User talk:Guy vandegrift

Wiki created
Hello, I would like to tell you that I have created your wiki. You can now access it at https://wikiversity.miraheze.org. You should automatically have been granted founder rights (administrator and bureaucrat), if that's not the case then please leave a notice on Stewards' noticeboard so we can fix it immediately. Do not hesitate to ask questions if your question was not answered in our FAQ. Also, if you want a extension, gadget, or anything else, please ask us here. Thank you for choosing Miraheze, and we wish you good luck with your wiki! Reception123 (talk) ( contribs  ) 14:49, 4 September 2016 (UTC)


 * I was so busy having fun on https://wikiversity.miraheze.org that I forgot to Thank you!!! --Guy vandegrift (talk) 21:37, 10 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Your welcome! If you need anything feel free to ask. Reception123 (talk) ( contribs  ) 15:53, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Notes to self

 * https://phabricator.miraheze.org/T800

What I just learned about database names
[14:41] == Guy [826c736e@gateway/web/freenode/ip.130.108.115.110] has joined #miraheze [14:43]  Can anybody explain the database name when creating a wiki on miraheze. If I want to create the wiki xxx, is the database name xxx or xxxwiki? [14:43] <+JohnLewis> Guy: xxx.miraheze.org is xxxwiki [14:43] <+JohnLewis> xxx is not a valid database name as all databases must end in wiki. [14:44] <+PuppyKun> Also database =\= sitename, which is the project name and what you see in the page title [14:45]  I got permission to create close to 100 wikis, and would like to name them wright001, wright002, etc. I got in trouble with wright.miraheze.org and wright001.miraheze.org. How do I check the database names to see what is going on? [14:46] <+JohnLewis> what do you mean by "check the database names to see what is going on"? [14:47]  @PuppyKun does =/= mean "equal to" or "not equal to"? [14:48]  @JohnLewis: I would assume that I could find out the name of my database, unless it is automatically xxxwiki. [14:48] <+JohnLewis> Guy: yes, its the first part of the url with "wiki" appended [14:49] <+JohnLewis> e.g. meta.miraheze.org = metawiki. test.miraheze.org = testwiki. wright.miraheze.org = wrightwiki. wright001.miraheze.org = wright001wiki [14:49]  And when I "create" the wiki called wright002, I just answer wright002wiki in answer to the request to fill in the database name? [14:50] <+JohnLewis> yep, wright002wiki as a database name would be wright002.miraheze.org [14:51]  Great! I will now go to my meta.miraheze talk page and not sound like such an idiot. Thanks
 * 1) miraheze: Welcome to the IRC channel of Miraheze, a free non-profit wiki hosting provider! | https://meta.miraheze.org | Status: Up | This channel is publicly logged at https://botbot.me/freenode/miraheze/

x
--Guy vandegrift (talk) 17:05, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

--Mattsiefring10 (talk) 17:07, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

--Boss429 (talk) 17:11, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

User:17hayel

Editing on Meta
Note that Miraheze Meta is meant to be an administrative/central wiki for global matters. Please do not use it for your students to do anything except register for an account. If you'd like, each student may have their own wiki, or you, as the instructor, may have a wiki that is 'central' to them, but not for all of Miraheze. I just noticed an influx of various edits appearing on Meta, along with the creation of (a) page(s) that shouldn't exist here.

Sorry for the trouble, but Miraheze Meta should be clear and easy to navigate for any new users, not wondering what random pages are. -- Cheers, NDKilla ( Talk • Contribs ) 17:33, 30 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Thanks for clarifying. I will blank our page called "Wikiversity" right now.  But I am still confused about what defines a "random edit".  I presume my template in my own userspace was "over the top" and will clear that.


 * Would you prefer that we did nothing on the meta, including on our own user pages? If so, I will clear my user page and instruct my students to do the same.


 * I want to emphasize that we should do what is good for Miraheze, since students can create user pages on Wikiversity. Do you want users to modify their own meta user pages?  If not, we will all clear ours right now. --Guy vandegrift (talk) 17:48, 30 September 2016 (UTC)


 * First of all, most of the edits to your students user spaces appeared to be the addition/removal of a single period (.) after the template. I'm not sure what the point of this was? If it was to make the update to the template appear on that page, you/your students should learn how to purge the cache without updating the page. (This reduces/eliminates RecentChanges flooding, and keeps the edit history of individual pages more concise.) Please see here for help on purging pages.


