User talk:Thelmadatter

July 26, 2007

Thelma,

You're right. I did miss the message above. I'm not sure why. It is a bit risky to add new messages into an old thread. The "diff" feature of Wikimedia software should highlight all new text but sometimes the human (e.g. me) might miss it. Better to put new threads at the bottom of Talk Pages which is the convention. If you do put new stuff into old threads, make sure to put it in a separate edit and with an edit summary so as to highlight that it is separate from anything else you are typing.

As for breaking out new threads, use either pairs of == or === to indicate sections or subsections. Thus, when I put "How to cite an email or interview?" inside a pair of == (i.e. ==How to cite an email or interview?==), it created a "level 2" section header. Do not use level 1 section headers as it will mess things up. (I don't know why. That's just what the user guide says.)

--Richard 18:31, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

As for citing e-mails, well, the problem is that an e-mail is not considered a reliable source because it is not verifiable.

In the "real world", personal communications such as conversations and e-mails are cited in academic journals but Wikipedia has a stricter standard because the standard of a "reliable source" is that the material in question has to have gone through some sort of professional review process (e.g. a peer-reviewed journal, a newspaper or a major publishing house) and the standard of verifiablity is that anyone can obtain a copy of the source in question and verify that it really says what the article claims it says.

My recommendation is that you should just include the material without a citation and if anyone challenges you for a citation, you will have to go back to Luis Abaddie and ask him for a citable source.

--Richard 18:31, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Mexico Project

Hi, Thelmadatter! Alixb and I are trying to get the Mexico Project organized again. I would be willing to help your students, and I hope to persuade others to do the same, if they are interested in working on the Mexico Project. --Hugo Estrada 03:21, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Infoboxes for municipalities

Hi, again! Well, I think that participating in the info-box for municipalities project falls nicely into the small contributions that you are talking about. The info-box project is to create info boxes, which are the summary boxes on the right with key information for Mexican municipalities. Since many of these don't have a wiki page, some will be starting a stub as they work on this information. Do you think that this project can be incorporated to your curriculum? --Hugo Estrada 01:37, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I would like to continue the conversation here as I would like it to be available for my students when they start exploring Wikipedia. I will leave messages on your talk page if you are not watching this one. The municipalities project is a great idea, esp. for students who cant seem to find a topic. I want to be as flexible as I can with the topics to keep their motivation up, but at least no one cant say there's nothing to write about! Thelmadatter 18:41, 24 July 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter

Hey, maybe doing a few of the infoboxes will encourage them to come up with their own topics :P --Hugo Estrada 01:50, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Maybe a first step is to start an article titled List of Mexican cities or List of Mexican municipalities. --Richard 03:22, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Well I know there are individual articles for the state municipalities and there is a Category for all the Municipalities in Mexico Category:Municipalities of Mexico, but well it could be easier for students to search through a list. Alixb 05:13, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

This is a good idea. I will see if I can get it going tomorrow :) --Hugo Estrada 04:18, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I see Hugo's definition of an info box but where can I see an example? Thelmadatter 15:12, 25 July 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter

Look at the big box on the right hand side of the Mexico City article. I will comment that, while infobox creation is a useful project and easy in terms of finding the data to put in it, it does not ultimately serve your purpose of teaching your students English. If I understand correctly, your course is not a course in Wikipedia and Wiki formatting but in mastering English. I would recommend that infoboxes not take more than one week out of the course. It might be a good introductory assignment. --Richard 15:30, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Now that I see what an infobox is I have to agree with Richard. I want them to spend as much time writing in English and thinking about how to express themselves in English and as little time as possible figuring out Wikipedia. To that end, the assignments I would like them to do are the following:

1) Edit an existing article (adding/updating/correcting information with citation) 2) Create a stub with a citation 3) Translate a short, but complete English Wiki article into Spanish and put into the Spanish Wiki site (not sure if this one is plausible tho I like the idea of doing a translation very much) 4) (Final Project) Write a complete article in English (not translated from Spanish!) to contribute to English Wiki. This article can be developed from the stub.

If existing infoboxes can help with topic selection, that would be great. We could suggest to students which ones to look at. But I dont think creating infoboxes would be useful to students at this level (very very highly advanced). If things work out well with this.. maybe we can think of simpler (language-wise) projects for lower-level students.

FYI, the reason I want them to contribute to Wikipedia is that it will allow them to have an "authentic" audience (meaning real people and not just the teacher). This will make them think about what they should write and why - not just grammar and mechanics.

Richard... I thought I could separate my talk page into threads similar to what I think I saw on your page. However, I wrote something in the WikiProject Mexico section of this page (right above the "Mentoring" heading about citing interviews or emails. But it seems that you didnt see it. What should I do to organize this better?

Thelmadatter 16:10, 25 July 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter

Thelmadatter, yes it is true that the infoboxes do not requiere much expressing your self in english but I think the vast majority of missing articles lie in cities and municipalities of Mexico that have not been created, what I am saying is that we are not simply proposing going around in articles in Mexico and adding infoboxes where needed but, to create a really simple article where one is missing and if addding an infobox is needed so be it. Example of this would be the article Hugo Estrada created just two days ago: Municipality of Nochistlán de Mejía or one I created a few days ago: Apulco. Or it could be that they add the history of cities in Mexico that are lacking or additional information. Alixb 17:10, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

How about having the info box as an initial assignment on mastering the mechanics of wiki, combining the ideas that Richard and Alixb gave? After that, it would be up to the students to decide if they want to continue with the info box project or not :) Also, you can always suggest the info box/city page stub project as a fall back initial project for the indecisive who can't come with a topic on their own. :) --Hugo Estrada 02:11, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I think it would be best to leave infoboxes as an option, depending on what my students choose for a topic. I will use your municipalities pages as examples as I agree that the infoboxes on those pages are quite useful and make the page look more professional. Part of the assignment is learning to adapt to a new "culture" (and Wikipedia is a culture). If they need infoboxes and have trouble creating them... they can put the infobox info at the bottom of the article they write and/or go to you guys for help. Since I am not limiting their topics to municipalities (just suggesting it as a possibility, along with biographies, local festivals/holidays and food as they are relatively easy to research), they may or may not need infoboxes in their articles.

Mentoring

This thread has been moved to Wikipedia talk:School and university projects/ITESM Campus Toluca/Mentors as a first step towards organizing course-related discussions by topic. --Richard 05:26, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Another place to get help

You may be interested in Wikipedia:WikiProject Classroom coordination. Editors over there would be glad to help in any way. Feel free to give them a shout at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classroom coordination.↔NMajdan•talk 21:13, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Assignments for Advanced B in Wikipedia

This thread has been moved to Wikipedia talk:School and university projects/ITESM Campus Toluca/Assignments.

