Misplaced Pages

Latest revision as of 03:00, 5 February 2024

This is an archive of past discussions on Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Higher education. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Proposed deletion: New College, University of Southampton

New College, University of Southampton (via WP:PROD on 15 December 2007) Deleted

updated --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 15:07, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I have placed {{prod2}}{{expand}}{{wikify}}{{notability}}{{unreferenced}} on the article pending original contributor to begin reformatting and revising the article to meet quality standards. See article's talk page for details. - Jameson L. Tai 11:21, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Proposed deletion: Society of 1910

Society of 1910 (via WP:PROD on 15 December 2007) Deleted

updated --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 15:07, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Infobox university changes

Please see the recent additions to the University Infobox by Lawson.kemp. I believe a tagline is already accounted for by using the motto parameter. Although these aren't exactly the same, I think only one of them is necessary. In order to avoid an edit war, which may have already been started, I am asking others in the project to give their thoughts. I have also commented on the University Infobox talk page. —Noetic Sage 07:00, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

It's tangential to this WikiProject as well

But I could use a little help with Denver Pioneers Hockey. I've suggested the article be merged into University of Denver or be made part of a new article called Denver Pioneers, since no school has an article for their own hockey team (to the best of my knowledge). The author, User:Ctrottnow was welcome templated just this very day and is obviously new to the process. He or she is seemingly taking offense to my proposal it be merged and has twice deleted the mergeto template. I've left messages on the article's talk page and Ctrottnow's. Any help greatly appreciated. Tromboneguy0186 (talk) 17:29, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

(I left an identical message at WT:HOCKEY)

• Comment: User:Tromboneguy0186 has terminated discussion. - Jameson L. Tai 21:08, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

BYU GA nom

I'm about to submit BYU for GA status, I just don't know what to expect since I've never submitted a university articles. Can anyone with experience look over what I've got and/or tell me what to watch out for? Wrad (talk) 01:34, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Fight song proposals

Anyone interested in possible policies (guidelines) about inclusion of university fight songs should review the discussion and offer your input at Misplaced Pages:Centralized discussion/Fight songs. AUTiger » talk 07:26, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

The general feeling that I am getting in that Centralized Discussion is that the issue should be settled with our WikiProject. I'm not sure how far we'll get with this, but after the student unions debate, I think this should be the next topic. - Jameson L. Tai 22:54, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

University of Heidelberg

Could anyone please review the article and tell me what needs to be done to make it a promising GA candidate? I tried to source it as well as possible, but it is sometimes just impossible to find apposite references in English. Athletics and fraternities are not as important as they are at US universities, wherefore the respective sections are correspondingly shorter. I'm especially curious about your impressions in view of NPOV as I tried to write it as neutral as possible, but admittedly I myself am not so. Thanks a lot in advance Fred Plotz (talk) 14:29, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Savannah State University

I am seeking addition input about the structure of the Savannah State University article to stop a minor edit war brewing between another editor and myself. The university infobox is used, as it should, at the top of the article, and in the athletics section the athletics infobox is include. My concerns/issues with the addition of the athletics template is that some of the information is duplicated in the university infobox making the article even longer and more cluttered, Additionally, the majority of the content is covered in the article in paragraph form or in the main SSU athletic article, Savannah State Tigers and in this particular case the fair-use university logo is used twice in the article violating WP:NFCC#3. --Jerm (/ _Contrib) 01:26, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I just gave my two cents on the article on the article's talk page. - Jameson L. Tai 03:34, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

University of California, Riverside

Hello all,

I'd appreciate any help or input at Misplaced Pages:Featured_article_candidates/University_of_California, Riverside. How about an article improvement drive? Thanks, Amerique 05:06, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

A few small issues I pointed out on the talk page. Regarding the AID, this WikiProject recently started (it's less than a month old) its new Collaboration of the Fortnight program. Your article, since it's already at FAN, may not get nominated, but I'll see if I can help out in any way I can. An Article Improvement Drive may not be feasible at this time, but trust me, when WP:UNI expands to a level where we have enough people actively participating, I'll roll out a AID and a dedicated PR proposal...as I did when I introduced the COTF program last month. Thanks for the suggestion! - Jameson L. Tai 05:42, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Article for Deletion: Ivy plus

Ivy plus at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Ivy plus (4 January 2008)

--User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 15:03, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Post 1992 UK Universities

I've noticed there's no set guidelines for what date to use for their establishment. For example, London South Bank University uses the date the school was founded as a tech school while Kingston University uses 1992. Should there be a solid standard? Perhaps listing both? --MichiganCharms (talk) 00:43, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Where I was...

So someone asked where I went... because after my trip during winter break I seemed to have "disappeared" from the wikiproject. My answer is...that I am looking for different ways to contribute. I got AWB access last month and I wasn't able to work out the kinks of the program until now. I've actually been doing a lot of typo-correcting for many university articles (check my contribs) with AWB. I'm still around if there are people who need peer reviews and stuff. And I will definitely maintain the COTF project, but I need more people actively editing those articles. I think in the three COTFs we've had...we might have served most of our articles of interest. Please continue contributing any way you can to the COTF project. Thanks. - Jameson L. Tai 03:46, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Tufts University dispute over a controversy

There is a dispute over the importance and proper way to handle the free speech controversy at Tufts University and the importance, or lack thereof, of the position of the Foundation_for_Individual_Rights_in_Education or "FIRE", the relevant discussion including both proposed texts are at Talk:Tufts_University#Recent_Developments. The matter is to minor for a real WP:RFC, but could definitely use more input as there are only three editors involved so far and it's not getting much better. Thanks for any help in advance. --Doug. 23:06, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

University rankings (UK)

I wonder whether there is some agreement as what should be done about including rankings, particularly those produced by The Guardian newspaper, on an individual institution's page. It seems that those institutions that are ranked lowly are having these sourced rankings removed without reason by anonymous editors. It seems to me that either these rankings are appropriate inclusions in all cases, or none at all. Poltair (talk) 19:21, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Random anonymous edits are common when information that may be harmful to the university is made on the university's article. See University of Phoenix's controversial article as an example. You may undo the anonymous IP's removal if you go into the article's history page and click on the undo link. It will revert to its previous version. Hope this helps. - Jameson L. Tai 20:59, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I am not in favor of including Guardian rankings because they are unhelpful in choosing universities, and are published already. Are they for teaching, research, and if so, which department? If we include Guardian rankings, I would propose adding the Go Green campaign to all UK universities that took part in the awards. For example The University of Nottingham was given a "2:1" rating in an independent environmental audit by student action group People & Planet. --BenjaminAlfredSamuel (talk) 09:27, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Syracuse University Buildings

I was wondering if I could recruit some people from this project to help work on the List of Syracuse University buildings article. As of now, I've been the primary contributor to it, since its creation in December and there's still a significant amount of information that needs to be added. Any help would be great. --ZeWrestler 06:17, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Articles for deletion

University of Michigan Residence Halls Association has been nominated for deletion. If you would like to participate in the discussion please visit the corresponding AfD page. —Noetic Sage 18:37, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Glossary of Texas Aggie terms has been nominated for deletion. Please participate in the discussion if you wish. Johntex\ 02:48, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Future AfD posts

Hey everyone, I've noticed that we have a lot of AfD posts on this talk page. Since we are getting so many, I went ahead and created a Deletion page where we can all post articles up for deletion. Instructions are there and a template was created to notify discussions that you have posted. It is {{UNI deletion}}. Hope this works better!—Noetic Sage 06:36, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Template redirect

I just created {{WPUNI}} to redirect to {{WikiProject Universities}}. So now you can simply type the shorthand (including appropriate parameters) on talk pages if you like. Hot!—Noetic Sage 22:27, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

STATISTICS

I definitely think statistics, like the percentage of who gets in, should be added..

You mean the percentage of successful applicants? IMHO it's utterly meaningless because of so many factors and very hard to quantify. Here are my comments from Talk:University of Birmingham:

Leaving aside whether this is referring to all places, just UGs, just PGs, full time course only, something else or any combination, there are several key factors. In particular:

• Applicants tend to ignore universities they (or those advising them) think they have zero chance of getting into, even if they really want to go there.
• Some institutions may have additional entry requirements that can block a person from even applying in the first place - for instance University College London has announced that from 2012 it will require applicants to have a modern language GCSE to even be considered for any place.
• Under the UCAS scheme for undergraduate applications you can apply to up to six different courses, often at separate institutions though sometimes at the same. So there is strong potential for double and even triple counting of people who want to get into a particular university rather than onto a particular degree. Some especially competitive courses like medicine have a limit of four choices and it's very common for would be medics to use their remaining two + options for courses like biomedical science as a back-up route to medicine with the intention to go onto a graduate entry programe, often at the same institution.
• Currently the UCAS form offers no way for an applicant to distinguish between the institution they really want to go to, a "near miss" second choice and a "if everything goes wrong" ultimate fallback. (Later they have to select only one firm and one insurance place from those that make offers, but usually the passage of time allows for later refinement.) In particular it's common for Oxbridge applicants to look to other Russell Group institutions, especially those in roughly the same part of the country (Warwick also gets a very high application rate). So just how to you distinguish between actual desire and a resigned "it'll do"?
• Oxford and Cambridge don't allow applicants to apply to the other in the same year, thereby reducing their total numbers.
• For research postgraduates applications a lot are first made informally, sounding out availability of supervisors and the like.

