready, how do I move it out into the "real" world? -- although I notice that it is already indexed by Google. I, of course, would like to get all the badges I can out of this too. Thanks very much Researcherguy (talk) 12:21, 11 April 2014 (UTC)Researcherguy (talk) 16:40, 11 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Researcherguy - what a great choice of article! Awesome. Love it. Pete will have to give comments for you - I look forward to these too :) Looking great to me as a start. - Sara FB (talk) 19:59, 13 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Sara -- waiting to hear from Pete.Researcherguy (talk) 17:53, 14 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sara, thank you for your help. I replied on the course page. I probably will be unable to attend. I'll put it up. What do you mean by invoke one's name? And how does one get @ to appear before a name? I suspect this is part of it.Researcherguy (talk) 10:58, 15 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sara: I put it up. Researcherguy (talk) 19:22, 15 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Researcherguy: awesome!!!! I'll answer your question on the course talk page... - Sara FB (talk) 22:23, 15 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Why did you spam 250 user talk pages? Where was this authorised? Why did you use the blatantly misleading edit summary of "clean up using AWB"? --Redrose64 (talk) 20:57, 23 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

(talk page stalker) Yeah, I've also seen that edit summary and was like "whaat? how did AWB manage to add 1 KB of wiki code while doing a cleanup?". That's very misleading. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 21:10, 23 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Your spam hit the talk pages of a number of gnomes who routinely fix small problems (typos, citation syntax errors) in hundreds of pages at a time, regardless of content. I recommend that you target your message to editors who have edited the content of the articles and exclude those who made minor edits. Since you say that there are only 300 editors who edited the target articles, it should be easy to find those editors' diffs and examine them to determine if they are minor or substantive. Also, please do use a better edit summary next time. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:25, 23 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think Jonesey95 observation is actually quite interesting in regards to the research form that was send out. Editors who work chiefly in the maintenance department - Wikignomes and vandalism patrols for example - tend to edit a large amount of pages without having any real connection to the actual subject of the page they edit. Since "having edited a page" seems to be the only message criteria i believe this may skew the result towards a specific editor groups perspective. After all, editors who primarily write article's may have entirely different motivations than people walking around with the metaphorical oil can. This might not be nothing new but well, i figured it wouldn't hurt to mention this. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 23:01, 23 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

All -- it's true, this AWB message was problematic, but the fault wasn't Snarfa's, it was mine. She asked me to review her message before sending it, and I failed to think through some of the things people are now bringing up before telling her it was OK. The audience was indeed wider than it should have been if it included gnomes. The edit summary, I think, was a simple oversight. At any rate: we have no further AWB messages like this planned, and we will carefully review how we could have approached this better. My apologies for not thinking it through more carefully to begin with. In addition, we'll put some thought into Excirial's point about how the methodology could skew the findings. -Pete (talk) 23:07, 23 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think Pete's response is sufficient... it's not a big deal but it's a small oversight, but it also highlights why it's good to start batch projects small... because you'll be amazed at the number of problems you never anticipated. My comment is, the message should specify which article it was. I have no clue what the OER is, or which article of it I edited. I can't possibly answer questions about that without knowing what it was... and you can't put the onus on your volunteers to figure out which ones. Shadowjams (talk) 07:13, 24 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you all for the feedback! Lesson learned. Yes, the edit summary was indeed an oversight, and I do apologize to Jonesey95, Dsimic, Redrose64 or anyone else feeling spammed (yuck!). Pete and I debriefed and discussed what I should have done differently. Thanks also to Shadowjams, Jonesey95Excirial for the ideas and feedback. This has been a good learning moment for me. If any of you are interested in the survey results please let me know! - Sara FB (talk) 19:13, 24 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Sara FB I just filled in your questionnaire - a day late - hope it's useful :) Chris.let (talk) 05:46, 28 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Wikipedia Ambassador,

I am seeking input on your experience as a mentor to new Wikipedians. This survey is designed to provide insight for the development of a new mentorship support tool on Wikipedia. If you have a moment, please take this survey, it should not take more than 10 minutes of your time to complete.

https://syracuseuniversity.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_4V2SSrhU2NFOVAV

