Student page
Hi Nellie,
I put this note on the talk page of Students
- I am concerned that this website is becoming impenetratable because users are putting up material with too generic a title. At present there is a list of current students on the Ort Guttman Improve your writing course. I would like to suggest that that list is put at Ort Gutman High School/EFL Writing Practice Improve Your Written English/StudentsLeutha 14:17, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
I was kind of surprised to see your comment. I think I understand, but can you elaborate provide a step by step scenario on how the use of the word student may cause issues?
Thank you.
Nellie
Hi Leutha, I added WP to all the names on the menu. Thank you for pointing things out. However, I would still like a step by step explanation on the scenarios that would occur as a result of using generic names in a template.
Thank you.
Nellie
Hi Nellie, I was surprised that you removed the content of Ort Gutman High School/EFL Writing Practice Improve Your Written English/Students without putting anything on the discussion page. This is helpful in enabling those who look at the page to see why the removal was seen as appropriate. Even a simple reference to this page would enable people to find what is going on.
You asked me to explain the point about the student page in more detail. When I saw a page entitled "Students", at first I imagined that itwas a page explaining what is meant by students, or even a page listing other pages where I could find lists of students doing various courses. I was somewhat surprised to find that far from such a generic content, it dealt with a list of students on a specific course. As this website is designed to cater for the needs of thousands of people developing teaching resources etc., I was perlexed that someone should see it as appropriate to place the list of the particular students attending their particular course should use the page for this particular purpose. However rather than make any precipitous changes - bearing in mind that you, the author of this development, might have referred these self same students to this page, I felt it would be distinctly unhelpful to alter the page and potentially plunging these sutdents into confusions. Having looked at the situation in greater detail, I established a chain of dependent pages to show where I did think such a list might be appropriately placed. the first term is the educational institute, the second term is the course name you used, and the third term is "students". I see that you have rejected this structure in favour of "WP".
- My problems with this are as follows:
- These students appertain to a particular institution, and it makes sense to make this dependent on this institution in the first place, and the course in the second place. On reflection, I feel my methodology could be criticised in that it did not specify the date or whether this was the first, second or nth course of this title. However, as information of this nature was unavailable to me, I felt that this would be something you could deal with should it become a problem.
- I feel that your use of "WP Students", while an improvement fails to grasp the essential problem involved in your approach. By placing your material on WikiEdukator you are making this course available to all sosrts of other people across the world. What happens if I decide to use this materialto run a course. Should I also put my details up on "WP Students"? I do not think this would be helpful. I also find that your inclusion of the "Template:Editprotected" albeit unsuccessfully indicates a certain anxiety about handling wikis. In fact, as mentioned above, I had not altered the page at all - for the reasons mentioned above. When I saw how you had completely erased the page I had created, I became concerned that you thought others would behave in precisely the way you did - erasing a page without consulting the person who had developed the page. I hope you now understand why people who suffer this treatment might feel you have treated them badly.
- I feel that it is unfortunate that many people have been encouraged to contribute to WikiEdukator without properly understanding what is involved. (If you are interested in a more general discussion of this, please see User:Leutha/Guidance for the Perplexed)
- I would ask you to reconsider the naming convention you have adopted as I feel it is likely to lead to unnecessary confusion in the future. If you feel there are problems in the naming convcention I have suggested, please share reasoned arguments for a better approach with the WikiEdukator community so that we can all find a better way of dealing with this. The alternative is losing ourself in a mire of ill-named pages. Leutha 22:39, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
Dear Leutha,
At the time, I had no idea why someone would add information to my page without asking permission first. However, my goal, after understanding your good intentions, was to retrace my steps to avoid further confusion. I only wanted you to write your reasons as a way for others to also understand. I thought I had been very understanding and kind in my response. Perhaps, you did not sense my good intentions as I had expressed my gratitude to yours. In any case, I sense a bit of hostility in your tone. I hope I am wrong. Using terms such "anxiety" and deciding how I feel "about handling wikis" along with your concluding remark "I hope you now understand why people who suffer this treatment might feel you have treated them badly". I don't quite understand what this means. I appreciate your help and good intentions.
Thank you.
Warm wishes,
Nellie