(END)

Plus of course direct applications to institutions (which is how nearly all postgraduate applications currently operate here) are very often not centrally collated in statistics. Timrollpickering (talk) 22:03, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

New task force for students' unions?

I propose that a new task force be created. I know the student affairs task force hasn't done a whole lot yet besides getting articles together, but I believe a task force on students' unions is needed. After the discussions that took place a few months ago and seeing articles like List of Canadian students' associations along with various other students' union articles, we need to assemble a task force that will address some of these concerns. I suggest that someone not currently living in the United States take control of this task force. I am thinking the task force could:

1. Help ensure that our article guidelines are helpful for students' unions articles.
2. Enforce notability guidelines on these articles by deleting non-notable unions and ensuring notable unions have reliable sources.
3. Set a precedent for future articles so that we can avoid heated discussions like those in recent memory.

I'm open to other suggestions, but in Canada alone there are over 40 unions and I'm not sure if all (or any) are notable.—Noetic Sage 06:08, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

I do agree that it probably varies by country, but I think it would better to discuss all of them. I would be glad for almost any resolution to this perennial nuisance, as long as the compromise could stick. (my personal view is that for a US university or major college, the principal one is notable in the US--and even more in countries where they have a role in governance. In practice, they can serve as useful places to merge various non-notable student clubs and activities. )DGG (talk) 06:24, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Should this be directed to the existing student affairs task force or are we supposed to start another one from scratch and recruit new members who would willing to work on this? - Jameson L. Tai 08:20, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

The Student Affairs Task Force can take it on, but I want to make sure that a non-US person is going to help lead the discussion or greatly contribute to the project. I will take this to the TF page. Thanks.—Noetic Sage 02:07, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Notability of Georgia Tech Freshman Experience

Hey all. I recently tagged Georgia Tech Freshman Experience for not satisfying the notability guidelines but a few editors over there vehemently believe that it is notable. Perhaps I'm off my gourd and am not thinking lucidly. If anyone could give their thoughts here or on the talk page there as to whether or not this page is notable, that would be much appreciated. Thanks!—Noetic Sage 06:02, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd say it was completely unnotable and send to AfD as it never will be. All primary resources and basically just a summary of the Georgia Tech websites. AnmaFinotera (talk) 06:05, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I ran a quick Google search to see if there has been third-party coverage of the program (for example in insiderhighered or the Chronicle of Higher Education). I didn't find anything. The topic should be merged back into the Georgia Tech article, IMHO. --Orlady (talk) 04:05, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I tend to agree. Would someone else like to lead an AfD or merge proposal? I don't think it would be taken kindly if I made a proposal over there.—Noetic Sage 05:44, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I'll back you up on it Noetic Sage. Your work so far has been very objective. I still believe that the backers of GTFE have COI on the issue because they are associated with GT personally. I do agree though, AfDing the article won't be taken kindly. Don't worry about it. - Jameson L. Tai 06:43, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Jameson, I appreciate that. I would still rather have someone else do it, just because I have a feeling there will be personal attacks if I initiate it. I'd like to avoid that hassle.—Noetic Sage 06:58, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Anyone want to take care of this today?—Noetic Sage 03:46, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Georgia Tech Freshman Experience - Jameson L. Tai 08:23, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Requesting some feedback on Hofstra University

Yes, i know this is kind of long, sorry for that

I originally came across the above mentioned article a few months ago while having to do some vandalism reversion on it. Since the vandalism was kind of complex, i ended up reading large parts of the article, and personally it kind of ticked me off as advertisement. Now i know that this article does by no means classify as blatant advertising (Not even close actually), but after re-reading it a few times during the last few months, i cant say i'm exactly happy with the contents.

Personally, i feel that the Hofstra article provides way to much detail on subjects that are (in my opinion) not worthy of being extensively discussed in an encyclopedia. For example, take this line from the article: The Joan and Donald E. Axinn and the Hofstra Law Libraries have over 1.4 million volumes and are accessible through 24/7 electronic access to more than 50,000 journals and electronic books. Axinn Library is housed in a ten-floor tower and twin three-story pavilions. Students have free access to the circulating and reference book collections, which are in open stacks. I think its great that they have a library that size, but is it really necessarily to spend 3 full lines on it? I think the statement that the university has a large library with 1.4 million books is more then enough for wikipedia. Where it is housed, that it has 24/7 access and is also available in electronic formats are in my eyes details that should not be included. (It sounds a lot like Bragging/Advertising)

The above is just an example of this, since the article goes into details almost everywhere. I have little to no affinity with the Wikiproject Universities, nor with the guidelines for pages on articles that fall under this project. Since editing the article in the way i suggested might take out quite some content, i rather ask here for some advice before making any changes on the article (If needed in the first place). Excirial 17:15, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Infoboxomania

Are you in college? Student? Faculty? Staff? Alumni? Or just know a lot about universities?

I could truthfully answer yes to more than one of those.

Join us!

Well, let's see. . . . You have three expressed goals. The third seems useful. The second seems admirable. The first is odd. What does it refer to? A list appears below. First on the list is All institution articles should have an infobox providing the basic details about the institution, preferably with an image of the institution logo. Uh-oh. I keep reading, and there's the "infobox". I don't know what "basic details" means to you, but to me it's very strange: Yes, it includes basic information on size and location, and maybe it's a dumping ground for trivia -- |colors = |colours = |mascot = |nickname = etc -- but it omits any mention of what's studied there and thus for example there's no indication of the (I'd have thought) important matter of the presence or absence of a medical school.

Actually the question of whether a university has a medical school is one that's easily dealt with in prose. Ditto for when the place was founded, etc. Indeed, the "infobox" strikes me as ideal not for what's "basic" (as I understand the word) but instead for trivia, which thereupon wouldn't need to be written up any further.

I believe that my general uninterest in "infoboxes" puts me in a distinct minority in en:WP. But could it be that your emphasis on the thing limits your own appeal? I look at a poor article on a university, wonder whether to stick your template on its talk page, consider your emphasis -- with its emphasis on trivia and also obsolescence (what with a field for "president" but no additional field for "as of") -- and decide that no, I'd better not. -- Hoary (talk) 06:23, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Was there an actual point behind your mini-rant? Or was this just a displaced blog entry? - Jameson L. Tai 06:51, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

The main actual point was a suggestion to turn down your emphasis on your infobox. A secondary actual point was a suggestion that you might rethink what the infobox was really for. (Both were politely expressed, I'd thought.) -- Hoary (talk) 07:04, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, this is a discussion page. I'm just not sure what you want us to do, that's all :D We're emphasizing on our infobox because we are standardizing the articles. The infobox, really, is for standardization of general "at-a-glance" information that may be relevant to the article's subject. Also, sometimes the infobox serves as a good way to display information that may or may not flow well in the article itself - like school colors. I would think that the article would sound slightly awkward if it randomly indicated in the article somewhere what the school colors are with their colorboxes. We have a very workable list of common infobox-able items that we've collected that are common with many, many other university articles around the world. I don't see what the problem is. If you are questioning the usage of infoboxes in our wikiproject, I'd expect your same questions directed to every other wikiproject that are utilizing similar standards, WP:SCH, WP:(Some Country), right down to articles on books, companies, essentially the very existence of infoboxes. Therefore, I ask you direct your concerns to the Village Pump. Good day. - Jameson L. Tai 07:36, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I see what he's saying. I think the problem, though, is that academic programs/studies offered is not "basic" info. In fact, it's more than a little complicated. So it seems that sort of disqualifies that info from being in the infobox. I also wonder if adding a list of programs keep us encyclopedic or ventures on being a guide to choosing a college (which Misplaced Pages is not). And, as Jamesontai says, the infobox does provide space for information that does not fit into prose so easily. But, I've definitely run into other people who protest to the use of userboxes entirely, so that's not particularly unusual. If a strong article can be put together which omits a userbox, it seems just as likely to be promoted to featured (depending on the editors reviewing). If Hoary is working on any specific university article and chooses to remove the userbox, I'd suggest leaving a note on the article's talk page to inform other editors and/or seek consensus. --Midnightdreary (talk) 12:19, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I think he's saying that the emphasis on infoboxes represents an emphasis on STYLE over SUBSTANCE. That problem is not limited to this wikiproject, and won't be resolved here. --Orlady (talk) 01:44, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps one problem is of what "basic" means here; a question that can of course be rephrased if "basic" is too problematic a term. I for one want to know what a university does (to me, this is basic); I don't mind being told that its colors are dark green and orange (which to me isn't basic at all and is mere trivia), but I'm surprised when the colors of dark green and orange seem to be given more prominence than the existence of its medical school. On the other hand, if the "dark green and orange" stuff is to be presented, it's handily presented in a box -- but, I'd have thought, a box in some inconspicuous place within the article rather than at the top.

