User talk:Rburdette

A Belated Welcome!

Hello, Rburdette, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions so far. Sorry no one has put up a Welcome message for you, but here it is now.  :-) I recommend leaving it at the top of your Talk page so that you can access it easily.

Here are a few important links for newer Wikipedia editors:

• The five pillars of Wikipedia
• Wikipedia:Reliable sources and Wikipedia:CITE
• How to edit a page and How to develop articles
• Manual of Style and Writing better articles
• Editing by consensus – working well with other Wikipedians

If you'd like any help with editing, you can sign up at the new users log or ask me on my discussion (talk) page. If you need other help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, post a question at the Help Desk, or ask me.

Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. It is always wise to read the most recent entries at the bottom of the talk page of an existing article before making major changes to it. Before I make a major change to an article, I often make a proposal on the talk page to see if anyone minds.

Again, welcome! -- Ssilvers (talk) 19:17, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Block for Campus Ambassadors

This user was a Wikipedia Campus Ambassador.

I had created a new block for Campus Ambassadors because I was told there was not one yet. However, Basket of Puppies also created one. I am removing the one that I created to keep it consistent. You can add it to your userpage by adding {{User campus ambassador}} Lsukari (talk) 13:51, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Program Newsletter: 28 January 2011

The newsletter of the Wikipedia Ambassador Program – Volume 1, 28 January 2011 This is the first issue of the Wikipedia Ambassador Program newsletter. Please read it! It has important information about the the current wave of classes, instructions and advice, and other news about the ambassador program. Classes get active, students requesting mentors First mentor responsibilities Other news Things you can do

Delivered by EdwardsBot (talk) 00:34, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Program Newsletter: 13 February 2011

The newsletter of the Wikipedia Ambassador Program – Volume 1, 28 January 2011 This is the second issue of the Wikipedia Ambassador Program Newsletter, with details about what's going on right now and where help is needed. Userboxes and profiles - Add an ambassador userbox to your page, and make sure you've added your mentor profile! Be a coordinating ambassador - Pick and class and make sure no students fall through the cracks. New screencasts - Short videos on watchlists and a number of other topics may be useful to students. Updates from Campus Ambassadors - Ambassadors are starting to report on classroom experiences, both on-wiki and on the Google Group. Other news - There's a new on-wiki application for being an Online Ambassador, and Editing Friday #2 is today! Things you can do - This is just a sample; if you're eager for something to do, there's plenty more.

Delivered by EdwardsBot (talk) 18:25, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Program Newsletter: 21 March 2011

The newsletter of the Wikipedia Ambassador Program – Volume 3, 21 March 2011 This is the third issue of the Wikipedia Ambassador Program Newsletter, with details about what's going on right now and where help is needed. Where the courses are - A brief summary of how each of the 31 Public Policy Initiative courses are faring so far in the Spring 2011 term, as of 9-11 March. Feel free to add more detail. Tracking students' articles - Make sure students' articles are tagged with {{WAP assignment}} on the talk pages, and have the newly improved Article Feedback Tool active. Education portal in progress - Wikimedia staff have started work on an outreach portal for information about teaching with and about Wikipedia. Please help develop it! Online Ambassadors logistics - If you don't have a Wikipedia Ambassador sweatshirt, now's your chance to get one! (Also, some other more mundane, but important, details.) Steering committee preparing proposals - Look for discussions about two major proposals about the future ambassador program soon: the "Regional Ambassador" role, and elections for a new committee. Editing Friday returns - This Friday, join fellow ambassadors and others real-time collaboration on Wainwright Building.

Delivered by EdwardsBot (talk) 22:26, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Program Newsletter: 22 April 2011

The newsletter of the Wikipedia Ambassador Program – Volume 4, 22 April 2011 This is the fourth issue of the Wikipedia Ambassador Program Newsletter, with details about what's going on right now and where help is needed. Voting begins for steering committee - The voting phase for the Wikipedia Ambassador Steering Committee election started this week, and will continue through 27 April. Seeking more Regional Ambassadors in the US - We are still looking for Regional Ambassadors for the United States! The deadline has been extended to Friday, April 29th. India pilot being organized now - Plans are currently underway for a pilot expansion of the Wikipedia Ambassador Program – in India! Hisham Mundol and other Wikimedia staff have begun recruiting Campus Ambassador candidates for Pune. Document DYK, peer review and other milestone at the trophy case - If students you are working with (or any others you notice) are doing work that makes to DYK, is nominated for Good Article status, or is just solid content worth marking, then please help us document the students' success at the trophy case. Ambassador program at Wikimania - We're planning a set of Wikipedia Ambassador Program presentations for Wikimania 2011, in Haifa this August. Changes to mailing list - A new low-volume mailing list, [Ambassador-announce-l], is being created. It will be reserved for key announcements and news, which we'd like all ambassadors to be subscribed to.

