text:
Wikipedia an encyclopedia when it started? Not really. At its start, Wikipedia was a framework for attracting participants who would form a community and collaboratively figure out how to make an encyclopedia in wiki format. Similarly, we need to describe a plan for the launch of Wikiversity that will allow it to attract participants who will figure out how to make a university in wiki format.

 * What worked for the launch of Wikipedia will not work for Wikiversity. Wikipedia needed a system to attract people who would write about topics that they are familiar with. Wikiversity needs a system to attract people who are devoted to online learning. The original Wikiversity proposal that was approved by the voters included the idea that Wikiversity would be a collaborative learning community structured to promote learning by engaging participants in scholarly activities within a wiki environment. This learning model is based on active learning. Wikiversity participants will take part in scholarly activities. In my view, this is the non-negotiable core of Wikiversity. Is it constructive to denigrate proposals for possible scholarly collaborations as "wikiproject groups" and dismiss them? It is out of the combined activity of scholarly wikiproject groups that Wikiversity will be built.

 * "tell me how you can see a way through the current issues and see an agreement on a vision for wikiversity" For those who see no value in learning by doing, scholarship and research and instead embrace the "online courses" model of a conventional online university, it is important to ask yourself where textbooks and "learning materials" and knowledge come from. How do you create a wiki community that will make these available in wiki format? In my view, you have to create a wiki community devoted to facilitating a wide range of scholarly activities that will be of interest to the participants. If we launch Wikiversity with that goal, then all the rest will follow. You have to have faith in the chaotic wiki system by which individuals in pursuit of their own learning goals will collaboratively create a university. --JWSurf 04:32, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

 * I'm going to appologize in advance- some of the things I'm about to say may sound insulting.  They are not meant to be, I'm just a very straightforward guy, and that can sometimes come out that way over the net.  Its me shooting from the hip and giving my view of things, not an intentional insult.  But if I try to write this the PC way, it'll take hours more and 3 or 4 beatings around the bush to get all my points across.  This has gone on long enough, and I want to try and outline the differences between camps, get to the core of the issues.

 * No, I don't think your breakdown is accurate. I think there are two very different approaches to, and views of, Wikiversity clashing here.  You can see the differences in how different people discuss what they see in  Wikiversity.  You talk about scholarly activities, research, the need for new ways of teaching, etc.  This is your view of Wikiversity.  Its like you want Wikiversity to be online academia.

 * My opinion? Anyone who seriously uses the word scholarly needs to remove their head from their ass.  Its a word people start throwing around so they sound more important.  Scholarly activity?  90% waste of time, followed by writing a long boring paper to justify that waste of time.  But hey, it looks "scholarly" on a CV.  Overall, its a form of mental masturbation.  Research?  Research is whats killing the modern university-  professors who only care about their research and treat actually teaching as an annoyance to be overcome, with the few talented Masters students and adjuncts get treated like shit for not having done enough research to get their PHDs.  If I could do one thing to improve modern university education, I'd remove researchers entirely from undergrad and keep the professors doing it to the grad level courses.

 * Wikiversity should be about learning, and teaching. Gaining knowledge and imparting knowledge to others.  Not "scholarly activity".  Not, as a primary goal, research (although its also shown in past discussions your definition of research and mine vary greatly, mine being more geared twoards scientific research).  Just 2 simple goals-  learn, and help others to learn.  And if you only want to do one, well, you're welcome to make use of our materials anyway.

 * And I honestly think this is close to what the vast majority of supporters, those 200 people who voted yes, saw as the purpose of the project. The vast majority of people are not academics.  They don't want to be scholarly.  They don't want to do research.  A large number of them don't have the time in their busy schedules to do a collaborative learning course.  But they are interested in being able to learn.  They are interested in free material with which to learn from.  That is what they saw in Wikiversity, and thats why they voted "Aye".  Reread the original Wikiversity proposal.  It mentions elearning, it mentions courses.  It mentions learning groups and building communities, all of which fit my idea.  It does not mention "scholarly activity".  It does not mention research as a primary goal, but as something which was under debate.  The main things it mentions are the exact thing that our group supports-  learning, and teaching.

 * Quoted from JWSurf "Wikiversity participants will take part in scholarly activities. In my view, this is the non-negotiable core of Wikiversity. Is it constructive to denigrate proposals for possible scholarly collaborations as "wikiproject groups" and dismiss them? It is out of the combined activity of scholarly wikiproject groups that Wikiversity will be built. "

 * No, this is not a compatible view. This is a completely different view.  Your "non-negotiable core" has no correlation to what I, and most others (I think), saw Wikiversity as being.  And as for contructive to dismiss your pet project-  your pet project is, by size of text, almost 1/3 of the entire proposal, with another 1/3 being making sure we don't step on other wiki's toes.  That's excessive, and to me its telling.  It tells me that you see that project as the true goal of wikiversity, and not facillitating learning.  Perhaps you don't, but thats sure what it looks like from here.

 * Quoted from JWSurf "For those who see no value in learning by doing, scholarship and research and instead embrace the "online courses" model of a conventional online university, it is important to ask yourself where textbooks and "learning materials" and knowledge come from. How do you create a wiki community that will make these available in wiki format?"

 * I see value in learning by doing. But I don't see that as the only way of learning.  I don't see that as the best way of learning, for many subjects.  And its definitely not the most efficient, for the vast majority of subjects.  It should definitely be supported by Wikiversity, but it should not be the exclusive method of wikiversity.  People learn differently, people learn at different rates, people have varying amounts of time and effort they are able to put into hobbies and side projects.  Wikiversity should try and help anyone who wants to try and learn.  Forcing us to use one method of learning is dooming us to failure.

 * How would I create Wikiversity? Well, we and the board dropped the ball here.  We had momentum.  We had supporters.  We had buzz.  We had 200 people voting "Aye", with at least 100-200 more invalid "Aye"s.  And we had just recieved a big rush as the proposal had just gotten publicity through advertising of the vote.  Had even 10% of those Ayes become contributors to the early wikiversity, we would have had enough people to run with it.  Advertise it within the wiki community, get contributors.  Get 1 or 2 courses or study groups with a decent amount of material up there, then officially launch it and advertise the hell out of it outside.  *Use* the momentum.

 * Now? Well, it took to long for the baord to decide.  Then we dropped the ball by taking too long to react, myself included.  And the board made it worse, with a confusing directive that hit a schism in the supporters.  Wether that was intentional or not is hard to say.  I lean twoards not, but it doesn't matter-  we arrive at the same point regaurdless.

 * What we can do? Stop dragging our feet.  Get a wikiversity up, this week, with or without WikiMedia support.  If we come to an arrangement with WikiMedia in the future, content can always be moved.  Do the advertisement ourselves, without Foundation help, through word of mouth.  With the loss of forward momentum, we've lost at least a year of progress in the past few months.  But its not unfixable, for some things smaller is even better.  If we can get people to volunteer to do a depth first approach and end up with a narrow but high quality early matieral selection, I'd say we can be in an even better position in the long run, with proper advertisement and leveraging.  It just means we need ot do things the hard way.