Yes, I can agree with Orlady to some extent. But while it's true that the problem (if, like me, you think there is a problem) isn't limited to this project, I'd never previously encountered any project that laid such an emphasis on its userbox.

I've fiddled with a small number of articles on universities in my time. But as far as I remember, I've only created one. I would not want to add your infobox to it. Not because it gives prominence to stuff (colors, mascot, etc.) that I (perhaps unusually) think is mere trivia, but because (i) it duplicates what's in the text and (ii) it asks for information that would quickly become obsolete. Yes, I could easily look up the name of the university president and add this; however, the name would mean little or nothing to most people, and the man (almost always a man!) could be replaced at any time and I'm not going to keep checking with university's website to insure that the info is up to date. Further, though I'd certainly hesitate before removing an infobox placed there later by somebody else, I'm so certain that an infobox would be a bad idea there that I don't want to tempt its addition and therefore don't want to add your template to the talk page. Which really seems a pity, as clearly you are a well-intentioned, energetic bunch of people and, infobox aside, I'd like to draw your attention to the article and draw people's attention to you.

Thus my first suggestion: not to scrap your infobox but to reduce the emphasis that you place on it. -- Hoary (talk) 02:11, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

You say you are not aware of other projects that place so much emphasis on infoboxes. For what it's worth, a few other projects that place heavy emphasis on these boxes are Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Cities, Misplaced Pages:WikiProject U.S. counties, Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places, and Misplaced Pages:WikiProject U.S. Highways. --Orlady (talk) 07:20, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

You bring up some interesting points, but I'm not sure how we could de-emphasize the infobox. We are attempting to reach a standardization in coverage of university articles. If we de-emphasize anything that is part of our project (infobox, article guidelines, assessment, etc), then we lose the standardization which we are trying to achieve. —Noetic Sage 05:38, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I have been keeping an eye on this discussion and I am beginning to wonder if there is a point to this at all. It seems someone has an aversion to infoboxes. While that is a personal preference, the majority of users like them and find the helpful. They are not meant to provide the entire substance of an article but a few important but basic facts that can be found without digging through the entire work. Your characterization of this information as trivia is poor at best. Your argument about the information becoming obsolete is also poor. While the information changes, it changes about once a year and can easily be kept current. Also, when a president leaves, it makes the news, and the article is updated. As for de-emphasizing the infobox, why would we want to do that? As I have already stated, they provide useful information. KnightLago (talk) 06:41, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Also, the comment about finding out what the university does. Might I suggest reading the text of the article, where all the substance is? KnightLago (talk) 06:49, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

If you wanted to do it, you could do it easily. Although if standardization really is your major aim, you'll have problems. But let's put this matter aside for a moment. Japan, where I happen to live, has hundreds of universities. Here are only some of them. (Here is a longer list -- and even this excludes public universities, of which there are a huge number.) For the articles that already exist, this is not an unusual edit history. Suppose I create an article on yet another university. Should I add your infobox to it (or, by adding your ad to the talk page, encourage you to add your infobox to it)? If so, the name of the president (for example) may be added. Presidents here often last just three years or thereabouts and can switch at any time during the year; are you going to keep reading the relevant bit (perhaps in Japanese only) of the university's site to check that the old fellow hasn't been supplanted by a slightly less old fellow?

Ideally, yes, Japanese and other universities should be written up to the same high standards that are met by many articles here on universities in the anglophone countries. But there's no chance of this happening for more than a tiny minority. Until it happens, your template strikes me as a device to encourage built-in obsolescence.

So I'd start by suggesting that your template should be added to an article only when the article is so long that the important items among the "basic information" -- stuff like when it was established -- might take a few seconds to find. And I'd continue by dissuading people from adding "time-sensitive" (quickly obsolete) information to articles that aren't likely to be edited by a moderate number of interested, alert people. My point being that no information is always better than misinformation.

To me, standardization (here, and not in metrology, etc.) is just a means of meeting the end of high standards. Universities themselves emphasize the latter: I don't think you'll find MIT and Caltech advertising how similar to each other they've managed to make themselves. I'd emphasize the standards and deemphasize the standardization.

KnightLago says: Your characterization of this information as trivia is poor at best. If you think that school colors, mascot, etc., are not trivia, then we obviously disagree on what is and isn't trivia. ¶ Your argument about the information becoming obsolete is also poor. While the information changes, it changes about once a year and can easily be kept current. Also, when a president leaves, it makes the news, and the article is updated. This is true, I think, for US universities. I happen to know that is not true for Japanese universities (even in the Japanese press). The closest non-anglophone country to you is, I think, Cuba. When the president of one of these institutions is replaced, does this rate an article in your newspaper of choice? -- Hoary (talk) 07:13, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Some things that bother me about the WP:UNI emphasis on infoboxes are (in no particular order):

• Those school colors. It's one thing for the infobox to tell me the colors are (for example) purple and gold, but it seems to me that including little squares to illustrate what those colors look trivializes the article.
• Infoboxes should not be a substitute for article content, but sometimes they are treated that way. In this and some other projects, I have encountered editors who removed key information (such as the location of the school) from the article lead because it was in the infobox.
• The existence of the infobox seems to lead people to shoehorn information into the infobox that does not really fit. For example, University of the State of New York is not a university in the normal sense; consistent with its actual character, its infobox (which presumably was dutifully populated because "universities" are supposed to use it) contains the odd entry "Location: All over the State of New York", and other items in the infobox have even become the subject of an edit war. Conversely, the infobox for the State University of New York (which is a university in the normal sense and has many campuses in the state) misleadingly identifies just one city as its only location.

--Orlady (talk) 07:20, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

In the U.S. school colors are important. The universities make millions of dollars on merchandise with their colors. School teams are also identified by their colors. This is not trivia. As for the obsolescence argument, this is the English Misplaced Pages and the majority of changes in school administration are reported in the U.S. I don't think we should make changes reducing the information we provide because it might become obsolete at some undetermined point in the future. Replying to someone else. We are not encouraging users to use the infobox instead of the article for substance. If you see someone doing that, explain to them that all information should be in the article as well. As for people shoehorning, and the example you provided, University of the State of New York does not appear to be our userbox. It is coded on the page and does not use our template. I went to remove it after your comments when I noticed. As for location, that is a content dispute and needs to be worked out between the regular editors of the article. There is not much we can do about. And while only one location for SUNY is identified, the other information is missing and should be added. Since you noticed it, I encourage you to do it. These userboxes and their articles are only as good as the editors who use them. We can only provide the proper template and encourage users to use it properly. KnightLago (talk) 15:03, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Ideally, that article for SUNY would give the location as "New York, USA," since there are far too many campuses to make it useful to list them all of them in the infobox. (Template:SUNY at the bottom of the article provides the list of locations.) In the past, other users have deleted the city name, but because city is a required field in the infobox, that deletion (depending on how the deletion is implemented) renders the location as either "Location: {{{city}}}, New York, USA" or "Location: state = New York, USA". To be candid, I would rather work on improving article content than on fighting with the inflexible template syntax for an infobox. --Orlady (talk) 16:33, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm neither from nor in the US, have never been to a US university, and have little to say about US universities. This project's infobox may be very good for US universities. And so I've no beef with As for the obsolescence argument, this is the English Misplaced Pages and the majority of changes in school administration are reported in the U.S. However, I know for a fact that such changes aren't reported in Japan -- unless (a) the university is the Japanese equivalent of Harvard, (b) the previous incumbent left under a deep cloud, or (c) there's something unusually newsworthy about the new person -- and I have no reason to think that Japan is unusual in this. Moreover, I see that this project announces that it is keen to standardize articles on universities and that it strongly implies that use of this infobox is an important part of that effort.

Or perhaps we have different ideas of reliability and informativeness. I've been amazed by the number of intelligent people I meet in the real world who actually believe what they read in WP (at least as long as it isn't interrupted by "ERIC IS A FAG"). I think that WP better serves people when it minimizes misinformation ("You may not read much in this article, but at least you can believe what you do read"), and that one way to minimize it is to avoid the built-in obsolescence that's likely to get a boost from encouragement of the use in seldom edited articles of infoboxes designed for intensively edited articles. -- Hoary (talk) 15:44, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Fortunately, neither the name of the university head nor the colors are required fields in Template:Infobox University. You are free to use the template, but omit those items. --Orlady (talk) 16:33, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

While this may be true, I hope we don't see random editors going through every single university article and blanking these optional fields, especially if they have been rated, gone through WP:GAN, WP:FAR, or any other means of article assessment unless each article receives consensus on their individual respective talk pages. - Jameson L. Tai 19:19, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't believe that Hoary is interested in deleting this content from infoboxes of existing GAs and FAs. I believe he is asking why editors are being encouraged to add it to stub- and start-level articles for universities outside the United States. Since the infobox can be created without populating those elements, those elements should not be a barrier to using the infobox. Since "City" and "Date of establishment" are the only required elements, the infobox is more problematic for institutions in multiple cities, such as SUNY, University of Phoenix, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, and DeVry University, or that lack an unambiguous date of establishment, such as Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (founded as a company, later became a university). --Orlady (talk) 19:54, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you've summed up my point well. Incidentally, "Date of establishment" is troublesome here too: very commonly, some school started up, changed its name or direction or both a couple of times, and only much later called itself a university. Usually (always?) the university takes the earliest possible date as its date of establishment; but I think this is less to educate than to impress. (In particular, announcement of a centenary is likelier to bring in donations than is announcement of a seventieth anniversary.) -- Hoary (talk) 00:03, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

So...are you saying that Japanese universities don't tell their students when the head of the university changes? Japanese universities have no university newspapers and websites where such changes are noted? Students have no idea who is the current head of their school? That seems odd to me. AnmaFinotera (talk) 19:47, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

No, I'm not saying any of those things (although you will often find that students have no idea of who the current head is). Yes, they have websites. These websites typically have less interesting stuff (such as the name of the prez) on English as well as Japanese pages. (More go-ahead universities do this in Chinese and Korean too.) These sites can be and usually are linked to from the en:WP articles, where the latter exist. And so?

