Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Universities/Archive 7

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Video Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Universities/Archive 7

GA Reassessment of University of Glasgow

University of Glasgow has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here. --Malleus Fatuorum 19:47, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Maps Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Universities/Archive 7

USNWR

The new rankings hit the newsstands and web today (August 20). Be vigilant in simply updating the numeric score, rather than reproducing every single ranking or expanding the rankings into the lead or other sections. Also, from this AP report, another interesting ranking from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni grading general curricular requirements available here. I'm a bit preoccupied with RL issues at the moment, but I would appreciate it some enterprising editor could update Template:Infobox US university ranking to both include the ACTA as well updated references for USNWR. Madcoverboy (talk) 13:34, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Why would we include a terribly flawed ranking published by a far right wing group intent only pushing their viewpoint and agenda? --ElKevbo (talk) 13:55, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Every ranking employs methodologies of questionable merit to push the particular publisher's viewpoint and agenda, so I don't believe we can draw the line in the sand there. However, if this group is actually the educational analogue (or extension) of a CATO Institute, John Birch Society, or some such unabashedly partisan organization as ElKevbo asserts, then I stand corrected and it probably should not be included. Madcoverboy (talk) 14:03, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I RFA and see that ACTA is sponsored by the Bradley Foundation and John M. Olin Foundation which are demonstrably conservative organizations, but I don't see them as explicitly partisan. I'm not wed to the idea of including them in the template nor does their methodology seem entirely transparent and airtight, but I nevertheless like to see notable and reliable rankings in which "the usual suspects" don't rank that highly as a litmus test for the NPOV tolerance of editors. Forbes and Washington Monthly do a nice job of upsetting the USNWR status quo, in this regard. Madcoverboy (talk) 14:13, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I recommend you do a little bit more research about this organization. They're not the worst group in the world but they are explicitly partisan.

Regardless of the organization's flaws or strengths, we need to ensure that their ranking is notable before including it anywhere. I see that it has been mentioned a few times in mainstream sources but I'm not satisfied that this new ranking has risen to the level that merits inclusion in this template. I expect that this ranking will fade into obscurity very quickly but only time will tell. --ElKevbo (talk) 15:10, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Re: the updating of the template, would it be worth adding a small message at the top of the template for a couple days saying "USNWR has released new rankings, please update the template" or would that be too disruptive? Also, have the education/engineering/med school rankings also been updated? All of UChicago's are the same. -- DroEsperanto (talk) 16:59, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

src: thinking.is.ed.ac.uk

Pre-peer review on Colgate University?

Hey everyone. Basically I've been doing a lot of work on the Colgate University article, and I could use someone to sanity check it for me. I guess I could submit it to WP:PR, but I'm not entirely sure that it's even at that level yet. Could someone stop by and give their thoughts on the article? There's always room for improvement, but since I've been going it alone, I could use another set of eyes before taking it anywhere. Oh, and perhaps a reassessment in order; the article is current ranked as C, but that was given quite awhile ago. Thanks! -- HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 01:51, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

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Residence Hall Association

I just prodded this article and gave my reasoning on its talk page - essentially I think the topic is too undefined and vague, yet simultaneously too specific to the workings of each university to really develop into a broad-based and well-cited article. I would imagine that each college's article (or if there are articles about dormitories) could make a note about whatever kind of iteration of an RHA that college does or doesn't have. If you have any thoughts on remedying the underlying problem, please go ahead and fix it, but I don't think adding a lot more citations about every college's unique situation will be helpful. Thanks! Surfer83 (talk) 06:17, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

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Reassessment of Texas State University

Hi, Texas State University's rating is currently "start." Will someone reevaluate it, bringing it's Article rating up to date? Also, a list provided on what more to improve about the article would be very much appreciated. Thanks, --147.26.208.127 (talk) 03:31, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

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Cleanup template

What does everyone think of the new {{Cleanup-university}}? I tried to model it after the new {{Cleanup}}, but I'm not terribly skilled with these things. Feel free to tweak some of my mistakes. --inquietudeofcharacter (talk) 17:20, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

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Help With Definition of "Established" Date

I looked through the table of contents for all the talk pages and couldn't find an answer to this: Is there a consensus as to what it means for a University to be "established" on wikipedia? The issue has arisen on a couple pages I've worked on. First, in a discussion today here Talk:University of Kansas, I maintain that the date must be either when the university opened to students (1866) or was chartered by the legislature (1864). However, KU's seal says "Estalished 1865." I can't find anything to support this date on the seal. Notably, KU's website does not reference anything happening on 1865. The KU website states: "Opened in 1866, the University of Kansas is a comprehensive educational and research institution..."[1] Likewise, the history linked on KU's own website begins: "When the University of Kansas opened on September 12, 1866..." [2]. This Kansas Cyclopedia history also does not support 1865.

With respect to ancient universities, a consensus has arisen that the foundation date is the date the institute is recognized by a royal or papal charter. (See List of oldest universities in continuous operation.) I did some work on this page, University of Santiago de Compostela, and although the university itself claims to be founded in 1495, and actually celebrated its 500th anniversary in 1995[3], wikipedia states it was founded in 1526 based on the date it was chartered by Papal Bull.

Finally, Iowa State University presents another case. Its infobox claims it was "established" in 1858. I'm not sure where this date comes from. The legislature chartered it in 1856, and it admitted its first students in 1868. The university apparently celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2007. Clarity and consensus on this point would be useful.-Kgwo1972 (talk) 22:22, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Technically, founding year is whatever an institutions says it is. For example, Boston College uses its charter date but Boston University doesn't. Sometimes schools will even absorb others and take the other's founding year, if it's older, like in the case of University of New England (although I maintain that this is a rather questionable practice). It's not regulated in the U.S. any more than "college" vs. "university" is, and University of Kansas probably says 1865 because it's a compromise between 1864 and 1866. It's not really a big deal, so if the seal says 1865 I'd just leave it at that and make a note explaining the confusion (like at Harvard University). --inquietudeofcharacter (talk) 22:40, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

OK, so I will change the founding date for the University of Santiago de Compostela to 1495 (which it already is on the Spanish wiki, I've noticed). -Kgwo1972 (talk) 19:50, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Makes sense if a) that's what the university claims as its founding year and b) there are no legal statutes or other regulations that would void such a claim. Obviously, you can't just make stuff up, but most institutions' official histories are generally considered reliable enough when it comes to a year of establishment. --inquietudeofcharacter (talk) 20:19, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

The university claims that date, and in fact had a major event to celebrate its 500 anniversary in 1995.[4] -Kgwo1972 (talk) 20:30, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

As for Iowa State (sorry I neglected to address that), the history on their website ([5])) says 1858. It's the second footnote in the article. Seems you were incorrect about the charter date for Iowa State (the bill was introduced in 1856 but wasn't signed into law until 1858). --inquietudeofcharacter (talk) 20:23, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I took those dates from the wikipedia article itself, so I guess those are wrong. Anyway, I did look up further information on ISU's 150th anniversary celebration, and it was from 2007 to 2008, so that jibes with 1858.-Kgwo1972 (talk) 20:43, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, as I posted on Talk:University of Kansas, I don't believe it's ultimately up to wikipedia editors to decide that a university was established at a date other than what the university claims. Also, there is no more data to support changing the date in the article to 1866 than there is for 1865. Finally, one of the articles that Kgwo1972 found cites 1865 as the year the board of regents for the University of Kansas first met, so I'm guessing that is why the University uses '65 as their establishment date. Ryan2845 (talk) 00:11, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

As I commented on various talk pages (including this one) a very long time ago, I believe that the "established" field in the {{infobox University}} template should be made non-mandatory, so that it would not be necessary to choose one establishment date for the ambiguous situations of institutions that can claim multiple founding dates. --Orlady (talk) 19:58, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that making the field non-mandatory solves the problem at all. Frankly, and please don't take offense, but such a move seems unnecessarily silly because all institutions claim an establishment year -- UK clearly says 1865 on it's seal -- and in cases requiring clarification, there's a footnotes section for the infobox. Seems to me as though all the tools needed for the job have already been made available to us in this case. --inquietudeofcharacter (talk) 20:10, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Orlady's point that "established" is an ambiguous/meaningless term if it means whatever each school individually wants it to mean. (I'm fairly surprised that there's no wikipedia consensus on what "established" does mean.) Including that date in the infobox imparts little knowledge to the reader other than: this is when the school claims it was established. However, since we also categorize each school by date of establishment, I also agree that making it non-mandatory in the infobox does not solve the problem at all. Oh well, moving on. -Kgwo1972 (talk) 22:29, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

At first glance, I see four problems with that argument:

1) Institutions constantly self-define their names, their founding dates, their affiliations -- all of which are backed up by reliable sources.

2) There's no need to be surprised because there is consensus -- that it's self-defined.

3) If you don't want to include the established year because it's self-defined, then you might as well remove the motto, the name, the endowment, and everything other bit of information that is based on self-reported but verifiable data.

4) That it's useless information sounds like a terribly subjective statement to make, and doesn't seem to pass the WP:IDONTLIKEIT test.

What I usually do when a founding year is complicated is the following: make sure the history section is comprehensive and verifiable, add footnotes clarifying the founding year in the infobox, and add more than one establishment category for schools that have merged or recognize two significant dates. I never considered doing these things such a hassle that I felt the infobox needed to be altered, but that's just me. Does it really seem that unreasonable a course of action? --inquietudeofcharacter (talk) 23:12, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the the way you are doing it - indicate in the article just whateven the date refers to. The infobox is just a summary and does not need the details. DGG ( talk ) 04:26, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

On the thread of this conversation, I'm wondering what I should do in the case of the University of Chicago; as far as I know, the school doesn't claim a specific founding date (nothing on a seal or anything) and the news office provides conflicting information (this source says 1891, while this source claims it's 1890, and I think that milestones are celebrated based on 1892). I've made a point of never claiming a founding or established date in the article, stating exactly what happened when, but I'm wondering whether I should leave the infobox blank or use the date 1890 (when it was incorporated, which seems like the most official thing). An old version of the article said that the University traditionally dated its founding to 1891 but I've never seen any source that verified that. -- DroEsperanto (talk) 21:15, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

This is some fun sleuthing. Well, using the official history on the web is always a good move but it's even better when it's actually confirmed by something like http://www-news.uchicago.edu/resources/brief-history.shtml. I suppose that news article was just wrong, because if you go up a section and then click on this link, it just corroborates the history page. 1890 it is, I suppose. If you can find equally reliable sources for 1891 and 1892 dates, don't be bashful about using footnotes. I've always been a fan of using  tags with a symbol. --inquietudeofcharacter (talk) 21:28, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

• I would believe printed material from the institution over the website. I have found that University websites are authored by low-level employees and work-study students in comparison with printed materials which tend to be reviewed by a larger number of people. Reliable independent secondary sources is what Wikipedia seeks. Racepacket (talk) 12:51, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

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Rankings

The University of Miami article shows what a mess can be made of college rankings. Several questions are raised:

1. If a ranking chart covers the entire nation, is it original research to say that the school has the highest ranking of all schools in Florida?
2. If the rankings do not divide into tiers, is it supportable to claim that the school is a top tier institution in the rankings?
3. One ranking of Philosophy Departments is the Baylor University blog "Certain Doubts" ranks University of Miami's philosophy department fifth in the nation among top Ph.D. programs based on how much faculty members are cited in scholarly journals, even though another source has it ranked 32nd using wider criteria. Is this credible and does it meet WP:RS?
4. The magazine Hispanic Business ranks schools on how friendly they are to hispanic students. Do we include those rankings? Racepacket (talk) 16:45, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Wouldn't this be better suited for the talk page? As for your questions, 1) yes it is original research, as is stated in WP:UNIGUIDE. 2)Top tier is just technically inaccurate and is WP:BOOSTERISM 3)Blogs generally aren't considered WP:RS, and 4)Doesn't reazlly seem notable; Wikipedia isn't the place to compile a list of everything anyone has ever published about an institution. However, it seems that you already knew the answers to these questions, so maybe in the future you should just be bold and make changes you see fit.-- DroEsperanto (talk) 17:32, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

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reassessment of king saud university article

The article is ranked as stub. I worked hard to get it better. Can anyone reassess it. --Preceding unsigned comment added by Abrnkak (talk o contribs) 05:06, 8 September 2009 (UTC) sorry i forgot my signAbrnkak (talk) 05:30, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

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GA Reassessment of University of Chicago

University of Chicago has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here. Malleus Fatuorum 11:57, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

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Help with "The U"

We are having a disagreement on what may be listed as alternative names for the University of Miami. The article now reads "The University of Miami (commonly referred to as UM,[2] or Miami of Florida,[3]) is a private, non-sectarian university..." Some editors propose to add "The U" as another common name. They cite as a reference the website insidetheu.com (which is an athletics website devoted to the University of Miami) as authority for this claim. In turn, I have argued that students everywhere use phrases like "I am going to school now" or "I am heading toward campus." But that does not mean that every college in American would include "school" and "campus" in the list of its popular names. If a student were travelling to another city and was asked "where do you attend?" that would not be an answer. People at every university use the pronoun "it", but only when the antecedent is understood, but we would not list "It" as a commonly known name for the University. I offered the following counter examples of the use of "The U": www.theu.com, www.theu.net, restaurant, "Making voluntary contributions to the U is central..." and The U - University of Misssouri student radio station. Why include "commonly referred to" names and shouldn't the names be reasonably meaningful beyond the campus itself? Racepacket (talk) 12:43, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand why this is a pressing issue. There was a years old discussion on the talk page about the inclusion of alternate names for the University of Miami. And there are reliable sources that show that it is also called "UM", "Miami of Florida", and "The U", and the last one is used exclusively by ESPN to discuss the school. Racepacket for whatever reason opened up the discussion anew and is suggesting that there was no consensus on the talk page when it is such a trivial thing to be edit warring over with two other editors who have worked on the article for the past three years. The University of Miami is in no way the only university that is referred to as "The U" but "The U" is one of the more notable nicknames for the University of Miami.--Ry?lóng (??) 19:22, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for responding. There is no reliable evidence that "The U" has a secondary meaning that is widely accepted that makes the phrase synonymous with the University of Miami. User:Ryulong is applying a standard that would easily allow "The U" to be added as a "common name" for at least two dozen other universities. The ESPN website for the general public, espn.com, does not use "The U" to refer uniquely to the University of Miami. There is a set of school-specific ESPN-sponsored college fan websites, but even then, the web designers were careful to give other context for the use of "The U" For example, the drop down menu calls it "Miami: Inside The U" and the graphic references uses the color-coded split-U logo of the school. I don't see anything in the cited website that would suggest that ESPN or anyone else seriously believes that the phrase "The U" has a meaning equating it to the University of Miami outside a narrow context which ESPN is careful to repeatedly state by way of clarification. I don't know why it is desirable to offer a list of "common names" at the top of the article, but certainly "The U" has far less support than "UM" or "Miami of Florida." Racepacket (talk) 19:55, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

There is plenty of reliable evidence that "The U" is one of the many nicknames/shorthand names for "the University of Miami". The fact that an ESPN affiliated website refers to the school and its athletic teams (particularly the Hurricanes football team) should be enough of a reliable source that Miami is one of the multitude of schools that go by the name "The U" colloquially. The same can be said for the University of Minnesota, University of Utah, etc. There is nothing in the article that states that Miami should be the only school that is referred to as "The U". It is simply one of many, and "The U", along with "UM" and "Miami of Florida" are perfectly and reliably sourced subsitute names for the school. Saying that other institutions also could use the shorthand name is not a sound enough argument in my book, or in ElKevbo's book as per his reply at Talk:University of Miami. It apppears that you solely brought it upon yourself to question a reliable source that has been in place for at least a year until your sweeping changes to the article as a whole took place. You are the only user who has had a problem with it in two years time. Since the thread was started by Do be good man (talk · contribs) in April 2007, sourcing problems have been solved for the names "UM", "Miami of Florida", and "The U" until Racepacket here revisited the sourcing issue for completely different sources used for the five character colloquial name. Since discovering it, he edit warred with myself and MiamiDolphins3 (talk · contribs), completely removing this source and editwarring over the inclusion of this source.--Ry?lóng (??) 20:25, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

As I stated on the talk page, I do not see any justification for removing a well-cited nick name from the lead of the page. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:40, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Rynlong is correct that the inapplicable sources were removed. Neither references shows an independent, widely-accepted meaning. For example, trademark attorneys frequently conduct scientific surveys to measure the secondary meaning of a phrase to the general public. If the University conducted such a survey and the results got reported in the media, there might be support for the claim. But neither of the two cited references is enough to support the claim. No edit warring here, just an effort to check that each reference is applicable to the statement made in the article, and more importantly that we need a Wikipedia-wide policy on these "commonly referred to as..." names. In response to User: Ottava Rima, there is a difference of opinion here as to whether the nick name is "well-cited." The referenced website carefully sets a Miami context before using "The U" reference. Thanks! Racepacket (talk) 20:56, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Trying to create a new sweeping policy is not helpful when you remove two sources that refer to a school as "The U". Merely because the school is referred to by its whole name first and then "The U" is not a good enough argument to support the removal of any reference to support the statement. The two references on the article now (which were both removed by you Racepacket) clearly support the statement. Your removal of the references and the statement without any discussion beforehand, merely going off of a thread begun in April 2007 when there were no references for the statement in question, was unhelpful and more or less disruptive to the article.--Ry?lóng (??) 21:05, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

I see no reason whatsoever to create a new policy to deal with this. Our core policies are more than adequate. --ElKevbo (talk) 23:29, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

It has been clearly stated here that Racepacket is disrupting the article University of Miami to set a precedent and create a new policy in order to regulate the nicknames and shorthand names of all universities and colleges on this project by edit warring over the inclusion/exclusion of the name "The U" from the lead paragraph University of Miami by suggesting that the two independent reliable sources do not support the statement. The symbolism of the school utilizes the extremely iconic split U logo and the official symbolism of the university was changed to include the split-U. The use of the UM article to set a precedent is disruption to make a point.--Ry?lóng (??) 21:58, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

As I have noted, there is a big difference between a logo that uses a specific typeface, color scheme and "split" and the generic prose term "the U." The two references that User:Ryulong offers are not "independent reliable sources" -- one is a university-specific athletic fan website which uses the full color split-U logo, and the other was a news article in the trade press that carefully set out the full name of the University of Miami before allowing the shorthand "the U" to be used in the story. Trademark attorneys frequently conduct scientific surveys to see if a word or phrase has a secondary significance. If the University of Miami were to conduct such a survey and the results were reported in the press, then such a reference would support a claim that "The U" is widely used as a common name for the University of Miami. I didn't remove the offered reference to make a point, I made a number of changes when checking that the footnoted references matched the main text. We need some experienced editors from outside Southern Florida to weigh in and decide this issue. I can find hundreds of quotations where "campus", "school" or "it" are used to refer to the University of Miami, but in each case the context is set first. What is needed is evidence that the meaning of "The U" is so well understood beyond that locality that is has become the common name for the University of Miami. Thanks. Racepacket (talk) 00:23, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Looking at the sources, I would say that the ESPN site is sufficiently independent of the University of Miami itself (although I don't even know why it would have to be independent, since the University itself is a reliable source on information about itself as long as it isn't unduly self-serving). Perhaps this isn't the article you're referring to, but if it is, I don't see them use the phrase "The U" anywhere except when quoting someone else. Even if that weren't the case, using the official name before going to an abbreviation isn't evidence that it shouldn't be included; the fact that it's used at all provides verifiable evidence of its use (although the fact that a couple soldiers used the term doesn't seem to provide that). My judgment is that I'd like to see one more source refer to it as The U, although I think the ESPN site is fine and I bet that more sources will turn up. "The U" is not the same as "the school" or "the university"; no one would refer to the University of Maryland or the University of Chicago as "The U". -- DroEsperanto (talk) 00:57, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I believe there was another reference for the use of "The U" in a colloquial sense but it appears to have been supplanted by the US Dept. of Defense article. It still appears that Racepacket is trying to set a precedent to produce a new policy governing the use of shorthand/common/colloquial names for universities on Wikipedia, taking the article on UM as its test subject by forcing sourcing on one of its common names. The use of "The U" in reference to the school in both links should be sufficient enough, as they are third party and it is not like we are sourcing something that is contentious. The fact that the soldiers call it "The U" should be enough in my opinion. Just because it is known as "The U" in one locality does not mean that when someone uses "The U" in Minneapolis or "The U" in Salt Lake City, they are referring to Miami, which is what I think Racepacket is suggesting. The statement in the lead of University of Miami does not make that distinction.--Ry?lóng (??) 01:18, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't think either source on their own would be enough; the ESPN site could arguably just be referring to the logo (like a hypothetical site about the Chicago Maroons being called "In the C" after their logo), and the soldiers' use isn't enough either (I could be quoted as calling University of Maryland "U-Mizzle" in an article despite that no one on the entire planet calls it that). But, together, they seem to indicate that it's a nickname, although if it really were frequently used it would be easier to come up with less borderline sources IMO. -- DroEsperanto (talk) 01:26, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I've never heard of a university referred to by a name based on its logo and it is original research to assume that websites refer to UM as "The U" because of the split-U. The University of Minnesota is another "The U" and their logo is a giant letter M.--Ry?lóng (??) 01:29, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

It seems possible, considering that the logo they use clearly refers to the Miamo logo (and they don't seem to use the phrase "The U" anywhere else). And my thought that "The U" in the logo refers to the UM logo is as much original research as your claim that it refers to the school, since no source explicitly states either and both are just our assumptions (or, for that matter, that a handful of brief references constitutes a nickname). In any case, UM is also referred to as "The U" here and in this Miami Herald blog, although neither of them are great sources. It seems to me that "the U" is a very informal way of referring to the school (unlike, for example, "Georgia Tech" for the Georgia Institute of Technology), and I have no opinion either way as to whether it should be included in the lead or not. It doesn't seem to be an outright hoax, but the sources are grasping at straws a bit.-- DroEsperanto (talk) 01:55, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I've added two more additional references and have two more if necessary. Four references to show that this particular institution is called "The U" is nitpicking. There is enough information to show that the school is called "The U" in Florida and by major news publications in and out of Florida. It is in no way "The [Only] U", which is what Racepacket was picking at, but I've got enough there. Needing such intensive sourcing on a nickname is disruptive, as have much of Racepacket's other edits to the article have been (such as adding {{fact}} tags to every other sentence in the Athletics section). If the four sources related to and independent from the school are not enough, then I'll add the two other ones I found. If it's fine, then I think this issue is resolved.--Ry?lóng (??) 01:58, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Several problems: 1) the "ESPN reference" is not to espn.com, the general website, it is to a local, school-specific athletic fan site. So it does not show that it is widespread usage. 2) The Defense Link News does not say or imply that people unconnected with the University of Miami understand "The U" to mean that school. (It is not a " US Dept. of Defense" article.) 3) The fact that a local sportswriter choses to name his blog "Eye on the U" does not demonstrate that "The U" has a secondary meaning. Reading the contents of that blog shows that its author is careful to distinguish between Florida State University and University of Miami rather than using "The U" without setting the context. Again, this is local, not a regional or national source. 4) The fact that President Shalala named her CD "The Spirit of the U" does not indicated that she or anyone else uses "The U" as a substitute for the name of the University. (Again, this is a local, university webpage.) We want to be helpful to our readers, and flagging "Cal", "UNLV", "UNC", "UTEP" or "SUNY" in the lead paragraph of an article tells them that such nicknames are broadly accepted. We confuse our readers and reduce our credibility when we treat an ambiguous "The U" the same way. I am not saying that "The U" must mean only one school. I am saying that people in a large part of the country, who are not connected to that school should automatically associate the University of Miami with "The U" before it can be listed. Thanks. Racepacket (talk) 02:37, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

All of the references that have been put forward utilize "The U" to refer to the University of Miami or its sports teams. Again, you seem to be suggesting that the use of "The U" in the lead paragraph suggests that this is the only university to be referred to as "The U". I have repeatedly said that there is nothing that says that. I have provided enough to show that locally, UM is "The U". I went to The U. I call it The U. I am wearing a T-shirt that has the split-U on it. You are just nitpicking now. You are suggesting that the use of "The U" should be nowhere on Wikipedia, because it is generally a local colloquial name, because there are many schools that are referred to as "The U"s. The name "The U" is not used anywhere in the article other than the lead. Stop obsessing over these five characters and find something else on Wikipedia to write about for a while.--Ry?lóng (??) 02:42, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

