Wikiversity:Colloquium

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"The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled." — Plutarch (discuss)

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Making Technical Wikiversity Topics Better Teaching Tools by Utilizing the Skills of a Hyper-Multidisciplinary Team

Moved to Improving Technical Topics At Wikiversity, with discussion on the discussion page.

Learning vs Knowledge

WV slogan is about learning: “Set learning free”. Which, from experience, seem to place its members either in a student or a teacher place. A teacher or a student is involved with a knowledge which is either to be taught or learned. The teaching or learning practices can be improved. Unfortunately these are practices which are very individual. The idea to “set learning/teaching free” seem to be a great idea, because of the difficulty some people have, but is practically not feasible because it would need a personified teacher for every person.

My belief is when people look into WV to find out what it is, like myself, then they do it because they have already something in their mind. Something they would like to share and find somebody with whom they can develop it further. Therefore it seems to be a simpler and more direct approach to get people to join WV if their knowledge is the subject and not their learning. But in the end it would lead to the same thing.

For that I would like to put for discussion the slogan:
“Set scientific knowledge free”.

The name “Wikiversity” provides an aura of science. And that is why people look at WV (I did). Scientific knowledge is bound down by fantasy because most real answers have not been found yet. And because of this it is very difficult to find a place or person which welcomes new or different ideas. E.g. Wikimedias main reasons to reject new ideas is that it is an encyclopaedia and therefore can only accept already verified knowledge. Which brought me to WV. But this is exactly what would be needed, a place where new or different scientific ideas can be discussed and developed. A great counter balance (or pre-stage) to Wikimedia.

This could be done like this:

1. Any idea could be set up as a “Topic” for discussion to find out if it has the cloud of a scientific knowledge and if it is worth to develop further.
2. If it passes the test and has enough interests (at least 2) then it could be set up as a “Project” to be developed further. This would provide it with a substance to become a subject ready to teach.
3. If it has reached this substance then it can be placed into any level of course, school etc. to be taught.

If WV could be arranged like that what great place would it be to improve the scientific progression all over. People would come in to bring new ideas, look for other ideas, and join ideas, which have something in common with their own and are already in progress. It would have an immense scientific background through Wikimedia and would supply it with new “verified” knowledge. And learning would be what everybody is doing but does not have to admit.--Martin Lenoar 18:49, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikiversity isn't limited to scientific knowledge. I support "Set knowledge free" as a slogan. I oppose any process which limits the ability of anyone to teach, learn, and share their knowledge. Waiting until another person thinks a topic is worthwhile will either slow or halt teaching, learning and sharing knowledge. Waiting for approval was tried at another project and it didn't see any growth or progress until waiting as an obstacle was removed. -- darklama  05:12, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

• Keep in mind that, in science, Knowledge is encapsulated in terms of Theoretical Models (with explanatory and predictive power). A Theoretical Model is our best (current) understanding, and is not guaranteed to be comprehensive, complete, or accurate to arbitrary precision. When a Theoretical Model is not yet fully established, it's called an Hypothesis. The equivalent term in layman's language is Belief. When one is presenting Beliefs which are not yet encapsulated as fully established scientific models, one is (in effect) presenting a school of thought that for all intents and purposes is a Religion. Note that belief in (and practice of) the Scientific Method is a Religion, because one cannot conclusively prove that the Scientific Method is the One True Way to Knowledge. One can believe in, adopt, and practice the Scientific Method, but doing so is an Article of Faith. —Caprice 05:50, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

• Presenting evidence that contradicts established models, with or without proposed new models, even if undeveloped, is not Religion, it is skepticism, rejecting models, established or not, by presenting and examining contrary evidence. The practice of the scientific method is an indicator of faith, but it is not faith itself. Belief in "established models" is religion, but using them isn't necessarily so, it's just (ordinarily) sensible. Confusion on this leads to the Religion of Science, which is a pathology, because it's contrary to the scientific method, and we like to believe that "science" is rooted in the "scientific method." Newtonian Physics is a defective model, but I'll still use it when I need to predict motion under non-relativistic or other ordinary conditions. Cold fusion represents, at this point, a general model (fusion, through an unknown mechanism, in a cold environment) without a specific model (the mechanism), yet the scientific method falsifies the null hypothesis (that no nuclear reaction is taking place). The Scientific Method can easily falsify a theory without creating an alternate model; in general, when the theory falsified is "accepted," it has probably been assumed to be generally applicable when it only applies under specific conditions (but normal or the common for relevant observation). --Abd 17:13, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Presenting evidence or arguments that contradict a religious belief is more than skepticism. It's heresy. In the CBS News 60 Minutes story on Cold Fusion, Richard Garwin expresses skepticism (doubt). But he doesn't present any strong evidence or arguments to falsify Michael McKubre's strongly held beliefs. At best, Garwin speculates that there is an error in the calculation of the energy budget. Garwin suspects the input (electrical) energy is measured incorrectly. I doubt that. I suspect there is a missing or incorrect term on the output side of the energy ledger. But with respect to McKubre's cells, neither Garwin nor I have diagnosed the missing or erroneous term in McKubre's energy budget model. I don't reject his model; I haven't even looked at it. Nor did I reject the Miles-Fleischmann Model. But I did note that it appeared to be missing a term, Pmist. McKubre clearly knows about the presence of mist. He devised an inverted Teflon bumbershoot to interdict it, to keep his powder dry. Is there a missing or incorrectly modeled term in McKubre's energy budget model? Probably. Has anybody put their finger on it yet? Possibly. Do I have a clue what might be wrong or missing with McKubre's energy budget model? Not yet. In the case of open calorimetry with venting, the Null Hypothesis was all wet. I have no doubt that McKubre is sincere in his belief that his energy budget model overlooks nothing that would account for why the energy books still don't balance. Since he knows about the mist, he's probably modeling the condensate correctly. But what about the condenser? —Caprice 16:26, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

McKubre is a professional scientist, paid to consult on cold fusion by some major players who Need to Know. Calorimetry is only the half of it. The other half is the ash, the reaction product, which must be created, if there is fusion taking place. McKubre's work is a major chunk of the work that establishes the most accurate known value of the critical heat/helium ratio, work that has shown that helium is, indeed, the ash, and that the heat/helium ratio is very close to the predicted value from deuterium-helium fusion, close enough to be within measurement error. This, alone, is an astonishing result, and it's been confirmed, it was itself a confirmation and tightening up of earlier work, and work is continuing.

Caprice's approach is excellent, even if he sometimes jumps the gun with his "brilliant ideas." That I've shown that some of these ideas were totally bogus, based on ignorance of conditions, doesn't change this, it's just part of his -- and our -- learning process, and the only problem I've had with Caprice is that he ridicules others who don't deserve it, based on his pseudo-certainty, his style of assertion.

Calorimetry alone as the prime evidence for cold fusion was always a problem, because calorimetry can be extraordinarily complex, as Caprice is finding out. His abduction of error due to mist is, as far as it goes, brilliant (even if quite banal, i.e., this is something that should have occurred to anyone with knowledge in the field, and probably did occur, and was rejected because, again, under most conditions, they knew it wasn't happening, there was no emitted mist at all. You can see mist.) He's definitely correct in one sense: the possibility of error from mist should be clearly addressed by the researchers, at least somewhere.

McKubre does address mist, but in a totally different context and for a totally different reason, mist would not affect his results because he is using totally closed cells. Mist could make those cells explode! Caprice's speculations on the probability of error by McKubre reveal only his a priori bias. But mist could be a factor in other CF approaches, and discussing this cannot but help overall understanding of the field.

Caprice is correct to point out the problem with Garwin's response. Garwin is a rarity, in fact, a skeptic who is highly knowledgeable about the research. I've not seen Garwin address the central evidence, heat/helium. I'd love to know what he thinks about it, and if he can think of any alternate explanation than fusion. But this evidence has been around for over fifteen years, so I'm not holding my breath.

Thus our Bozo from Boston (Moulton's clown function) is validating my intuition that he could be very valuable here, showing why academic environments can be and should be highly tolerant. If Moulton crosses acceptable boundaries, he can and should be warned and even sanctioned, but we shouldn't toss out the baby with the bathwater. He's a valuable contributor. --Abd 17:06, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

• Does Wikiversity have the capacity to tolerate a Bozo from Boston who waxes on and on about Electrolytic Capacitors with a Teflon Dielectric? —Caprice 17:27, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your replies. I guess I need to elaborate further to give this discussion some substance. That thought was sparked through real happenings specifically through my joining WV. The impression I got that the stance WV got toward science is not settled yet and the problems which came with it. The first hurdle seem to be to define science. Science is, unfortunate, all what Caprice and Abd pointed out. For me science should be the process to replace theories, hypotheses, beliefs, religions etc. with the real facts of the universe. And, since so little is really known after such a long time of trying, every idea possible should be followed. On the other hand, as Abd said, if the daily live should be kept under control then it would be impossible to do so by everybody. But it could be done e.g. in places like WV. Here scientific ideas can be “set free” by removing the first and greatest wall every person faces if he does not exactly follow predefined ways: Nobody wants to listed or even take an outsider stance to evaluate the idea. This is due to the human fact that if somebody becomes comfortable with a way to handle a knowledge, even if it is only a theory, then he is settled for live. And there are only very few which do not settle in one way or another. The question here is how fast fictional knowledge could or should be replaced by real knowledge. This depends on how much scientists are aware of if it is placed on real or fictional resources. Again this is usually only important for people which are not settled with this theory. And WVs community might need to decide if it wants to support the advancement of real knowledge or if the status quo is good enough. And here is also where the difference between learning and knowledge might come in. If there is knowledge than there is also teaching and learning. But it is not necessarily the other way around. If e.g. there is a forum of knowledgeable people which are willing to consider (discuss) “new” scientific ideas then the person which had them would be immediately aware of where he was right, wrong or missed. Step 1 above is not meant to be an approval but a simple pro and con of its scientific value and possibilities. (“To pass a Test”, would not be the right word for it). Everything else, like if it can be evolved, proven or taught would come naturally from this discussions. If it is assumed that there are many people, like me, which are looking for a place where they can find honest, freely given, opinions then such a place would be an advance in many directions. As such it would not matter what “science” is considered to be, if it is considered that there can only be one reality for what happens in this universe. Once it is known than it will be acknowledged as scientific reality and will surpass any fantasy theories which try to replace it. WV could be on the forefront of this, and this is what might be up for discussion here.--Martin Lenoar 01:49, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

• Part of the problem, I reckon, is that it takes a certain amount of intellectual maturity to be able to embrace analytical models of the sort that one finds in science. Models (and Model-Based Reasoning) are not as widely apprehended, adopted, or employed as we would like for a scientifically literate culture, partly because many important scientific models often require at least college level mathematics. When you leave out the math, you have to dumb down the science, relying on analogies and stories to convey the basic ideas. As a science educator, I've struggled to find the right analogies and stories to explain scientific ideas to young people (and to many adults) for whom it is impractical to present scientific theories in the technical form that scientists understand them. Nowadays, computer animations and simulation models and games have helped solved that problem for many subjects previously inaccessible to high school students. —Caprice 02:49, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, Caprice, to bring up intellectual maturity. For me that means that somebody has understood and accepted what analytical models (model-based reasoning) are and what their use is. For me they are different forms of explanation of natural happenings for what the real true answers have not been found yet. “Scientific” explanations are usually provided for specific happenings by people which are usually specified in this happenings and are therefore mostly specific explanations. Unfortunately this explanations are usually a conglomerate of reality and science fiction. Which might make sense to somebody else or not and therefore might account for that they can be, but must not be, accepted. Intellect maturity needs to be reached in order not to fight theories or models if they are not being understood. It usually settles the dispute to an acceptance with the hope that someday the following of this models might lead to the real truth. Which, as history proves, might take centuries.