I get the impression that a large proportion of the editing of articles about US universities is done by present and past students of those universities. A change of prez at, say, Texas A&M may or may not be noted by editors unrelated to Texas A&M, but within a few days it's bound to be noted by somebody we might call a Texas A&M editor. I have already pointed out that Japan has a vast number of universities and a pretty large number that already have some kind of article in en:WP. A small percentage of these will have a population of students and ex-students who are articulate in English and prepared to edit here. Most will not. (It's hard to prove the latter claim, but you might start by subtracting this number from this one and thereby contemplating the number of private universities about which not one single person has ever bothered or dared to write anything whatever. Plus there are municipal, prefectural and other public universities.) Now, if in a weekend-long burst of enthusiasm some well-meaning editor plonks your template on every article about a university in, say, Hokkaidō, dutifully adding the name of the prez to each, and if that editor then moves on to universities elsewhere or other fields within en:WP, or simply gets bored with en:WP, what do you think the templates will look like a couple of years later? I think most will look just the same, and that perhaps one third of these will quite unnecessarily be giving misinformation. Other people hereabouts seem to think that misinformation in WP articles is merely regrettable as long as its addition was benevolent; by contrast, I rate accuracy above all, or certainly above elegance, standardization, or pseudo-comprehensiveness. -- Hoary (talk) 00:03, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Separation of infoboxes?

I'm a higher ed scholar and my education and experience is exclusively focused on American institutions. From my perspective, the problem seems to be that we're trying too hard to force all institutions of higher education into one infobox that uses the same parameters. Further, we're trying to force too much information into the infoboxes and the information itself is far from standardized and objective. Thus we end up adding more and more parameters to accommodate more and more information.

Would it be helpful to split off at least the (a) American institutions and (b) American systems and give them their own infoboxes? We have at least some basis for placing standardized information in those infoboxes (Common Data Set, IPEDs data, Carnegie classifications, etc.). We might even be able to draw upon the work that other organizations are doing to develop systemized templates for institutions to place on their own websites such as NASULGC's Voluntary System of Accountability template. --ElKevbo (talk) 19:30, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I think the current infobox we have is fine. While there are a lot of fields in the template, all of them are not used in the articles. Before we go into how to change the infobox, I think we should first find out if their is a consensus that changes are needed. KnightLago (talk) 19:50, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

As noted above, the inclusion of "City" as a required field in the current infobox does not work well for institutions with multiple campuses, including many U.S. schools. Would there be an objection to making that field optional? --Orlady (talk) 19:58, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Objection. - Jameson L. Tai 20:03, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

OK, you object. Could you please explain? I'm particularly interested in knowing how you would insert accurate and non-misleading city information into the city field of the infobox for a school such as SUNY, which has 4-year programs in at least 25 cities, plus more cities with 2-year programs. --Orlady (talk) 20:10, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

That issue is just what I raised above: the infobox is not suitable for systems but for individual institutions. I think we're trying to cram too many round pegs into one square hole... --ElKevbo (talk) 20:14, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I am fine with making city optional. As for the infobox not suitable for systems, I think that can be done two ways. Depending on the size and situation, they could use the infobox on each university/campus article and just clearly indicate it is part of a system but relate the information to the individual campus. Or if they do not have separate articles for each campus, they could put the box on the main campus and discuss the separate campuses in the article. For SUNY, how many of those 25 city campuses have articles? Also, can you provide specific examples where you do not think the infobox is working so we can see where the problems are? As for the founding date example, they could use either date and then footnote the situation. KnightLago (talk) 20:36, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

All of the SUNY campuses are covered by articles. See Template:SUNY, which is the navigation box for the entire system. The SUNY provides good treatment of the overall system, too. It is the infobox that provides the inaccurate and misleading information that SUNY is located in Albany. --Orlady (talk) 21:21, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Also, regarding other specific examples mentioned above, as for SUNY, I think they are fine how they look now. Each campus has its on box with information. If we were to make the city field optional then they could remove the specific city name. As for U of Phoenix and DeVry, they are special cases. They are not a university as we normally think of them, but rather online or located in single buildings around the country. These are not campuses, in the traditional sense so I don't see the logic of changing things to better fit them over all the others. As for Embry-Riddle U, they could have the main article as the first founded campus and then make another article for the other site. Or they could have the name direct to a dab page with each campuses article listed or just keep it how they have it sine they only have two campuses, or they could simply combine the numbers in the box and discuss each campus in the article. Either of the ways would work. KnightLago (talk) 20:46, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

It sounds like you are asking for articles to be rewritten to fit the infobox structure, when it is the articles (not the infoboxes) that are supposed to the main event in Misplaced Pages. (Wink). I am asking to make the infobox flexible so that it can accommodate situations that do not fit our standard conception of a university. There are many such cases -- the ones I have named are just the proverbial "tip of the iceberg". There are many small unitary schools with multiple campuses (such as Roane State Community College) that do not warrant campus-specific articles, there are many more multi-campus for-profit institutions similar to DeVry and Phoenix -- and don't get me started about the diploma mills (and alleged diploma mills) that often lack verifiable physical locations (but have partisans that try to conform their articles to WP:UNI outlines in order to make them look legitimate). This is why I endorse making "City" optional, rather than generating a whole new suite of templates for different variations on the concept of a "university." --Orlady (talk) 21:21, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I am not suggesting articles be written to fit the infobox, I was simply offering a number of options to address your concerns over the box. I am fine, as I said, with making city optional. As for the CC you mentioned, they could do it just like FAU does. Maybe we need to come up with standards for the use of infoboxes when there are multiple campuses in one article, such as in FAU, and other situations where each campus has its own article. That way we could address your objections. KnightLago (talk) 21:28, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying, KnightLago. I'm still interested in hearing why Jamesontai feels that the city field should be mandatory. --Orlady (talk) 21:48, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

The rule of my thumb in my shop when dealing with American institutions with multiple or branch campuses or systems is if they have their own IPEDS number, they're a separate institution and should be dealt with accordingly. It's not a bad system and if adopted or at least used as guidance for determining which institutions merit their own unique articles it would help clear up some of this confusion. It shouldn't be a hard rule but it's a start. --ElKevbo (talk) 22:15, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) Uh... have you guys forgotten about:

|city = ] <br />
        ] <br />
        ] <br />
        ] <br />

Just a thought... - Jameson L. Tai 02:48, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Are you are thinking in terms of this something like this partial implementation of a multi-city infobox for SUNY? That's semi-workable, as long as the cities are all in the same jurisdiction (as currently configured, the university infobox does not allow for listing more than one state or country), but it looks kind of silly, and I am having trouble seeing what useful purpose it would serve. Why do you consider the city name to be a critically important element of the infobox? --Orlady (talk) 03:51, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I echo the confusion about the city is a required field. In fact, I don't even know why year is a required field in that infobox. Any serious objections to making both optional? --ElKevbo (talk) 04:27, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Not to sound uncivil, but I don't get why the sudden confusion the infoboxes are now bringing. I mean they've been here for a long time now. And I don't see how a simple <br /> won't solve the multi-city listing. (And Orlady, I don't know what you're saying about "jurisdiction." A line break is the simplest solution to listing multiple items on a table infobox layout. I'm not suggesting that we rewrite the entire infobox to include |city2 = , |city3 = , and so on. It is redundant and unnecessary when line breaks can take care of the job just as well with out changing the scripting.) And now, I'm seeing suggestions that the establishment year of a university is no longer "table reference" material anymore? I am getting confused as to how it is that other people are getting confused...if that makes any sense whatsoever. - Jameson L. Tai 09:20, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry about that -- the link to my sandbox page should be working now. Please look at this partial implementation of a multi-city infobox for SUNY and see how awkward it is (and remember that this is only the beginning of the list of cities). What I meant by "same jurisdiction" is "same state, province or country" -- the current infobox template does not allow for one university to be located in two different states, provinces, or countries. Granted, the infobox template could be tweaked to accommodate dozens of cities, but to what purpose? SUNY should be described in the infobox as "Location: New York State, USA"; the nav box lists the specific locations. I fail to understand the drop-dead importance of listing a city in the infobox of every university article. --Orlady (talk) 15:09, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. Let's consider one university, Keio. (If it matters, I have no formal connection with this university, though I used to; I do know people there.) We read for example: Established: 1858 There's historical continuity since then and, especially as this year makes the place easily the oldest Japanese university, it's the year drummed home by the university itself. It started as a small school for Dutch studies in 1858, renamed itself to emphasize English studies five years later, and adopted the name Keiõ Gijuku (still in use) in 1868. Offhand I don't know the ages of the students back then: it may have been less a university than a secondary school. It developed a university in 1890; it has retained high schools since. So the years 1858, 1868 and 1890 all have some claim. That the university itself would stoutly object to any later alternative to 1858 is in itself no reason to reject any of them. (WP should deal in sourced facts, not PR releases and "common knowledge".) NB this complexity is by no means unusual among Japanese universities (and I've no reason to think that Japanese universities are unusual here). ¶ Students: 32,275 / Undergraduates: 27,984 / Postgraduates: 4,291 / Doctoral students: 3,708. The degree of pseudo-precision here is insane: which day do these figures refer to? Location: Minato, Tokyo, Japan / Campus: Urban. The Mita campus is only one of several. It's the oldest one and the one with the central administration, but the university's students doing engineering, etc. never need set foot in it and instead study in (for example) suburban campuses in Yokohama. Nickname: Unicorns, etc. / Mascot: Popeye the Sailor (unofficial) I wouldn't be surprised if each of these were true of one team. As descriptions of the whole university, they're fictional. ¶ The infobox is at least up to date with the name of what it calls the "Chancellor" (even if this page informs us that Keio translates its quaint term of Jukuchō not as Chancellor but as President). ¶ And all of this about a university that's rich and prestigious enough to attract a moderate number of students able and perhaps willing to write it up in English. Lower down the latter, expect worse.

