Editing Eurovision Wiki:Village pump (policy) (section)

==Student edits==
I have a feeling that there is a 90% chance that the answer will be no, but then 10% is 10%. Is there any hope of a policy that will limit edits by class projects? I have been wondering if I should spend the time to fix pages such as [[Entropy (information theory)]] that need help, but most edits to the page were by a student in 2021 for a class project. The rest of the edits may be appropriately described as "entropy/chaos" as well. How can I tell myself that another class project will not start in 6 months? It is a complicated subject when it relates to thermodynamics and that is where the student made most errors. Typical editors would not make large edits because it is too complicated, but students "have to" and mess up. Is there any hope of protection from class projects? Else I would just move on. Thanks [[User:Yesterday, all my dreams...|Yesterday, all my dreams...]] ([[User talk:Yesterday, all my dreams...|talk]]) 15:14, 12 March 2026 (UTC)
:The problem is ''not'' class projects per se, it's inappropriate class projects and/or inappropriately supervised class projects. There isn't really any easy way to stop class projects (of either kind), as in at least many cases they are technically indistinguishable from normal editing. 
:The best place to discuss these matters though is [[Wikipedia:Education noticeboard]], where folks more knowledgeable about the issues are most likely to see it. [[User:Thryduulf|Thryduulf]] ([[User talk:Thryduulf|talk]]) 16:32, 12 March 2026 (UTC) <small>Missing word "not" added [[User:Thryduulf|Thryduulf]] ([[User talk:Thryduulf|talk]]) 21:43, 12 March 2026 (UTC)</small>
::Pretty sure {{tq|The problem is class projects per se}} --> "is not class projects per se". [[User:EEng#s|<b style="color:red;">E</b>]][[User talk:EEng#s|<b style="color:blue;">Eng</b>]] 20:37, 12 March 2026 (UTC)
:::Indeed, now fixed. Thank you. [[User:Thryduulf|Thryduulf]] ([[User talk:Thryduulf|talk]]) 21:43, 12 March 2026 (UTC)
:If there wasn't an education program, there would a lot of class projects conducted without any coordination with Wikipedia. I was involved with the education program for a while about 14 years ago, but dropped out for reason I won't go into. I know others have had a more positive experience with the program. All-in-all, blocking class projects, even if it were possible, would not improve Wikipedia. There is the potential, and sometimes realized, benefit of adding content to Wikipedia and recruiting new editors. As long as are we open to new editors, which we must be to survive, we will have a problem with problematic edits by inexperienced editors. Maintenance is one of the perpetual tasks, and cleaning up problem edits sometimes leads me to adding new well-sourced content, which I hope is a net good for the encyclopedia. [[User talk:Donald Albury|Donald Albury]] 16:51, 12 March 2026 (UTC)
::{{tq|If there wasn't an education program, there would a lot of class projects conducted without any coordination with Wikipedia.}} I think this is really the salient issue. It happens even now; I've seen editors bashing their heads against the AfC process to no avail and explaining that they need to get it published because a teacher assigned them the task of getting an article published on Wikipedia. It is absolutely a good thing that WikiEd provides an organised avenue for these kinds of teachers to arrange class projects that actually have sensible expectations and requirements. [[WP:Randy in Boise|Teacher Randy in Boise High School]] isn't going to know that Wikipedia has internally banned class projects and is going to continue to tell his students to edit information about sword-wielding skeletons into the [[Peloponnesian War]] article whether or not we officially endorse it; and it is a good thing that WikiEd provides a means by which we can reach out to Randy and offer some guidance and quality control to his project idea. [[User:Athanelar|Athanelar]] ([[User talk:Athanelar|talk]]) 13:04, 13 March 2026 (UTC)
:::I think what you are talking about is not the same thing at all. This Randy, as it were, is not merely a teacher acting in good faith, but engaging in [[Wikipedia:BRIGADING|BRIGADING]], treating Enwiki as a [[Wikipedia:Battleground|Battleground]]. That is much more severe and the community could act in a much less restrained way with people who do that. Even without those violations, that article would quickly be placed on Requests for page protection , which might already be enough to stop Randy’s (likely unconfirmed, certainly not EC) <s>foot soldiers</s><nowiki> students. ~~~</nowiki> [[User:Slomo666|Slomo666]] ([[User talk:Slomo666|talk]]) 13:31, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

Thank you both for your responses. But I hope you will understand that I can have no clue as to the likelihood of a properly supervised class project. The real issue is if one feels that he is building a large <i>sandcastle</i> when starting on these non-trivial page improvements. Making small corrections all over does not have that problem, but major rewriting is another issue. I wonder if we could have a tag that would "suggest" to professors not to assign a page to a class. Anyway, I will mention this on the education page and see what they say. Thanks. [[User:Yesterday, all my dreams...|Yesterday, all my dreams...]] ([[User talk:Yesterday, all my dreams...|talk]]) 22:04, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