What also does not help in making this explanations understandable to everybody is that tools, like mathematics, is being used to “explain” or is even made a necessity for prove. What is never brought up is that nature does not “know” of mathematics which is purely a tool for humans to explain repetitions. Unfortunately mathematics provides a possibility, through the like manipulations of both sides of the equation, to “prove” whatever it can “describe” in any way “mathematicians” see fit. Basically, since very few people can follow what they have done, they cannot prove to the broad public what they are claiming and the public cannot disprove it. Therefore a mathematically provided prove is only valid for a few people.

To follow your argument, is it preferable to make science understood by everybody or is it too degrading for people, which have studied mathematics very hard and proven that they are capable of analytical thought, that their accomplishments are not placed higher than the need for science to succeed? Is science only science if it is highly complicated? Is this why humans have not understood nature because they are looking much too high?

To bring intellect maturity back to the subject of the discussion it would bring an openness toward what science could be. To set “learning free” could imply that anything, what could be considered to be knowledge, could be taught or learned and should therefore not be limited. On the other hand, if knowledge is the focus, then anything what could be the real truth of nature should not be inhibited and is in a big need to be set free. Providing a way to bring it into the open, discus-sion and recognition. The difference would be on how long humans have to wait until the circumstances of real happenings (discoveries) would force science to replace models or theories with the real thing.

Sorry, I have to get used to the fact that I can get answers before I am finished. And that I am loged out when I save the page.--72.251.19.120 23:53, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• To follow your argument, is it preferable to make science understood by everybody or is it too degrading for people, who have studied mathematics very hard and proven that they are capable of analytical thought, that their accomplishments are not placed higher than the need for science to succeed? Is science only science if it is highly complicated? Is this why humans have not understood nature because they are looking much too high?

Explanations of scientific ideas need to be adapted to the audience. There are scant journalists who can both understand the technical elements of a scientific model and translate that into a presentation suitable for a general audience. I admire journalists who can understand my own work and explain it to a general audience, because they are doing something that I find very hard to do. —Caprice 23:46, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

On science, evidence, and models --Abd 19:30, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

"Science" consists of two elements, one of which is objective knowledge and the other is "models," and the distinction between models and hypotheses is far from crisp. A model is a hypothesis and a hypothesis may be a model, but a hypothesis may also only propose certain relationships without a model of accurate predictive power, this is, of course, an "incomplete" model, though in some cases prediction is intrinsically impossible even with a complete model, chaotic systems are examples. A "fully established" model is a "belief." If the establishment of the belief was through the scientific method, we may call this a "scientific belief." However, people tend to be resistant to changes in beliefs, and thus resistant to the application of the scientific method to them, once they are established, either personally or collectively. This resistance is necessary for efficiency -- we cannot constantly reconsider everything --, but it also impedes, to some degree, expansion of the frontiers of science. The "objective knowledge" is the huge body of experimental evidence. Attributed, i.e., "according to," and with due care, this is, indeed objective truth. I'll assert this, in fact, as a kind of universal religion! Errors can still be made; a common one is to state what someone else found and reported incorrectly, filtering it through the lens of an opinion about the person and what they actually claim to have observed. That's why I mentioned "due care." A present example would be to state that Pons and Fleischmann, in 1989, claimed to have found evidence for nuclear fusion. They did use the term, sloppily, at a news conference, but the actually published claim was "an unknown nuclear reaction." That was not a "model," except in the sketchiest sense. They did not have a clear model, and creating such a model would have been entirely outside of their expertise. This is an example of a hypothesis ("unknown reaction, but nuclear in nature") without a model that allows accurate prediction. What could be predicted from "nuclear" would be one of the many possible signs of nuclear reactions; they only had solid evidence for one, energy. They had found, they believed, two other evidences: neutron radiation -- though at levels far below those expected from the known likely reaction, d-d fusion -- and helium production. The neutron evidence was artifact, and subsequent work shows that the F-P effect, if it produces neutrons, produces them only at truly tiny levels; the heat they found, though, has been widely confirmed, ultimately, and their calorimetry has never been successfully impeached and found sufficiently flawed to discard the results. Yet because nuclear reactions at the temperatures apparently involved in an F-P experiment were so totally unexpected, and because of the difficulty of replication, their work was mostly rejected, and that rejection continues today in popular myth among physicists and others. "Belief." The models are not objective truth. Models are generally judged by predictive power, and a model that is highly successful at prediction under some conditions may fail miserably under others. The usually-presented example is Newtonian physics. Extremely and precisely accurate as long as velocities and scale are within normal human experience. At high velocities, in particular, it fails and can make radically incorrect predictions. Problems arise when objective knowledge is discarded or disregarded in favor of an "established model" that fails to predict what has been observed. This happens at the frontiers of science, now understood as model formation. This is "practical science," because the ability to predict results greatly facilitates engineering. However, not all engineering requires the predictive power of models. Engineering can leap ahead of models, having discovered parameter space through trial and error. Research into "cold fusion" -- even though the evidence Fleischmann had was thin, his "fusion" comment was a "lucky guess," is mostly on a trial and error basis, but this accumulates a body of experimental knowledge, when it's published, and that body of knowledge may eventually allow predictive models to be developed. The math for quantum field theory, which is necessary under these conditions, is horrific. For now, there are several models that predict excess heat, and one of them is so accurate that it can be considered "established," and it is so considered by most of those working in the field. The accurate one is that if helium is found as produced by a cold fusion experiment that looks for both helium and heat, quantitatively, heat will be measured proportional to the helium at the value expected for deuterium fusion, 23.8 MeV per helium nucleus generated. Others exist that predict energy proportional to deuterium loading factor, to current density, and many other factors, but these are only statistical correlations, not terribly accurate, and none of them are reliable by themselves; poorly-known factors such as the role of palladium nanostructure and the chemistry of palladium surface under electrolysis are at play. The helium prediction is accurate within experimental error, and there are no known contrary experimental results, with many confirmations. This is science, following the scientific method, and rejection of it, at this point, with the huge body of evidence involved, is about "belief," specifically about belief in a model that had extremely accurate predictive power under plasma conditions, the normal realm for particle physicists and fusion scientists. The model was never thoroughly tested under condensed matter conditions, and that testing was precisely the goal of Pons and Fleischmann (not "free energy" as often claimed), so this whole case, which was called (by a skeptic, Huizenga) "the scientific fiasco of the century," truly was such a fiasco, as to the methodology and sociology of science, and there are academic sources that have covered this in depth. Physicists don't normally read those sources! Such a situation is, in the modern world, unstable, because a few people are willing to continue to work in spite of massive social rejection, and a few journals are willing to dare to publish their results. There were always, in the last twenty years, mainstream journals willing to publish, it was only a few prominent journals that set up a blackout on the topic. That resistance has been crumbling, and is, from my review of the overall situation, dead, an edifice of entrenched certainty that has no life in it, scientific, economic, political, and other forces will sweep it away in short order, I predict. But to someone who has not been looking at the whole situation, it can look quite different. Ask your average physicist today about cold fusion, you will probably still hear something like "That was bogus, nobody was able to reproduce those results." Which is blatantly, objectively, and certainly false. The results were reproduced, there are 153 peer-reviewed reports in mainstream journals to show, it simply took more time and care than the few early, rushed, "negative replications" allotted. --Abd 19:30, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Social sciences are easier to access for laymen than physical sciences, because it requires less mathematics. Without reading articles and books, the level of the discussion will probably not rise above those of common forums, that i frequent every day.Daanschr 11:54, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• There is an interesting point of view in science, that if something cannot be measured quantitatively, it is not a fit subject for scientific modeling. Scientists are forever coming up with new ways to measure the previously unmeasurable. Here is a wonderful talk by Brené Brown, a gifted researcher in the Social Sciences, on the challenge of measuring such immeasurable quantities as one's sense of worthiness, connectedness to others, vulnerability, shame, and courage. —Caprice 13:40, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't like the extreme focus on quantity. Quality and imagination are essential parts of science. Otherwise all the physical sciences couldn't emerge. Maybe knowledge is partly in hard mathematics and partly in subjective philosophy or art.Daanschr 16:51, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• What's important to note is that models with quantitative rigor that make accurate predictions almost always overthrow or supplant theories that lack quantitative models. —Caprice 17:29, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• Eventually, it can take quite a bit of time, unless the model has direct commercial or practical application, that forces rapid and wide attention. --Abd 22:19, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

But what is the purpose of a model. In finance, the models used for making as much money as quickly as possible, made the economic crises worse. The alternative has to be imagined, not measured. A world where bankers work for people and not for their pay check.Daanschr 22:55, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

A model, by definition needs to provide beneficial results (and predict phenomena), therefore, economic models are only models in the minds of economists: the defective organs that are responsible for the endless crises. --JohnBessa^talk 20:05, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

The topic of model is an interesting one. It could help to make the decision of what is more important: learning or knowledge. Since the discussion went in the direction of what science is the model could shed some light on it also.

Knowledge, is basically what somebody has learned. This could have happen in numerous ways. Science is a form of learning which supposedly has the restriction that only real knowledge should be learned. Real means that it only should accept what could really exist, really happen and therefore has to be physically present in this world or universe. Unfortunately, humans live on a limited space, which makes the discovery of past real events over time less likely. Therefore humans need to make this events up, create them with their fantasy, and then use their already acquired knowledge to find out if this “model” could lead to real knowledge. As of today most of our “scientific” knowledge is still based on such fantasy models. The success of a fantasy model can be, in my opinion, easily predicted: if the model (fantasy) is based on real physical matter then the outcome could be a real event which produces a real knowledge, if the model is based on other fantasies (not physically existing) then it will stay a fantasy. This might explain why models used in the physics lab always have a real outcome, and why the ones, which are used to explain economics, can never be taken serious because there are never enough real possibilities build in this kind of models.

