User talk:JMathewson (WMF)

Welcome!

Hello, JMathewson (WMF), and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{help me}} before the question. Again, welcome! I hope that you enjoy your time working with the global education project. --Guerillero | My Talk 02:59, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Congrats!

	Congrats!
	Congratulations for being "U.S. Education Program Associate".All the best for future and Global Education Program too! Keep Updating, Keep Inspiring! AbhiSuryawanshi (talk) 18:58, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

I believe I'm a bit late to the party, but here's a welcome from me as well. :-) Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 20:51, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

USEP question

Hi Jami, and welcome to Wikipedia. I gather you're the WMF person to ask about the USEP; is that right? I ask because I'm curious to know, as we approach the end of the fall semester, what the plans are for spring. I'm sure you're aware there's been a lot of discussion on WT:USEP about the best way forward for the program. Can you tell me whether any of those suggestions are likely to be implemented, or what forums there are for discussing changes to the program with the WMF? Thanks -- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:51, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Problem with class

I am tapped out right now and need a favor. I am a long-term Wikipedian but I just do not have time to solve a problem right now. A class with which I work has complained about a lack of community feedback on their papers. I am a real-life campus ambassador; in the future I would be happy to be an online ambassador but just cannot help my people right now with this. Can you tell me how to get support? It would be great just to have a few users drop a few comments on each article talk space, no matter how small. I just want to demonstrate some community support.

Here are their articles and a description of the issue. Thanks. User:Bluerasberry/jumpqueue

Blue Rasberry (talk) 01:43, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for reaching out, since you don't have the time to help with this. I think a great place to start is on the Wikipedia Ambassador email list. I could send out an email on your behalf, but I presume you'll receive a far better response if you reach out yourself to your fellow Campus Ambassadors. You could just send a brief email linking that exact same list and requesting their help by contributing to the discussion and edits for these students. Additionally, reaching out to the relevant WikiProjects could produce some good results. I see that a few of those articles are already associated with some WikiProjects, and I do understand that you're pressed for time. I will take a look at the articles in the next few days to see if I can connect them to the appropriate project. JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 23:43, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

The time issue is not me personally checking the articles - I am a campus ambassador and it is kind of taboo for me to both support the instructors and students and directly critique their work. They need to be confident that they can come to me with Wikipedia questions without me having some influence on how their work is going to be seen by the professors, so I cannot, for example, put a lot of constructive criticism on articles which merit it. The thing I am lacking time to do is just seeking out support especially since I think that no infrastructure currently exists for doing this.

Surely I cannot be the only person who has experienced this problem - new editors need special attention, and so far as I know, despite the campus ambassador program generating lots of new editors there is no program to get them the extra community review they need to get started. One solution which I could propose is that there be a special pool for volunteers to assist with the ambassador program - when a class of new editors makes their first article, immediately those articles should all get feedback. I would be happy to participate in such a pool, but I cannot do this for classes which I personally serve.

Thanks for the advice; I actually found some support already and I think I can come up with some more, and I will try emailing out. I presume that you are the person who fields inquiries - can I make an appointment to talk with you by phone? I want to start participating in discussions about the ambassador program but I would appreciate a voice conversation to make sure that I understand how the WMF is intending for all this to work and to get me caught up on how the program has been going. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:22, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Questionnaires for instructors and students

Jami, I just replied to your note at the op ed talk page; thanks for your comments. I had a follow up that I don't think is as relevant there, about the questionnaires. I know I saw a note somewhere recently asking ambassadors to send out these questionnaires, but I can't find that note now. Do you know the questionnaires I'm talking about? Can you point me at them?

The reason I'm posting here, though, is to say that I didn't ask the students to fill out those questionnaires, for a couple of reasons. One is that I'm listed as online ambassador for several courses and hundreds of students, so it's not easy to do that and it would be very time consuming. Another is that as there are other online ambassadors for those classes I can't tell if someone's already done it. Another is that I don't think the students typically check their talk pages at all, and they very rarely respond, so I rather suspect it would be a waste of time. I think the best way to get responses for this is to contact the instructors directly, on their talk page and then via email if that doesn't work, and ask them to fill out the questionnaire and to encourage their students to do so too. The student questionnaire should be linked from the talk page message left for the instructor, since the students all know how to find that page. Even so I think you'll get very spotty follow through from the students.

I hope this is helpful. Let me know what you think of my response at the op ed talk page; I was glad to hear that we're already in agreement on some key points. Thanks -- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:16, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Mike, we did try to connect the students to the student surveys via the instructors. However, since we don't have every instructor's contact information (which we are working to remedy for next semester), we had to send it through Campus Ambassadors and Regional Ambassadors. I don't know of any blanket request to OAs to post to student's talk pages, though we did think this might reach out to just a few more students, which is always helpful in gathering complete data. I'm guessing your Regional Ambassador requested this of you. Either way, I'll see if I have your email address and can send the survey over to you. The instructor surveys are different, but I'll send you links to both. Please let me know if this doesn't answer your concern! JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 18:43, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, that was what I was looking for. I forwarded it to Professor Gelbman, who is teaching POL214; she's the only one I've been working with.

