Wikiversity:Requests for Deletion

This page is for the polite establishment of consensus through civil discussion about pages which may need deletion or undeletion for non-obvious reasons. Pages where the reasons are obvious are normally speedily deleted/undeleted instead. A good attitude behind proposing pages here is "I can see a good reason for deleting (or undeleting) this page, but I'm not sure - what do others think?". When responding try to think of novel ways to make pages more useful to Wikiversity participants. Finding ways to improve pages is the preferred outcome of any discussion here.

Decision process

Give a reason for deletion which explains how the page is doing harm to the Wikiversity project. Do not attempt to delete a page until after you have tried to improve the page by editing it and discussed ways to improve the page with other editors of the page. Pages that need improvement are not deleted; they can be edited so as to improve them or marked with templates such as Welcome and expand. Try to keep your reasons brief, 1 sentence may be enough. Keep your reasons close to the facts of the case rather than meaninglessly vague ("out of scope", "disruptive"). Don't forget to tag the actual page with {{dr}}. To prevent shorter responses from getting lost and to keep this page sufficiently organized, consider using a subpage of Request for Deletion for overly long responses, and linking to it with a short response here. You can put "keep", "delete", or "neutral" at the beginning of your response, but consensus is established by discussion and reasoning, not mere voting. If you have strong opinions or you are not prepared to change your position in the light of consensus, please do not edit on this page at all. Remember that consensus is not majority rule and certainly not rule-by-the-loudest-and-most-uncivil. The idea of consensus is to kindly and gently bring everyone on board (and not necessarily onto your "own" board). Pages are listed here for a period of at least five days, but often are kept much longer. It is good to wait for clear consensus to emerge.

Useful resources

Deletion Log Request for deletion archives Proposed deletion policy - proposed, so not binding. Template:Deletion request - this is the template used on pages listed here

How to list a page here

Add {{Deletion request}} or {{dr}} to the image, category or article page. Add a new section to the end of this page using the follow format: == [[Page title]] == reasons why this page ought to be deleted --~~~~

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Undeletion requests

If an article has been deleted, and you think it shouldn't have been, please list it here. Please try to give as close to the title as possible, and list your reasons for why it should be restored.

Undelete the article Free Masonic Lodge "True Harmony". Was filling in article for a college course for extra credit. If it is deleted, I will not receive the extra credit.

Dramaturgy

I request undeletion of Dramaturgy and Music and learning. The Dramaturgy page is a learn-by-doing project for exploring how to use drama to promote learning. There was a long list of references for reading and discussion. The page was deleted as "Beyond scope", but the topic is clearly within the scope of Wikiversity. The Music and learning page is a learn by doing project where participants explore their musical interests while collaborating to document the ways that music stimulates learning. As part of that project I wrote a song about the Declaration of Independence. That song does not mock anyone. The song is a goofy celebration of liberty that explores my musical interests. The page was deleted as "Beyond scope", but music and learning is clearly within the scope of Wikiversity. --JWSchmidt 00:59, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

No. Ottava Rima (talk) 01:02, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but regardless of my personal position that's a terrible explanation. Adrignola 01:05, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Support undeletion of both, and request ottava cheer up ;-) Privatemusings 01:07, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Privatemusings, you are such a brat. You know first hand that I was not in a bad mood. :P Ottava Rima (talk) 12:51, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Undelete, promptly. (edit conflict with above) Dramaturgy is a recognized academic subject. If the content of the page is inappropriate, then any inappropriate content could be blanked pending a deletion decision, but the community can then review the pages. Normal policy would require a deletion discussion before deleting something as blatantly possible as an educational resource as this. At the same time, the same custodian blocked Beetlebaum, 10 days after this acknowledged JWS sock -- we may have acknowledged socks or even certain unacknowledged ones -- was last used for editing. I'm forced to see this as harassment of JWS, or at least flagrant disregard for recusal policy and remaining free of the appearance of bias. If Beetlebaum was disruptive, then JWS should be held accountable, and he should not suffer a death of a thousand cuts, as his work is deleted and his "character" sock is blocked without consensus or explanation, and what would be evidence of possible misbehavior is concealed under deletion. I'm also concerned about the regal "No" of Ottava. Policy suggests reasoned arguments for deletion discussion, not "votes," nor, worse, personal custodian denial. Below, we have an open discussion on Moulton's "Didactic Character Subpages." There is no consensus there, there is only Ottava's defense of his redeletion, two users opposing deletion, Adambro asking a question about appropriateness (which couldn't be answered until the content could be read!) and Jtneill asking a question about content. I provided, while I was still a probationary custodian, a way to read the content. I suppose that could be done here, as well, but I can no longer do it. I read that content and it was not sufficiently disruptive to warrant deletion, all legitimate raised objections previously could have been handled with a tag or blanking. Is the same true here? I don't know, but, from the history, I know that these two involved custodians cannot be trusted to make a neutral decision, they are involved, long-term.--Abd 01:21, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Give it a rest Abd. JWSchmidt is struggling to focus his contributions on useful activities, it seems you might also be having the same problem. This page was more useless nonsense like, unfortunately, many of his recent "learning projects". It would be inappropriate to undelete it. Adambro 08:59, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

