Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Universities

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Contents 1 Active discussion 1.1 Conferences 1.2 This project appears to have stalled 1.3 Where is this project going? 1.4 Reviving the project 2 Standard template development 3 Proposals 4 Important considerations 4.1 Universal applicability 4.2 Faculty and alumni issues 4.3 Order of Sections 4.4 University systems 4.5 Student groups 4.6 Student union and media 5 List of articles with template applied 6 Tables and logos 7 Lists (and categories) of people associated with universities 7.1 Category:People associated with Columbia University 8 "Avoid academic boosterism" guideline 9 Parent categories for universities and colleges 10 Proposed Poll on University Naming 11 Poll on University Naming Conventions is Open 12 When to breakout alumni/faculty/etc. lists? 13 Portal:Education needs attention 14 Articles for the Wikipedia 1.0 project 15 xml directory? 16 Residential Halls and Colleges 17 Athletics 18 Indian Institutes of Technology 19 Australian Catholic University- peer review 20 Eckerd College POV 21 University College of the Fraser Valley 22 Mount Holyoke College 23 Notable Faculty Members? 24 Key articles for Wikipedia 1.0 25 Structure in relation to history 26 Format for categories 27 Hood College 28 Project directory 29 Infobox Professor 30 Stablepedia 31 University ratings

[edit] Active discussion

[edit] Conferences

Many universities hold annual conferences. I was wondering whether or not specific conferences would be a good addition. --Morningstar2651 23:54, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This project appears to have stalled

One of the problems may be that the suggested table template does not include many of the items included on various "national" templates for universities (see e.g. University of Cambridge and University of Leiden). If no-one complains on this talk page, I will add these items to the template in a week or two. I also noted that the heading "Campus" is very specific (many Universities do not have campus) and something more general like "layout" or "location" might be better for a universal template. Rnt20 12:38, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

A true universal template is impossible, as so many things are different in different systems. The original (American) template had stuff like "teams" and "mascot". In my view, it is better to accept that national, and sometimes even more specialized, templates are needed. Tupsharru 13:31, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Template:Infobox_University has benefited from the recent activities that have been marshalled by Netoholic. This project at least lives on vibrantly through Template:Infobox_University and its ever-more-frequent successful usage in college and university articles. Specifically in regard to national infobox templates, recent evolution of Template:Infobox_University has eliminated any need for the 42+ variants of Template:Infobox_*University* Optikos 17:23, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Where is this project going?

I have been working on a few university articles in the category Universities and colleges in Indiana for the past couple of weeks. Today, I discovered this WikiProject and began reading through the material that has come together so far. I seems like some good groundwork has been done, but the project seems very disorganized and hasn't really accomplished its goals. I would really like to do some meaningful work on these articles, and I think the best way to do that is to get this project on track. It seems to me that we need to establish a clear set of goals, finalize the standard template, get organized, and start bringing existing articles into compliance, etc. Anyone have any thoughts? ALSO: I think a good place to start would be to organize and condense this talk page (its 45 KB). Acaides 05:51, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• I have been working on some university articles, mostly Uppsala University, but also occasionally on other Swedish or Nordic universities (and occasionally even on others). I haven't signed in to the project as it seemed to be going nowhere. In my opinion, many of the general articles are now very U.S.- or anglocentric. An article like graduation shouldn't mention the USA on the second line, but should begin with medieval Europe. There are other examples. Most European universities are underdeveloped. The oldest universities in Europe, that in Paris and that in Bologna, which served as models for other universities throughout the middle ages, hardly have more than stubs (and this appears to be true on the French and Italian Wikipedias as well, so there is nothing to be fetched from there), and there are a number of German universities which are certainly among the most important in the world (the University of Marburg, the Humboldt University and several others) which are just stubs at the moment, and also lack illustrations (here some stuff can be taken from the German versions). Actually, some of the older American universities are also underdeveloped in their history section. That is certainly the case with the University of Pennsylvania, which doesn't even mention the earlier name of the university (the College of Philadelphia; I haven't added it as I didn't have years for the change of name). /Tupsharru 12:41, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • I totally agree with you, there are too many University stubs (worldwide), and I believe that expanding all of these articles in a uniform way should be a goal of this project. I also agree that there is probably a good deal of bias toward the US perspective, at least in the English edition. I don't think these facts are all that surprising given the nature of Wikipedia, people right about what they know, and here in the English addition, many people writing University articles are American, and many are writing about an institution with which they are connected. Helping to reduce this bias should also be a goal of this project. Part of this project's response to these issues should be to develop a single standard for all university articles on Wikipedia (English anyway), but this standard needs to be flexible enough to work for any institution, regardless of location. Acaides 18:29, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Reviving the project

I'm going to start by cleaning up and organizing this discussion page. Acaides 01:55, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Standard template development