Classroom co-ordination

Please see Wikipedia:WikiProject Classroom coordination. We have had Wikipedia as the assignment for classes before, and the people there are experienced in that and can help you. You may wish to post on User talk:Durova, as one of the organizers of that effort. KillerChihuahua^?!? 22:39, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Reorganization of these pages

Thelma,

This page was getting way too long and too disorganized so I took the liberty of moving the stuff related to mentoring to subpages in the Wikipedia namespace. As instructed by Wikipedia:School and university projects, I created a page for this class project and named it Wikipedia:School and university projects/ITESM Campus Toluca.

I then created a subpage titled Wikipedia:School and university projects/ITESM Campus Toluca/Mentors and put much of the mentor-related discussion that was on this page in Wikipedia talk:School and university projects/ITESM Campus Toluca/Mentors.

I also created a subpage titled Wikipedia talk:School and university projects/ITESM Campus Toluca/Assignments where I put the discussion about assignments. The actual assignments would eventually wind up on Wikipedia:School and university projects/ITESM Campus Toluca/Assignments.

If you have a syllabus, you can put it at Wikipedia:School and university projects/ITESM Campus Toluca/Syllabus.

The list of students can be put in Wikipedia:School and university projects/ITESM Campus Toluca/Students.

I acknowledge that I have been quite bold in doing this. However, it was easier to just do it than to try and describe what I had in mind. I hope you see these changes as improvements. If not, the beauty of Wikipedia is that the previous versions of these pages are easily restored. Let me know if you want to go with this new approach or revert to the old pages.

reorganization

You're a marvelous person! thanks! Thelmadatter 13:46, 27 July 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter --Richard 05:47, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

You're welcome. I have created the following shortcuts which will reduce the amount of typing necessary to get to the course pages.

• WP:ITESM Campus Toluca
• Wikipedia:ITESM Campus Toluca

NB: These shortcuts work exactly as provided above. You cannot, for instance, type WP:ITESM Campus Toluca/Mentors. I could set up shortcuts to the subpages also but I haven't done that yet.

--Richard 17:27, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Sourcing

Hello! I have recently been in contact with Luis Abbadie who is a Wiccan of some note here in Mexico. He gave me information about the first time Wicca is mentioned in Mexican literature, long with the citation of the book. I would like to include this information in the article but I wish to give Mr. Abbadie due credit. Any suggestions?

Hello. I've moved the help request to your talk page per protocol. The main issue with including personal testimony is WP:VERIFIABILITY. The information would need to be in a form such that it could be verified by a Wikipedian seeking to confirm the information. For that reason, one cannot just cite a conversation.

Have a nice day,

The Rhymesmith 21:52, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

response to Rhymesmith about sourcing

Thank you for your response. I see your point. Thelmadatter 07:34, 29 July 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter

Contents Box

How can we get a Contents box up that covers all of this page and on the project page?

Thelmadatter 14:16, 27 July 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter

I have created a navigation bar which can be inserted on every course-related page that allows the user to quickly navigate from one page to another. However, I'm not sure if this is what you meant by the above request. If this is not what you had in mind, could you explain what you're looking for in more detail? --Richard 18:50, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

One more quick comment about the nav bar. It uses the Aztec sun calendar at the top of the box. I did this primarily because I was familiar with the nav bar for the Aztec articles. Any image can be uploaded and used there as long as it is a free image (i.e. no copyright restrictions exist). --Richard 22:10, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Reponse to Contents box

I like the navigation bar a lot! I have been having problems going back and forth between all the pages associated with this project. When students have their pages... its going to be quite messy! So this should help a lot. What I meant by "contents box" was the box at the top of this page that lists the headings and subheadings of messages.

Thank your for all your technical help Richard! My only small complaint is that you should have made me correct the citations on the Machaca page so I had to learn to use the templates. Thelmadatter 16:47, 31 July 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter

Article on Machaca

Just upgraded the stub on machaca to a full article with citations. Anyone care to take a look and critique it? Thelmadatter 15:43, 30 July 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter

Looks good. I changed the references to use </ref> and {{cite}} citation formats. Check out Template:cite book, Template:cite journal and Template:cite web for details.

--Richard 18:22, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I just reformatted the Machaca article to conform with standard conventions for formatting Wikipedia articles. --Richard 16:54, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Matching mentors to mentees

Thelma,

I'm not sure if you are watching all the course-related pages. If not, I suggest that you do so. That way, editors and students can leave comments on the relevant pages and know that you will see their message.

In case you are not already watching Wikipedia talk:School and university projects/ITESM Campus Toluca/Mentors, I wanted to led you know that I left a message for you on that page.

--Richard 19:13, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Your name

I've been calling you "Thelma" on the assumption that your name was "Thelma Datter". However, your user page says that you are "Leigh Thelmadatter". Would it be more appropriate to address you as "Leigh"?

--Richard 21:27, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Structure of group pages

I have left you a message on this topic at Wikipedia:School and university projects/ITESM Campus Toluca.

--Richard 21:27, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Sundry comments

First, interesting story about your name. Is it your real name or just one you use on the Internet? The reason I ask is that I'm a little surprised at the form. If it were Swedish, I think it would be something like "Thelmasdotter". For example, "Ericsson" is "Eric's con", "Nilsson" is the son of Nils, etc. Is Norwegian different from Swedish or were you just deciding that Thelmadatter sounded better than Thelmasdatter? A useless and picky point but I just thought I'd ask.

Second, I'm glad that you were able to figure out the syntax of the navigation bar so quickly. It's not rocket science but it was gratifying to see you jump on it so quickly.

Finally, I looked at Machaca again and noticed that you linked eggs and onion. Everyone knows what eggs and onions are and their articles are not likely to shed any light on Machaca or Mexican cuisine. There is no hard and fast rule about linking but, in general, overlinking is bad and overlinking happens when links are created to articles that are not likely to be of much use to the reader. I delinked those words and linked chile verde and Poblano which would be of more value to a reader who is unfamiliar with Mexican cuisine. This might be a tiny point you could share with your class.

--Richard 18:53, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I wasnt so sure about linking onion and eggs either but they were linked in the original stub. I wanted to link the chiles but I didnt get pages when I tried to link to chiles verdes or chiles poblanos so I figured they didnt exist. I was certain that when I created my name, I did it correctly. It may be that to add the possessive s is optional. In Icelandic "daughter" is dőttir and I dont think a possessive s is used. And Thelmadatter is my real and legal last name.

Thelmadatter 19:02, 31 July 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter

Help with First Translation Attempt

Similar to what I want my students to do (translate an article from their L2 (non-native language) to L1 (native language)), I translated the article of Alfonso de Orleans from Spanish to English, using the translation request page. I also change the status of the project from request to proofreaders needed though the page does not appear in the proofreaders list. I left a message on the discussion page about the needs of the translation. Those of you with better Spanish than I are more than welcome to make improvements. Thelmadatter 16:03, 3 August 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter

Help request...