 * Twoards this end, I will be writing a counter-proposal, and will have it posted here by the end of tomorrow. It will be written for how I think a wikiversity should be done, without pet projects butting into it, without a focus on the world of academia, and without worrying if it steps on the toes of other wikis.  Should sufficient support exist, we'll start at a temporary site on wikicities, or I can put up something on my server.  If sufficient support continues to exist, I'll fund the buying of a domain name and webhosting.  If there's not, I'll butt out of this discussion and let you guys do as you wish, although I think your idea of a wikiversity will give wikispecies a run for their money for biggest wiki failure.  But enough of this waiting-  its been 2 months already and we have 0 to show for it.  If we're ever going to get anything done, its time to stop taling and do something.  --Gabe Sechan 23:26, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

 * Starting a temporary site at Wikicities.com is probably counterproductive. Consider that at least two members of the stacked have publicly acknowledged financial interest in Wikicities.com.  Now after a long delay that has damaged our Wikiversity project's momentum you propose to establish Wikiversity and all of its potential web traffic at a commercial dot.com owned by the Board members who are stalling in the face of an overwhelming majority vote from the "community".  Forgive me for wondering if it is time to begin wondering whether you are an alias or sock puppet for a financially interested board member.  user:lazyquasar

 * In the face of a personal attack, I'm going to stretch my no more comments rule. Well, seeing as I have the courage to post under my real name, you could just google it.  You'll notice that I have a fairly large web presence for a sock pupper.  For that matter, I tried to submit the question of wtf is happening to wikiversity to Jimbo via his slashdot interview, although I did not get modded up (unfortunately).  The wikicities suggestion was made because its cheap, good webhosting is $30 a month which is a good amount to me at the moment.  I'd also point out that I actually wanted to get something done, an achievment which is yet to happen otherwise.  I'm currently considering the project dead, the board obviously doesn't want it, noone here has the balls to push for it, and my counterproposal didn't gether enough support to be worth trying.  If you want to insult people surrounding this project, aim at someone who deserves it-  the board mainly. --Gabe Sechan 23:47, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

 * Gabe, I'm sorry if you feel hard done by some of the comments here (however, I'm not going to comment on this). But it's simply untrue that the board don't want wikiversity to happen - they quite clearly do, but differ (as the wider community does) on how exactly it should be set up and operate. As for "balls", well, I disagree - I remain optimistic that something genuinely useful will come out of this lengthy process, and as much as I'd like it to go a bit quicker, I think that it will pay off in the end. I just think this is a substantial decision to be made at a time when Wikimedia is still tentatively trying to find it's feet in the wider world - hence the heel-dragging. But steps are being made... Cormaggio @ 19:51, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Counterproposal
Name: Wikiversity (may need to change if we split off)

Mission: To facilitate learning and teaching.

Primary goals:

 * To host free instructional materials for general use
 * To facilitate creation of new instructional materials
 * To facilitate the creation and communication of learning groups and classes

Organization:

Wikiversity will be divided into schools, with each school being one branch of human knowledge (such as math, physics, chemistry, history, economics, etc). Each school is a community- a collection of people who wish to learn or share their knowledge on the subject. These communities should help answer people's questions on the subject, guide them in their studies, and help them learn what to study next.

Each school will also have a steering committee- a group of people who voluntarily give some of their time to help wherever the school needs it most. This could be in creating new content, helping students, etc. The overriding goal of this group is to improve the overall quality of the school and its materials, frequently by filling in the gaps in the materials themselves. Membership in this committee is voluntary, but highly encouraged. Anyone who wishes may join the committee.

Schools and their contributors will divide their materials into courses. A course may be taught top-down, collaboratively, or in any other method that makes sense to contributors. Courses are also learning communities, on a more focused level. Communities may include all levels of knowledge- from the beginner, to the expert. Those with more knowedge are encouraged to help those with less. Its highly encouraged for experts who can to keep an eye on courses and aid the learners in them.

How big a course is and the exact breakdown is school dependant, as such a decision is impossible at a higher level. Where one course is dependant on information learned in a previous course, the school should make that clear. Organization within a course is up to the course.

Its perfectly fine to use non-free sources to bootstrap a course or learning group. As time goes on, efforts should be made to replace those with free sources. Not everyone has access to non-free sources, writing our own (or linking to other) free ones is necessary to open learning to all who wish it.

Should members of a school be interested in subjects with little to no materials at the school, the school should facilitate their learning by doing one or more of the following

 * Having the steering team create content
 * Finding expert(s) to help and guide them
 * Finding outside sources (free or non-free) to help them along
 * Connect them to other interested learners who can learn with them

Which of these is the correct action(s) depends on the circumstances.

Scope:

The scope of Wikiversity is all verifiable knowledge. This includes knowledge not commonly taught in schools. So long as the information is factual, it is welcome to be taught.

For scientific knowledge, any information should have be gnerally accepted fact, or have been peer reviewed. We do not have the knowledge or experience to serve as a peer review board.

Thats it. Comments welcome.

A few comments of my own on why I set it up as I did. The steering team exists as a way to solve a gap I see in wikibooks- the lack of any central organization causing information to cover many subjects poorly. As a comprimise with the wiki philosophy, membership is not mandatory but should be highly encouraged. I expect early on the steering team to create most content (and yes, I will be joining at least one myself). The emphasis on the school as an organization point is for similar reasons.

The scope is limited to "verifiable knowledge". Thats the out that lets us delete people who think the earth is flat and that magic in Harry Potter is real.

I disallowed non peer reviewed data, which disallows scientific research. On the high end, at some time, it might make sense to allow it. In the distant future when we have communities of people here with knowledge of those subjects at that level. Right now it doesn't. IF someone was to write a dissertation on string theory, noone here is qualified to review it. There are probably fewer than 100 people in the world who are. Claiming that we can does a disservice to both the author and ourselves- if the author is wrong, he loses the insight of a true peer review and we get bogged down with a bunch of incorrect information, lowering our credibility. If the author is right, he doesn't get credit for his insight, and the information is never seen by the scientists who could actually benefit from it and build off of it. Unless and until we get to that level, we are best off keeping to verified subjects. --Gabe Sechan 02:55, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

 * This is what I wanted to see :) A small issue IMO with your counterproposal.
 * Quote: "Each school will also have a steering committee- a group of people who voluntarily give some of their time to help wherever the school needs it most."
 * Issue here is simple; it is obvious that with that kind of model, wikiversity will grow slowly, especially now with the lack of momentum. The "kick-start" will require a WHOLE lot of work, and it will still be risky to put all your material up on wikiversity with such little momentum. In essence, we got a chicken and the egg problem. This is a goal we want when we have more momentum, but not now. Teachers will want students, students will want teachers. We need a better "seed".
 * The only way I could see to fix this up, is to look local online right now, and find simple little tasks for wikiversity. I frequent a game-design forum, maybe rewriting the "Newbies to Game Design and Programming" FAQ at the Wikiversity would be a step up. Perhaps wikiversity should focus on these tiny stuff firts, as a seed to see what happens.
 * In essence, I agree overall with your counterproposal. I feel however that we need to focus more on seeds right now. Additionally, it uses the word "course", which is ambiguous right now. (no one seems to know what a course is)

 * Finally, I should add that to succeed with the board, we need to find something that cannot be done at wikipedia and wikibooks. As far as I know, wikibooks accepts books, tutorials, how-to guides, and self-study guides. "Lectures", are really just tutorials, at least what I've found so far at wikiversity.--Dragontamer 03:27, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

 * I don't see the steering team as the only way of creating content. Long term, I see it more of a gap filler.  Lets say the school of mathematics has plenty of material on calcI and calcIII, but little on calc II.  The steering team should recognize that lack, and volunteer some of their time to work on calc II materials.  That doesn't mean what the steering team is working on is the only thing that can be worked on-  if someone comes in with a passion for discrete math, they can go right ahead and do that.  The idea is more to help with the wikibooks problem of having key areas with little to no content, and 5 billion stubs.  I also want to avoid a complete depth first approach just because I'd hate to see us lose passionate people who just don't care about the current subject.  This seemed like a decent comprimise.  Although I do expect early on that the steering team will create a majority of the content, as I hope to convince people of the need to  focus resources and get a few polished courses together now, instead of stubs.

 * As for seed, you're right its a problem. I only see 2 ways to work around it.  Method one is to find a group of people who want to do a collabrative course, let them work on it, and organize the results.  Doable, not very efficient.  The other way is to design starter material for a small subset of classes, then advertise to get students for those classes, and build from there.  Neither will be especially speedy, but both are doable, in my opinion.  Method 2 might be faster as you skip the research phase, and start with experts writing content.  Either way, it requires us to grow at the right times with the right people.

 * The word course- for the purpose of the proposal, the word course is defined as "a set of learning goals for closely related subject material".  How the course is taught is defined by the people writing for/taking the course, I expect some material to work best with traditional methods, some with collabarative methods, some via projects, some via hybrid methods.  I expect there to be a lot of experimentation, as we find out what works and create new methods to help learners who slip through gaps in existing ones.

