Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Global Economics

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents

[edit] dates?

NB there's something strange here, in that the access dates for references on a bunch of these articles are October 2007.

It would of course help mightily if the instructor himself were to turn up and contribute in some way. I'm almost beginning to believe the conspiracy theories. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 00:41, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Seriously?

[1] So, the student writes anessay and editors here slave to get it to follow MOS and other rules, hoping to save it from AFD? And the student washes his hands of all this? --Rifleman 82 (talk) 11:51, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I think the problem is that the professor seems to only have instructed the students to just upload it, and do nothing beyond it – no inprovement or anything like that. I really can't understand that. Noble Story (talk) 11:54, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
The professor doesn't seem to be aware of what's happening here, and his students are screwed when they are graded on deleted or heavily edited articles. This was a poor idea on the prof's part. Czolgolz (talk) 16:43, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
I started to ask if anyone has emailed the professor, since he doesn't appear to be watching these conversations, but he has to be looking at Wikipedia to see the students' contributions. The only explanation apparent is that he is opting to ignore what anyone is saying. Aleta Sing 16:49, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Bleh, I hope that's not how's he planning to do it. Some of the articles have been created from home, as they were only edited by IPs that trace back to Verizon and Comcast. If he tries to sort this out just by contribs... well, he'll need some luck or a lot of patience. --Bfigura (talk) 17:09, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

60 or so down, 40 or so more to go. I believe WP editors have sent the prof a few emails. Should we email to abuse@marshall.edu or similar for disrupting WP by him & his students, for refusing to talk to us? --Rifleman 82 (talk) 17:14, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

That might be overkill. The problem isn't the articles, it's more the lack of communication and coordination, which is the fault of the instructor. Since it's not a case of simple disruption or vandalism, abuse@ might not be the right place to go. --Bfigura (talk) 17:20, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree. The project is ill-formed and ill-executed, but not abuse. Reporting it as such would gain us nothing but ill-will and would be ill-advised on our part. Aleta Sing 23:11, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm just hoping that he either learns from this, or takes it out of the course curriculum for next time. If not, then well... --Bfigura (talk) 23:27, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, maybe I'm being naïve, but I think we should be encouraging this sort of thing. We should be encouraging them to do it correctly, but labelling them as "annoying" is counterproductive. I think we should do our best to get in touch with the Professor in question and work out a better way to do this next time around. Even this time, although a good chunk of the content is unsuitable, we've got some decent articles out of it, so it's not a total loss or a "failure". Lankiveil (speak to me) 13:46, 10 May 2008 (UTC).
Wikipedia does encourage this sort of thing. See Wikipedia:School and university projects. But the professors/teachers have to cooperate too and do their homework. Very early on, he was pointed (at least twice) to the resources available at the School and University Project and encouraged to register his project there. He was also advised that his students could work on their articles in their user space until they are ready to publish, especially if they didn't want any 'outside' editors 'interfering' with their work until he could grade it. No apparent response to either of those suggestions. He was also emailed twice. The whole AN/I thread is here. Voceditenore (talk) 16:26, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I emailed the day before yesterday, but he hasn't responded. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:40, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Apparently, though, he does take time to edit the Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader article: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Are_You_Smarter_Than_a_5th_Grader%3F&diff=209783049&oldid=209690685 Czolgolz (talk) 23:18, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Curiouser and curiouser. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 23:21, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] American education system

I'm just wondering - are Americans really that insular in how they view the world, in view of the articles which have been written? Or is this simply reflects the requirements of a course in an American university? I'm talking about the American-centered essays, the "them vs. us" tone. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 19:05, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