I have just received a request for help from 132.254.101.49 (please see my talk page for the message)... unfortunately I have no idea who this user is, or how to reach them, as they have requested help from an IP address and not an account.

I am very happy to help them, and would appreciate it if you could find out who requested help and get them to create an account so I can help.

Many thanks, Tom H 22:03, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I really think it's important for students to create accounts. That said, I would suggest for now that you just respond to the student with a reply on your Talk Page. Hopefully, he/she will revisit your page and see your response. I would also suggest that questions about what the teacher intends to be done for an assignment should be redirected to Wikipedia talk:School and university projects/ITESM Campus Toluca/Syllabus so that Thelmadatter can answer the questions.

Leigh, another important reason for students to create accounts is so that they can create a watchlist and watch Talk Pages for responses to their comments and questions.

--Richard 00:47, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

response to Tom and Richard

I saw and responded to what my student wrote on Tom's discussion page. I have not yet assigned anything to them about Wikipedia. I will address this today in class and make it clear that they do not yet have to worry about it ... tho any who wish to browse may.

While I see your point about individual student pages, I am concerned about crossed wired once students work in groups with their mentors. Mentors would not want the same question from more than one student and that probably would happen if each member of the group communicates individually with the mentor. For the purposes of classwork, communication should be done as a "single voice" of the group. If students want to have an individual page, that is fine but communication related to coursework needs to be done only on the group's page. Thelmadatter 13:59, 8 August 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter

I understand the concern about "crossed wires". Perhaps it would be good to have each student display prominently on their user and user talk page, a request to have all class-related discussion placed on their group page. Alternatively, this can be forced by requiring that, for the duration of the course, the individual user and user talk pages be redirected to the group page. That way, for the duration of the course, the student doesn't really have a user or user talk page that is different from the group page. --Richard 15:07, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree, I think all course related discussion needs to be done from the group page via a single group voice. Tom H 18:28, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia club

Hi Thelma, I've written a response back on the talk page. If anything becomes of it I'll let you know! --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 22:16, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I meant on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classroom coordination. But it was nothing else except letting everyone know that there's still two and a half weeks to school, so nothing's been done yet. :) Best, Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 22:42, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Translation Protocol

Hi Richard!

When you get back off vacation, can you take a look at an article I am translating into English? Specifically, I dont know how to put the "permanent link" to the article. The translation page is at

Wikipedia:Translation/Luis_G._Abbadie

I have fixed the problem with the "permanent link". This diff should show you the problem that you were having. --Richard 14:40, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I would also like to find someone over at Spanish Wikipedia (bilingual preferably) who can be as helpful as you (if such a thing is possible! hee hee) about the translation policies over there. Do you know someone I can contact? I sent a message to one of the mentor volunteers who said he knows something about the "cultural differences" between Wikipedias.

Thanks for the compliment. As for "finding someone over at Spanish Wikipedia", you might try their help desk. Here's a link to the café which provides links to other possible sources of assistance. --Richard 14:40, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Enjoy the rest of your vacation! Thelmadatter 16:43, 15 August 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter

It was very enjoyable, thank you. Now I'm back. --Richard 14:40, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Using categories

OK dumb question but Im going around in circles trying to figure it out. How do you look up articles within a category? Like Category:Mexico?Thelmadatter 19:24, 21 August 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter

It's not so dumb a question. Categories are very powerful but they're not quite intuitive unless you have a computer-geek mentality. There are currently only two articles in Category:Mexico - Mexico and Ixmiquilpan. And Ixmiquilpan probably doesn't belong in Category:Mexico; it just hasn't been categorized into a subcategory yet.

Try this. Click on Category:Mexico. Then click on the "+" sign next to the subcategory "Mexican culture" and keep going like this with "Arts in Mexico", "Mexican art", "Mexican artists" and finally "Mexican painters". You will notice that when you click on the "+" sign next to "Mexican painters", it says "No subcategories". You can now click on "Mexican painters" and find a list of articles on Mexican painters.

The key thing to understand here is that a category can have both subcategories and articles. For example, Category:Mexican culture has 55 articles and about 20 subcategories.

For more info, read Wikipedia:Categorization.

--Richard 19:34, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

HK

Thelmadatter, thanks for leaving the note, and I'm very encouraged by your project! Please do feel free to email me directly and we can talk. Would be happy to share what I can. Cheers. -- Fuzheado | Talk 10:30, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

one thing...     una cosa…

Since I am in in 6th grade, and am actually only a little fluent in Spanish, I may be so loaded with homework that I might not be able to help that much. They've shortened our classes by 5 minutes. It doesn't seem much, but it cuts our class time to do homework, and once you think about it, it all adds up. Sorry for any inconvenience! Jonjonbt 02:17, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

En español:

Puesto que estoy adentro en el 6to grado, y la realmente solamente un poco fluido en español, puedo ser así que cargado con la preparación que puede ser que no pueda ayudar que mucho. Han acortado nuestras clases por 5 minutos. No parece mucha, sino que corta nuestro tiempo de la clase para hacer la preparación, y una vez que piensas de ella, toda agrega para arriba. ¡Apesadumbrado para cualquie inconveniencia! Jonjonbt 02:17, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

A couple of ideas

WP:BLP certainly applies to all living people, and you might want to have the students review that. If you could give us some idea of what sort of content your students might be contributing, we might better be able to help you determine catgeorization, existing articles, etc. Category:Mexico and all of its subcats will be useful in finding out what already exists, but maybe not as useful as it could be. I guess my main strength, if any, might be working with biographies, and/or maybe religion in Mexico, even, to a weak extent, Aztec/Maya/Olmec/whatever religion. Let me know what if any content relevant to those subjects they might be working with, and I'll do what I can. John Carter 19:22, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

That will depend on them. My class is not a "content" class like history or sociology.. I am teaching English as a foreign language. I want them to write something about their own country or culture... something they would probably know better or research better than the average native English speaker. That is part of the reason why mentors like you are so great... You can help me with things like this... I sure dont want them to write or edit something that will just disappear. Thelmadatter 20:17, 28 August 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter

RE:hola!