But lets stick with the sciences which are concerned with the physical events in this universe which includes life. The importance, that this kind of science produce real knowledge, seem to be mostly an individual opinion. The reality on this is that most people don’t care because they have to come to accept that they will die anyway before any significant process will be made. This might be different for science conscious people. They could be placed in two groups, one which would like to stick with the restriction that science is there to produce real knowledge and the other one are happy as long as they have a model to follow. Which one is prevalent depends, like so many other opinions, on what is placed into the foreground of peoples minds. Which, unfortunately, is controlled by usually very unscientific people. Does it matter? The real answer to this is a flat no. As long as humans have exist they have lived from day to day and had either had a happy life or not but after they died it did not matter any more. (Some people might protest against this but this is not for discussion).

Well, lets use a model to go further. If life goes on like this than it would not make any difference. But, if e.g. somebody could discover how to delay aging or even could prevent that everybody has to die then would it make any difference? Only if people can be made to believe that that could actually happen. E.g. lets consider that nature had only had a very short time to evolve living creatures. And that nature is by no means at the end what still could evolve. Some living creatures live as long as 500 years, why not humans? A possibility that this could be real in a short time is that if humans “discover” what makes nature tick and that they could use this to tell nature what they would like to have. Right, controlling evolution. How possible it that? Lets consider something else. Humans are nature, would that not suggest that humans follow the same rules nature follows? Would that not suggest that what makes humans tick also makes nature tick? Therefore the answer could be what is common to every living creature and nature but we are not looking for it. If this consideration would make a long life possible then would it become more important that science produces real answers? Would it be more important to further real knowledge than just the learning of knowledge to shorten the acquirement of real knowledge? I fear the answer to all of this is still no.--Martin Lenoar 09:10, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like someone or some people may be finally understanding why Wikiversity cannot be limited to acquiring scientific knowledge. There are elements of music, the arts, philosophy, cooking, etc. that cannot be taught, learned, or explained by following any methods of science. -- darklama  14:17, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

• There are creative elements of the learning process and there are analytical elements. The creative aspects of discovery learning are an active topic of scientific research. —Caprice 15:05, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

  I guess I need to explain myself better. Scientists do not hover over students at schools and universities, telling musicians, photographers, artists, etc. in the making that they cannot do X because science doesn't understand and cannot provide an explanation yet. People continue to learn and pursue knowledge by engaging in and despite the unexplained. -- darklama  16:15, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

  • No one can dictate the creative process. By definition, anything that is dictated to a student cannot be the student's own creative work. Scientists, like mentors in all disciplines, nurture the creative process. —Caprice 16:44, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
  • A little rose-colored-glass-vision here. In fact "scientists" often don't do this, but good educators, including good science educators, do. Some scientists are lousy educators. However, I might agree that such scientists might not be really good scientists, either, i.e., they may know their field, but if they encounter stuff that is outside their experience, they may rigidly reject it. I've been involved -- mostly as a parent -- with modern educational work that is extremely patient with students, encouraging them to follow up on their own erroneous or half-baked ideas instead of simply "correcting" them. Far more is learned, and the learning is far deeper. --Abd 18:00, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

    I think both your responses help to explain/demonstrate why pursuing knowledge is good and limiting ourselves to scientific knowledge is not. Wikiversity should nurture and provide a decent educational experience that helps learners learn far more and far deeper than what can be achieved by restricting what students and teachers can do. --�darklama� 18:40, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Construction of knowledge

I think you hit on some pretty important topics, especially democracy in learning. I fully expected to become a middle school science teacher and embraced the education in/as therapy, and hence Constructivism. Constructivism benefits from Vygotski's anthropological research that parallels Benedict's Synergy; and is fully contemporary, as it is the only educational system to purposefully embrace the Internet. My research found further parallels between anthropology and the contemporary Information Society: the successful tribal native has many similar attributes to the modern life-long learner (Learning to learn).

• I found this on [Improving Technical Topics At Wikiversity]:

"Technical topics such as mathematics, science, and engineering are currently taught at universities by experts in these disciplines. Lectures are designed by one person. Text books are written by only one or two authors and minimal additional help by an editor."

The solution is this, the writing states, is

"a very multidisciplinary team"

From the contructivist perspective, the solution is, conveniently, wiki.

I think that I can synopsize the situation as being highly limited by limitations of a single or small group of instructors, or in psychological terms, as egotism: we students do work that is finely tuned to the "needs" of the oligarch (instructor), has to be absolutely perfect from his perspective (so as to assure graduation to the next level, and not just be thrown out into the workforce. Sometimes, I am at a loss because of this in my counseling course; my local mental health agency has no use for the DSM or all the flowery theories that persist. I think I am coming to the basis of Wiki, which is the editing of fact into constructed knowledge so that it can be inserted as building blocks into the single explanation for all phenomena that is Science. Two courses are growing from one, I need to master knowledge construction to implement all the different levels of psychology into a format that is useful for community counseling, as therapy is an 80-90% successful placebo for real life.

Another point that the writer misses is that technical topics that include Science, also include all the things that are built from Science, including Art and Music. The wall is down now; we are constructing knowledge as a single phenomena. The classroom activity is the construction of knowledge, which is editing, which only differentiates from the WV in terms of original research. Research is what is key. We all do it, we all construct knowledge from it, and we all learn in the process of contributing to the single phenomena: Science. The Wp is looking for a format to construct education from wiki (which isn't a dead end), when, in fact, has been right in front of us all along: the wiki is the education, and also the constribution (construction+contribution, totally accidental). Perhaps wiki is not the right word, as the wiki is a Web representation of constructed knowledge; it is our media, despite its quick taxonomic naming by Ward Cunningham.

The difference between Vygotski's traditional constructivism (which is anthropological like Benedicts's Synergy and Kropotkin's evolutionary mutualism) and web-based knowledge construction is the path of the novice. In our Web format, novices begin contributions immediately moving them to expert within their scopes, whereas tradition requires long apprenticeships that start around 13 and mature in the mid-20s, to further mature as "sophia," a topic unto itself. It is interesting how complex counseling has become in the Wv!--JohnBessa^talk 15:27, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

constructivist text

I am presently working on an online master's degree using Moodle; all I can say about Moodle is that it follows the tendency to use the Internet to make a "better brochure" or "checkout counter" or, in my case, school. Wikis have shown for a decade and a half that the contemporary Information Society has lifted information to a constructive level where learning is continually recycled into teaching, yet Education only attempts to bend technology around antiquated didactic methods, which, incidentally, prove to be exceedingly difficult on the Web. Wikis are constructivist as they are highly collaborative, and all information is new information that is properly placed into the big picture so as to support a unified concept of science. As it happens, most work on the WV is solo, which I find acceptable because what passes for collaboration in the uber system is, in my opinion, a highly corrupt conspiracy to skew meanings, especially of individualism to support egotism. Constructivism also benefits from remaining embryonic while all the other approaches, such as synergy, have been enlisted to support existing structures. The primary components of Constructivism show the growth of the child away from the parents into the community (which is difficult in suburbia), where the child eventually becomes responsible, the journey from novice to expert, by learning to make innovative, or technological, contributions. Our contemporary version is all good, usually project-based, and nobody fails as everyone finds a productive niche. I segued to psychology because I found the project-based positions would only be given to experienced didactic teachers probably to assure failure! Plus I don't see how failing students helps them. Another important component of Constructivism is the Community of Knowledge, which comprises all the information in a community; most of it is shared, though some of it is private. By hanging out in the woods, I realized that this cloud of knowledge extends into the environment, and that much of it is owned by the animals with its underlying support being DNA, the handwriting of life. This explains the tribally native relationship with the environment, and why capital--didactic, hierarchal, and oligarchic--is so desperate to destroy it. The root word construct carries much of the meaning; successful construction brings about self-esteem. This I learned with very handicapped autistic students. So anything that builds in a way that benefits all is constructivist.

--JohnBessa^talk 21:33, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Contemporary-versity

Singly the most important thing on the WV is freedom of speech, and this is what distinguishes the WV from the WP. In the WV, it is encased in the concept of original research, or OR. In this context, I am referring to cold fusion (CF, it seems reasonable to assume that energy-hungry humanity would have implemented it decades ago!), but I also want to point to my own research on the WP that has allowed me to provide real insight into the underlying mechanisms of humanity's big problem of hate. Comment added by John Bessa 23:39, 9 January 2011, also the "strategy" below. Note by Abd 16:38, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Strategy for a Contemporary Wikiversity