It's because they're mostly written by (I'm guessing) 18-20 year olds who are writing this for an American professor and are unaware of Wikipedia's use as a global tool. It's just bad form from the professor, I can't believe he'd give an assignment like this. Czolgolz (talk) 19:09, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Not in my experience. It's kind of hard to generalize from one university, much less one class. --Bfigura (talk) 21:04, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
It's not just an unawareness of Wikipedia's global policies. The students' lack of objective distance from the material and failure to take into account the perspective of 'the unknown reader' is also unacceptable in an academic essay. In my teaching days I would have failed at least 3/4 of these. I don't think it's a particularly American problem, though. I've also encountered it many times in the British universities where I've taught. Often students are not given the necessary academic essay writing skills in secondary school, and (alas!), they don't pick them up in university either, unless their programs put a lot of effort into teaching them the ins and outs of the genre. Voceditenore (talk) 08:02, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Indeed, the sad thing is that these essays are so bad, as essays not simply as Wikipedia articles. And yet, had the instructor and/or the students taken the Wikipedia article seriously, this could have been a learning opportunity for them, and a way in which they could have improved their writing skills. This is certainly what I found at WP:MMM (see the students' comments here). Oh well. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 15:43, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Let's not generalize. Obviously, the professor is not giving much guidance, or he would have scrapped the whole wiki thing as soon as he saw the problems. Or maybe he did. Nothing new has been posted lately, maybe the prof e-mailed everyone and told them to submit their essays directly to him. And with a May 12th deadline, we may not be seeing the essays from the people who are putting a lot of thought into their assignment. Plus, we don't know if this is a community college, a basic class, or what. We're judging, but have no background info. Czolgolz (talk) 17:42, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, we do know that Marshall University isn't a community college. However, I do agree that nothing productive is really likely to come of judging their contributions any more than is necessary for AfD/etc. (Unless they ask for feedback, there's no sense in providing it, as we don't really need to alienate potential editors any further). Best, --Bfigura (talk) 18:31, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Y'all may be interested in this draft article for the Signpost, which I just drafted. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 19:05, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Nice copy. I think it's a worthwhile message to get out, if only so that we can prevent this sort of thing from happening again. (Hopefully anyway). --Bfigura (talk) 19:27, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
That was my brief!  ;) --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 19:28, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Good stuff. You might perhaps lay more stress on the differences (in terms of WP:NOR, WP:SYNTH etc.) between the requirements for a student essay and a WP article, which were a major source of trouble here. JohnCD (talk) 21:32, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
I left a note on the talk page of that dispatch, but I'm concerned that the useful table (which is part of this dispatch, and needs to endure) is in userspace; it would be good to see it placed somewhere durable. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:08, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Moved to so namespace. Qualifies as a project, however poorly executed IMO. Hope this helps. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 22:43, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Also, can anyone summarize the table data to the Dispatch article (things like how many speedy deletes, how many AfDs, how many merges, anything else useful)? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:20, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Updated links to new page in the article. There's also a Tips subpage?? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:39, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes this page, also moved that to WP space as a subpage of this project. --Bfigura (talk) 23:06, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Marshall University

At what point does this become notable enough to add into the article? If anything we ought to mention the apparent quality of instruction at Marshall University (if this professor is any indication). 69.143.226.129 (talk) 20:43, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Unless this is actually picked up by a reliable source, that would be a very bad idea. Wikipedia is not a tool to malign people who annoy us (even if we think they really have it coming). --Bfigura (talk) 21:00, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
I can't agree strongly enough with Bfigura's assessment. This has absolutely no place in a WP article unless (and not necessarily even if) a major news organization reports upon it. Commenting upon the instruction there based upon this experience would be WP:OR at best. Aleta Sing 03:19, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Numbers

Can the rows of the table be numbered? Aleta Sing 05:03, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] I moved the project page again

I moved the page and its subpages to Wikipedia:WikiProject Global Economics. This is the standard address used for project pages in the mainspace. See for example, Wikipedia:WikiProject Classical music, Wikipedia:WikiProject Gilbert and Sullivan, Wikipedia:WikiProject France.

In its previous current location, the page would have caused confusion to readers searching for an actual article on Global Economics. It also ran the risk of being heavily edited by people who don't know the background to this saga. I think I've corrected all the double redirects in the links on those pages. But perhaps someone else could check? Voceditenore (talk) 10:16, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi, can you stop moving it please? Its in current use by people not familiar with Wikipedia navigation, and changing the link every couple of days is likely to be confusing and disruptive to their efforts. Avruch T 13:39, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Has anyone else noticed that since the repeated moves of this page from its original location no one that appears to be a student in this class has added anything? Avruch T 17:24, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Are the appropriate redirects in place? Aleta Sing 17:36, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Actually, most, if not all of the articles were only edited once or a few times - when the student was doing the "initial upload". --Rifleman 82 (talk) 18:27, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
I just checked, and both prior page titles redirect to the current one; there should be no problem of students' not being able to find the correct page - which I suspect was Avruch's concern. (?) Aleta Sing 18:47, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] No new additions - possible reasons

From this comment [2] by a friend of one the students in the class, it's possible that:

  1. Some of the other students had already uploaded their essays and had them deleted before they could add them to the project page. Observe the deletion logs for Global smoking habit, for example. Or...
  2. They've figured out that other editors are watching the project page for new additions. They may have left them off the page to increase the chances of their articles remaining 'undisturbed', and notified the professor privately as to their location.

Voceditenore (talk) 10:34, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm guessing that the professor realized what was going on and had everyone resubmit their articles directly to him. Czolgolz (talk) 05:27, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Deadline?

Isn't today when the professor said the project would end? If so, we're nearly at an end to this mess. Aleta Sing 16:05, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Another popped up

I saw this today, but am unsure if it belongs or not, but it fits the modus opperandi of the previous essays: A brief history of the panama canal. This may be from yet another project we don't know about. The essay has already been PRODed. -MBK004 17:54, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I've deleted it as a copyvio from [3]. I haven't seen the project publishing their essays anywhere else so I doubt it's by a project member, especially as its dated 1990. Hut 8.5 17:58, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, it seemed like it could belong here, but it didn't seem especially like one of the project's essays. That's why I brought it here. -MBK004 17:59, 13 May 2008 (UTC)