Welcome! Welcome to Wikipedia! Welcome!

Editing cheatsheet
Forgot how that code worked?

Summary of policies and guidelines
A quick reference for Wikipedia's "rules"

Find the page for your course
Forgot the link to your course's page?

Choose a mentor
Contact an ambassador to work with

Help with article assessment
Help us assess these articles!

Starting an article
Guide to starting your first article

Comments or suggestions? Need help?

Article talk pages

edit

Something I forgot to mention, with each Wikipedia page there is a talk page where you can discuss major revisions or controversial topics related to the page, for example, for Blade Runner there is Talk:Blade Runner. These pages are important, especially on high traffic articles and are a good place to learn more about an articles quality and controversialness, etc. Sadads (talk) 03:44, 24 September 2010 (UTC)Reply

Deleting your sandbox

edit

I see you deleted the content in your sandbox. If you would like to, since it is a user subpage, you also have the ability to completely delete the page so that it's edit history is no longer publically accessable. In order to do this, you can use the following template on the page:{{db-u1}}. This nominates the page for WP:Speedy deletion by an administrator, a type of contributor who has tools that can delete pages, Sadads (talk) 00:37, 1 October 2010 (UTC)Reply

Forbes center edit

edit

Good job on the edits, I made a few small formatting edits to clean it up a bit. One of those formatting things I told you to ignore is putting references after punctuation. Because we use footnotes not parenthetical citations, you put the reference after the punctuation not before. No big deal. Good job and I look forward to working on Agnes Gray with you all, Sadads (talk) 01:11, 7 October 2010 (UTC)Reply

DYK for Agnes Grey

edit

The DYK project (nominate) 06:02, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi!

edit

Hello! I'm looking forward to meeting you at the training! Annie Lin (Campus Team Coordinator, Wikimedia Foundation) (talk) 08:01, 6 January 2011 (UTC)Reply

Awards

edit
 
Awarded for adding a Flickr photo during the DC Wikipedia Campus Ambassador training session. Pongr (talk) 20:37, 8 January 2011 (UTC)Reply

Wikipedia Ambassador Program Newsletter: 28 January 2011

edit
 




This is the first issue of the Wikipedia Ambassador Program newsletter. Please read it! It has important information about the the current wave of classes, instructions and advice, and other news about the ambassador program.





Delivered by EdwardsBot (talk) 00:32, 29 January 2011 (UTC) Reply

Question

edit

Hi Madeline! I had a quick question about the Wikipedia project. Today in class we chose the topics for our project and I chose State Bar Association. My question for you is, should I choose a particular state to write about? Instead of the general term? I feel they State Bar Association may be too broad, but I'm also worried that there might not be enough sources on a particular state. Thanks, Lippmare (talk) 21:24, 9 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

Today in class I was able to make my article five-folds. After talking with Cindy Allen she wanted me to message you to see if you thought there was anything left I could do with my article besides editing. Also, do you have any ideas for what I should do next? I was wondering if just every week I should look at a different stub and just add a paragraph to each instead of starting to work on an entirely knew one. If you have any ideas please let me know! Thanks! Lippmare (talk) 21:19, 28 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

Wikipedia Ambassador Program Newsletter: 13 February 2011

edit
 




This is the second issue of the Wikipedia Ambassador Program Newsletter, with details about what's going on right now and where help is needed.



  • Userboxes and profiles - Add an ambassador userbox to your page, and make sure you've added your mentor profile!
  • Be a coordinating ambassador - Pick and class and make sure no students fall through the cracks.
  • New screencasts - Short videos on watchlists and a number of other topics may be useful to students.
  • Updates from Campus Ambassadors - Ambassadors are starting to report on classroom experiences, both on-wiki and on the Google Group.
  • Other news - There's a new on-wiki application for being an Online Ambassador, and Editing Friday #2 is today!
  • Things you can do - This is just a sample; if you're eager for something to do, there's plenty more.

Delivered by EdwardsBot (talk) 18:23, 11 February 2011 (UTC) Reply

Wikipedia Ambassador Program Newsletter: 21 March 2011

edit
 




This is the third issue of the Wikipedia Ambassador Program Newsletter, with details about what's going on right now and where help is needed.



Delivered by EdwardsBot (talk) 22:23, 21 March 2011 (UTC) Reply

Wikipedia Ambassador Program Newsletter: 22 April 2011

edit
 




This is the fourth issue of the Wikipedia Ambassador Program Newsletter, with details about what's going on right now and where help is needed.



Delivered by EdwardsBot (talk) 16:33, 22 April 2011 (UTC) Reply

Please take the Wikipedia Ambassador Program survey

edit

Hi Ambassador,

We are at a pivotal point in the development of the Wikipedia Ambassador Program. Your feedback will help shape the program and role of Ambassadors in the future. Please take this 10 minute survey to help inform and improve the Wikipedia Ambassadors.

WMF will de-identify results and make them available to you. According to KwikSurveys' privacy policy: "Data and email addresses will not be sold, rented, leased or disclosed to 3rd parties." This link takes you to the online survey: http://kwiksurveys.com?u=WPAmbassador_talk

Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments, Thank You!

