Wikipedia:Education noticeboard

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Course coordinator currently involved in an ArbCom case relating to a course they are teaching

There will likely be an ArbCom case (Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Holocaust in Poland) relating to User:Chapmansh. To rehash the drama, Chapmansh/Shira Klein recently published an article in an academic journal [1] accusing several Wikipedia editors of coordinating offsite to distort facts relating to the Holocaust. This has prompted ArbCom to propose a case in which Chapmansh may be made a party. Needless to say, this is going to be a big case especially given that it involves Icewhiz.

The reason why I'm posting this to the education notice board is because User:Chapmansh is teaching the course Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/Chapman University/Jewish Life from Napoleon to Hitler (Spring 2023). In past iterations of this course,[2] students have edited in the Holocaust topic area.

I would say that if Chapmansh coordinates editing offsite in the Holocaust topic area during this ArbCom case it will probably not be an enjoyable experience for the student editors. Regardless of whether there is a conflict of interest, the students will probably be under a microscope the entire time given how many people are involved in this case. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 16:58, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Oy. Well, at least given that the class clearly includes a lot of historical scope prior to the Holocaust, we could presumably direct Klein and her students to stick to the non-Holocaust stuff, at least for this semester? _signed, Rosguill ^talk 17:07, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

@Rosguill: That's what I would imagine is the best choice here onwiki (as well as to avoid Poland). I'll ping User:Brianda (Wiki Ed) who is the Wiki Ed expert assigned to that course. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 17:21, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Pardon me for butting in, I saw this mentioned at WP:ARC and thought I could help by clarifying a few things. The topic area of the Arbcom case, and the journal article, is not "Holocaust", but "Holocaust in Poland". In Wikispeak, that's part of WP:APL. WP:APL has, since May 2020, been covered by (what we now call) WP:ARBECR, which means that non-extended-confirmed editors can't edit in that topic area. If you look at the "past iterations of this course" link by Chess above, none of the students listed are extended-confirmed, and none of them edited in the WP:APL topic area--all those articles are outside of WP:APL. In sum: apparently WikiEd students already stay out of the topic area, and have for a couple years. Levivich (talk) 17:58, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

@Levivich: That's true, though keep in mind offwiki coordination by Klein has come up during the ArbCom case. There's nothing wrong with student editors contributing to our coverage of the Holocaust, but the perception that Klein is trying to influence Wikipedia's coverage of certain topics by using her position is something that could be discussed during the case.

Regardless of whether or not this is true, student editors could very easily wander into a minefield they aren't remotely prepared for. Your claim that none of them edited in the WP:APL topic area isn't actually true. ZyerAbdullah123 appears to have removed someone else's talk page comment on Polish death camps during the 2021 course. [3]

While I doubt that was intentional and is very minor (not even worthy of anything beyond a gentle reminder), people have a habit of assuming bad faith during very controversial ArbCom cases. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 19:16, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

An unsupported claim of offwiki coordination was made by an involved party, it should not be repeated and has no bearing here. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:22, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Accidentally removing a talk page comment does not constitute editing in the topic area. And you say "trying to influence Wikipedia's coverage" as if it's a bad thing. I welcome scholars trying to "influence Wikipedia's coverage" by pointing out problems in that coverage. I welcome teachers trying to "influence Wikipedia's coverage" by teaching students how to edit. Levivich (talk) 19:35, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Although an accidental removal is not topic area editing, I think the point is that these things attract excessive attention during controversial ArbCom cases, and it does no service to students, or to the students' educational experience, to unwittingly find themselves in the middle of that. It's not about whether or not the students do anything wrong, but rather, about trying to keep the students from getting needlessly caught up in wiki-drama. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:38, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

I think Levivich makes a valid point that due to not being e-confirmed, the students can't edit this area much even if they wanted to. On the other hand, there are still many minor articles related to this topic area which don't have the right protection level slapped in, I believe, so as Chess' correctly notes with their example, they may occasionally stumble into the "minefield". To add another example: in the companion piece that the authors published in a Polish newspaper a few days ago [4], they actually mentioned that Klein became interested in the Wiki-side of the narrative after one of her students editing the History_of_the_Jews_in_Poland article (which is now e-c portended but wasn't back in 2018) got into a dispute with an editor who told him not to cite historian Jan T. Gross (the authors erroneously claimed that editor was myself, while in fact that editor who criticized Gross was Xx236; meanwhile I defended Gross and helped the student, for which Klein thanked me - see Talk:History_of_the_Jews_in_Poland/Archive_4#Postwar_Antisemitism; that misattribution error confusing me with Xx236 already got fixed in the Polish news article which now sports a small correction note - one error down, dozens more to go, sigh). Anyway, the point I am making is that it is possible the students will occasionally run into issues, but I wouldn't worry to much about it, those have been and likely will be isolated incidents. Teaching experience on all sides, really. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:04, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