Mr Strawman pipes up: "But why do you keep jabbering away about Japanese universities? This is English-language Misplaced Pages. Few people are interested."

Right. Well, Japan's where I happen to be and what I know most about; your project clearly indicates that it thinks this template should be plonked in every university article (not just US ones); and yes indeed the relative lack of editorial interest in Japanese (and Cuban, and many other) universities is what makes this template particularly unsuitable for them. -- Hoary (talk) 10:30, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, this sounds more like whoever translated the article or just inputted the information into the infobox the first time didn't input them in the correct field, not the infobox malfunctioning. It has a chancellor section as well as a president section, and the established year could be fixed easily. If you can find a source that would actually prove that it is 1890 or whenever, edit the infobox field and place a reference in response to properly citing your later date claim. What you're saying here is more misinformation and faulty adaptations to the Japanese systems. I don't see a problem here. - Jameson L. Tai 13:39, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

If you don't see a problem here, then either I must have explained myself very badly or I must be imagining problems. (Fearing that I'll be struck with the dread "CIVIL"-bat, I shan't broach the possibility that new reading glasses might help.)

You've seized on the smallest point I made, that the "President" is called "Chancellor". How about the other stuff? You invite me to provide proof that the university was founded in 1890, ignoring the larger point that the very notion of being founded in a single year is simplistic. This outfit wasn't founded in either 1858 or 1890: in a sense it was founded in 1858 (the one year it chooses to celebrate), in another sense in 1868, in yet another in 1890; meanwhile, the template strongly dissuades such subtlety and encourages cartoonish simplicity. How about the idiotic "statistic" of Students: 32,275? If that and other figures had been qualified with some phrase such as "Registered numbers at the start of the 2007 academic year", they'd make sense to me; without it, to me they not only are laughably pseudo-precise, they also announce "This Misplaced Pages article was created by people who mindlessly copied stuff without first understanding it." Just the kind of thing for which slower first-year undergraduates get ticked off for, come to think of it. -- Hoary (talk) 13:59, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I've been sort of sitting out this discussion because ultimately it seems like a non-issue. If infoboxes aren't working, there shouldn't be an obligation to use them. The best argument to use them is standardization. The best argument against that is that universities aren't standard. So my question is this: at this point, are we talking about tossing infoboxes out the window, revamping, or just de-emphasizing within the project? --Midnightdreary (talk) 14:52, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I can't speak for anyone other than myself, but it seems to me that the current infobox situation is perceived to be something of a Procrustean bed (mandatory, but inflexible, and a poor fit for many situations). The best options for resolving this are to (1) revamp or (2) de-emphasize within the project. My personal preference would be "both", that is to (1) revamp by making "city" and "date of establishment" optional fields (which are inflexible and do not accommodate the ambiguities that exist) and possibly by eliminating the color boxes (which demean the endeavor, IMHO) and (2) de-emphasize it by communicating to editors that the infobox is intended to provide quick access to key information about the school, that the type of information included is likely to vary from school to school, and that it is neither necessary nor desirable to try to fill in every field in the infobox. --Orlady (talk) 15:41, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

If the result of this discussion is revamping the infobox so that there are no required fields then I'm fine with that. I think people already know (and if not we can add something to the description of the template..I guess) that the infobox is intended to provide quick access to key information and that it is likely to vary from school to school. Color boxes are not required at all and neither is listing colors. If an editor doesn't want the boxes or colors in there then leave them out.—Noetic Sage 15:45, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I am fine with making the fields optional, and letting more users know (I think the majority already do) that all fields are not required. I am against removing the colors option (per my previous arguments that they are important) or any other changes without an established consensus that major changes are required. KnightLago (talk) 17:22, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree that this really is a non-issue. I've been surprised that this has dragged on for this long myself. Repeating myself once again (and Noetic Sage), infoboxes are designed to be used as quick reference. If that particular Japanese university chooses 1858 as their founding year, then 1858 should be used unless it is incorrect. If choosing one year isn't good enough, then there must be supporting information that the institution was not officially founded, officially operated, or any other relevant information that is sourced, documented, and should be relatively easy to find. If that is the case, I would save the confusion and just elaborate these sources regarding the university's founding year in the "History" section of the article. I don't see why there is a such a big fuss on standardizing something as simple as an infobox. The effort in arguing translations, link break points, and just what year should an article's quick reference infobox should say on its establishment could be utilized to improving the article's quality. Instead of attacking the usage of infoboxes altogether, a simple request on a peer review of a university article should suffice. These minor adaptation inconsistencies can be fixed without a fundamental debate on the usage of infoboxes. - Jameson L. Tai 19:11, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't see why there is a such a big fuss on standardizing something as simple as an infobox. Because its "simplicity" encourages simplistic solutions that mislead or misinform the reader and/or look ridiculous. (Consider Florida Institute of Technology: Students: 5,118. When? Today? Last week? Start of this academic year? End of the last one? Without this extra information, the precision is meaningless and absurd; better just to say "about five thousand".) There's plenty of information that, for example, Keiō Gijuku was founded ten years after 1858; some of it is in English and easily accessible too (see this in Britannica). Not that I'm saying that "1868" is preferable to "1858"; instead, I recommend encyclopedia articles for thinking adults who prefer reading short, straightforward sentences to being misinformed by "simple facts" that are half-truths. However, you think it's simpler to make individual requests in/for peer reviews of hundreds of articles on universities than it is to rethink your project's gung-ho attitude to adding infoboxes everywhere. Uh huh. -- Hoary (talk) 00:55, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

This all seems like a great deal of fuss for something that is neither required nor necessary for a university article. If you find that the information that infoboxes supply don't mesh well with the content of an article that you're editing, don't use an infobox. If you can't find a firm date of establishment for a university, don't put it in the infobox in the first place; talk about it in the article. If the silly template requires a date (which, by the way, I don't think it should—that's something I do think ought to be changed), then put in the most commonly used one (e.g., 1858 for Keiõ) with a footnote explaining the controversy. Not difficult.

As to the "precision" point above, I think you're just being difficult, frankly. Again, if you find that that level of precision isn't useful in an article you're editing, don't use it. American universities have certain requirements about the reporting of data, so it's easy to see what the enrollment of a university was on a particular date. If Japanese or Cuban or Martian universities don't have the same standards, then simply say that there are "Approx. X students".

I know this verges on incivility, but crikey, people, don't we have better things to discuss than the damn infobox? Esrever 17:16, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

There's a small army of wikignomes who helpfully add infoboxes to articles that don't have them and populate those wikiboxes with information, particularly when there's a Wikiproject (such as this one) that has guidelines that say "All institution articles should have an infobox providing the basic details about the institution." In that situation, if the infobox isn't useful in an article, don't use it is not an option -- because someone else is likely to come by to add the infobox and cite this Wikiproject as justification for keeping the infobox in the article. --Orlady (talk) 17:41, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

So remove it, and leave a note on the talk page explaining why, in the case of that institution, it's not a worthwhile addition to the article. I've found that most Wikipedians are fairly reasonable creatures.

And I'm okay with rewording our guidelines here to say that most articles might benefit from an infobox, but not all will. Again, this all seems relatively easily sorted out. Esrever 19:13, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Consensus?