you know, I reckon there's a real easy method to avoid this kind of rather silly escalation, if you're minded to, you can even play it as a game (although I can't promise any prizes ;-). It's called 'fact or opinion' - I think the use of things like blocks, deletions, and other special admin powerz should be based on facts - specifically about whether or not folk are breaking policies that can also be empirically examined (so they're 'facts' too in that sense). If, on reflection, you feel that you're taking action based on 'opinion' - or worse, based on an 'opinion' of interpretation doubled up with an 'opinion' of an action, then you're probably barking up the wrong tree. As someone clever said (who? - someone help me out!) - opinions are like arseholes.... everyone's got 'em, but it's best to keep them to yourself ;-) cheers, Privatemusings 09:23, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Undelete - I don't recall a discussion and consensus to delete these pages. I would prefer to see the community deciding what it wants to delete unless it's very obviously inappropriate material. I'm unconvinced that these pages warranted deletion without discussion. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 10:58, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I have restored the page on the condition that anyone can move content they find objectionable to the discussion page, and it must not be added back to the content page until there is a clear written consensus on the discussion page in support of restoring content back to the content page. -- darklama  14:16, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Darklama. Excellent. Note that truly objectionable content may not be appropriate even for the Talk page, but I have not yet reviewed this, and the normal response to such content is to delete it, i.e., blank it. Users can work this out, custodian tools are not needed unless something must be revision deleted, which is rare. --Abd 14:30, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

What about Music and learning? I would think the same criteria would apply. --Abd 14:33, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Diego Grez moved it to User:JWSchmidt/Music and learning. I think based on Diego Grez's decision that the work should remain in JWSchmidt's user space. -- darklama  14:41, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

That's fine, I hadn't seen that because notice here was not provided. Moving is an ordinary editorial action, any of us could do it. I'd suggest that this discussion be closed relatively soon, if no Delete comments show up in short order. --Abd 17:30, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I dislike that JWS filed this report without letting us know that the page had been userfied almost two weeks earlier. What he might protest, but probably not here, would be the protection of the name in mainspace by Adambro, so that the file cannot be moved back to mainspace without a custodian, which seems overcontrolling. In the mean time, the page can be edited where it is, and a final decision on mainspace location deferred, when feelings have cooled. We do have other issues to address at this time! --Abd 18:18, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Didactic Character Subpages

• Montana Mouse
• Barsoom Tork
• Gastrin Bombesin
• Caprice
• Albatross

I request undeletion of User:Moulton/Montana Mouse, User:Moulton/Barsoom Tork, User:Moulton/Gastrin Bombesin, User:Moulton/Caprice, User:Moulton/Albatross. I want to invite these characters to participate in the music and learning project. In order to explore my musical learning goals I need these characters to participate in a musical performance and I would like to make use of Moulton's expertise 1, 2, 3. --JWSchmidt 12:13, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

What was the content of these pages (I know I can go and look at a custodian, but it could be helpful to have an overview for everyone). Has anyone contacted Sebmol for comment since s/he deleted them? Were there any page-specific discussions before deletion? Were these deleted user pages which were then shifted to sub-pages of User:Moulton? -- Jtneill - Talk - c 11:09, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

The pages were harmless learning tools with biographies of didactic characters. These pages were deleted after both Moulton and I had been subjected to bad blocks and could not freely defend the pages as learning resources. Go to this version of the deletion requests page and you can see the discussion. The first person to comment on the proposed deletion correctly explained why deleting the pages was not sensible. Rather than give a reason for deletion, Sebmol simply pointed to the deletion discussion; there was no valid reason that could be entered into the deletion log. The Wikiversity community was under external threat and there is no reason now to put much stock in old decisions that were being made under conditions of intimidation and fear. Note this part of the discussion:
I can quickly and efficiently ban Moulton from this project if it is requested. Salmon of Doubt 18:41, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

"Salmon of Doubt" was the Wikipedian who came to Wikiversity and declared his goal to be getting Moulton banned from Wikiversity. The deletion discussion took place under conditions of threat and harassment imposed by invading Wikipedians. The pages are harmless didactic resources. Please look at the pages and judge them on their own merits. --JWSchmidt 12:39, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