Having said that, the successful anti-free speech strategy has been to utilize free speech itself as the vehicle for limiting it; this strategy is not only universal, it is so successful that it has consistently installed the non-productive in positions of control over normal productive populations to operate them un-empathically as a single organic mass in every single case--even in revolution! (In keeping with free speech, it is necessary at this point to overtly state that free speech does not include the right to censorship. This has to be stated in this way because censors are unable to view omnidirectionally; they are defective in this way, and, as a result, are pathologically biased and, hence, undesirable here--or anywhere else. If there is information removal, it has to be done by consensus; three un-consensual removals lead to a lifetime ban, with previous bad-will being the enforcer.) A concrete example I cannot go forward without a concrete relevant example; I am forced to be critical to be logical. Slogging through the mess of CF, I came across what I have recently identified as the reactionary rebellion within the open forum to dominate the open form (Lewis Mumford's Democratic Technic)for the benefit of elite (Mumford's Authoritarian Technic) or the oligarchy to everyone else: Several of the cold fusion supporters compare themselves to Socrates. Socrates is inseparable from Plato, and Aristotle spills the beans by taking credit for others' work, especially Hippocrates, and then convinces Alexander that non-Greeks are objects like "plants to be cut down." It is impossible to be a humanist and a genocidal racist simultaneously as each requires radically different neural constructs; Aristotle was faking; he was as mentally isolated as Plato was. While their self-comparisons with Socrates and the Platonics may seem narcissistic, it is far more than that, it is clever. By playing the outsider or underdog, they can follow the path of those who established Western Civilization; he is attempting to take the well-trodden revolutionary path to domination. It does not matter if he, himself, believes in CF; his absurdity is his power; if he is challenged he will behave absurdly, precisely as Ayn Rand's characters do in the Fountainhead: her rebel oligarchs who seek to crush the unfeeling, corrupt mass of humanity. That this strategy should actually work comes as a surprise to the average person as it is so counter-intuitive. Key to understanding this strategy is perceiving of it is a picture within a picture. Athens used a "naval tax" (based on its successful naval defense of Greece) to build the Parthenon, its democratic forum. It implemented (Mumford's) diffuse tribute collection system that Rome would later use to build its Empire. In other words, to build its democracy, Athens had to rip-off Sparta using tribute collection, or taxes, giving the Socratic-Platonic school (or the Academy from which all education descends) the rationale for treachery against the democracy of Athens (that unruly mass!) to, quite significantly and ultimately, create our Western oligarchy on behalf of the Spartan aristocracy. The Confucian structure of Asia must be the same; we specifically know from the Vietnamese revolutions that the exam-filtered Mandarins viewed the normal, productive population as a nameless organic mass to be exploited; normal minds don't think this way, but will have to soon, as time is running out for humanity. Restoration of humanity Because Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle gave us such simple structures, each of us intuitively knows what to dismantle. We also know that we as normal people can provide for ourselves all the basics (good-tasting food, attractive clothes, comfortable dwellings, and stimulating entertainment) except one: medicine (or perhaps, Medicine). Socrates' oligarchy has successfully created a monopoly from this, the very thing we need for life, even though the majority of medicines come from the shamans of the forests. Another related important monopoly is Education, which is of course, closely related to Medicine as it controls not only the factual information, but, more importantly, the certification system. To be able to move past the misnamed "modern" but wholly ancient system, to our also misnamed "post-modern" contemporary system, we have half of what we need: an Education system! From this we can build a Medicine system specifically targeted at the oligarch's core medical monopoly. Also keeping the basics of food, shelter, clothing, and entertainment moving forward in the fashionable post-modern mode of "DIY." To succeed we have to assure that we do not fall into Socrate's or Rand's "picture within a picture." We need to assure that our rebellion is not an oligarchy in the making bringing us full circle back into the present state of disaster. The solution therefore is not retaliation for all the evils of oligarchy and aristocracy (collectively the elite), but, as we showed this summer at the Rainbow Gathering, to find level-appropriate highly-productive niches for all--especially the mentally ill. This applies especially for the overly intelligent (executive functioning) obsessively-compulsively driven (with broken brain networks), so that they don't attempt to succeed where they cannot by grabbing power because they cannot collaborate and hence be normally productive. Therapy This therapeutic solution has a problem; because available production positions are diminishing as a result of oligarchic expansion, there are fewer and fewer available productive niches for the defective oligarchs. Such positions were increasing through the 1950s and 60s, but the growth of the elite and guardian structures has shrunk the productive layer until finally it was shipped out of the country. We though we had a solution by implementing (this) information technology; but the oligarchy cleverly reversed this effort to create productive positions in the US, the "new economy," by handing information technology over to an especially hateful uber cast on the opposite side of the planet--possibly deliberately to halt this path to productivity for the defective oligarchs. They, the oligarchs, understand their minds far better than we, the mass of normal people, ever will; they will always be a step ahead of our normal attempts at therapy, as it is their disease that we seek to cure, and especially because we are forced to practice within their maze-like structure. What we have to understand is that people don't deliberately do bad things, they lack the ability to function at the top levels that wholly natural organisms do. They synthesize as Plato did rather than organize as normal people do. Evolution shows us that each organism operates at its full capacity; any mutations will result in an inability to pass along mutant genes, and also probably death. We in society can prevent these unfortunate deaths, typically from starvation, but we tend to allow the mutations to reproduce, creating a humanity that may be as much as 20 or 30 percent defective, especially in terms of emotional communication and brain networks. This kindness has to continue and increase, but the mutant reproduction must stop. As Jon Scot showed us, "evil" is not so much evil as an absence of "good." People can only function within the scope of their abilities; the high-intelligent whose executive are cut off from their lower ancient empathic constructs because of damaged neural pathways really need to live within their emotionally limited scope, as otherwise they will hurt the normally functioning majority. In other words, the therapeutic strategy is that nobody gets hurt. But finding productive niches for the compulsively-driven will prove problematic as production in the West has been halted and handed over to ill-prepared agrarians in Asia (who don't as of yet understand the concepts of critical inquiry into the morality of production) by the compulsively-driven. This creates a possibly insurmountable problem that reminds me of violent revolution: struggle for the means of production. I cannot imagine a solution that is non-violent as every attempt at non-violence in the global arena has met with violence from the globalist guardians through swat teams, billy clubs, arrests, and tear gas; and reverse violence from the rear by violent so-called anarchists who are merely terrorist egotists, and in my experience, fascistic themselves.The above added by John Bessa 23:39, 9 January 2011. Note by Abd 16:36, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Is anybody else becoming critical of this?

I mean, how much is enough? Or too much? --JohnBessa^talk 13:48, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

• Indeed, all these indefinite references are just too much. (Not to mention all this over-wrought self-referential irony.) —Caprice 14:43, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
• Look at it as an experiment. It may or may not work.

That's not what I am talking about! Read between the lines ($16,000,000) --JohnBessa^talk 15:25, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

• What's my cut of the loot? —Caprice 15:29, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I had no idea what was being talked about at first. Now I think John Bessa might be talking about the fund raiser and the amount WMF supposedly needs to operate. -- darklama  16:44, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I thought the banners were pretty. They seem to be over now. What turned me off was the continued "urgent message" from Jimbo. With nothing indicated in the message that was urgent at all. That is a formula for increasing revenue now -- because more people might read the message, but reducing it later, because people will stop paying attention. "Urgent message" should be reserved for ... urgent messages! Like the power company is about to turn out the lights, the web site is about to be disconnected from the internet, the servers are about to shut down, or the Foundation is about to lose the services of the CEO or whatever she's called, because her contract requires exhorbitant payments that can't be continued unless we Raise More Money. (I have no idea if she's worth what she's paid, this is a general comment, not a specific one about the current executive, who seems nice enough to me, if occasionally clueless.) --Abd 16:57, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Maybe if they put some of the money towards additional developers so something as simple as turning on subpages via a config file edit wouldn't take three months to get pushed through, I might consider donating money in addition to my time. Adrignola 04:31, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

"Now I think John Bessa might be talking about the fund raiser.." Darklama gets it! My question is this: is WP merely a vehicle for Jimbo's ego in the same sense that the socialism was a vehicle for communist leaders. I see his misuse of diversity as the socialism of globalism, and my being forced to view his picture nearly everyday reminds me of Orwell's Big Brother. And the money certainly is an issue as operating a free software system cannot possibly cost more than a few hundred thousand.

On a personal side, I am taking a month off from school to attempt to organize my counseling psychology writing. But at the end of the day, I go back to my pre-psych basics:

• Science is phenomic in that there is a single explanation for all phenomena (including Jimbo), and, on a different level,
• we all need to try to think in terms of how others will feel about what we say, do, or delete--purely for beneficial results.

--JohnBessa^talk 18:39, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Talking about Cold Fusion and Cold Comfort

Since User:Kww has locked down the Wikipedia talk page on Cold Fusion, the conversation has migrated to Joshua Schroeder's WP talk page, where one participant has called it "surreal." —Caprice 12:35, 28 December 2010 (UTC) Addendum: See also this thread on W-R.

• User:Kww has just revision-deleted my posts on Joshua Schroeder's WP talk page, but you can still view them here or here. —Caprice 15:14, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

While what Caprice is asserting is generally true, this is radically off-topic here at Wikiversity, straying into territory that previously brought down intervention from "Foundation functionaries." Jimbo is not likely to return, but studying the behavior of specific Wikipedia editors and administrators on Wikiversity is, indeed, likely to attract contentious participation here, and possible steward action. I have no personal objection to "Wikimedia studies" here, except through the possible political and disruptive effects. I suggested to Caprice, when he asked about this kind of discussion, that it be done on Wikipedia Review or NetKnowledge.org, where "cross-wiki" flak would not be a problem. Caprice cannot post to WR, he's banned there, but he has full access to NK.org. I did post on WR, as he points out, and maybe linking to that would be okay some place on Wikiversity, but I don't think it's appropriate for the general attention of the Colloquium. We cannot allow Wikiversity to be turned into a refuge, within the WMF family, from which Wikipedia editors can be personally criticized. Passing mention of editorial behavior there, where relevant, maybe. But the above, I don't think so.

Yeah, though, it is "surreal." Now, let's drop it, my suggestion. Massive disruption did occur here when we failed to handle these issues ourselves, considering the needs of the other WMF wikis. --Abd 17:28, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• Surrealism aside, it's remarkable how User:Kww simultaneously illustrated both the Governance Model of Wikipedia and the Corollary to Moulton's Nth Law of Bureaucracy. —Caprice 17:41, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
• Well, that was phun. —Palomino of Certainty 07:54, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Which sweats more, a wet turban or a cup of warm pee?

OK, so I have been asking this question around, and I'm getting some unexpected answers...

“ Question: Which of these carries away more heat from your body:

1) Peeing away a gram of pee.

2) Evaporating a gram of sweat off your skin.

”

Rather than answering it here, can you estimate how many people actually give the correct answer?

Caprice 23:14, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

So far, two females have gotten this right, and two males have gotten it wrong. —Caprice 00:52, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, wouldn't it depend on the temperature of the surrounding area? Also how much clothing you wear, exposure to air, etc. Ottava Rima (talk) 01:27, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

• Nope. The key word is evaporating. It doesn't matter if it takes longer to evaporate a gram of sweat than to take a pee. The question is about the amount of heat carried away, not the rate. —Caprice 05:02, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

This is okay for the Colloquium? Well, if it's okay with Ottava, it must be okay. No, it doesn't depend on the clothing, etc., all the necessary conditions were expressed by saying that the sweat evaporates off of the skin. Let me put it this way. There is a reason why we sweat when it's hot, instead of making a different kind of mess. Passed water could carry away some heat, yes, but won't cool what remains; evaporating water actually cools, from the heat of vaporization. In either case we lose the gram of water, but it first cools us in the case of sweat. If the water we pass on the ground evaporates there, it cools the ground, not us! Caprice is making a point relating to cold fusion calorimetry, by the way. Not to be discussed here!

And the section title cleverly led the reader into a false assumption, I'd guess that this could be why two guys got it wrong. Goes to show. Or is it because guys have a thing about peeing? Never a dull moment. --Abd 04:10, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

• The four people who ventured answers before did not see the thread title here. They just got the question straight up. —Caprice 05:02, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

You can sweat underneath a heavy coat and not lose heat because of the coat. It is a strange situation and why overheating is dangerous in the cold. Also, most people don't urinate into a heavy coat, so the heat would be lost from the body completely. :) Ottava Rima (talk) 04:46, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

• The amount of heat carried away by the evaporating sweat is unaffected by wearing a coat. What the coat does is capture heat lost from your body and then reflect most of it back. The fact that the environment is conveying incoming heat in your direction is independent of the amount of heat that a gram of sweat carries off when it evaporates from your skin. —Caprice 05:02, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I now have a correct answer from a male respondent.

“ Sweating moves more heat from the body because evaporative colling requires additional energy which comes from the remaining water that is left on the body which becomes cooler as a result.