¡Hola! I am es:Usuario:Boricuaeddie at the Spanish Wikipedia. I look forward to helping your students! --Boricuaeddie 20:09, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Response

I apologise, but somethings have come up in my personal life, and I dont have enough time to do this anymore. My sincerist apologies. Atomic Religione 21:22, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Dont worry. I figured things like this could happen. Fortunately, there are a lot of volunteers. I removed your name fromt he list. Take care! Thelmadatter 12:42, 29 August 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter

Help

Hey. I would like to help with your students, but I am still in school myself, and my schedule will restrict me from being a full time mentor, but I will help as much as i can. Talk to me if you need a few small jobs done. ¡Vea el ya! -Tobi4242 22:29, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

English Advanced B class

Hi Thelmadatter,

I just want to ask, will your students edit Wikipedia through an IP address or will they create an account for themselves? --Jackl 08:22, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I will have them create accounts in the groups that they will be working in. I will post those usernames on the navigation bar that appears on my userpage and on the project page. The first thing I want students to do is to connect with the Wikipedia community before they even do any editing. Thelmadatter 12:40, 29 August 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter

Formatting tweaks, 5P

Hi,

I'm a bit of a formatting weiner, I was on the Wikipedia:School and university projects/ITESM Campus Toluca/Syllabus page and noticed there's a lot of 'hard' external links (www.wikipedia.org/whatever) - would you prefer them as external links, or as wikilinks? To a wikipedian they look kinda ugly, wikilinks are much smoother, but if you're printing out the instructions, obviously you'd want the whole url.

Also, an unrelated suggestion - perhaps have a line where you point out the five pillars to them and suggest that they read it. They'll get along with experienced wikipedians not involved in the project if they have a basic understanding of the WP:5P. Just my thoughts, feel free to ignore them. WLU 13:50, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Hey... be a wiener all you want. I copied that from my syllabus, which is on a program called Blackboard for my students. I copied it there for the sake of the mentors that volunteered, so your comments on changing them to wikilinks is valid. Maybe you can answer another Q for me... on the mentors page Wikipedia:School and university projects/ITESM Campus Toluca/Mentors there is a huge space pushing the mentor's table down past view because of the navigation bar. Is there some way to fix that? The navigation bar is going to get a bit bigger when I add my students' userpage links to it. This partial students will focus on how to become good Wikipedians and communicate with the community. They will do presentations on the basics of working with Wikipedia all this month, before they contribute anything. We will relate a lot of what is covered in policy to the notion of "culture" learned this month (partial) Thelmadatter 16:49, 29 August 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter

Unfortunately you can't really get rid of the whitespace with the template you are using. Perhaps you could find someone with ninja-skills in tables, and the sub-sections could be compressed, but unfortunately I lack the talent. I'll see if I can have a go, but I don't know how helpful it'll be. Feel free to revert if I screw it up.

One thing I'll add is WP:TALK to the template - the talk pages are pretty vital to any collaboration on wikipedia, and it's helpful to know the rules. Review and let me know what you think. WLU 17:29, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

One suggestion for avoiding the whitespace would be to replace the Navbox with a template at the bottom of the page. I'm looking into creating one. Tables are confusing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by WLU (talk • contribs) 18:18, August 29, 2007 (UTC)

Or we can just put a big old down arrow in the white space! hee hee hee Thelmadatter 18:38, 29 August 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter

Have a look at this. Obviously I have to tweak the colours, add the image at the top, and try to get the template to navigate to the side, but if I can do that then we might have a solution. It totally ripped this off of this guy. I might ask him for help. WLU 19:13, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

OH YOU ARE MY HERO! That is soooooo excellent!Thelmadatter 19:38, 29 August 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter

At this point you could paste it into the template page here and it would transclude to all the pages where your current very long one is sitting. Hopefully the software won't gag on it. I'm still trying to tweak it to get an image at the top, if I'm successful I'll let you know. Or I could do it, but I'm mid-move and don't know what my internet access will be like in about 10 minutes. WLU 20:18, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I believe I rule. The template should be OK now, even has the image at the top. I'm going to try it! WLU 20:23, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I've edited the appropriate page, if you want to revert, just click on this link, then edit, then save. It'll revert to the version just before I pasted my newer, expandable template in. I'm still going to see if I can get tweaking help, so it might change but not by a lot. The only problem I can see is it might take pages longer to load. WLU 20:29, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

You DO rule! Not gonna touch it.. works out perfectly! Thelmadatter 22:23, 29 August 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter

I gotta say, I am pretty pleased with how it turned out, though I have no idea how what I did worked. I feel like I'm the guy in the Chinese room. WLU 01:16, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, I learned something new...but I say "Dont look a gift horse in the mouth" You dun good.Thelmadatter 14:59, 30 August 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter

<cough>Barnstar</cough> WLU 17:22, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Looks like the category has been fixed. Cats are normally not added as text embedded within a page, they just appear at the bottom of the page to link related articles. If you want to add another cat to the template, write it as [[:Category:Mexico]] with the colon at the beginning, which appears as Category:Mexico like a wikilink; without the colon it's just a category and will only appear at the bottom. It can also be formatted as a wikilink - put in a pipe and it will appear as the text after the pipe ([[:Category:Mexico|CATMEX]] becomes CATMEX) WLU 16:59, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Excellent! Thanks! Thelmadatter 17:54, 2 September 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter

Account

I was formerly theunicyclegirl but now I am GorillaWarfare. Thought I'd warn you. ;) --GorillaWarfare ^talk 18:57, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

ITESM Campus Toluca

I would like to know if your class begins tomorrow or the day after. I live in the US, so tomorrow will be Labor Day. Please reply on my talk page.Laleena 21:35, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't see the user-groups yet. Good luck! Laleena 20:45, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Just dropping by to wish you the best of luck with this project! Cheers, Neranei (talk) 20:51, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

When?

So what day are we getting the adoptees? J-stan ^Talk_Contribs 02:19, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Nice to see the enthusiasm!! Be patient just a little while longer. I had them look at the pages associated with the project last night and will have them create userpages tonight. Thelmadatter 13:16, 4 September 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter

Oh cool, so we should expect them within the next week or so? J-stan ^Talk_Contribs 14:34, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I expect you should start seeing them within the week. Watch this discussion page and the Nav Bar, as soon as they notify me of the existence of their userpages, it will be in both places. You dont have to wait for them to come to you if you want to get started. Next week they have to give presentations on aspects of Wikipedia to help oriente themselves and the rest of the class.Thelmadatter 14:38, 4 September 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter

Oh, boy! I can hardly wait! *User shakes with anticipation* Arky ^¡Hablar! 16:36, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

• • User page created**

Miss this is our userpage, check it out!!! 132.254.138.70 18:34, 5 September 2007 (UTC)User:APPLETEAM132.254.138.70 18:34, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia, Appleteam! Arky ^¡Hablar! 18:46, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Problem with student accounts

Whoa, whoa, are you all different people working on the same account? That can be considered a compromised account and you can be blocked under that name. If you are all User:Appleteam, consider creating separate accounts. But anyway, Welcome! J-stan ^Talk_Contribs 18:56, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

for the purposes of the class I want students to work in groups under the same username. See nav bar. They will be working in groups as they contribute to Wikipedia... it is better if they speak with "one voice" instead of communicating separately with mentors and other wikipedians... less chaos. I hope this can be acceptable.Thelmadatter 19:08, 5 September 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter

I looked at the blocking policy and if I understand it correctly, this should not be a violation unless there is disruption. I dont see how this will be disruptive. Thelmadatter 19:22, 5 September 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter

I don't see how separate usernames could create "chaos", just have each mentor create a subpage on their user page for each group to watch, and that way, it all stays organized. It might not be disruptive, but I know there's something against compromised accounts. J-stan ^Talk_Contribs 19:32, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I've found it. This policy states specifically that "you are not allowed to share your account or password with others." I'm sorry, but the group accounts have to go. J-stan ^Talk_Contribs 20:02, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Who do I ask for some kind of special exception? I am too far along into this project to have this kind of problem. I want them to have an account so that they learn to integrate into the Wikipedian community but I dont want mentors writing the same thing on 4 different userpages. or getting the same question from 4 people. I also dont want to be monitoring about 60 individual pages and trying piece together how the group interacted with their mentors and each other. I discussed this with Richard some time back on this or the school project page.Thelmadatter 20:11, 5 September 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter

That's where my suggestion comes in. Lot's of administrator coaches create a "coaching" subpage. Each mentor could have a subpage, and their group could discuss things on that page. You would only have to watch about 5, depending on your number of students. J-stan ^Talk_Contribs 20:21, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I have over 40 people who have volunteered to mentor, enough to have multiple mentors for each group. Not having their own page IMHO takes away from the Wikipedia experience. If I cant get around the ban against group pages, maybe I can have subpages on my username for each group. But really, it would be better to have some kind of exception to policy in this case.Thelmadatter 20:27, 5 September 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter

Also, of course, you could create a "Class" page of your own in userspace, like User:Thelmadatter/Students, which might have the various individual student user pages linked to it, maybe even indicating the individual student's specialty. That might be a way of "centralizing" the students. You might also ask each student who has created their own userpage to make their individual user talk pages redirects to a "group" talk page. I think wikipedia policy would permit an individual user to turn their individual talk page into a redirect to another, multi-user, talk page. Also, I've contacted the presumptive founder of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Classroom coordination, and hope that that party might be contacting you as the opportunity permits. With any luck, she'll have a better idea of what is possible here. John Carter 20:31, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

It is my understanding of the GFDL that having multiple people editing under one username violates the GFDL as each author's contributions should be attributed to that individual. Other's with a better understanding of the GFDL may want to step in this discussion. Granted, I have not investigated what exactly you are doing here, but if you are wanting each team to have one ID and then edit the same userpage, you could have all students create an ID and then assign a team leader and have all members of that team edit on that person's talk page.↔NMajdan•talk 20:37, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that giving each user their own userspace, and then have a separate mentoring page (in your userspace, or each mentor's userspace) for each group is a great idea. Giving each student their own userspace certainly adds to the wikipedia experience, it doesn't take away from it. J-stan ^Talk_Contribs 20:41, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, we cannot make an exception since allowing multiple editors to edit under one acct violates WP:U and WP:GFDL, just to name a few. However, we can try to come up with a solution that allows your students to continue with their project on Wikipedia. Again, you can have all your students create individual accounts and then assign them to edit only one user's talk page. Or you can create subpages on your username (such as User:Thelmadatter/Group1, User:Thelmadatter/Group2, etc) and have them edit that. Each individuals edits must be attributable to that user's ID, and that is impossible when multiple editors use one ID.↔NMajdan•talk 20:53, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Here is a possible solution. I created a subpage of the Project Page Wikipedia:School_and_university_projects/ITESM_Campus_Toluca/Appleteam and the students can put there usernames (when they all have them) on this page. They communicate with mentors and others about their school-related projects here and here only. On their personal pages, they can do whatever they like, but I will not be checking them. Is that acceptable?Thelmadatter 22:42, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Sure, that sounds good. You should create pages like this for each group. Would you like me to mentor Appleteam?

Also, what are you going to do about User:Appleteam?J-stan ^Talk_Contribs 22:44, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

you can go to Appleteams page and volunteer but give me a little time to get students settled. This is going to complicate things immensely for them and Wikipedia is not the most intuitive site to get around in. Ill let you know about the already-establish userpages as soon as I talk to my students. Thelmadatter 22:49, 5 September 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter

I established group pages for Appleteam, ZYANYA06 and Copitas atAppleteam,ZYANYA06,Copitas and I left messages for them at the userpages I created. Its going to be messy but hopefully I can get all the group pages up quickly.Thelmadatter 23:13, 5 September 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter

OK. By the way, you don't have to type your username after the four swing-dashes. J-stan ^Talk_Contribs 02:57, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I received a request to take a look at this situation and I have to agree: because of GDFL copyright licensing issues it's beyond the power of individual editors - or even administrators - to approve role accounts. You might try e-mailing the Wikimedia Foundation, but really it's better to have the individual students register individual accounts. You could still keep things fairly straightforward by assigning sequential usernames, such as...

• Appleteam1
• Appleteam2
• Appleteam3
• Orangeteam1
• Orangeteam2
• Orangeteam3

I hope that solves your dilemma. Feel free to contact me at my user talk if you have further questions. Best regards, and thanks for incorporating Wikipedia into your class. Durova^Charge! 02:44, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

user page created

ZYANYA06 19:04, 5 September 2007 (UTC)ZYANYA06ZYANYA06 19:04, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

why doesnt this link to a valid userpage? Thelmadatter 19:12, 5 September 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter

Not sure, although the actual account does exsit (see here). Perhaps when they created the account they thought they'd made a userpage. Ah well, Arky ^¡Hablar! 19:28, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi teacher, We´d just made our user page [1] Mexico Japan 19:39, 5 September 2007 (UTC)Mexico_Japan

Hi teacher, this is our user pageCopitas 19:54, 5 September 2007 (UTC)Copitas

Welcome to wikipedia! I just wanted to post to let you know that when you sign your messages, you don't need to type your username out after the ~~~~, the software will figure it out on its own. To demonstrate, if I type in '~~~~', the software returns my full signature: --ST47Talk·Desk 21:33, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Zyasel88 18:02, 6 September 2007 (UTC)Zyasel88Zyasel88 18:02, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi teacher!! my personal page created, Zyanya

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ktiianas

Contributing/mentoring via watchlist

Leigh, I'd like to contribute to your great project, but the word "mentor" gives me hives. I'd rather add pages to my watchlist and edit an article or discuss via talk page as something catches my attention, but don't know if that would be helpful if you already have too many editors helping out. Good luck and many halos for you. Flowanda | Talk 01:47, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

That would be great! Welcome! Thelmadatter 13:44, 7 September 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter

Fortitudodei88 17:53, 7 September 2007 (UTC)Fortitudodei88Fortitudodei88 17:53, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Userpage creation was succesfull