Delivered by EdwardsBot (talk) 16:36, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Friday Session

This was worthwhile couple of days in preparation for the the fall semester ˜˜˜˜ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lasharky (talk • contribs) 13:47, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

A beer for you!

Thanks for all your hard work! Dylanstaley (talk) 13:50, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

A pie for you!

Thanks for setting up this course Lasharky (talk) 13:51, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Theatre course

Hi, Rburdette. Thanks for the message. I don't like infoboxes. In my opinion: First, they are redundant, and the same information is better given in narrative format in the WP:LEAD. Second, they make the article more difficult to edit, and daunting to even attempt to edit, for newbies. Third, they are the frequent targets of vandalism, and they are almost invariably filled with small errors. Fourth, they distract the editors from focusing on the content of the article; instead of improving the article, they spend lots of time working on this cosmetic feature and its extensive coding and formatting. I recommend against using them, and I particularly recommend against having the students spend any of their valuable time working on the infoboxes. Having said that, the article on Harold Pinter has an infobox, as does the one on Bernadette Peters. Contrast this with the excellent article on Noël Coward, which does not have an infobox: if you look at this, you may agree with me that the infobox is not needed. Best regards! -- Ssilvers (talk) 21:35, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

BTW, since the course is about script analysis, I was surprised to see that all the the articles are about actors and playwrights, rather than about plays. Any reason for this, or did you feel that bio articles were more accessible? There are some good examples of articles about plays, such as Proserpine (play), The Importance of Being Earnest, and Carousel (musical). All the best! -- Ssilvers (talk) 22:23, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

student lists on course pages

Hi Rebecca! Thanks for setting up all these LSU course pages! I notice that you have been frequently blanking the /Students subpages. If you don't want the list of students to show up on the main course page, that's fine. However, it's important to have each of the students' accounts linked from that subpage, because that's how we are gathering the usernames of participating students for the Leaderboard. I formatted an example of how you can do that without having it show up on the course page: Wikipedia:United States Education Program/Courses/Prokaryotic Diversity (Gary King)/Students. The links to the students' accounts are added between "noinclude" tags, keeping them invisible on the main course page. --Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 15:47, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks much for the feedback on the Wizard! I'll put improving the "getting help" thing on my todo list; changing the image to a button with text on it should be easy.

As for the glitch with starting that tab, yeah, unfortunately I can't think of a good way to bypass it. It's been created after you save the first time, but unless you purge the server cache, it will often not register as existing in the tabs interface immediately. (It will show up eventually.) Attempting to create the page again (which means you simply saves a blank edit with no changes from the previous version) is one way to purge the server cache.

Once the new onboarding portal is ready (through which students can create their accounts), which should be in place by next term, there won't be any need to keep the Students subpages if you don't want them.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 17:27, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

A streamlined process like that is in the cards once the new portal gets built (from what I gather of the plans, the portal is where people with virtually sign the MOU, monitor course activity, and communicate with pod members, all in a simpler non-wiki interface), but it's not in the cards for this term.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 18:33, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Restoring the Students subpages

Sure, I'll do that tomorrow morning now.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 16:40, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Here's what I did: except for the one that already was using a Students section, I transcluded the /Articles subpage into the /Students subpage, but kept it inside noinclude tags so it won't show on the course page. So the professors can now just keep using the Articles sections as the lists of students... just try to make sure all the students get listed (and linked to their userpages) on those articles lists, and that no other people have links to their own userpages who aren't students. Let me know if that works for you, or you'd rather a different arrangement.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 17:05, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Come hang out with us online!

Hi! I wanted to let you know that we have created an IRC channel for "countering systemic bias one new editor at a time", aka closing the gender gap! Come hang out at #wikimedia-gendergap if that subject interests you. We hope this channel can serve as a safe haven to hang out, talk about Wiki, brainstorming, women in Wikimedia, article alerts and foster friendships. I hope you join us! (And if you need any IRC help, just let me know!) See you there! SarahStierch (talk) 13:21, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

email notifications about talk page changes

Hi! I replied on my talk page (in case the answer is helpful to others who come bye as well).--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 16:24, 27 September 2011 (UTC)