User talk:UmichSSGleader

Who we are and what we are doing

Over the course of this winter semester (Jan-April) students enrolled in the University of Michigan Honors section of Organic Chemistry II will be editing three current named reactions sites, the Ritter reaction, the Appel reaction and Jones oxidation. For each page, the students will be adding four sections, history, animation, spectroscopy and applications.

The history section will give a brief background about the reaction.
The animation section will provide a detailed animation of the mechanism for this reaction and we hope to add a sound track to accompany each step.
The spectroscopy section will highlight the major changes that will occur in the NMR spectra during the course of the reaction.
Finally, the applications section will describe how this reaction is used today in various chemical settings.

The SSG leaders listed at the bottom of our userpage will be facilitating this project and the students will be creating their rough drafts in our sandboxes. No edits will be posted until the final page is completed at the end of the semester. — Preceding unsigned comment added by UmichSSG215 (talk • contribs) 18:34, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Freeloading?

It is very difficult to tell what you and your associates are doing: UmichSSG215 (talk · contribs), UMich215SSG (talk · contribs) and MichChemGSI (talk · contribs). But if you are intending to use Wikipedia to organise activities within your group, please note that Wikipedia is not a free host. If you are planning to actually contribute please:

introduce yourselves at Wikipedia:School and university projects
bear in mind that it is probably better to work on improving existing articles rather than submitting stand-alone essays, this means that …
it is virtually impossible to "examine" the students work. Any attempt to give marks to work or make it count towards grade points averages, is likely to be impracticable.

— RHaworth (talk · contribs) 12:28, 12 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi RHaworth (talk · contribs), our group is in the beginning stages of a semester long wikipedia project with an organic chemistry class at the University of Michigan. We intend to supplement 3 current organic chemistry reaction pages throughout the next few months. As we are just getting setup, our pages are indeed a little blank right now. Soon we should have a list of our students and a firmer hold on what pages we intend to work on, so things should start taking shape in the near future.

Hammick Reaction - suggestions

Hi... I noticed your userspace copy of the Hammick reaction page, and thought I'd drop by to make a couple of comments.

1. You will see at the bottom of the page are a series of categories, and these are also in the code at the end of the page. It is customary to only include categories on pages in article space, not on drafts / re-drafts in user space. So, I suggest you either remove the categories for the time the draft remains in user space, or comment them out. This can be done by adding the following text:

This way, the categories can remain dormant, and then you only need remove the arrows when the article is back in mainspace.

2. With the references, it is good practice to include a wiki-link to the page of any author who has a wiki-bio. For example, for a text by E. J. Corey, William Shakespeare, and John Q. Nobody, the code would start:

{{Cite book|author1 = Corey, E. J.|authorlink1 = E. J. Corey|author2 = Shakespeare, W.|authorlink2 = William Shakespeare|author3 = Nobody, J. Q.|title = ...

Hopefully these couple of suggestions are useful to you. EdChem (talk) 11:22, 17 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Advice

Please check the comments on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemistry#University of Michigan Honors Organic Chemistry Project. The community here may not want all that you offer, well intentioned though it may be.--Smokefoot (talk) 13:48, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Smokefoot. Thank you for your comments. Please be assured that the last thing we want to do is disrespect the established protocols for wikipedia publishing. Would a more appropriate approach be to post each of the sections we proposed on the actual article after they are completed, so that the community can provide feedback in a more progressive manner? Please let me know what you think.

Yes, a more incremental approach is the way edits are made here. Thanks for being cooperative. You might announce progress on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemicals. Ultimately, instructors at your college need to understand that Wikipedia does not exist as a testing ground for students. As I mentioned, it is unclear that long articles written by students are necessarily superior to concise articles fine-tuned by seasoned editors. So to some extent, I fear that Wikipedia is becoming a dumping ground or a scratch pad for Michigan's students, who are forced by their instructors to subvert the intent of Wikipedia. There is a fine line between faculty helping vs exploiting Wikipedia. Good luck,--Smokefoot (talk) 15:47, 6 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Guidance on editing technique

See this policy from our Manual of Style: statement.--Smokefoot (talk) 17:30, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Online ambassador for organic chemistry

Hi I have volunteered to help out as an online ambassador for the organic chemistry class. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:01, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia Ambassadors update

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.

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--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 20:56, 14 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]