100 word assignment

Students, while I appreciate the kind words, what I really want is your thoughts about what you have read on this discussion page. I dont really see anything in these 3 writings that indicate that you read these pages. Thelmadatter 16:51, 8 September 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter

Mentors

Hello. I am one of the mentors with my name on your list of mentors. I was wondering whether you would be assigning your students to us, or whether you would rather we just simply help out. Essentially, I am trying to ask the following: will they be coming to us, or should we be going to them? --דניאל - Dantheman531 02:30, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Either way... in the end, it is the students' responsibility to make sure that they have the help they they need; however, if mentors approach them, Im sure it will be appreciated. I have told them to work on their group pages, so that in case any of you guys want to take the initiative, you have some idea who you are contacting. I thought about assigning mentors, but decided against it because I felt it would take away some from the "wikipedia experience" and I didnt want students coming to me to fix their problems if a mentor disappeared. Thelmadatter 13:36, 10 September 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter

What do you mean "Wikipedia experience"? You've used that before, and as a new user, what does the "wikipedia experience" mean to you? J-ſtan ^Talk_Contribs 14:08, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I have described Wikipedia as a "culture" and a "society". Like becoming part of any society, one must experience the disorientation of learning how to function within that culture. That includes culture clash (where values collide, as they did with the discussion about group user pages) and culture shock (the feeling of disorientation as you are trying to learn a complete set of rules). As their teacher, I am required to guide them through the experience but I cannot and should not explain everything to them. I doubt too many Wikipedians learned how to contribute to this by having someone over their shoulder, explaining every question they had to them in person. One of the priniple goals of this course is to show how communicating effectively in a foreign language requires more than knowing grammar, vocabulary etc. It requires learning how, when, where, what and whom to communicate ... all of these are based on the society/culture at hand. While most people never get to travel to a country where the target language is spoken, the Internet provides opportunties to integrate oneself in outside communities. And Wikipedia is a community. Hope this clarifies. Thelmadatter 14:20, 10 September 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter

I guess that clarifies. I also think it would be a help to the mentors if the groups were more active. J-ſtan ^Talk_Contribs 14:31, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes it would. Unfortunately, many students do not jump the gun as fast as we would like. Many students wait until deadlines are looming before doing what they need. I have set some intermediate deadlines and warned them that one way to show repect to you guys is to start responding. And lets face it... Wikipedia is a bit daunting! Thelmadatter 14:44, 10 September 2007 (UTC)Thelmadatter

100 WORDS ASSIGNMENT FROM THE _ PANCAKES

These were the topics that we think are the most important. -USERBOXES -MUNICIPALITIES AS A TOPIC And this is why: As we read in the comments, we like the idea of using Mexican municipalities as a topic . For example we would talk about some place we have visited. As Cancùn, Acapulco or maybe Toluca.But we don´t want to only put information like location, weather, etc. But also to put our experiences in that place, and why people from all over the world should visit that place.

As we read in the discussion we don`t think that infoboxes should be necessary. Maybe because it would take a lot of time doing them. And we may not be focusing on what we are writting. It is important to read these comments because they may help us in doing our project. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.254.101.49 (talk) 22:16, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

• (from a mentor) Writing on a place in Mexico sounds like a very good idea, in my opinion, except that the bigger cities probably have articles already. Category:Cities in Mexico and List of cities in Mexico will show you what we have so far.

Perhaps a small city, or perhaps a monument or attraction within a city? Or maybe something from history. For instance, we have an article on Tenochtitlan, and on Cancun, but we do not have an article on Ruinas del Rey or El Meco or Punta Sam.

Please be careful about writing about your own experiences. Wikipedia has a policy against original research and we ask that facts be backed up by citations as much as possible. In practice some of our articles fall short of having references, but all of our Wikipedia:Featured articles and Wikipedia:Good articles have references.

How does referencing work in practice? As an example, let's say you know a fact, like "____ is a popular hotel nearby and they offer daily tours of this site". Instead of just writing that in, you would first find some other website or magazine or other source that also says this. Then you would site that source.

Your mentors can help you with formatting the references.

Good luck with whatever you choose! Johntex\^talk 00:41, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

100 words assignment from ZYANYA06 group

Firstly, what we read in your user page was mainly about the main reason why you decided to use Wikipedia as the focus and goal of the course. The way how using an internet resource such as Wikipedia will help us in order to learn more about foreign people and their countries. To put in practice the topics discussed in class such as cultural adaptation. Understand that submitting an article in Wikipedia entail a great responsibility as it will be read by many people. Secondly, in your discussion page are just talks you have with other users. Most outstanding discussions are about on how they are concerned of our projects and the way they could help us.

Yacopop 02:52, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

100 words from AppleTeam

In your main page, we can see the reason why, you want us to made this project.It is important to know about vocabulary and grammar, but we should be able to interact with native english speakers. Using wikipedia would let us understand and interact with the "real world". Reading your user page let us understand better the things that we are going to learn.This project will made us confront a different enviroment. Wikipedia its not an easy thing and we have to learn somethings by ourselves. The discussion let us see different points of view. Mentors, who have years working on Wikipedia discuss things that they think are right. It is also important to read their opinions and create one of our own. Mentors and people everywhere can participate of this project.It would be really helpful and we will learn alot. We as a team are really excited about this new oportunity.We will have a new experience.We believe it would teach us a lot.User:189.139.22.97 00:04, 11 September 2007 (UTC)blueapple23

Link to our group page.Appleteam

Also here is our link to the group page.It is in the navigation bar but anyway![[2]] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Blueapple23 (talk • contribs) 23:55, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

100 words from Mexico_Japan

In your user page you explain us why it is important to write an article in Wikipedia.As you´ve said, not only will it help us to improve our english knowledge, but also to learn more about other cultures. Indeed, people from other countries will learn more about Mexico. That´s why in your discussion page you mention that it is important that we write about issues from our country.You also mentioned that what will help us to improve our english is the project of editing an article or the translating one, and finally to write or own. In your discussion page we can see that mentors also like the idea of this project. They are making a great effort to help use to write very interesting and helpful things. Echg07 21:17, 10 September 2007 (UTC)Echg07 comment added by Echg07 (talk • contribs) 21:17, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

100 words from Copitas

Hi teacher! We saw a lot of conversation here. We must read your discussion page like 2 or 3 times to understand what was going on. This, how you said "Wikipedia experience", is quite nice. All is new, and here we can realize how many people are involved. We think we can learn about many of the suggestions they did to you. We didn’t think there would be that amount of people that want to help us. We realize that when you write or do something wrong a lot of folks are going to tell you. This project is different and interesting. DanielaB 17:46, 11 September 2007 (UTC)DanielaB 15:19, 11 September 2007 (UTC)DanielaB

100 words from Lirdoco Team

We liked a lot your main page because finally we understood perfectly how Wikipedia will help us. As you said "The only way to learn to write and to learn how to interact in a "foreign" environment is to do it", this is true and we believe that it doesn´t matter how much grammar and vocabulary you know, it is important to know how to interact with foreign people in different ways. What you mention about helping each other and don´t divide the word is a good way to develop teamwork. About your disscussion page, we will like to have all of those realations you have with many users of wikipedia because it´s always good to have a friend and someone that could support you.----- Lirdoco

100 Words from From_the_south

In the discussion page we saw a lot of comments about our wikipedia project. Doubts about the problem we had creating a group page. Mentors interested in our wikiproject and interested in being our mentors. We also saw some help requests related with the wikiproject. In the discussion page it is explained that because of wikipedia policy we could not make our group pages as planned at the beginning of the period. In your page there is a navigator bar. Under the link of “project pages” are given the instructions for the wikiproject. There are also links for bibliography we will need and for our group pages.

