User talk:The Warrior

Howdy!
Good Evening, The Warrior! Thanks for welcoming me to The Warrior Wiki. I just have a few questions:


 * Can we upload a picture of an on-campus building for an article that still lacks one and use that image for points toward the Photo Challenge?


 * Are we allowed to create articles on individual and functions, especially ones that hold annual events (UWSP, Warrior Band, Power to Change, specific Varsity teams, Cheese Club, Dragon Boat Club, etc.)? What about new clubs that we find significant? Would you prefer articles on clubs to be started by third-party (i.e. uninvolved) users only?


 * What about updating articles with real-time information, such as special orientation events, conferences and sporting events (can we include those too?), and doing this every year for the same articles?


 * Can we include articles on bodies of water, such as Laurel Creek, the upstream Columbia Lake, and places situated on those water bodies like the UW Meteorological station?


 * How about articles on on-going on-campus research, and info on visiting lecturers and special visits by people such as Jay Ingram and Stephen Hawking? What about major research centres, such as the Perimeter Institute, the Guelph-Waterloo Physics collaboration, IC3 (climate change), Solar Energy Research Centre (you'll find it in E3), WISE, and SWIGS (Water Institute)?


 * Is "Pi Day" (today) at Waterloo notable enough to have its own article? There's Pie.


 * Can you fix the spelling errors on one of the help pages? The Warrior Wiki:Contributing Guidelines --> please change "it's" to "its".


 * What about monuments? For instance, the Egg Fountain, the old MC "CS" sculpture, and all those Engineering things like "The Tool"?


 * What about campus food services? The campus shuttle? The grocery shuttle? The walking shuttle which got cancelled? FEDS Express Bus?


 * What about famous on-campus publications, like mathNEWS, and historical entities such as The Chevron (newspaper) and campus radio, the latter of which is now 100.3 Sound FM?


 * Are we permitted to mention OMGUW, JobMine, and Canada Goose Jackets?


 * UW Smokestack, Art Gallery, Centre for Creativity (I'm not making this one up - it's near the plaza), Optometry centre, the Observatory, the "thing" on top of V1 that looks a lot better than Laurier's Turret...do any of those merit an article?


 * Can we produce articles on FEDS functions like Clubs Day, Orientation Week (and EDCOMM - can't forget them), elections, etc. and the history and traditions behind them?


 * Since we will be including articles on current and past professors, do you want to install some variant of Wikipedia's BLP (biography of living persons) policy to take incidents such as libel very seriously and enforce greater standards of Neutral Point-of-View, especially when students do not like the way a professor teaches?


 * How about well-attended short-term non-credit courses offered at UW, such as "God and Reason" (Tuesdays 4:30 - 6:20)? What about articles on unique UW programs (science and aviation) and unique courses (Physiochemical Properties of Natural Waters)?


 * How about tips from past/current students on things like studying, co-op jobs, and doing research? This isn't exactly encyclopedic or historical in the strictest sense, but it can certainly be very helpful to other students. Perhaps users can create "blogs" on appropriate topics on their userspace?


 * Can we create articles on things like 'alternatives to drinking at a party'? I'll keep it NPOV, and possibly insert some little-known UW traditions.


 * Do you want "Be Bold" to be one of our mantras, like it is on Wikipedia?


 * Finally, can we create articles about the Earth & Environment around the university itself, such as the Waterloo Aquifer (because there's so much research at UW dedicated to groundwater), the stratigraphy (soil + core samples) of the ground beneath the university all the way to the Silurian Salina Formation, the climate at Waterloo (and I don't mean the school spirit), the wildlife (GEESE! HERONS! GOPHERS!), notable storms to have gone through the area (like the Feb 8th snowstorm), tree species, suppliers of local food (such as the Martin's Family Farm and UW Farmers' Market), nearby pipelines and controversy surrounding said pipelines, common alternative uses for the buildings (i.e. E5 = snowboard park), the style of architecture (mainly "Brutalist", which could have its own article), and the like?

Once again, thank you for welcoming me to the Wiki. I hope you have a nice evening. Y637wang (talk) 20:56, 14 March 2013 (EDT)

Since I'm actually unsure of what the response protocol is, I'm just going to post the response here:

Once again welcome. We love it when we see first year students who already knows so many aspects of the university. It's pretty rare.

Firstly, "Can we upload a picture of an on-campus building for an article that still lacks one and use that image for points toward the Photo Challenge?" Absolutely, any photo submitted before March 20, 18:00 EST will automatically be entered in the Photo Driveand have points awarded.

As for what pages the wiki should have, perhaps it's time to go back and broaden what's found in the contributing guidelines. It's only been 1/2 a year, but our technical limitations have been lifted substantially and so we are able to expand our purview.

As for specific page suggestions, I think that you'll find some of the pages have already been started. I have gone through your questions and linked to the pages that already exist.