Amy Roth (Research Analyst, Public Policy Initiative) (talk) 20:39, 24 May 2011 (UTC)Reply

Ambassador Program: assessment drive

edit

Even though it's been quiet on-wiki, the Wikipedia Ambassador Program has been busy over the last few months getting ready for the next term. We're heading toward over 80 classes in the US, across all disciplines. You'll see courses start popping up here, and this time we want to match one or more Online Ambassadors to each class based on interest or expertise in the subject matter. If you see a class that you're interested, please contact the professor and/or me; the sooner the Ambassadors and professors get in communication, the better things go. Look for more in the coming weeks about next term.

In the meantime, with a little help I've identified all the articles students did significant work on in the last term. Many of the articles have never been assessed, or have ratings that are out of date from before the students improved them. Please help assess them! Pick a class, or just a few articles, and give them a rating (and add a relevant WikiProject banner if there isn't one), and then update the list of articles.

Once we have updated assessments for all these articles, we can get a better idea of how quality varied from course to course, and which approaches to running Wikipedia assignments and managing courses are most effective.

--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 17:24, 27 July 2011 (UTC)Reply

Come hang out with us online!

edit

Hi! I wanted to let you know that we have created an IRC channel for "countering systemic bias one new editor at a time", aka closing the gender gap! Come hang out at #wikimedia-gendergap if that subject interests you. We hope this channel can serve as a safe haven to hang out, talk about Wiki, brainstorming, women in Wikimedia, article alerts and foster friendships. I hope you join us! (And if you need any IRC help, just let me know!) See you there! SarahStierch (talk) 13:23, 13 September 2011 (UTC)Reply

Wikipedia Ambassadors update

edit

Hi! You're getting this message because you are or have been a Wikipedia Ambassador. A new term is beginning for the United States and Canada Education Programs, and I wanted to give you an update on some important new information if you're interested in continuing your work this term as a Wikipedia Ambassador.

You may have heard a reference to a transition the education program is going through. This is the last term that the Wikimedia Foundation will directly run the U.S. and Canada programs; beginning in June, a proposed thematic organization is likely to take over organizing the program. You can read more about the proposal here.

Another major change in the program will take effect immediately. Beginning this term, a new MediaWiki education extension will replace all course pages and Ambassador lists. (See Wikipedia:Course pages and Help:Education Program extension for more details.) Included in the extension are online volunteer and campus volunteer user rights, which let you create and edit course pages and sign up as an ambassador for a particular course.

If you would like to continue serving as a Wikipedia Ambassador — even if you do not support a class this term — you must create an ambassador profile. If you're no longer interested in being a Wikipedia Ambassador, you don't need to do anything.

Please do these steps as soon as possible

First, you need the relevant user rights for Online and/or Campus Ambassadors. (If you are an admin, you can grant the rights yourself, for you as well as other ambassadors.) Just post your rights request here, and we'll get you set up as quickly as possible.

Once you've got the ambassador rights, please set up at a Campus and/or Online Ambassador profile. You can do so at:

Going forward, the lists of Ambassadors at Special:CampusAmbassadors and Special:OnlineAmbassadors will be the official roster of who is an active Ambassador. If you would like to be an Ambassador but not ready to serve this term, you can un-check the option in your profile to publicly list it (which will remove your profile from the list).

After that, you can sign on to support courses. The list of courses will be at Special:Courses. (By default, this lists "Current" courses, but you can change the Status filter to "Planned" to see courses for this term that haven't reached their listed start date yet.)

As this is the first term we have used the extension, we know there will be some bugs, and we know the feature set is not as rich as it could be. (A big wave of improvements is already in the pipeline. And if you know MediaWiki and could help with code review, we'd love to have your help!) Please reach out to me (Sage Ross) with any complaints, bug reports, and feature suggestions. The basic features of the extension are documented at Wikipedia:Course pages, and you can see a tutorial for setting up and using them here.

Communication and keeping up to date

In the past, the Education Program has had a pretty fragmented set of communication channels. We're trying to fix that. These are the recommended places to discuss and stay up-to-date on the education program:

  1. The education noticeboard has become the main on-wiki location for discussion of the Education Program. You can post there about broad education program issues as well as issues with individual courses.
  2. The Ambassadors Announce email list is a very low-traffic announcements list of important information all Ambassadors need to be aware of. We encourage all Ambassadors (and other interested Wikipedians) to subscribe to the list; follow the instructions on the link to add your email address.
  3. If you use IRC regularly, or need to try to reach someone immediately, the #wikipedia-en-ambassadors connect IRC channel is the place to find me and fellow Ambassadors.
Ambassador training and resources

We now have an online training for Ambassadors, which is intended to be both an orientation about the Wikipedia Ambassador role for newcomers and the manual for how to do the role. (There are parallel trainings for students and for educators as well.)

Please go through the training if you feel like you need a refresher on how a typical class is supposed to go and where the Ambassadors fit in, or if you want to review and help improve it. If there's something you'd like to see added, or other suggestions you have for it, feel free to edit the training and/or leave feedback. A primer on setting up and using course pages is included in the educators' training.

The Resources page of the training is the main place for Ambassador-related resources. If there's something you think is important as a resource that's not on there, please add it.

Finally, whether or not you work with any classes this term, I encourage you to post entries to the Trophy Case whenever you see excellent work from students or if you have great examples from past semesters. And, as always, let students (and other editors!) know when they do things well; a little WikiLove goes a long way!

--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 20:40, 14 January 2013 (UTC)Reply