----- from the south —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.254.137.68 (talk) 21:04, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

100 words from Lovely Girls Team

According to your user page, we found this project to be a new experience in our lives. Although some of us have already experience new cultures, it is the first time we experience with a big audience. By reading your discussion page, it does seem kind of hard to start getting use to this environment. We know it will take us some time to understand all the policies and functions of the server, but the mentors will help us out with those problems (at least we hope so). It is still kind of confusing, but we will manage it somehow. ----- Hitoko

100 words from Taco Team

We found this whole wikipedia project interesting because it’s not a common assignment and we had never been part of something like this. We also find it kinda difficult because we’re not used to contribute in such a large encyclopedia as wikipedia is. The fact that there are many mentors to help us in whatever we need is cool and helpful. It makes us feel safe and somehow also more encouraged to do a good job. User boxes are funny but they use way too much space. We read the article about Mexican music and we laughed out loud because it sucks. Finally, we’d like to write an article about Mexican food (pozole, mole, tacos, enchiladas, tamales, etc) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.254.136.231 (talk) 18:31, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Userbox

Here is the userbox of mexico:

This user hopes to be Mexican citizen the next year.

Now you only need to add the code of the userbox to your user page, and then you are going to have the small code and not this longer one.----- Lirdoco 05:06, 11 September 2007 (UTC)Lirdoco

Yacopop 02:52, 8 September 2007 (UTC) Yacopop Yacopop 02:52, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you!!!

Thelmadatter 13:39, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

International All Stars 100 words

The discussion board is definitely a source designed to provide us help. We can find there instructions to make our Wikipedia article the best as possible. Some of them are related with info-boxes, whose purpose is to support ideas and explain them by giving examples. Info-boxes are not necessarily indispensable for assignments, but certainly, they had become a way for “synthesizing” information. Mentors are one of the most important subjects in the reading. These people offer their help to students and consequently, they will answer questions, clarify doubts and will try to be in touch whenever someone needs it. They had also reorganized pages to avoid any confusion and divided them in some useful categories. It was funny when they began to talk about the teacher’s name. Maybe mentors were trying to figure out where her last name came from. We laugh when they guessed about its origin. Sharing an account became such a problem, but finally a great solution was given. We think this is the best way to be assist with any hesitation. In conclusion, the group can truly affirm that this project will be a marvelous improvement for our second language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Crisp26 (talk • contribs) 21:15, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment

I think this is a project that won't just help us with comunication in English. Personally, since I am not from México, I feel it will help me adjust to this new environment, this culture I'm trying to be a part of. The teacher is right when she says speaking a foreing language is not just learning grammar and vocabulary, it is also learning how to adapt to the different situations that we will experience. I find it impressive how eassy is comunicating between Wikipedians, and how they help each other in order to become a trustable community. We also appreciate a lot the fact that people who doesn't even know us, it is going to help us with our projects this semester. In the discussion page, there are a lot of topics. In this page you can make all the comments you want about the articles, the way they are written, if they are missing something or stuff like that. Finally i think this project was a great idea, it becomes a big part of our prepartion for all the things we will be doing in a near future. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alejandrajustiniano05 (talk • contribs) 02:33, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Interesting project idea

I like it. If you are interested, I managed to get on to Wikipedia in February and now have 4 featured articles including one on the main page today. For bonus points on their projects, I'd like to see your students see if they can get an article to Featured Article status. It would really be a crowning achievement for them...but that's just my two cents...aw crap, that's an idiom...how about "that's what I think; take it for what it's worth." — BQZip01 — ^talk 22:38, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

that would be wonderful! I suggest that you look at the group pages (on the navigation bar on my user page) and see which group or groups you would like to work with and watch their page(s). This is kinda off to a slow start as students are a bit disoriented in this environment. They dont have to start writing actual contributions until Oct. (see the syllabus page (under Project Pages in the nav bar) for their Wikipedia-based assignments) Thelmadatter 16:14, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the barnstar!

My first one, even. It's my WikiFairy nature to tidy things up like that. --Geniac 14:54, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Groups and Mentors table

I have created a table of Groups, Students and Mentors at Wikipedia:School and university projects/ITESM Campus Toluca/Groups. I think this table would be useful to help determine who is in each group and who is mentoring that group. I got the table started and started filling it out. Then I thought that this would be a useful exercise for each group. All they need to do is put their names in the appropriate box in the Students column and the name of their mentor in the Mentor column. If they can do this with wikilinks, that's even better.

Another advantage to having them do this is that they can learn the power of transclusion. Note that, even though Wikipedia:School and university projects/ITESM Campus Toluca/Groups is in Wikipedia space and not Template space, it can still be transcluded just like a template. Your students can notice that any change to Wikipedia:School and university projects/ITESM Campus Toluca/Groups is reflected in both Wikipedia:School and university projects/ITESM Campus Toluca/Students and Wikipedia:School and university projects/ITESM Campus Toluca/Mentors.

If you don't want to use up limited instruction and assignment time having the students fill it out, I can finish the table myself. It just takes time and I figured the students would benefit more from the experience than I would.

--Richard 16:55, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I see the table appears in the Wikipedia:School and university projects/ITESM Campus Toluca/Students. I think that is a better place for it instead of creating yet another new project page. Plus that page is already in the Nav Bar. I will instruct students to fill in as best they can. They are doing presentations about Wikipedia this week and we seem to have about 15 min each day to work on stuff. Where's the email you promised me??? :PThelmadatter 17:11, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

SALCs

See the talk page for feedback. — BQZip01 — ^talk 21:55, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Laleena

I am considering leaving mentorship here due to my conscience. Laleena 23:19, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Im sorry to see you go. If there is anything specific you would like to tell me, please send me an email. Thelmadatter 14:33, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

First, I can't send you an e-mail. Second, I will stay on the mentorship, but I do not agree with some of your viewpoints. Laleena 12:09, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Templates mentor

Would you like me to take one of your more advanced groups and teach them how to create basic templates, or not? themcman1 _talk 17:23, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

If I can butt in here... we have to be mindful that this is not a course in Wikipedia but rather a course in English that happens to use Wikipedia as a teaching tool. If there are students that want to learn how to use templates, that's great but otherwise the focus should be on writing articles and interacting with mentors rather than on technical details of how to use Wikipedia.

