• Hello. Am I within your protocols to ask an instructor to follow WP:Student assignments in the future?

• Some background. About four or five students from a University of Minnesota class on "social computing" have been making their edits to Minneapolis. I welcomed the first one. Then we decided something was up and I erroneously reported the whole bunch as part of our years-long sockpuppet farm. I wrote to their instructor, who says he's had students editing for years and that this class has completed their assignment. This class was unlucky to coincide with an old page protection removal on March 4, which was restored on March 29.
• I apologized and emailed the first person who I unfairly accused of sockpuppetry. I hope he forgives me.
• The Minneapolis article is in extended featured article review, and in the middle of a contentious RfC, which has postponed the FAR process. Then came this class on top. I skimmed a bit of WikiEducation; it says that if they choose their own, students should select underdeveloped articles to work on. Minneapolis is as far from underdeveloped as one can get.
• Spicy kindly supplied the link to WP:Student assignments during the sockpuppet investigation. It's completely new to me.

-SusanLesch (talk) 15:17, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

It sounds to me like you handled it very sensitively, thanks. The one additional thing that needs to be done is to tell the instructor that he is expected to conduct his on-Wikipedia classes with WikiEd. The educational institution is in the US, so it's within WikiEd's remit, and working with them would have avoided any of these problems having happened. The links to WikiEd are at the student assignments information page, and also at the top of this noticeboard. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:15, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Tryptofish, thanks for your kind reply. Done. -SusanLesch (talk) 21:16, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

• The instructor, Loren Terveen of GroupLens Research, did not reply to my follow up. I'm afraid he might think they're too busy studying Wikipedia to participate. Would anyone here like to send them an email? I sent mine to the five Ph.D.s pictured on the project home page.
• You all taught me something. I am busy reading Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers and associated guidelines.
• I found an undergraduate course in your archives that strikes me as a good example from the U of M Twin Cities.

- SusanLesch (talk) 18:10, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi SusanLesch, just letting you know my organization, Wiki Education, exists to help support faculty who are teaching with Wikipedia in higher education institutions in the US and Canada. The course page you referenced there is one of ours; the course from the social computing class isn't one of ours, but after it was brought to our attention earlier this year, we reached out and asked the instructor to join us in future terms, to which they seemed amenable. We also understand that course is over for this term. So hopefully any future students of theirs will receive our support. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 23:07, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply, LiAnna (Wiki Ed). Last week's train wreck doesn't appear to correspond with "earlier this year". But I put in my request to you guys and that's all I can do. Best wishes, -SusanLesch (talk) 13:32, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Ah sorry by earlier this year I meant this thread: Wikipedia_talk:Education_program#College_student_asking_for_help_at_University_of_Minnesota. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:26, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Would anyone here like to send an email to GroupLens? -SusanLesch (talk) 13:05, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

No problem, moving on. Roadkill happens. -SusanLesch (talk) 16:49, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

I asked a bunch of questions over at User_talk:Ian_(Wiki_Ed)#Back_again, please respond there. Polygnotus (talk) 04:14, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Please do not, a user talkpage is not an appropriate location for extended general discussions. CMD (talk) 05:10, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

@Chipmunkdavis: Yeah but I don't really want to do a bunch of work rewriting everything so that it can be placed here. Especially since one of the problems is that I feel that a bunch of my time is being wasted and undervalued. Polygnotus (talk) 05:15, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

I've transcluded the discussion in question so that folks can see it without necessarily needing to go there. Primefac (talk) 11:36, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

@Primefac: Thanks, but please revert yourself; I got bullied off that page. Predictable, but incredibly disappointing. So my options are to waste yet more time trying to improve Wikipedia, or go descale the washing machine. I'll go descale my washing machine. Polygnotus (talk) 14:43, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

I will respectfully decline. Primefac (talk) 14:47, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Ok, whatever. But one needs the context to see DARVO in action. Polygnotus (talk) 17:04, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Polygnotus, please refrain from making personal attacks and assuming bad faith of other editors. Several editors noted why they thought your behavior was inappropriate, especially for the venue. I encourage you to reflect on their feedback. Wracking ^talk! 17:35, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

I did reflect on their feedback. And I am going to have to agree to disagree. Sometimes, when people view a situation radically different that is the best we can do. I have moved on and will do my best to avoid those users (and I sincerely hope they will do the same). I am very disappointed. Polygnotus (talk) 18:19, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Could someone talk to this student and the instructor about not creating spam in main space? Thanks -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 02:08, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Seems like the course finished in December and doesn't have anything to do with the instructor (or this noticeboard). Treat this individual as any regular editor and not a student. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 04:10, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Genetically modified food controversies is under CTOP, and I just had to revert a massive sandbox-to-mainspace copy-paste of content that was inappropriate, and undo a page move. The class is this one. Facepalm --Tryptofish (talk) 22:29, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

Sorry this situation happened @Tryptofish. I messaged the student last month to choose another article to work on but... here we are. I've reached out to the instructor and the editor to no longer edit that page. Brianda (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:46, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

@Brianda (Wiki Ed), there was also another one that just popped up from a different class at Genetically modified maize I had to revert. That got especially bad when the student was posting information contradictory to the scientific consensus on the subject.

I know in the past Wiki Ed folks have mentioned it's hard to keep track of all the potential CTOPs out there, but when it comes to the GMO subject, possibly adding some sort of blacklist for keywords might be helpful since many of the more prominent article title terms in this subject are going to contain "genetically modified". KoA (talk) 18:31, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Brianda (Wiki Ed), this student at Genetically modified maize is now edit warring in violation of 1RR at the page. Edit warring like that has been very destabilizing in the topic, which is why 1RR was imposed there, especially things that touch on WP:GMORFC. That's a large part why student editing is heavily discouraged in this topic because of how often they try to reinsert content (and if I recall correctly, grades should not be dependent on if their edits remaining in mainspace, which should negate the need for edit warring).

