User talk:Theonesean/sandbox/AfC Mentoring

Discussion and Development

How are people going to be "matched" to their mentor? Unless we are going to require some kind of background for students and mentors, I see it as less of a "matching" process and more of a "a mentor will be selected for you" or "a mentor will adopt you" based on their free time? Not sure what might be right, but "matched" doesn't seem to fit. Just a thought! Keep up the good work! Technical 13 (talk) 16:09, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. What I was going to do was build a basic bot to select a mentor for each student, check up on the mentors if they haven't listed themselves as available or participated in a course, create copies of the course for each student, etc. I believe it's in a comment on the Table of Contents. TheOneSean ^{[ U | T | C ]} 18:21, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Oh, a mentor matching bot... Interesting idea, what would the criteria be? Common user categories, timezones, languages, hrmm... not sure what else might be appropriate... Technical 13 (talk) 18:44, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

I was thinking common timezones and languages, yeah, and maybe common locations, to encourage local Wikiproject contribution and possibly IRL meetups. TheOneSean ^{[ U | T | C ]} 21:59, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

mw:API:Users doesn't seem to have a lot to offer on user information... You could get categories off their user page/talk page... Not sure where to get the rest of the information unless they offer it... Is there more User information available using labs? Technical 13 (talk) 22:10, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

New to this discussion but seriously concerned with finding solutions to improve AfC (with some recent meetings with senior Foundation executives), but not new at all to the issues surrounding mentors and schools for reviewers, rollbackers, NPPers, etc - because I created some of them. As I said here: The reason I closed down the old CVUA and created a new one was because it was a question of the blind leading the blind, and the whole thing had become a MMPORG for younger and/or inexperienced users. In developing projects such as these there is a danger in introducing too much bureaucracy and automation. Finding suitable levels of experience is not too difficult and that why I closed down the old CVUA (with strong consensus from other admins) and created the new one with an entirely new look, and with a much simpler system for users finding and/or being referred to trainers. If the trainers all have a required level of competency, then 'matching' hardly comes into the equation, especially if the mentors have posted the details of their availability on the mentor list. Someone you might want to ping on this is Theopolisme but I don't know how he is fixed for time right now. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:24, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I've pinged Theopolisme already because I think his input based on his experience with the old CVUA could be very valuable. I'v also now had a thorough look at Theonesean's entire project. I like the start he has made on the syllabus which I think is the most important part and I would like to see more, although individual mentors will probably take this as a guideline and adapt it to their own system of didactics. I do think however, that to avoid TL;DR and instruction creep, that a much simpler home page would be better on the lines of the WP:CVUA and its other sub pages which would then also harmonise with the other mentoring project pages across the Wiki. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:51, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

While I'm rather busy at the moment with AFCH and some other silly real life matters, I took a few minutes to look through the proposed framework. Initial thoughts: I agree with Kudpung in that WP:CREEP comes to mind when looking at some of the pages. When working with the CVUA over a year ago, several things really stuck with me, one of which was, again as Kudpung says, giving mentors freedom is very important. Online learning comes to mind as an interesting parallel: I have taken several online courses in the past, and in each of them there was a very specific syllabus, a very specific textbook, a very specific quiz for each section, etc., etc... specific, specific, specific. While this is not a bad thing in and of itself, too many specifics can be quite limiting, because they do not encourage the instructor to tailor lessons specifically to the student. Take a look at this interesting forum post (it's amazing what a bit of googling pulls up) if you get a chance—it very neatly compares "instruction vs. teaching." Mentorship is, in the sense of that post, all about teaching, which is all about evaluation of the individual students. tl;dr less is more when it comes to guidelines, even if it seems counterintuitive at first. Theopolisme (talk) 03:21, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, the both of you, this is some wonderful advice. I'll obviously be asking you for help a lot, as this has given me lots to work with. I'm going to be really busy tomorrow, but I might have a few hours to myself. Thanks, theonesean 05:39, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Due to some additional ideas that have been suggested, and because I had some in-depth talks with the Foundation, I have pinged Steven walling and Brandon Harris for a yes/no response on one of those suggestions. If they respond positively, it will relieve the community of the technical development aspect, while I'm confident that the volunteers' ideas will be taken very much into consideration and integrated if necessary/possible. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:54, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Kudpung — Theopolisme — Theonesean — Steven (WMF) — Jorm (WMF): I've started developing (just barely) an extension to do everything that needs to be done. I'll put it up on GitHub this week and give you all a link to it and add anyone interested in contributing to the project. :) Technical 13 (talk) 13:47, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Ping me too. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 06:11, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

AfC school project

What I've done is to clone one of our existing school/academy projects to keep the AfC school in harmony with the suite of training/mentorship projects. It's based on the NPP school I made, which in turn was based on the revamp of the CVUA I made, and on Worm's adoption project. I've substituted new text and links where applicable, and left some stuff in for trainers, students etc, that may be useful or that can be modified with your own syllabus. The pages for lists of students and trainers exist already. For simplicity, these school projects are a one-page system with no transcluded elements.

For you to do:

• check through the source - there are plenty of useful hidden notes in it
• design or find a free logo for the AfC Academy to replace the policeman used as a placeholder
• make an AfC reviewer infobox userbox
• do a thorough copyedit (I may have made some typos), and decide on ENGVAR.
• change the CSS to another colour scheme.
• add a 'Further reading' list for any useful pages of guidelines, essays, etc.
• create the prepared shortcut redirect page
• anything else you can think of, but KISS it - less is more - remember that all too often the potential trainers themselves are inexperienced and/or over-enthusiastic and that was the downfall of the old CVUA system. No bots, no mini icons, very low intervention, things that Theopolisme will remember well; it must not turn into a social gathering like the old CVUA did, time is better spent on actual reviewing or adding content.

A couple of hints for trainers and their students: Remember that the English Wikipedia is accessed by every kind of person on the planet. 'Cool talk' or 'teen-talk' à la 'hey bro' or other vernacular is inappropriate on an encyclopedia project unless you are very familiar with your regular collaborators. We're dealing here with everything from rappers making their autobios to grouchy old retired uni profs like me, industry bosses, politicians and other prominent people, and non-native speakers. Anyone who has worked on OTRS will know this only too well. Above all, emphasis in the training programme should be on detecting subtle promotion, spam, and copyvio (as my great mentor DGG constantly repeats - yes even I have to ask for advice very often), attack pages and not so evident hoaxes.

Lastly, this training programme is not dependent on any new developments concerning reviewer permissions etc, or the new 'draft' namespace that may be created for submissions in the near future, but some parts of the school may need to be occasionally updated. Whatever happens, the principles remain the same.

It's here. Move it, copy and paste the entire content, or whatever, (or don't use it at all!) I don't mind if my edits are not on the final project because I'll be deleting my user draft when it's done with.

Happy editing, Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:59, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Update: There is now a talk page attached to that draft. Use it by all means. If the school as its stands is adopted, the talk page and its edit notice can be moved with it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:26, 19 October 2013 (UTC)