Hello,
I see you are the course instructor for this course. I read this comment of yours. To me, the knee-jerk reaction by the community was quite predictable.. the thing to understand is that editors are faced with deletion decisions for a surprisingly large number of articles everyday (for example, over 75 articles were put up for deletion today). So it's not surprising that some of your class' articles got swept up in that process, since some had unencyclopedic names like "Why Journalists Deserve Low Pay".
Hopefully you were able to brush off the negative comments you and your students had to face.. the deletion process is probably the most unfriendly first-encounter new users can have (not to mention a trip to the Administrators' noticeboard, also known as "Drama central"!), but unfortunately it's also one of the most common first-encounters new users have.
I hope you consider trying again with another class; there have been many good suggestions made as to how you could modify the project.. the main problem being that Wikipedia articles are not "essays", and therefore should not be written like them. On the other hand, several of your students wrote in a manner more appropriate for Wikipedia, and therefore they will likely be kept.
In the end, the contributions of your class to Wikipedia are very much appreciated - thank you! Being a Wikipedia editor can be a thankless, and sometimes downright nasty job.. but hopefully you and your class will be able to see past the rough exterior, and realize that you are contributing something substantial and lasting to the encyclopedia (and therefore to mankind!). Mlm42 ( talk) 23:51, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
I would like to echo Mlm42s comments, one unfortunately has to have a thick skin sometimes to edit here, and I am still learning all the regulations. If you are brave enough to try it again I would encourage you to engage the Wikiproject under which your students pages fall. It is also important as a prof to learn how things work to some extent before bringing others. A prof from UBC User:Jbmurray has probably had the greatest success introducing his classes to Wikipedia and he has provided some excellent advice here [1] and [2] Cheers Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 02:19, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
Hello,
I see you are the course instructor for this course. I read this comment of yours. To me, the knee-jerk reaction by the community was quite predictable.. the thing to understand is that editors are faced with deletion decisions for a surprisingly large number of articles everyday (for example, over 75 articles were put up for deletion today). So it's not surprising that some of your class' articles got swept up in that process, since some had unencyclopedic names like "Why Journalists Deserve Low Pay".
Hopefully you were able to brush off the negative comments you and your students had to face.. the deletion process is probably the most unfriendly first-encounter new users can have (not to mention a trip to the Administrators' noticeboard, also known as "Drama central"!), but unfortunately it's also one of the most common first-encounters new users have.
I hope you consider trying again with another class; there have been many good suggestions made as to how you could modify the project.. the main problem being that Wikipedia articles are not "essays", and therefore should not be written like them. On the other hand, several of your students wrote in a manner more appropriate for Wikipedia, and therefore they will likely be kept.
In the end, the contributions of your class to Wikipedia are very much appreciated - thank you! Being a Wikipedia editor can be a thankless, and sometimes downright nasty job.. but hopefully you and your class will be able to see past the rough exterior, and realize that you are contributing something substantial and lasting to the encyclopedia (and therefore to mankind!). Mlm42 ( talk) 23:51, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
I would like to echo Mlm42s comments, one unfortunately has to have a thick skin sometimes to edit here, and I am still learning all the regulations. If you are brave enough to try it again I would encourage you to engage the Wikiproject under which your students pages fall. It is also important as a prof to learn how things work to some extent before bringing others. A prof from UBC User:Jbmurray has probably had the greatest success introducing his classes to Wikipedia and he has provided some excellent advice here [1] and [2] Cheers Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 02:19, 16 December 2011 (UTC)