Also, if you are able to, I would greatly appreciate it if you would send the following survey to the mentee you worked with:

https://syracuseuniversity.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_4V1quUdMZ1By3Ah

Thank you in advance for your participation, Gabriel Mugar 13:33, 25 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Just now, 28 May, saw your request. I did fill out the form, maybe my responses will be there. I started working with the concept of OER within our academic library back in 2010-11 when first involved with "Public Policy Program" under grant to bring Wikipedia into academia. Pete Forsyth may remember me as he intervied me for his blog-post about the project. Along with Mike Cline, I'm a Campus Ambassador at Montana State University - Bozeman. Regards, McMormor

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 6, April-May 2014
byThe Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs)

• New donations from Oxford University Press and Royal Society (UK)
• TWL does Vegas: American Library Association Annual plans
• TWL welcomes a new coordinator, resources for library students and interns
• New portal on Meta, resources for starting TWL branches, donor call blitzes, Wikipedia Visiting Scholar news, and more

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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:59, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Please see my posting here. the article in question was written for a course you supervised. I realise the difficulty of checking work for everyone in such a large group, but still this should not happen. DGG ( talk ) 18:18, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi@DGG:, thanks for bringing this to our attention (I was the main instructor for the course). I have taken a quick look at the report, and plan to dig in more thoroughly. @Randolph.hollingsworth: was a model student in our course, very actively engaged and diligent, and I assure you that there was no intent to do anything surreptitious here; at worst this reflects a failure on my part to adequately cover copyright issues. However, at first glance, this does not seem to me to rise to the level of a speedy deletion -- it appears there is a good deal to sort through in evaluating your concerns. For instance, of the 25 matches identified by the tool, many of them are very short phrases, like

• "we remember peggy curlin" (part of a citation, I believe)
• "from 1978 until 2003"
• "family planning international"
• "contraceptive supplies from the government"

Like I said, I want to take a closer look, which I'm unable to do in the next few hours. But I think this would best be done in a less severe context than a "speedy deletion" nomination. -Pete (talk) 18:55, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Books & Bytes recipients: The Wikipedia Library has been expanding rapidly and we need some help! We currently have 10 signups for free account access open and several more in the works... In order to help with those signups, distribute access codes, and manage accounts we'll need 2-3 more Account Coordinators.

It takes about an hour to get up and running and then only takes a couple hours per week, flexible depending upon your schedule and routine. If you're interested in helping out, please drop a note in the next week at my talk page or shoot me an email at: jorlowitzgmail.com. Thanks and cheers, Jake Ocaasi via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:41, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Sara! Just a reminder that our meetup for the Chicago Great American Wiknic is tomorrow at 11:00 AM at the Pritzker Military Museum & Library! Hope to see you there. I, JethroBT ^{drop me a line} 04:03, 12 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

hy!!!!!!!!!

Karan shankar (talk) 12:15, 30 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 7, June-July 2014
byThe Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs)

• Seven new donations, two expanded partnerships
• TWL's Final Report up, read the summary
• Adventures in Las Vegas, WikiConference USA, and updates from TWL coordinators
• Spotlight: Blog post on BNA's impact on one editor's research

Read the full newsletter

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:20, 31 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your interest in our user study. Please email me at credivisstudy@gmail.com. Wkmaster (talk) 21:06, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Sara! The Jane Addams Hull-House Museum is doing an edit-a-thon later next week. It's kind of on a weird day of the week to accommodate students at UIC, but you're welcome to join us if you're free. Let us know if you can make it. I'm sorry you had to miss out on our last meetup at the Pritzker, but maybe you can make it to this one? I, JethroBT ^{drop me a line} 22:44, 25 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
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byThe Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs)

• TWL now a Wikimedia Foundation program, moves on from grant status
• Four new donations, including large DeGruyter parntership, pilot with Elsevier
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:51, 7 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Wikipedia Library is announcing signups today for, free, full-access accounts to published research as part of our Publisher Donation Program. You can sign up for:

• DeGruyter: 1000 new accounts for English and German-language research. Sign up on one of two language Wikipedias:
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• JSTOR: 100+ remaining accounts for journal archives

Do better research and help expand the use of high quality references across Wikipedia projects: sign up today!
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You can host and coordinate signups for a Wikipedia Library branch in your own language. Please contact Ocaasi (WMF).

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