Agreed. This is by far the best use of our effort concerning this issue. We could passively let the concerned threads sink out of the radar over time, or lock them to force that to happen.
Just FYI, for an additional datapoint…
Of the 18 students who posted in the Jan 16-18 batch (all but one of which appeared to be from a Spanish-language variant of the COM 302 Python course), none of them have posted anything further since then, and all have read times from <1 to 25 minutes, most in the single digit range. The apparent odd one out was a student who did have one other post—another previous welcome from a different academic period, which suggests they either had to retake the course, or there are multiple courses that require this.
Indeed. We have no replies yet from the handful of most recent student posters; I can message a bunch more, but perhaps it would be more productive to just reach out directly via the phone or email to the Computer Science department chair (Dr. Van Nguyen, as listed in the St. Leo directory) which is the department sponsoring the COM 302 Python course that it seems many of the students have mentioned taking, who can direct us to the appropriate faculty to talk to. I plan to do so Monday if I don’t hear anything else back before that which would suggest someone more specific to talk to.
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That seems a better way for us to benefit from your time than for us to mire you in a lengthy process of merging threads. It would be fine with me, and perhaps others, if you suspended the current vote and did the reaching out instead. I can’t speak for the others, but perhaps some can give you the go ahead to devote your time instead to whatever you feel really counts.
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Thanks—as mentioned, I’ve already reached out to a number of St. Leo students inquiring as to the nature of the assignment and getting in touch with their instructors. Given the near-universal agreement on reaching out asking them to discontinue this assignment and substitute another more effective on, I was planning on calling the department Monday absent any objections (since this activity typically doesn’t happen over the weekend and they are either unlikely to be available or may not want to be disturbed, and it gives more time for discussion and consensus on what we want to suggest to them, as was brought up on the poll thread, though it’ll presumably center on the suggestions you’ve articulated above plus any relevant ideas other bring up).
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It seems likely that you’ll receive much more endorsement for this rather than objection here. 
It will be interesting to receive your report on the outcome of your discussion. I believe it would be possible for any of us to change our votes in the poll based on what you report prior to its closing, including the option to allow you to forego the merge, if that task would prove arduous and relatively ineffective. 
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Yup, I’ll be sure to report back here as soon as I get ahold of them Monday. If there are any particular questions you’d like me to ask beyond what’s this about, what’s the purpose and intent behind it, how long its been going on, who’s participating, what are the students told, have they heard any student feedback (positive or negative), etc., or other suggestions you’d like to share besides those above, I can make sure to take that into account.
And I don’t intend for this to be a one and done thing, but rather opening a channel of communication between the faculty there and the community here on if and how we can work toward the same goals. Ideally, I’d like at least one faculty there to create/identify their account here (I can only presume they have one if they are asking students to create them) so they can be part of this discussion with everyone here.
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The questions you have proposed are all good. After finding out the purpose of the assignment, it would be enlightening to know whether the instructor feels that the students gained from it what was hoped. If the goal was a worthy one, the conversation could move on to consider how best to achieve that goal and potentially how to build upon it.
In deciding how to handle the existing posts, let’s carefully consider the position of the students. They did what they were told. Some may have felt good about introducing themselves and put more than a minimal effort into it. Others may have viewed the assignment as superficial or an imposition, and reacted by doing the bare minimum. To be fair to them, we need to consider that some sudents may wish to keep their accounts and introductory posts, and we should respect that possibility. A year from the time of the creation of each account, any student who has at least one post intact will earn their Anniversary badge. That event will likely generate an automated email notification. This can serve as a reminder that they have an account on the forum, and they can each consider whether this is of any value to them.
EDIT:
I may have been mistaken about getting an email about the Anniversary badge.
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Yup; I had a question asking about student feedback on the assignment, but this would get at the underlying issue more directly.
Yup, that’s the goal here 
FWIW, I don’t think I or anyone here is proposing deleting these student accounts or their posts, so I’m not sure what this is in reference to?
Yeah, I just got mine for this year a few days ago, and I didn’t see any email (and I do get emails of DMs), nor do I see any notification setting for it. There may be a global admin setting (which I wouldn’t have access to), but that’s probably not something that would be desired by a lot of people here.
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I hadn’t seen anyone propose deleting the students’s posts either. My statement about that was made proactively to render it unlikely to be put forth as a remedy, with its being widely felt that it had been unfair to require the students to establish and use accounts to post an introduction. Though the current requirement may be unfair, and not a best practice for that and other reasons, the best remedy at this point would seem to me to leave those artifacts of the past, namely the existing posts, in place in their current condition, while we all strive to establish a better path forward as soon as possible. Your contacting the school on Monday will build a good basis for that path.
Some here have expressed quite strong feelings against the current practice. Yet I think it would be best to start with a gentle approach toward the school and the instructor, in order to foster a spirit of cooperation that in the short and long term will be optimal for the students.
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Yup, that’s exactly where I plan to be coming from, empathizing that we want to cooperate to move forward with something that will be in the best interests of both the students and our community. Time and again I’ve seen how effective such a strategy can be in such situations vs. a more confrontational approach, at least provided there’s good faith left to assume.
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What about sending link to this thread per email? Maybe both approaches can be tried in parallel (email and phone), or in case contact by phone fails.
In my opinion, an initial contact by phone would be decidedly preferable as compared to an email containing a link to this discussion. There’s a great deal of discussion about what approach to use in this thread. A phone call or, secondly, an email without a link would a better means of beginning with a concise message.