For optimal cooling one would pee onto an item of clothing or fabric and then wrap this around the head. This allows the urine to be used for evaporative cooling in addition to just directly removing heat from the body. The "pee turban" would be a bit pungent perhaps and not much of a fashion statement, but in case of emergency, i.e. being lost in a desert, it might be worth a try.
—Peter R.

”

Caprice 11:15, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

But you said from the body, and the reflected heat has not left the body. Miracle of clothing! Once you pee, it's gone. :P Ottava Rima (talk) 14:54, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

• It's not gone if you :P into your hat. Consider that! —Caprice 15:04, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

As I think we ought to know from our own experience, peeing doesn't cool us at all. Thermodynamically, simply removing material from a body, when the temperatures match, doesn't cool it. We pee because we need to get rid of toxins, not for cooling; if not for the toxins, we'd be much better off, if we need cooling, to save the water involved for sweat. And, yes, sweating cools by turning water into water vapor, which absorbs heat, and the vapor will escape through any clothing that "breathes," wool is particularly good for that, ever wonder why the Arabs wear wool in very hot weather? It insulates, but allows evaporative cooling. Ottava should stick with poets, or certain other subjects, where I'm sure he could write circles around me. There is no "reflected heat" involved. Heat of vaporization ("cooling"), very powerful effect. --Abd 20:54, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

• It actually surprised me how few people got this right. But Abd knows the real reason I posed this otherwise silly question. It's important to distinguish between removing moisture in the liquid phase vs removing it in the vapor phase. The failure to model that correctly can lead to problematic accounting errors in a calorimetric model. —Caprice 21:21, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

• Yeah, so much for general science education. We have a lot of work to do, Barry. The question raised is an interesting one, but probably moot with respect to the topic we are discussing, unless there is liquid water spitting out of the cell/calorimeter combination, in which case it would be a Big Deal, and if Barry is right in his guess, he won't get the Nobel Prize, but he might get some credit for finally figuring out why hundreds of researchers around the world, include the world's foremost experts on calorimetry, have gotten it wrong. I don't suggest he buy a suit for the award yet. But it makes for some great discussion. --Abd 22:33, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not gonna hold my breath waiting to find out whether some of the "successful" CF runs were venting substantial amounts of mist along with gases and vapors. What puzzles me is why there wasn't a term in the Miles-Fleischmann Model for Pmist in the first place, or at least strong instructions to insert a moisture barrier beneath the gas vent. Note that every gas bubble that pops the surface will carry some proportional amount of moisture with it, so that the ratio of mist to evolved D2 and O2 will obey some discoverable law. And that means the atmosphere will quickly become saturated (~100% humidity), as seen in the video here. So even if the cell temperature is moderate, I reckon the atmosphere will be as foggy as the moors. —Caprice 23:58, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

"Mist" is transient. Fog occurs when humid air is cooled below the dew point, the point at which water will condensed. Another way to state this is that when the air cools, its capacity to carry heat is reduced, and when it reduces far enough, the moisture condenses. If there is no cool object to condense on, it will appear as tiny droplets of water in the air, thus clouds or fog. The atmosphere in the cell will not be "foggy," because it is not being cooled internally. Generally, these cells are cooled by cooling of the apparatus, which would then cause condensation on the walls of the apparatus. In the Miles-Fleischmann experiment, the cell is a Dewar flask, so, again, it won't cool, the inner wall will be at the general inner cell temperature. Nevertheless, venting gas will pass through some apparatus, perhaps glass or plastic tubing. As water condenses on this, it will heat, until it reaches the same temperature as the inside of the cell, so condensation there will be limited to a low rate, sufficient to keep the vent warm enough. The "Miles-Fleischmann Model" -- Barry's neologism -- is not a general model for CF calorimetry, just for a particular approach. It is not an experimental protocol, either, it's a mathematical study of relevant factors in one particular class of experiments. That class of experiments would, indeed, be vulnerable, in casual consideration, to the error Caprice notes. But practically, if the cell were experiencing this phenomenon, there would be visible mist exiting the cell. It's easy to distinguish between vapor phase and mist, the former is invisible, the latter is easily seen. If they were seeing mist, they'd have considered it! But, my conclusion from what I've read, they didn't, so they didn't.

The video Caprice cites is of entirely different work, with open electrolysis, at very high current. The flying droplets are a result of that vigorous evolution of bubbles. The air inside cold fusion cells will be close to saturation, though not quite there, I think, because of condensation on exposed cooler surfaces (at the top of a cell, where the vent is located).

As long as the exit venting is such that condensation on the inside of it runs back into the cell and does not obstruct the gases, no droplet venting or misting would be expected. Rather, when the vented gases emerge into cooler ambient air, one might see condensation in the gases, but close examination would reveal that this was taking place at a (small) distance from the vent opening, as we see with any boiling water and a steam jet. And that would only be seen at high rate of gas evolution. At the lower rates that would be more normal, no misting at all would be seen, because the the cooling and mixing would happen simultaneously, so that as the gas/vapor cools, the capacity to carry it increases, since the ambient air is far below 100% humidity.

And this discussion really shouldn't be here. It's highly appropriate on Cold fusion pages discussing CF results and problems. Still, maybe there is some value in exposing some part of the discussion to others. Cold fusion is a learning resource, not an article on Cold fusion or the expression of only one point of view. All are welcome to participate, to inform and to learn. Some of the concepts can take time to become sufficiently familiar, but don't worry about "stupid questions." Some of us might call them stupid! -- that's common student banter, and professors have been known to do it -- but the only true stupid question is the one that one has in ones mind but does not ask. Really, "stupid" is a misnomer, the true condition is "ignorant," and ignorance is the beginning of learning. Sometimes, though, we know enough, already, to be able to answer our own question, so "stupid" is a form of chiding, better framed as encouragement to think and reflect. Politically incorrect now, often for very good reasons. If anyone is offended, let us know. --Abd 18:00, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

• "Mist" is transient.

Yes. As soon as you turn off the battery charger, the bubbling stops. And as soon as the bubbling stops, the misting stops, too. And as soon as the misting stops, so does the measurement of anomalous "excess heat." When I was in Phoenix, a few years ago, I had lunch in one of those touristy bistros where you dine outdoors. They had "misters" that sprayed a fine mist over the outdoor dining area, to keep it cool. You got to accentuate the positive. Eliminate the negative. Latch on to the affirmative. Don't mess with Misters, in this scene. —Caprice 22:07, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

This isn't the place for this, I've written too much already. If anyone is interested, there is voluminous discussion of these issues under Cold fusion and questions and other participation are welcome from all. Otherwise, let's not fill the Colloquium with what rapidly become private conversations. --Abd 21:37, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

• I've written too much already.

Yes. Way, way too much. It would behoove you to discontinue the practice of writing way way too much. You can't do science by making long-winded speeches. You can't even do politics that way in this day and age. Einstein said more in one brief iconic equation than most people say in a lifetime of exhaled words. —Caprice 23:39, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

I can see by your verbiage that you are not Einstein.

You can see by my verbiage that I'm not Einstein too.

We can see by our verbiage that we are not Einstein.

If you write tomes like us, you can be not-Einstein too.

Except Einstein did not appear, lotus-born. There is a process. Before one can be Einstein, one must be not-Einstein. --Abd 04:15, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Emesee's pagemoves

This user has apparently moved a variety of pages from the topic namespace to the template namespace. The template namespace should be reserved for transcluded wikicoding, and his moves seem to have disrupted a lot of topic pages. Should these actions be reverted? TeleComNasSprVen 02:19, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, page moves like {{New Testament Greek/Department news}} have created a mess. The question is the best way to clean it up. --mikeu ^talk 02:39, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

It looks like Topic:New_Testament_Greek uses text in the template pages for transclusion. This seems to me to be a rather ugly hack. --mikeu ^talk 02:39, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

TeleComNasSprVen 06:27, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Category:Novial

I'm not sure if this is appropriate, but I believe that most of the pages in this category ought to be moved under Topic:Novial as subpages of the topic. Otherwise it may appear confusing; for example, upon searching for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, one might be looking for lessons on how to read the original book, rather than how to translate it into Novial. TeleComNasSprVen 06:16, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

TeleComNasSprVen 06:27, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Organizational Structure of Pages

I guess I don't understand the structure of Wikiversity. For example, I don't get what the difference is between Topic: and Category:. The best example of the confusion I have is the subject of Fourier analysis. Check out the topic page and the category page. Is that organized right? Let me know so I can contribute well. --Capoeirista.muralha 07:05, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

"Is that organized right?" As with everything: There is no right or wrong. Both have (dis)advantages.

My experience from when I started: Topic/school confused me more than helped me (see also Wikiversity:Vision/2010#Merge_School_and_Topic_namespaces). Category usage was familiar since this was done also on Wikipedia (so other users acting so from Wikipedia or other sister projects could be familiar with that easier).

In the end it is all about: how fast you want others to find the learning resource you created. If something makes for you trouble, what makes you think it won't create trouble also for others? Other hint: using both increases chances that someone may find it�:-) ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat (try) 09:07, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

I guess I was just trying to see if there was a clear organizational structure, like Category > Schools > Topics > ... etc. About the "how fast you want others to find the learning resource you created" thing, creating information on a category and then new information on a topic seems like a great way to confuse general users just browsing. There is also the possibility that some information could be doubled, increasing the chances of confusion. Just my thoughts on the matter. Capoeirista.muralha 14:20, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Allow/encourage use of Talk pages for non-maintenance discussion?

I posted this proposal on Wikipedia's Village Pump, and was told it may be of merit here. I've linked instead of copying the content to prevent fracturing the discussion. You can find it here: Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Allow/encourage use of Talk pages for non-maintenance discussion? 217.155.230.238 00:20, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

You are welcome to create a discussion of a wikipedia article here at wikiversity and invite anyone to participate. If you would like help starting this, just ask. --mikeu ^talk 00:45, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Is there a particular namespace/organisational structure/policy for this? I feel it would be better organised if it was at Wikipedia (and so could be `attached' to an article in the same way Talk pages are), but it makes more sense to have it on Wikiversity (as it has significant teaching potential, especially for philosophy). 217.155.230.238 01:07, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

You may be interested also in: Portal:Reading groups, Category:Wikipedia, Category:Wikimedia (see also WM/WP Studies in there). In regards to policies: depends what you actually do then, see more at Wikiversity:Policies.