•  Comment How is Music and learning improved by the use of fictional characters? In what way does any use of fictional characters depend on the existence of these pages? What purpose does User:Beetlebaum serve now? Adambro 12:55, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

• The pages will help me write a song, as I already explained on this page. I want to see the content of those pages so I can write my music. I doubt if I can explain musical inspiration to you and in any case that is not relevant to the undeletion of these harmless pages. User:Beetlebaum puts me in a mood for creating music. --JWSchmidt 13:14, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

• Undeleted at least temporarily. This discussion may continue until a final decision is made on these pages, but I saw no harm in restoring them to the Moulton user space at least temporarily for JWS or others to review. It is possible that there is some inappropriate material on these pages, but I noticed nothing that stood out. Please notify this discussion of any seriously problematic text in the pages. Adambro, we normally afford users substantial freedom in their user space, such pages need not be "purely educational resources," and serving the reasonable request of a Wikiversity user, assuming good faith, trumps a narrow view on what is a "learning resource," and this isn't in mainspace. However, stories indeed are a part of education, and that is, in fact, one of Moulton's regular themes. He is correct on that. --Abd 03:28, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. I redeleted them. They were deleted via process, and were material created that were not within the scope of this community. They were also created by a banned user and used to disrupt while socking. They have no purpose here. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:46, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Uh, Ottava, your 'Agreed' above apparently refers to the undeletion denial of Jtneill in the next section for another page. (A section header should be at the very top of a section, otherwise the archive template, and initial comment, gets caught in the previous section edit. I fixed it) There was no consensus here against undeletion. Certainly you can reverse my decision and I can respond to the request in a different way. But I'm urging all of us to stop taking rigid and fixed positions in the Moulton affair and start trying to find ways we can cooperate even where we disagree. I saw no harm in those pages. Just as the contributions of a blocked editor can be removed legitimately without consideration of content (in this case, without determining if the actual content of the pages was "disruptive"), and they can be reverted back by any editor on their own responsibility, JWS was asking for these pages to be restored, and so I temporarily undeleted them pending review of a final deletion decision. Ottava, you did not allow time for that to happen; other editors cannot read those pages now. I urge you to reconsider. Thanks. --Abd 23:31, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

There was no consensus for undeletion. Your undeletion was inappropriate. Sorry, but you went around process inappropriately. These were pages created by a banned user to harass others. They serve no valid purpose here. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:12, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

"were material created that were not within the scope of this community." <-- These were harmless character descriptions that I was casting in a music production as part of the Music and learning learning project. I request that a Custodian undelete these learning resources. --JWSchmidt 23:44, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Overturn deletion.I placed the wikitext for the pages at [1] so that any user can see what was deleted, thus satisfying the basis for JWS's request. Without approving all of the content of these pages (I saw one satirical reference to a controversial former Wikiversity user, though it is mild compared to what we have been seeing routinely), I judge that this content is acceptable in user space, as it was. It is possible, depending on how these pages are used, that some kind of tag should added or even that the pages are blanked, but preventing them from being read, even in history, by deletion, seems overkill and even a bit spiteful to me (that comment is based on some of the original deletion discussion which showed some punitive motive in support for the deletion, which would be technically improper and a sound basis for overturning it, particularly given that the deletion discussion did not clearly show a consensus for deletion.) --Abd 03:48, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

• Although it will be more convenient for John if the Didactic Character Subpages reside on the local Wiki, I have now restored them on Beta:Wikiversity. Note that restoring them here will require Adam's fix to the MediaWiki:Titlewhitelist, so that a few broken links can be repaired. Moulton 02:59, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

In a review of my action regarding these pages at User talk:Abd/Custodian actions#Undeletions re Moulton files, I realized that deletion was definitely not the appropriate action for these files, given the arguments against them in the original deletion discussion cited by JWS, above. At the most, they should have been blanked, with a permanent version then cited so anyone could read the original content if they wished. Suppose these pages had been a section on Moulton talk. Would that section have been revision-deleted? That's the equivalent of deleting a page itself. If anyone wants to point to the content itself, they can point to the permanent version, thus allowing what JWS wants to do. There was disagreement over the allowability of this content on Wikiversity, but in reality, this should not extend, absent good cause, into making the content unavailable to those who wish to see it. We should, in the future, keep blanking or providing a warning notice or the like, as an alternative to deletion. --Abd 15:06, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Deletion requests

Inexplicable physics articles

A series of encyclopedia articles migrated here from Wikipedia after deletion or rejection. Essentially a personalized view of physics constructed by an anonymous editor. Organized at Category:Inexplicable physics pages.

