User talk:Aschmidt/2013

Notification of discussion

A few months ago, you participated in a discussion on Wikipedia talk:Did you know about Gibraltar-related DYKs on the Main Page. I am proposing that the temporary restrictions on such DYKs, which were imposed in September 2012, should be lifted and have set out a case for doing so at Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Gibraltar-related DYKs. If you have a view on this, please comment at that page. Prioryman (talk) 21:47, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Lifting the Gibraltar DYK restrictions

A couple of months ago, you opposed a proposal to lift the restrictions on Gibraltar-related DYKs, which were imposed in September 2012. Could you possibly clarify (1) under what conditions you would support a lifting of the restrictions, and (2) when you think it would be appropriate to lift the restrictions? Prioryman (talk) 20:05, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

I still think the restrictions on Gibraltar-related articles in Did you know are alright. Gibraltar and Gibraltarpedia have become synonymous of the public-relations scandal of the same name in Wikipedia. I think it is way too early to change anything about the current settlement.--Aschmidt (talk) 20:15, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, but with respect, that isn't really an answer to the questions I was asking. If you think it's "way too early", when would be the appropriate time, and under what circumstances would you consider it appropriate to lift the restrictions? Prioryman (talk) 20:18, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

As I said, time will tell when the right moment has arrived. The Gibraltar scandal was all about paid editing and corruption, and tourism adverts in the first place. I'm afraid the Wikipedia communities have not yet arrived at a feasible stance towards COI issues. What we need is a process that is really capable of excluding these matters from WP because they do not fit in an encyclopaedia.--Aschmidt (talk) 20:27, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

OK, thanks for your feedback. Prioryman (talk) 22:40, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Pending release of Notifications

Hey Aschmidt :). I'm dropping you a note because you have signed up for the Notifications, or Echo, newsletter.

If all goes according to plan, we should be launching Echo on en-wiki either tomorrow, or next Tuesday - I'll drop a followup tomorrow when we know what's happening. Should the launch succeed, we'll begin the process of triaging bugs and gathering feedback on what features work, what cause problems, and what we should do next; I hope you'll help us out on these fronts by leaving any comments you might have on the talkpage.

Thanks, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:01, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Notifications box replacement prototypes released

Hey Aschmidt; Kaldari has finished scripting a set of potential replacements available to test and give feedback on. Please go to this thread for more detail on how to enable them. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 15:25, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Writing Wikipedia Articles class

Hi, in case you didn't see my response -- I was able to upload our course archive to YouTube (still not free format, but at least it doesn't require Java). I plan to do this with future archives -- it's time consuming, but worthwhile. Thanks for the nudge. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdeRQWaM3Bk -Pete (talk) 15:44, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your effort, Pete, and for writing on my personal talk page for reminding me of our discussion! YouTube is probably a good start for making the videos freely available. If you are having trouble uploading that big files to Commons, you might like to contact Erik Möller in order to ask him to make an exception in this case. E.g., there have been exceptions for videos that were taken at Wikimania.

Maybe you wonder why I have enrolled for your course. After all, I already know how to write Wikipedia articles. However, I am a sysop on German Wikiversity, and we are preparing for a relaunch of the platform. You may have noticed that we have added a Moodle to Wikiversity recently[1][2] and there are some more improvemements in the pipeline. Courses about Wikipedia will play an important point, too. Today we have just got the Education program extension installed you are using in Wikipedia. So, I am very much interested in everything OER including the way you manage your course with P2PU and Wikipedia. I'm not quite sure whether I will manage to write a Wikipedia article over the next six months, but I'll do my very best. Perhaps I'll write an article about the successor to my dissertation thesis supervisor at Frankfurt University in German and translate it for English Wikipedia. It's about time for her to get a WP article. ;)

I wish you good luck for your course, and thanks again for your quick response to my request. I've had a look at the support page of Blackboard Collaborate, there are many technical problems that may hinder people from participating. In this country, we currently have a MOOC on OER in general called COER13 that is rather popular. They use Adobe Connect for live sessions and it's doing rather well in Safari and Firefox, while some users have reported problems using Google Chrome. Recordings of the videos can be viewed on the course website in Flash player.--Aschmidt (talk) 19:06, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for all this info! I look forward to working with you, and I'm sure your teammates will be happy to have someone experienced with wikis to work with. Please feel free to help us answer questions on the course talk page; I'm sure many will come up that you are as well qualified to answer as Sara and myself, if not moreso.

While I think we are committed to Blackboard Collaborate for this six week session, I would be very eager to consider a better alternative for the next time we run the course (likely starting in late July). Adobe Connect is an option I have not yet considered, I don't know much about it. -Pete (talk) 21:14, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, my contributions will depend on how much time I have over the next six weeks. ;) As to the software, I wondern whether there is a free-software alternative to those closed-source solutions? I don't know, but I think we should have a look into that. And perhaps one more point I would like to mention: I've seen that you have chosen the YouTube standard license for your video. Could you publish your videos under a Creative Commons license, please? Perhaps someone else manages to convert them to Commons, so he would be able to download it from there and use it?--Aschmidt (talk) 22:46, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Library

Hey! I've done a major redesign of The Wikipedia Library portal. As one of our original volunteers, I'd love you to check it out, pick a role, create a profile to share your story and skills, sign up for the newsletter, and see how you can get involved. I'd also be interested in having a skype chat with you in the next few weeks to see how we can best put your energy to use (or email if that's better for you). Hope you're doing well, Ocaasi ^{t | c} 13:25, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for inviting me to a Skype call—due to lack of time I'd prefer email if that's okay with you. I'd be interested in your plans for the Wikipedia Library, and I hope I can help out as described in my profile on the project page. Please don't hesitate to use my Wikimail. I'm looking forward to hearing from you. --Aschmidt (talk) 22:14, 28 August 2013 (UTC)