I'd forget the concept of talk pages then actually. You can reference the content or copy paste the section you are talking to here (since you need it for discussion). I'm not sure how much pages you are going to "talk" about, but I'd start slow + see how it develops. Page titles can always be moved to another name. You could make a general page where you detail first what you are planning to do (e.g. in Portal:Reading groups). And then there list the specific page of interest for the moment. ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat (try) 09:05, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Discussions aimed at teaching and learning about a topic can happen in talk pages AND in resource space ("article" space in WP terms). There is no specific structure or policy for this that I can think of. Seminars, lectures, speeches, learning through interaction, etc. are just part of Wikiversity's scope. --�darklama� 11:05, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

You might want to look at the Village Pump again for my latest reply. Basically, this fixes one half of the problem (and is a good idea which I look forward to contributing to, thank you). We have a link allowing knowledge from Wikipedia to filter down to Wikiversity, where it can be discussed and expanded upon, but we have no link back up, where this new knowledge can be put back into Wikipedia articles. 217.155.230.238 12:50, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

We have no "knowledge-vetting" process. We can create resources that explore a topic, that collect and organize evidence, etc., and so we can develop, here, in theory, deep consensus. But this isn't and can't be a source for Wikipedia unless we develop some peer-review process equivalent to what is done with academic publishers, or at least some process that takes equivalent care to ordinary reliable source publishers. However, we can, also in theory, link to Wikiversity resources from Wikipedia articles, there is a template for that, and a guideline. It should be okay whenever the resource might be of interest to readers. In fact, I've seen the templates removed on the arguments that the resources aren't reliable, or are "self-published," or the like. Wikiversitans should resist this. Wikiversity is covered by WMF neutrality policy, and it's an open wiki. This is precisely a place where topics can be discussed, and connecting this discussions with the Wikipedia articles that they relate to is precisely the solution to the issue raised here, where to discuss topics. The only caveat is that our discussions should be aimed toward developing educational resources, and we should put increasing effort into organizing discussions so that they do that. This will require a lot of work.... but it is where I see Wikiversity going, as to large-scale activity. --Abd 15:09, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

see also Wikiversity:Review board + Wikiversity:Peer review, ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat 15:35, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

See w:Template:Wikiversity, which you can add to the article under "external links", "see also", or wherever the other interwiki templates are slapped in. --SB_Johnny ^talk 15:11, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

(adding after edit conflict:) The interwiki (aka "sister project") templates don't follow the same rules as other external links, so if they're being removed as self-published or unreliable, they should be put back in. --SB_Johnny ^talk 15:14, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Actually, the guidelines for other external links are similar, the basic rule is usefulness to the reader, but these are frequently removed on the claim that a web site is "biased." Biased against the point of view of the one removing, of course. It's preposterous, an article on a political party would surely give a link to an official web site for the party, which will surely be biased, and if there is some significant critical site, that should be there too. Where there is a controversy, there should be a few links to the best web sites exposing, collectively, the dimensions and details of the controversy. Of course, in my case, I was talking about w:Cold fusion, though I've seen similar action with other articles (but not about interwiki links, just about external ones). I'm COI on cold fusion, and I was following COI rules, which would ordinarily prohibit me from making a controversial edit. I didn't expect it to be controversial!

In this situation, I went through a whole successful ArbComm case to establish the right to link to lenr-canr.org, the best "library" of papers on cold fusion, and the most complete bibliography, run by experts, and, in fact, neutral as to inclusion in the bibliography, as to inclusion policy, and only "biased," perhaps, in some site commentary. But that site had been abusively blacklisted, and it took until a few months ago to get the last trace of this, the global blacklisting at meta, removed, and I was again topic-banned on Wikipedia on the basis of that (successful!) delisting request. On meta. Too many words for the admin, apparently, blew his fuses. Citations and links are still being removed from w:Cold fusion on the basis of some alleged site bias, see this, accompanied with an argument that has been rejected every time it was considered, by consensus, and this (for a site that was hosting a copy of the Houston Chronicle article under "fair use." But the fair use rationale wasn't cited, and the citation wasn't edited to point to the original.) The reference to a statement in the article was mangled by this, still is. In spite of not making any controversial edits to Cold fusion for much more than a year, I'm still being blamed for any alleged defects in the article. This is the same stuff that I took to ArbComm, and the same admin, but, without going through a whole pile of nuisance to appeal to ArbComm, I can't personally do anything about it, not even to point it out on-wiki, due to the renewed topic ban.... In any case, the WV interwiki link is of specific interest here, and Barry's participation in Cold fusion is, hopefully, providing some balance, and I'm seeking more participation, including from other skeptics. There is a lot of work to do, and I find the WV environment far more congenial and ultimately more efficient. Work isn't wasted here, it builds resources, it doesn't just push the boulder up the hill so that we can watch it roll back down. Wikiversity resources could, in general, become deep resources, taking encyclopedic entries into full coverage, in an environment free of arbitrary restrictions that may be appropriate for an encyclopedia, but no university professor -- or student -- would consider himself or herself restricted in that way. Controversial positions can be presented and argued in detail, in a university environment. And expertise is respected, even if the views held by the expert are idiosyncratic, "fringe," or alleged to be so. --Abd 17:39, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

So, just to be clear, it would be OK for me to start a page here for a free academic discussion about, say, The effect of stress on oligodendrocyte myelin production? It wouldn't need to be oriented toward constructing a course module, article or the like? Anthonyhcole 01:08, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Sure, give it a shot. --SB_Johnny ^talk 12:30, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, it's just my model, but you might look at what I'm doing with Cold fusion. There is a top-level resource page which organizes and links to various resources. Part of that page is an article, but the article might become a very brief summary at the top, with more detailed subpages covering various topics in detail. These might be like lectures in a course series. Then there are seminars, which are discussion groups (or maybe just one person writing something on the specific seminar topic, which is then open for discussion, subpage research papers and reports, etc.) If you want to have an academic discussion, it could be organized as a seminar. My goal with the cold fusion resources is to create educational resources from discussion and subpages, refactoring it all. Raw discussion tends to produce a lot of noise (right now, discussion is hot on cold fusion with myself and another here, so it's quite a mess, but it shouldn't stay that way). Discussion, as such, can take place on Talk pages attached to resource pages, and as you find consensus, you can put that on the resource page, or, at least, document various points of view.

We are quite unlike Wikipedia. We can discuss the subject, just as students in a seminar can discuss the subject, or experts (and students) may hold a colloquium or produce a conference report, etc. I suggest aiming for more than simple discussion; the raw discussion can be preserved at a lower level: think of future generations and build something. Use subpages liberally, it keeps the work connected. However, my standard for a top-level resource would be whether or not a university would have a course with that topic. But, then, we can break courses down into seminars that can get very, very specific.

To be very specific myself, if all you do is just start discussing, it may not be thought of as an educational resource. But it only takes some sketchy superstructure to place a page like you describe into an oeverall educational context. And building that, for those who are interested in "oligodencrocyte myelin production", can build community, should be very simple for those who know the topic (sourcing is not necessarily required!) and should bring, possibly, more focus to the discussion. The discussion can, indeed, be of the topic, rather than just about the content to go in an "article." We are about research and study here, in my opinion, not about creating articles, though we may create articles as part of our process. --Abd 05:18, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

• The dialogue with Abd has been quite fruitful. Of course there is also a lot of disposable tailings, after we have mined the massive mountain of material for the elusive Phlogiston of our Dreams. —Caprice 14:19, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

• I agree with Caprice. Mining the educational material will take work, but the results will be, I believe, worthy of the effort. These discussions get hot because the real-world conflicts are hot, with sometimes bitterly divided factions. At least we are talking! And the discussions delve into evidence and sometimes subtle and difficult-to-follow arguments, or arguments that require an established body of knowledge to understand, but, believe it or not, there are agreements appearing along the way. Besides, we are getting some Moar Atrocious Song Parodies. --Abd 20:57, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

I reckon we are in for a long spell of Moar Atrocious Song Parodies in the days ahead. One doesn't need a Ph.D. in Electrochemistry to understand the hydrodynamics of pee, sweat, and effervescence. Finding the next round of metaphors will not be quite so easy. The next round will depend on incredulous stories told by bards who neither sing nor dance. Detecting the emotional modulation in their narratives will be harder than measuring the mass of Phlogiston. —Caprice 08:25, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. Anthonyhcole 10:09, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

• You are more than welcome, Anthony. I hope you learned what you were questing for. —Caprice 19:19, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Identi.ca page started

Hi, I switched from twitter to Identi.ca. Mainly because in Identi.ca one can licence her posts with Creative Commons by 3.0 - in twitter I can't. If someone is there also, please add yourself. Thanks, ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat (try) 10:06, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikimedia penetration

Some figure on penetration (mainly Wikipedia, but also sister projects e.g. Wikiversity are mentioned at bottom), ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat 18:44, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

• I'll just point out that, here in the US, today is Martin Luther King Day. Let us solemnly recall his greatest speech. —Caprice 01:09, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

courses running/starting in January 2011

• Psycholinguistics (Dalhousie University)
• SPIR608 Political Simulation and Gaming (University of Westminster)
• Composing free + open online educational resources (OER) (University of Art and Design Helsinki), ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat 22:02, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Mentorship RfC

An RfC on amending the mentorship process has been proposed. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:24, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

--Minsun 23:19, 15 January 2011 (UTC) interested

Stewards and Global Sysops

Because of a lack of activity in patrolling vandalism, global sysops and stewards have been doing quite a bit of that lately. As such, those like Wutsje, Mercy, and the rest are making good reverts or tagging pages, but the tagged pages just clog the CSD as we have many admin on file but very few are willing to devote the time to regularly monitoring such.

I think we should allow the global sysops and stewards to be able to process the CSDs themselves. Global sysops are normally automatically part of a community if there are fewer than 3 admin making admin logged actions, which we are borderline. They are also extremely easy to remove. You will recognize that one of them, Pmlineditor, is an admin here already. They are also provided a bot that gives them what edits are potential vandalism and should be dealt with, and they normally only work on such items. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:14, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I'd prefer to see this request come from a global sysop! It's not an issue with pmlineditor, of course. I've been working on CSD, and there are problems in allowing global sysops who may not be familiar with our policies to process them. They will get it right most of the time, though, it is the exceptions that worry me. With clear vandalism, and clear spam -- much clearer than passes for spam detection on Wikipedia -- it should be fine. Otherwise, a global sysop may tag a page with CSD. And when there is a serious backlog, it can be mentioned at Wikiversity:Request custodian action.

So I'd like to discuss this with any global sysop who wants to help.

I probably also need some help in detecting vandalism, it's not that I haven't been looking. On Wikipedia, I had the user tools installed that made it easy to see vandalism with pop-ups, but that isn't working here. So I have to actually load the edits, which takes far, far longer, so, I'm sure, I miss a lot of vandalism. --Abd 19:24, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

It is laziness to think that people shouldn't do CSD until there is a backlog. The Custodian policy makes it clear that Custodianship is a job, not a right or a privilege. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:29, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

"Laziness." Hey, is that uncivil? I've been doing CSD work. I consider it important. There is a backlog, in my opinion, and the reason is that the decisions are not necessarily easy. Sometimes they are, sometimes not. When they are truly difficult, removing the CSD is what I'll do, often, since a difficult deletion decision should be made by the community. Then, if someone still wants the page deleted, it can go to Wikiversity:Requests for deletion. Sometimes I might take it there, but I think we have other priorities than, say, marginal categories.