I also wanted to mention that Colin may be interested in helping to draft some material for the professor orientation -- he said something to that effect at the op ed talk page. I'll leave a note there for him as well, but if you're involved with creating that orientation material can I suggest you contact him directly? In fact, I'd be interested to know more about the orientation material -- I'm sure you're getting input from the ambassador steering committee and other active editors, but if those discussions included an on-wiki component I think you could get some helpful input from interested editors.

Of course I'd also like to know if you feel that any of the ideas proposed in my essay are worth following up on -- there seemed to me to be support at WT:USEP for the idea of sizing the program according to the number of available ambassadors and the number of students, for example, rather than picking a number of classes. I added some more comments after your last post at the op ed talk page and I'd like to hear your thoughts on those; I am also curious to know what kind of quality metrics, if any, you're planning for this and next semester. Thanks -- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:17, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia Education Program

Hello, JMathewson (WMF). You have new messages at Alarob's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Awesomeness

Thanks! Hope you're feeling better...I was able to get out of the house yesterday and today to do my under-24-hours Christmas shopping. Finished and got some really great deals! Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 22:42, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

What do you think of asking professors if they plan to edit Wikipedia themselves?

Jami, I'd be interested to know what you think of the idea I posted here just before Christmas. I think it would be worth asking the professors if they're planning to edit, so we can preferentially direct resources to them. Is this something you'd be interested in doing for the spring semester? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:32, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

use Wikipedia assignments in class

Dear Jami,

I am a Psychology college professor and I am starting to use Wikipedia assignments for the first time this semester.

I already created a course page and I have an account. To make things easier I am using the instructor's tools offered by APS Wikipedia Initiative. However, I am relatively new to Wikipedia and I would definitely appreciate some guidance. I am also interested in contacting an ambassador to help my students with their assignment.

Thanks for your time.

S.mereu (talk) 16:58, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Follow up question

Hi -- I asked a question before Christmas, but I figure it was probably lost over the Christmas period, so I thought I might post it again. I posted an idea here about asking professors who sign up for the USEP if they're interested in editing Wikipedia themselves. I assume the professors who want support fill out some information giving their school affiliation, size of class and so forth? Can we add a question to that asking whether they would be interested in significantly improving an existing Wikipedia article? I think if a professor answers yes to that question, we should give them preference for ambassador support, and we should follow up to offer collaboration with that professor on an article of their choice -- I'd love to work with a professor on an article, and I'm sure other ambassadors would like that opportunity too. Of course none of them may be interested, but it doesn't hurt to ask. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 05:20, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Mike, I apologize for the delay in getting back to you. I have been coordinating a few Campus Ambassador orientations (one going on right now and one next weekend) over the past few weeks. I have read your messages and wanted to make sure I take the appropriate amount of time to consider your suggestions and figure out how we can implement this into the program. I can get back to you early next week, when this training dies down a bit. We'll be in touch! JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 18:38, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks -- I look forward to hearing about the plans. I understand it's a bit hectic at the start of the semester. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:36, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

Jami, I read your answer and I can see your point. I left another message for you at that talk page. Thanks -- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:19, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Birthday wishes

Thanks! My sister and her friends came over and iced a cake for me-- they accidentally turned the whole BOWL of icing pink instead of just a little...they managed to come up with a dark shade of green by playing with it, so I got a green cake with a pink Tyrannosaurus on it. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:53, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Re: Online Ambassador, Spring 2012

I regret to say that I want to withdraw my name from this program. I simply don't have the patience to properly help these students. J04n(talk page) 19:48, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for updating me, and I'm sorry it's been frustrating for you. I will remove your name from the OA page, so you hopefully won't receive any more requests. JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 19:52, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

• I just signed up for Wikipedia:United States Education Program/Courses/International Economic Strategy and Trade Policy (Ahn Tran).--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 20:18, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Hello. I think I'm on the list as an available ambassador. I had one good experience and one bad experience with the Ambassador program: this has led me to feel that I would only be interested in working with a class where either the professor was very communicative or the course design ensured that the students would begin learning to edit early in the term. I am also available to work with individual students if they would like editing assistance. -- Ssilvers (talk) 22:18, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm on the list and will be happy to engage with students this semester. I'll have a look at the Online Ambassador talk page tomorrow (it's currently somewhat past my bedtime) and see where I can fit in. --GuillaumeTell 00:40, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the message, JMathewson. Yes, I would like to assist students (see above). -- Ssilvers (talk) 03:36, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm responding to your message on my talk page. I'm willing to give it another go, but I have to say that this program has been frustrating for me in the past as well. My two main irritants have been a lack of on-wiki student communication or activity and the use of sandboxes. I hate sandboxes. They are evil. --Geniac (talk) 05:55, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Re: Online Ambassador, Spring 2012