I think we have consensus on making the "established" and "city" parameters optional in this template. Is there a template wizard in the house who knows how to make the necessary edits to Template:Infobox University? --Orlady (talk) 21:41, 25 February 2008 (UTC) Looking at the coding of the template, it appears that those two fields are required in order to allow the generation of (1) the range of dates active for closed schools and (2) the city, state/province, country text sequence. I hope the template can survive without those features. --Orlady (talk) 21:47, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

OK... let's vote:

Support

Oppose

Neutral

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Jamesontai (talk • contribs) 00:48, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I thought we had reached consensus... (What did I miss?) Anyway, "voting" is not favored at Misplaced Pages. --Orlady (talk) 01:00, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Uh, not trying to throw the policy back at you, but please review Misplaced Pages:Polling is not a substitute for discussion#Standard. Currently there is one clear solution to the problem, which does warrant a vote. If your proposal was not on the table, I would agree with you that an approval rating be used instead. I don't see what I am doing is incorrect or wrong. - Jameson L. Tai 04:37, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Voting doesn't seem particularly relevant or helpful if the handful of us have already come to a conclusion. It might be worthwhile just to let the great University InfoBox Debate of 2008 end. If we need help on fixing up the infobox parameters, there is an infobox wikiproject. --Midnightdreary (talk) 14:58, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Further, this discussion needs to be moved to or at least referenced on the Talk page of the template in question. --ElKevbo (talk) 15:35, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Good point about the discussion. I just now posted an invite to this discussion at Template talk:Infobox University. --Orlady (talk) 17:34, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Although I posted an invite at Template_talk:Infobox_University#Infoboxomania, the template mavens who visit that page have chosen to discuss the topic there, instead. The sentiment expressed there seems to be that the infobox is perfect, but that deficiencies probably exist in editors who find the infobox template to be problematic. If anyone else wishes to pursue the matter of the infobox, do visit Template_talk:Infobox_University#Infoboxomania. --Orlady (talk) 05:40, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Invite

As a current or past contributor to a related article, I thought I'd let you know about WikiProject University of Florida, a collaborative effort to improve Misplaced Pages's coverage of University of Florida. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks and related articles. Thanks!

• This is an open invitation to anyone who can help the University of Florida in our endeavors to expand the articles currently on Misplaced Pages. We currently do not even have a single Great Article, and we simply need more editors for this massive project. All are welcome regardless of who your alma mater is. Thanks! Jccort (talk) 03:04, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Department/Faculty articles

Is there much precedent for articles on individual departments of academic institutions? I ask this because I've stumbled upon a fork (well, technically two forks) from the University of Manitoba:

• University of manitoba, faculty of law
• University of Manitoba Faculty of Law

I was tempted to simply redirect them to the article on the university, but I thought I'd ask here first. --Sturm 17:27, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

University of manitoba, faculty of law should definitely not exist because of the naming issues. The second article's naming is correct. However, it doesn't seem notable whatsoever. I would personally recommend redirecting them to the article on the university.—Noetic Sage 20:26, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Ok, it's been done. --Sturm 20:57, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Good call. I agree with Mr. Sage. --Midnightdreary (talk) 21:50, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I do not agree on this. Essentially, its the Unversity Law School. A law school is an independent college in general, more than a department. Now, its possible Manitoa may be organized differently. and it may be a very small part, not more than a department in an ordinary subject. But the precedent certainly is that at least the Law Medical Business etc. Schools, whether called Schools, Colleges, or Faculties, if at all substantial, get independent articles. This reedirection was furthermore done when the article was still in an undeveloped state, which might be some excuse for merging it, but it had been started only a week previous. Furthermore it was done without any discussion on the actual article talk page, which is where the question needs to be discussed in accordance with our general practice. Nor was the author of the article notified of this discussion. DGG (talk) 07:23, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Correction: Both articles were started on February 13. That's two weeks of nothing much being done to them. And nothing has been deleted here – there's still the option for people to expand and assert notability, if that's possible. I for one certainly don't view the redirects as binding just because of a brief discussion here. --Sturm 09:23, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

University Press (Florida Atlantic University)

Can a disinterested party take a look at the above article? A user has thrown up a NPOV check tag. I am not seeing where the problem is, but the other party is claiming that a list of awards won (with sources) may be NPOV. I pointed him to the New York Times, and its link to Pulitzer Prizes awarded to the New York Times' staff, but I would like someone else to take a look and if appropriate remove the tag. Thanks. KnightLago (talk) 03:08, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Regional awards do not necessarily deserve much emphasis. all but one of these were clearly regional. The Pulitzer prizzes are in a very different category. DGG (talk) 07:24, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

List of universities in London

I would be grateful for any help with the List of universities in London. There has been some discussion about this but so far not much has happenend. The problem is about the fact that foreign universities have been removed as people think they may not be genuine and also the list is incomplete as it only inlcudes institutions and not organisations which award degrees from other bodies. Let me give you an example Richmondshould be on the list as it can legally award US and UK degrees. Regents Collegeshould be in it as with the exception of the American degrees the rest are awarde by British Universities. there is also a problem that people feel American Intercontinental University should be excluded I see no reason as it has not been stripped of it's degree awarding powers. We also have an idea for 2 lists. Study abroad programmes in London Professional training in London to include things like CIMA. There has been a discussion in the relevant talk page but nothing much is happening. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abdulha (talk • contribs) 09:05, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I think the easiest answer is to take the article name literally: if it's a list of universities in London, it should list all brick and mortar universities in London. --Midnightdreary (talk) 13:40, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

As I have said it does not solve the problem of foreign univerisites and univeristy sector colleges unless someone wants to start a new article? Going back to what I said we need 2 new articles and maybe third is in order for university sector colleges. To sum up this is my position. List of universities in London should include all British and foreign universities based in London as well as all university sector colleges. There should be another post for study abroad programmes in London and also another one for professional training in London to include things like CIMA, AAT and other things. Maybe the titile should be changed to List of Universities and Higher Education Colleges in London. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abdulha (talk • contribs) 09:03, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

You need to learn how to sign your talk page posts. Use four tildes (~). Don't think you're reinventing the wheel here. Look at how other articles have done things. Just off the top of my head, I found List of colleges and universities in New York City, List of colleges and universities in metropolitan Boston, List of universities in Italy, List of colleges and universities in Philadelphia. I would suggest not to make it more complicated than it needs to be. If a foreign university has a study abroad program in London, they do not qualify as a "university in London". --Midnightdreary (talk) 13:40, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

The other problem on the London list is that it also uses UK newspaper rankings to list the universities, rather than a simple list as on virtually every other such page. What are people's thoughts on this? Timrollpickering (talk) 14:16, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

incentive

• If you help the wikiproject University of Florida we will give a Barnstar

Is this barnstar really "official" from the University of Florida? --Midnightdreary (talk) 05:49, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure UF's university publications department didn't authorize this barnstar... but enough with technicality. Since we're trying to get people to genuinely add content into Misplaced Pages, wouldn't adding an "incentive" like a barnstar pull people away from honest contributions? (Did I mention the existing WP:UNI's barnstar?) Haha... - Jameson L. Tai 08:44, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

• Nothing wrong with giving a little to get people motivated. We have a HUGE gap of information missing on the academics & athletics for this Flagship University. I have now added the Alumni, Individual Colleges, and Academic Programs to the overall project (now up to 574 total articles). Also the University of California has their own incentive Barnstar as well. Jccort (talk) 03:05, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Nothing wrong with barnstars. But I'm still concerned about the "official" part. I would definitely advise against that "technicality". College publications offices do consider these things a big deal. --Midnightdreary (talk) 03:34, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

DOUBLE INCENTIVE!

• If you help the Wikiproject University of Florida in our endeavors to expand the 574 articles listed, then you may be entitled to these awards:

		The University of Florida Barnstar
		For good and thorough work pertaining to articles about the University of Florida.

		The Florida Gators Barnstar
		For good and thorough work pertaining to articles about the Florida Gators.

• Thanks! Jccort (talk) 05:15, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

• Not to be nip-picky... but I'd call these awards (which has a more prestigious connotation to it) than a prize, which sounds like it can be bought.  :-) Have a great day! - Jameson L. Tai 06:52, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

• We discussed this as a group, and have decided to be kinda stingy in awarding the Barnstars. Jccort (talk) 13:51, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

• • Personally, I will give a barnstar --the first I've ever given-- for anyone who can reduce those 574 articles down to half the number. It shouldn't be hard--you've been putting the project tag on people who just got their degree there & have no other connection with the place. Removing them, how many articles are there really? DGG (talk) 01:57, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

• • Well Columbia University & Dartmouth University did this, then why can't the Flagship University of Florida do the same? What does it matter what the members of the specific WikiProject want to classify their own articles? Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Columbia University - 1023 total articles and Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Dartmouth College - 748

That doesn't make it right... it just means lots of Wikiprojects have the same problem. I agree with DGG, at least in principle. --Midnightdreary (talk) 01:45, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

New WikiProject proposal

I'm thinking of starting a new WikiProject just for students' unions. I'm wondering if anyone else would be interested in participating? I'm discussing it at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Universities/Student Affairs. GreenJoe 17:55, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

The main Universities WikiProject just doesn't seem active enough to maintain all these offshoots. Can't we focus on making this project stronger? --Midnightdreary (talk) 18:58, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