1) Please don't mischaracterize my position. Wikipedia does not document local colloquial names, it lists nicknames with secondary significance that people not connected to the locality or school would associate with the institution. Anyone who has read a sports page would recognize "Cal", "UNLV", "UNC", "UTEP" or "SUNY." "The U" is not like those nicknames/abbreviations. As a University of Miami undergraduate, you would not have the objectivity to judge this. That is why independent secondary sources are needed. 2) Ad hominem arguments and put-downs will not satisfy the requirement that Wikipedia be well-sources, objective and verifiable. None of the sources support the claim that "The U" is a common name for the University of Miami. 3) Is it your argument that "The U" refers to athletics or the university as a whole? Your logo argument is based on the "Split-U" athletic logo. Please explain. Thanks. Racepacket (talk) 03:01, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

"The U" is a common name within the locality of South Florida. Merely because there are other institutions that go by the name "The U" in other localities does not preclude the fact that this fact should not be mentioned on the article. I have shown that news agencies and the University itself refers to itself as "The U" as do those in association with it. This in no way means it should not be mentioned at all as you have been suggesting. Institutions that call themselves "The U" and that other entities call the institution "The U" should have that fact mentioned in the article. I've added four separate reliable sources that you have thrown out for no reason other than they are local to the institution. I have proven this beyond reasonable doubt and this should be resolved per the fact that there are four separate sources supporting this fact, and I could clearly find more if necessary.--Ry?lóng (??) 03:45, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

But the statement in the article claims that it is "commonly referred to as" the U. I read that as being anywhere in the English-speaking world, not just on campus. I know that words like "the U", "campus" and "it" are used, but with context or an antecedent to give them meaning. You make an argument that it is a reference to the "Split U" athletic logo, so are you saying that it is used like "Hurricanes" and "'Canes" in an athletic context or for the whole university? Racepacket (talk) 18:23, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I am also never going to be able to find something that says outright "The University of Miami is also called 'The U'". Everything that is out there references the University of Miami as "The U" which is as best as anyone can get for a citation for the trivial statement.--Ry?lóng (??) 03:50, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

If you can't support the statement with the footnote, then don't mislead the readers by adding the footnote. I have offered six different formulations on the University of Miami talk page:

a) delete all common names
b) (sometimes abbreviated as UM,[2] or Miami of Florida,[3] or The U[4][5][6][7])
c) (locally and colloquially referred to as UM,[2] or Miami of Florida,[3] or The U[4][5][6][7])
d) (commonly referred to as Miami of Florida,[3] and occassionally abbreviated as s UM,[2] or The U[4][5][6][7])
e) (commonly referred to as UM,[2] or Miami of Florida)[3]
f) (commonly referred to as Miami of Florida,[3])
or any of the above without the footnotes, because none of the footnotes really support the text. In my mind, "commonly referred to as" calls forth the type of anlysis used in trademark law that measures when a significant part of the general public associates "The U" with the "University of Miami." People are asked "What word comes to mind when I say Apple." A large number of people will say "Computer" or "iPod" rather than fruit, because it is a "strong" trademark with a secondary meaning. "Otis" will have most people saying "elevator." But if you ask "The U" , noone outside of Miami will answer "University of Miami." We need some test to see what (if anything) should be listed. The words "campus", "school", "it" and "The U" can all mean the University of Miami in certain contexts, but that is not the generally accepted secondary meaning. We are making a general statement here for the entire English-speaking part of the world, not for the undergraduate dorms on the campus. Thanks. Racepacket (talk) 18:23, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Campus and school are common nouns; "The U" is a proper noun, which makes your comparison like apples and oranges. (Not every "University of" school refers the themselves as "The U".) And your secondary-association test is inappropriate; if you were to ask a sample of people what "Chicago" meant, virtually everyone would say the city, not the University of Chicago, yet "Chicago" is indeed an appropriate alternate name for the University of Chicago, increasingly more so the further you go from Chicago. What the nickname's primary association is frankly is irrelevant; all we need to know is that it has a sufficient level of usage (intentionally vague). -- DroEsperanto (talk) 19:25, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

An interesting approach, DroEsperanto. I think "The U" is more like an acronym or abbreviation (SUNY, UNLV, etc.) However, a problem with a "level of usage" test is that it is not verifiable, and hence not permitted under WP:V. The footnotes offered are merely examples of someone using "The U," not secondary sources discussing the extent to which people use "The U." The problem with "Chicago" is exactly what we have with "The U," if you ask people what University they associate with Chicago, they would say "University of Chicago," "University of Illinois at Chicago" or "Chicago State." I don't see any justification for the "commonly referred to as" claim in the article. Thanks. Racepacket (talk) 21:19, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

"The U" is not an acronym like "SUNY" or an abbreviation like "UNLV". It is merely a nickname for an institution whose name begins with "the University of...". You are requesting that there be a source out there that critically analyzes the use of "The U" to refer to any particular university. This is not going to exist. I have provided many sources that show people using "The U" to refer to the university in question. I could find sources where people have used "The U" to refer to other universities.

Now, I might be wrong, but you are completely missing DroEsperanto's point. He is saying that "Chicago" primarily refers to the city and not the institution, whereas the name "Chicago" is also used to refer to UChicago. The other institutions that you list go by other names, such as UIC and CSU. Clearly, in Illinois, if someone is asked what school they go to and they say "Chicago", it is known that they went to UChicago and not UIC or CSU or any other institutions with "Chicago" in its name.

This can be carried over to other localities. Saying you go to "The U" in Minnesota means you go to U of M and no other school in Minnesota. Saying you go to "The U" in Utah means you go to U of U and no other school in Utah. Saying you go to "The U" in Florida means you go to Miami, especially when no other institution in the state goes by the name "The U" despite being "Universities of..." (UT, UF, USF, UWF, UCF, UNF). It appears that locally the name has merit, and in the one case of the national media that I provided, even though it was two people being quoted, there was no mystery as to what they were talking about.--Ry?lóng (??) 21:40, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Finally, you have expressed my concern about claiming that University of Miami is "commonly referred to as The U." The Defense News article quoted someone as saying "The U" but they also set the antecedent. I don't think that anyone would say "The U" if they knew the audience does not understand the context. "U of M" can mean Miami, Maryland, Mississippi or Minnessota, etc. "Miami" can mean the school in Ohio or Florida. These ambiguities make them worthless in a Wikipedia article and make documenting them very hard. Slang and nicknames have geographical and demographic scope. "Honeybun" can mean your wife only if she understands that it is her nickname. It can also be used to refer to Joe's wife. Apparently, Wikipedia is not for documenting slang or nicknames. It is not "Usage guides or slang and idiom guides" If you can't document it, and I can't verify it, why put "The U" in the article at all? The article has more credibility without it. Racepacket (talk) 01:06, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

There is ambiguity but that should not rule out the usage of the commonly used terms within the context of the article. By your terms, then we should rule out any and all abbreviations which have similarity between any two institutions, thereby removing "UM" from any school named "University of M...". I can tell you that no one calls UMiami "U of M" and that I have only come across with UMinnesota. There was no issue with the usage until you began to edit war over the exclusion of "The U" from University of Miami. Listing alternate names or abbreviations is never an issue anywhere else on Wikipedia, and the listings of alternate or shorthand names of universities are most definitely not "slang or idiom" guides. And with your "honeybun" analogy you are once again comparing apples and oranges.--Ry?lóng (??) 01:22, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The U and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The U (University of Miami) might be informative, here. Uncle G (talk) 10:45, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
  • I have posted yet another approach using the University of Virginia as a model. They claim that "The University" means the University of Virginia, but the footnote has sufficient caveats that the reader will understand that the usage is not widespread. Racepacket (talk) 16:37, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

This issue has been beat to death. It's clearly become an edit war for purposes other than providing information regarding the subject. A grievance needs to be submitted and move on. If Wikipedia chooses to sanitize articles of common names by which the subject is described or known, then the specific Wikipedia policy needs to be cited or appropriate steps taken to establish the policy without prosecuting an edit war. I happen to believe such sanitization would be a disservice to users. I also believe there's a case to be made for inclusion of "Suntan U" and "The Cardboard College", but history is old news. Otherwise, this serves as a great example to discourage editors. Do go be man (talk) 20:21, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Do go be man that the horse is now just a bleached skeleton that we are smacking around at the moment. I am tired of trying to refute Racepacket's points. There is a clear consensus here, on the talk page of UM, and at the thread on WP:ANI that I started to open up a grievance against Racepacket's activities on the multiple UM articles that he is in the wrong or clearly does not have the consensus for his changes.

Also the "Cardboard College" part is included within the prose of the article. I might add something about "Suntan U" if I can find something about it that would be on the same level as the seven references for the nickname.--Ry?lóng (??) 21:05, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I have proposed using the University of Wyoming as a model, "The University of Wyoming is a land-grant university located in Laramie, Wyoming, situated on Wyoming's high Laramie Plains, at an elevation of 7,200 feet (2194 m), between the Laramie and Snowy Range mountains. It is known as UW (often pronounced "U-Dub") to people close to the university." Thanks Racepacket (talk) 22:56, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

src: jech.bmj.com

Rankings notability

In light of the discussion above as well as a new debate at Talk:Johns Hopkins University, I think we need to clear the air about how we're going to go about deciding what rankings merit inclusion or not. The JHU debate centers on including or excluding the Forbes rankings on the basis of its supposed methodological unsoundness and thus reliability or notability for inclusion. The issue of assessing the notability of university rankings has never been fully discussed in my view and I'm not comfortable with the editors of each article adjudicating which rankings to include or not include given the obvious potential for these discussions to give undue weight to only positive rankings. I'd like to begin what I'm sure is a spirited discussion about amending WP:UNIGUIDE to more explicitly establish what rankings should or should not be included in an article or infobox template. This primarily concerns US universities, but there is also a proliferation of international rankings as well.

• Do we exclude rankings based upon lack of notability? How do we establish this notability?
• Do we judge methodological soundness as a measure of reliability for the source and for inclusion?
• Do we exclude popular but unreliable rankings but include potentially non-notable but more reliable rankings?

Feel free to add more questions below or discuss the preliminary ones I've proposed. Please also notify other editors of this discussion here. Madcoverboy (talk) 16:51, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't mean this as a defense of ranking systems, which all have severe intrinsic flaws. But the Forbes system would almost certainly receive a failing grade in any decent first-year graduate research design course:

1. Using post-graduate debt loads and graduation rates as stand-alone measures of quality essentially guarantees that schools attended by the less well-to-do will be relegated to the bottom of the rankings. Obviously, if a researcher chooses to consider such issues, the least he or she could do is to measure these variables in some sort of socio-economic context, that is basic social science. The Forbes system does not do so.
2. And speaking of basic social science, the use of a self-selected sample such as RateMyProfessors.com is simply preposterous. It merely displays what a small, unrepresentative sample have reported to some snarky website. (And no, the fact that all schools face the same problem doesn't level the playing field; awareness and use of RMP may vary significantly between campuses, and organized efforts may be mounted by various student groups.) Furthermore, the use of internal faculty evaluation by many universities voids the legitimacy of using RMP even further.
3. As for using Who's Who in America, even a cursory level of research should have revealed Tucker Carlson's brilliant takedown of the entire Who's Who enterprise. Carlson's article, after all, appeared in FORBES MAGAZINE! (http://www.forbes.com/fyi/1999/0308/063.html).
4. Using salary surveys on payscale.com based on self-reported data by a self-selected group of alums. Not only is it not a scientific sample with no effort being made to verify possibly inflated salary claims, the data also takes into account only alums with terminal bachelor's degrees, so schools where a high percentage of graduates go on to graduate and professional programs will effectively be penalized by having many of its highest-earning alums pushed out of the data.
5. Glaringly absent, in all the Forbes focus on outcomes and satisfaction, is any consideration of selectivity. If you ignore selectivity (scores, class rank, admit rates), you are ignoring how the most capable students, the ones with the greatest range of choices, have voted with their feet and with their parents' wallets. The "votes" of every student - not just a self-selected few who report to payscale.com or ratemyprofessor.com - are aggregated in the selection metrics. So I think these (or other data reported in the Common Data Sets, such as freshman retention) are more reliable indicators of quality (as used by the ranking systems of USNEWS and ARWU) than the metrics Forbes uses.
6. Finally, as I have articulated above, Forbes mixes cost-related and quality-related factors in a very unprincipled way. This is an unorthodox way to rate things, whether we are talking about cars and washing machines or universities. Better to separate cost from quality in order to expose how much extra value one gets for extra cost. This ranking hides that. The criteria mixes outcomes with satisfaction and performance factors, but the outcomes (Who's Who listings or top salaries) are not necessarily the ones most sought by individual students or schools (even assuming they are entirely attributable to college quality, which they aren't).TennisGrandSlam (talk) 17:32, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Edit conflict, argh! Well, I noticed this and couldn't resist, although I'm not sure how much I can contribute to a meaningful discussion. Here's my dilemma: while I often tolerate rankings in Wikipedia articles with reliable sources, I really hate rankings. I hate rankings for the same reasons most people who hate rankings do: I feel like it's just a way for magazine to make money and support the status quo, for popular schools to stay popular and rich schools to stay rich. I guess there's something very Darwinian in that, but I don't think it's really good or natural selection, either. I think it's odd that schools like Daniel Webster College can be top-tier one year and on the verge of bankruptcy and loss of accreditation the next. And even if every single third- and fourth-tier school went bankrupt and defunct this weekend, you'd still have third- and fourth-tier schools next year -- they'd just be schools that used to be top-tier. I'm not sure there's any real benefit to the ranking, but maybe I'm just not competitive enough. I actually like the NAICU U-CAN method of presenting information on face value, and I'd love to see Wikipedia eschew rankings in university articles in favour of that method (a great way to avoid some WP:BOOSTER issues, I suppose). But I realise that'd also be quite unpopular, and I don't feel as though my argument is either new or terribly cogent. I suppose that I just wanted to contribute, since it feels like I haven't been around much lately! --inquietudeofcharacter (talk) 17:36, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Well said, I completely agree! I would readily vote in favor of a policy to eschew rankings entirely in Wikipedia university articles.TennisGrandSlam (talk) 17:41, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

As far as the Forbes rankings goes, if it can be verified by other people (not just our own deduction) that Forbes is unequivically not reliable for what it claims to be reporting (significantly moreso than USNWR and other rankings), then we shouldn't use it. That being said, this raises the question: if we use rankings in articles to sum up the quality of institutions, are rankings published by newsmagazines really the most reliable source? I would argue probably not, although many people would argue differently. I feel like if we list them, though, we're inherently endorsing the rankings as reliable indicators of quality. That being said, I have a hard time thinking to ban rankings from all articles, because I think they do have some value in conveying the nature of an institution (prestige, mostly), although whether the good that does outweighs the bad of shrouding the basic description of an institution in rankings madness is questionable. -- DroEsperanto (talk) 19:53, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Not that I'm arguing for getting rid of rankings (I admit that I'd like that, but I'm mostly arguing for the sake of argument here), but I disagree with the whole "I think they do have some value in conveying the nature of an institution (prestige, mostly)" because of the whole WP:PRESTIGE issue. Selectivity, for example, can, to some extent, be determined via Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, which doesn't rank. On the other hand, USNews lists Southern Nazarene University as "selective" in the new 2010 rankings -- but it's an open admissions college. I realise it's my own OR, but that doesn't sound at all reliable to me. And, if prestige is important, I'm sure we can find plenty of books and articles that aren't concerned with ranking to back up "real" prestige. So, thoughts? --inquietudeofcharacter (talk) 00:13, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Is this conversation dead or do we really think that banning rankings use is a great idea? I can start planning a party if it's the latter. --inquietudeofcharacter (talk) 17:21, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

It's a foregone conclusion that a blanket ban on rankings would not be accepted by the community. --ElKevbo (talk) 17:45, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Are we honestly going to put Forbes rankings out here? Hopkins dropped like 70 places to like 140-150 this year. How much credibility can you put on a ranking that allows a school to fluctuate +/- 75 position slots per year. Forbes even wrote an article back in 1999 on how flawed the "Who's who in America' list is... Now they are using it as a part of their core methology for the Forbes ranking. I think a graduate student could have developed a better ranking system than Forbes. lol --Phead128 (talk) 04:01, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Here's the issue as I see it: no matter how questionable rankings are, they a) seem to be popular -- although I'm more a fan of trying to find out than assuming the foregone conclusion -- and b) seem to factor into verifiability. That is, to say that they're unreliable based on what we have so far mainly seems to constitute WP:OR. That said, if there's some way to determine that USNews, Forbes, &c. do not constitute WP:RS then we'd have a shot at taking them out. That's the only way, if you ask me, and until we can prove that then I don't see how there's any way to exclude any of them. --inquietudeofcharacter (talk) 17:29, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

I think that any ranking being published by a major and otherwise well-established organization has the presumption of reliability and is also necessarily notable even if their methodology is as unreliable as counting how many times the letter "Q" appears in the student roster. It's not our place to nitpick methodologies because every ranking methodology is necessarily imperfect. If you want rankings in the article, you don't get to cherry pick among the notable ones. The matter at hand remains how to establish notability, not reliability. Madcoverboy (talk) 22:29, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

I think Forbes tends to be the exception when it comes to both notability and reliability. LOL. United States Air Force Academy > Yale, Stanford, and MIT?72.81.233.92 (talk) 17:06, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Forbes improved their methodology in 2009. To me, the main reason for rejecting a college's particular rating is if that school has an internal course evaluation system that would displace widespread use by that campus of RateMyProfessor.com data, which is used for 25% of the Forbes ranking. Many schools have course evaluation programs that predate RateMyProfessor.com, so students don't participate in that website. As a result, the student satisfaction on those campuses would be understated in the Forbes rankings. Absent some reliable source which argues that "Forbes does not accurate rank University X", we should include the Forbes rankings in the rankings discussion of University X. Racepacket (talk) 13:23, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

src: upload.wikimedia.org

Peer review request

There is currently a rewrite of Union College being completed at User:Eliphaletnott/Union College. An informal peer review (or at least a read-through and some copyediting) would be great. This is this user's first article, and he's done a fantastic job. If you have some free time, a little effort put into reading this over would be great. We want to go live soon. upstateNYer 13:45, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

• The phrase "began the first popular demand for higher education in America." before ftn 1 is hard to believe, although I have not read the source. Harvard was founded in 1636, are you implying that Harvard did not satisfy "popular demand" for higher education in America? Racepacket (talk) 15:11, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
• Break up the first paragrah after ftn 2 and start a new paragraph on fraternities. Move that fraternities paragraph to History section.
• The second sentence of the Academic Programs section uses the phrase "general education program." To avoid confusing the reader, start the Academics section with an explanation of all of the college programs. (If the general education program is what a student gets before he declares a major, say so.)
• In the Undergraduate Research section, the phrase "what has been termed "the linchpin" of the Union education." is awkward. Do you mean what Union College considers to be "the linchpin" of its education experience? 66.173.140.100 (talk) 18:11, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
• I'm not sure that "By 1974, women's sports finally emerged as a regular part of the intercollegiate athletic program." is worthy of inclusion in the article lead, though perhaps very significant expansion of the Athletics section could change this. Shanata (talk) 18:31, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm asking for assistance with shaping my employer's University page, American_Intercontinental_University ,to be more consistent with how other universities are represented. A number of users are focusing efforts on expanding the Controversies section. As a relatively new member of Wikipedia, I would appreciate any help in understanding what is and isn't a neutral POV. Allegations, though factual, can be leveraged to shape perception if they are used in quantity. Any suggestions for how to approach this fairly? S.Malekpour (talk) 22:22, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

src: thinking.is.ed.ac.uk

Ithaca College

I'm an Ithaca College student. I'd love to really improve our page, as right now it isn't at all comprehensive and really doesn't reflect the scope of the college, but obviously I can't do it myself due to conflict of interest issues. The college has Start status with WikiProject Universities- it really needs work, and it would be great to get it more accurate before the admissions push for next year happens. I'm not sure this is the right place to post this, but I figured its worth a shot. Please let me know what I can do to get this page looked at and edited while avoiding conflict-of-interest stuff. Thanks so much! ICLucyG (talk) 15:32, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I'd say that the declaration that you've made here represents a good start in reducing the possible problems with Conflict of Interest, but given that you are trying to improve it before admissions push indicates that you do have some. I'd try reading through the WP:COI for guidelines. I would say that the following would make sense to try to work with COI issues: 1) Put an Ithaca College Userbox on your userpage like User:AmethystAngel. 2) Put a mention on the Talk:Ithaca College that you are making changes and that you are a Ithaca student. 3) Try to use similar colleges (like other members of the Empire 8 sports conference) as a guide to what should be added. 4) Drop us a line back here to have other users look it over.Naraht (talk) 17:28, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Good advice. I would differ slightly, however, in that it would be better to look at Featured college and university articles and use those as models. It would also be good to spend some time reviewing our article guidelines as they should be helpful. --ElKevbo (talk) 19:45, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

What they said. Furthermore, I think that a lot of people editing college articles have some degree of affiliation with them (including myself), and that doesn't necessarily present a conflict of interest as long as you make sure your primary goal is to write a good, descriptive, and informative encyclopedia article. I would also suggest reading through WP:BOOSTER for a bunch of things to avoid. Good luck with the article! -- DroEsperanto (talk) 19:56, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

It would be safe to assume that almost every editor of a college and university article has a superficial COI owing to their status as a current, former student, or some other kind of affiliate. The COI issue becomes more pernicious if you are an employee being paid to edit Wikipedia pages in your professional duties or your motivation is to make the article an adjunct web presence (the Wikipedia article should reflect what the university says about itself) rather than a neutral encyclopedia article (all Wikipedia articles about colleges should be written similarly, seeWP:UNIGUIDE). As other editors have stated, it is absolutely crucial to not let your pride in your alma mater influence how you write about it (see WP:BOOSTER).

Imitation is truly the highest form of flattery. The featured articles should be your first jumping off point. In many sections, you could possibly copy their structure wholesale and simply replace the relevant content and statistics or combine the best of two different FAs that are particularly suited to the college. Finally, always read the article as though it was for the some rival institution. If there are dubious or disingenuous claims, take them out. If most of the content is talking about how great the school is; talk about what the school actually has and does. Madcoverboy (talk) 21:24, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I'd just like to say that all of the comments/suggestions after mine are improvements on what I said and I have learned quite a bit myself.Naraht (talk) 18:41, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks so much everyone, I'll definitely take a look at all of those sites. I am actually hesitant to edit the entry myself, because I don't know much about the guidelines for COI and I don't want to step on any toes or rules before I'm confident that what I'm doing is following the rules. If I was looking for someone else (say, from the wikiuniversity project) to edit so that I could avoid COI entirely, how would I go about doing that? Can I ask someone to take a look at the article, or is asking in itself a COI issue? Thanks again! ICLucyG (talk) 13:33, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

You don't need to know all the rules to edit: just BE BOLD, and if you make any mistakes, someone else will [[meta:Eventualism|eventually] fix them. I know that at first, all the different policies and guidelines can make your head spin. Just start editing, and you'll figure them out eventually. And as stated above, your status as an Ithaca student shouldn't prevent you from editing the article yourself: just go for it! Feel free to ask me on my talk page if you have any specific questions.-- DroEsperanto (talk) 20:09, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

University of Delhi problems

The entire article seems to be a copyvio from the university site and most of it needs to be completely rewritten. The lists of faculties and college, being strictly factual and impossible to present otherwise can probably stay. It's also unreferenced but there probably are references available.