To give an example, though, there was an empty category, still is, Category:Cognitive neuroscience. Looking at this, I found a can of worms. Probably there should be pages in the category, instead of deleting the category! And I fixed one resource, as to formatting, but there are still problems. With a series of Bloom clock pages, I wanted to consult with SB_Johnny first, before deleting a whole slew of empty categories and the like. So it takes a little time.

We had an admin here who simply deleted according to his own opinion. Usually he was right, but the exceptions were killers.

For reference, Category:Candidates for speedy deletion

I'll also be suggesting a way to mobilize more community labor for speedy deletion. Actually pushing the button is easy. Identifying the pages to delete, while still considering how to grow the community, respect users, etc., is more difficult. --Abd 19:43, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

None of those pages apply to this situation. The edits they are given is provided by a bot that monitors IP edits cross wiki and recent changes that post up gibberish, cussed word based things, and other pre-set common vandalism and nonsense entries. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:00, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Here are some examples of the bot hits in #cvn-sw where the global sysops and stewards sit and see what vandalism needs to be addressed:

<+CVNBot6> �03�IP��14 m:User:193.141.83.44 �03�edited��14 m:User talk:Wutsje (+9)�14 �10Diff:�12 http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?diff=2284795&oldid=2284794&rcid=2405575�14 "/* Pokémon */ "
<+CVNBot9> �03�IP��14 �03�edited��14 (-1110)�14 �10Diff:�14 http://hy.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=426250&oldid=380709 "/* ÕŽÕ«Ö„Õ«ÖƒÕ¥Õ¤m=-= ;,.lm uyd iuiuf ,ewvkiiqwj kjijvnmnj jioui men uiyu8 hjiuy8esv m 5478.-7 'klihesj Õ«Õ¡ -> ÕŽÕ«Õ¯Õ«ÕºÕ¥Õ¤Õ«Õ¡ (ÕŽÕ«Ö„Õ«ÕºÕ¥Õ¤Õ«Õ¡) */ "
<+CVNBot7> �03�IP��14 �03�edited��14 (+22)�14 �10Diff:�12 http://sk.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=3371219&oldid=3302896�14 ""
<+CVNBot9> �14New user created. Block: http://hy.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Blockip/Zoro
<+CVNBot8> �03�IP��14 �03�edited��14 (+53)�14 �10Diff:�12 http://mk.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=1842116&oldid=1842113&rcid=1855209�14 ""
<+CVNBot8> �03�IP��14 �03�Possible gibberish?��14 ��07(+62171)��14 �10Diff:�12 http://mk.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=1842117&oldid=1379759&rcid=1855210�14 ""
<+CVNBot7> �03�IP��14 �03�edited��14 (-2)�14 �10Diff:�12 http://sk.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=3371221&oldid=1392480�14 ""

- Ottava Rima (talk) 20:07, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

mmm.... I looked at Special:Contributions/Wutsje and picked up his CSD tags and handled them quickly. I looked at Special:Contributions/Mercy and there were no CSD tags, and saw nothing to do. Wutsje's one local block might be problematic, but not a terribly big deal if the global admin doesn't make a habit out of it. I'll discuss it with Wutsje, but, bottom line, we are not Wikipedia, nor are we like almost all the other WMF wikis, so the problems with the block wouldn't necessarily be obvious to someone from outside our community. Meanwhile, what is the problem here? --Abd 20:36, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Did you look at their deleted contribs and compare the date of tagging with date of deletion? o.O If you bothered to read the RC feed like I do you will see these things. They are people willing to patrol, something that we don't have anymore. Why would you not want them? Ottava Rima (talk) 23:43, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Ottava, the tone ("if you bothered") is not helpful. Yes, I looked. Patrolling for vandalism is commonly done by non-admins, and these people are welcome to do it. They are also welcome to tag pages for speedy deletion, and I'm seeing that those pages are being reviewed, though not quite as quickly as I'd like to see. We can fix that, easily. In an emergency, with someone on a vandalism spree, I'd have no problem with them blocking, but I'd not want this done with, for example, a limited amount of "nonsense," and certainly not for "out of scope," or the like. --Abd 02:53, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't see any problem with them deleting pure nonsense pages. OTOH, Moulton is on IRC far more than any of us, so perhaps he'd be willing to patrol for such things? --SB_Johnny ^talk 00:25, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

• Are you out of your freakin' mind? —Caprice 00:48, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
• As you can see, the feed is global so they are busy working on all of the different projects at once. We would need to come up with a consensus to allow them to CSD items related to the CVN-bot feeds before they can be "officially" allowed to do this, as we have more than 10 admin as the inactive admin count towards that total. Ottava Rima (talk) 01:56, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

• Looking over what has been speedied by one of the two global sysops mentioned, most of it's fine as deleted, but a little isn't. I'm not ready to approve this, I don't see sufficient problem to justify it. However, I do think that it's possible to arrange for a way to do it, and also to encourage more local support for vandalism patrol. I'm just thinking about how to do it efficiently and safely. A single problem deletion can do a lot of damage to a user's relationship with the community. But there is absolutely no problem with tagging pages, and setting up more reliably ways to get a quicker response to tags makes sense to me. I've got some RL emergencies, so I'm not doing it immediately, but I intend to set up some ways to make this work better, more reliably.
• If there is going to be deletion here, or blocking, by global sysops, I'd want much clearer guidelines and procedures, because, my guess, most global sysops don't have a clue about our special policies and qualities. I don't think that we actually need more admins, we need more structural support, more general community involvement. --Abd 02:49, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

We don't have "special policies and qualities". The only policies that got passed were those passed in spite of your actions. Most global sysops have more experience on these wikis and keeping them working than you ever will. After all, they were actually put into a position of trust by consensus. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:28, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Abd's first point. Global sysops should IMHO not be deleting or blocking, unless there's an emergency. Regards, Guido den Broeder 12:17, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Guido. "Unless there is an emergency." Yes. Wikiversity is a very special place, and we saw what happened when a super steward decided to clean it up. One steward's factional action even resulted in the effective block of a Wikiversitan, last year, though the global lock facility, intended for spam, but abused, and it took long-term effort to repair that. The global sysops are welcome to help, and I see their work as useful. But. We need to make sure that what they do is consistent with our local traditions and guidelines, and our inclusivity is far higher than on other wikis. I don't see any global sysops even commenting here, yet, but they are welcome. --Abd 12:42, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

A very simple criteria for the absolute silliest page creations would do the trick, I suspect. I went through the cat this morning and there wasn't a huge backlog. --SB_Johnny ^talk 16:17, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

--Ivan Gospodinov 16:30, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikibib[liography] concept Proposal

I would like to see a wikipage that answers the question "What books/articles should one read and in what order shoud one read them in order to become familiar with a subject?" I guess this can be a kind of the wikilibrary for wikiversity or the way to study your subject for the wikischolar journal. (so to speak in wiki-terms)

It’s simple as it gets:

1. People share impressions of books
2. and their contents in a subject
3. organize these books together,
4. not only to cover the subject, but
5. to create a kind of hierarchy
6. of the very way you have to go through
7. if you really want to get to know the subject.

For instance, lets say one would like to understand the concept of Modernism. In order to do so, one goes to the wikibooks page of Modernism. One finds there relevant reference books concerning epochs, which precede the epoch of Modernism (eg. Craske, M. (1997) Art in Europe 1700-1830: A History of the Visual Arts in an Era of Unprecedented Urban Economic Growth, Oxford Paperbacks.) This might serve as a recommended preliminary reading, that prepares one to grasp the concept of Modernism in a particular context, which, in this case, is Modernism of art. That book is followed by another one (eg. Brettel, R. (1999) Modern Art 1851-1929: Capitalism and Representation, Oxford Paperbacks ). Note that these are only examples! The whole referencing system should not be that linear. These books cover Modernism only in terms of visual arts, which is essential, but still not that comprehensive.

Moreover, this page should provide one with the best resources. For instance, given that Craske’s book is thorough enough so that one could get the necessary preparation for their study on Modernism of Visual Arts, there should be no need to flood the page with hunderts of other references. If that is not the case, then other more exhaustive books should be recommended.( Of course, such referencing hierarchy should be organized according to different levels of interest. In this way separate sub-hierachies are formed, which might be labelled “easy, medium and hard”. That is how the referencing system would be appropriate for deeply interested as well as for people who need just a quick dive in the subject. Note that it is important where these books are available! Everyone knows that a good study will often send you miles away from home just to get to read some 20 pages from a book only available in some National Library for instance.)

To get back on the track: My idea is to have books and articles classified according to their main subject and a recommended order to read them.

In other words, my idea is to link the knowledge of world with the right approach to it. (offer an inovative strategy for efficient and independent acquirement of knowledge) Since this literary means to create an information stream, which does not exist in the digital world yet, it still remains to be discussed, which is the best possible way to sort out that information.

A comment next to books "what is this book to cover from the subject", “this book will give you a view of...” should make it easy to exclude the less needed books for understanding Modernism.

It is important, that the project covers subjects in as many as possible different languages, so that as many as possible users can take advantage of it. That is how the multilingual way of studying a subject is presented.Note that studies are made in different languages, so this project might also need a way to present the "multi-lungial" way of studying a subject, because not all studies can be made only in english or in german or in french, most of the good studies include multi-lingual sources. That is not to say that it is needed to sepparate these wikipage's like in wikipedias way in different languages, but to create as I said the multy-lingual/babylonian page which contents all the suggested works in original(german, russian, ect)and then to separate page’s so that for instance the "german way" of studying the subject(for people who speak only german) is shown, which way suggests not the originals of the books(lets say originals that are in Russian), but the translations of these originals(if they exist) concerning the subject. So to speak there is no german equivalent of Modern Art 1851-1929 Capitalism and Representation, so you should either read it in english or suggest a german book that covers some or most of the content.

To generalize: The multy-lingual/babylonian page shows you all the books in different languages. The german page shows you the books in german and the translations in german from the other languages. There also may be a german/russian/hindu page, that is to say an option to exclude all books which are in languages you can not read. Next, one must be provided with information where to find the needed book. For that purpose, a link to a online resourse/a bookshop/ a library must be presented. One more thing: This linkage system can be a good adviser for fiction. For instance: If you want to actualy read Modernism try Thomas Mann, if you liked him than read Hermann Hesse as well. If you want to get serious about them you can try reading C.G. Jung or a lecture about Hermann Hesse and Religion, ect ect.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Ivan Gospodinov (discuss • contribs) 17:30, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion! words like "link the knowledge of world", babylonian sound like a huge task. But nothing is impossible, given enough time. How about setting up a learning resource for the concept for this? Be bold! Let's work out the details and see how to approach this. btw: you know any other initiative attempting such a (similar) task?