• I think it might be helpful to note that people view the main university articles far more than the articles on their student unions/governments. For example, Arizona State University was viewed 21,370 times in February, but Associated Students of Arizona State University was viewed only 242 times that same month. That's a ratio of 88:1. Paddy Simcox (talk) 02:12, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
• I've been looking at a lot of these student union/associated students of X/student government articles, and in general, I don't think any of them have enough notability to have their own article. They don't even have enough reliable sources. Pretty much 99% of the material is a list of former presidents or detailing the minutiae of who proposed what constitutional amendment. I really think these organizations need to be merged into the main articles. --RedShiftPA (talk) 02:21, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

• Unfortunately, lots of people seem very keen on keeping these articles separate, and seem to think Misplaced Pages is supposed to be the host of their student government's website. I disagree. I anyone else agrees with me and would like to help me, here are some articles that I am working on. --RedShiftPA (talk) 02:20, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

• Agreed and glad I'm not the only one who thinks we don't need those. Any of those standalones should probably just be AfDed. They have no notability and, as you noted, this is not a personal web hosting service. At best, it needs a one-two sentence mention in the main article. Unfortunately, from my experience, the students/alumni of a school tend to band together and create far too many "schoolcruft" articles similar to those. :( AnmaFinotera (talk) 02:27, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

• Could anyone that has a view on this one way or another please go and make that view known here? That's where this discussion should be held, as that is where the future of the WikiProject is decided. Cheers! _TalkIslander 09:48, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

• Student unions/student governments definitely are not inherently notable. Lots of them have been deleted in AFDs: (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11); some have been merged from AFD:(1,2); some have resulted in no consensus: (1,2); some have been kept:(1,2). There's no way to make such a broad statement regarding consensus for student governments. They should have to pass WP:ORG, just like other organizations.--SevernSevern (talk) 05:49, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, well you should voice your opinions on the issue on the WikiProject proposal page. This was really supposed to be a pure "notice" to WP:UNI users that this WikiProject was being made and RfCed there kind of (in an informal way). - Jameson L. Tai 06:22, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Hello. I noticed that User:Save_the_humans deleted the discussion that was occurring on the proposal thread for this wikiproject. . I don't think the discussion was archived anywhere (I looked). Just thought someone should be made known of that. --SevernSevern (talk) 16:31, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for letting us know! I went ahead and reposted the previous comments. That's odd that they were deleted.—Noetic Sage 16:45, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Universities: Articles of unclear notability

Hello,

there are currently 12 articles in the scope of this project which are tagged with notability concerns. I have listed them here. (Note: this listing is based on a database snapshot of 12 March 2008 and may be slightly outdated.)

I would encourage members of this project to have a look at these articles, and see whether independent sources can be added, whether the articles can be merged into an article of larger scope, or possibly be deleted. Any help in cleaning up this backlog is appreciated. For further information, see Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Notability.

If you have any questions, please leave a message on the Notability project page or on my personal talk page. (I'm not watching this page however.) Thanks! --B. Wolterding (talk) 16:36, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I've dealt with most of these. Many are now up for deletion. The only one that hasn't been touched yet is University of Kent Students' Union.—Noetic Sage 19:16, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

New daily updated to-do list

Hey all! I have "contracted" a bot to do some great things for us. Thanks to SatyrTN, his bot SatyrBot is creating a daily To do list that includes all of our articles that need cleanup, to be wikified, etc. Check out the full list there or the random short list. Enjoy!—Noetic Sage 20:51, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Peer Review Changes

Peer Review has undergone changes recently. They now have a handful of core topics into which all articles fit. If someone wants a peer review for an article they first determine which topic the article falls into. They then list the article in that topic. They can then look at a list of editors in that topic field who would be willing to be contacted to provide help. Universities fall under the Society and Social Sciences section. If you are interested in signing up to be contacted to provide peer reviews for university articles you would need to add your name to the list here. Check it out. KnightLago (talk) 22:02, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Harvard transfer admissions

Can some folks please swing by the Harvard University article to examine how we're handling the institution's recent announcement that they're not accepting any transfer students this year or next? Another editor and I do not agree on how it's being handled and we'd appreciate input from others. Thanks! --ElKevbo (talk) 19:35, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Indiana Wesleyan University

I am the primary editor of the IWU article. It has been getting repeatedly vandalized by users without usernames in the past week. Please help by identifying the vandals and blocking them ASAP. Thanks.

Manutdglory (talk) 07:39, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

• WikiProject Universities is not a place to report vandalism. While vandalism is taking place, you are encouraged to report vandals to administrators (WP:AIV). Please redirect your requests there. - Jameson L. Tai 08:20, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I left a note on his talk page. KnightLago (talk) 14:17, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Redlinks

In looking at some templates like Kennesaw State Navbox and other articles, I am noticing many redlinks that link to articles which probably will not satisfy general notability guidelines. WP:REDLINKS says that "In general, red links should not be removed if they link to something that could plausibly sustain an article." I am noticing many articles are automatically being created for academic colleges within universities simply because it's common practice (despite most of these articles not satisfying WP:N). I imagine many of these come from redlinks that are part of a complete list - even if every part of the list doesn't deserve its own article. This is also prevalent for lists of students' unions. And as our recent deletions have demonstrated, not every SU is notable. I propose that we begin looking through some of these lists and templates and removing these redlinks for potential articles which would not be notable. Templates especially should not have redlinks (as that is somewhat tacky, in my opinion). What does everyone think?—Noetic Sage 04:51, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I'd be ok with it as long as the redlinks are proposed to be deleted for at least 48 hours before they are actually deleted in case an editor is working on an article (and we the "outsiders" delete potentially n.n. article red-links). Two days should be suffice to mount a clear declaration of intentions. - Jameson L. Tai 06:19, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Which ones in are you questioning in particular? --Jerm (/ _Contrib) 15:05, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

On this template in particular I'm concerned about the redlinks for Bobbie Bailey and Family Performance Center, Scrappy (mascot), and Siegel Institute. There are many similar templates and lists.—Noetic Sage 19:52, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

"Flagship" problem at BYU

We're having trouble at the BYU page with whether or not to call it a "flagship university". I understand this is a common problem and would ask editors from the project to help us sort this out. The discussion is at the bottom of this section. Thanks. Wrad (talk) 20:33, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I responded there. I hope that helps give clarity to the discussion a little.—Noetic Sage 20:42, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Still having problems... Wrad (talk) 20:59, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I have sent a single-issue 3RR warning notice on his talk page as well as responding to his statements on the article's talk page. User:Wrad, I would set up MiszaBot to archive old topics so we don't have to sift through all those old topics to get to the new stuff. I'd also recommend that you start a new section altogether and move relevant existing comments down to new section for good reference. - Jameson L. Tai 21:58, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I'll do that. Also, the issue seems to be spreading. See recent edits at Flagship university. Wrad (talk) 00:47, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Endowment vs. Capital Campaign

Quick heads up: I've seen several articles edited over the past few days by editors (often anonymous) who do not know or care about the difference between an institution's endowment and its ongoing capital campaign. Please remember that these are two completely different things and that monies raised during a campaign may not be applied to an institution's endowment (although typically some portion is). And please keep an eye out for changes to endowments to make sure they're accurate and reflective of the cited source(s). --ElKevbo (talk) 01:44, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

There is also an issue with US News "creative accounting" of endowments for the University of California, discussed rather extensively here:Talk:University_of_California,_Davis#Endowment. More people (i.e. the "Great Unwashed") put great value in US News due to their brand recognition and are willing to trust them over primary source documents provided by the UC Office of the Treasurer. It hasn't happened yet, but if they organize they could easily overwhelm consensus on these matters. Amerique 17:19, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Non-English university article names

As I am going through and assessing our unassessed articles, I'm seeing a large number of universities that are named using their non-English titles. As the naming conventions are somewhat confusing since many of these articles have little English coverage, I'm posting here to see what everyone thinks we should do about this. Some of these articles include: Universiteit Twente, Universitatea de Ştiinţe Agricole şi Medicină Veterinară, Universidad Austral de Chile, Université Catholique de l'Ouest, and Universiti Kuala Lumpur. I've checked some of their English-language websites and they do not change the actual name of the university. Thoughts?—Noetic Sage 00:28, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

There will be some subjectivity involved in what to do with each one but, except in cases where an institution is clearly better-known in the English-speaking world by its native name (e.g., the École Normale Supérieure, etc.), I think we should strongly prefer English versions of the names. Our guide is going to be be Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (use English), which calls for the use of the predominant English name as established by verifiable sources, or if there's no established usage, to default to the native name. However, for names that fall under the "no established usage" caveat, but some or all of the components of which translate straightforwardly into English, we should use an English translation as the primary article title.