I am not sure whether the constituent colleges are notable in the sense that the Oxbridge college are-- they seem to have been founded on the traditional UK model, and I think they might well be. DGG ( talk ) 01:30, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Affiliations in Infobox University

I've long had (unvoiced, I think) concerns about the "Affiliations" parameter in the University infobox. It seems vague and not very useful given the long list of affiliations most institutions cultivate. Today I was reminded of these reservations when I reverted some vandalism to Hofstra University. Thoughts? --ElKevbo (talk) 19:52, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

It's come up before at Template talk:Infobox university/Archive 3#Extraordinarily bloated. It works when it lists the major organisations universities are members of, e.g. the Russell Group or the 1994 Group, or to list federal universities such as London or Wales. These are fairly major organisations and a core part of the institution's identity. It shouldn't be used for every single obscure organisation the university if a member of. Timrollpickering (talk) 07:01, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

I have likewise used it to list affiliations with major inter-university organizations such as Association of American Universities, The Consortium on Financing Higher Education, etc. or if it's a member of a larger organizing body such as a state university/trustee system. I agree that it should not be used to exhaustively list every affiliation, only the major ones that would possibly merit mention in the lead. Madcoverboy (talk) 14:22, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Agree with above. That Hofstra collection is far, far too long. Esrever ^(klaT) 16:23, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree that it shouldn't list every accreditation agency/body as Hofstra appears to do. Madcoverboy (talk) 16:53, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Logo as identifying marks in infoboxes

There has been a recent round of edits removing logos in infoboxes under justification of WP:MOSLOGO. The recent wave or logo removals seems to target logos that might primarily be identified as informal or athletic logos. These logos are often used also by various universities themselves as identifying marks of the institutions as a whole (see this photo), or similarly, by third party publications. Therefore it would seem to me that their inclusion would be appropriate, especially since, depending on the institution, these are often the most publicly recognized marks of a university. It is my understanding of fair-use that if the logos are to be used for encyclopedic or identification purposes, they can be included. Previously, in what seemed the existing consensus, based on their long standing inclusion in many university article infoboxes, including several that have reached FA status, that such justification for the inclusion of such logos would seem appropriate based on their utility in helping to identify the institution. Can we come up with a consensus for inclusion or removal of the popular or athletic logos of institutions within the infoboxes of the university articles? CrazyPaco (talk)

Unfortunately, an administrator's noticeboard is not the place to reach WP:consensus or engage in dispute resolution per WP:DISPUTE. Comments regarding this issue would best be served by discussion here or at other relevant wikiprojects. CrazyPaco (talk) 23:57, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Questions:
1. Is is against WP:MOSLOGO, WP:FUG, or WP:LOGO to have individual appearances of multiple, different, current-use logos for the purposes of identifying an institution in an infobox?

2. Are "popular" or "athletic" logos useful for identifying the institution that is the topic of an article?

3. Can it be assumed that "popular" or "athletic" logos are not used to represent the university at large, and are specifically restricted in their use for specific sub-components of the institutions in question (e.g. athletic teams)? CrazyPaco (talk) 22:15, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

I've pretty consistently supported a policy that would allow for the use of only one logo in a university article, under the assumption that the non-free content criteria promotes limited use (don't use two when one will do). Whether one uses a logo or a seal or a wordmark or whatever, they all serve exactly one purpose: identifying the university using an image designed by the institution. I think including an athletics logo is acceptable when used in identifying the teams in the infobox. Is all that clear? Esrever ^(klaT) 04:51, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough, but I think there is some misunderstanding here. WP:MOSLOGO seems to lump trademarked images and copyrighted images together when that simply isn't the case all the time. The example cited is inaccurate too (the IBM logo is a PD image ineligible for copyright). It then redirects the reader to read the non-free content criteria completely ignoring the trademarks that are not copyrightable and other PD images (such as flags).

Let's throw on top of that that this is a guideline, not policy. WP:IAR applies in spades here.

I'm not saying to go hog-wild and just do whatever you want, but a consistent rationale across the board to violate a guideline (which is poorly written, IMNSHO) would give you something to point at and say "we have two guidelines in conflict with one another" vs "my opinion (no matter how many people support it) conflicts with a guideline". In short, let's codify a standard in the Wikipedia:WikiProject Universities guidelines and then work on fixing WP:MOSLOGO. -- BQZip01 -- ^talk 12:31, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

I support the view that there is really no policy at all. In my opinion, the use of two logos is obvious, three perhaps excessive; the seal and current primary public identity logos should certainly grace the infobox, as the most "official" and most visible (respectively) symbols of the institution, while the athletics logos may be better off if relegated to the corresponding athletics section, though they are in fact an important means of identifying universities (at least in America, where their athletic teams are an important parallel endeavor to their academics). Best of all, it looks great and rules aren't really being broken by having them, and since most of these logos are, I agree, not copyrightable since they consist purely of text, I believe the current consistent rationale to be valid and worth holding onto.AniRaptor2001 (talk) 13:34, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

I feel I should add here that there is also an ongoing wave of edits removing the use of athletic logos from the athletic sections of the university articles as well, and it is being justified, I believe incorrectly, using Wikipedia:NFC#Images_2 point 5. This may be a tangent discussion though.CrazyPaco (talk)

Actually, most of the universities have at least one copyrightable logo and use those dominantly, but most (if not all) have a trademarked yet uncopyrightable (and therefore PD) image that can be used instead. The disconnect here lies with what to do about trademarked, yet uncopyrightable, PD images. -- BQZip01 -- ^talk 15:21, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

BQZip01, some of those logos look eminently copyrightable to me. The originality bar is very low, and File:Osu ath brand.png, among others, almost certainly meets it. I'm rather less keen on these additional logos appearing in infoboxes if they're copyrighted. -- mholland (talk) 15:39, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Re:OSU mark the only thing on this that could even be considered "not letters" is the ornamentation on the "S". Ornamentation on letters is specifically mentioned as something that is not copyrightable. -- BQZip01 -- ^talk 16:09, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

AniRaptor, it also must be remembered, that most seals are specifically reserved by University's for use by the University President alone or solely with his/her permission. I don't think that a seal would be more recognizable than an athletic mark or a "popular" mark, and therefore, to increase immediate understanding of the content of the article, these more popular marks should be allowed. DUKyleXY (talk) 15:48, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

A majority of the time that is true I believe. Specifically for the case of the University of Pittsburgh, the seal is also used as a logo, albeit a somewhat simplified version. This photo shows the use of both the "seal and wordmark" logo and "athletic/popular" logo together on student shuttle buses on campus. While Pitt's seal is quite recognizable on a regional basis, I would believe the athletic/popular logo is more recognizable on a national basis. Both seem to have value for identifying the institution, and both are completely different in design and service. One speaks to the formal name of the university with a simplified seal including the founding date and moto, while the other stylizes the "popular" name (e.g. "Pitt"). Such could also be the case with logos of the University of California, Berkley which would be exemplified with the "formal" and "popular/athletic" logos. In fact, there seems to be individuals out there who do not know "Cal" and "Berkley" are the same institution, as I have run across such individuals, and therefore, I believe including both logos in the infobox is informative and useful. CrazyPaco (talk) 19:54, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

This discussion on this topic has also been opened on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Should trademarked sports logos be used as icons in university infoboxes.3F. CrazyPaco (talk) 22:50, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Need to keep updated on staff changes

There is a need to keep updated on staff changes - for example, within the next six months as from tonight (October 2 2009), it seems likely that Ann Tait could be succeeded in her position as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Northampton. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 21:15, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Barnard College

A few neutral editors at Barnard College would be much appreciated. Some of us have differences of opinion and it's starting to get a bit heated. Thanks! --ElKevbo (talk) 06:05, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

The article has been fully protected. Additional eyes and input are welcome. --ElKevbo (talk) 14:30, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

2 cents added. ElKevbissimo is always right. :) Madcoverboy (talk) 17:37, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

University of Miami?

Yet another article that could use additional eyes and input: University of Miami?. I have very strong opinions about what is occurring at this article (as is evident from my own participation) but I invite others to make their own judgments and help us work through our differences. Thanks! --ElKevbo (talk) 13:44, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Help with Fundraising Drives

The current discussion on Talk:University of Miami centers around how to treat college fund raising campaigns in the history section of the article. Fundraising generally receives little discussion in the history sections, because constant fundraising is an assumed fact of institutional life. I am not sure how Wikipedia should measuring fundraising. I believe that if a capital campaign results in a dramatic increase in endowment, it could be noted and then expressed in terms of the effect on the national ranking of the size of the endowment on the NACUBO charts. The UM campaign had raised $552 million before the October 2003 launch date, with about half of that before 2003. The initial $1 billion goal was picked so that they were half way there at the launch. As is typically the case, the goal was exceeded and $1.4 billion was raised. But the "duration" of the "campaign" is arbitrary and the start date is arbitrary. Some editors have tried to claim that this was the best campaign by a "young" university, or to compare it with other schools within Florida. I think that such comparisons are inherently misleading. I also think that it is unfair to compare schools that have an internal teaching hospital with schools that are affiliated with a separate hospital. During this time, UM acquired a teaching hospital, and $851 million went to the Medical campus. I further question how one can compare a school that conducted an eight-year long campaign with another that may have conducted two, four-year campaigns. So, to me campaign size lack objectivity, and a better measure (if one is to compare institutions) is total endowment size, total physical plant investment or dollars raised per year.

I would avoid comparisons with other institutions generally because this tends to convert the institutional history into boosterism, similar to the problem we are having with college rankings. I would welcome the thoughts of others, and hope that we could add something to the guidelines. Racepacket (talk) 08:10, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

• I would welcome other views, as I think this is contrived boosterism. Following a unversity press release, the local paper does a story about a fundraising drive and claims that it is the most money raised to date by any college in the state in a single campaign. In fact, other schools in that state have raised more money in multiple campaigns, and other schools in that state raise more money per year than this school. What is our duty to the readers? Should we repeat the claim, leave it out, or include all of the caveats? Do campaigns (of which there seem to be a never-ending stream) belong in the institutional history section? Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 16:21, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
• The UM article has just received (and failed) its Good Article review. I would welcome the assistance of other WP:UNI members to address the concerns listed. Thanks. Racepacket (talk) 10:06, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Adamson University

Would people agree that there are too many articles on that university, and they should be merged? Itsmejudith (talk) 15:57, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Most of the Adamson articles are little more than lists of majors or even lists of current students. I agree they should be merged with substantial cleanup. Mabeenot (talk) 09:51, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

• The template suggests that the author is planning to write a separate article for each building on campus, which would be overkill. Other universities have separate articles covering each college, but these college-level articles are a bit weak. One approach is to merge them and then if the article evolves beyond the list stage, split off the colleges from their separate sections. As of now, the list of degrees and programs are duplicated in the main article and in each college article, and the individual college articles have very little to offer other than the lists. I can see listing the names of the current president and college deans. Anything beyond that is over-kill and very difficult to keep up to date. Racepacket (talk) 16:28, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I have started merging the college articles back in to the main university article, and also trimmed the main article a bit. I also took a lot of material out of the Falcons article, but am not sure whether it should be kept on the basis of improving coverage of sport in the Philippines. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:35, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

• A lot of US colleges have a separate article covering their athletic teams. There are also articles covering athletic leagues and conferences. The trouble with articles devoted to just one team is that they become prone to WP:BOOSTERISM. I would focus on enhancing and deduplicating the academic part of the article first, and the leave that athletics question to later. Racepacket (talk) 21:38, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Union College

A whole lot of work has been done on Union College. The rewrite mentioned above has gone live. I was hoping some members of this project would be so kind as to read through the article and leave any comments on the talk. The main contributor would like to bring it to GAN soon. Thanks. upstateNYer 11:29, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

• How about using this infobox:

{{Infobox US university ranking | ARWU_W = | ARWU_N = | ARWU_SCI = | ARWU_ENG = | ARWU_LIFE = | ARWU_MED = | ARWU_SOC = | THES_W = | THES_TECH = | USNWR_NU = | USNWR_LA = | USNWR_Bus = | USNWR_Law = | USNWR_Medr = | USNWR_Medc = | USNWR_Eng = | USNWR_Ed = | Wamo_NU = | Wamo_LA = | FSPI = |Forbes=

}} Racepacket (talk) 21:25, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I like it! upstateNYer 04:31, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Sports logos as identifying marks in university infoboxes; conclusion

The conclusion of Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_68#Should_trademarked_sports_logos_be_used_as_icons_in_university_infoboxes.3F the RfC on the issue regarding the use of iconized sports logos in university infoboxes heavily favored removal. I have over the last several days removed such icons from the infoboxes of 60 NCAA Division I schools, or about 17% of all NCAA Division I schools. I have removed 30 icons from Division II, or 10% of Division II. I have removed 39 icons from Division III schools, or about 9% of the 448 Division III schools. I have removed 14 icons from NAIA schools, or about 5% of the 290 NAIA schools. A summary of this is located at Wikipedia:Icons in infoboxes. --Hammersoft (talk) 22:46, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Columbia Pacific University?

Can we please have a few more eyeballs on the article of this unaccredited, defunct institution? It appears that one or more alumni or other associated persons are intent on whitewashing the article. Thanks! --ElKevbo (talk) 16:24, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Using "unofficial" logos in university infoboxes

At University of California, Santa Cruz, I've run across a situation where four editors have come to an agreement that an unofficial university logo should be used in the infobox. The logo currently in use File:Ucsc fiatslug.png is owned by the University of California Regents. It was licensed for use by an outside commercial entity. However, the logo itself is not used by the university. It is apparently prevalent on campus. There is what appears to be an official identity mark (it at least is not labeled as unofficial, while others from this source are labeled as unofficial). That identity mark is File:UCSC logo.png, and sourcing for it is at UCSC's Public Relations Office.

However, when I placed this (not declared as unofficial) logo at the head of the infobox [6], I was reverted [7] and told that consensus exists to use the slug logo [8].

I am, therefore, seeking wider consensus.

My stance in abstract is that in any organization's infobox, we should only be using official identity marks. In this case in particular, I think we should be using the identity mark rather than the logo, and the logo should be displayed further down in the article with some discussion as to how this logo came about, how it's used, etc. Since it appears to be popular, secondary sources could be found to support such text.

Input please? Thanks, --Hammersoft (talk) 17:27, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

• I agree that the slug logo doesn't belong at the top of the article. Of the logos provided at UCSC's Public Relations Office, I can see the USC unofficial seal as being the top graphic and the logotype graphic on the bottom of the infobox. The slug logo is more of a fanboi image and not appropriate to represent the university. Stick it in the student activities section if it really needs to be included. -Mabeenot (talk) 18:02, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Specifically regarding the Fiat Slug logo, both the characterization of the logo as a "fanboi" image and the assertion that it is not used by the university are incorrect. While it is not, in fact, the seal of the university, official use of the Fiat Slug logo (e.g., [9][10][11][12][13][14](at foot of page)[15]) and close variations of it (e.g., [16][17][18]) is pervasive at UCSC. The logo is listed here under "UCSC Identity Guidelines" and available for download by university web designers in three different formats.

The dilemma we faced when picking an image for the infobox header was that, on the one hand, the "official unofficial seal" of UCSC (which goes onto official correspondence, diplomas, and such) is both rather bland to behold and, aside from the printed-out name of the campus beside it, generic to the entire UC system. Its value as an immediately-recognizable identity mark is negligible. On the other hand, the Fiat Slug logo, while somewhat less official, is widely recognized in the world at large (in no small part due to John Travolta and Quentin Tarantino[19]) and is accepted by the denizens of the UCSC community as a unique, long-standing, and beloved symbol of their campus. The solution we came up with was to use the more-recognizable Fiat Slug image at the head of the infobox where it would immediately greet the reader, and then include the "official unofficial seal" with the "UC Santa Cruz" legend at the foot of the infobox using the logo = parameter-- which was serendipitously the perfect spot, from an aesthetic point of view, for an image of its dimensions.

This was perfectly acceptable given the guideline for using the image_name = parameter as it existed at the time we put the infobox together. It also jibed with the then-current consensus that certain parameters of the infobox should be flexible enough to accommodate less-conventional arrangements when they were warranted. The guideline for the image_name = parameter has since been changed to strictly require the institution's "official or ceremonial seal, shield or coat of arms that is used for high profile ceremonial events such as convocation, for degree certificates, and official transcripts;" but since the change seems to have been done unilaterally by a now-blocked sock puppet acting without any sort of consensus (this was not noticed until now), I believe the pre-existing guidelines on infobox images should still be considered valid until a real consensus emerges otherwise. This is being addressed at Template talk:Infobox university#Policy on images in the infobox (a sockpuppet story). --Dynaflow babble 19:42, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

I find Dynaflow's arguments convincing, particularly in light of the suspicious changes made to the infobox instructions (which I just changed back). I agree that we should use the official logo in most cases but we should have some flexibility and Dynaflow has argued successfully for an exception, IMHO. --ElKevbo (talk) 19:55, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Dynaflow. Flexibility and latitude must be preserved. Institutional use of identifying seals, crests, marks and logos (some institutions possessing multiple variations of all four types) may differ from institution to institution in both national and regional applications. The consensus for the display of the appropriate images for an article is well served when serious consideration is given to the input from those familiar with the culture and operations of the particular college or university, thus upholding the notion of expert knowledge. CrazyPaco (talk) 00:36, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

So long as the "Fiat Slug" image is also a trademark of the university, it is the closest thing UCSC has to a distinguishing university seal. The "unofficial seal" in the UCSC style guidelines is the generic seal of the UC system. Arguments for or against either can only take place on aesthetic grounds, and while I don't have a personal interest in this, I find the Fiat Slug image charming. Amerique^dialectics 20:08, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

• Ok, given Dynaflow's links to various different offices at UCSC using that logo, it seems official enough. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:45, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Requesting Peer Review and Suggestions

As a part of my work on improving and wikifying community college articles, I am working on Rock Valley College. As can be viewed by the history, I have made several changes to the article by adding appropriate references and and NPOV content. However, there is a section called Rock_Valley_College#Controversy that was put together by an editor that only edits this one page. I have entered into a discussion with the talk page and the room agrees the section should be removed or rewritten. I have not edited it yet but made a suggestion for the section at on the talk page at Talk:Rock_Valley_College#A_review_of_citations_and_suggested_text_for_controversy. However, the user, Weezer4718 (talk o contribs

has begun to get personal. I have pointed him in the direction of the appropriate policies, but the editor seems to have an ax to grind, and I wish to avoid any edit war before it begins. I would appreciate any thoughts any one has on how to improve the suggestion, and the section mentioned, and if you do or do not agree the section violates WP:NPOV, WP:POV, WP:BLP, or WP:Universities standards. Also, feel free to tell me if I am in the wrong as well. All comments appreciated. IlliniGradResearch (talk) 17:31, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

• I agree that the author of the controversy section seems to have an axe to grind. While some mention of those controversial activities ought to be included in the article, I think the way it is currently written places undue weight upon the controversies and seems to promote the staff writers at The Rock River Times. -Mabeenot (talk) 09:43, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. Could you possible place the same comments on the talk page in the Talk:Rock_Valley_College#A_review_of_citations_and_suggested_text_for_controversy section for the room to view? Thanks for the input. IlliniGradResearch (talk) 09:59, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Sure. All done. -Mabeenot (talk) 10:06, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Seeking Input By Project Members on New Template for Colleges

I have been running what amounts to a one-man task force on Community Colleges in Illinois, which has articles that tend to be under developed. My goal is to get them half of them Good Article Status over the next 12 months. As a part of this, I have designed a few samples of a proposed Footer Template of Illinois Community Colleges to accompany the articles. I would like to gather as much opinion as possible on which of the three samples proposed would be best and fit best. I am looking to be thorough and detailed, without cluttering the list. Please take the time to go to the page and review the three samples and vote on the Talk Page which of the three would be best. Please feel free to offer suggestions to improve the lists or any article. Thanks. IlliniGradResearch (talk) 18:43, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I like Set 2 the most. It provides enough geographic reference without becoming overly complicated. Set 1 seems to have too many divisions while Set 3 lumps together colleges based solely upon whether or not its in Chicago. However, the "Special College Districts" in Set 1 does look interesting.

Pick a B-class and a Start-class article from your template that you'd like some help with. One of them might end up nominated for a future Collaboration of the Month... ;)

-Mabeenot (talk) 06:43, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Oaksterdam University

Is this project for accredited schools only, or should Oaksterdam University be included here as well? --Another Believer _(Talk) 22:08, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

• My opinion is that Oaksterdam is more of an advocacy group or a community organization promoting political activism. Just because it uses the term "university" in its name doesn't make it an institution of higher education. But that's just my two cents. -Mabeenot (talk) 22:27, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
• I would have to second that notion. It is offering a class but is in no way accredited. What it does have going for it is notability. I would imagine it would best fit in the context of an article about implementation of the Michigan statute, or other article on the recent decriminalization of cannabis at the state level. IlliniGradResearch (talk) 00:26, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Rankings lists

I recently came across this issue on Talk:Global University Ranking and now with the new articles Global University Ranking, 2009 and Academic Ranking of World Universities, 2009, and I'm wondering if there's been any consensus, and if not, what the feeling is, as to the encyclopedicness of lists of rankings in ranking articles or as standalone articles. Any thoughts?-- DroEsperanto (talk) 15:26, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

• The Global University Ranking website has a copyright notice on the bottom of each page, including the pages that give the rankings. I think it would be fair use to state in the individual college articles, "This college ranked Nth in the 2009 Global University Ranking." Doesn't putting the entire list in a wikitable as a stand alone article raise serious copyright issues? Racepacket (talk) 12:06, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
  • I deeply appreciate the effort and value of reproducing the top rankings here, but I think that it is a copyright violation to do so. However, reporting in the individual college articles that a single school was ranked Nth, is probably fair use. Perhaps someone could get a permission from the copyright holder to reproduce their rankings on Wikipedia. Racepacket (talk) 12:00, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Online Schools

Hey everyone just joined up and was wondering how people are dealing with online schools--Supercopone (talk) 20:27, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

In what sense?-- DroEsperanto (talk) 20:37, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Should any student life info be added?--Super (talk) 02:51, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I doubt it, unless they have some kind of unusual student culture that would merit discussion. -- DroEsperanto (talk) 03:07, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Its just that its a huge segment nowdays,I agree it would have to very unique to have enough merit to gain a write up of any kind, but if ones does I just wanted to run it by a few people to see if it was acceptable to add.--Super (talk) 04:17, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

What did you have in mind?-- DroEsperanto (talk) 04:28, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I have been looking at the Student Life Section over on the Ashworth College article. It needs some work, it has way to much info that has no importance.--Super (talk) 16:02, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Convert template for acres

I am not super familiar with the metric system when it comes to land. I have noticed that when most university pages use the {{convert}} template with acres, the conversion is into square kilometers. ex. the University of Notre Dame states that its campus is 1,250 acres (5.1 km2). However, I know that hectares are also a form of land measurement for the metric system. Would it be more logical to have all universities state convert their land size from acres into hectares rather than square kilometers? Thanks. Oldag07 (talk) 06:22, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I think Square Kilometers is the standerd unit.--Super (talk) 16:04, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Founding of the University of Paris

The desciption of the University of Paris contains founding dates of between 1160 and 1170. Henry II of England enacted a law in 1167 forbiding English students from attending the University of Paris, much to the benefit of Oxford.Aliveinmaine (talk) 04:07, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

CFD discussion needs your input

Can any members of this project offer their thoughts at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 December 31#Colleges.2C_schools.2C_and_departments_by_university? Thanks! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) o (contribs) 18:06, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Haywood Community College

This article needs some attention from someone more familiar with the area. There is currently a dispute regarding the inclusion of some material in the article which appears to have references, though they are offline refs. Any help at Talk:Haywood Community College is appreciated. ···???^? · ?? · Talk to Nihonjoe 16:54, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

WP 1.0 bot announcement

This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. -- Carl (CBM · talk) 04:07, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Northcentral University

A few more sets of eyes and hands at Northcentral University would be greatly appreciated. An uncommunicative anonymous editor is reverting others' edits without communicating and imposing a promotional POV on the article. --ElKevbo (talk) 17:15, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

NAIA final report 2010

I am pleased to announce that all 290 schools in the NAIA system are linked with the Wikiproject Universities tag on the talk page!!! Hurray! And nearly all of them have a rating too (thanks to User:Aboutmovies! The NAIA are smaller colleges in the United States and Canada, so they were off the radar some what of this project. But now all are together. Plus additional schools I found along the way. A major step has been completed by the finding and linking all the university pages on wikipedia; a tenet of the charter I believe. So lift up your glass of wikichampagne for a toast, and here's to WikiProject Universities! hip hip horray! Moonraker0022 (talk) 20:15, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Conference realignment

March 9, 2011: I have updated the NAIA list. And have added 2 schools into the University Project. Moonraker0022 (talk) 03:51, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

New Univ Collaborations

The new collaborations have been selected. Take a swing at these articles:

Also, be sure to vote for the next Universities Collaboration of the Month. -Mabeenot (talk) 20:28, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

NACUBO endowment numbers\rankings out

Gitcher data right here! New numbers, new rankings, and stunning percentage changes! Madcoverboy (talk) 05:52, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Rowan University

We're having a bit of an edit war over at Rowan University; two editors new to the article chose to excise portions of the article pertaining to the only two on-campus murders that have happened. Unfortunately discussion started late and further intervention from more-experienced WP:UNI editors is needed. Thanks!  RasputinAXP  14:10, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

They seem to be given undue prominence in the version being reverted to. I welcome more eyes and opinions on the topic. Verbal chat 14:15, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Alumnus image in NCSU article

A few editors disagree about the inclusion of an image of a prominent alumnus in North Carolina State University?. The previous consensus was to include the article but an editor has raised the question again. However, that editor insists on removing the image as the discussion unfolds. Can a few more editors please weigh in the conversation and the actions of the involved editors? Thanks! --ElKevbo (talk) 17:04, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

• Personally, I don't care much for the debate about the source of his fame. I think it's a non-issue. But, I think including so many photos in such a small section is poor editing. Six paragraphs, four photos (if you include Edwards). That's seriously excessive. If there's a penchant for adding pictures, add them to List of North Carolina State University people, where only two of the images of the four in this section exist. Though, I would caution that you don't go massively overboard as has happened at List of Florida State University people (which has in excess of 100!). --Hammersoft (talk) 17:26, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

That's a reasonable position. My issue is how this one editor is going about things. It's totally acceptable to raise old questions to see if our collective views have changed. It's completely unacceptable to edit an article in violation of an existing consensus and then blatantly state that you don't care. This is more of a process issue than a content issues. --ElKevbo (talk) 18:01, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Merger of Vojvodina Academy of Sciences and Arts and Vojvodinian Academy of Sciences and Art

Hello. If members of this project could look into and help figure out the correct way to merge Vojvodina Academy of Sciences and Arts and Vojvodinian Academy of Sciences and Art, it would be really appreciated. Thanks, -- Kralizec! (talk) 13:30, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I went ahead and carried out the merge. The merge itself should be uncontroversial as these articles related to the same organization. I took out some detail, for example the names of members which were all red links. (Not all professors meet WP:PROF.) There might continue to be some controversy about the article, but the merge is done. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:23, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Anschutz Medical Campus

Could you include University of Colorado's Anschutz Medical Campus into WikiProject Universities? It is essentially the new name for University of Colorado Health Sciences Center (you can read about the history of the renaming at University of Colorado Denver). Thanks! Bobfreshwater (talk) 01:54, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

University of Miami

1) We have received a GA review at Talk:University of Miami/GA3 and could use some seasoned editors to make the suggested improvements over the next week.