• Dirac large numbers
• Fine structure constant
• Gravitational characteristic impedance of free space
• Gravitational induction
• Gravitomagnetism
• Magnetic coupling constant
• Magnetic monopole
• Maxwell-like gravitational equations
• Monopoles
• Natural scale
• Neutron star
• Planck mass
• Planck scale
• Quantum Electromagnetic Resonator
• Quantum Hall composite resonator
• Quantum Hall effect
• Quantum Inductance
• Selfconsistent electromagnetic constants
• Selfconsistent gravitational constants
• Solar planets as gravitational resonators
• Stoney mass
• Stoney scale
• Velocity circulation quantum
• Weak Natural scale

All of these topics are encyclopedia articles, and as such don't belong here. Each is a copy of a current or deleted Wikipedia article with OR and POV content added; many have previously been deleted on Wikipedia as well. To the extent that they include non-standard ideas, they are not research (and generally not new; just atypical and slightly confused). I don't see anything here useful to a wikiversity course that can't be gotten more effectively straight from the Wikipedia articles on the topic, so I am nominating these articles for deletion. --nomination by Sj 7:07, 7 April 2010

It looks like these articles are marked as being mixtures of fact and fantasy. Maybe they could be adapted to a challenge for physics students such as: Can you find what is wrong with this article? These pages might also be of interest to historians of wiki-based encyclopedias. --JWSchmidt 00:21, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

OR and POV are in fine for Wikiversity so I imagine that is why they were copied here. Non-standard ideas are fine too, people can learn from non-standard ideas. I think pointing to the Wikipedia articles on the topic for each page would be a good idea. People can help students to understand concepts that have been confused using the confused aspects as a starting point to build understanding from. If there are parts that are wrong or inaccurate an explanation can help students understand the topic better for students that share similar assumptions or inaccurate understandings. -- darklama  16:03, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Any page can be used as a point of departure for some sort of learning. A page of absolute gibberish could be used in a linguistics class to demonstrate contentless prose. A page specially designed to mislead and misinform unwary readers could be used by a clever teacher as reading material for a class. But does that mean that Wikiversity should accept material that is designed to mislead and misinform? –SJ+ 07:21, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Of course not, Sj, but I assume you'd recognize the problem with this question. How do you know the purpose of the material, what it was "designed" to do? To avoid "misinformation," in a free academic environment, correct information -- or at least allegedly "correct," should be added. These articles are now categorized as "Inexplicable physics articles," which is a start toward dealing with them properly. If no use for them appears in some reasonable time, they might possibly be deleted, but "reasonable time" could be years, and a tag that allows easily finding all these questionable articles quickly could be used. It could be like a citation-needed template on Wikipedia, and it would be dated. It takes moments to tag an article, and the tag will stick, here, unless there is disagreement, which can then be resolved. Reviewing every page to try to decide if it's "designed to mislead" is an utter waste of time, in the time it takes to file an RfD, many articles could be tagged. The approach below of temporarily blocking the IP to encourage discussion, and, as well, to encourage registration, hopefully with email enabled, is not bad. It might be enough, however, to warn the IP that the articles might be deleted if some usefulness doesn't appear. The IP obviously believes that there is some use for these articles, or that editor would not waste time putting them up.

How about a category that is "Proposed for Deletion 2010-4," i.e., April, which would sort nicely, and the category explains that if the cat is not removed by a certain month (April 2011? 2012? There is no need to be short. Actually, the category could give the "expiration date."), the article will be deleted. And, of course, whoever placed that cat would be watching the page, or it might be picked up by RCP or otherwise monitored, and then the usefulness of the page could be discussed. No, we don't want piles of useless pages, but this project is highly "inclusionist," in general. Bots can actually do some of this work, with proper set-up. (Bot monitors removal of cat, adds note to list page. Editor discussing removal/replacement with removing editor adds note on disposition; disputes go, then, through ordinary DR, such as an RfD.) --Abd 16:59, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree any page can be used as a point of departure for some sort of learning, which is why deciding what to delete can be difficult. How can we be absolutely sure that a page is designed to mislead and misinform? How can we be absolutely sure that a person isn't genuinely trying to learn or teach? We like to work with what people already know to begin with even if what they know has come about from being misinformed by others in the past or from having been left confused by their teachers, rather than assuming people are empty vessels, which means a different approach to teaching is necessary to help people learn. A good teacher could explain to great lengths the hows, wheres, whens, and whys of student's misunderstandings of a concept or topic. Do you agree? Don't get me wrong, inaccuracies should be corrected, the ways in which inaccuracies can be corrected is just broader on Wikiversity than other projects.

