User talk:Eebee Beebee

Welcome

Hello, Eebee Beebee and welcome to Wikipedia! It appears you are participating in a class project. If you haven't done so already, we encourage you to go through our training for students. Go through our online training for students

If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{Help me}} before the question. Please also read this helpful advice for students.

Before you create an article, make sure you understand what kind of articles are accepted here. Remember: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and while many topics are encyclopedic, some things are not.

Your instructor or professor may wish to set up a course page, and if your class doesn't already have one please tell your instructor about that. It is highly recommended that you place this text: {{Educational assignment}} on the talk page of any articles you are working on as part of your Wikipedia-related course assignment. This will let other editors know this article is a subject of an educational assignment and aid your communication with them.

We hope you like it here and encourage you to stay even after your assignment is finished! Belbury (talk) 10:46, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Bryan Ida draft

Hello! I'm trying to find out who or what is telling new users to create a draft article about American artists like Bryan Ida - in some cases Wikipedia already has a full article about them and has done for years!

Are you a student being asked to do this by a teacher, or are you working from a "how to edit Wikipedia" guide that's out of date?

Would be great to get an answer, I've been seeing a lot of people creating the same drafts, but they've always stopped using Wikipedia by the time I ask the question.

Thanks. Belbury (talk) 10:48, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Hi!

Yes, I'm a student who's part of an art class that's meant to do a wiki article on an artist!

And I see! I didn't realize that was the case! Is my article already one of the ones published here? I looked up my artist on the site, and no results came up, so I assumed that there hadn't been one created already. Sorry for any inconvenience and confusion that we may be causing. I'm sure that it wasn't the intention of any of us, and a I'm sure a majority has never used Wikipedia before, myself included.

I've read your earlier message, and I understand that I'm to let my professor know that they're to create a a course page, correct? If that's the case, then I'll let them know right away!

Again, sorry on behalf on my class for any confusion and mess we may be causing...! Eebee Beebee (talk) 06:32, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Thank you so much for replying!

No harm done here - Wikipedia draft pages are the right place to test things out, and we appreciate that new users will always need some guidance.

The concern is that your professor might not be following best practice for Wikipedia school projects: we're seeing some drafts created about artists who already have articles, and copyrighted photos being uploaded from the artists' websites without permission. It's also been sad to see that without a course page or a {{Educational assignment}} template, some Wikipedia admins don't realise that these edits are from students. Some student editors have been mistaken for PR companies and have ended up being blocked from editing.

You should ask your professor to read the guidance at Wikipedia:Student assignments. They're also welcome to ask for help on the Wikipedia:Education noticeboard, and I've also opened a general discussion at Draft talk:Kim Abeles#Recurring student project. They're also welcome to contact me personally on my talk page at User talk:Belbury.

Thanks again for your response, and all the best with your studies. Belbury (talk) 10:13, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Hi again! We're still seeing a lot of artist biographies being created by your class this week, including more text/image copyright violations, and more students being banned from Wikipedia by admins who don't realise that they're just students following unclear instructions.

If you haven't already done so, could you ask your professor to get in touch with us at one of the links I've given above? Thanks again. --Belbury (talk) 08:56, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Hi!

Yeah, I sent out an email to my professor, but they haven't gotten back to me... I would have thought that they would have, since I think they check their emails on the weekends, or that's the impression I got. I'll email them again, so hopefully that catches their attention this time, but I also have another classmate who I'm working with that sent out an email tonight. I don't know if you would like their email to see if you can get in touch? I can try emailing one of the TAs too to see if they can relay the notice of my email.

Again, sorry for the trouble we're causing... Eebee Beebee (talk) 09:05, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your help! Letting a TA know about the problem seems like the best thing to do next.

Out of curiosity, is this project something which the professor has obviously planned themselves, or are you working from an old textbook (and which other schools might also be using)? It's strange that some of you are writing new draft articles about people like Kim Abeles and Rafa Esparza when Wikipedia already has full articles about them, going back almost ten years. Belbury (talk) 09:57, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

No, we're not using any textbook for this. The professor had an assignment listed out on our class Canvas, and then had general directions on what to do. We were required to do a wiki page on an local artist from a webpage (which I can't recall) or a separate list that they provided.

It was also possible to do an artist that wasn't on the lists provided, but there were a lot of constraints about who you could write about, so my guess is that majority of the class decided to just use the people on the list. I think they said that it was okay to do an article on artists that already had a page, but the requirements for that was that the work could not be plagiarized from the already existing page and new information would have to be added to the student's draft. Eebee Beebee (talk) 23:32, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks so much for engaging with editors! We have a full organization, called Wiki Education, that supports faculty and students doing Wikipedia assignments like this, so students like you can avoid some of the challenges your classmates have faced. Can you ask your professor to reach out to us at contactwikiedu.org, or visit teach.wikiedu.org for more information? --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:53, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

No problem! I just feel bad overall that there's so much trouble over our assignment.

I already emailed the professor again and will be emailing a TA in a moment with the contact information. Eebee Beebee (talk) 23:35, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Another thing to take note of is that Wikipedia (and Wikimedia Commons) are very strict about copyright, so you can't upload anything that you didn't create, not freely licensed, or not in the public domain (those are copyright violations, or copyvios). Copyvio images will be deleted, and repeatedly uploading copyvio images may lead to a block.

You can find freely licensed images by using this Google link (replacing ARTICLE in the search field with the article's subject). This will show possibly free images. However, always check that images are indeed free. You can also check existing files on Wikimedia Commons, which is a safer option as volunteers check that the images are actually free. ~~2NumForIce (^speak|_edits) 03:58, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

You should first have your instructor create a Wikipedia account for themselves (following the Username policy, for example, Institution name instructor is not allowed (implies a role account), while Instructor name at Institution name is allowed), then let us know of the instructor's username. That way, we can contact your instructor directly, instead of having to rely on you to contact them. ~~2NumForIce (^speak|_edits) 04:08, 14 December 2023 (UTC)