• The nomination failed due to article "instability." Your improvements are still welcomedn and valued. Racepacket (talk) 16:57, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Separate business school article

2) One GA review concern prompted me to split off University of Miami School of Business Administration into a separate article. Another editor, at first acted under the misimpression that the school was only an undergraduate program merged it back to the main article. It would be helpful to have a third opinion as to whether such a split is beneficial or permissible. I have asked the other editor for some latitude to develop the article, but he is threatening repeated deletion. So I am userfying it at User:Racepacket/UM and would appreciate some input. 3) The editor has a number of remarks objecting to the GA process. and saying that we should be content to have the University of Miami article Class B. I thought that WP:UNI had a goal of elevating all college main articles to GA or better. Am I mistaken about this? Thanks. Racepacket (talk) 05:46, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

• Article now moved into the mainspace, but your further comments are still welcome. Racepacket (talk) 13:14, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
• Just a friendly notice that User:Ryulong has nominated it for deletion at: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/University of Miami School of Business Administration Thanks Racepacket (talk) 03:06, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Research coverage

Two different GA reviews have correctly pointed out that the Research section of the UM main article needs beefing up. We are now on hold and I am trying to address the concerns expressed in the review. However, there is another editor who does not share GA-status as a goal nor shares my understanding of what a Research section can cover. He has moved the discussion of research projects conducted by specific schools out of the main article into the school-specific articles. Also, I have included "Harvey" a teaching mannequin that was developed at UM, but he deletes it as inappropriate. The question is whether a good research section can include 5 or 6 examples of innovations which give a school a nation-wide research reputation. Please comment at: Talk:University of Miami#Research. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 01:33, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

The "Harvey" mannequin is entirely trivial when there is so much content on the rest of the research performed at UM, especially when all you wrote was this and you used Answers.com as the reference.--Ry?lóng (??) 03:22, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Colleges of University of California San Diego

Do people think we need an article on each of these colleges? There are few independent sources cited. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:04, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

• I think that the colleges covering the graduate and professional schools are pretty good. The undergraduate residential colleges are thin. Perhaps you should search google news for outside coverage. Racepacket (talk) 17:01, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

GA Reassessment of De La Salle University

I have done a GA Reassessment of the De La Salle University article as part of the GA Sweeps project. I have found that the article does not meet current GA Criteria. My review can be found here. I have placed the article on hold for a week and I am notifying all interested projects and editors. If you have any questions or concerns please contact me on my talk page. H1nkles (talk) 17:03, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Scope question

Do the articles about individual academics fall under the scope of this wikiproject? Thanks, Nsk92 (talk) 23:20, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Campus of Michigan State University GA Sweeps: On Hold

I have reviewed Campus of Michigan State University for GA Sweeps to determine if it still qualifies as a Good Article. In reviewing the article I have found several issues, which I have detailed here. Since the article falls under the scope of this project, I figured you would be interested in contributing to further improve the article. Please comment there to help the article maintain its GA status. If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk o contrib) 00:49, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Obama

I received an email stating there no records of Obama attending Columbia. It stated that no student, (in the years he claimed to have attended) remembers him. DOES ANYONE HAVE AN ANSWER? --Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.255.162.227 (talk) 15:33, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

GA reassessment of De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde

I have conducted a reassessment of the above article as part of the GA Sweeps process. I have found some concerns which you can see at Talk:De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde/GA1. I have placed the article on hold whilst these are fixed. Thanks. Jezhotwells (talk) 23:24, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

GA reassessment of Willamette University College of Law

I have conducted a reassessment of the above article as part of the GA Sweeps process. I have found some concerns which you can see at Talk:Willamette University College of Law/GA1. I have placed the article on hold whilst these are fixed. Thanks. Jezhotwells (talk) 15:21, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

GA reassessment of University of California, Santa Cruz

I have conducted a reassessment of the above article as part of the GA Sweeps process. I have found some concerns which you can see at Talk:University of California, Santa Cruz/GA1. I have placed the article on hold whilst these are fixed. Thanks. Jezhotwells (talk) 15:49, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

GA reassessment of United States Air Force Academy

I have conducted a reassessment of the above article as part of the GA Sweeps process. You are being notified as your project banner is on the article talk page. Unfortunately the poor state of referencing of the article meant that I immediately de-listed it as it fails to meet the GA criteria at present. When these concerns, which you can see at Talk:United States Air Force Academy/GA1, have been addressed you may renominate the article at WP:GAN. If you disagree with this re-assessemnt please take it to WP:GAR for community re-assessment. Thanks. Jezhotwells (talk) 08:10, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

GA Reassessment of Michigan State University academics

Michigan State University academics has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here. --Malleus Fatuorum 15:43, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

GA Reassessment of Litchfield Towers

I have done a GA Reassessment of the Litchfield Towers article as part of the GA Sweeps project. My review can be found here. I have found that the artice does not meet the current GA Criteria. As such I have put the article on hold for a week and I am notifying all interested projects and editors. If you have any questions or concerns please contact me on my talk page. H1nkles (talk) 18:13, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

GA Reassessment of Michigan State University Libraries

I have done a GA Reassessment of the Michigan State University Libraries article as part of the GA Sweeps project. My review is here. I have found that the article does not meet current GA Criteria and as such I have put the review on hold pending work. I am notifying all interested editors and projects. If you have any questions or concerns please contact me on my talk page. H1nkles (talk) 16:45, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

GA reassessment of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

I have conducted a reassessment of the above article as part of the GA Sweeps process. You are being notified as this project's banner is on the talk page. I have found some concerns which you can see at Talk:Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute/GA1. I have placed the article on hold whilst these are fixed. Thanks. Jezhotwells (talk) 22:22, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

• I assume that most members of WikiProject Universities do not check this talk page on a daily basis. (I don't.) Hence, the the "sweeps process" is going so fast that 1) we don't have time to react or 2) organize a meaningful response. It would be nice if we could have some advanced notice of which articles are going to be revaluated and their time frame for doing so, so that we can line up volunteers to interact with the review process. There are 47 GA articles left in the Wikiproject and it would be useful to divide up a response to their reassessment among available volunteers. Racepacket (talk) 10:27, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Departmental Pages

Greetings. This is another question in regards to the possible scope of this project. Members of my department and I are thinking of putting together an article on just our department: its history (being somewhat long), and its current standing. It is admittedly borderline WP:COI, but we do have references at the ready. Thoughts? Owensmartin (talk) 18:22, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Are you sure that there is a need for an article on a single department? Is the main article on your university already too long to cover the interesting facts about your department? And are there enough good independent references? Better brief coverage in the main article on your uni than a weak article on your dept. Just some thoughts. You can draft the article in userspace and get feedback on it before you proceed to mainspace. Post here if you do that. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:05, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes there is a fairly rich history to the department going back some 75 years. It is something academics and enthusiasts would be interested in. I think I will develop it on my user page and then upgrade. Thx Owensmartin (talk) 22:57, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Accreditation Categories

I have been playing around with the thought of categorizing institutions by their accreditation body. Thoughts? Would this fall into the scoop of this WikiProject? --IntensifyIt (talk) 22:57, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

This would definitely be the right WikiProject and it might give us an excuse to expand the articles on each accrediting body. I know most of the university articles already include this information either in a navbox template or in the infobox as an "affiliation." Maybe your new categories should be linked the the existing navboxes. -Mabeenot (talk) 01:27, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Articles on university buildings being erased

Over the last two days, User:Namiba has systematically erased about twenty-two articles on university buildings, typically by removing all content and redirecting the article to the university's main page or one on the campus when it exists. The user does not believe that university buildings are generally notable. I don't believe there was any decision or consensus that prompted this action. I brought the article on New South Hall to an AfD discussion, but most of these articles received no warning or discussion before being blanked by the user. I'm first off looking for some help at the AfD, but also some guidance as to what buildings notability, and also how we should act in these situations when they're challenged like this.-- Patrick {_o?^?} 22:10, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Schools targeted in this drive include the University of Kansas, Arizona, Georgia, Missouri, Michigan, Michigan State, Mississippi State, Virginia Commonwealth, UC Berkeley, Georgetown University, Yale, Brigham Young, and the Rochester Institute of Technology.-- Patrick {_o?^?} 22:22, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

This is still on-going and includes the University of Chicago and UC Santa Barbara. There should be a lot more discussion on this. User:Namiba does this based on Wikipedia:List of bad article ideas, which is an essay, not a policy. While I think an essay is fine for discouraging college students from starting articles on their favorite dorm or fraternity, wholesale deletion of existing, well-sourced articles is a different matter. I admire User:Namiba's dedication, but believe that he is taking being bold to a point beyond consensus. Racepacket (talk) 12:28, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree that large-scale PRODing/redirecting is usually a bad idea, but I also agree that some of the halls the user PRODed don't seem terribly notable and might get deleted if brought to AfD. If folks want these articles saved, they should demonstrate notability by finding significant coverage in reliable (and independent if possible) sources rather than just dePRODing them. Regards, PDCook (talk) 13:14, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

I've commented at a few of these AfDs and think that this would be a good opportunity to develop a guideline on residence hall procedures. Specifically, I think the default position should be for each university to have a housing or residence hall article, that discusses all of the housing provided by the university at that campus. If there are particular residence halls that are standout notable, they can have their own article, but the vast majority are not. Collectively the housing of a university is certainly notable, and if people have created pages for each building, there's enough content to expand into a housing article.

This has a few advantages over the separate articles that have been targeted. In most cases these residence hall articles are mere stubs, they're prone to vandalism (particularly from those that live in them, on Saturday night) but not prone to be watchlisted by frequent contributors, they need to be separately maintained, and they don't provide any context about housing on the university as a whole. A collective article for each campus would allow for a full description of housing on a campus, its history, as well as each residence hall. Shadowjams (talk) 19:54, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Shadowjams. I think that we need to define the exceptional circumstances in which a dorm would be notable, and recognize that most of the articles that are being written about them are not going to meet it. (the most frequent circumstances are being an individually listed historical landmark, or a major work by a famous architect--these are general criteria for buildings, not specific for universities) There will always be sources of some sort, as for any large building, but for most they will rarely be truly independent and not often substantial, and the material in the article will be almost entirely non-encyclopedic . But on practical grounds alone, it would be good to have a suitable combination article for each university. Most universities have too many of these to keep on the main page, and a list with short descriptions of the history would serve as a place for people to add material. If we keep them out altogether, they'll just keep coming back, and, as with a whole range of borderline subjects, a compromise like this is the best solution. DGG ( talk ) 05:09, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

We dodge a few bullets with the University of Chicago dorms at the Afd:

• Burton-Judson Courts - keep
• Maclean Hall - merge
• Broadview Hall - merge
• Breckinridge Hall - no consensus (kept)
• Blackstone Hall - delete
• Max Palevsky Residential Commons - no consensus (kept)
• Pierce Tower - speedy close
• Stony Island Hall - no consensus (kept)
• South Campus Residence Hall- no consensus (kept)

The problem with the University of Chicago is that it has a house system, which in many cases represents one or two floors of a dorm. A lot of UC's housing was purchased from prior owners (having served as a YMCA or Hotel) and are remote from its central campus. In contrast, Cornell University has two major groups of dorms (on West Campus and North Campus) so they are covered in just two articles. I agree that we need to discourage articles created as a Saturday night drunken impulse. I would suggest giving each college-specific wikiproject discretion on how to structure its coverage. We can then have a WP:UNI criteria for those institutions that do not have college-specific wikiprojects. Regardless of what we decide, I think it is better to work out here than by doing a flood of AfD nominations. I suspect that if I were given more time, I could have found more reliable sources for the articles in question. Piling on the AfD nominations at one time made that impossible. Racepacket (talk) 04:48, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

It's a good idea to deal with it here rather than through AfDs. We need a unified policy done here. If individual college projects want to have additional policies that's fine, but as a practical matter many of those projects aren't highly trafficked and a single criteria will be much more useful and visible. That criteria should be the guiding one. Much as the WP:ATHLETE criteria covers all sports, we should have a WP:DORM guideline that covers campus housing.

The criteria itself is up for grabs, but it should be consistent across all schools (or written so that it can be). However it's written, I think the discussion and nominations above suggest that the default position for most dorms is to be included in a housing article, not as stand alones. Shadowjams (talk) 05:05, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Symbiosis International University

A merge has been proposed to fold into this main article many smaller articles about the University's colleges and departments. I've already redirected a few of the smaller, unsourced and stubby articles to the main article. However, some of the other articles are larger and sourced, but I still doubt most of them are notable enough to have their own pages. I thought I should bring this up here before much more material gets merged. If you're interested, take a look. Thanks, PDCook (talk) 13:14, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

There is an ongoing discussion about this: Talk:Symbiosis International University. PDCook (talk) 13:32, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Endowment source

An unregistered editor editing University of San Francisco? is insisting that we publish the endowment figure published by US News & World Report in place of or in addition to the figure published by NACUBO. The two figures do not match and I have engaged the editor in discussion on the article's Talk page. This discussion may set a precedent so I invite other interested parties to join the discussion. --ElKevbo (talk) 17:47, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Help with enthusiastic new editor at UConn School of Law article

Can someone else please wander over to University of Connecticut School of Law and help me engage its main editor in conversation? He or she claims to be new and in need of guidance and I'm afraid that continued reversions and heavy handed actions by me will not be good. The apparent copyvios are the most concerning but they could also be interpreted as poor attempts to paraphrase and otherwise legitimately use available (uncited) sources. --ElKevbo (talk) 01:07, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to try and tone it down a bit. If the editor RVs it I'll try to talk to them. Shadowjams (talk) 03:08, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Featured List: List of Washington & Jefferson College alumni

Is there anyone here who would be able to review List of Washington & Jefferson College alumni for Featured List status: Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of Washington & Jefferson College alumni/archive1?--GrapedApe (talk) 16:10, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Brazilian universities

Please! change the official name to portuguese official name of brazilian universities. For example: Federal University of Bahia to Universidade Federal da Bahia. and other pages such as University of São Paulo to Universidade de São Paulo. Help the name of Brazilian Universities!

User:Hentzer (8 April 2010)

It's standard to use the Anglicized version of official names. Shadowjams (talk) 23:03, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Isles Internationale Université - another clone of discredited Irish International University

This 'institution'http://www.iiuedu.eu/ is yet another variation of the unaccredited (and discredited) Irish International University (as admitted here http://www.iiuedu.eu/about/history.html).

The Wikipedia entry Isles Internationale Université currently has a copy of marketing material directly lifted from the web site and may well be aiding giving a misconception of legitimacy though having a Wikipedia article. This appears to be a bit of a shell game, as the previous incarnation (English Spelling) "Isles International University" now re-directs to "Irish International University" on Wikipedia Isles International University, and the actual web site now has a defunct home page with all links deactivated http://www.iiuedu.ac/

I suggest that the Isles Internationale Université entry also be immediately re-directed to "Irish International University" and added to the list of related names used.--Savlonn (talk) 23:01, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Done.

The website of this enterprise makes for intermittently hilarious reading, for those of us who still have critical faculties. Here's a particularly lovely tidbit:

The IIU Press and Research Centre is a Division if the Isles International Université, which withholds all needed resources, state-of-the-arts tools and facilities to enhance the Université's students, researchers and Faculty highest quality cutting-edge research work performance, research work's results and findings presentation and publishing to gain worldwide exposure.

If you're too sleepy to get it, start by noting that real universities provide resources, whereas this place withholds them. As indeed it does, or anyway I can't see a single press item shown by this "Press and Research Centre.

Oh yes, and we're told that Up to December 2008, MPU has published over 174,000 books and monographs. (Take that, OUP!) All of them "reliable sources", no doubt. -- Hoary (talk) 16:10, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Well - you can't accuse them of dishonesty with that particular sentence. They do indeed withhold all needed resources, state-of-the-arts tools and facilities... Savlonn (talk) 17:08, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Lead image of College

There is an interesting discussion beginning at Talk:College regarding what image should be used in the lead. Additional input is welcome. --ElKevbo (talk) 19:45, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Diploma Mills

I looked at the diploma mills list and I didn't see Titan High School but when I tried to enroll in college with a diploma from there then no college would actually accept a diploma from Titan High School. So, can someone please let me know if they really are a diploma mill? --Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.11.97.119 (talk) 15:20, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

State University of New York at Geneseo?

A few more eyes on this article would be most welcome. An unregistered editor and I disagree on the inclusion of an unsourced statement proclaiming that this institution is the most prestigious in the SUNY system. Thanks! --ElKevbo (talk) 21:16, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Anyone? --ElKevbo (talk) 03:39, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you that such a statement needs a source. Shadowjams (talk) 03:41, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Seeing as SUNY Binghamton is the only SUNY school in the Public Ivy list, I would say that Geneseo isn't the most prestigious. FireAllianceNX (talk) 19:05, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Ryerson University

An editor is concerned about neutrality in this article, has posted to the neutral point of view noticeboard about it. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:57, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

There are still many problems with the article. I have made a few fixes, but it really needs to be rewritten. Racepacket (talk) 16:38, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

A disruptive editor has been making a lot of trivial, POV, and COI edits to UW-Milwaukee articles. It seems as though he's trying to turn them all into college brochures. Could someone neutral please take a look at them? Thanks. 75.2.209.226 (talk) 15:52, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

• University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
• University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee College of Engineering and Applied Science
• University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee College of Health Sciences
• University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee College of Letters and Science
• University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee College of Nursing
• Helen Bader School of Social Welfare
• Peck School of the Arts
• University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Architecture and Urban Planning
• University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Education
• University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Information Studies
• University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Freshwater Sciences
• University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Public Health
• Sheldon B. Lubar School of Business

In addition to this please consider Wikipedia:College and university article guidelines which would seem to state that they may not be notable enough for own articles. Further to 75.2.209.226 COI point - I have posted on WP:COIN here Codf1977 (talk) 21:11, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

The parent article University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is certainly appropriate, but I tend to agree that all of the subsidiary schools that are within the university do not require brochure-like pages of their own. Whether the school has separate enrollment is a good metric (i.e. professional schools, medicine, nursing, law, all should have separate articles, but schools within a college, liberal arts divisions for example, should not). Shadowjams (talk) 01:40, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

can I have some other opinions on two of the above :

• University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Information Studies
• University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Freshwater Sciences

a SPA (Askeovq (talk · contribs)) account has been "questioning" the Notability tag on the articles (also see my talk page for the discussion) - I am of the mind that they are not significantly notable enough for own articles - Askeovq believes I am POV pushing. Codf1977 (talk) 15:11, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Public Ivy? babysitting

Ok, someone else can take a turn babysitting Public Ivy?; I'm removing it from my watchlist. Every couple of days someone adds an institution not included or deletes an institution that is included in the books from which the lists are derived so someone needs to be watching this. I'm just tired of doing it. :) --ElKevbo (talk) 18:56, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Added to my watchlist. -Mabeenot (talk) 19:20, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Kingston University

(Not Jamaica but suburban London.) The article Kingston University has attracted a number of "controversies". I'm inclined to remove one third or more of them as trivial, poorly sourced or both, and to block any IP who persists in disagreeing. However, I'm busy with "RL", tired, sleepy, and bored by Kingston University; so perhaps that all adds up to another reason why I shouldn't both argue on its talk page and wield the cluebat. Those without an axe to grind are welcome to take a look. -- Hoary (talk) 02:16, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

It has issues - I have posted to WP:COIN - see Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#Kingston_University_COI_and_NPOV. Codf1977 (talk) 15:45, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

One thing it raises for this project is whether we think it is ever appropriate for a university article to have a "Controversies" section. In this case it seems like a rag-bag of every contentious issue the university has been involved in in recent years. I would reorganise it but I think some of these issues simply need to be deleted, and I'm not sure which. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:26, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree it would be the best way forward. But given what we have now the line on this one (for me) would be drawn at those that directly effect the education offered (as that is the primary purpose for a University after all) - so that would have me delete Anti Semitic Group on Campus and what is left of Workplace stress. I would leave National Student Survey exaggeration and External examiner controversy, but would edit them down a bit in accordance with WP:UNDUE. As for Injunction to stop harassment of student I would remove the bit about the locks being changed and water being turned off as it is not clear as to what happened and why it happened. But I think that the rest should probably stay as it goes to show actions of the University towards it's students. Codf1977 (talk) 17:59, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

The article isn't out of the woods yet. Please keep an eye on it, peoples. -- Hoary (talk) 23:47, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to take the "controversies" heading off. As a general rule for the project, wouldn't it make more sense to have a heading "academic quality", which could contain the academic league table ranking alongside any reliably sourced information about problems? Itsmejudith (talk) 07:34, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

RfC on Indiana Wesleyan University/Talk:Indiana Wesleyan University

It's been a while since I've actively edited, and I'm being told to just leave this article alone. I think it needs a lot of work. Would love more eyes on it, either way. --inquietudeofcharacter (talk) 15:03, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Expanded Edit for Midpeninsula Free University artlicle

The expanded edit of the article has now been finalized. A full explanation of the edit is to be found on the discussion page of the entry for the "Midpeninsula Free University."