 * Also, you/your students may have user pages, and subpages, here on Meta, but they should probably describe your users/uses/what you guys do here. Meta should not be used for any type of instruction / class use.--Guy vandegrift (talk) 22:17, 30 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Your template is probably fine, especially in your user space, but I'd prefer anything related to your instructions / class / environment be on one of your own wikis or /class/ wiki.


 * I'm going to delete the mainspace pages you have blanked, but if you (temporarily) need the contents or edit history, you may request undeletion and have them moved to your userspace. -- Cheers, NDKilla ( Talk • Contribs ) 18:13, 30 September 2016 (UTC)


 * I will keep future activity on the meta to a minimum. I would like to instruct more students to create private wikis solely for the purpose of doing assignments that must be kept private until they are handed in for a grade.  At the moment, this will involve a dozen or so students in a pilot program.  Next year it might be hundreds, but I can imagine all universities doing this, and that would mean millions of private wikis.  Can you handle such growth?  Do you want it?  Miraheze is a little over a year old and hasn't really been "discovered" yet, IMHO.   --Guy vandegrift (talk) 18:42, 30 September 2016 (UTC)


 * User:Labster is probably the guy to go to for current growth, but we're actually planning/hoping to upgrade our database server's storage soon as we have about 1,500 wikis at the moment and are using most of our storage space. Costs aside, our current host has several larger plans that we can scale to as-required, and I'm pretty sure most of us are planning on sticking around. As the technical or administrative needs of these wikis grow it could be problematic due to the shear volume. Have you considered becoming a wiki creator so that you can create your students wikis for them? (Instead of them dealing with meta wiki / requesting a wiki?) -- Cheers, NDKilla ( Talk • Contribs ) 19:09, 30 September 2016 (UTC)


 * It seems to me that I will be obligated to help create wikis if I bring in 100 students each year. Just today I talked with an economics professor who also seemed interested.  Should I add my name at Helpful_people?--Guy vandegrift (talk) 20:08, 30 September 2016 (UTC)


 * You can add yourself there if you want, don't think there's really any regulation there. Also, if you requested it I thought wiki creator might just help you and your students get wikis with less interaction with the people behind them. I'm not sure that's what you want though. Either way, id give you wiki creator if you read the guide and requested it, -!: you wouldn't be obligated to handle other requests. -- Cheers, NDKilla ( Talk • Contribs ) 21:29, 30 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Yes, I would like to read the guide and create wikis for students at my campus. --Guy vandegrift (talk) 22:17, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

(reset indent) Please read the guide then reply here. I can add you to the group so you can check out the UI and familiarize yourself before you need to start creating them for your students. Also, how do you plan on getting access to read all the other wikis, would you talk your students through adding your user to them, or would you be the founder and then add them as members? (I don't really need to know this, I was just wondering). -- Cheers, NDKilla ( Talk • Contribs ) 04:34, 2 October 2016 (UTC)


 * You wrote "how do you plan on getting access to read all the other wikis..?" My tentative solution is to have every student own a private wiki, with the understanding that exclusive "one-member" access is not only tolerated but encouraged. They will normally print the wikitext into a pdf file and submit that electronicaly using a system outside Miraheze.  If the the instructor intends to edit and/or publish the work on Wikipedia or Wikiversity, the student could also submit the wikitext.  This way, the minumum number of Miraheze private wikis created would be the number of students plus the number of teachers.  Students could use the same wiki for all their classes.
 * Again, we're totally fine with each student having their own wiki with you want, I was just wondering how you'd read it. It sounds like you wont even want access to student's wikis and they can just do whatever on them then submit the required pages/whatever? -- Cheers, NDKilla ( Talk • Contribs ) 01:07, 3 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Excuse this long digression: If this thing gets big, it could get really big. The student loan debt in the USA exceeds our credit card debt.  I have taught all levels of university physics, astronomy, statitistics, and math for 29 years (full time).  Most of this has been at the introductory level (first two years of college).  We are wasting a great deal of money on this instruction.  If Google can make a car that handles city traffic, educators and computer experts should have no trouble finding a way to drastially reduce the cost of these introductory courses.  We need two things:  (1) quality prose that explains it all, and (2) a way to cheaply verify that the students have learned the basic facts.  Quizbank is my answer to the first, and private wikis is my answer to the second.  If students write their essays in private, they can receive letter grades for publishing quality expository prose in a  WikiJournal.  Such contributions not only yield an effective way to grade the students, but will lead to an encyclopedia of teaching materials.--Guy vandegrift (talk) 13:47, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
 * (No idea what I'm supposed to do with this information?? I guess it's nice to know why you want wikis :)) -- Cheers, NDKilla ( Talk • Contribs ) 01:07, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