 * As for succeeding with the board- I'm not sure I care anymore.  Anything to do with the board is going to take at least another month to get them to consider it, then another voting period, then a beta test, then....   Thats *if* they like the proposed changes.  At this point I think the best solution is to split, establish that the idea works, and keep the possibility of remerging open at a later date, should the community deem it in our best interest.  --Gabe Sechan 18:37, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

 * For the seed, what does wikicities offer to us? I know it uses the same software, so it should be easier to transwiki back and forth. Once we got some experiance, I'm sure we'd find something that would work. --<IP_ADDRESS> 19:33, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

 * Ah ****. Stupid school computer. The above poster was me btw. --Dragontamer 01:05, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

 * Wikicities offers us a decent looking domain name and someone to maintain and upgrade the server for us, but has ads. Going off on our own requires us to pay for hosting (a few hundred for a good host) or piggyback off another site (I can offer a piggyback and give us wikiversity.sechan.net, but then I have to maintain the software and do the server admin work.  Plus it has my name stuck in there).  Any of the 3 ways works, but I want to prove we have enough contributors before paying for hosting.  Which makes wikicities a good solution until we grow a bit.  The biggest downside of it is ads, which we would lose when we eventually move off it.  --Gabe Sechan 20:26, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Counter-counterproposal: Wikibooks
Read the "counterprosal" above, replace course with textbook and school with bookshelf. You get Wikibooks.

Regardless of what the Board says about Wikiversity not having online courses, Wikibooks already has them. As Richard M. Stallman wrote in "The Free Universal Encyclopedia and Learning Resource", "Courses in the learning resource are a generalization to hypertext of the textbooks used for teaching a subject to yourself or to a class."

So you do not need to start "Wikiversity" and create an online course for Algebra or Calculus; Wikibooks already has these, and you can start contributing now. Last time I checked, Algebra was lacking a section on logarithms.

Yes, some things are missing. The Wikibooks Mathematics bookshelf (Wikiversity School of Maths) does not have a "steering committee" because Wikibooks/Wikiversity does not yet have enough wiki users to provide one. And their is not much of a learning community around the Algebra course; their could be a large group of wiki users reading the course, commenting on the talk pages, and helping each other, but there are not enough users. Same for the Introduction to Sociology course - there could be a community of learners around it, but I have seen no recent activity other than my own maintenance actions (though it is January, it might be their winter/summer break).

Recently, in the Wikibooks staff lounge, users announced the elections for CheckUser status. We are worried that we might not be able to find 25 users to vote, as required by the CheckUser policy. Our wiki has backing of the Wikimedia Foundation, but we are too young and too small. If you are interested in Wikiversity, but want to write " free instructional materials", please come and help Wikibooks. --Kernigh 02:08, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

 * I am pretty sure a cource like I'm designing Game Dev does not meet the criteria for "textbook-like" material in wikibooks. That is what I'm aiming Wikiversity to be. For now however, instead of working on this proposal, I'm just going to work on this course and see the best wikilearning organization. If this wikiproject works out, then perhaps the rest of the Wikiversity should be made like it. --<IP_ADDRESS> 04:15, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I have no intention of writing a textbook on homogenous catalysis, but I would like to teach more people University-level chemistry: how do I go about it?

WikiBooks was the cause of this dispute in the first place; it could not cope with the model of Wikiversity which was already there and so decided to try to delete it. If it cannot attract sufficient participents for its view of development, perhaps it should consider points of view, such as supporting the Wikiversity project instead of complaining that it will only steal contributers. Physchim62 17:54, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

 * I would like to clarify: my "counter-counterprosal" was directed specifically against the "counterproposal", not the Wikiversity/Modified project proposal. The way I interpreted the "counterproposal", textbooks like Algebra would be written as online courses for Wikiversity, whereas I would prefer to keep Algebra at Wikibooks.

 * If, while teaching or learning chemistry, if you are uploading some wiki pages to explain it, then effectively you are writing a textbook for Wikibooks. However, if you are participating in group activities (such as "read chapter 1 before Monday", "do this calculation now", "grade/check/evaluate these answers"), then you should probably be using Wikiversity, not Wikibooks. Later, if a Wikibookian thinks that "this calculation" makes a good textbook problem, then one can copy it from Wikiversity to Wikibooks, just as Wikibookians currently copy some parts of Wikipedia.

 * The types of situations that I want to avoid are: users writing "online courses" for Wikiversity in the form of textbooks, users writing "textbooks" for Wikibooks in the form of encyclopedia articles, users writing "encyclopedia articles" for Wikipedia in the form of how-to textbooks, ... --Kernigh 20:47, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Abandoning Wikimedia
On January 3 Gabe Sechan asked and suggested that efforts to craft a modified Wikiversity proposal had produced "2 very different views of wikiversity" and "no substantial agreement". Gabe suggested that these two different views of Wikiversity might be called a "wikiproject group" and a "general online learning group".

As currently written, the modified Wikiversity proposal is centered on the idea of "Learning groups" as the central organizing focus for its e-learning model. An alternative way of describing this model of e-learning is to say that Wikiversity participants will engage in "learning projects". Learning groups (communities) will engage in projects that address the learning goals of Wikiversity participants. Gabe has mounted an aggressive campaign of complaints against the idea of "wikiprojects", yet "wikiprojects" is a reasonable description of what wiki developers do while they develop a new wiki. As for as I can tell, Gabe's only real complaint about learning-oriented "wikiprojects" is that not all Wikiversity users will be interested in them. Nobody ever suggested that all Wikiversity participants need to be interested in each learning project within Wikiversity. The various learning-oriented "wikiprojects" that have been proposed and discussed have been offered as examples of ways to engage SOME Wikiversity participants at the launch of Wikiversity. In particular, such projects have been proposed as a way of engaging Wikiversity participants who will actually add content and build Wikiversity. In my view, to denigrate and attack such proposed "wikiprojects" is suicidal. The modified Wikiversity proposal MUST include our best ideas for how to immediately launch Wikiversity and attract participants. Anyone who campaigns against such proposals simply because they are not personally interested in participating in them is not working for the good of Wikiversity. In my view, we need to propose a multitude of ways for getting Wikiversity off the ground. I think everyone has recognized that there are many visions for what Wikiversity might become. It is not constructive to act as if all of these different points of view are competitors in some imagined zero-sum game. We need to establish Wikiversity as a system for facilitating the goals of its diverse participants. Within Wikiversity there will be a true market place of ideas. Those ideas ("wikiprojects") that attract the most participants will drive the growth of Wikiversity. If certain ideas for how to jump-start Wikiversity are overly dominating the modified Wikiversity proposal, then the solution is to craft additional ideas and add them in to the proposal so as to make a more balanced proposal. Each suggestion for what would be a good way to attract Wikiversity participants and grow the content of Wikiversity needs to be judged on its own merits. Resorting to name-calling ("pet projects") is not constructive. If you have a rational argument for why a proposed learning project would damage Wikiversity, then state your argument.

Gabe has also suggested that to satisfy the Board's request for modifications to the original Wikimedia proposal, a complete rewrite of the proposal is required which will have to be followed by another voting period. However, what the Board requested was that the modified Wikiversity proposal not include online courses and that we provide a description of the Wikiversity model of e-learning. This does not require a complete rewrite of the proposal. In my view, what the Board requested is a reasonable adjustment of emphasis in the proposal and after the modifications are made there will NOT be a need for another vote. Also, in my view, it is not be unreasonable for the Board to impose a trial period on Wikiversity. This should act as motivation for having a well fleshed-out plan for how to get Wikiversity started. The Board also wants evidence that Wikiversity developers are happy with the proposed project. This only makes sense; if there is no happy and committed base of developers then there is no point in starting the project.

In my view, it will be impossible to prevent Wikiversity from eventually coming to contain elements of traditional bricks-and-mortar universities. Gabe's "counterporoposal" for a Wikiversity built upon a structure of schools, "steering committees" and courses is a reasonable description of what some people will choose to create within Wikiversity. I think the Board views the past history of Wikiversity as strong evidence that STARTING with such a traditional organization of Wikiversity just does not work. If it could work, it would have already worked and Wikiversity would be booming with thousands of participants and hundreds of active courses. I agree that if Wikiversity existed within its own domain as an official Wikimedia project then things would be better than they have been in the past with Wikiversity inside of Wikibooks. However, I doubt if things would be significantly different. I think the Board correctly foresees likely failure if Wikiversity launches with a traditional model of e-learning built around schools and courses.

