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 Good policy suggestion on class assignments. 

My sympathies about your encountering a class assignment that has gone badly awry. I think your  looks like a good idea, and I support it. It's especially regrettable that we are not receiving more well sourced, thoughtful edits to psychology articles here, as most of those articles badly need better sourcing and more coherent editing to represent current established knowledge from a neutral point of view. Keep up the good work.   (talk, ) 

 An appology is in order 

Dear Colin,

I am not sure if you will have the chance to read this, or if you'll have a moment to respond, but I am a student in the University of Toronto and specifically one of the 1700 psychology students mentioned in the article.  However before I go any further, may I express my most sincere and deepest appologies to you and everyone involved. I will not try to make excuses for my actions, nor will I try to do so for my fellow students as I do not speek for them. I realise (and no doubt others will too) that what we left behind was unbecoming of a sutdent at U of T.  And most importantly, I realise that we did as future scholars was wrong.

I know that you and you colleagues are considering taking extreme measures to ensure the content of Wikipedia stays secure as a responce to our actions. Though I can understand where you are coming from, I do not believe that this will solve any of your problems and will only make things worse in the long-run.  I see this situation as a systemic error on both of our sides, but as a first year student I have very little educational and social clout to enforce my statement. I am asking as both an avid reader of Wikipedia and as a lover of knowledge, please do not black-out our privaleges to use and edit articles.  Let us both use this experience as a steping stone to learn how to go about doing this in a constructive manner benefits Wikipedia and my school. 
 
Looking to make this a better place,

CivCodex 
  
Thanks. We have no issues with people who are interested in Wikipedia coming to edit Wikipedia. What seems to be the issue is when we have a large group of students editing Wikipedia not for the love of knowledge but simply for marks. These students do not stay around and seem to plagiarize at a high rate.   (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 
Have replied on your talk page. °Talk 

 Proposed new policy  

I'd like to advertise this (very draft) proposed new policy: . 

Comments please. °Talk 
 I think the central dillema is this: a student could make a poor-quality contribution that harms Wikipedia but then recieve partial or full credit. If the grading rubric was accurate, a student would receive 0 or negative credit. My personal solution has been to engage with professors to try and influence the assignment, increase their Wikipedia knowedge, and improve the grading rubrics themselves. I'm fairly proud of Education Program:Saint Louis University/Signal Transduction (SP13), which I helped write. You might want to ask   

 There should also be some sort of policy re: how the community reacts to profs and students.  The active community is more likely to be aware of and act on policies, in the first place; and we are often more unkind than necessary, in the second.  
 I proposed an alternative idea on the assignments talk page - as an example of the sort of implementation that I would hope is compatible with any policy we adopt.  –  + 

 Barnstars 

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