The first thing to know is that service learning projects are highly valued on Appropedia. The Appropedia community and especially the admins are here to help you.

Getting started

Ideas for first steps:

Make a homepage for your class.

You can:


Make a list of topics that would make useful wiki pages.

Use this form for each line:

* [[PAGENAME]]

Pages that don't exist yet will appear as redlinks, and clicking on it will let you start editing that page.

Categories

  • Always have your students add suitable topic categories, as well as page type categories (Category:How tos, Category:Projects...)- this ensures their visibility to people browsing the site, and increases their prominence in search engine results. You can find them by browsing the Category Tree.

Tagging

  • Use a class tag.[1] The tag should:
    • Contain the string "inprogress" if the pages are not intended as open edit pages. Bots can be instructed to not edit pages with templates containing this string. Human editors will generally notice the tag's request not to edit.
    • Transclude Category:Project pages in progress and a category for the class name (e.g. Category:PH261.[2]
    • Use a date as an argument, so editors know when the page will be complete (or at least open to editing by others).
  • When a class has finished and tags[1] should be removed, teachers/instructors should either ensure that they are removed, or have it done by a bot. (You can leave a request at User talk:ChriswaterguyBot, with a clear definition of which tags or pages are to be processed. It is strongly preferred to request, say, "all 123inprogress tags" or "Category:XYZ" but a list of pages can be done if needed.)
    • Can I confirm - when tags like {{305inprogress|date}} have dates in 2009 or earlier, can the tags be removed in late December 2009? --Chriswaterguy 15:11, 3 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Avoiding bot edits: To request bots not to edit pages while they are in progress, the standard method is to use a class in progress tag[1] which contains the exact text "inprogress" in lower case. The bot will check each page for this text inside the template brackets "{{ }}", and if it is found, the page will not be edited. (If something goes wrong and a bot edits it, contact the operator of the bot via the bot's talk page.)
  • A "class attribution" notice can/should be placed at the bottom either in the beginning or when the class is complete, e.g. ... {{attrib 305}}. This can also be done by a bot if desired, while removing the "in progress" tag.

Finished articles

Substandard articles

Some instructors wish substandard articles to be deleted, so as not to reflect on the quality of the class project. This is certainly the best approach if the page has no content at all (e.g. all content removed due to copyright issues), alternative approaches may be preferred when there is something of value. After removing any copyright violations, and class tags, then if any text remains, and if it is the kind of article that is within Appropedia's broad scope (it probably is), either:

  • If there is any value in the article, then leave it where it is, and add a {{stub}} and/or {{cleanup}} tag as appropriate, if you wish. Stub articles are welcome on Appropedia.
  • Userfy these pages, moving to the creator's userspace, E.g. move article "Pagename" to [[User:Jodie1/Pagename]] and (in this case) probably delete the redirect created in mainspace. Remove class tags.


Template:Stub

Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 There are several notice templates associated with academic class projects.
  2. Transcluding is much preferred, as then a bot can detect if there are no topic categories. The lack of actual "[[Category:...]]" tags will let a bot to identify pages that are in need of category tagging.
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