James Wolpman (Midpeninsula Free University) 11:45, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Template:Public Ivy

Is a template for Public Ivy necessary? What is to then stop the creation of templates for every arbitrary list published for schools listed in any particular category? E.g., why not then a US News best publics template or a US News Best Values Template, etc., etc? Should this template be WP:TFD? CrazyPaco (talk) 18:46, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

If a template's subject itself has its own article then I would generally think that creating a nav template is acceptable. In this case there is a Public Ivy article, so I think a nav template is fine here. Rreagan007 (talk) 17:50, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Well there is an article on almost every ranking too. I think it is unnecessary to have a template for any of them, and Public Ivies is ultimately just a ranking (albeit without a real methodology). I believe it is setting a bad precedent, but I'm reluctant to TFD it. CrazyPaco (talk) 23:48, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Facebook Community Pages & College/University images

Wikipedia is now being used as a primary source to populate Facebook's new Community Pages. Since the first images on college/university pages are usually seals and not wordmarks (the more accepted, recognizable images of many schools), could we talk about whether a switch in formatting for college & university pages (to allow for wordmarks displayed first) is in order? In one specific case, the Boston University seal has been noted in their official brand guidelines as unsuitable for use on social media platforms, and the wordmark is standard, but due to the changes with Facebook and Facebook Community Pages, the seal shows as the default image.Jmackintosh (talk) 18:32, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

(moved to bottom)

I guess I don't understand why this something that needs to be fixed by Wikipedia. This issue is caused by a decision on the part of either Facebook or Facebook users based on Wikipedia information and a decision on the part of Boston University governing its control of its seal.Naraht (talk) 20:02, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree that BU's usage guidelines aren't really our problem. And I agree that in a perfect world Facebook would consult with others before making changes or implementing new features - but I'm not holding my breath.

I advised Jmackintosh to bring this issue here for wider discussion because it raises a broader issue. I'd like to know why we give university logos - images that are unrecognizable by the general public - such prominence. That seems to fly in the face of our guidelines and practices where we make a significant effort to eschew formality in favor of approachability and readability. It seems that simply swapping seals and wordmarks would not only solve this silly Facebook issue but also be more in line with our general practices. ElKevbo (talk) 20:26, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

• It is frequently the case that wordmarks are actually logos of the sports department of the university, rather than logos of the entire university. Further, not every university even has a wordmark, but virtually all have a seal. In Boston's case, their visual identity standards prefers the use of the wordmark. But, that's just Boston's case. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:53, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Can you please share some examples of American colleges or universities that (a) do not have wordmarks and (b) have commonly-recognized wordmarks that are exclusive to their athletic program? I am skeptical because I suspect that such examples are relatively rare.

I think that a compromise of "If an institution does not have a widely-recognized wordmark then we use their seal as the topmost image" would be good. But I still haven't heard a convincing reason for using these archaic and unrecognizable symbols instead of the much more widely-recognized and -used wordmarks.

(Of course, I am only speaking of the American context. I am sure that the situation is different for institutions in other countries with the possible exception of Canada whose practices are typically similar to their neighbors to the south.) ElKevbo (talk) 01:53, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't know if we need a project wide rule on this. Can't editors of a page decide on that among themselves? But if there is to be one, it shouldn't be so to conform for Facebook.-- Patrick {_o?^?} 03:22, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

I actually prefer a seal at the top of university articles rather than a wordmark. Wordmarks, like all other promotional aspects of a university, are frequently changed to follow the latest design and marketing trends. In contrast, a university's seal (usually) remains stable over long periods of time. Plus, seals frequently include useful information like the school's complete name, date of founding, and location. Wordmarks only include a fashionable rendition of the name frequently accompanied by a promotional slogan or graphic. I also agree with Hammersoft that not all schools have a wordmark, although there are some schools (particularly technical and community colleges) that do not have a seal. To further complicate things, what do we do when a university uses a variety of different wordmarks in official publications sent to different audiences? Ultimately, it is not Wikipedia's concern if Boston University or any other school forbids the use of their seal on social networking sites. Facebook created the situation and Facebook has the power to remedy the situation if Boston University decides to make an issue out of it. -Mabeenot (talk) 03:35, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

There are also schools like the University of Pennsylvania that use a separate shield or crest at the top of their infobox instead of their official seal. Editors and Wikiprojects most familiar with the particular institution are probably in the best position to judge what is the best identifying mark to use in the lead infobox. I agree, however, Wikipedia should not be instituting policies or guidelines to conform to Facebook. CrazyPaco (talk) 23:56, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree with other editors that Wikipedia should not alter its policies or precedents because of misuse on the part of other organizations. I likewise also agree with Mabeenot's argument that seals should remain the primary graphic identity associated with universities as these are generally historically stable as opposed to wordmarks which come and go with administrations' and society's aesthetic tastes, often have other valorizing characteristics such as location, founding date, and other contextual information, and are ultimately placed on the most representative documents of the university: the degrees it gives its graduates. Madcoverboy (talk) 14:16, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Let's restart the discussion because I feel that we've gone offtrack.

I don't think that anyone is arguing that we need to alter our guideline merely because one or more institutions have different internal guidelines. We don't work for those institutions and we are under no obligation to follow them. And fair use gives us significant latitude to use images even when institutions don't like it.

But there are two issues that we should address:

1. Why do insist on using seals as the topmost image? I contend that these images are unfamiliar to most people and our practice of adhering to common names and usage demands that we rethink this policy. I don't agree that it would be terribly difficult to agree on the most recognizable image for most institutions (and for some, that image will be the seal or coat of arms; I think the Ivies would definitely fall into this category). I do have sympathy with the argument that seals are consistent whereas other images change over time and are often motivated by marketing and image concerns. I also recognize that I seem to be in the minority in making this argument and I'm not going to live or die on this issue.

2. We should recognize that other venues and entities are reusing Wikipedia content in very different contexts. I am not suggesting that we immediately change our practices or that we must ever change what we do. But I do believe that it's short-sighted and unconstructive to completely ignore those venues and entities - or worse - to thumb our noses at them and insist that whatever they do is "their" problem, not ours. Technically, that is correct. But it's not politically viable or socially realistic.

If it would be useful to place these two topics into their own subheadings, please do so (I thought about it myself)! ElKevbo (talk) 03:17, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Enforcing guidelines and policies on lead

A separate issue that these new Facebook community pages now raise is the need to develop a more thorough consensus on interpreting and enforcing guidelines and policies related to neutrality and undue weight with respect to college and university leads. I have (zealously) campaigned in the past few years against including semantically empty booster phrases such as "prestigious", "elite", "highly ranked", and "highly selective" with some success (a few liberal arts colleges' identities seem to be primarily animated by the fact that they turn down 60-70% of applicants) and also campaigned with less success against including rankings and related ephemera ("consistently ranked in the top X") in the lead. I do not intend to revisit those debates now as the consensus seems to have been (though I disagree with it) that these are "stylistic" choices which are the prerogatives of each article's community. However, to the extent that articles about prominent universities such as University of California, Los Angeles and New York University obviously have problematic leads loaded with ranking-cruft, statistics dumps, and other accolade trivia, should we revisit the WP:UNIGUIDE to provide more guidance and structure or engage with these articles individually? Madcoverboy (talk) 14:35, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

You have to do both (overarching policy and individual articles) because editing one is useless without editing the other. I even have some unpublished research where I performed content analysis of a bunch of college and university articles and compared their contents with the WP:UNI guidelines/template and I found quite a bit of divergence from the guidelines, even in good and featured articles. So it's not enough just to edit the guidelines; you have to enforce them, too (common sense, right? :) ).

But on the topic of content: I generally support your edits and your continuing fight to keep the leads NPOV. It's a thankless task so: Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 03:07, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't see why what Facebook does as a second order user of Wikipedia articles is any of our concern. john k (talk) 16:39, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Because we don't exist in an isolated, hermetically sealed bubble and it's folly to think that we do. It's unethical and unproductive to build a vast store of information and then not care how it is used. ElKevbo (talk) 17:35, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

So what you are saying is that our articles should be written not based on Wikipedia's own mission, but based on the missions of other groups which use Wikipedia content for their own purposes? If Facebook wants to use Wikipedia articles inappropriately, that's really their business. Wikipedia article shouldn't be designed so that they'll look good on facebook. They should be designed so that they'll be good articles on Wikipedia. john k (talk) 18:52, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

That's not what I'm saying at all and I'll thank you not to put words in my mouth.

I'm saying that we should be cognizant of the other uses to which Wikipedia articles and information are being put. When appropriate, those uses should play a role in our decisions and discussions. They should not be the final word or the controlling factor but we can't continue to put our heads in the sand and ignore the impact of our efforts outside of the walled garden of Wikipedia. It's immature, unethical, and ultimately unworkable. (Note that these are the same arguments on which WP:BLP is built - recognition of the impact of Wikipedia outside its walls.) ElKevbo (talk) 19:28, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Good point, ElKevbo. BLP rules exist because Wikipedia articles can affect the real world and we wish to act ethically by showing sensitivity to how living and recently deceased people are portrayed. However, I do think that Facebook's use is a slightly different situation; specifically a for-profit organization/company enhancing their "product" by incorporating Wikipedia content. It is not our moral duty to benefit Facebook's social networking business. -Mabeenot (talk) 22:04, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Exactly. But I'll just say that worrying about second order users is silly in general. Wikipedia articles themselves will almost always have far more impact on the world than any mirrored content. We should aim to have good, responsible articles because wikipedia articles themselves are important, not because of mirrored content, almost always by for-profit entities, which we have no control over. So I'm going to say again that it's Facebook's job to determine whether Wikipedia content is appropriate for them. If they judge wrongly, it's not really our business to make it appropriate for them by changing our content. Our article content should be based upon the community standards we have devised over the last 9 years, not the standards that would make our articles more appropriate and useful for for-profit companies that take content from us for free. Obviously, there's many areas where problems with wikipedia can be amplified by mirror sites, and we ought to be aware of that. But the fact that an incredibly wealthy university doesn't think use of its seal is appropriate for social networking sites, and that a gigantic for-profit social networking company run by a gigantic asshole has decided to indiscriminately use Wikipedia articles, and failed to notice that these articles sometimes go against the guidelines set by universities? Please forgive me if I fail to care even slightly. Brown University and Facebook can work this out for themselves, and I really fail to see how it has anything to do with us. john k (talk) 03:34, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Requested move of the Vellore Institute of Technology article back to VIT University

Hi. This is regarding the moving of the VIT University article to Vellore Institute of Technology recently by *Truth* (talk) . I have suggested that the article be moved back to its original location at the (Talk) page on the article. The rationale behind this has been clearly explained, with evidence, on the aforementioned (Talk) page. Views on this move are welcomed. Please check the discussion at the Vellore Institute of Technology (Talk) page. Thanks in advance.

--Manoj Prajwal (talk) 17:35, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

English counties without a university

I know this is not the place to ask, but mentioned here is that Herefordshire is one of only three English counties without a university. What are the other two? TheRetroGuy (talk) 15:04, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Cornwall, but see Combined Universities in Cornwall. Suffolk - no longer: University Campus Suffolk. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:14, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

By the way, University Campus Suffolk is a typical new article in this project, being written up entirely from the uni's promotional material. It just needs more removal of marketing-speak, and a search for some independent sources. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:32, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Help with IP user's boosterism at Brown University

IP user 152.99.242.24 has been adding peacock terms and other academic boosterism to the article on Brown University. After reverting the user's edits and giving my reasons for doing so, I tried to compromise by incorporating some of the new information using less-biased language. However, the IP user continues to add booster material and reverts other editors without commenting on why. I'd appreciate the help of someone more experienced with handling these situations. -Mabeenot (talk) 19:45, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Hereford College of Education

Does anybody know what year this college was established? I've Googled it to death with little success so thought I'd ask here. Cheers TheRetroGuy (talk) 11:54, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

After all that and I just found the answer. Apparently it was 1902

UGent!

It's UGent, not Ugent!!!!! --Preceding unsigned comment added by 157.193.218.40 (talk) 07:22, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Hawthorn University

Could someone who knows the United States system well comment on whether this article needs adding to the project? Is it actually a university? Does anything need to be added about its accreditation? Thanks. Itsmejudith (talk) 13:26, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

It's unaccredited. In fact, I can't even find anything supporting notability. I would support deleting the article entirely. ElKevbo (talk) 14:57, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! For info, I am sporadically going through the enormous backlog of articles in need of wikification, applying the search term "university". Perhaps there is a bot that would do it better? Itsmejudith (talk) 15:24, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Chapman University, Argyros School of Business and Economics

Can I have some other eyes on the above (relatively) new article. I am not sure that it meets the Wikipedia:College and university article guidelines in that as a constituent academic school I am unable to find (Find sources: "Argyros School of Business and Economics" - news · newspapers · books · scholar · HighBeam · JSTOR · free images · free news sources · The Wikipedia Library · NYT · WP reference) sources that show it as especially notable or significant.

I have asked the various IP editors intent on keeping the page so to provide but as of now none has been forthcoming.

I may be wrong and it may be especially notable and I am just not looking in the right places.

Codf1977 (talk) 07:45, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Can anyone help with this ? Codf1977 (talk) 10:12, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

go on there must be someone ? Codf1977 (talk) 16:55, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Brigham Young University, Harvard of the West

Can a few editors please weigh in and keep an eye on Brigham Young University? An unregistered editor is edit warring to retain a claim that BYU is the "Harvard of the West." The sources are weak but the editor refuses to discuss the edits outside of a handful of edit summaries although multiple editors have removed the material. Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 18:56, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Started a discussion on talk. I see this going to WP:3RR though. As an MIT alum, I had a laugh since I've heard Harvard characterized as the BYU of the East given its large Mormon enrollments, especially in the business school. Madcoverboy (talk) 19:55, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

US Athletic Conferences

Several US institutions are moving or considering moving to different athletic conferences. More specifically, the Pac 10 and Big Ten conferences appear to be making offers to many of the institutions in the Big 12 conference and those offers are being taken up or seriously considered. So please keep an eye on the relevant articles, particularly since many of them are being edited on the basis on rumors in advance of official, public decisions. ElKevbo (talk) 18:56, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

There was a request for semi-protect of the Big 12 Conference at WP:RPP, but I don't know what happened to it... Madcoverboy (talk) 19:57, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

LaGuardia Community College

Greetings! I need a couple eyes on LaGuardia Community College, I do not think the Corruption and Dissent section has enough sources. One editor in particular is only interested in re-inserting the same edits when it gets disputed or deleted. Although the deletion IP seem to come from the institution itself, this article needs a middle ground or something with more sources. I am not sure how this is handled. --FireAllianceNX (talk) 05:47, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

That section definitely needs to go unless reliable sources can be found to support them.

Moreover, the entire article is quite pathetic and desperately in need of a rewrite. What little bit is there was clearly written either by someone associated with the institution or someone working from institution-published materials. Cripes, the introduction doesn't even tell us what the subject of the article is but instead gives us a bullshit history lesson about who it's named after and then lists some meaningless aspirational platitudes! ElKevbo (talk) 06:04, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Most of the article's cruft wasn't worth keeping. I salvaged what little neutral and useful information there was and slapped an expand tag on the article. -Mabeenot (talk) 06:51, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks!

It would be most helpful if a few other editors could weigh in on this article. There is a SPA camping the article and it's getting nasty. I dropped a line at ANI to see if someone would be willing to block this editor but in the meantime another editor or two could help keep this article in line with our policies, guidelines, and expectations. ElKevbo (talk) 16:52, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Nevermind; the primary editor involved has been chastised by multiple administrators and blocked. ElKevbo (talk) 20:49, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, I didn't know how to handle this situation as I am pretty new to edit (and apparently edit wars) FireAllianceNX (talk) 15:58, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing it here, which was the right thing to do. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:31, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Newport Students' Union

Would welcome some guidance on the above page please. Lots of WP:FANCRUFT - ideas on how to clean it up would be good. Codf1977 (talk) 16:58, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Needs to be merged back into University of Wales, Newport. All UK universities have similar students' unions. Two to three paragraphs in the main university article should be sufficient. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:06, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree that summarizing the material into a paragraph or two, moving it into the main article for the institution, and redirecting this article would be a good move. This article is way, way, WAY too long given the relative importance of the subject. And let's not even go into the (lack of) sources used... ElKevbo (talk) 20:52, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Since the University of Wales, Newport had a section on the union, I have been bold and just done a redirect, I have posted to talk page my reasoning. Codf1977 (talk) 08:16, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Good solution. I think a future policy of this project should be that students' unions (and fraternity houses and similar) don't merit their own articles unless there is evidence that they are notable in their own right. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:37, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Gda?sk Medical University

I've wikified the above, but it is still a bit disorganised and in need of references. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:18, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

I didn't add any references, but I did move some stuff around and fixed a tag. FireAllianceNX (talk) 17:34, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Virtual university

Another article in need of wikifying. Not currently in the project - should we bring it in? Itsmejudith (talk) 16:32, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I support merging it into distance learning. -Mabeenot (talk) 19:03, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Keiser University

Someone has posted about the above on the neutral point of view noticeboard. Article is in a really bad way and I'm not even sure that the subject is notable. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:29, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

University of Texas at Dallas

Could someone reassess University of Texas at Dallas. It shows a WikiProject Universities "Start Class" but has been updated. Thanks, Stan9999 (talk) 14:18, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Seal vs. logo: Grand Valley State University

An editor at Grand Valley State University has asked for further input on whether the institution's seal or logo should be the top image in the infobox. I know what the consensus is (because I disagree with it) but can a few other kind souls weigh in on the article's talk page? Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 00:40, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Residential Colleges

User:Philtweir/WikiProject Residential Colleges: Proposal for a project to cover residential colleges, particularly in the extra-US sense (though please comment if you think the contrast drawn is not appropriate!) Any thoughts would be appreciated, please and enthusiastic contributors even more so :) This is primarily intended for autonomous or semi-autonomous entities affiliated to universities, which conveniently provide accommodation, rather than the other way around! Might make the notability criteria question more straightforward to manage also? Anyhow, thought this would be of interest to editors circling here. With best wishes, Philtweir (talk) 06:02, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

New Universities-related WikiProject: WikiProject SUNY needs editors!

I have recently created the WikiProject SUNY for topics, especially colleges and universities, related to the State University of New York, which is New York State's public higher education system. DanielPenfield has been very helpful, but we still need many more editors to first lay a lot of the groundwork before we can start evaluating and improving SUNY-related articles. Much of what has been set up thus far has been modeled after WikiProject Universities. Also, since the State University of New York is such a large system, a separate SUNY Portal has been initially created, but not much progress has been made, so please try to assist with that too. If you have ever lived, worked, or attended college or a university in New York, then you know just how important SUNY is. I look forward to our future progress!

Adavis444 (talk) 20:13, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

New rankings, yay!

Hey boosters, do magazines and other ranking publishers routinely overlook your outstandingly selective and preeminently noted college or university? Is your alma mater's article desperately short of rankings placing it in the top 10 of something? Well look no further, we have a new set of rankings to make you feel better! Payscale has published a ranking what colleges offer the best return on investment and it sure does take those Harvard, Yale, and Princeton boys down a notch or two. So hurry and make sure to include these rankings as quickly as possible before its assumptions are also found to be flawed and methodology dubious! But hey, even if all rankings are, let it ride! Madcoverboy (talk) 14:52, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Shimer College a Featured Article Candidate

The University article Shimer College is currently a Featured Article candidate. The review may be of interest to folks on the project. --Nasty Housecat (talk) 18:10, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Rasmussen College

American for-profit college. Neutrality issues, raised on WP:NPOVN. A marketing manager from the college has been editing. Itsmejudith (talk) 06:54, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

New academic boosterism tag

Since I frequently find both NPOV and COI tags on booster-laden university articles, I thought it would be convenient to combine the two into an academic boosterism tag. Here's what I came up with: {{Booster}}. This tag also clearly points out Manual of Style policies that address a lot of booster problems, like peacock terms and weasel words. Any thoughts? -Mabeenot (talk) 22:51, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

In popular culture...

If anyone would like to wade into the never-ending battle against the innumerable "In popular culture" sections, the newest discussion is being held here. It may be a good test case since the section in question is very well-sourced despite being trivia that is not incorporated into the article in any meaningful way. ElKevbo (talk) 03:23, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for raising this. I think we should have a guideline on such sections in university articles. On a number of occasions I've changed the titles of these sections to "Cultural references". The logic is: why only popular culture? If there happen to be references in high/elite/unpopular culture, then why not include them too? Having said that, the kinds of references that might be mentioned fall into various groups. One is that campuses can be used for filming - we can discuss at what point that is notable, perhaps it depends on how high profile the film is. The Bodleian Library was used as a set in the Harry Potter films, and that must be notable. Another is when the plot of a film, novel, TV episode etc. is set on the campus. David Lodge's books set in a lightly anonymised Rummidge (University of Birmingham) come to mind. And the novel Zuleika Dobson is set in Oxford. So there are very notable instances. The Wesleyan list seems particularly rag-baggish. Some of the things mentioned are actually achievements of alumni and could be written up in a more appropriate section. Others are just passing mentions. I will come over to that article and help out for a bit. Itsmejudith (talk) 08:36, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

We do have a guideline. And more broadly, WP:UNDUE.

And I appreciate your help on the Wesleyan University article. The other editor is clearly trying to...well, I'm not sure what he or she is trying to do but clearly it involves intentionally annoying me so I'm going to disengage. Enjoy. ElKevbo (talk) 13:06, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Links to Colleges of Distinction everywhere

I'm seeing lots of links to College of Distinction (http://www.collegesofdistinction.com/) everywhere on university articles. It's apparently not notable, since there's no article for it. Are these links spam/advertising? I'm unfamiliar with it. Any thoughts--GrapedApe (talk) 05:06, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

I'd say they are. Please report them to WP:WPSPAM. --mono 03:00, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I've never heard of it and it does look promotional in nature. I'm particularly unimpressed by the fact that they don't have concrete criteria spelled out on their website for how they select their institutions of note and they have a bunch of notes asking you to e-mail them for more information; that's a warning sign for me indicating that they may not be using any sort of reliable criteria. That is particularly noticeable since several of their "pillars" would seem to match up to known instruments and measures but they don't mention any of them.