Gabe has expressed frustration with the pace of events in launching Wikiversity and suggested that there might be people who feel that "how they saw wikiversity is dead" and that those people should "split off". I continue to argue that people who may view "wikiversity as dead" should open up their thinking to non-traditional modes of online learning that are suited to the wiki interface. I believe that in so doing, you will find the practical path towards attracting the many needed Wikiversity participants who will actually build Wikiversity. If you are open to the wiki way of growing Wikiversity as a learning community, including some modes of learning that you may not personally be interested in, then you become open to a viable Wikiversity that the Board will approve, a Wikiversity model that will be diverse enough to make room for all interested participants and which will eventually have a chance to include even the traditional courses and free textbooks that some people crave. If you are unable to see the wisdom of the Board's position and if you are unable to be happy with their wise direction, and if you are unable to trust the chaotic wiki-way of growing Wikiversity, then I agree that you should move away from the Wikimedia foundation. --JWSurf 18:51, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

 * Well said. --Dragontamer 00:58, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

 * Here, Here!!! You have most of the issues down fairly well.  I have been fighting like a dog to get this proposal up and going, and in many ways I see Wikiversity as a test case for the viability of the Foundation Board itself in being able to respond to reasonable requests by Wikimedia users.  The whole bureaucratic process to establish a new Wikimedia project was established in response to the apparent failure of Wikispecies, and some would even point to Wikibooks as a failure as well never to be repeated.  Because of the high visibility of Wikipedia, it is felt that there should be something special and unique in order to become a sister project.  I think this attitude is misguided, and have argued in a general forum about this issue as well.  Having just started a Wikicity, I was very surprised at how quickly my request was granted, especially in comparison to the incredible resistance to new ideas from the Wikimedia Foundation, considering how many of the same people are involved in both projects including developers and board members.  In particular, I see no realistic reason to stop an independent English-language Wikiversity when the German-language Wikiversity is already going, and no apparent comment from the board as to why that project was started without the red tape that we are going through right now just to get the English-language version going.  I have never seen any board member say that the creation of the German Wikiversity was a mistake and did not follow proper policies.  That is a huge source of frustration for any Wikimedia user that wants to create a new sister project.  --<IP_ADDRESS> 14:21, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

 * Very nice, "non-traditional modes of online learning that are suited to the wiki interface" i've mentioned just one mode here - schools, that is very real-life like, could someone describe other modes?(doubt they exist)

Going Formal with Online Courses
I'd like to throw a game plan out here for making a viable university out of this. I see two major issues out there from the schools being formed so far. Some need the backing of a "true" accrediting body. For example, if Wikimedia is based out of Florida... the logical choice would be the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. If we base this somewhere else, then whoever that accrediting body is. In short, there needs to be some clearinghouse for all of this work and that can oversee the accreditation of the overall Wikiversity. I would suggest there be some focus group step up to research not only the accrediting body, but what are the requirements to come under such an organization.

Second, there seems to be some schools that require certification. If each of those schools begin to develop game plans for how their programs could administer such certifications, how certificates would be issued (coming back to that centralized clearing house), and what are the requirements.

Based on what these two groups come back with, we could then begin to develop a framework for online course delivery. The key elements addressed we can then determine how to fit the Wiki framework and philosophy into the educational standards. In order for our research to be recognized, our academics to be accepted, and our organization to be upheld we need the accreditation. Understanding how the accreditation works, sets the parameters for how we can develop the courses.--Mfinney 23:43, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

 * One of the problems with formal accreditation with this project, beyond the objections from the Wikimedia Foundation board, is that obtaining any certification is going to be a very long and involved process. I was involved indirectly with the establishment of the Western Governor's University, which had not only the backing of several state governors, but formal legislation basically giving a mandate that the organization had to be accredited with a veiled threat that if accrediation didn't occure that the states involved would pull out of the accredation body and start their own.  Generally you don't have that kind of political pull when starting a project like this.  That process of accrediation took over three years to complete, and a cost of several million dollars.  Simply put, we are not even clost to ready for this to happen with Wikiversity.

 * There are models of on-line instruction and learning that can and should be tried first, and for my part I see Wikiversity as a realm of experimentation on many different forms of on-line learning that could take place. The real important thing at the moment is to try and appease the Wikimedia Foundation board with our intentions and to simply get the server for http://en.wikiversity.org/ turned on at all.  Once that happens, we can discuss different strategies and approaches to seek partnerships and formal certification for some programs that have matured on Wikiversity.  --Roberth 20:15, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I see your point. Your process makes sense. I guess what I was thinking that if we set a direction of standards and so forth towards accreditation, then when we reach that point it should be a no brainer. I guess I would rather build this from the beginning towards accreditation then have to do a lot of work to clean up. However, I do agree with you that perhaps let's get this thing off the ground... then worry about the accreditation issues. --Mfinney 01:55, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

 * Personally I think we should press on developing items of personal interest. The Board at some point will either become convinced there is no further benefit to wikicities.com from slow rolling the volunteer non profit project at Wikimedia or some militant like myself or Gabe will establish a domain and issue a public invitation to potential participants.  Meanwhile we can make progress in the individual areas that willing participants select to doodle or dogmatically work in which will help establish the viability for all future related projects.  The harsh reality seems to be that the 200 votes yes for the project were not from people interested in actually participating.  It is going to be difficult to attract new participants until a critical mass is reached where newcomers evaluating the project the first time they see it have a "Wow! I cannot believe I actually used to pay tuition for stuff I just wanted to learn (vs. an economically useful certification)" reaction.  It is easy enough to begin experimentation to find out what will work.  We can develop multiple policies and templates/tags indicating under which policy a specific page of material is developed and maintained.  Adherents to the opposing philosophy can fork specific material that they wish to be free or regulated appropriately to suit their camp's preferences.  Gabe's (and my) proposal that we fork away from Wikimedia if necessary need not split us up into splinters too small to succeed if we can define ways to use the technology to coexist peacefully.  I personally volunteer to comply with whatever silly restrictive policies some page developer or maintainer wishes to apply to his/her school, page, project, or philosophy as long as they acknowledge my right to fork the material to a free school of engineering suitable to the free engineers I wish would descend upon Wikiversity en masse to do original research in cottage manufacturing and turn key volunteer spacecraft kit production via various CAD/CAM/CIM/CAE/DNC/CNC/CAR (computer aided reporting to regulatory authorities) etc. grid technologies emerging as we speak on the Terran Grid.  Naturally I will expect the same committment to freedom on any pages, portals, simulators, etc. that we/our free engineers and/or student bodies create and tag as subject to our minimalist policies and extensive peer safety and regulatory reviews. Lazyquasar 03:56, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

 * I wouldn't dismiss all 200 of the supporter votes. Many of those supporters came from other Wikimedia projects and are not interested in dealing with the fine points of having to debate things on Meta.  Once a new project is started, I would venture to guess that we would be at 500 registered users within a single week, and a very active community of about 20-30 participants developing new content.  This is based mainly on my observations of the current user base working on Wikiversity at Wikibooks right now, which is not a trivial number.  It may be higher once it becomes a full-fledged sister project.  Going off on your own and starting your own foundation and server farm is going to be much harder than you can anticipate, and the base number to start off with is going to be smaller.
 * Another thing to consider with the supporters of the Wikiversity proposal is that it includes other languages besides English, and there were a good number of supporters who didn't even speak English as even a secondary language. One of the huge issues that is going to need to be worked on even if the board gives a solid green light for en.wikiversity is to decide when the other language version are going to be given the go ahead to get started as well.  This multi-lingual growth of Wikiversity is going to be simply put, explosive.  Indeed, resources like Wikiversity, while somewhat common for English speakers, are virtually unknown in many other languages.  It is possible that en.wikiversity may not even be the largest Wikiversity once things get going.  --Roberth 21:15, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

You know... that brings up a valid point. I have not messed with the multilingual component of this but it brings some interesting thoughts. If there were some automation in the translation process, I could see some major benefits to the projects. --Mfinney 13:52, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