Is there any required guidance the course instructors get (and give to students) on edit warring? In another class I had to deal with some problem student editing (Ian (Wiki Ed)'s domain on this one), their class dashboard practically has guidance encouraging edit warring or WP:MEAT with language like this on how to respond to student edits being removed: If it is because the others felt the material did not fit, and you disagree, argue with them. Get help from others in the class to participate. Do your best to keep your material up there, even if modified.

It seems like a simple statement to both groups would help to the effect that:

If a student edit is reverted, do not try to reinsert it. This is considered edit warring and can result an an account being blocked for disrupting a page. Instead, a student, like any other Wikipedia editor, should use the talk page to propose a fix or learn what problems were present that may not have been clear in the edit summary. Generally, disputed content needs WP:CONSENSUS on the talk page in order to be reinserted unless the problem is straightforward to fix based on other editor's comments or edit summaries. If there is any doubt, propose edit modifications on the talk page first. KoA (talk) 14:57, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, Brianda. I did see that you had left a message at the student's talk page a pretty long time ago, clearly telling her that she should choose another article. But it's obvious she never looked at it, even when coming to make the edits I had to undo, or she disregarded it. I feel that it's a failure on the instructor's part not to have made this an expectation. I know it's hard for WikiEd staff to keep track of so many students all at once, and I recognize that students are going to slip through the cracks, even when given the right advice. Maybe after giving students such a message, staff could check back after a while to see if the assigned page has been changed to another. I also see that the instructor hasn't edited here since January, when the course started, and that's always a recipe for problems. Another thought: maybe we should make it standard practice to put Template:Contentious topics/alert/first on the talk pages of students (and maybe instructors?) when CTOP pages are selected. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:22, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

@KoA I noticed the GMO maize article talk page is missing the typical Discretionary Sanctions template, and I think this is why our dashboard didn't notify us of this article assignment. Yesterday, I contacted the instructor and the student and explained the specific discretionary sanctions on this article. And they got it and were apologetic about the disruption, and won't be editing the page.

In our trainings, we instruct students to look at the talk pages to get a sense of what's going on with that article. We also instruct them to engage in discussions, especially if their edits have been reverted, to avoid edit warring. I know it's been mentioned on this noticeboard before, but it's expected for student editors to be treated like other Wikipedia editors, and learn that they're responsible for their edits. They might still miss the messages on a talk page, or move forward with edits without taking the proper considerations. When that happens, editors can always ping one of the Wikipedia Experts, and we'll do our best to contact the student and instructor.

As for the template, @Tryptofish, I feel like it serves the same function as the message I left and might get the same results (student not reading it). Brianda (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:48, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Brianda, thanks. I had looked at several of the GMO-related talk pages, and noticed the same thing that you did: that we have notices about the WP:GMORFC language, but we don't have the overall CTOP message for GMOs. I saw that first at the GM maize talk page, and thought it was an oversight that I could correct, but then I looked around and found it to be the case at numerous other topic-area talk pages. I'm not sure – maybe this happened at the DS-to-CTOP conversion?

As for your message on that student's talk page, I saw that too, and I agree with you that it likely will go unread. In general (not for student editors in particular), ArbCom requires that the "official" templates be used, unmodified, for anyone to be "aware" such that WP:AE can enforce anything. But for a student editor, and particularly one who is likely not coming back here, that may be a moot point. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:06, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

I encountered a class assignment that initially appeared to be a sockpuppet farm. It looks like at least one other person had the same initial impression because it was the subject of a sockpuppet investigation in February. There's some more information about the class on that page. I'm somewhat concerned about WP:PRIMARY and WP:NPOV based on some of the edits. There are also some more typical new user issues such as overuse of the minor edit flag. I directed several of the students to Wikipedia:Student assignments for guidance and asked them to consider passing that link along to the instructor. It might be a good idea for someone from Wiki Ed to reach out and offer support. I'm open to contacting the instructor myself, but I wanted to get input here first. Thanks. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 08:00, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for letting us know about this. It's a course we supported in 2017. I've reached out to the instructor who taught it with us back then to see what's going on. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:54, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! Daniel Quinlan (talk) 22:31, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

I used Wikipedia assignments in a 2012 course for undergraduates and in a 2019 course for graduate students. I'm now considering a course on editing Wikipedia for Osher Lifelong Learning Institute students. OLLI students are typically older than college students. Although things like grades and tests are frowned on, and required homework might not fly, these students are highly motivated learners. If anyone has embedded Wikipedia into an OLLI course, I'd like to learn from how that went. Cecile McKee Cecilemckee (talk 22:30, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

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Hi. This is my first time posting here. When reviewing AfC submissions, I noticed a similar pattern between the drafts I linked above. All of them seemed to be essays about similar topics, which felt like a education assignment of some kind. Following a discussion at WP:AFCHD, I decided to come here and ask. What can be done about these drafts? The users don't have WikiEd notices on their talk pages, so I'm not sure if this is really an assignment. Thanks. '''[[User:CanonNi]]''' (talk • contribs) 07:31, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

I have posted the following notice where participants, if participants they be, can see it: "If this is an education project please ask your tutor to contact the Wiki Education Foundation for guidance" 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 07:40, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! I replied on the AFCHD thread -- not much that can be done unless we can find the instructor. Hopefully if they are students they pass along your message! --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:32, 16 May 2024 (UTC)