• One could on that page also detail:
  • libraries + their classification: why don't they offer such a system (already)? It seems to me since they have classification for many books, could be an easier step? (Reasons) why does it not exist yet?
  • comparison with other recommendation systems: Amazon just shortly flashed before my imaginary eye, ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat + Identi.ca 14:54, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

There are initiative's who come close to this concept but none are as accurate(so to say). For instance some library unions or the Open Library project. The thing is it's not enough to collect all this information, the point is to sort it. I'm suggesting this will(if its not already)be one of the biggest problems of the internet information flood. Visualizing and arranging information has been an issue for some time now in other spheres also.12

Even Wolframalpha is a good example if we say that we aim to "calculate" the knowledge needed for a subject. The reason why libraries don't offer this information is because(I suppose) we all have our professors and teachers who should care about presenting us with the right resources of information, so we never really needed such an initiative nor did we really had the opportunity to develop it. BUT as education systems continue to fail and there hasn't really been a better alternative this far I consider that we must "set education free" and give better opportunities for self-education. Libraries simply have the books and not the educational approach. In the case of amazon's recommendations: they are just too personalized, and the point here is not to give someone a recommendation what he may read next, but to give recommendations for the subject so that then everyone can choose. I think the main question is how should we create these tree's of knowledge? How should we connect the branches? Lets take an example with the german wikipedia Portal for society. We have three branches on the top:

• Politics and Education|Everyday|Communications(roughly)

Lets imagine that instead of Geselschaft(Society) it was a Wikibib portal for Modernism(as in the first example). We can as easily separate such branches with books in different spheres lets say:

• Political History| Life in general| Art (this is just a quick example.. not to be taken seriously)

Then at the bottom we see some icons who set the articles in the order: Super article, articles who should be read in german and informative articles. Actually those icons seem pretty awesome: We can set the book list according to similar rules. For instance the idea that you can just put an icon "this book should be read in spanish" I think solves the whole complexity of the "babylonian page". The Idea that some books should not be simply excluded but taged "informative" is also pretty good. So now that we have these three branches we need the lists of books, which can be arranged the german way of listing Exuse me for giving only german examples, but they sure are in many ways better than the english ones(you can see for yourself; and im not a german)

Lets image now the row: Priority(maybe thats what we need to sort out books, a priority system) Name of Book, Name of Author, Year ect. Then you can easily arrange them by clicking on the arrows.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Ivan Gospodinov (discuss • contribs) 17:30, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

pollution

pollution in today's life is raging our planet and destroying its end's It is so cruel that it is destroying their developer we humans.So I would like to say that we should eradicate it as early as possible before it terminate the life line of ours.www.natgeo.com--Shubhamkhg 09:45, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

"We" is always so general. Let's start individually: what have you done so far to reach that goal? ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat + Identi.ca 14:30, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

User page with content categories

This seems a bit odd to me, a user page with some content categories. Is it in any way customary? Regards, Guido den Broeder 14:11, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps customary for user? One needs to ask that specific user, why this was edited - perhaps he comes from a wiki where this is done so? Userboxes could also be used probably. Would you mind asking him? Thanks, ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat + Identi.ca 14:28, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Maybe start by taking a quiz http://www.beliefnet.com/section/quiz/index.asp?sectionID=200&surveyID=414

Confirmation hearing for SB Johnny

For 3 years worth of abuse, SB Johnny has been put up for confirmation according to the Wikiversity:Custodianship policy at Wikiversity:Candidates for Custodianship/SB Johnny 2. All are welcome to discuss the suitability of SB Johnny continuing as a Custodian and as a Bureaucrat.

The discussion will be closed 00:16, 1 February 2011 (UTC). Ottava Rima (talk) 00:18, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Two of three active bureaucrats have indicated that the "confirmation hearing" Ottava opened is out-of-process, and the third is the target of the process. Given that Ottava is threatening users with block for even commenting there, and to avoid the necessity of useless comment, gathering of evidence, etc., I have closed that process. To do this, I'm declaring an emergency, because of the serious incivility and disruption involved, and am willing to act in this developing situation in spite of normal Wikiversity:Recusal requirements. (I wrote that draft policy, in response to a suggestion from another custodian.) See my notice at Request custodian action. I am and will remain fully responsive to the community. It appears that the process Ottava started was coordinated off-wiki, and Ottava believes he has "two custodians" lined up to block me and others. This, alone, would be a very serious problem, an emergency, were it true. We do make decisions by discussion, but discussion must be orderly, or decision-making process becomes paralyzed. I do not intend to allow this. Any registered user may start a Community Review. This is not an attempt to suppress civil and reasonable discussion, but running the community through threats and innuendo and what might as well be called off-wiki conspiracy, must stop. Now. --Abd 17:19, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

It is not within policy for Crats to close such a discussion. It closes automatically at 7 days. If you want to "deem" it closed now, there is no consensus for SB Johnny to keep ops and they will be removed on February 1st. I have assurance by Stewards as to that. You have acted outside of your authority and have disrupted this community long enough. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:21, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Ottava is claiming to have negotiated a bypass of our community process and procedures, obtaining unspecified and unreferenced "assurance by Stewards." If that did indeed happen, it's very serious, and would be the subject of RfC at meta. It would be just as serious as his claim that there were two custodians ready to block me as soon as they "came back on." We'll find out. Any custodian who actually promised that would be properly desysopped, possibly as an emergency. Our ultimate decisions are to be based on open discussion, review of evidence in a forum where all parties and interested persons may testify, etc. --Abd 17:45, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I found no sign of recent Ottava activity at meta beyond his new proposal for desysop, which has been ignored except by Diego Grez; therefore the discussions were likely private. If Stewards have any intention of acting here, they should let us know what procedures they will follow, and should request comment, before or after the action. Likely there is no such "assurance," and Ottava's idea is opposite to consensus at m:Requests for comment/SB Johnny. --Abd 18:07, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

•  Comment IMHO there is only one way out of this mess, which is to restart with a blank sheet and select a new group of custodians and bureaucrats where everyone goes through the same confirmation process simultaneously. Regards, Guido den Broeder 17:52, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

• If there is a way out of this mess, the method eludes me. —Caprice 19:31, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

There isn't a current mess except with one user, a very disgruntled former custodian, removed for cause, continuing to stir up disruption, making threats, etc., plus a couple of others far less actively involved in problems, about whom nothing is likely to happen at all, beyond continued efforts to re-integrate them with the community and allow us to move on from the old mess. If you'd like to propose that total "solution," which would be massively disruptive, and which would require numerous difficult steps, you certainly may. You won't be blocked for proposing it, within process! Nor for proposing it out of process, for that matter, unless you were to totally insist on it, revert war or the like, and ignore specific warnings, etc. Guido, Wikiversity process is working, and working well. We are merely a bit slow, sometimes. Watch. --Abd 18:07, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

The majority of users have disagreed with you. Yet you persist. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:05, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Topic ban proposal - Abd

Abd has shown for the past 6 months that he is unable to do anything with Wikiversity name space besides disrupt, act incivility, make up claims about our policies and procedures that are just not true. He also hides this under a wall of text. I propose that he is topic banned for 6 months from any Wikiversity namespace page. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:04, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

• Support as proposer and support emergency desysop Ottava Rima (talk) 19:04, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
• Support I'm feel disappointed of Abd. The SB Johnny confirmation discussion should have not been closed. Diego Grez 19:09, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
• Comment. Given that I've invited custodial review of my intentions, that I consider the situation highly disruptive, I will be going ahead to block Ottava, per what I've stated, since he is escalating, not slowing down. This block may be reversed without consultation, by any custodian, now or later, but, I'll add, I'll expect that custodian to then monitor and deal with the developing situation, not just drive-by unblock.

Diego, are you suggesting that I be topic-banned because I closed a discussion, a decision that could easily be reversed if there were sufficient support for that? I will explain the block of Ottava on his Talk page. This is not a normal action, it is being taken under color of emergency, and I can, and, I assume, will be, judged on the propriety of this. This has gone far enough. Ottava has been pretending for a long time that he represents the community, when it is obvious that he does not. He informed me that I'd be blocked as soon as "two custodians" came back on-line. If they haven't done this, it must mean that they are not following the discussions and don't have a clue. You've backed a dead horse, here, Diego, and given how much I supported your candidacy, I'm, indeed, disappointed. Ottava wasn't being harassed. He was free to work as usual on Wikiversity. Nobody undid his last block by SBJ, which means to me that he doesn't have, at all, the support he's loudly proclaiming. Perhaps his friends will unblock him. That's fine with me. I just want this to be simple and clear. --Abd 19:52, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

• Support, as well as emergency desysop of Abd. Guido den Broeder 19:55, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
• Support the ban and emegency desysop. This is kinda scary. Abd has demonstrated just in this thread that he shouldn't be editing here and is threats to block for nothing is really bad." IDangerMouse 20:04, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
• Comment Note that Abd has now blocked Ottava Rima. Guido den Broeder 20:14, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
• Support The fact that you have blocked someone who is initiating proceedings against you is completely unacceptable. You don't block people just because they don't agree with you! Kevin Rutherford (talk) 20:17, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Just so people know, I too support an emergency removal of the tools. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 20:20, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
• Notice. Ottava blocked. Any custodian invited to take responsibility and unblock. Ottava was warned about blocking before the filing of this proposal by him. Such proposals cannot be used to prevent action. My intention to act, as needed, was also presented to the community for prior, and/or prompt review, and that review is still open. Please do review Ottava block log, if tempted to think I'm off the wall here. Notice blocks by, first, me, for two hours, for blatant incivility, later confirmed as such (and Ottava lost his bit over incivility). Then Darklama, Adambro, and SB_Johnny. Notice the unblocks, by Geoff Plourde, and Ottava himself. Notice that Plourde did not actually state that the block was undeserved, but that he believed there was inadequate warning. This community is ordinarily very, very slow to block. I'm saying, Enough. This block is not a ban. Any custodian may reverse, though I'm urging caution.

Note, as well, that any custodian could have simply asked me to not act. I also permitted that I be blocked, in case someone was worried about me doing some serious harm before seeing a request to stop. So there are two possibilities: no custodian is watching, in which case I'm It. I'm the only representative of the community here (indirectly, through my mentor Jtneill's trust), or any custodians watching are indifferent and willing to allow my action. I don't know which is the case, but Ottava claimed two custodians ready to block me, already, before this confrontation. We get to see. --Abd 20:19, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Posted in Wikiversity talk: chat

I posted in Wikiversity talk:Chat#Policy Change about making this a policy as it had a tag and no one was discussing. Could we discuss this IDangerMouse 20:02, 25 January 2011 (UTC)