 * The certification body, if anyone wanted to go down that route, would be the Florida Commission for Independant Education. I dont think we are anywhere near the stage where we have to worry about that ;) Physchim62 02:16, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

What is left to do
It seems we are bouncing around a lot of ideas and as we do so it seems we spiral away from the original goal. The board simply wants a revision to get this done. They don't even have to vote. What seems to be the hold up to get those corrections done? Is there anything I can do to help? Let's just get the corrections and proposal finalized, then we can go from there. My worry is that we are going get off on so many tangents that our window of opportunity will pass. The revisions are quite simple and can easily be done so why aren't we doing them? Point me in the right direction to help get this done. --Mfinney 05:31, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Maybe it is time to post a notice on all of the existing Wikiversity pages that a modified proposal has been drafted. This would be a last chance for people who are interested in Wikiversity to comment. --JWSurf 06:14, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
 * That would be great - followed by postings to various mailing lists (like foundation-l and wikipedia-l) and project village pumps to get some community feedback. I still think we need to show something tangible that people can be "joyful" about - apologies for not really helping out here, but will try to give some time come Monday or so. Cormaggio @ 18:27, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Let's do it! What can I do to make it happen? My class, Leadership I:Strategies for Company Success is ready to go... should start seeing students enrolling in the next couple of weeks. Will that work for an example? Let me know....--Mfinney 04:29, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

What is left to do? All that really needs to happen is for the Foundation board to give a formal thumbs up or thumbs down on the proposal. IMHO this has languished far too long and it needs to get the attention of the board members again. It is incredibly confusing to see exactly how you put something onto the agenda for the next board meeting, and it looks like new project proposals are going to get buried under another layer of bureaucracy from a hand-picked select group (not anybody nominiated by the Wikimedia community at large) that will deal exclusively with new projest like Wikiversity. If the Foundation board doesn't understand what Wikiversity is or could be, and are suffering from a lack of material over the discussion and direction of the proposal, I think they are not paying attention and deliberatly trying to ignore Wikiversity hoping it will go away. Wikiversity it taking off, with or without formal support of the board. It is just a matter of time before it leaves Wikibooks in one form or another. I wish it could stay as a Wikimedia project, but my hopes are not too high at the moment.

As far as putting up a posting on various mailing lists (like Foundation-l or Wikipedia-l), so much ink has been spilled about Wikiversity in both forums (as well as Textbook-l) that this isn't really going to bring out any new information or comments. It will be mainly rehashing anew a very old argument. I may be mistaken on this issue, but that would be a genuine surprise to me. --Roberth 17:09, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

 * Ah ok - I've just responded similarly on Talk:Wikiversity. But to address a point above (and a commonly held perception) that people and particularly the board aren't interested in Wikiversity anymore, I refer you to the Special projects committee and it's talk page to show that it is very much in mind. Details of meeting agendas are at Wikimedia meeting agendas - points to be raised at future meetings should be placed on the talk page - it's no more complicated than that. But the aforementioned committee was set up to try and delegate responsibility from the board, so, as a member, I can raise this myself. Note, however, this still shouldn't stop you from doing whatever you would have done anyway :-) Cormaggio @ 00:21, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

 * I don't like at all how the Special Project Committee has been formed and the attitude of eliteism surrounding the creation of these special committees. I have been very vocal about my disatifaction regarding the lack of action and the general attitude toward new project proposals for the Wikimedia Foundation.  I have gone so far as to suggest, and even encourage the Wikimedia Foundation board to just simply be honest and openly admit that they will not be accepting any new project proposals from ordinary Wikimedia users.  The technical reasons for inaction here are groundless.  Perhaps it my open hostility and difference in opinion that I was not invited to this Special Projects Committee.  Based on the comments made that are found on the IRC log of the meeting that created this committee, I don't hold too much hope and am not sure if I want to be involved either.  In many ways I was using Wikiversity to see if a new project proposal with widespread user support was even possible to create that didn't have initial support from board members.  I followed as closely as possible the example of Wikinews and tried to follow the points of New project policy as closely as reasonable.  I made a few mistakes, but they were very minor.  I was also involved with Wikistandards and their attempted vote for new project did not go over too well.  I'm going to wait a month or two to restart that proposal, but that is a good example of what not to do.  I can give other examples of ideas that have been shot down, mainly because of apathy if nothing else.  I hope that doesn't happen to Wikiversity.  --Roberth 15:59, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

 * I would hope that a good proposal with community support would at least be considered, and could very well be supported by the board. I know that Wikimedia's resources are limited, and I understand the hesitancy in setting up Wikiversity (which isn't at all a technical consideration, but more of a social/political one IMO), but I still think it will happen, possibly sooner rather than later, simply because it is such a compelling idea. I've raised it myself just now on the special committee's mailing list - but I repeat that this shouldn't stop anyone from being involved or having their say. Even though I happen to be on that committee (and I was quite surprised to have been invited), I maintain that this process should be as open as possible. Cormaggio @ 17:20, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

 * I would hope as well that a legitamate well-written, inclusive and open proposal with widespread community support would be seriously considered as well. The current mission statement on the corporate bylaws for the Wikimedia Foundation seem to suggest that no new projects will ever be accepted, or even be legally allowed at least under a strict interpretation of these bylaws.  There is certainly an uphill fight going on here to get Wikiversity started.  Thank you for your comment about Wikiversity.  It would be nice to put this mailing list on the special projects comittee page, as I had to do some serious digging to find your comment, but at least I know where everything is at.  I'm debating on subscription to the mailing list, as it would be hard for me to resist a comment about the stuff that is going on.  As an outsider, (and having pissed off 4 members of the committee so far including Anthere) I feel my comments would be unwelcome.  --Roberth 14:15, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

 * Well, don't worry about the committee for now - it was set up to facilitate and support (amongst other things) what we (the people who are interested in Wikiversity) are doing. So I think priority is what we do here - to get this proposal together in a form that we are happy about, that we think is viable, and that we think will attract a solid community base - taking previous experience, like the community and board votes, into consideration. But I think mailing list discussions should, as always, be on foundation-l. Thanks. Cormaggio @ 00:49, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

 * I took the liberty of requesting an email list for the English Wikiversity on the foundation-l list. It seems clear to me that we need a better coordination space than continually rechecking these various proposal pages scattered around.  To me it seems the issues involved with Wikiversity have been pretty well delineated and we know what we have in agreement sufficient to proceed while waiting for a community of diverse participants to drift into consensus as we see what actually works well in learning materials and processes.  I think a mailing list could effectively consolidate some activities, generate additional interest in actual active courses, and stimulate some brainstorming regarding what we as a group might be interested in doing to help get wikiversity started. Lazyquasar 08:04, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

wacky proposal: wikiversity as a tabbed extension to wikipedia
Idea:
 * wikiversity web site looks, at first sight, essentially the same as wikipedia (though the first page would be different)
 * user clicks to any individual page on a subject
 * s/he finds that s/he cannot edit the page, however...
 * instead of the normal edit, history etc tabs, there are tabs:
 * study this
 * join existing study group 1
 * join existing study group 2
 * wikipedia (to get to the normal, editable (if not frozen for NPOV etc.) wikipedia page)
 * if the user clicks on study this, s/he gets a source page of the corresponding wikipedia page, with help information something like Please remove all content from this page that you don't understand or else add comments next to the parts you don't understand. This is your area, along with other wikistudents who may soon join you, to think together and get to learn this material. When you eventually become confident in understanding the material, you might even wish to correct mistakes in the corresponding wikipedia article.
 * tech change: once a new user has edited this page and finally saves, the saved version becomes the text of a new study group, (rendered as html or xml or whatever so that it's associated with wikiversity.org, not with wikipedia) e.g. study group 2 if study group 1 already exists
 * if the user clicks on join existing study group 1, then s/he finds that a bunch of other people have already written a heavily annotated and discussed and modified version of the wikipedia page. Because those other people are also trying to understand the text, they are not trying to work on the wikipedia page and so they are not under pressure to already be experts.
 * if the user clicks on join existing study group 1, then s/he finds that a bunch of other people have already written a heavily annotated and discussed and modified version of the wikipedia page. Because those other people are also trying to understand the text, they are not trying to work on the wikipedia page and so they are not under pressure to already be experts.