:So I have two suggestions:
:# Make it an FA.  Students are already warned against editing FAs.  (Get busy now, because most classes start in January and September.)
:# Just wait until the class is over, and revert back.  A majority of students never edit again (at least not in their school accounts).
:I have not had good success at warning students away from specific articles.  When we shoo newbies out of [[Anorexia nervosa]] (a darling of Wiki Edu students for several years running), they just turn up at some other article, and sometimes the mistakes are worse (e.g., a series of newbies – definitely not all from Wiki Edu – that changed statements like "90% of women experience menstrual cramps at some point in their lives" to the gender-neutral but innumerate claim that "90% of people" do).  
:More generally:  The stats show that newbie students are less horrible than newbie non-students (e.g., more than two orders of magnitude less likely to be blocked, if memory serves).  The better the article, the less likely any new editor will get their necessary practice in that article. [[User:WhatamIdoing|WhatamIdoing]] ([[User talk:WhatamIdoing|talk]]) 00:09, 13 March 2026 (UTC)
::What about guiding students to making/editing drafts to be reviewed or making tentative edits that can then be reviewed, like with AfC? 
::alternatively, creating some sort of list of assigned pages where someone supervising it would know they are editing it. You could put pending changes protections on those pages (assuming the students don’t have advanced permissions) so that the supervisor (from their school, class or from the wiki projects) or a (dedicated) admin or other volunteer can review their edits first. 
::I see a clear benefit in letting students learn how to use Wikipedia, how to edit, contribute, etc. Even if it doesn’t necessarily recruit them as long time contributors, it could make them better at writing and researching. [[User:Slomo666|Slomo666]] ([[User talk:Slomo666|talk]]) 12:13, 13 March 2026 (UTC)
:::Students normally work in their sandboxes (because we recommended that years ago).  If they are creating new articles, they often submit them through AFC.  However, often they're just trying to update an article.  In that case, they usually copy the article to their sandbox and make the changes there.  The students review each others' work, hopefully the instructor will, and if the class is supported by the [[Wiki Education Foundation]], then it's often checked by the Wiki Edu staff as well. 
:::The Wiki Edu classes (but not necessarily independent classes) already post notes on the articles' talk pages and make centralized lists so that anyone can review them.  Start at [[Wikipedia:Education noticeboard]] and look around to learn more. 
:::As a general rule, students in the Wiki Edu classes are a net benefit to the English Wikipedia.  Not everyone does a good job, of course, but most of them.  And frankly some of our popular articles are pretty outdated and really need someone to sit down and do some boring work.  For example, I think that [[Disease]] has statistics from 20–25 years ago.   [[User:WhatamIdoing|WhatamIdoing]] ([[User talk:WhatamIdoing|talk]]) 20:41, 13 March 2026 (UTC)
::::{{tq|If they are creating new articles, they often submit them through AFC.}} - Just quickly on AfC: It's been some years since I've been fully up on all this stuff, but last I knew, WikiEdu students are not supposed to use AfC for the simple reason that they don't want to create a drain on the already-backlogged community review processes (same reason why profs aren't supposed to force students to go through GAN or DYK). That's what the trainings, class review, professors, and staff are for. IIRC one of the reasons for the [[Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org draft template/about this sandbox|custom sandbox banner]] is to take away the AfC button (and better structure the task). But also, the time to review at AfC is also kind of incompatible with the typical time constraints of a class. In general, if you see a WikiEdu student at AfC, something probably went wrong and it may be worth quickfailing and pinging staff. &mdash; <samp>[[User:Rhododendrites|<span style="font-size:90%;letter-spacing:1px;text-shadow:0px -1px 0px Indigo;">Rhododendrites</span>]] <sup style="font-size:80%;">[[User_talk:Rhododendrites|talk]]</sup></samp> \\ 21:09, 13 March 2026 (UTC)
:Folks may want to check out the existing infrastructure for students if you haven't already. If you look at that student's userpage ({{noping|Joycecs}}), there's a link to a course page on the WikiEdu dashboard. You can click around the tabs at the top to see other students in the class, articles they worked on, the professor's username, the name of staff assigned to the course, etc. So if you notice problematic edits and you're worried it might run through all students in the class, you can pull up e.g. [https://dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/Cornell_University/Probability,_Statistics,_and_Data_Analysis_for_the_Physical_Sciences_(Fall_2021)/articles/edited? this page] to make such an audit simpler. If you find a class that has big problems, ping the staff member assigned or bring it up at [[WP:ENB]]. This class was five years ago, but clicking the professor's name will bring you to a page like [https://dashboard.wikiedu.org/users/AthalGolwen this] to see if they continued to run the project (in this case the class looks like a one-off). There's a step early in the process, following the idea {{u|Slomo666}} mentioned, where the instructor decides whether they want to create a pool of articles to choose from. It looks like [https://dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/Cornell_University/Probability,_Statistics,_and_Data_Analysis_for_the_Physical_Sciences_(Fall_2021)/articles/available that was the case here] (whether entropy was part of that pool at the start is unclear, as some classes let students assign themselves articles not on the list). If you want to see what courses are active this semester, you can see them [https://dashboard.wikiedu.org/campaigns/spring_2026/programs here]. Worth noting that those are just the classes that are (a) based in the US or Canada, and (b) decided to accept WikiEdu's infrastructure/guidelines. There are typically many others happening either in other parts of the world (some of them can be found on the [https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org other dashboard]) or without any support (and thus harder to trace and tie to a particular university/professor). &mdash; <samp>[[User:Rhododendrites|<span style="font-size:90%;letter-spacing:1px;text-shadow:0px -1px 0px Indigo;">Rhododendrites</span>]] <sup style="font-size:80%;">[[User_talk:Rhododendrites|talk]]</sup></samp> \\ 14:22, 13 March 2026 (UTC)