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Just a quick update—unfortunately, I ended up having a series of back to back meetings today and had to take my cat for his walk before it got too late, so by the same I was free to call it was too late in the day in EDT (≈6 pm) to call during polite North American business hours. Therefore, I’ll have to call them first thing tomorrow (my schedule is pretty free the first half of the day, so it should go smoother this time).
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Does the department not have an email address? I feel like the situation is better explained in emails, and generally I prefer having records of our communication with them in writing.
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Yes, the directory I posted lists both phone number and email for faculty, including the professor listed as department chair, and I was planning to follow up as necessary over email after initial contact over phone with the person(s) responsible, or if such is unsuccessful in either reaching them or eliciting a cooperative response.
I do appreciate the advantage of putting things in writing, as it certainly makes things easier to share with everyone here. However, I did prefer to make the initial contact over the phone if practicable as I find that tends to make it easier to communicate a friendly, collaborative and empathetic tone, establish a genuine connection and avoid sounding like a formal, impersonal demand. Additionally, it avoids possible misinterpretations and misjudgements of emotions and intent that can happen in text-only communication particularly among strangers, while making it easy and immediate to establish a shared understanding and clear up any mistaken ones. Finally, particularly given the uncertainties here, it greatly shortens the time and delay for the feedback loop of clarifying what we’re asking, bouncing around to several different people and then going back and forth to reach a mutually agreeable path forward.
I’m a bit confused on one point—could you clarify who “our” is that prefers written communication, sorry? I’d be reaching out on behalf of the Python Discourse team and involved community members here, rather than the PSF or Python core developers (which I can be sure to be clear on).
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“Our” in my mind is “the Python Discourse Community/users/members” because this is an issue with Python Discourse platform. I definitely wasn’t thinking in super formal sense as if representing the PSF or anything.
Being thorough is good, but at the same time, I highly value volunteer’s time and effort, which is limited. Giving a phone call to someone/some group who hasn’t been been engaging with our community, is not the best place to spend volunteer time IMO. If they’re an institution, I would expect that they understand that written communication skill is important and a necessity in the field.
Yes I do agree that certain emotions can be conveyed better when speaking directly, but IMO this is just not one of such situations that require it. It is possible to write up email to ask people to do things without sounding too demanding.
I still would suggest the Python Discourse community/moderators/admin handle this in writing with the following outline:
- Explain that the activities imposed in the course are causing some confusion/burden on the Python Discourse community
- Ask if they can explain the goal of the activity/requirement. Explain that we would be able to suggest ideas if we know what their goals are.
- Explain that we’re always open to help support new contributors, and willing to come up with better way to engage with our community, we’re open to work with them to come up with a solution. We have our own preferred way to engage with our community, and we want to work together to come up with something that will benefit both parties.
- Provide link to our Contributing guideline/ Discourse Guideline posts
- Provide a timeline: we understand they can’t change things this term, but can they change their curriculum next term? If they acknowledge this, we may allow them to continue up until the next term starts.
- Provide a deadline: if we don’t hear back within X days, we will go ahead and consolidate everything into one SLU Discourse thread without further notice. Any new SLU post will be automatically moved there. And let’s add this decision to our “welcome to Discourse” post or something like that.
Thanks for your suggestions, Mariatta. Note that the Discourse admin and moderator team is also mostly volunteers, and we discussed the phone call as the fastest way to at least get some understanding as to what is going on.
We’ll take your proposed outline into account in the conversation.
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Hi all, quick update. After a couple phone calls earlier today, I got in touch with the dean of the school of computing, Dr. Mohammed, and after a bit of back and forth was able to explain the situation, find out some preliminary information and agree on next steps to move this forward.
Dr. Mohammed confirmed that it was likely the COM 302 Python class that was presumably responsible for these messages, and mentioned that they teach many different sections of that course, and in addition to the 15-week traditional semester courses at their main campus, they also teach the course internationally in 8-week semesters in different languages at a number of campuses all over the world: in Latin America (Brazil, Mexico and Colombia were mentioned) and in India, among others, as well as online. This would explain the posting cycle (with new batches every few weeks to couple months), and one of the latest batches being in Spanish (as he mentioned that, as I’d figured, the COM 302 ES course was one of those internationally that was taught in Spanish, presumably either in CO or MX).
As for next steps, he said adjusting their course requirements and instruction plans per our feedback would definitely be a possibility, though it would take some time and need some additional coordination, as expected. Per our discussion and as previously mentioned here, I will be following up with an email summarizing what we discussed, asking the key followup questions we’re looking to get answers to, and sharing what we’re looking for from them, which Dr. Mohammed can then forward to the appropriate faculty for further followup. I should have that sent either today or tomorrow (as it will take some time to write, edit and proofread), will CC @ambv (and @davidism if you’d like) on that and keep you all up to date on what I hear back.
I really appreciate the thoughtful and detailed suggestions, @Mariatta — that will be quite helpful in guiding the content of the followup email I’m working on now. Thanks!
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Thanks for the great work, @CAM-Gerlach!
Most schools have their students complete course evaluations at the end of each term. Typically, the evaluation forms provide space for the respondents to offer written comments. It would serve the current discussion well if the SLU faculty and administration could take a close look at the evaluations submitted by enrollees in the concerned Python courses for any mention of how the students regard the practice of requiring them to introduce themselves on this forum. If the school could share this information with us, it would aid our thinking greatly during these discussions.
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Course evals are a very noisy signal though. I wouldn’t expect many students to comment on a small assignment from the beginning of the term, unless they were asked about it specifically.
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