Advantages Disadvantages
 * there is a natural 1:1 match between wikipedia and wikiversity themes
 * this takes combines the power of:
 * existing material in wikipedia articles
 * wiki editing technology and culture
 * people can choose to start a new class or else join in an existing class, just by clicking on a tab (of course, there's the question of what's the maximum number of classes or study groups... this basic proposal certainly would need to be modified)
 * people who don't know much about a subject have a better outlet for their wiki-energy - starting off a real study group - rather than making bad edits to a wikipedia article or cluttering up a wikipedia discussion page even more than is necessary - in other words, this might decrease some of the CPU/bandwidth pressure on wikipedia and shift it to wikiversity, especially for articles getting close to ideal
 * there's also a natural feedback to wikipedia, after students become confident that they understand the subject, (this is why i suggest the wikipedia tab)
 * Requires tech people to do the work :P.

i don't often participate in meta stuff, so feel free to pass on, rewrite, post elsewhere (GFDL) or even... ;) edit this idea. Boud 20:06, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

 * I like the basic idea. I have been thinking that we could do the same thing with templates that could be added to Wikipediapages, in the way that links are currently made from Wikipedia pages to Wikinews pages. --JWSurf 03:17, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikimedia also have Wikibooks, Wiktionary, Wikinews and Wikispecies. Wikiversity only to Wikipedia is a bad idea. 555 01:22, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

 * Wikipedia is the major Wikimedia project. It would make sense to also have other Wikimedia projects integrated with Wikiversity, but Wikipedia will be the major source of Wikiversity participants at startup.  --JWSurf 15:31, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

sorry for my english Wikipedia is the major, but isn't unique. A biology study group may need to make edits in Wikipedia and Wikispecies. A history study group may edit in Wikipedia and Wikibooks, build some historical maps to Commons and create lots of definitions to Wiktionary used by Annales School and/or marxist teory. These are only some examples. 555 22:51, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Proposed alternate "What Wikiversity is not"
(moved from proposal page)

"A place to tell other participants what they cannot include in local learning processes prior to achieving a mandate (a pre-coordinated policy linked to from submission agreement page; for example or substantial local consensus) from the local participants, a majority of the student body, or the board.  Significant pedagogical disagreements should lead to productive discussion or forking, not deletion or edit wars."

 * I don't really understand this - I initially thought it was a gripe, but it may have something behind it. In any case, I think, for the moment, the proposal needs simple, practical and clear language and content, and I didn't think this fit. Cormaggio @ 00:03, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Changes - final push?
I've made quite a few changes to the page - I'm trying to tighten it up to a form that someone who is either 1) new to Wikiversity, or 2) overwhelmed by all the discussions on Wikiversity, will still be able to get a picture of what the thinking is on Wikiversity. I've removed some overlapping content, and material I didn't think was workable (ie on peer review on research) - read through the whole proposal now and see if it makes sense. I've also moved some material that I thought was cluttering up the main gist of the proposal - mainly on various ideas for learning groups. I've moved this content to Learning, a page which i'm going to work on now. Comments are very welcome - I hope we can pretty soon get this on the road :-) Cormaggio @ 00:17, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

 * The modified proposal looks good to me. My main remaining doubt is about the Board's hope that "the community seems joyful about" the need to deal realistically with courses within a wiki. I think it is the case that some people are still very upset about the fact that Wikiversity cannot proclaim its initial goal to be a conventional school in a wiki format. Such people are not joyful about the position the Board adopted. Additionally, many new people who come to Wikiversity will react in a similar way, wondering, "Where is English 101?" as they 'walk in the door'. In my view, the best way to deal with this this rift in the community is to keep its existence explicit and keep people talking and participating. Personally, I think the Board's position is correct and I am glad that the Board forced this issue out into the open. In my mind, what is important is not to view the Board's position as closing doors on what some people want to get out of Wikiversity. The Board cannot prevent the community from doing what it will do. I suggest that those members of the community who originally wanted Wikiversity to become an online school with a conventional set of courses need to take a long-term view of the project. What is needed at the start of Wikiversity is realistic understanding of how learning communities can be grown from the existing Wikimedia base. At the start, what we need is a way to make people who are devoted to online learning comfortable and productive within the Wikimedia community. If we can establish a happy and productive base of Wikiversity editors, then I think wondeful things will happen. I doubt that most Wikiversity editors will spontaneously create a conventional set of courses, but I do believe that it will be possible to create an online learning community that will in many ways be better than what can come from putting conventional courses online. So rather than view the Board's position as acting to close the door on conventional courses, I hope those who are not joyful can remain open to the need to keep wiki first within Wikiversity. Members of the community need to remain open to making use of the power of the wiki format to develop online learning in ways that is natural for a wiki interface. I think the wiki interface is a powerful enough platform to allow us to create a new and unconventional learning environment that will not only complement conventional courses but move beyond their limitations. --JWSurf 16:00, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

 * As ever, I'm in absolute agreement with you :-). I hope people will be joyful to be able to contribute materials to such a compelling project, and will take the reins in pushing the boundaries of what is possible within a wiki format - which could indeed develop towards some people's conceptions of what Wikiversity should be in the future. I hope that it being in a Wikimedia context and starting off as a "service provider" (as you've mentioned in the past) will only strengthen its momentum - that's one of the main reasons I haven't been so keen on splitting off to Wikicities or some other wiki farm. I hope, for example, some developers will help us in creating a base of resources to write MediaWiki code - how much more relevant to Wikimedia could we be? That, along with other other previously mentioned projects, should (I hope) be enough to make the community joyful. The main outstanding issue is whether Wikiversity is needed when we already have Wikipedia, Wikibooks etc - I think this was the main community objection. This is where I think research comes in, and I know we've talked about it before, but I think it will play a key role in showing how we are distinct from a WikiProject on Wikipedia or a learning manual in Wikibooks, for example. What do you think of throwing the question of research out to the community, and then submitting the proposal again to the board? Cormaggio @ 17:51, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

 * I'm not sure what you mean by "throwing the question of research out to the community". Research is a dimension for future growth within Wikiversity.....as the community sees fit to develop it. Many people who are interested in education have been brain-washed with the idea that research and education are in conflict. It is not worth trying to have rational discussions with some people about research. For other people, research and education are seen as being obviously synergistic activities and they will be the ones who take part in research activities within the Wikiversity community. --JWSurf 03:16, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

 * I'm still confused by this position of the board for many reasons. It seems as though they don't want to trust the current group of users to at least start a new project "provisionally" and simply see what is going to happen.  The big worry of the past is that a new project is going to be started and nobody shows up, or perhaps there will a short term flurry of activity and then nothing after that.  Wikispecies is a classic example of the former, and the 9/11 wiki is a good example of the second kind of problem.  I have offered a prediction that Wikiversity will have over 1000 registered users in the very first week after its creation, and have over 1000 pages of substantial actual content after the first month.  And that is the stuff beyond what would be transwikied from Wikibooks.
 * Regarding if real classes will be offered, I think it ought to be more "show us what you will do first" rather than quash legitimate ideas from bold users. If on-line classes are just talk and no action, then it isn't a problem.  Perhaps the "reputation" of Wikiversity would be tarnished, but there isn't a reputation right now to really worry about, and this is the very early stages of what could be offered.  BTW, I think the suggestion that it takes about 1/2 hour to "master" development of a Wikipedia article, 4 hours to develop a Wikibook, and 4 days for a Wikiversity course is perhaps about the right ratio of degree of effort for similar quality level of results.  A course is going to be necessarily quite difficult to organize and put together, but does that mean the board is telling us to not even try in the first place?  And there will be opportunities for individuals to "tweak" a Wikiversity course just as you can do minor spell checking for Wikipedia and Wikibooks content, or add a minor section to an existing Wikibook.
 * For the original research angle of Wikiversity, this is something that does need further discussion. Wikiversity courses are going to have some very borderline original research anyway, and some issues about the POV of the "instructor" who is conducting such a course.  I was trying to show how the inclusion of the Wikimania proceedings within Wikiversity as a positive example for what kinds of content Wikiversity might be able to maintain and develop by allowing original research.  It is also a very good example of how Wikiversity could be beneficial to the Wikimedia community as a whole.  Some significant studies could be done through Wikiversity, such as the current study done on the German Wikipedia for user interface and general usability of the content.  Things like this would be of tremendous value to the Wikimedia community as well.  Independent research is already happening on statistical analysis of Wikimedia databases, and there is a huge amount of material that can be mined from this very substantial amount of raw data.  Wikiversity would be the perfect forum to present information of this nature.
 * Basically I'm not entirely sure of what the major concerns are for the board. The short two sentance summary of the concerns raised by the board seems to show a lack of understanding for the roadmap of Wikiversity.  Perhaps this roadmap is more what needs to be done, and demonstrate that the issues of accreditation and formal credentials are something that is far off in the future, if it ever happens.  Requiring formal credentials was only part of what some of the people working on Wikiversity brought up in the first place, and is something that was ever present with both Nupedia and the early development of Wikipedia as well.  I understand how that might be a sensitive topic for Jimbo, but it should be made clear that was not a critical piece of the Wikiversity proposal.
 * A further point to note is that if you eliminate all of these extra things for Wikiversity, the courses, original research, student-teacher relationships, etc. all you end up with is a mirror of Wikibooks. That is a concern raised by many of the people voting against Wikiversity in the first place, and perhaps they have a point.  How critical are these other features and how does Wikiversity measure up as a unique proposal to offer something that is very different from the other Wikimedia projects?  --Roberth 03:32, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