--Richard 17:28, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree. If you get specific requests to do so, fine but creation of templates or images or infoboxes does not count towards their grade for contributing to Wikipedia. Any conversing you due this month with them about creating such counts towards their "networking" assignment... as long as it is all done in English, of course. Thelmadatter 18:55, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Tim Nomber Juan 100 words

Reading this discussion page has been very interesting. Interaction is very important in wikipedia so we have to adapt to this system. An interesting thing that we saw is how easy mistakes are corrected by other people who only wants to help you. Here we have to deal with foreing people and accept to be corrected or trashed but it is only to help us and nothing else (we hope). The discussion page is a source designed to write all your doubts and questions about Wikipedia, in order to be answered. The main topics were about the info-boxes to provide a synthesis of the information. Also about the people requesting to become a mentor to help us in our projects. Finally we think that the Wikipedia project will improve our english.Christian Panchana 02:02, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Los Boogeys 100 words

According with the user page, we are going to have a new experience as writers and also as wikipedians. For this project we have to have an open mind, because we are going to interact with people from different culture. A good thing of Wikipedia is that we have mistakes somebody can correct them. Also this project will improve our skills as writers. In the short time that we have in Wikipedia we have found some people that is very helpful. comment added by Diego Callejas (talk • contribs) 00:50, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Idea

I noted a lot of your students have expressed a wide variety of interests: food, beer, etc. Although it is kind of out of date (I'm working on updating it right now), they might find it useful to refer to the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory to see if there are any extant projects which deal with their given subjects, and maybe contact them when they start work on related articles. Just an idea. John Carter 19:08, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Re: changing name of article

Done. See Help:Moving a page; "click on the "Move" tab near the top of the page". --Geniac 14:56, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Be sure to let your students know that moving a page is easy, maybe too easy. Moving a page can be contentious. If the name change is purely about spelling, it's less of a problem although sometimes even the spelling of a name can be the subject of heated and, unfortunatedly, even vitriolic debate.

Anyone can move a page but anyone else can move it back and sometimes this leads to "move wars". Unless a move is clearly uncontroversial, it's a good idea to ask on the Talk Page first and then wait a few days to see if anyone objects. This is a rule of thumb that I often violate but I also get slapped around every so often when I get too bold. Help your students avoid this unpleasantness. Advise them to use this feature carefully. --Richard 16:24, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

MasamiS

Hi teacher, I'm from the MexicoJapan group. I'm finding your page and this project quite great, this will improve our english so much. I've seen some of your articles (ex:machaca) I've been thinking that for my project I can improve some of your articles about our culture. Also I think your user page is very well distributed for us the students, so we found very easy to read the articles and in our team we found that the response of the mentors is incredible. We never thought we had such an amazing response to this project. We are currently reading the article a mentor gave us to iniciate our wikipedia project. I hope our contribitions will make a better user page and improve the wikipedia community. (MasamiS 18:08, 19 September 2007 (UTC))

External links in Syllabus

A Round Tuit.

Thelmadatter, I see this was mentioned above (#Formatting tweaks, 5P)... were you going to need the Syllabus page printed out? If so, it makes sense to leave all those links and hard external links. Otherwise, do you agree it would look better with wikilinks? One other question I had was this: I noticed a few of the groups are... well... really quiet and haven't edited much yet. Is that a cause for concern, or are they not expected to have done much yet? --Geniac 14:10, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes...wikilinks would be much better ... gosh darn it, I just never get that "roundtuit" thingy I need to fix that little problem. No editing yet, That will start the first week of October. This "partial" was just first creating a presence in Wikipedia and brainstorming ideas for the contributions of the third partial (~October) and 4th partial/final project (first 2 weeks in November. I know this is slower most Wikipedians operate but students are doing other projects and assignments as well and this allows for time for mixups and problems--- which we have had!Thelmadatter 16:17, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Good point and I understand the need for taking a slower pace. I changed the URLs on the Syllabus page to wikilinks and reworded things slightly around them. --Geniac 18:16, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the Round Tuit! Just what I needed hee hee hee hee Thelmadatter 17:51, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

RE:Translations from English to Spanish Wikipedia

There is no strict protocol for translating English-language to Spanish, and it certainly is not limited to featured articles. Sadly, articles from Word may not be uploaded to Wikipedia. What you can do is do the article in Word, copy-and-paste it to the edit box, create the article, and then wikify (format) it. --Agüeybaná 21:00, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Borbotones Team!! Contribution

==100 WORDS: BORBOTONES TEAM!==

ABOUT YOUR USER AND DISCUSSION PAGE:

Nowadays the world is becoming smaller day by day. The main reason of this is the fast growing of means of communication. One of them, if not the most powerful is the Internet. Your discussion and user page helps us to realize the importance of networking as a good strategy for solving problems or starting a group project. It also represents a bigger confrontation with an English public that can’t be developed in a classroom. We learned from your conversations with mentors that some aspects we don’t know can be clarified by other people even if they aren’t from our culture or country. As you said Wikipedia is a community and we would probably have to deal with problems like disorientation but we have to consider that human can adapt to every environment.

MORE SPECIFIC OPINIONS ABOUT DISCUSSION PAGE:

*About e-mail and interviews as a formal reference: In Mexico it’s considered that an e-mail or interview is a reliable source when it comes from a recognized and well know people or group of people. Even APA considers e-mail as a source. This is the way to cite them: Author > URL > Subject > Date > Name of the server used (hotmail, yahoo…)

*Infoboxes: they are a good tool if you want to have your pages organized. However as Richard tells us, don’t waste too much time with them because the project is for upgrading English skills not editing Wikipedia.

*Translating from English to Spanish (articles): I think that translating an article from English to Spanish is not a big problem. However we are humans and of course we make mistakes. We should check spelling and redaction when finishing translating so that your article will not be a “run-on”.

*Titles and signature: About the discussion page we would like to invite users to use Titles because sometimes it was a little difficult to follow the conversation. EDGAR-ENCASTIN 03:31, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

TEAM PAGE:Wikipedia:School and university projects/ITESM Campus Toluca/Borbotonesteam —Preceding unsigned comment added by EDGAR-ENCASTIN (talk • contribs) 03:37, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Logging in

Thelmadatter, could you please remind your students to log in before commenting? It helps you by giving you better access to all their work, and helps us by letting us know who is trying to communicate with us. Thanks. J-ſtan^Talk_Contribs 14:51, 23 September 2007 (UTC)