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[niais]

Hey everyone! Biology is kicking our butt. This is totally unacceptable. I think we should try and get the astronomy article in shape to get approved in the next few weeks. Any one on board? You should get on board. I'm a 3rd year graduate student. Imagine the havoc I could wreck.  What do people think of the current format?

Sarah Tuttle

[Dhananjay Ravat]

Hi Sarah and others,

I don't think it is possible to catch up with biology, but we can get going, however slowly.  What do you think we should do about this article? 

On another front, I am teaching an interdisciplinary course on planets and I am giving an optional assignment for students to write Wikipedia style articles on planetary topics not presently covered in Wikipedia/Citizendium (3-5 page long worth double spaced).  This is a bit difficult at the junior stage and so only a few students may choose it (and then only a few of them might write acceptable ones). Can any of you suggest topics that need done that could be handled by good students at this level?

If anyone has tried such an exercise (or even otherwise), I would also like to hear pros or cons of such an assignment.

tiku ravat

[Larry Sanger]

I think you should make such an assignment.  Let's consider it an experiment.  There have been a few others who have approached us with such ideas; a Purdue professor and an Italian botanist (I believe?) are two examples that immediately come to mind.

[Nereo Preto]

Ciao astronomers,

I not astronomist, however, I am interested in astronomy also at the professional level.
To Tiku Ravat:
I don't know what's "easy" for your students (are they taking a grade in astronomy, or what else?), however, here are a couple of topics that are interdisciplinary and may be important for, e.g., Earth scientists: "orbital parameters" and "Milankovitch cycles". Don't know if they are really easy, though.
To Larry:
I also may assign soon the writing of WP-like articles (or a true WP article for that matter - CZ if it comes out to be at a professional level) to a group of master students: may you help me contact someone who already did it? It might be useful for my teaching, and for CZ as well (you may answer in my personal talk page if you prefer).

Nereo Preto

[Larry Sanger]

Dear Nereo,

I know of no one who has done this yet.  You could be the first.  I can assure you that CZ is being led at a professional level, but is also open to your master students.  I think, in fact, that CZ is absolutely perfect for this sort of thing.  Experience could prove me wrong, but it seems to me that graduate students (i.e., postgraduate students) are excellent candidates for improving on Wikipedia articles, with the result being approvable by experts--as CZ makes possible.

Wouldn't it be an enormous accomplishment for a graduate student to make a fantastic article and then to have that article approved by an expert?

[Emanuele Ripamonti]

Hi, I started working on the [[astronomy]] article, but I'd definitely like to hear the opinions of other people about what we should do with it.

In particular, it is currently based on the wikipedia entry: should we try to improve on it, or should we start from scratch/completely change the general structure? I was trying the "improvement" approach, but after seeing the first results I am not sure it's worth it: it is getting more and more like a laundry list (perhaps that''s my fault..) rather than something coherent.

Have a look at the discussion page for more specific questions.

Emanuele