[EM] School of election science on Wikiversity

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

(copy of post to the electionscience list.)

I'd like to invite any interested in developing educational resources 
on election science to register on Wikiversity and participate in the 
School of Election Science. (Wikipedia accounts should work there if 
they've been linked as a Single Unified Login (SUL) account, but some 
people do register real name accounts on Wikiversity, it's far more 
like academia than Wikipedia.)

Wikiversity isn't like Wikipedia, the comparison would be between a 
university and an encyclopedia. On Wikipedia, there is a constant 
struggle for space in a page on a topic, there can be only one page, 
and Wikipedia mainspace does not allow subpages.

Wikiversity handles conflict, where users cannot agree, by forking. 
It is required that content be, overall, neutral, but individual 
pages can express opinions, and can be placed in a hierarchy for 
overall neutrality. Subpages may be used. Original research is 
allowed, even encouraged.

As matters stand, Wikiversity is very small compared to Wikipedia; 
however, I (and some others) predict that Wikiversity could 
ultimately be much larger. Compare a university library with an encyclopedia!

It has been very difficult to make Wikipedia articles reflect what is 
well-known in the field of election science, because often what is 
well-known isn't found in sources that Wikipedia considers standard 
reliable source. A great deal of the development of election science 
took place on mailing lists, over the last twenty years.

Many new users on Wikipedia run into trouble because they want to 
discuss the topic. That's strongly discouraged on Wikipedia. It's 
part of the process on Wikiversity, just as students in seminars in a 
university are encouraged to discuss the subject.

Further, it is, in theory, a standard practice, where Wikiversity has 
resources on a topic, to place an interwiki link to the Wikiversity 
resource in a corresponding Wikipedia article. This can provide a 
method for Wikipedia readers to find deeper material, including 
interactive learning, than is possible on Wikipedia.

Wikiversity could also serve, and has served sometimes, as an 
incubator for better Wikipedia articles, because scholars on 
Wikiversity may freely cooperate on better-written articles, multiple 
versions if they can't agree, which can then be proposed as 
replacements on Wikipedia, thus bypassing the excruciating one edit 
at a time process that can make it very frustrating to edit 
Wikipedia. (If you make major changes to a standing Wikipedia 
article, be prepared to see them all reverted, quickly. But an RfC on 
Wikipedia could decide to choose an alternate version, and the 
decision, showing consensus, would stick.)

Take a look at 
http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/School:Election_Science, I just 
started that resource.

Drop on by http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User_talk:Abd, my Talk page.

And, while you are at it, take a look at 
http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Delegable_proxy

Hopefully, this will be the first substantial application of 
Delegable Proxy beyond Demoex and Voterola. It was proposed as an 
experiment for Wikipedia about three years ago, and was, essentially, 
crushed. But Wikiversity is very, very different. I'm currently an 
administrator on Wikiversity, just to give you an idea. I can't use 
that to favor any position, but I've been working for well over a 
year to insure that Wikiversity stays open and free as a cooperative community.

(Wikiversity is often slow to respond, don't jump to conclusions from 
absence of immediate activity.)