I feel as though Wikiversity lacks the structures in place to encourage correcting inaccuracies using the various methodologies that people want to encourage. Wikiversity wants to give pages a chance to become useful learning resources and give people an opportunity to make corrections, but we do not even have the structures in place yet to backup and encourage that approach. RFD is often the first the community hears of problems with a page, which I think relates to not having the structures in place to encourage others to make corrections and fix problems. Other wikimedia projects use templates to encourage contributions and making changes where they are needed, but Wikiversity rarely does that it seems. I think we could be doing a lot more to encourage people to go to great lengths to explain the hows, wheres, whens, and whys of concepts that have been misunderstood on a page, and we could be using templates to encourage that to happen. With more "correct me" templates in place on pages I think what the next step should be when nothing gets done will be a lot easier to agree on. -- darklama  11:35, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Another was just added, Electric charge wave. Parts of it have appeared on other places on the internet and there was no attribution to the source. I have temporarily blocked the IP until he knows to stick around and actually discuss the matter. There is no other way to really contact an IP or get their attention. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:04, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Temporarily blocking the IP sounds like a decent idea. Not really sure what's going on with these. However my vote would be keep, because they don't seem like Wikipedia articles to me and it looks like they could potentially have educational value, even more educational value if someone decided to take them under their wing and correct them or at least give ideas for classroom/independent use. Darklama, your points were also interesting. I agree we need a lot more review-and-correct intiative on Wikiversity. --Trinity507 05:02, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

• Keep Blank (mostly) However, I do propose a "slow wastebasket," an organizational technique I learned years ago. Add a category to these articles, and any article anyone thinks useless, "Proposed for deletion 2012-4", and if the cat hasn't been removed (and stayed removed), they would all be deleted, by bot, possibly, or some kind of assisted editing, in April 2012. The category would explain what this means in detail, allow anyone to remove the cat, once, but not to revert war over it, but to discuss. The guideline might even require removal to be by someone who is registered. Wikiversity should be open, but it should also be efficient. --Abd 17:05, 20 April 2010 (UTC)!vote changed to reflect better decision, see below.

I've reviewed Dirac large number hypothesis to some degree, comparing it with the Wikipedia article (I moved the article to match the Wikipedia name). I found at least one example of the article being mangled in the copying, and there were many changes. This created an article with many unexamined differences from the Wikipedia article, but no responsible editor with whom to discuss these changes. What came from Wikipedia could be replaced with a single link to Wikipedia and an invitation to discuss and expand on the topic for learning purposes. If each article is so edited, and I'll do it with the Dirac article as an example, see [2] and [3], these pages become possible learning resources, and the problems with the changes are avoided, without losing IP's work, for it's in history, and can readily be recovered by anyone.

The example I found was that the second paragraph of the Wikipedia article, containing two ratios, was removed in the copy, making the third paragraph, which refers to the two "features" just mentioned, unintelligible. --Abd 00:02, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

• Delete. These are not "useful learning resources", these are fringe theories and original research presented as established science. While original research is allowed on Wikiversity, it needs to be identified as such, not passed off as mainstream science. Otherwise we are only creating confusion for people actually trying to learn physics. Kaldari 20:22, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

 Comment I like Abd's ideas here. Slow wastebasket? Sounds exactly like what we need for material like this on WV! "Wikiversity should be open, but it should also be efficient." I couldn't agree more. I, by the way, am not very experienced in the world of physics and have no clue whether these are pseudoscience or not; I am going entirely off of the formatting, which is an important springboard around here. I believe that they should be marked as disputed immediately, to save clueless people like me from much embarrassment. =) --Trinity507 03:34, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

This has been open a long time. I feel the conclusion that can be reached by this discussion is no consensus. I propose closing this as such, and marking all the pages with {{fringe}}. -- darklama  15:10, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

No objecting to tagging. I do want to think about what could be called a "long-term prod," proposed deletion that gives a lot of time for something to be developed into a resource, even a year seems short, and that might be accompanied by appropriate categorization. If nobody interested in an area wants to develop an actual learning resource, and nobody wants to study it -- which study would nicely be accomplished by organizing it and placing it in context, and this persists long-term, then, eventually, it should go. Meanwhile, all these pages, if there is doubt about their soundness as to the science, should be tagged as a warning to readers, right at the top. Unverified, might be way-out fringe. Or not. Caveat lector. --Abd 23:50, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

It looks to me like no clear consensus and that the material should be retained for now with the {{fringe}} template. There is some support for tagging the pages for subsequent deletion review down the track but I think any such a system should be raised and discussed separately before implementation. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 10:41, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

• Delete - most are copies of Wiki pages with nothing to add except that they slip in some unfounded stuff without the desire to actually talk to the community about it. I find it all troubling. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:51, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

• Delete - These, to my reading, are encyclopedia articles, and would normally belong at WP (with some cleanup) except in this case I believe they are already at WP. Thenub314 22:35, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