Aside on the need for Wikiversity and WikJournals
Some people on Wikiversity seem angry at Wikipedia. I am not, and have great respect for Wikipedia. Having said that, Wikipedia articles are not effective teaching tools. See for example the statement at the top of this article that describes different types of writing styles. They want to remove the Embedded lists and replace them with prose that no student will want to read. I "rescued" the link w:Special:Permalink/740783868 and placed is where I can find it. Someday, we need a quiz on the various writing styles, and students will be able to use the concise description from that permalink. Meanwhile, it is entirely possible that the Wikipedia article may drift away from its present useful format.--Guy vandegrift (talk) 14:08, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Even when pages are edited, for the most part wikipedia keeps it's edit history. Not sure how this is relevent here or what you want us to do? -- Cheers, NDKilla ( Talk • Contribs ) 01:07, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
 * By "rescuing" the link, I meant that I saved the permalink so I wouldn't have to look for it in the history page if the article becomes less useful for teaching. The fact that all wikis keep their (undeleted) histories is essential to my vision regarding using wikis to teach because teachers need "static" textbooks that won't change in the middle of the course. All I want you at Mirahenze to do is succeed as a wikifarm.  I remain convinced that someday, the use of private wikis by students will become the industry standard in college education, which could someday make Miraheze almost as big as Wikipedia.--Guy vandegrift (talk) 12:58, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I hope we at Miraheze succeed too! And just keep in mind that wiki sysops (students on their private wikis?) can delete content there, and any sysop on and wiki can delete the content in question. If you ever need anything for you or your students, don't hesitate to contact us.
 * Also I was just thinking if [as an instructor] you ever wanted permission to read all of the students wikis and stuff, I had an idea. But meh :p it involves wiki sets and global group permissions that aren't really global. -- Cheers, NDKilla ( Talk • Contribs ) 12:56, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm glad you are thinking about this. My first step is to convince educators and students that this is a "revolution" that needs to happen.  As long as this operation is small we don't need to worry much about security.    Thanks for everything! --Guy vandegrift (talk) 07:44, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
 *  As per the discussion above, I would like to become a wiki-creator. I read and think I understand Wiki creators guide.--Guy vandegrift (talk) 16:58, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Editing the meta for course information
I will be editing this meta a bit in order to modify the template that be placed on all students using a private wiki for coursework at WSU-Lake.--Guy vandegrift (talk) 14:30, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
 * In case you were wondering, a couple of pages in your userspace is fine, and this page has nothing to do with you. I'm more worried about people that create main-space pages or other articles that could be confusing for people looking for help. -- Cheers, NDKilla ( Talk • Contribs ) 14:34, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Understood. But what about this issue:  Soon I hope to have close to 100 new private wikis each year, where my students will use this wiki to prepare assignments.  My dream is for an entire campus to start generating 1000 private wikis each year.  Correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding is that 1000 students modifying subpages in their meta userspace might be a problem for you.  My template at User:Guy vandegrift/htw will be placed by me on all meta userpages created by my students.  It will contain language discourages unnecessary meta editing. Feel free to edit User:Guy vandegrift/htw as you wish. I expect to finish my editing of that page/template in a few minutes.--Guy vandegrift (talk) 15:00, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes admittedly, thousands of people editing any meta pages would be somewhat annoying as by default recent changes only shows the last 50 edits IIRC. It's not really too problematic, but if possible I'd like to avoid that. Maybe instead of discouraging meta editing you could encourage people to preview their edits more often before submitting changes (as only saved/submitted changes appear in logs). -- Cheers, NDKilla ( Talk • Contribs ) 15:16, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, I will strongly encourage using the preview button. Unfortunately, in the past few years I have "trained" my 64 year old brain to use "save" and "revert".  Such actions are absolutely necessary when I write equation-filled pages like this one.  BTW, if you are a Dr. Who fan, you will like the paper (when we are finished writing it).--Guy vandegrift (talk) 15:25, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Request to create 100 private wikis (and donate $695.50)
In a nutshell:


 * I would like to create 100 private wikis, be the administrator, and bring in one student to each wiki for the duration of the course. After that, the student's membership would be terminated by me, and another student would take the wiki.  As a professor, I currently control a fund of $695.50, and have permission to donate it to Miraheze if you will permit me to create these wikis. Also, I will donate this amount even if it is not a prerequisite for getting these wikis.

According to this thread you can handle multiple wikis and do not yet have a limit. This past semester I have experimented with having students create their own private wikis, and am impressed by their enthusiasm for creating projects that add content and quiz questions (see Quizbank). The privacy is essential because most students work hard only for the grade, and they can't be allowed to steal each other's ideas. One of you raised concerns that Miraheze administrators would have access to this "private" work, but that won't be a problem with my small pilot program (we can fix that much later -- there are much easier ways for a student to be dishonest).

Most of this semester's projects were off-wiki, in part because managing 100 newbies on their own private wikis was impossible. In the future, I would like to automatically be administrator so I would have password access, and be able to look directly into their wikis. At the end of the course, I would remove the student's membership and bring in a different student. Also, the private wikis would be conveniently named if I create them. My proposed wiki names are: wright001.miraheze, wright002.miraheze, wright003.miraheze, ...  The actual number would be less than 100, and match the expected enrollment for that semester. Is this OK?--Guy vandegrift (talk) 03:02, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Seems totally fine to me. We have ~1500 created wikis and only ~850 open. Getting back up to 1500 semi-active wikis doesn't seem like a technical issue. As for the read access to wikis you create, wiki sets are a thing that we haven't really used here. We could probably create a 'global' group that contained read and/or sysop permissions, and at the start of each semester include wikis you create. -- Cheers, NDKilla ( Talk • Contribs ) 15:47, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm going to ping on the donation, as I'm not sure how you'd intend to transfer the funds but I don't think we've ever had that much money in PayPal. -- Cheers, NDKilla ( Talk • Contribs ) 15:47, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I am surprised that you wrote "I don't think we've ever had that much money in PayPal.". Am I the Bill Gates of open-source education?  I hope not. --Guy vandegrift (talk) 16:59, 1 December 2016 (UTC)--Guy vandegrift (talk) 20:25, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

copied from your talk page

I created https://wright001.miraheze.org/wiki/Main_Page, but am not sure what the database is. I entered "wiki" as the database the last time I attempted to create wright001.miraheze. I will wait to hear from you before I attempt to create wright002.miraheze.--Guy vandegrift (talk) 17:33, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
 * The database for wright001.mraheze.org has to be wright001wiki. The domain for "wiki" database would be ".miraheze.org" and is invalid.
 * Here is the problem: I accidentallyl created two wikis: one is 

Which one is the bad one? Or are they both bad? What do I enter as the database name? Is ok to have both the name and the address be wright001?--Guy vandegrift (talk) 17:40, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
 * 1) https://wright.miraheze.org/wiki/Main_Page but has the name "wright001"
 * 2) https://wright001.miraheze.org/wiki/Main_Page and also has the name "wright001"
 * Also, I am having trouble with the Data base entry on the wiki creation page. Special:CreateWiki asks for a Database name and seems to want one that ends with wiki. I tried everything I could think of, for example,  wright001wiki for the site wright001.miraheze.org came back with "A wiki with that database name already exists."--Guy vandegrift (talk) 16:59, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
 * UPDATE: I tried wiki as the database name and it seemed to work.--Guy vandegrift (talk) 17:06, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Wiki databases must end in wiki, and the last 4 characters aren't included in the domain. wright001wiki does exist. Now i have to figure out how to delete wiki. XD -- Cheers, NDKilla ( Talk • Contribs ) 17:19, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I wasn't thinking clearly when I answered you on your talk page. I will copy the comment here and we should continue here, if possible.--Guy vandegrift (talk) 17:49, 1 December 2016 (UTC) MOVED on 17:52, 1 December 2016 (UTC) by Guy vandegrift.
 * The database names are subdomain+wiki MacFan4000 (talk) 17:43, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I renamed wright.miraheze.org to wright rather then wright001.as for database names wright001 is attached to wright001 wiki and wright is attached wrightwiki. MacFan4000 (talk) 17:47, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks to all. I will use the accidental private wiki "wright" as a private node where I keep track of which students are using each of the other wikis.