Try this as an acid-test thought experiment. Ignore for a moment the native institutional names that, presumably, a reasonably-savvy English speaker could easily grok because they are in Latin script and use at least some words that are derived from the same linguistic sources as our equivalent English words. With Universitatea de Ştiinţe Agricole şi Medicină Veterinară, it's relatively easy to figure out you're dealing with a university that has some sort of focus on agriculture and veterinary medicine, even if "Ştiinţe" doesn't immediately suggest itself as "science." Try 河北体育学院 (the article for which is conveniently located at Hebei Physical Educational Institute) or Аму́рский госуда́рственный университе́т (Amur State University) though. --Dynaflow babble 05:26, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I believe (in Chinese) 河北体育学院 is supposed to be translated into Hebei Physical Education Institute, (not "Educational"). But that's just me. Hebei (河北) Physical Education (体育) Institute (学院)... it's quite straight forward. I'm not sure why it was translated that way. - Jameson L. Tai 07:46, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I did some digging around and found their website. It turns out their established English name is the Hebei Institute of Physical Education. I moved the article accordingly and expanded it a little while I was there. --Dynaflow babble 10:19, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Another case of University of X and X University naming wonders. Well, the problem was "physical educational", so the new name's fine. :D - Jameson L. Tai 18:54, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Cornell University

I wandered by Cornell University to clean up some vandalism today and was disturbed by how the article seems to have been largely neglected for many months. It's one of our older featured articles and it would be a shame if it were delisted. :( Can some kind souls help clean it up? --ElKevbo (talk) 02:30, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Anything specific strike you, or has it just been eroded by passing boosters & vandals and our own shifting norms? Madcoverboy (talk) 03:31, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Inexperienced editors, boosters, vandals, etc. It's still a really good article but material has been added slapdash without regard for referencing, style, or tone. It just needs a bit of TLC and a firm editorial hand to shake off or improve the newer additions. --ElKevbo (talk) 14:23, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Youniversity.tv

Can someone please take a look at this editor's contributions? I've dealt with these edits in the past so a fresh perspective would be appreciated. --ElKevbo (talk) 14:24, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Blocked indefinitely for spamming. KnightLago (talk) 15:20, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Help!

Buffalo Museum of Science needs some serious help. It's a research and educational institution, but since there is no "Wikiproject:Museums" I don't know where to go. The article reads like a brochure or press release...maybe a visitor's guide. There's so much to do I feel a little overwhelmed tackling it myself. Please assist. Thanks. TeamZissou (talk) 03:29, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Associated Students of the University of California

Some fellows keep adding Senate and Executive Composition material to the Associated Students of the University of California article. I'm pretty sure that stuff like that does not qualify for wikipedia. I removed it, explained why, and re-removed it when they re-added it. Anyone care to take a look at it?--SevernSevern (talk) 23:20, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Given that the one-sentence article gives no other clue as to how ASUC works or even what it does, the contributor may have considered his or her addition to be a justifiable improvement. Can anyone more familiar with Cal's internal politics (and perhaps with ready access to all the archives at Bancroft) add some substance to that article? Surely a 120 year old organization has done enough in its time to merit more than one sentence and an infobox. Also consider cross-posting this at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject University of California. --Dynaflow babble 23:39, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Rajshahi University

Rajshahi University has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.

Student numbers at UK universities

I'm in the process of updating the infobox stats for students in British universities, using the statistics helpfully published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency. This is very useful, as it means that we don't have to rely on UK universities accurately publishing their own figures, and the figures we do get are (a) sourced from HESA from the institutions themselves, (b) arrived at using a uniform methodology, and (c) made available on a single speadsheet, for free, as a service to the British government and us.

There's hasn't been much resistance to the use of these figures (although they are occasionally disputed by editors who know how many students there are at a given university, and consider that HESA is just wrong). I tend to revet these politely. An anon editing the Oxford University article here has a separate point, which is that HESA supplies several figures for student numbers. The figure that we have been using derives from Table 0a, which lists all students, of whatever status, enrolled at an institution. The alternative, Table 0b, gives a full-time equivalent (FTE) number.

For my part, I prefer the status quo, which more closely mirrors the number of actual people engaged with an institution. In its favour, an FTE number would be closer to the numbers most often reported by universities in their prospectuses and "Facts and Figures" webpages. On the other hand, it would distort the figures for universities which serve more part-time, professional and distance learners (and the FTE figure for the Open University is largely meaningless). I have reverted the anon at University of Oxford, but I open the issue for discusion here: should we switch to using FTE numbers for the whole of the UK? — mholland (talk) 23:16, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, there are several things that you can do in terms of backing up those enrollment numbers. First would be inserting a footnote after the HESA enrollment number which directs then to the spreadsheet. Now, if an editor has a question regarding the number, you can refer to the already established footnote in the "Reference" section. If an editor then says Oxford's enrollment number is different, then the determining factor would be the "Updated On" or "Revision Date" date. If Oxford's enrollment number was updated after HESA's spreadsheet came out, technically, as an encyclopedia, we'd take the most updated figure as the standard, but I do agree that HESA is a more neutral source than to rely on the university's website. Does this help provide some insight or has this caused more questions?  :-) - Jameson L. Tai 23:23, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Why not use both? Whatever you do, make sure to specify what it is you've done. In practice, we (higher ed administrators and researchers) bounce back and forth between headcount and FTE-equivalent depending on the context and the specific use. So you always need to specify what that "enrollment" number means. --ElKevbo (talk) 23:24, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

By the way, I'd *love* if we started doing this for US institutions and using IPEDS data instead of haphazard websites, admissions brochures, and other random sources that destroy any ability to compare institutions. --ElKevbo (talk) 23:26, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't see why not... If you can gather a couple more people to split a list of universities, I don't see why we couldn't do this... (I'd say make a bot... but I have no clue as to how to code one to do something like this...:D) - Jameson L. Tai 23:40, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I too support using both FTE and head counts. --Bduke (talk) 23:48, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd be comfortable using both, and will gladly do the work myself. for the 200 or so UK articles covered, this would involve putting both figures in each field available in {{Infobox university}}, perhaps separated by a line break for clarity. If there is consensus for this to be used more widely, it would be much easier to add extra fields to the infobox template. I don't know how this would sit with the goal of slimming down that template: it's been condemned for bloat in the past, but really this sort of data (numerical, comparable) is what infoboxes are for. Thoughts? — mholland (talk) 17:37, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I would like to split off a separate template for American institutions so we can (a) incorporate IPEDS data and (b) add Carnegie Classification info. But that discussion belongs on the template's Talk page and I'll drop a note here if I ever get far enough along to make a concrete proposal. It probably won't happen soon as I've got quite a bit on my plate right now. --ElKevbo (talk) 20:52, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Where are the numbers you are talking about? KnightLago (talk) 00:26, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The numbers are from the HESA website (Full, FTE), and are displayed in article infoboxes, e.g. here. Occasionally, other figures from the same spreadsheet is used in the article text, to point up a greater/lesser number in international students, etc. — mholland (talk) 17:37, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Is there an American version of this that anyone knows about? KnightLago (talk) 21:04, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). If you're looking up a single institution, it might be easiest to use this tool. You can use some of the other tools on the website if you're looking at multiple institutions; I've used the Dataset Cutting Tool several times to extract data for analysis. --ElKevbo (talk) 21:14, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I really like the idea of our project "endorsing" specific data sources for enrollment numbers, classification, etc. I know the Video Games Project does this and we could create a list of sources that our articles are suggested to use in certain areas. This would increase standardization and give editors a place to start for crucial information. What do you guys think?—Noetic Sage 21:16, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

That's exactly the direction in which I am moving with my proto-suggestion to create a separate American template. I doubt there will many sources that will be applicable to institutions in multiple countries. But the general idea - this information should come from this reliable, trusted, neutral, and accessible source - seems to be a good one. The only drawback I see immediately is that the info in these sources may be a bit out-of-date when compared to the data available directly from institutions or other sources. But I'm completely okay with that as the data shouldn't be very out-of-date (likely last year's data instead of this year's). --ElKevbo (talk) 21:26, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

UK University Rankings

I suggested a little while back on the University of Manchester page that we devote a section to ranking positions, consensus was against but then again Manchester doesn't always do so great in University rankings. What's the general consensus on this at the moment, do we include them or not? It looks like many other articles do include a rankings table that follows more or less the same format. Whatever happens I feel it ought at least be done evenly across all UK university articles. Billsmith453 (talk) 23:42, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

problem is that every college likes a ranking list that places it highly, and the various people publishing them cooperate by breaking everything down in different ways, to accommodate them all. "One of the top 5 medium size private 4-year colleges with a music faculty in southeastern US" to take an invented but probably actual example. The US NAS is supposed to be doing a list of graduate school rankings, but they've postponed it another 2 or 3 years. I forget whether this is the 2nd or the 3rd postponement. I also follow a little the debate over the criteria for the UK RAE, which change every time they do it. DGG (talk) 22:47, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

found a better example by chance at Tufts University: "In the Princeton Review's 2006 Best 361 Colleges, Tufts was named #7 in a list of the 20 schools in the country where students are happiest, and #17 in a list of the 20 schools in the country with the best food. " DGG (talk) 23:08, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

The rankings used generally for UK universities don't fall prey to that particular problem, I'd still like to know whether we include them or not. It seems silly to do different things for different unis. Billsmith453 (talk) 09:37, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Wow, this page looks great!

Great Job! - Jameson L. Tai 05:16, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

• I added a few old university-related AFDs to the archive here. Hope they help in the future.--RedShiftPA (talk) 16:29, 16 March 2008 (UTC)