• Delete copies of wikipedia and keep unique ones adding in original authors. Well, if they are copies from Wikipedia, they are violating license terms and they should be deleted. But there is an option we can add in the original authors. I.e. delete it as a copyvio and reupload it leaving original authors in edit summary. I would say the focus should be on content, not on how it look like. Does SJ know, how should look like a content of wv and how to characterize it in a few words?--Juan de Vojníkov 06:15, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Well all the works comeing from other projects should be imported.--Juan de Vojníkov 06:43, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

• Delete as a copyright violation. As I see this, it is a copyvio.--Juan de Vojníkov 06:52, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
• Slow Wastebasket and Delete Copyvios - I would adopt the PROD solution posed by Abd and set a six month window for people to use this information. Articles not adopted and cleaned up at the end of that window would be open for summary deletion. Any copyright violations should be summarily disposed of. Geoff Plourde 09:06, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

• Delete - Kaldari and Ottava make some good points. Any original work should be clearly identified as such, otherwise a student trying to learn the subject will be misled into thinking that this is a standard interpretation of the subject. --mikeu ^talk 00:47, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Ecolig

I'm going to throw this here for discussion. It was removed from Wikipedia a few times, is the originator of most of the content here, and is very close to this, and I suspect the writers of that are connected to this page (as the sources are almost duplicated). It is not only extremely complicated/not understandable, but it is promotional of an idea that is very fringe and rather strange. It combines classical ideas about words with modern linguistics and computer technology in a very weird way. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:32, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

I think these are good reasons for improvement rather than deletion. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 10:34, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Delete Reading through this it doesn't strike me as something that can be improved. While not very scientific, google searches turn up nothing tub the original paper published above. Things to consider is that the page is in poor shape and abandoned by its creator, and the paper which in which it is a copy has doesn't seem to have stimulated any new research.

All of these are qualitative statements and rather off of the point. Overall reading threw this I am lead to the conclusion that the page exists solely to promote the paper cited above. I think it is important to encourage real learning and discourage self promotion. If the page had stimulated any discussion or involvement form the community it may be a different matter, but as it stands I think this page should be deleted. Thenub314 22:25, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Confirm it to OTRS. Well, if it is coping something its a license violation. In that case first of all it should be confirmed to OTRS, that original author permit it to distribute under wv license conditions. Than as an original research it can stay. Maybe elsewhere we can talk, how to manage strange or queer theories.--Juan de Vojníkov 06:23, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Delete if copyvio Summarily delete if copyvio. Geoff Plourde 09:16, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Delete There is room for improvement, but I don't see how it can be turned into an actual learning resource (not an article), meaning it doesn't fit in to WV in my opinion. And if it's a copyvio, that's an obvious reason for deletion. --Trinity507 02:10, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

How to build a pykrete bong

I should start by noting I have nominated this page for deletion before at Wikibooks. While I feel this doesn't live up to policies such as verifiability, I would rather focus on how I feel it harms the project. Basically it detracts for the scholarly nature of pursuits here, and hence harms the reputation of the project. When I see pages like this it is more difficult to take the project seriously. Pages of this nature also harm our ability to interface with brick and mortar secondary schools. My only evidence for this is a comment made to me by a wikibookian. He explained, once he realized that pages like this existed, that he understood why he couldn't ask his administrators to remove the block on wikibooks. Basically I feel it hurts our reputation and our ability to reach out to other learning communities. Thenub314 23:06, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I skimmed the resource. If w:Bong belongs in WP, then I don't see why How to build a pykrete bong wouldn't be appropriate for WV. It seems to be a well-written resource, somewhat in the vein of How to clean a toilet. I think its OK maybe even desirable that Wikiversity provides learning materials beyond those which might approved by some schools. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 05:09, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

The scope and content of articles at WP differs from that at WV. Two examples that come to my mind are w:Explosive and w:Strangulation. These are perfectly fine resources at WP, but I don't think we should carry learning resources on how to effectively strangle someone, or aim to teach people to create improvised explosive devices. No matter how well written there should be a line beyond which we decided this is not in the the type of educational material our project aims to produce. Would you find learning resources on constructing crack pipes or cooking and injecting heroin as falling under our scope? Thenub314 15:23, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm not seeing anything in Wikiversity:Mission or the WMF mission that indicates that "learning resources on constructing crack pipes or cooking and injecting heroin" (or building a bong) would be out of scope. (Wikiversity:Scope is, however, rather unclear and in need of development.) Bongs are not illegal in most jurisdictions and are important items in many people's lives etc. But I understand that feelings about the appropriateness of this article will vary depending on value systems and how one approaches the topic - e.g., I'm looking at it anthropologically - as some human knowledge that some people may wish to learn about. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 16:09, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

But certainly with the other cases I mentioned there are some people who would like to know these things. I know Bongs are not illegal in most jurisdictions, indeed I used to construct and sell them during high school for spare cash. That doesn't make a static resources on how to build one from Pykrete really something that people are seeking to learn? At the same time, every thing I mentioned above is something someone has wanted to learn at some point. The question I was trying to get a sense of is would you find those four topics appropriate learning resources here? I personally believe they would harm wikiversity's reputation, and even though I could write very good resources on three of them (I know nothing of explosives) it wouldn't dream of it, not even to make my point.