Hi Guy vandegrift
We invite you for discussion about 2016 Community survey/Steward. Please leave your comments.

Cheers TriX (talk) 13:38, 3 December 2016 (UTC)


 * I don't think I am qualified to comment. I will watch the page to learn.--Guy vandegrift (talk) 16:15, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

A question about membership on a private wiki
I am the sole Administrator of this private wiki, intended for student use at Wright State University Lake Campus

https://wright001.miraheze.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AListUsers&username=&group=&limit=50
 * what's your question? You will have to add the student(s) as members for them to be able to edit. -- Cheers, NDKilla ( Talk • Contribs ) 20:39, 25 December 2016 (UTC)


 * --ha! you came on board before I could formulate the question. I just removed Cantelli as a member because these wikis need to be private, so I don't want old users to see the new pages.  If I cannot remove the right of previous members to see pages, there is a workaround: I can either delete the wiki, or wait for it to expire from lack of use.  Obvously it would be better if Cantelli cannot see the wiki wright001.miraheze.org.  And, this page


 * https://wright001.miraheze.org/wiki/Special:ListGroupRights


 * seems to suggest that non-members cannot see pages. Is that true?--Guy vandegrift (talk) 20:47, 25 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Only members can see all pages. Non-members (actually, all users, whether or not they have default rights, or manually added/removed 'read' rights) can see certain pages that are part of a global 'ReadWhitelist' which include many language variations of 'Main page' and technical pages related to logging in and logging out. -- Cheers, NDKilla ( Talk • Contribs ) 21:55, 25 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Yes, I just verified that with User:Wsul001. I created it a while back with a student who needed to write one thing on a Wiki (FreeCollegeProject).  There was an understanding that this student had no need for the account, so I suggested an appropriate name and password that I could take on as a sock if I ever needed it.  The sock User:Wsul001 was brought in as a member by me into wright001.miraheze.org, and as administrator I, User:Guy vandegrift, removed the membership rights.


 * Strange, but I thought I attempted to remove Cantelli25 from wright001.miraheze.org a while back and wasn't able to. Has the system changed since a few weeks ago?  Either way, all is well, and I am really looking foward to next semester.  --Guy vandegrift (talk) 22:34, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

A question about 100 socks???
This idea needs to be critically evaluated because it is strictly forbidden on Wikimedia wikis, but the easiest way for me to manage my collection of private student-wikis is for each wiki to have a unique username, e.g., user:Wsul001, user:Wsul002, ... user:Wsul100. I would use a random number generator to give each wiki a unique password, using my own email address for the password reset. Each student would receive a slip of paper on the first day with the username and password.

As a precaution against future cross-wiki spying I could request that each student changes that password, and resets it to the original at the end of the course (this latter action by each student would save me hours of labor each semester). Students would be asked to reset the password to the original value on the last day of class, and if a few fail to do this, I can use my email address to reset the password. One concern is that we would suddenly have 100 newbies who are autoconfirmed. Perhaps it would be possible/necessary to block all of them to the meta.miraheze wiki???

The advantage of this is that we could start editing on the first day of class--Guy vandegrift (talk) 20:41, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I see no problem with this but before creating the accounts we should wait for a steward to confirm that there is no issue with this. Reception123 (talk) ( contribs  ) 10:54, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
 * No issues but you should maybe log out and create all the accounts instead of creating them while logged in. Not sure if creating accounts while logged in as yourself actually makes them autoconfirmed or not. -- Cheers, NDKilla ( Talk • Contribs ) 23:50, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. I will will create them while logged out ;-) --Guy vandegrift (talk) 01:06, 28 December 2016 (UTC)