(But I do not like the argument "it's not notable since there's no [Wikipedia] article for it." That is a dangerously cyclical argument of little merit.) ElKevbo (talk) 03:13, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I filed a...spam thingy at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam#www.collegesofdistinction.com. The point of the "not notable" pount was just that it appears to be pretty a obscure "source".--GrapedApe (talk) 03:16, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

US News and World Report rankings are promotional in nature, can we get rid of them too? :) I concur with the other editors that this is almost certainly spam, astroturfing, or some other nefarious thing which should be rooted out. The parent organization is Student Horizons. Madcoverboy (talk) 16:54, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Peer review sought for Washington & Jefferson College

I have placed a request for peer review for Washington & Jefferson College. Perhaps someone from this project would like to review that article? If so, the peer review is located at Wikipedia:Peer review/Washington & Jefferson College/archive1.--GrapedApe (talk) 23:00, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Southern New Hampshire University

This article need serious improvement. One point worth discussing is whether we should include rankings from diplomaguide.com, which appears to be a proprietary website. Diplomaguide.com ranks SNHU as one of the top five schools in New Hampshire. I don't know whether that meets our standards for ranking inclusion. Thanks. Racepacket (talk) 11:54, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I couldn't even find information about that source or its ranking methodology. So I removed it (and some other unsourced and unnecessary information). ElKevbo (talk) 18:10, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Lamar University

I have worked very diligently over the past couple of months to expand this article. I'm wondering why this article is rate as a start class? I feel like many of the main points have been covered although I do recognize the need for more inline citations. Will someone please review this article and promote it if it is deemed worthy? ThomasHorn7 (talk) 18:03, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

It looks like a C class article to me and I rated it as such. The most glaring issue is the number of bare links used as references. ElKevbo (talk) 18:12, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

University of Chester

This page looks like it may have been edited by a member of staff Universityofchester (talk · contribs) (now username blocked) here, I have had a go at fixing some of issues but would like someone else to look at it if they can. Codf1977 (talk) 15:30, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

"The" Ohio State University

There is currently a debate about whether or not to move Ohio State University to The Ohio State University at its talk page. Other editors' input on this naming dispute would be appreciated. Madcoverboy (talk) 17:06, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry but I stopped caring about this particular issue some time ago. It's akin to the issues that surround nationalities and other extra-Wikipedia issues in that people are very passionate about it and it's always going to be an issue no matter what Wikipedia editors decide. Given that we'll never solve this and it's terribly unimportant, I'm content as long as (a) there are sufficient redirects to ensure that readers get to the article no matter which name is being used this minute and (b) it's consistent within each particular article. As long as those conditions are met I'm happy to let unregistered and new editors spin their wheels about this because it doesn't harm anything and it keeps them from doing real damage somewhere else. :) ElKevbo (talk) 18:39, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Broadly agree, but don't leave me in the lion's cage by myself! Madcoverboy (talk) 19:43, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

IIT FAR

I have nominated Indian Institutes of Technology for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Dana boomer (talk) 17:06, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Signpost Interview

Hello WikiProject Universities! My name is Mono, and I represent the WikiProject Desk at the Signpost. I have decided to feature the project in our report on August 9; this is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. I will post interview questions here and look forward to your replies. Also, take a look at last week's report so you get an idea of the style. Thanks, --mono 03:07, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

<notices his dull axe and wonders where he'll sharpen it> :) Madcoverboy (talk) 16:56, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

You might be interested in a study on which I am working in which this project plays a role. The paper has been accepted to the 2010 conference of the Association for the Study of Higher Education. ElKevbo (talk) 17:12, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Whatever came of this? Madcoverboy (talk) 19:48, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Mono took a wikibreak and probably won't be doing the interview. I still think this project would make an excellent Report (I had recommended it to Mono in the first place). I'll see if I can get another writer to conduct an interview. I would do it myself, but I wouldn't be a very neutral interviewer for this project :) -Mabeenot (talk) 04:29, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I'd like that. We have something like 7,000 articles in the Project and some pretty unique coordination problems, so any press is good press. Madcoverboy (talk) 07:47, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

• Real life is slowing down, so I will be able to do the interview. I've posted a few questions to get started.  Mono  07:55, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Seeking discussion regarding an ongoing scandal pertaining to Richard Stockton College of New Jersey

Please see this thread: Talk:Richard Stockton College of New Jersey#Bullying episode

IPs and throwaway accounts have made several attempts to right great wrongs by focusing attention on an alleged bullying episode which occurred at Stockton. Here is a typical edit adding the material. I have no connection to or affiliation with Stockton, but my strong instinct is that we must stay "behind the ball" when it comes to sensitive, still-developing material like this. I'm open to changing my mind, but what I really want is some discussion so that there's something to point to to show no big decision were made unilaterally. So far, none of the throwaways have come to the talk page, despite my specific requests. --Bill Price (nyb) 00:19, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Just a note pertaining to my word choice: I do not use the word "throwaway" disparagingly; we all make throwaway accounts on websites from time to time. I should have chosen a better word, however, because the word can carry a negative connotation. --Bill Price (nyb) 01:06, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Mizabot

Can someone figure out what happened to our mizabot on the page? It's supposed to be automatically archiving, but it appears to have become broken. I'd archive myself, but I don't want to mess up the system. Madcoverboy (talk) 19:12, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether the "minthreadsleft" attribute is necessary, but I set it to the default value of 5. I also bumped forward the schedule to archive inactive threads to 21 days. Let's see if that has an effect. --Bill Price (nyb) 20:40, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

University of Washington Educational Outreach

Could someone please take a look at this article. I tried to tone down the hype, but it still looks more like a brochure than an encyclopedia article. I'd appreciate some other eyes on it. Thanks. TardyHardy (talk) 22:44, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Brace for Impact: Forbes College rankings out

Let the boosterism begin! [20] Madcoverboy (talk) 16:10, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

And the US News & World Report rankings go live on Monday, August 17. ElKevbo (talk) 16:15, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm actually going to be mostly offline over the next week, so y'all are going to have to fight the good fight without me. :) Madcoverboy (talk) 19:11, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Forbes is one of the most ridiculous rankings I've ever seen. Maybe it's an intentional mockery of Ranking fad in general, but it makes ALL rankings (not just Forbes) look bad, but also the formerly preeminent Forbes brand name look terrible. Forbes is just out to nab market share from USNWR to make $$.Phead128 (talk) 00:48, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

• Thanks for stopping by!!!:)--GrapedApe (talk) 00:51, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

FAR

I have nominated Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Dana boomer (talk) 16:07, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Request list review

Please review List of defunct colleges and universities in Kansas and provide comments.--Paul McDonald (talk) 04:58, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

• Responded at article talk page.--GrapedApe (talk) 04:21, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

LGBT at USMA

In light of some press surrounding a lesbian cadet's resignation from the United States Military Academy and the larger political issue of don't ask, don't tell (DADT) potentially being revisited/reformed in some capacity under the Obama administration, I'd like to solicit other editors' feedback about how to incorporate a neutral and duly-weighted discussion of DADT and gays in the military at the USMA talk page. Madcoverboy (talk) 19:54, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

List of universities in Canada

We're trying to figure out at List of universities in Canada if University Canada West should be included. Any thourghts would be welcome. Dbrodbeck (talk) 18:52, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Western Connecticut State University

Needs a bit of attention. Sections aren't in the right order, for one thing. I don't mind helping out, but it would be good to have someone who knows the US university system well to take the lead. Itsmejudith (talk) 18:41, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Faculty of Science & Technology, ICFAI University, Dehradun

We have the above new article, but no article on ICFAI University. ICFAI seems to be the Institute of Chartered Financial Advisers, India. IFCAI University seems to be a regular university. I am going through the backlog of articles in need of wikification, searching for those on universities, and finding articles created in August. Itsmejudith (talk) 18:53, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Coverage and popularity of U.S. college and university articles

If anyone is interested, I've posted a brief analysis of the coverage and popularity of articles about U.S. colleges and universities. It will probably be included in a paper I'm presenting in a few months but I thought it might be useful for or interesting to others. I included (read-only) links to the data in Google spreadsheets, too.

A quick summary: We have articles for most U.S. institutions, especially 4-year institutions and public 2-year institutions. We lack articles for most less-than-2-year institutions (massage schools, beauty schools, truck driving schools, etc.) but I don't think anyone is sad about that given the probable lack of notability of those institutions. Our articles are also very popular judging by their placement in the top three search engines (Google, Yahoo!, and Bing). Not only our articles very highly-placed but they're usually the first non-institutional website listed in search results. ElKevbo (talk) 00:08, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Interesting indeed! All the more reason to remain vigilant against boosterism. --Bill Price (nyb) 00:21, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Ahh, original research! Don't taint my virgin eyes! :) Now you should evaluate the quality of the institutions' Wikipedia articles using some proxy like number of edits or editors, length, use of templates, links to other articles. Which school has the preeminently most selective content that leads to it having a high level of wiki-prestige? C'mon, I got a bet riding on this! Good stuff though. Madcoverboy (talk) 03:43, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

One thing we're doing is checking to see how the properties and content we identify correlate with article ratings. In the pilot study, several of the measures correlated nicely with article quality in some interesting ways.

It's not in our content analysis sample, but Platt College (San Diego)? is in our coverage sample and it was so bad that I stopped for a few minutes to fix it. Of the articles in the pilot, my current institution was one of the worst; it's pretty obvious that interested parties have had a heavy role in editing the article. ElKevbo (talk) 04:35, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Boosterism is certainly a problem but I'm concerned that sometimes we go too far in crusading against it and we sometimes end up making articles incomplete in our zeal to eliminate POV. For example, I think that is happening in Harvard University (see Talk:Harvard University for an ongoing discussion).

If I was Master Of The Universe®, I would anyone who wanted to contribute to their alma mater's article first edit a randomly-selected university article. Oh, and end war, poverty, and ignorance as well. Madcoverboy (talk) 05:30, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

A related problem that should also be recognized and addressed is overreliance on institution-controlled sources. I'll have to look back to the pilot study and look ahead to completing this new one but I seem to recall that one of the more prominent features of Featured and Good articles was a lower ratio of institution-controlled to non-institution-controlled references. In fairness, however, I think that some of that is related to the age and prominence of many of the institutions with Featured and Good articles as there are simply more quality third-party references about them than newer and lesser-known institutions. ElKevbo (talk) 04:41, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Pitzer College

Two anonymous editors with IP addresses resolving to Claremont University ISPs have been making major changes to Pitzer College that includes copyright violations, advertising cruft, and other unencyclopedic content. I've warned the editors, but haven't gotten around to reverting since there have been some useful updates of URLs and so forth. I would appreciate if there were a few more eyes on the article. Madcoverboy (talk) 23:58, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Harvard University

There's a RfC regarding the use of "prestigious" in the lead of the Harvard University article. Given that whatever consensus emerges from this discussion (if any) could potentially set a precedent for other university articles, I would like to solicit other editors' feedback on the issue. Please review the discussion and leave your feedback here. Madcoverboy (talk) 18:14, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Other editors should definitely weigh in on this conversation. I've even considered trying to move the conversation to a broader venue as it may have significant impact beyond this one article but I guess it's fine where it is. ElKevbo (talk) 18:17, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

User:ArthurGD

User:ArthurGD has been updating ranking information on dozens of university articles using horserace rhetoric and elaborating on the split between THES and QS which I suspect something on the order of 7 people outside of academic bureaucracies care about. Can other editors counsel him on what appear to be good-faith but misguided edits and help with some reverts? Madcoverboy (talk) 15:52, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

It might be helpful if you dropped him or her a line on his or her Talk page. No one has done so, so of course he or she is going to continue editing in the same manner. ElKevbo (talk) 17:11, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

WSJ Recruiters' Rankings

More rankings to keep an eye on: Top 25 Colleges Ranked by Recruiters by the Wall Street Journal. Especially with something like this that demotes some of the "consistently highly-ranked" colleges and universities, make sure that scores are reported neutrally without emphasizing how University X is ranked higher than University Y. Madcoverboy (talk) 14:52, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

While critiquing ranking methodologies is one of my favorite pastimes, it seems suspect that WSJ recruiter rankings don't control for the fact that graduates of some colleges & universities have an overwhelming tendency to go into graduate or professional programs (PhD, JD, MD, MBA) rather than becoming entry-level "cogs". But hey, no ranking methodology is ever suspect so long as my preferred institution comes out on top! :) Madcoverboy (talk) 15:09, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

THE vs QS

Speaking of rankings, there have been some pretty blatant POV and COI editing done to the articles covering the QS World University Rankings and the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. In fact, the articles have previously seemed to have served as sort of proxy battle for agents of the two companies fighting over the history and reputation of the ranking they published together prior to this year, the Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings. A little background: THE and QS co-published the rankings between 2004 and 2009. Upon criticisms from some universities, THE split from QS publicly ridiculing the methodology that it had championed only shortly prior (shocking, I know). QS actually owns the prior data and methodology to the original ranking, and is continuing its publication as the QS World University Rankings. THE created a new methodology with Thomas Reuters and will publish the first ranking using that methodology later this month as the THE World University Ranking. So, the result of the split was actually 1) the creation of a new THE ranking and 2) "THE" being dropped from the name of the THE-QS so that it is now just titled QS. On Wikipedia, this split resulted in three, highly duplicative articles (word-for-word, they had some of the exact same tables and sections). I've tried to merge and combine the articles to make more sense of those realities, and I've turned the older THE-QS article into a dab page (really, it could have been just a redirected to QS per the name change), but it is something to keep your eye on because there are several editors on both sides that only have edit histories with these articles and they seem to edit particularly to present positive spins for their company's particular POV. CrazyPaco (talk) 20:48, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

• What a mess. The pushers have also uploaded a few copyvio images to these articles, but I took care of 'em.--GrapedApe (talk) 21:28, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the sharp eyes and clean-up. As I mentioned above, could one of you counsel User:ArthurGD who has been going through a variety of university articles updating rankings (a good thing) and rehashing this split-up (a bad thing)? Madcoverboy (talk) 22:47, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
• Again, editors have essentially reversed the split by repopulating the disambiguation page (at Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings) with duplicative info. Should it just be converted into a redirect to QS to avoid this? CrazyPaco (talk) 18:46, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Grand Valley State University

I forgot to mention that I nominated the GVSU article for a good article review. Input from uninvolved editors would be greatly appreciated. Regards, P. D. Cook ^{Talk to me!} 21:34, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Pusan National University

I read the article of PNU(Pusan National University) today and found some errors. Pusan National University is called "guklip pusan daehakgyo(?? ?????)" or just "pusan daehakgyo(?????)" in Korean. But we never use the name, Busan National University or Pusan University in English. As you know, those are definitely different university. So I think you'd better to modify the explain about Pusan National University from the article as follows: - from the first sentence, Busan National University is deleted the explain. - from the last sentence of the 1st paragraph, you'd better to modify "?????" instead of "Pusan University".

Thanks in advance,

Dhlee419 (talk) 03:13, 18 September 2010 (UTC) DoHoon Lee, Sep. 18, 2010

• Since this is the "free encyclopedia that anyone can edit," I nominate you for the task, since you seem to be familiar with the topic. --GrapedApe (talk) 04:17, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Universities articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release

Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.

We would like to ask you to review the Universities articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (?) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Monday, October 11th.

We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of October, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!

For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 23:47, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Assessment Requests

How do I request an assessment? I did some work to Butler University and would like to have it reviewed because I don't think it's start class anymore. City boy77 (talk) 00:26, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

• I re-assessed it.--GrapedApe (talk) 01:11, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

York University Faculty of Health

I'm not sure what the threshold of inclusion is for individual faculties/departments at universities is, but this one doesn't have any independent sources. I noticed some of the other faculties at this university have their own articles, but they are well sourced. Should this one just be merged into York University? Thanks, P. D. Cook ^{Talk to me!} 02:15, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Just merge. Perfectly good department but does not need its own article. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:42, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Rockefeller University

Rockefeller University needs a lot of work, if anyone is interested, and seems to have quite a lot that can be written about it. Perhaps a future collaboration. Rd232 ^talk 15:41, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Alumni/ Alma Mater

There seems to be some inconsistency in who Wikipedia regards as an alumnus and which school it regards as one's alma mater. For example, Mitt Romney attended Stanford University as an undergraduate for one year, but received his bachelor's degree from Brigham Young University. He is listed in the "Stanford University alumni" category, but in his personal information box, Stanford is not listed as an alma mater while Brigham Young is. Just going by common sense, I think that the best standard for this sort of thing would be to only categorize a person as an alum if he or she received a degree from a certain institution, and to use the same standard for determining his or her alma mater. Mitt Romney would be removed from the "Stanford University alumni" category, while Stanford would remain absent from the "alma mater" section of Romney's personal information box. The only exception to this would occur when a person attends a school but fails to graduate and never receives a corresponding degree from another institution. For example, Bill Gates and Ted Turner attended but did not graduate from the colleges at Harvard University and Brown University respectively, and did not receive their bachelor's degrees from anywhere else. It makes sense to categorize them as alumni of Harvard and Brown respectively, and have Harvard and Brown appear as their respective alma maters in their personal information boxes. --Preceding unsigned comment added by Ajax79 (talk o contribs) 13:44, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

This proposal makes sense to me. Wasted Time R (talk) 14:21, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Category talk:Alumni by university or college has a discussion of this issue from 2007 (which reached no agreement and broke down in incivility). Wasted Time R (talk) 04:12, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

• I disagree. Sometimes it's often very difficult to determine a person's graduation status, especially for lesser known (but still notable) people who have fewer sources. Also, in olden times, many students studied at schools but didn't bother to graduate. Finally, many schools embrace non-graduating students as alumni. --GrapedApe (talk) 04:22, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I think it's more common for (US) institutions to include as alumni anyone that has matriculated. It makes it easier for the fund raisers to ask more people for money. (If someone wants to press this, I'll glance through some of my history reference materials; I think this is explicitly mentioned in at least one of them.) ElKevbo (talk) 04:54, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

I think this is something that should be resolved one way or another, since as it is articles are categorized inconsistently. What do our history reference materials mention? --Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.16.106.134 (talk) 03:40, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

• Schools policies vary on who they regard as alumni, and finding each school's policy for determining whether a former student is an alumnus would be difficult. Because of this, I don't think that what whether a school regards a person as an alumnus should be the standard for categorizing a person as an alumnus. I agree that for people in olden times, attendance is sufficient to be categorized as an alumnus. However, for modern people who have received a degree from a particular school yet took classes toward that degree at different schools, the category should only be that of the degree-granting institution. As was mentioned in the 2007 discussion, people may take classes at many colleges, yet the only one that we can assume that they significantly identify with is the one from which they graduated. I'm not sure what to do about people who attended one school, failed to graduate, yet did not pursue the corresponding degree at a different school. Currently, for example, Bill Gates is not listed as an alumnus of Harvard; he dropped out before receiving a bachelor's degree there. Does this seem right? --Preceding unsigned comment added by Ajax79 (talk o contribs) 03:56, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Only those who got a degree is not at all workable for the numerous institutions who have their degrees accredited by another institution, nor for that matter for many people who took non-degree awards. The general approach of listing all former students is the most workable IMHO and avoids protracted discussions of such a nature. Timrollpickering (talk) 06:42, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

It is, IMHO, worse to incorrectly categorize someone as an alumnus than it is to fail to categorize someone who is an alumnus as such. Some sources define an alumnus as a graduate, some as a graduate or former student, and some as a person who left a school after finishing their studies there. I may be wrong, but in common usage, non-graduate former students are generally not regarded as alumni, especially if they completed a corresponding degree elsewhere. That last sentence should be taken with a grain of salt, but the fact that the meaning of alumnus is unclear means that Wikipedia should be conservative in who is categorizes as an alumnus to avoid misinformation. On the issue of institutions whose degrees are accredited by another institution, I would suggest that graduates of such institutions be listed as alumni of the school from which they graduated, not the one that granted the degree. For example, graduates of Barnard College receive their degrees from Columbia University. They are currently categorized as alumni of Barnard College, and not of Columbia University, which seems right. --Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.16.106.134 (talk) 14:51, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

(unindent) I'm not entirely clear on the problem that we are supposed to be addressing here. In particular, I'm not quite convinced that it's our place to impose a universal definition for nearly any word or topic when there is no such universal definition (e.g. OR). I agree that it's messy to leave this up to each institution but that's just the way it is and we have to live with that messiness, IMHO. ElKevbo (talk) 15:28, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

If the standard is that a person is categorized as an alumnus of a school if that school regards them as an alumnus, that makes sense. Is this the standard that the editors apply? --Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.16.106.134 (talk) 15:59, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with ElKevbo. Wikipedia sometimes tends to get caught up in a desire to stuff everything into a standardized, one-size-fits-all box. That doesn't always work. I see no necessity here to restrict the definition of "alumni" specifically for the purposes of Wikipedia standardization. Institutions all have their own definitions, and if they claim certain people, then they could be listed if sourced properly. This goes both ways. Some individuals may not claim to be an alumni of one particular school that they had attended, even if that school recognizes them as such. CrazyPaco (talk) 10:21, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

UNC at Charlotte

An editor associated with the University of North Carolina at Charlotte is repeatedly editing the lead so it complies with the institution's marketing policies. I'm trying to talk to him or her but not making much headway so far. Can a few other folks please weigh in and help this editor understand why we can't base our decisions on institutional policies but rely on our own policies? Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 00:11, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Anyone? We're comfortable allowing a university's marketing guidelines dictate Wikipedia content? ElKevbo (talk) 15:23, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, been AWOL since the Harvard kerfuffle and a looming conference submission IRL. Madcoverboy (talk) 15:44, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

If this is what you're talking about, I'm not exactly sure he's wrong; I've never heard it referred to as "Charlotte" or "UNCC". ~DC ^{We Can Work It Out} 15:47, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I'll throw in that I have also not heard of UNC Charlotte referred to as just "Charlotte" or "UNCC", not that I am extremely familiar with the school. Perhaps their marketing department has already gotten to me. CrazyPaco (talk) 10:30, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with this institution and if that is the case then it's a proper rationale for the edits. But I'm not quite convinced, particularly as the university's own athletics teams refer to themselves as the "Charlotte 49ers" and "CHARLOTTE" is by far the most prominent word on their official website. I had to scroll down to the copyright notice at the very bottom to verify that they are indeed associated with UNC Charlotte. Even their team jerseys all seem to say "Charlotte." UNCC is less clear although it's interesting to note that "UNCC" is their official Twitter handle.

As usual, I'm less concerned about the particulars of this dispute than the precedent it could set. It would be a very bad move for us to give marketing departments cart blanche to edit articles using only their own internal guidelines as justification. ElKevbo (talk) 16:05, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry if this comes off the wrong way, but I've never seen a group of editors as paranoid as precedent as this group. I thought the WP:ITNC folks were bad. ~DC ^{We Can Work It Out} 16:08, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Some of us spend 90% or more of our time reverting edits to college and university articles. They're immense targets for very biased edits by very large groups of constituents and they're looked after by a very small number of editors. It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you. :) ElKevbo (talk) 16:10, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

To demonstrate that this isn't just paranoia, this edit was just made a few minutes ago to University of California, Davis: "Nomenclature corrected to be more accurate by UC Davis marketing director Tom Hinds." It's not a (very) bad edit but the idea that we have to be vigilant against university marketing depts from dominating articles is real. ElKevbo (talk) 21:00, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not saying marketing people don't edit their school's pages to meet their standards. I'm saying it's paranoid to think everything leads to precedents. ~DC ^{We Can Work It Out} 17:54, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Gourman Report rankings

User Abc1def inserted Gourman Report rankings into several university articles along with some poorly sourced and poorly worded (possibly POV) narrative along with it. I undid the edits, he restored them and we had a bit of back-and-forth on it, here, whereupon I did a bit more research and discovered that the Gourman rankings - already somewhat controversial in the first place - had not been updated since 1997 and are altogether out of print. I found 15 or so additional university articles that cited to these rankings and removed the reference, figuring that the information was well stale by this point. None of the articles noted the age of the rankings, and in many instances the context implied that they were current or at least recent. In my view the articles are better without this out-of-date, perhaps even misleading, information. (In addition, these rankings are not available on line, only in hard copy, making verification in most instances difficult.) Anyhow, in the course of this endeavor I overlooked some Talk page comments in support of the rankings, here, from a disinterested editor. I responded to him belatedly there but the issue raised really goes beyond that single article so I'm throwing it up for comment here. The bottom line question is, do the Gorman Report rankings have any place in the "ranking" or "reputation" sections of current university articles? I'd appreciate any thoughts from you all. Thanks. JohnInDC (talk) 18:07, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

In my opinion, there are already enough recent rankings systems. The Gourman report seems less notable to me than the other rankings, and more controversial, so it sounds to me that it should not be in the individual articles.

More generally, I am wondering if these rankings systems should be considered as secondary or primary sources. --Anneyh (talk) 18:11, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Are ranking systems even sources? If so, what are they sources of? We really shouldn't add more numbers every time some magazine or website creates their own ranking system. -Mabeenot (talk) 21:02, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I totally agree, but I'm not sure how to tackle a big paragraph with 20 <ref> pointing to the respective web pages of the different ranking systems for the last five years (e.g. University of Heidelberg#Rankings). What reasonable source could be used for the "reputation" of an institution? --Anneyh (talk) 21:23, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I apologize for unacceptable way of undoing last night, and I respect your endeavor on the wikipedia editing. The gourman report is distinct and exhaustive from othe sources of rankings in that it is designed each for the graduate and undergraduate programs. As far as I know, no ranking sources specifically tells which graduate school is better than others. Furthermore, no ranking sources state which undergraduate program in psychology is better than others. Regrettably, you seem to be fairly exposed to only critcisms while there are many other sides of its proponents. I also wonder if you know that there are equalliy criticisms on many currenet ranking schemes, which are arguably too volatile or too much survey based. On the other hand, the consistency of the gourman ranking over the decades can potentially say some according to the academics. It provides a useful information for a particular department, or graduate schools if no other sources are short of that aspect. If it is out of date, its value can be left at the reader's hand. In the least, it provides the chance to compare a past success or failure with the current status of each college or universities. As the encyclopedia plays with the fact or event, I suppose that the Gourman report satisfies this element. It must be an event for some departments or colleges as well compared to other events recorded in the articles. As per my research on the reoprt, it is decades long and notorious ranking source, perhaps first ever systemic work on the colleges and universities. I just think we are going too far to overrule the editors' contributions which have last over time.Abc1def (talk) 07:48, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

To be honest I did not made any research on the Gourman report, I only read Wikipedia. Abc1def, maybe you could develop a bit the article from some secondary sources on the Gourman report? It would also be nice to know why it was discontinued.