Generally the answer to your page suggestions is "Yes". However, the pages should relate directly to UW. On the MC page, we have simply linked to the Wikipedia page for brutalism. Do Canada Goose Jackets have some connection to UW?

As for the depth and what is considered significant, I think that the policy going forward will be one of "It's significant". Ideally, every club ever created would be have a page (or at least be indexed on the wiki somewhere). We can't be picky with who starts pages (answering your question about who should start clubs pages), but should strive to maintain NPOV.

As for "helpful tips". There are many other sites in existence for that (/r/uwaterloo comes to mind). In general, the pages should be encyclopedic in nature, with claims backed by references. Perhaps they could be incorporated into a blog-style section of the wiki (we have the Wikilog extension installed).

"and possibly insert some little-known UW tradition". There are very few true traditions at UW. Most often, an event or activity will automatically be assumed to be a long-standing tradition of the school. Furthermore, "traditions" seldom live longer than 5 years. For example, in ~2009, some O-Week leaders took to wearing decorated overalls. That year, the first years who had seen them assumed that they were a mark of status for leaders and a long-standing tradition. The following year a large portion of leader wore the overalls. After that, it became a required piece of leader gear. All of this is to say that "traditions" are probably not significant unless they can be shown to have persisted for many years.

"Be Bold" is a fantastic philosophy and will be added to the next revision of the Contribution Guidelines.

A BPL policy will likely have to be created and enforced in the future. So far, contributors seem to care very little about the faculty and staff. If codifying this is interesting to you, "have at it!".

With regards to the topics in your last point (geology, environment, animals, etc.), the answer is once again "yes". Many of these pages should exist as they directly relate to UW and have played a role in its development and identity. The part that is questionable is talk of the pipelines. Unless these pipelines are directly related to UW, or it can be shown that the controversy has had an impact on UW, there seems to be no need to give them their own page.

A lot of the questions that arise are not whether to include something ("It should be included"), but how to represent the information. For example, information related to the events of a particular O-Week is interesting, but where to place that information is the question. Should it get its own page or be included in a larger page covering all of O-Week? Some of these questions are answered easily, while some are not. But of course, it does come back to "Be Bold". Add information one way, then see if there is a better way to represent it later.

We're very happy to have you on board. Keep in touch and happy contributing! --The Warrior (talk) 15:30, 15 March 2013 (EDT)

:D
. Thanks! I now have a few more questions, the main one being, how will users receive their points for image uploads? I submitted about 100 images (and my silly computer, being a Dell, crashed approximately twice). By the way, why is there no article on Warrior Athletics? The hockey team made it to the OUA championships! Step your game up! Y637wang (talk) 01:27, 17 March 2013 (EDT)


 * By the way, can you make "Recent changes" more navigable by installing buttons on the bottom like "next 50" like they do on Wikipedia? I'd like to be able to easily see whole-site changes made to pages on the wiki that aren't my own. Thanks. Y637wang (talk) 01:31, 17 March 2013 (EDT)


 * What about courses? Can we create articles on current (and past) courses? Y637wang (talk) 16:51, 18 March 2013 (EDT)

The photos will be awarded a number of points according to their usefulness to the wiki, the technical/artistic quality, and how well they capture the subject. For more detailed descriptions see The_Warrior_Wiki:Winter_2013_Photo_Drive. The judging will be somewhat subjective (as it is in most photo contests) A badge template may be created to indicate the number of points awarded to the picture and added to each of the photo pages.

Thanks for the photo contributions (your poor Dell).

I guess no one has been interested in athletics thus far. :S

Do you know what extension Wikipedia uses for those navigation buttons?

Courses should have pages. How do you propose to handle changing course codes? (ex. Many upper year CS courses began as experimental CS 489 courses) Perhaps an infobox template should be created.

Suggestions
Greetings, Warrior! I have some suggestions for the near-to-distant future that could potentially make the experience on this wiki more engaging. These include the following:


 * If professors on this campus ever want to get involved in the Wikipedia Education Program, just contact me and we can set up a hub between Warrior Wiki and en.wikipedia to get more students involved.


 * Many students have trouble finding events on campus. Perhaps Warrior Wiki would be willing to create a super-Bulletin of open events downloaded from FEDS, councils and committees, conference coordinators, LEADS, and the university colleges.


 * How about an article documenting how to avoid plagiarism in assignments?

In reply to your questions, I am not familiar with wiki-extensions, but I could certainly try to find out which one Wikipedia uses. As for the courses, the infobox could easily include cross-listings and past course codes. Can we also include information on historical courses that are no longer offered (for instance, in the Earth Science program: Second-year Hydrology, Introduction to Atmospheric Science, and Paleontology)? What about past services the university offered, such as a gigantic database of scholarships offered throughout different services that went extinct circa 2002-3? Can we include popular UW memes (JobMine/reddit, "Every Day I see my school", lipdub controversy...), and mottos, and should there be an article on every tunnel, current and former? What about the bus routes near campus? I'm still trying to re-discover that tunnel I found one day walking from the Engineering buildings to Arts Lecture Hall and Modern Languages, that most people say is impossible because it doesn't exist. For now, WATER WATER WATER! Y637wang (talk) 15:06, 19 March 2013 (EDT)

Wikipedia Education Program looks like an interesting idea. Would the idea be to get professors to assign contributing to the wiki as work? One has to wonder what degree program would be flexible enough to accept this. Perhaps History?