To be clear, nobody should be going around to stalk/hound these students' edits in the absence of clear evidence of (a) bad faith, or (b) significant policy violations. Their professor writing an article about a topic shouldn't affect the status of their students. The reality, however, is that students in this class will simply be more likely to run into this kind of problematic behavior, and should be aware of what they're getting into. For what it's worth, anyone following these students around and/or undoing their work will themselves be subject to heightened scrutiny, too. A good practice would be to encourage anyone who's wary of jumping in to just edit in userspace rather than article space, moving good content into articles after some review (a good practice with controversial subject areas regardless). But Chapmansh has run many Wikipedia assignments in the past, and likely knows a thing or two about editing controversial topics from both teaching and research, so I don't anticipate anything in this thread coming as a surprise. At the end of the day, if there's something the article and the arbcom case make clear, it's that there's room for improvement in Holocaust-related articles, and it would be great to have additional editors making policy-based improvements. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 23:07, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

I'll confirm here that User:Chapmansh's students will not be working on topics related to Poland. We at Wiki Education understand the sensitivity around this topic, and are working closely with Champansh to ensure students are adequately supported for any edits they make. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 01:33, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Undisclosed class assignments from 2011

Further info at WT:Tambayan Philippines#Philippine labor migration policy

Some Philippine economics-related articles such as Philippine labor migration policy and related pages have been linked to a class assignment by Ateneo de Manila University from 2011, and are quite badly written (article more of essay, dissertation or thesis). Also, users have not disclosed being in any academic project. TagaSanPedroAko (talk) 02:11, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

Feedback requested at proposal to drop 'your first article' link from welcome templates

The Wikipedia:Welcoming committee—among other things—maintains a set of a set of welcome templates aimed at new users. Many of these templates include a list of helpful links. A proposal to drop the link to Help:Your first article from en-wiki welcome templates has been opened. Wiki Ed folks are particularly well-suited to comment based on your experience with new editors, some of whom create new articles, or try to. Your feedback would be welcome at WT:Welcoming committee/Welcome templates#Proposal: drop 'first article' link from all templates. In addition, please see the proposal discussion subtopic at § What evidence can we bring to bear?. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 20:39, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

IPE Money and Finance WB 2023

I have concerns regarding Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/UCSD/IPE Money and Finance IMF WB 2023 (Summer 2023)--I previously raised concerns about the products of a prior iteration of this course way back in 2019, as the students of the course were producing material about countries' relationships to the World Bank and IMF that were overwhelmingly dependent on publications by WB and the IMF themselves (respectively). At the time, the community was assured that measures would be taken to address the lack of instruction provided to the students for future iterations of the course. It appears that this has either not happened, or had no effect, as students in the class are once, again, overusing primary sources to expand these articles. The course was also run in Summer 2022, and a glance at the articles listed there demonstrates the same issues exhibited here.

Why is a class that has repeatedly failed to instill basic editorial competency in its students been repeatedly renewed? At the time of the 2019 report, LiAnna's final response on behalf of WikiEdu in response to demands for better quality-control and oversight was I went back and looked at the fall 2018 course record in our database; Shalor closed out that course and noted the exact problems you mentioned in the notes section, but an error from 2018 in how we identify which courses need intervention enabled that to slip through without an intervention. We've changed our internal processes to fix that mistake, so it shouldn't be able to happen again. The course has now been renewed twice since then, and nothing has changed. Pinging instructor Bergmanucsd, course WikiEd point person Brianda (Wiki Ed), as well as previously involved editors Mathglot, Barkeep49, LiAnna (Wiki Ed), Tryptofish, Wugapodes, SandyGeorgia, Oliveleaf4, Outriggr. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 21:00, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. I'm not familiar with the subject matter here, but looking back at what I said in the previous discussion, I'll say the same thing again now. Revert. Just revert any objectionable student edits. That should be the first line of action. After that, we can look at how the course is being supervised. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:12, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, equally. Quoting from this comment of 23:31, 30 December 2019 by Rosguill in the 2019 discussion:

One possible suggestion for partially solving this is to have students collect a GNG-worthy pile of sources before they begin work on an article.

Indeed. That ought to be what any editor should do, student or not, newbie or veteran, before expanding an article or especially, building a new one. Ought to be added to Help:YFA, as well, but in the meantime, should be emphasized for students. Mathglot (talk) 21:29, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

To be fair, that is somewhat tangential from the current issue: most of the current assignments this semester are expansions of pre-existing articles, so it's not primarily an issue of new articles being submitted that don't meet GNG. The issue is that rather than addressing the existing-issues of overreliance on primary sources, the work I've looked at has only compounded it. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 21:34, 29 July 2023 (UTC)