On the other hand, the research for secondary sources I made on some institutions showed there were some academic studies on the trends in higher education. Maybe a good practice would be to use such articles for the "ranking reputation" section and to quote the latest systems or to give the interval over the last five years because of the volatility. --Anneyh (talk) 09:42, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

UCL Institute of Neurology

This Third level department does not appear to meet the Wikipedia:College and university article guidelines for stand alone article, IP editor is waring off the tag - can others look at it. Codf1977 (talk) 19:22, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

It's the behaviour of the SPA account on this and related articles that worries me. The IP may be the same editor editing without having logged in. Similar beheaviour of a different SPA on some of the Russell Group institutions. I fear that we have been targetted by people who want to puff up UK institutions - high status institutions, and this would be clearer in the articles without their efforts. They start from valid rankings but from them spin the articles right out of control. Is it possible that marketing departments are using consultants who tell them they can boost the profile of the institution on WP? Itsmejudith (talk) 21:40, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Agreed - looking at Rangoon11's new pages despite his denials of any link to UCL - Shows that he is very heavily into writing about them. So what next ? Codf1977 (talk) 10:13, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

I have recently been making a sustained effort to improve the quality of UCL coverage on Wikipedia, which was very poor, particularly compared to peer group institutions in the U.S. It is disappointing that it is immediately assumed that I have been acting in bad faith, purely because I have been active on a certain topic. If you would look at my history properly, you would see that I have also been very active on the pages of FTSE 100 companies. Have I been employed by all of those as well? Perhaps you think so!

The reality is that I have focused my efforts on where I have felt that I could best improve Wikipedia articles. Having lived in Bloomsbury for many years, I know quite a lot about UCL. I have also read the FT for many years and know quite a lot about companies. I have focused my energies on areas where I feel that I can make a useful contribution.Rangoon11 (talk) 10:41, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for being so paranoid and thanks for posting here. I hope we can work together on the project. Have you looked at the article guidelines? There is a tendency on the part of many universities and colleges to turn their articles into marketing efforts. Something I think is urgent on the UK university articles is to cut references to rankings to a minimum. The American university articles don't always comply with the guidelines either. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:46, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

No worries, yes I have looked at the article guidelines but will re-read them. I agree regarding rankings information often being overdone in UK articles, with undue prominence, huge tables of rankings etc, and have actually cut down the ranking section in the main UCL page quite considerably and moved it to a less prominent position. I was actually intending to also change the rankings table in the article to remove all historical data and just present the most recent rankings, as the tables in U.S. university articles generally do. I saw that another editor created a draft template here: Template:Infobox UK university rankings which I thought that I might try to use, and would be grateful for your thoughts.

I have also tried to improve the League tables of British universities article, and removed a lot of what appeared to be near advertising for the rankings publishers and their various books.

I have tried as much as possible to be very neutral and factual in the edits that I have made to Wikipedia articles, and to avoid introducing POV. I have only been editing for a few months however so appreciate that I am still have things to learn.Rangoon11 (talk) 11:03, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

I've re-read the guidelines myself. There is an issue for all UK-related articles, in that rankings are supposed to come into a section called "Academics". This isn't the right heading in British English (a member of academic staff is called "an academic"). I'm not sure what a better heading would be for such a section, or even if one section can contain all the rather disparate information suggested in the guidelines.

Academics -- This section contains information related to the academic environment. Try to include information about the institution's accreditation, tuition and financial aid, number of degrees/programs offered, number of degrees awarded annually, academic honors, academic calendar, and admissions statistics. It may be appropriate to discuss the library, museums, or other scholarly collections in a subsection if these are particularly notable for their size, scope, or uniqueness and have not been discussed elsewhere. If there is a special course system, grading scheme, or requisites for enrollment, mention them here. It would be appropriate to mention the notable academic divisions (such as faculties/schools/colleges) of this university and briefly summarize the number of enrollments. Because Wikipedia is not a directory, do not attempt to list every major, degree, or program offered in this or any section. Many articles summarize their academic rankings here, which may be listed in a template or in paragraph form, but should never be an embedded list. Per WP:BOOSTER, the rankings should be presented neutrally and without undue weight -- do not exclude or re-factor rankings because they are inconveniently low, attempt to include every ranking or all historical rankings, or emphasize rankings of sub-disciplines over rankings of the college or university as a whole.

What do non-UK project participants think about creating separate sections "Rankings and reputation" for the UK universities only in the first instance? Will it make sense to extend that to the USA institutions and those in other countries? Do we need to open up discussion about the article structure guidelines? Itsmejudith (talk) 11:51, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Still feel that this is not, as per Wikipedia:College and university article guidelines, "especially notable or significant" - all the refs on the page are either primary or very closely connected. - as a THIRD level department it should be redirected/merged to UCL Faculty of Biomedical Sciences - comments please. Codf1977 (talk) 12:00, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Susquehanna University trying to control the article

Would everyone please see Talk:Susquehanna University to help discuss an IP's attempt to enforce a university "preferred" logo over the standard images in an infobox?--GrapedApe (talk) 14:17, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

• It's also happening at Holy Family University [21].--GrapedApe (talk) 04:46, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

College of further education

What do we do about UK colleges of further education? (For US editors, to oversimplify grossly, they combine the functions of senior high school, vocational school. They educate a significant proportion of 16-19 year olds, yet most of their students are older.) Some of them have substantial programmes at higher education level, for example foundation degrees. I noticed that East Surrey College, which I don't think has much HE work, is in this wikiproject, whereas North East Surrey College of Technology, which does have HE work, is in WikiProject Schools. My instinct I suppose is that they should be in WikiProject Schools unless we have reason, based on reliable sources, to discuss their HE provision. That would be the case, for example with Cornwall College. But I'm thinking from a UK perspective and we need to get consistency across all countries. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:16, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

MIT

In recognition of MIT's upcoming sesquicentennial celebrations in 2011, I've committed myself to getting the article to FA for a front page appearance sometime next year. I would greatly appreciate other editors' feedback and reviews in preparation for a FAC submission later in October. If you all have ever wanted me to dance at your bidding, now's your chance! :) Madcoverboy (talk) 22:42, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Best of luck to you. -Mabeenot (talk) 23:20, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Academic dress of the University of London

This wouldn't seem to meet our guidelines on sub-article notability, but how do we treat such articles for consistency. I smiled at the obscured face of the gentleman modelling one mode of academic dress. Could someone really be embarrassed about holding a doctorate from London? Itsmejudith (talk) 14:26, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I've no strong feelings either way but agree that institutions must be dealt with consistently unless exceptional factors apply. A large number of other British and Irish universities also have specific pages for their academic dress, including Academic dress of the University of Oxford, Academic dress of the University of Bristol, Academic dress of the University of Cambridge, Academic dress of the University of Dublin, Academic dress of Durham University, Academic dress of the University of Edinburgh, Academic dress of the University of Exeter, Academic dress of Imperial College London, Academic dress of the University of Kent, Academic dress of the University of Leeds, Academic Dress of the University of Manchester and Academic dress of the University of St Andrews.Rangoon11 (talk) 15:46, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

please read WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS Codf1977 (talk) 16:11, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Firstly, Wikipedia:Other stuff exists is not a Wikipedia policy or guideline but a guidance essay, though it may be consulted for assistance.

Secondly, it clearly states that 'In consideration of precedent and consistency, though, identifying articles of the same nature that have been established and continue to exist on Wikipedia may provide extremely important insight into general notability of concepts, levels of notability'.

Thirdly, the whole point of a Project on a particular topic is to improve coverage of that entire topic. In the context of a discussion on the WikiProject Universities page it is of great relevance how similar articles on other universities are dealt with. This discussion is not taking place on the Academic dress of the University of London page.Rangoon11 (talk) 18:06, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Agree does not look like it meets the guideline. Codf1977 (talk) 16:11, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Any reasons? Rangoon11 (talk) 18:06, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I specifically raised the question here so that we could get a precedent to apply across all articles. One of the purposes of this project is to try and get back some control over the proliferation of non-notable stuff 1) in the main articles and 2) in sub articles. Have you seen some of the stuff that enthusiastic students try to insert? Names of officers of every student society. Long lyrics of school songs. And then university marketing departments try and copy in the entire prospectus. According to WP:NOT, we're not a directory. If you're a graduate of the University of London and you need to know what academic dress to wear, you can consult a hire company, or the university itself. You don't want to see academic dress articles for every university in the world, do you? Itsmejudith (talk) 08:18, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I do see where you are coming from and accept that certainly some of the university society pages are low quality and arguably non-notable. The problem is that notability is a very subjective criteria. There are a huge number of articles on Wikipedia which I don't personally feel are on sufficiently notable topics to warrant articles, and yet many of these are very popular pages which have been established for years and edited by many different people.

Universities are generally large organisations at which thousands of people spend a number of years of their lives both studying and engaging actively in social and extra-curricular activities. They generally comprise many departments, faculties and other institutes. They frequently conduct research which is of public interest. They also often have long histories. To provide proper coverage is almost never, in my view, possible to do in just one article.

I do feel that it is important to establish broad policies in order to provide consistency and also to avoid the possiblity for bias, such as editors with a prejudice against an institution or a type of institution (for example those that are regarded as 'prestigious'). However in my view that policy does also need to recognise that some universities are much older than others, much bigger than others, and, in the general view, much more important than others. I personally went to neither Cambridge nor Anglia Ruskin but I can accept that Cambridge warrants a far larger treatment on Wikipedia than Anglia Ruskin. However that does not mean that I believe that any Cambridge-related article is inherently notable, nor that coverage of Anglia Ruskin should in any way be lower quality, merely that it should be lower in quantity.

Coming to the issue at hand, academic dress, my own view is that it is generally a sufficiently notable topic for mention in Wikipedia. The question for me is purely whether it warrants separate articles rather than simply a mention in the main articles on institutions. It is important to avoid the main articles for universities from becoming too long. Equally it is important to avoid the unnecessary proliferation of articles. The question for me is could one paragraph in the main article cover the academic dress of a university in sufficient detail to justify not having separate articles? I think that it is also worth noting that this a subject which naturally lends itself to having pictures, which take up more space.

In the case of the University of London, it is in fact a bit of a special case since it is a federal organisation which comprises a large number of universities and colleges which each (rightly) have their own Wikipedia article. In this case it seems an efficient way of dealing with the topic of academic dress to have a separate article which avoids the need for repetition in each of the member institutions' articles. Rangoon11 (talk) 13:05, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree that academic dress in the University of London is more complicated than that of many other universities. Oxford seems to be quite complicated as well. Another very important criterion we must use in deciding which articles to keep is whether there are independent sources. The academic dress at Oxford article refers to a book entirely devoted to the topic - but is it independently published or was it commissioned by the university. I also agree with you that there is a lot to be said about an organisation as important as a university. But we are only writing an encyclopedia here. We can only be a first step in research. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:44, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

List of faculties

The guidelines are fairly clear at the moment that we don't want a list of every course/programme/subject area, but we do want to know about major divisions of the university (e.g faculty of laws). But what section do we want that in? It's currently mentioned (in the Structure part of the article guidelines) both in Organization and structure and in Academics/Academic profile? Where does it fit best? My own preference is for the former. And does it matter if it takes the form of an embedded list? What if there are seven faculties and four or five schools within each faculty? Do we want it as a multi-level embedded list? Itsmejudith (talk) 14:20, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

UK articles structure

I've been restructuring a number of the English university articles. I can use the structure in the guidelines except for the heading "Academics" which means something else in UK English (it means "faculty members"). I propose using the same structure as in the guidelines but with "Academic life" instead of "Academics". Is that OK? Any other suggestions? Itsmejudith (talk) 16:12, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

If "Academic life" is equally acceptable to US readers, I suggest using that for all universities per WP:COMMONALITY, which is especially important for words that can be misunderstood in the other variant of English. - Also, the heading "Campus" may not be appropriate for those universities that don't have a campus at all but are spread over a city. This is true for most of the traditional European universities, including many British ones. A more typical example than Oxford or Cambridge is University of Edinburgh. (Sometimes there are agglomerations of university building in parts of the city, but it's often not appropriate to describe this as a number of campuses.) In such a case there should be a different heading that makes clear that the section is about the university's location and buildings. Hans Adler 17:48, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd say that "Academic life" isn't really appropriate for US universities. I don't think I've ever heard that phrase used to describe the "Academics." On the other hand, I see no problem with its use in UK universities. Clarity must be the goal. -GrapedApe (talk) 18:11, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Agree. Use what is appropriate for the context. I have no idea what "Academic life" means and I don't think it's appropriate for articles about U.S. institutions but if it's appropriate for U.K. institutions then by all means use it! ElKevbo (talk) 18:30, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Many thanks for comments. On the alternative to "Campus", I'm seeing "Campuses" on quite a lot of articles, and it seems to be used by many universities to describe buildings dotted around town. In a few cases "Buildings" or "Locations" would be better. Or "locations and buildings". I'll carry on for a bit with "Academic life" as the equivalent of "Academics", carrying the description of the courses offered, as well as the rankings. It's not ideal, and I expect some UK editors will object. There's a chance that someone will come up with a better solution. The article structures are currently all over the place. Many universities have tried to put a long description of the significance of the university crest and regalia up front, for example. I think we now have the History section first in every case (in England) and Campus/Campuses/Buildings next in most cases. Itsmejudith (talk) 19:19, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the idea of using something like "Buildings" as an alternative for "Campus" in the case of universities that lack a definable campus. However, the word "Buildings" is pretty limited in scope. I prefer "Facilities," as it potentially encompasses campus-like topics that aren't buildings (supercomputers, sports venues, specialized laboratories, etc.). I see that Itsmejudith has already put the word "Buildings" on the guidelines page applicable to all Universities articles (not just for the UK) -- I am going to put the word "Facilities" on the guidelines page. --Orlady (talk) 14:51, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Oooh, now I've spotted "Academic profile" (Dallas Baptist University). If that makes sense for the US it could make sense for UK too, perhaps in other countries. Any arguments against it? Itsmejudith (talk) 22:10, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

"Academic profile" also make sense to a non-native speaker like me. "Locations" is quite convenient for many universities and college that were in a city and later had to expand. The only issue I see is that it does look too obvious to my eyes to include the library in that section (from the title), and a library is more than just a building. --Anneyh (talk) 06:53, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for that. For many universities we could mention the library or libraries briefly in the Campus or Locations section, and then talk about the library facilities in more detail later. Itsmejudith (talk) 07:52, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

I have heard the word "Academics" to mean professorial employees at Cornell. Similarly, the term "non-professorial academics" meant post-docs, research associates and lecturers who are not on a tenure track. I am against using "Academic life" as a section heading for US Universities. I also prefer "Facilities" to "buildings." Racepacket (talk) 21:52, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Newcastle University buildings articles

Newcastle University buildings (A-J) and Newcastle University buildings (K-Z). We already have a List of Newcastle University buildings. And I'm not sure how many of the individual buildings are notable, so I'm thinking of having a bit of a cull. Any other views? Itsmejudith (talk) 15:56, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Delete all three of them (or rather AfD) - WP is not a directory or a replacement for Newcastle University's own website. Codf1977 (talk) 16:08, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

It seems to me that many of the buildings are notable for their architecture and their history and that they could have their own article. The compromise of having two articles covering many buildings presents encyclopedic information that is not a directory. However the list serves little purpose given the two more detailed articles. So keep the first two and delete the list. --Bduke (Discussion) 21:25, 6 October 2010 (UTC).

Few if any of these buildings are notable. Most of the buildings don't even have a substantive description (ie Framlington Place). Two or three of the older/historic buildings should probably be included in the campus section of the Newcastle University article, but none of the buildings really warrants its own article. -Mabeenot (talk) 21:44, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

There's another list of questionable notability: Newcastle University Halls of Residence -Mabeenot (talk) 21:47, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm starting the process of merging these buildings articles and a whole load of others relating to the same university. It will take a bit of time and if anyone else can help out that would be great. I fear we are in a similar position with many UK universities, and a number of American ones too. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:09, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Merge, baby, merge.--GrapedApe (talk) 15:14, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Drill down and document, baby, drill. Racepacket (talk) 21:55, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Claremont Graduate University

1) Does the American private university fall in the scope of this project? If so needs project banner and infobox. 2) Should Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management, a constituent school of the university be merged into the parent article? I would think so. If no, then does it independently fall in the scope of this project and thus need project banner and infobox? Itsmejudith (talk) 13:30, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, both articles should fall under the scope of this project. I'm not sure if the school of management is notable enough to have its own article but to be completely honest it's fairly well-written for what it is so I'm inclined to spend my time on more pressing issues. ElKevbo (talk) 18:01, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Proposal for university seals and crests

Over the past few weeks, I have noticed that university seals are frequent targets for blanking and removal from articles. (some examples:[22][23]). Part of this is because some universities want to stop certain uses of their logos, but there has been a long-standing consensus here that, if possible, seals and crests should be used in infoboxes. A problem is created when these blanked images are non-free, which can lead to their deletion as orhpaned non-free images. In hopes of stopping some of this blanking, I have created a template that explains this situation. What does the community think about this? --GrapedApe (talk) 17:56, 11 October 2010 (UTC) {{User:GrapedApe/Seal}}

Good idea! Are these graphics in a category or is there some other way we could get someone with a bot to add this template to these graphics without us having to go through several hours of manual labor? ElKevbo (talk) 18:02, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

• This template would not have stopped either of the noted edits. In the first case, it appears to be an attempt to reduce the use of non-free images and still convey the same meaning. That's positive progress. I'll here also note that Susquehanna's seal doesn't appear on the main page of their web site. The text logo placed there by the edit you noted does. I fail to see a reason why we must include the seal. In the second edit you note, it appear to be simple vandalism. Also of interest; Holy Family's crest doesn't appear on their main page either, but a text logo does. At any rate; this proposed template would not have stopped either of these edits. In addition, the contents of the template are implied in every non-free upload here. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:11, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Requests for comment

• Talk:University of Ottawa#Ann Coulter, regarding the weight of the March 2010 "Ann Coulter controversy". Moxy (talk) 04:30, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Wow, in that discussion, it only took 6 hours for someone to bring in the prestige of University of Ottawa into question. Barf.--GrapedApe (talk) 04:44, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
    • Countdown to bloggers and other political provocateurs claiming "Wikipedia censorship" in 3...2...1... Madcoverboy (talk) 13:32, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

University of Plymouth coat of arms

Could someone check - and correct - what I did with that university's infobox in regard to logo and coat of arms. The coat of arms should be in the image field in the infobox, and the logo at the bottom? Itsmejudith (talk) 12:33, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you GrapedApe. Itsmejudith (talk) 13:38, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

UCL Articles created or edited by Rangoon11

I have gone through the following articles that Rangoon11 (talk · contribs) either created or edited on UCL departments and have redirected or edited them where I felt it was necessary, I would appreciate another set of eys to look over them as well :

Thanks

Codf1977 (talk) 14:11, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

It all looks about right. In a parallel case, the three faculties of Newcastle University, I simply redirected by way of merge back into parent article rather than prodded. And I have been merging fairly freely. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:20, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Good work. I'd say just merge the content back to the main article.--GrapedApe (talk) 14:30, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

It looks like User:Colonel Warden disagrees with the above and has reverted the changes. So what does the project think should be done ? Codf1977 (talk) 21:44, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Any idea why he or she disagrees? At a glance I don't see any explanation even in his or her edit summaries but maybe I'm missing it. ElKevbo (talk) 21:50, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

• These institutions all seem to be highly notable and I am finding no difficulty in improving the articles such as the first one in the list above. This is a major medical and academic institution and I fail to understand why you are disrupting development of our article about it. Colonel Warden (talk) 22:12, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

"Our article" ? Uh oh.... ElKevbo (talk) 23:05, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

(To offer a more substantive response) But what makes those institutions notable? I think it very dubious that all of them are sufficiently notable for their own article. If they are, the burden is on you (and others who believe they are notable) to provide sufficient evidence. Otherwise, I think most or all of thse articles don't stand a chance at AfD (with a likely result of "merge" instead of deletion). ElKevbo (talk) 23:09, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

There seems to be something both over-hasty and really rather odd about the way in which so many articles connected with UCL have suddenly been either redirected or tagged for speedy deletion, with, in virtually all cases (the sole exception, I believe, is the UCL Institute of Neurology), no discussion having taken place on the talk pages of the relevant articles. There has just been a table placed on this project page afterwards inviting comments on the actions taken. This page, though important as a project page, is likely to be visited by far less people with a knowledge of the subjects of articles tabulated above (and why they might be notable) than the articles themselves. The table also provides no context and no information about the subjects of the articles. I get the distinct impression that the driving force behind this project for a mass deletion/merging has simply been a feeling that there are 'too many UCL articles' (even though there are actually far more articles connected with, say the University of Cambridge), so lets try and get rid of some (any).

These articles cannot be treated as a single group, although they can to an extent be grouped together into clusters.

Institutes - planned:

The UCL Institute for Cultural Heritage is merely a planned institute at UCL which may not actually go ahead. Although it has received coverage in the media (e.g. [[36]]), I personally see no great tragedy in that article being deleted.

Institutes - mere cross-department groupings:

The UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience is essentially a cross-departmental grouping within UCL and its work effectively takes place within the UCL Institute of Neurology and a number of departments of UCL. Although very important research is conducted under its banner, it does not have an independent history, nor its own budget, management, leadership, library etc. I believe that this article should be merged into UCL Institute of Neurology.

Institutes - independent institutions which merged with UCL:

The UCL Institute of Neurology was established in 1950 and for its first 47 years was not a part of UCL.[[37]]. Even now it remains quasi-independent, with its own building, organisational structure, funding, leadership and library. It was an exceptionally important institute whilst independent, and it remains so as part of UCL. Four of the top twelve most highly-cited authors in neuroscience and behaviour in the world are currently based at the institute. Its work is essentially inseparable from that of the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, which is the most important hospital of its kind in the UK and probably Europe.[[38]]. The institute is home to a joint library with the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, the Rockefeller Medical Library, which is exceptionally important.[[39]]. The institute is part of one of only five comprehensive biomedical research centres established by the NHS in England: [[40]]. In my view it would be wrong to either merge or delete the article of this institute.

The UCL Institute of Child Health was for most of its history completely independent of UCL, and the two only merged in 1996.[[ http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2002/oct/22/highereducation.universitymergers ]]. The institute remains quasi-independent and continues to have its own building, management, leadership, funding, library etc. It was an exceptionally important institute whilst independent, and it remains so as part of UCL. Together with Great Ormond Street Hospital, with which its work is essentially inseparable, it is one of the largest and most important centres for research and postgraduate teaching in children's health in Europe. [[41]] [[42]] [[43]], [[44]]. It forms part of the only paediatric biomedical research centre in the UK: [[45]] [[46]]. The institute's research is frequently mentioned in the media, here are some examples: [[47]], [[48]]. In my view it would be wrong to either merge or delete the article of this institute.

The UCL Institute of Ophthalmology was for most of its history completely independent of UCL, and the two only merged in 1995. [[49]]. The institute remains quasi-independent and continues to have its own building, management, leadership, funding, library etc. It was an exceptionally important institute whilst independent, and it remains so as part of UCL. Together with Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, with which its work is essentially inseparable, it is one of the largest and most important centres for research and postgraduate teaching in ophtalmology in Europe.[[50]] It forms part of the only ophtalmologic biomedical research centre in the UK: [[51]]. Its research is frequently mentioned in the media, here are some examples: [[52]], [[53]]. In my view it would be wrong to either merge or delete the article of this institute.

The UCL Eastman Dental Institue was for most of its history completely independent of UCL, and the two only merged in 1999 [[54]]. The institute remains quasi-independent and continues to have its own building, management, leadership, funding, library etc. It was an exceptionally important institute whilst independent, and it remains so as part of UCL.[[55]] Together with the Eastman Dental Hospital, with which its work is essentially inseperable, it is one of the largest and most important centres for research and postgraduate teaching in dentistry in Europe. Its research is high-profile and often in the media: [[56]] . In my view it would be wrong to either merge or delete the article of this institute.

Institutes - instute founded by UCL:

The UCL Ear Instiute does not have a history as an independent institution, it was founded by UCL in 2000. For this reason I can see an argument that it is prima facie less notable than the UCL Institute of Neurology, UCL Institute of Child Health, UCL Institute of Ophthalmology and [[[UCL Eastman Dental Institute]]. However, like all of them, it is a free-standing institute own building, management, leadership, funding, library etc. It is an exceptionally important institute. Together with the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital, with which its work is essentially inseparable, it is one of the largest and most important centres for research and postgraduate teaching in hearing and deafness in Europe. [[57]] It is home to the most important library for deafness in Europe: [[58]]. Its research and activities are frequently in the media: [[59]], [[60]], [[61]]. In my view it would be wrong to either merge or delete the article of this institute.