Hi, thanks for updating me about the program. I will be taking a break from being an Online Ambassador this semester, though I will return in the summer or fall. Should I remove my name from the list of ambassadors? — Yk Yk Yk talk ~ contrib 02:11, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I just moved you to the inactive OA page. Thanks for the update! JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 02:27, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

OK, I can help Prof. Wadewitz. I'll let her know. -- Ssilvers (talk) 21:43, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I saw that. I thought you were saying that they needed 2 OAs. Now I've added all kinds of postings to the course page and left a message for the professor. Oy. Can you help clear this up? I'd rather stick with A. Wadewitz's class, now. -- Ssilvers (talk) 21:56, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

That's fine; you can just join that class--it definitely doesn't hurt to have more ambassadors involved! JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 23:27, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for leaving a message on my talkpage. I've signed up to express interest in two programs: Introduction to Mass Communication - University of Southern Indiana and Introduction to Psychology, Part II - University of Toronto at Scarborough. Please point me to the necessary updating, as I still am interested in participating, and to the MOU and any other documents. My tenative limited was set at three. As well, I may be interested in the Cairo Pilot Project, though that too is tenative. Do I need to contact the respective professors on usertalk? Thanks again! ~AH1 ^(discuss!) 01:25, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Jami, see my response here, essentially the same as Yk Yk Yk. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 02:50, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, JMathewson (WMF). You have new messages at Swarm's talk page.
Message added 05:28, 9 February 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Swarm ^X 05:28, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

And another. Swarm ^X 02:01, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Canadian Regional Ambassador application

Hi Jami, I sent you an email on Monday but haven't got a reply back from you. Please let me know if you received the application. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 04:20, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Email sent. Please check. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 06:40, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Letter of support

Thanks for your offer here. I could certainly use it in my attempts to get the idea heard! --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 20:57, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Piotr, when do you think you'd need this letter? JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 19:48, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

User talk:Moonriddengirl aka User:Mdennis (WMF) suggested I contact you

Hello,

I've had a problem with one of your online ambassadors, User:Cindamuse, who got very angry because I reviewed an article she submitted to GAN and the lede was plagiarised/compyvio/close paraphrased. See Talk:Douglas W. Owsley/GA1. Because User:Cindamuse refused to acknowledge the problem, even though everyone whom she consulted for a second opinion agreed with me, I'm concerned that she doesn't understand was plagiarism/close paraphrasing is. She has continued to be defensive and attack me e.g.[1][2], accusing me of bad faith, and has not acknowledged the problems with her article. I'm not interested in anything bad happening to her, but I am concerned about her understanding of her role as online ambassador. User:SandyGeorgia has said the copyvio and other problems in psychology articles stemmed in particular from editors this Online Ambassador supervised. I'm sure you're aware of the bad feeling caused in the en:wp community by these sorts of problems being dumped on it. I urge you to make sure User:Cindamuse understands that close paraphrasing and plagiarism is not acceptable in en:wp article. Thanks, MathewTownsend (talk) 01:39, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Also, I suggest that you look through Wikipedia talk:United States Education Program/Archive 1 and Wikipedia talk:United States Education Program/Archive 2 and search for "cindy" you will get an inkling of the degree her approach disrupted the en:wp community. Please, I urge that efforts be made to ensure that these Online Ambassadors are competent. MathewTownsend (talk) 16:35, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi, Mathew. Thank you for bringing your concerns to my attention. I'm going to reach out to the Steering Committee members to address your concerns, so some of them should be in touch with you soon. JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 20:10, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not the only one who has a problem with "cindy". See that same online ambassador is in charge of the single class that has given me the most headaches - SandyGeorgia Thanks, MathewTownsend (talk) 23:39, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm also concerned that Cindy is playing a role in selecting Online Ambassadors. In the wake of the IEP, the community is concerned that students need careful direction and review with regard to copyright, so OAs need to understand copyright policy. If Cindy doesn't clearly understand these concepts herself, she can't evaluate how well others understand them. Dcoetzee 21:36, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Derrick, thank you for voicing your concern. I believe this issue needs to go through Chris and the Steering Committee, as they are in charge of that selection process for OAs. I don't want to step on their toes, as I'd like decisions like this to be community-driven. Thanks, and let me know if there is anything you think I can do. Input always welcome! JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 21:39, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Per Chris's talk page, the only place this can be discussed is with the Online Ambassadors Selection Committee itself, of which Cindy is a member. He says there is no "higher power" or apparent supervision of this committee and no apparent recourse. Any other suggestions? (The Selection Committee is not transparent; the meeting notes contain no information and there is no specific information any other place regarding their procedures.) MathewTownsend (talk) 12:47, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Mail question

Hi Jami, did you get the email that I sent to you last Friday? I haven't heard back from you yet. Thanks. Pine^(talk) 07:44, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Hey, Pine. Thought I'd responded to your last questions but must've missed those. :) Responding now. JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 22:04, 8 March 2012 (UTC)