Drawing lines can be a tough call. Universities allow students to do experiments. Can the same learning objectives, observations, and results be achieved by a different pykrete experiment? A chemistry course might discuss explosive combinations to ensure that students don't accidentally try combinations that are known to be dangerous, to ensure that student observe necessary precautions when combining chemicals that are known to have explosive results, or because they may need to know about certain explosives for the type of careers they might want to pursue. Wikiversity cannot help to be an aid for Universities, if certain pursuits are off topic. Resource should attempt to observe all necessary precautions that would be expected to be observed at a University. -- darklama  16:12, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree drawing lines can be tough. I can only say that it would be off topic at a university to construct run a course containing information on constructing pykrete bongs. Indeed most university dormitories have regualtions prohibiting such things. To me it is a matter of perspective. If your writing is written about explosives in such a way as to teach chemistry that is (to me) perfectly acceptable. If your writing about how to make explosive devices from existing military bombs in such a way as to create traps for people, I think some line as been crossed. Some people would like to have this information, it is certainly educational, but I would argue it should not fall under our scope. Unfortunately we cannot hope to observe all the precautions observed by Universities. My understanding is that at many universities there is usually a mandatory course about safety which needs to be passed before you may take a class that involves dangerous experiments. We may suggest prerequisites but not enforce a passing mark in some course. Don't take this to mean that I think we should not have courses that involve potentially dangerous experiments, we should. I am just pointing out that we don't have the same resources as brick and mortar institutions when it comes to safety. But overall my comment is that it harmful to our project, not that the bong would be harmful to person.

We must not forget that WMF servers are in the US and we legally promote illegal activity, which includes building illicit drug paraphernalia just as we could not have a "how to" for building a bomb. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:52, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Noting that the article appears to be very similar to http://www.thefullwiki.org/How_To_Build_A_Pykrete_Bong -- Jtneill - Talk - c 14:21, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

It seems imported from wikibooks. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 14:26, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Noting also this nomination for deletion discussion at Wikibooks about the article - b:Wikibooks:Requests_for_deletion/How_To_Build_A_Pykrete_Bong_(3) -- Jtneill - Talk - c 14:26, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry I should have noted the wikibooks RfD here. It was (I think) mentioned in the colloquium post which lead me to bring it up here. I note, but this is not very convincing even to me that the official beta policy forbids research that would be considered illegal. Though in which jurisdiction is the real question, there just is no easy way to interpret that bullet. Thenub314 14:46, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

For perspective on Wikibooks' view of this material, I recommend its fourth and last RfD: b:Wikibooks:Requests for deletion/How To Build A Pykrete Bong (4). --Pi zero 19:00, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

• Keep. Or do we have a policy not to host such stuff?--Juan de Vojníkov 09:31, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Motivation and emotion/Textbook

This page is clearly outside the scope of wikiversity. According to Wikiversity:What Wikiversity is not we should not be developing materials that fall undert he scope of the other WMF projects. But in the case of this book, b:Motivation and Emotion the claim is that book is being developed here. This is inappropriate, and the book should be transwikied to Wikibooks. Thenub314 15:07, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

• Wikiversity participants can make pages about the development of any type of learning resource. It is disruptive of the Wikiversity mission to try to prevent Wikiversity from having pages about the development of a textbook. If there ever is a book at Wikiversity then it can be moved to Wikibooks. Such book development projects were explicitly given as an example of Wikiversity content in the approved Wikiversity project proposal. --JWSchmidt 15:41, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

• Keep. (ec)At this point, there is only a little material. Eventually, this may be indeed moved to Wikibooks. There is no hard line between a textbook and a collection of materials for educational purposes. At the present time, it's not a textbook. See Talk:Motivation and emotion/Textbook for discussion. This is not something to be forced by RfD. --Abd 15:45, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

• Motivation and emotion is an active course, developing materials and putting together a "textbook" is part of that activity. Wikiversity:What Wikiversity is not cannot be read to prohibit this. When the course is done, there may be, indeed, a textbook that could be moved to Wikibooks. But students enrolled and active in the course here should not be required to work with an account on another project to participate fully. Here, they will have one watchlist and can follow all traffic with the course pages. I'm really surprised to find an RfD filed, without the support of any of the 38 present participants. --Abd 16:39, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