 * To John: We will eventually (I think very soon) have to put this new proposal to the community, to see if there is "joy" about it. Research is the most contentious part of the new proposal, though the way it's phrased at the moment indicates your view that it isn't a necessity to get it started in the first place, and could be instigated through due process as the project develops. But I still think it would be a key distinction from Wikibooks, as Robert points also out - otherwise we're still going to face the same questions as before. However, I take your point about how people perceive research in the first place - maybe we should make it clear that it's not necessarily a fundamental part of everything on Wikiversity, but rather a key difference between it and its sister projects. Or can you make a clear case for a separate project without it? Cormaggio @ 10:56, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
 * To Robert: I'm speculating here, but I think the board will actually like what we're currently proposing as it stands. I think they basically didn't want to pass it as it was, and they were confused about a number of things, but more than anything, they were nervous, hence the two lines. The main thing that worries me at the moment is whether the community will accept that Wikiversity needs a separate identity, and I see research as pretty crucial to that. I thought we had forgetten about accreditation etc for now - it's not even part of the picture - but 'courses' remain a sensitive area. I thought we had veered more toward the idea of hosting learning materials, which can then be used by groups of people, who form learning communities (where people can be teachers, students, or both). I think that should be enough to indicate the learning process within Wikiversity, rather than simply the content - or do you have anything to add to this? Cormaggio @ 10:56, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Maybe there is no use debating which is more contentious: the role of research or the Board's "no courses" rule. Maybe these are the two sides of a single coin. If, as a student, all you want out of Wikiversity is a way to learn Somethingology 101 without having to pay tuition then what you want is a free online course and you have no interest in research. If, as an instructor, all you want is free webspace for your training sessions, then you are not interested in research either. If, as an instructor, all you want is to download a lesson plan, slide show, or some other "teaching materials" then you are not interested in Wikiversity as a place for research. Wikiversity will always attract some people who have no interest in research, even those who only view research as a distraction from the task of handing facts from teachers to students. In my view, for reasons I have explained before, the Board was correct to decide that they do not want the community to focus on the goal of creating a Wikiversity that is a conventional set of courses. This does not mean that the Board can prevent a group of Wikiversity participants from having a conventional course on Wikiversity. Wikiversity participants who want conventional courses do "make a clear case" for a Wikiversity without research since research is irrelevant to their goals. However, the Board will never forget that the power of wiki comes from a community of many people who cooperate to edit webpages. The trick of having a successful wiki is to be able to attract and retain editors who share a common goal that will guide the distributed editing process towards a constructive endpoint. My guess is that the best way to make a wiki-based learning community is to enable the formation and function of learning projects that are built on group editing of wiki pages as the means of conducting the learning project. Some wiki editors will be mainly students who are engaged in the goal of learning a subject. Some of the wiki editors will be more knowledgable about the topic from the start and will guide, correct and advise those who are less knowleable. To facilitate popular Wikiversity learning projects, some Wikiversity participants will help build online "teaching materials" including "textbooks" that will be suitable for online courses. I think successful wiki-based courses will not be conventional. They will be portals where people can come at anytime to gain access to organized information that can help someone learn about a topic. They will have to be self-sustaining communities of people who share particular learning goals. Wikiversity is only going to "take off" if it can attract a significant number of editors who will add useful content. A plan for attracting and retaining editors who will add educational content to Wikiversity must be the main concern of a viable Wikiversity project proposal. "Open the doors and content will magically appear" is not a viable project proposal. In my view, most of the editors of Wikiversity who will be adding useful content will be "students" who are engaged in research projects. They will be searching for good sources of information about a topic and putting that information into wiki format. This is "secondary research", learning about what other people already know. My guess is, that in order to grow the content of Wikiversity, we will need to attract many "students" who are willing to participate in group "secondary research" projects. My expectaton is that the wiki editing performed by these students will be the main source of Wikiversity content. Some Wikiversity editors will be "experts" who can help guide the "students" to good sources and make sure that the students "get it right". Many such "experts" will be experienced researchers who are concerned with questions for which the answers are not yet known. They will participate in Wikiversity if they have a love of learning and if there is a community of learners who share their interests. To find such Wikiversity editors, the logical starting place is to attract existing Wikimedia project editors who have an interest in learning about particular topics. Existing Wikimedia projects have serious needs for support from scholarly "secondary research" projects. It will be natural for Wikiversity participants to help build wiki textbooks. Wikipedia needs support in finding and documenting sources for its content. Addressing these needs of existing Wikimedia projects would be a good way to attract wiki editors and launch Wikiversity. It automatically brings research, mainly "secondary research" into Wikiversity. Eventually, a crust of conventional courses may accumulate at Wikiversity, but that will depend on first establishing a viable wiki community. --JWSurf 16:49, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Yes, absolutely - I can't add much more to that :-) So, are you happy with what it says on Wikiversity/Modified_project_proposal? Personally, I think it's a bit vague. I also think we need to add more to Learning to broaden and clarify our picture for those who are still unconvinced or who feel uninformed about Wikiversity. I don't mean at all to bang on about research - I'm just trying to make a case for a separate project, and I think we need to justify its existence. I think it's already clearer and less-controversial than what we proposed before - is it community-convincing enough yet? Cormaggio @ 09:34, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Now we can make interactive tests with mediawiki
The user w:es:Usuario:Comae has developed a monobook extension under GFDL which enables anyone to use interactive tests with Mediawiki. If you want to use it, you must copy his monobook in yours and, after cleaning your clache, you can see how it works in w:es:Usuario:Comae/Prueba. I believe this can be a good tool for developing Wikiversity. --Javier Carro 05:52, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

 * I'll take your word on it - might have a look when I can. But this is great - thanks for letting us know! Cormaggio @ 11:51, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Is this something that can be added to the main monobook.js for the site or must it be something just for each user seperately. I'm just not that familar with Mediawiki hacking to know how to add this for mere mortals.  I wouldn't mind adding it to en.wikibooks, for example, just to see how it might work, and make it a useful addition for Wikiversity development.  --Roberth 17:47, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

 * I don't know Mediawiki specs very much, but it should be easy to install for all users modifiying some "Mediawiki:" template (the "monobook.js" of the site, I suppose). It changes the window.onload function, so it could collide with some user monobook.js, which means that some users would need to slightly modify their own js code; but the changes should be very straightforward (only a line). If Wikiversity wants to have interactive tests with automatic correction, this shouldn't be an issue. And the current code is only the barebones of what could be accomplished later: error highlighting, showing of correct answers on ending, complete support for wikicode or images in questions and answers...
 * (By the way, if you find any bug or have trouble running this extension, please let me know - I only tested it on IE6, Opera 8 and Firefox 1.5, but it should work nicely on any modern browser)
 * I think the most important point about this is that, once it's installed in a wiki, everybody can create a test in any page of the wiki using a very simple markup. There is a brief example of that markup (note that there is no limit in the number of questions or answers in a test):

 * 1) 2+2?
 * 1
 * 2
 * 3
 * 4
 * 24
 * 1) *More than 10
 * 2) Where is Leipzig?
 * 3) *Australia
 * 4) *Europe
 * 5) *Japan
 * 4
 * 1) Europe
 * --Comae 16:04, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Ingmar / UNESCO
There has been a proposal by an Ingmar who wants to involve UNESCO at this early stage. Discussion on the points can be done there.