The problem of finding out about events on campus is a long-standing one. The problem is somewhat a technical issue and mostly a social/political issue. This thread contains a breakdown of the issues. The Warrior Wiki could theoretically become this site, but it's a long way off. That's not to say that it couldn't be done (servers can be upgraded and software written), and it would certainly increase engagement. If we can find volunteers with the skills and time, it would an excellent project. My only concern is that of trying to run before we can crawl.

The easiest way to avoid plagiarizing is to not plagiarize. Perhaps it's too pure a goal, but The Warrior Wiki is dedicated to becoming the definitive guide for Waterloo history, not a self-help site. So I'm against the idea.

Pages for all courses (current and historical) are encouraged.

The tunnels are interesting. I haven't heard of any tunnels that no longer exist. While the page is dated, there is a mostly complete map of the tunnels provided on this website. More accurate maps can be acquired from the university's map library in DP. Certainly, they should have pages. How many is up to the contributor. --The Warrior (talk) 18:52, 19 March 2013 (EDT)


 * The problem I have with that map is that many of the new buildings (QNC, E5, EV3, M3, and even the Tatham Centre) are not included, and most of these appear to be service tunnels. There was one old tunnel that ran from Ron Eydt Village all the way over to I think UWP, but it has been closed for decades because, according to legend, people were being raped in the tunnels. So that's why it was closed. Y637wang (talk) 11:11, 20 March 2013 (EDT)


 * This is so cool! Y637wang (talk) 11:16, 20 March 2013 (EDT)

Contest period complete
Hi Warrior,

I was going to upload about 100 more images last evening around 5:30 pm EDT, but the MC computer wouldn't accept my camera, so I decided to let it go. Whenabouts do you think the winners will be announced? Thanks! Y637wang (talk) 12:21, 21 March 2013 (EDT)

The winners will be announced tomorrow morning (Roughly 9am EST), on this page. Feel free to upload the other photos still, the wiki needs as many useful photos as it can get.--The Warrior (talk) 14:50, 21 March 2013 (EDT)

National Contribution Month
Howdy, Warrior. I've just noticed that April is National Wikipedia Contribution Month in Canada and that only two locations are presently covered in Ontario. I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to facilitate experience in wiki-editing and get large numbers (or actually, moderate numbers, considering it's exam season) of people to improve our coverage of knowledge relating to topics around the community. A possible thematic topic could be something UW-related or a particular initiative or function existing within the greater Region of Waterloo, or something loosely related to research on campus. UW students who participate in this could also contribute to Warrior Wiki as well, if we're the ones organizing it. I'm suggesting we do this right before or just after exams&mdash;right before seems like a better option, since people will slowly be leaving toward the end of exams. So, I'm thinking one day during the period April 6 - 11 as a general outline, since we have one or two days of "exam review" in between the end of classes and the start of exams (not including the ELPE, which I have to write on the 10th), so an event lasting about two or three hours would be nice. If you're interested, I'll also drop a line at the talkpage on Wikipedia to get this started. I think we have all the amenities - free Internet all over campus, and plenty of resources. What do you think? Don't forget to study for your exams too. Thanks! Y637wang (talk) 23:02, 30 March 2013 (EDT)


 * PS - I've picked up my prize, thanks. Are there going to be any more Photo Drives or other forms of competitions relating to the wiki during upcoming terms? Are you on co-op? Y637wang (talk) 23:03, 30 March 2013 (EDT)

Sounds like an interesting event idea. Unfortunately, things are booked straight until April 13th, and then exams on and off throughout. If you want to take up the flag on this one, you're welcome to. It would be relatively straight-forward to run. The MPH in the SLC could be a good choice of location. Alternatively, it could be hosted in the first floor of DP, just outside/inside the Rare Books Room. That way, there would be access to materials and archivists immediately. This would require some coordination with the library (Which in the past, has been quite receptive.). Some minor funding would have to be secured for refreshments at the start/end (~$50). Another small fee would be needed to create the posters (like $10-$15). Advertising can also be done as a 'study break' and within the Waterloo community itself. I could see it being a fun event to run whenever, not necessarily just within April. If you're serious about this, we'll try to find some time to help you out. Really, it might make more sense to save it until next term, if only due to the amount of time these things can take to organize.

The idea behind the Photo Drives is to make them a termly event. There were several lessons learned from this Photo Drive and those will have to be documented (after exams) and incorporated into the next one. Any other contest ideas are welcome, with the limiting factor always being money for the prizes. --The Warrior (talk) 17:34, 31 March 2013 (EDT)