• I disagree. By placing comments on the wikibook stating the material is to be deveoloped here, it is clear that this is an acknowledged textbook. And since those notes were added the development at wikibooks as ceased. Since when does a RfD require consent? Projects in the course can be to develop chapters or sections of a textbook, but the textbook should still be developed at wikibooks. But if it makes you feel better to have a participant be the RfD filer, I will participate in the course. Thenub314 17:07, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

• Question - has a discussion been started on WikiBooks on the matter? If so, could you link? Ottava Rima (talk) 17:10, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

• I see no sign of a discussion there. See Wikibooks:Motivation and emotion. --Abd 17:51, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

The short answer is no. Since the wikibook directs users to here, I started the discussion here. Though two of the wikibook admins (myself and Adrignola) agree that it is appropriate to transwiki to wikibooks, and there is a very incomplete book the same subject at wikibooks already. Thenub314 18:41, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

PS. Jtneil did mention on the talk page that I was not the first person who suggested it should be moved to wikibooks, but I don't know who or where the first conversation took place. Thenub314 18:53, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Stop muddying the waters between Wikibooks and Wikiversity. Too often class projects are conducted at Wikibooks when they should be at Wikiversity. Here we have something intended to be a textbook being developed here instead of at Wikibooks. It's supposed to be such that courses and classes here develop books at Wikibooks for their use. If you don't feel like participating at Wikibooks, fine, but you're stepping on its toes. The course can stay here; the textbook should be developed at Wikibooks. That's the project for developing textbooks. The projects weren't split up for this to be ignored. Adrignola 17:16, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Did you meant to have that respond to my question? :) I was just curious if there was a discussion over there about the page over there. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:17, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

• Keep. Change the claim that "a book" is being made to "resources for a course" are being made. If someone wishes to create a book from those resourses, then that book should of course go to Wikibooks. WAS 4.250 17:43, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
• Transwiki per request. "A free and open psychology textbook authored by students" seems to support the suggestion that this would be more appropriate on Wikibooks. Whether or not this is yet complete is irrelevant I feel, unless of course the Wikibooks scope says otherwise. I would assume that Wikibooks is better suited to handling the development of textbooks with more appropriate policies, guidelines and templates. Adambro 18:25, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

• Comment: At this stage, Motivation and emotion/Textbook is primarily a learning and assessment exercise for students of Motivation and emotion. I created a holding place for b:Motivation and Emotion to which we can hopefully transwiki completed and acceptable chapters. I am teaching 80 students wiki editing from scratch this semester, with them using their user pages as learning journals and trying to build their confidence and capability with wiki editing in the WV environment, rather than have them working across wikis in these early stages. Leighblackall has also asked me verbally why this exercise is on WV rather than WB (to which I've given a similar response). Please also consider the guidelines for this exercise Motivation and emotion/Assessment/Chapter. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 21:54, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
• Comment: FYI, I've moved the deletion nomination template to the talk page so that it's less intrusive to students who are working on this at the moment. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 22:35, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
• Comment: By way of a bit more background, it may be worth noting that I conducted a similar exercise with students for a different topic in 2008: Social psychology (psychology)/Assessment/Essay/Topics. The key difference was that I called these "essays" rather than "textbook chapters". As a result the content has remained on WV and gone relatively unnoticed. This time around I thought that it could be more helpful to have students shape their "writing assessment exercise" to address a textbook audience, so that we could gain more value from their work by then feeding the content into the open textbook idea on WB. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 22:40, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
• transwiki at the end of the semester - The approved Wikiversity project proposal states that wikiversity "participants might decide to collectively assemble material that would contribute to a Wikibooks textbook for that subject" The intermediate state of those materials (in the student learning journals) might not resemble book form until the students complete the assignment and merge the collective work at the end of the semester. --mikeu ^talk 22:56, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

For example: Motivation_and_emotion/Textbook/Motivation/Student_motivation_theories looks more like a plan for writing the section than a chapter of a textbook. --mikeu ^talk 23:07, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

• Keep, and, as Mike suggests above, transwiki at the end of the class if appropriate. In the future, I strongly suggest that active projects of actual university classes should not be subjected to silly interwiki politics and turf wars. --SB_Johnny ^talk 23:34, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
• Neutral I agree in general textbooks should be developed at Wikibooks to begin with, and not simply moved there when "complete". However this may be on of those cases where there is a chance the work might involve original research and may in its current form be inappropriate for Wikibooks. Anyone is of course free to import any part of the work they wish to use at Wikibooks right now, if they really want it, keeping in mind that parts might need to be cleaned up or removed to avoid problems with original research. An import does not require deletion here, just someone willing to use and adopt the work at Wikibooks. -- darklama  01:49, 26 August 2010 (UTC)