(this info moved from Wikiversity/Scope)

source: wikimedia

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Wikiversity talk:Approved Wikiversity project proposal/Archive 1


text:
Shahr-e Kohneh, Miyan Jolgeh

Shahr-e Kohneh is a village in Belharat Rural District, Miyan Jolgeh District, Nishapur County, Razavi Khorasan Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 175, in 35 families.

title: Shahr-e Kohneh, Miyan Jolgeh


text:
pudair

Etymology
From, regularization of.

Verb

 * 1)  to be able (to)
 * pos ti nudar?
 * can you swim?
 * jau poss nudar
 * I can swim

title: pudair


text:
User:Lion122/sandbox

Ahmed Umar

Introduction: The man hails from ancient India during a time of great prosperity. The land and I are one> Strength: MAX Intellect: MAX Valor: MAX Patience: MAX Attack Power: MAX Weakness: Unfounded

عمر

title: User:Lion122/sandbox


text:
Talk:Momofuku-Milk Bar

=starting page= Hi, I'm starting this page as part of a request for article creation by Wikiproject: Food and drink. I am working to include secondary and tertiary sources about the company. --Emmakknight (talk) 14:50, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

title: Talk:Momofuku-Milk Bar


text:
Talk:David Foster (woodchopper)

Untitled
Does anyone know his hieght and weight, both of which I believe are worth mentioning since he was such an enormous man. I met him once and I'm 6'4 and he towered over me plus also had 3 times the weight, at least, maybe more?GrabGrabGrab 17:09, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

I met him today and he said that he is 6'4 —Preceding unsigned comment added by <IP_ADDRESS> (talk) 06:38, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

why is a woodchopper called an 'athlete'? <IP_ADDRESS> (talk) 09:33, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

 * Because https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athlete <IP_ADDRESS> (talk) 05:05, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:David Foster (woodchopper)


text:
Aural Training

Definition
Aural training is training to give the ability to recognize and understand the music one hears. This can take the form of transcribing music into notation by ear or by hearing musical functions. Aural Training could also be used to identify formal structures on both large and small scales. One's ability in aural training varies greatly from person to person. For some it comes rather naturally and for others it is much more difficult, regardless of whether or not they are a musician. For those with perfect (absolute) pitch, some aspects of aural training are certainly made easier, but not all.

Transcription
By focusing one aspect of the music at a time (i.e. rhythm, melody, bass line, etc.) one can, with proper training, transcibe the music they hear, into musical notation. This is a very common practice amongst jazz musicians as they transcribe solos recorded by other jazz musicians so as to develop their own improvisational abilities.

General aspects
In tonal music, different chords have different functions. It is possible to hear these different functions so as to have a better idea of what is happening in the music. Beyond function, even hearing the quality of the chord can be important and be used by musicians. These more general aspects tend to be used by more musicians (classical, jazz, etc.) than transcription.

Formal structures
On a large scale one can train themseleves to hear the different formal sections of a piece in any music. This could be through hearing the difference between verse and chorus in a popular song or hearing the the difference between the Exposition, Development and subsequent Recapitulation in classical sonata form. On a smaller scale, one could hear the differences between the Main Theme, Transition, and Subordinate Theme or even the structures in a single phrase (i.e. basic idea, contrasting idea, continuation, etc.)

Absolute pitch
The ability to remember the particular quality of pitch classes well enough to so as to recognise them on hearing. It is not a rare ability among musicians.

title: Aural Training


text:
User:Shangoolix/Books/Dynamical Systems

Dynamical Systems

 * Dynamical system
 * Ergodic theory
 * Poincaré recurrence theorem
 * Sharkovskii's theorem
 * Periodic point
 * Wandering set
 * Limit cycle
 * Limit set
 * Stable manifold

title: User:Shangoolix/Books/Dynamical Systems


text:
kombinatorika

Noun

 * 1) combinatorics branch of mathematics

Related terms

 * See

Noun

 * 1)  combinatorics (subfield of mathematics)

Noun

 * 1) combinatorics

title: kombinatorika


text:
Pesca (footballer)

Jorge González Moral (born 24 February 1992), commonly known as Pesca, is a Spanish footballer who plays as a midfielder for Segunda Federación club Arandina.

Club career
Born in Burgos, Pesca kicked off his youth career with the youth team of Atletico Michelin. Later he joined Arandina and after two seasons, he moved to the youth team of Burgos. He received interest of various clubs like Numancia but signed for Real Valladolid where he was assigned to the B team in 2012. In June of the same year, he received a call up from the first team manager Miroslav Đukić to train with the senior squad in the pre season. He injured his right ankle while training in October and was ruled out of play for three weeks. In November, it was announced that the Đukić had called him to the first team for the club's last four matches of the season.

In July 2014, without having made any appearance for the senior team, Pesca signed for the C team of Villarreal. He made his league debut for the club in the month of November against Muro. Coming as an 82nd minute substitute, he found the net in the 93rd minute while resulted in the match ending in a draw. After a short stint with Alavés B, he moved to Rayo Majadahonda in August 2015 which competed in Segunda División B.

After a single season with Tercera División club Guadalajara of the third tier, in 2017 Pesca moved abroad for the time and signed for Austrian Football First League side Kapfenberger SV joining Spaniard David Agudo.

In July 2018, Pesca joined Arandina. He was loaned out to SD Logroñés on 24 January 2019 for the rest of the season.

title: Pesca (footballer)


text:
User:N8wilson/sandbox/Aircraft Classification

Aircraft classification groups aircraft according to their attributes in order to facilitate various aspects of modern aviation.

Type of Commercial Service
Regional Jets and more generally, all Regional airliners.

Size of Commercial Aircraft Cabin

 * Narrow-body aircraft
 * Wide-body aircraft

United States
In the US, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) classifies aircraft according to several different methods.

Category (Airmen certification)
Airplane, Rotorcraft, Glider, Lighter than air, Powered lift, Powered Parachute, Weight-shift-control, Rocket

Category (Aircraft certification)
Transport, Normal, Utility, Acrobatic, Limited, Restricted, Provisional

Class
Airplane, Rotorcraft, Glider, Balloon, landplane, seaplane

Separate classes (Fixed-wing, Gyrocopter, Helicopter, Remotely Piloted Aircraft, Tilt-rotor, amphibians, seaplanes)

Engines
By number (0-4) and type (Electric, Piston, Turboprop/Turboshaft, Jet, Rocket)

Type Designator
Example: CL60 covers 14 Challenger-model aircraft across two brands: Bombardier and Canadair.

Special designators include: a. BALL – Balloon. b. GLID – Glider/sailplane. c. GYRO – Micro-/ultra-light gyrocopter. d. SHIP – Airship. e. UAUH – Micro-/ultra-light autonomous unmanned helicopter. f. UAUL – Micro-/ultra-light autonomous unmanned aircraft. g. UHEL – Micro-/ ultra-light helicopter. h. ULAC – Micro-/ultra-light aircraft. i. UOPH – Micro-/ultra-light optionally piloted helicopter. j. UOPL – Micro-/ultra-light optionally piloted aircraft. k. URPH – Micro-/ultra-light remotely piloted helicopter. l. URPL – Micro-/ultra-light remotely piloted aircraft. m. ZZZZ – Aircraft type not yet assigned a designator, with a description of the type in Item 18 (Other Information) of the ICAO flight plan or Remarks of a NAS flight plan.

FAA Weight Class
Small, Large, Heavy, and Super (which, as of March 2017, includes only the Airbus A380-800, and the Anotov AN-225).

Wake Category
Category A (max wingspan, certified takeoff weight, and wake turbulence) through Category F (minimum) which includes powered sailplanes.