Institutes - still not a part of UCL

The Institute of Jewish Studies at University College London never actually merged with UCL, it merely relocated to UCL, and it continues to be privately funded. It was founded in 1954 and therefore has a long history. Of its kind, it is a very notable institute. Its activities have been covered in third-party books and publications and it is listed here : [[62]]. In my view it would be wrong to either merge or delete the article of this institute.

Faculty articles:

Here I am again somewhat confused by the manner in which this UCL deletion/merging 'project' has been approached, as only half of the eight constituent faculties of UCL have been identified for deletion. I expect that this is merely another reflection of the indiscriminate way in which the articles tabulated above have been selected.

It is worth noting that the the UCL Faculty of Laws article (which is not tabulated above) is a well established article which more than establishes notability for its subject within it. Ditto the article for the [[[The Bartlett]] (the UCL Faculty of the Built Environment). Those are in fact by far the smallest of UCL's constituent faculites. The proposed deletion will therefore leave UCL's two smallest faculties with their own articles, and its largest without.

In my view, all eight of the constituent faculties of UCL are notable simply because they are the constituent faculties of a very large and important university. Many peer universities have articles for each of their constituent faculties (eg. University of Michigan, Stanford University, Columbia University, Imperial College London and University of Manchester) and it would be inconsistent to target UCL's for deletion. And yes that is relevant, as Wikipedia:Other stuff exists makes very clear.

Beyond this, each of the faculties is sufficiently notable and significant in its own area to justify an article. Admittedly this is not yet made clear in at least three of the four faculty articles tabulated above (the article for the UCL Faculty of Life Sciences does in fact already have a link to a third-party article stating that it is connected with six Nobel prize-winners, which I would personally feel demonstrates notability in that case).

It should also be borne in mind, in my view, that these articles are all very new, and little time has passed to enable others to add content and evidence of notability of the subjects of them.

It is also relevant, in my view, that the author of the articles is currently blocked and is unable to engage in this process for three months.

It seems wrong to so quickly delete them before others have had a chance to improve them. It also seems very inconsistent with the way that other peer universities are treated.194.75.238.105 (talk) 15:42, 13 October 2010 (UTC) Simon

People have only been working with the criteria already spelt out in the project guidelines. All universities and higher education institutions are notable. First-level subdivisions are notable if there is significant independent coverage. I'm concerned to see the wording "peer universities". For all sorts of reasons we expect to have more coverage for University of Cambridge than for University of Lincoln. That doesn't mean that we treat Cambridge as more important than Lincoln - it's not up to us to decide that. We want to improve all our university articles. WP:OTHERSTUFF says:

As an example, generally speaking, any high school is deemed to be sufficiently notable for an article, but lower-level schools are generally not. While not a hard-and-fast rule, this is the status quo for Wikipedia inclusion and is consistently maintained through discussions of various schools, school districts, and their creatability and keepability (or lack thereof). Thus "inherent notability" is basically codification of "Other Stuff exists".

I think that's what editors have been trying to apply in the UCL case. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:35, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

BPP University College of Professional Studies

Above is currently a redirect to the company running the "first new private university" in the UK for many years. Strictly it's a university college but it's a free standing institution with university status, so is inherently notable according to our guidelines. I expect we would like an article specifically on the university college. If anyone here is an admin, would they like to remove the redirect so that an article on the college can be created? Thanks. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:36, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Why do you need an administrator to remove the redirect? Just remove the redirect link and write the article over top of it (and make sure to check what links there in the Toolbox). Am I missing something? CrazyPaco (talk) 07:21, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Doh! Thanks for the advice. I've expanded the article a bit now. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:20, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Kaplan College/Kaplan University

Are these the same institution? The Kaplan University article states that "in September 2004, Kaplan College officially changed its name to Kaplan University..." (unsourced). Shouldn't Kaplan College be redirected/merged to Kaplan University? Thanks, P. D. Cook ^{Talk to me!} 14:55, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I think it needs some unpacking so that our articles explain the relationship clearly. There are Kaplan International Colleges [63] for example. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:29, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I would have some misgivings about a hasty merger. (I think I'm saying I agree with Itsmejudith.) The diverse enterprises of Kaplan Higher Education (now and in the past) may not all belong in one article, and merging the articles could make it all the harder to sort them out in the future. --Orlady (talk) 11:52, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

That is fine, but these two articles seem like a bit of a content/POV fork, particularly about a false claims lawsuit brought up against the institution. There have been a couple users and IPs adding and removing information about this at Kaplan College. At the very least, someone who knows about this/these institution(s) and the lawsuit should look this stuff over. P. D. Cook ^{Talk to me!} 13:06, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Having additional eyes look at these articles would very much be appreciated. The lawsuit seems to be undue weight right now, and I have had difficulty putting both sides of the suit in the article because of reverting by a new editor. Thanks, Alanraywiki (talk) 15:11, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

It's definitely undue weight. The text has been copied verbatim from three articles in Chronicle of Higher Education. This is a reliable source but one sentence should be sufficient, referenced to the three articles. It should probably go in the Kaplan University article rather than the Kaplan College article. I think the two articles are probably still needed. The articles as a priority need to spell out clearly where campuses are located. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:52, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Article consistency

I noticed that one if the goals of this project is to standardize the Structure of all college and university articles. I also noticed for consistency purposes that the titles of all of the university articles is usually the schools common name as it should be per WP:Commonname. Also all college and university articles begin the lead with the schools official name, if different from the common name. Two good examples of this are Rutgers University and Stanford University. There is a single article, however, that does not seem to follow this practice, as every other article does. The article is The Ohio State University. I tried to fix the discrepancy but I have been reverted by a small number of editors who, although do not have consensus or a reason for doing so, continue to change the schools official name. Has there been a previous discussion and is there a guideline that covers this?Jojhutton (talk) 18:57, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

• This again? This is a perennial debate that is never resolved.--GrapedApe (talk) 03:02, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Should this be submitted to the "most pointless edit war" page? I would say that following Commonname the article title should be Ohio State University. Of course there should be a redirect from The Ohio State University. And the article should begin The Ohio State University is... . But if consensus is for the article to be entitled The Ohio State, redirect from Ohio State, then who really cares? Itsmejudith (talk) 08:02, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Its about consistency throughout the project. The previous debates were over the articles title. This is completely different as this covers only the articles lead, which at the current moment is the only article in this project that is not consistent with every other, per this projects own goal to standardize articles on universities.--Jojhutton (talk) 10:58, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

My preference, and what I think is most consistent, is to start The Ohio State University. There is a parallel with thousands of biographies which start with the subject's full name even if they are known by a nickname or initials. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:11, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Whatever happened to the consensus to have "Ohio State University" as the article name and "The Ohio State University" as the intro? What a lame edit war... Madcoverboy (talk) 18:41, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Was there a discussion and consensus on this from before? I know that there have been several on the articles title, but none that I know of on this topic. The article lead was "The Ohio State University" fir nine years until it was changed a few months prior.Jojhutton (talk) 18:59, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps a The Beatles fan started studying at that university? (That's the only other article I know with this problem.) Hans Adler 18:53, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Totally lame. Redirects take me straight to The Times and to The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. We have ways of dealing with The. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:55, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Again its not an article title issue. Some are obviously having a difficult time discerning one from the other.--Jojhutton (talk) 00:41, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

The article name should be Ohio State University, just as The Pennsylvania State University is called Pennsylvania State University. However, I would support including the full name to start the article. Eagles 24/7 (C) 02:36, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

So then, is it agreed upon that there should be a consistent and standardized structure throughout the project? Including each articles lead.

I know that some here feel that this is lame, as a single edit war, but the goal of this project is to standardize the structure and content of these articles. That is one of the goals of all wikiprojects. Otherwise why have wikiprojects?--Jojhutton (talk) 18:35, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

It seems to me that wording of leads should be resolved at each talk page, not from Wikiprojects.--GrapedApe (talk) 00:27, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

We've already got advice on what should be in the lead and it is a simple task to extend it and clarify it. Articles should, as a rule, start with the official name of the university, even in the few cases where the title differs in accordance with WP:COMMONNAME. That's quite in line with general policy on leads and gives a similar effect to that in many biographies. See for example the article entitled Bill Clinton, but starting William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III).... Itsmejudith (talk) 10:59, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Potential DYK?

It occurred to me that BPP University College of Professional Studies is a potential WP:DYK candidate. Anybody here got experience of nominating an article? Any advice? It seems that a lot of steps are needed. Itsmejudith (talk) 07:59, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I have a lot of DYK experience under my belt. That article's a good candidate, but it's a shade too short for DYK right now. Readable prose size should be 1500 characters and the DYKcheck widget counts 1493. I confess that the length problem is my fault for copy-editing it -- specifically, for removing the statement about University of Phoenix being "one of the biggest universities in the United States," which did not seem to me to be relevant to this article. If you can add a wee bit more content, it will pass the threshold. Which interesting fact did you want to feature in DYK? --Orlady (talk) 20:06, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Really helpful, thanks Orlady. The actual fact needs a careful choice from the sources - it is the first private higher education institution in the UK for 30 years, alternatively the first for-profit higher education institution in the UK. I see why you removed that bit of wording. Can probably find some more basic, perhaps slightly tedious, but relevant info from the uni's own website. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:50, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I did a little more work on the article that brought it up past the threshold. I was also thinking about info from their website -- particularly details of their 14 locations. However, their website lists many more locations than that. (!!) --Orlady (talk) 23:46, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I think that "first for-profit" is a good possibility for a DYK hook ("first" is more interesting than "first in 30 years"). The hook would be something like "... that BPP University College of Professional Studies is the United Kingdom's first for-profit institution of higher education?" However, the article would need to specifically say it's the "first for-profit". Currently it says "first proprietary private university" and "first private-sector entity ... authorized to award university degrees", neither of which is exactly the same as "first for-profit.' --Orlady (talk) 03:47, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

King's College London

I would be grateful for some assistance at King's College London. First of all new account Derekspage made a series of low quality, uncited, POV and generally messy edits to the lead with no discussion. I then reverted these and made a few improving edits (in my opinion at least). Then VHarris44, with whom I have been in a debate on DLA Piper, decided to follow me to King's College London and revert all my edits in a tit-for-tat manner so that Derekspage's edits have all been reinstated.

The lead is now a mess but I can't revert again or I will breach 3RR. Please can some others come and take a look. VHarris44 clearly has no interest in actually improving the article nor in discussing it. Rangoon11 (talk) 11:13, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually I do have an interest in Kings as I went there, Rangoon11's is that he went to UCL so is not an impartial editor with regard to editing it's main rivals page. VHarris44 (talk) 11:23, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry but I very strongly doubt that you went to King's, it very much appears as if you followed me there today following our discussions on DLA Piper yestereday and you have certainly never edited the page before.

I have made a large number of improving edits to the King's article (including my attempted edits today, which were completely appropriate), and to the articles of many other London-based colleges.

I really don't appreciate you rifling through the edit history of my talk page to find that I have studied at UCL in the past and then posting that information here, that behaviour strikes me as highly inappropriate.

You show no interest in discussing the lead of the King's article, merely in being obstructive.Rangoon11 (talk) 11:32, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

it is you that shows no wish to discuss it, you being a past student at UCL goes to show that you can't make impartial edits to Kings, and yes I did go there. VHarris44 (talk) 11:38, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I didn't go to either. I did go to London university but not saying which college(s). So I will have a look when I have a minute. You don't have to have inside information about a university to write about it on Wikipedia. Articles need to be written up from reliable sources. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:00, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Agreed and thanks.Rangoon11 (talk) 15:13, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Help with uncommunicative editor

An unregistered editor camping out at St. John's University (New York) is making significant edits and tossing around accusations while refusing to discuss anything in Talk. Another editor has told me on my Talk page that he or she has had the same difficulties with this unregistered editor. Can a few other folks look into this and help keep this article in line? Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 01:18, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

• Generally the wiki-helpers are good with this stuff, perhaps you could add the Template:helpme to your userpage. -- Aeonx (talk) 02:31, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I appreciate your help but I'm not a new user seeking to ask a question but an experienced one asking the members of this project to help edit and maintain an article that falls under the purview of this project but is being owned by a rude and uncooperative editor. ElKevbo (talk) 03:37, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

This same editor has now reverted the edits of two other editors and left a crazy diatribe on the article's Talk page (which is progress of some sort, I guess). Can someone else please help? ElKevbo (talk) 04:03, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I removed his blatant spam. DC ToC 04:35, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Ateneo de Davao University

Removed the phrase...silicon Gulf,.... de facto capital of Mindanao... unrelated to the topic and is not neutral. Cemby (talk) 14:50, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Article about same sex colleges and transgender students in the USA

Here is:

• Chen, Stephanie. "Male, female or neither? Gender identity debated at same-sex colleges." CNN. November 8, 2010.

WhisperToMe (talk) 15:40, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Admissions office editing Johns Hopkins University article

Can a few other folks take a look at the recent edits to Johns Hopkins University and weigh in on the discussion in Talk? An editor openly associated with the institution's admissions office is making edits to add significant amounts of admissions information. Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 00:52, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

I empathize with the need to deliver pageviews to the powers that be who plowed money into such a shiny site, but this is about as transparent (if well intentioned) as spam comes. Madcoverboy (talk) 06:52, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Please note that the editor who works for admissions has returned and replaced the content in the article despite the objections of three other editors. Can someone other than me please remove the material so it doesn't look like I'm just trying to own the article myself? Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 03:05, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

This editor certainly is persistent. Can a few others please weigh in since we seem to have reached an impasse? Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 03:58, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I think you are right. I said my piece and left. Good luck! Student7 (talk) 20:19, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Attempt to delete Category:Unrecognized accreditation associations

Earlier today John J. Bulten (talk · contribs) emptied the category "unrecognized accreditation associations" (here) and then proposed speedy deletion of the category. This was done after a long-standing merge proposal ([64]) at Talk:List of unrecognized higher education accreditation organizations. I have now reverted the speedy deletion proposal and restored the category to a number of articles from which it had been deleted (and replaced with Category:School accreditors). This would be an extremely damaging change to make -- it would undermine the ability of Wikipedia to enable distinguishing between properly accredited universities and unaccredited diploma mills. It would then be a boon to the owners of those latter institutions, who are only too happy to use Wikipedia as advertising. Such institutions should have Wikipedia articles, and those articles should make it clear that such institutions do not have accreditation in the normal sense of the word. I have now put the category on my watchlist and will attempt to keep an eye on some of the relevant articles (e.g. Accrediting Commission International), but if this editor continues to push this agenda then more eyes will be needed. Given what is available by searching via google on this editor's name, I woudn't be surprised to see such attempts continue. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 12:30, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

First, it is a personal attack to speculate on the real-life identity of another editor beyond what the editor's account has revealed, and it is another to use one's speculations as an ad hominem attack, and it is another to assert an agenda for someone who hasn't edited the topic for a year. Your self-description as "implacably opposed" could also be taken as a threat not to seek consensus. That said, I trust that is all that needs saying on that point.

This was a wholly normal merge proposal and your concerns do not accord with the state of the articles as I found them when I proposed it 20 months ago, or now. Per category/list guidance, some categories are fully redundant with lists, as was the case here, and per overcategorization guidance, this category was subjectively and arbitrarily defined. I laid out the problems last year in the two affected articles (I merged them the day before, and you apparently agree with that aspect); I got zero comments anywhere for 20 months, including category talk, so there was silent consensus among interested editors. I properly merged the category either by upcategorizing to "school accreditors" (which "unrecognized" school accreditors certainly are) or by removing the category when there were others.

Your sudden interest is vitiated by several factors. First, since you have not edited either the articles or the category, you don't seem interested for that aspect. Logically, your concern would apparently be having watchlisted one or more of the accreditor articles, and your belief that omission of such a category would be "extremely damaging" and "a boon to" certain organizations; but when you say the articles should make the form of accreditation clear, why, they already do that, usually in big bold scary language. Further, you did not undo all 14 of the organizations previously listed, easily viewed in my contrib history; and, very telling, the "school accreditors" upcategory was already in use for the "unrecognized" list (which I checked beforehand to ensure such upcategorization was already supported), viz., at least Asia Theological Association.

Since the merge does not "undermine" Wikipedia's ability to distinguish these list members, nor does it delete the affected articles nor their discussion of accreditation status (and discussion it should be in such a controversial area, not categorization), it remains to discuss your charges of "extremely damaging" and your failure to engage the salient points of the merge proposal. The fact is that they are all school accreditors; the claims of the various bodies involved are no different from sovereigns disputing turf wars without agreement on jurisdiction, and so I am skeptical of all of them. You make a distinction that they do not give "accreditation in the normal sense", but the fact is that you are the one wresting an abnormal sense from the word "accreditation": my dictionary does not say that it means "credit given only in accord with the nonprofit CHEA" or anything like. If you would like to create a subcategory of "school accreditors" named "CHEA International Directory", that may be a good solution for maintaining an objective form of the category distinction you wish to see, for instance. But we do have a legal issue here in referring to the organizations properly and without pejoratives; and to deny that they do accredit schools, as reliable sources say they do, is to fail to address those facts, when the proper form of address is to review what third parties say about their accreditation. Thus, if there is any damage, it would be from misclassifying these organizations to a criterion ("unrecognized") that has no objective inclusion paradigm, or that accords bias to the judgment a particular legal entity without saying so.

Since the merger proposal already describes the total redundancy and heavy disagreement about inclusion standards, and since you have not argued against either of these policy problems but instead over a perceived "boon" to certain organizations, you are not presenting policy arguments against the merger. (There is no boon nor demerit involved in encyclopedic treatment, and fuzzy categorization with overweighted, overheated language is not encyclopedic treatment.) These are standard category deletion reasons, and the proper forum is not necessarily the WikiProject, but the category discussion page, to which I turn. JJB 17:34, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

That's an awful lot of verbiage. To me the issue is clear: the organizations in question are not "accreditors", they are fake accreditors, and something essential is lost in grouping them together with accreditors in the normal sense. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 17:59, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. I've read the discussion. The wording "unrecognized" is probably the least problematic that can be used. It is possible that the category can be split, but this would take consensus, which I do not see present. There was a lapse in the consideration of that section, but the discussion on the general issue continued, so I do not think it could reasonably be assumed that consensus was present. As the discussion points out, there are various reasons for being unrecognized: some such are fraudulent, some are misidentified as having that purpose when their real purpose is otherwise, etc. It might be a good idea to figure out how to separate them, but this takes consensus, both about how to divide, and about what would appropriately go in each list. It is altogether inappropriate in a disputed situation, or even a possibly disputed situation, to empty a category and then propose speedy deletion as empty. The speedy criterion is meant for the situation where there is either obvious total agreement, or the category has been empties by such natural means as the eventual deletion of every article in it. Rather, the proposed change must be taken to CfD, unless it is totally noncontroversial. I don't think its ready for that cfd discussion yet, for I think those interested ought first to clarify it by suggesting various schemes, which will make the discussion much clearer. DGG ( talk ) 20:51, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

It is important to maintain the category for the sound reasons given above. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:11, 18 November 2010 (UTC).

I'll affirm DGG's directive for the need to clarify the category, though probably disagreeing on the method and the rationale. It was not inappropriate to empty and speedy (which takes four days) when there was a prior consensus of WP:SILENCE, and I don't know why "the discussion on the general issue" (the issue of list inclusion at list talk, I guess) would preempt a proposal to remove the category. Also as DGG anticipates, the CFD is not yet resulting in clarifying the categories involved. Whether the category should be split into areas DGG refers to as "fraudulent", "misidentified", etc. is not important (and probably not the best direction either); what is important is how we verify they are "unrecognized" at all.

I notice this warning in the edit-visible tags to the "unaccredited institutions" list: Institutions listed here MUST be accompanied by a verifiable citation from a reputable source asserting that the institution is unaccredited. It is not sufficient that an institution merely be missing from one or more lists of accredited institutions as that is original research. But there is no such requirement for "unrecognized accreditors". I repeat accreditors appear to be listed on WP solely because they are listed in Bear and/or self-publisher Levicoff and/or not listed by USDE or CHEA (what are those links please?). This is not a valid criterion for "unrecognition", especially for non-U.S. institutions, a point not rebutted by anyone. However, even if it were valid, it has never been spelled out and my statement of appearances is only a guess. Accordingly, the deletion attempt and CFD is a valid request to sort out the inclusion criteria objectively rather than rely on editors "knowing" they're "fake".

One proposal is to subgroup the existing members of school accreditors into "USDE-recognized", "CHEA-recognized" (including overlaps), and "unrecognized", which can be sourced to two lists (I do need links please). However, to leave "school accreditors" for "real" groups and "unrecognized" for "fake" groups denies the fact that every group, no matter how admittedly fake, does accredit schools by the dictionary definition. Accordingly some overhaul is necessary and nobody seems willing to do the legwork to think about it. Hoping for change. JJB 12:30, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't thonk that your proposal is necessary at this time. Also, most wikipedia users do not know what the acronyms USDE and CHEA stand for. Racepacket (talk) 15:27, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

This is my reaction as well. I don't see a problem, and I'm not convinced that your suggestions will lead to actual improvements in the encyclopedia. I recognize that you have a different perspective on that matter. But it might work out that that perspective is not shared by other editors interested in this topic. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 15:48, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

I have a long history of editing these articles, and I regret that while I have been seeing user John J. Bulten's edits on my watchlist, I hadn't had the time to figure out what was going on and attempt to do much clean up.

Seeing the edit record, I don't need to try to "out" the user's real identity in order to detect a strong odor of POV and probably also WP:COI. Not only has this user inappropriately emptied the "unrecognized accreditors" category, but the same user has been systematically removing the term "accreditation mill" from Wikipedia, both by merging the article accreditation mill into List of unrecognized higher education accreditation organizations (which article does not include the term "accreditation mill" in its current version, presumably due to Bulten's assiduous work) and by changing text like "Law enforcement authorities have identified this organization as an accreditation mill" to the nonsensical "Law enforcement authorities have identified this organization as an unrecognized accreditation organization."

I have no patience for Bulten's apparent notion that Wikipedia must pretend that every self-identified accreditation organization is equivalent to the New England Association until such time as the operator is sentenced to 20 years in prison for fraud. There may be some merit in using the gentle euphemism "differently abled" to describe a mentally retarded person, but there is no similar for similar gentleness regarding fraudulent entities, which 99.9% of the "unrecognized accreditors" are.

I see Bulten's proposal to create lists of "USDE-recognized," "CHEA-recognized" and "unrecognized" as a smokescreen -- and a preface to a proposal to eliminate any mention of "recognition." Since the only distinctions between USDE recognition and CHEA recognition are related to the scope of what USDE is allowed to "recognize" and both forms of recognition are sufficient for all U.S. government purposes, there would be no encyclopedic purpose in attempting to distinguish between these two forms of "recognition." More importantly, "unrecognized" must mean that an entity has not been recognized by any appropriate jurisdiction anywhere in the world. Contrary to the assertions repeatedly made by Bulten and by contributors affiliated with various diploma mills, the accreditation entities with articles that are categorized in Wikipedia as "unrecognized" are documented as being unrecognized worldwide. Admittedly, some of the redlinked entities that appear on the list of unrecognized accreditors are not as thoroughly sourced as those that have articles. Note that it's difficult to keep the sourcing completely up to date when new entities crop up daily -- and the old ones are continually transforming themselves by tricks such as changing words in their names ("Accreditation" becomes "Accrediting", "of" becomes "for", etc.) --Orlady (talk) 16:00, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Note: I have now restored the Accreditation mill article, which John J. Bulten converted to a redirect with an edit summary that incorrectly stated that the article had been merged. --Orlady (talk) 18:09, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree with all of this as well. JJB's complaint is phrased in relation to "original research"; well, if I had full scope to do my own "original research" in this area, I'd not hold back from repeated use of the term "fake accreditation" (but I accept that this would not be appropriate on Wikipedia). So I support DGG's statement that "unrecognized" is the softest appropriate expression here. As for intent, I haven't seen any indication of COI -- I think it merely comes from embrace of market fundamentalism (as I noted at the CfD discussion) -- but if there is evidence of COI I'd appreciate seeing it. At this point I have only reverted the proposal to speedy-delete the category and restored it to most of the articles from which it was deleted, but I'm no more in favor of the merge that eliminates the accreditation mill article and would not oppose reversion of those edits. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 16:10, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

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