I have moved the example of the standard template to Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Universities/example. I think this should be a center of activity for the project at this point. My idea is for the /example page to be home to an example article based on our template, and its talk page will serve as a sort of sand box for the development of the standard. Instead of wasting a bunch of words, time, and effort on this talk page deciding every little detail, we would all make our changes to the sand box (the universities/example talk page) until we get to a point where we're all happy with the sandbox template. Of course, some discussion should still take place here. I think this method would be more in keeping with the wiki philosophy. Acaides 04:57, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Proposals

A university standard should include:

• Name and city, state/province/etc, country of the university
• When it was founded, and also by whom if a famous person
• type:
  • private university or a public university
  • coeducational vs all-male vs all-female
• Number of students
• Top-tier organization: colleges, schools, divisions (not a multitude of departments)
• History section, including:
  • "established" date: Because the definition of "established" varies widely, use the one that the institution officially uses.
  • opened date, if different than established date
  • closed/reopened dates, if non-continuous operation
  • prior institutions, if institution was "established" upon the remnants of previously-established institution(s), where these two "establishments" differ in definition
  • type-change date, such as converting from all-male to coeducational
  • renamings/recharterings, especially if a modern university evolved from some former non-university kind of institution (e.g., normal school, secondary education, religious seminary)
• Famous alumni section
• Miscellaneous stuff, e.g. important historical events
• External links to:
  • Official website: the webpage of the university
  • Official athletics website (only if the institution engages in intercollegiate athletics)
  • Campus map
  • Student newspaper (only if such newspaper exists)
• Popular name, sports teams
• Affiliations:
  • religious
  • public university system
• Endowment
• Title and name of head executive officer (e.g., President, Chancellor)

Perhaps adding the following:

• Section for famous faculty, past or present
• Section describing faculty, student composition (racial etc.), especially if notable (e.g., previously/historically all-black or all-white or all-male or all-female)
• Physical description of the campus(es) and a list of campuses when there is more than one (see University_of_South_Australia and Avondale_College)

Each fully-functioning campus should have its own article unless that "campus" is merely an observatory or argicultural field or the like.

• Sports/athletics

Should the following be considered for standardization:

• (mailing) address of institution
• (central switchboard) telephone number of institution

[edit] Important considerations

[edit] Universal applicability

Not all of the sections will be relevant for all universities, e.g. sports or team nicknames isn't a great issue with German universities. But it's okay to include them in the example, so that they can be deleted if existing universities don't fit in. -- till we *) 16:32, Aug 10, 2003 (UTC)

Exactly my thought. Not all universities have famous alumni or faculty either :) (or campuses, come to think of it). But it would look very, very strange not to have a section for athletics for an American university, especially the large ones, because it's such a part of the U.S. collegiate experience.

Are we going to have to have standards for different countries? I can already see some things that aren't necessarily applicable to UWO in particular, and probably a lot of Canadian universities in general (e.g. such a huge focus on sports, racial composition). Adam Bishop 17:03, 10 Aug 2003 (UTC)

How about one standard, but a disclaimer on the example page that parts can be of different necessity for different countries, and should be deleted when necessary. BTW: Is there a List of universities?-- till we *) 17:07, Aug 10, 2003 (UTC)

It'll have to be a "fluid" standard, just as the consensus seems to be. One wonders what Tokyo University's "famous alumni" page will be like (or Oxford or Cambridge)...very, very long, almost certainly. --Paul Musgrave 17:14, 10 Aug 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Faculty and alumni issues

What about cases where famous faculty are also famous alumni? --Jiang

Author's discretion. --Paul Musgrave 17:36, 10 Aug 2003 (UTC)

...we should find a standard for years after alumnis and faculty. In the muster example, I put born/death as years, but Jiang seems to put graduating years behind the alumnis, aren't you? That's a good idea, but what about famous faculty? -- till we *) 18:07, Aug 10, 2003 (UTC)

It's common practice to put graduating years for alumni, differentiating it by degree if necessary (i.e., next year in an Indiana U. context I'll be Paul Musgrave '04; if I get my law degree there, I'll be Paul Musgrave '04, J.D. '07). For famous faculty, it's probably a better idea to simply have a link to their individual bio pages--if they're famous enough to list, they're famous enough to write up--which will have basic bio data. There's no convenient date to use for faculty as there is for students. --Paul Musgrave 18:12, 10 Aug 2003 (UTC)

At Cambridge University, it's usual to refer to the matriculation year (ie when they started university), rather than the graduation year. Personally, I would recommend going for birth-death years...

[edit] Order of Sections

...order of sections; history will sometimes be quite long, so it makes sense to put it at the bottom. -- Paul Musgrave 18:41, 10 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I disagree, since the history section illustrates what the u. is famous for. --Jiang

Some histories could be very long. If having a separate History of Munster University article is okay, then it doesn't matter where the section is placed. However, I prefer that it be placed near the bottom so that we could avoid too many History of XXX articles. --seav 08:23, Aug 11, 2003 (UTC)

Let's keep it up there until it gets too long. If it's so long it becomes obstructive, then surely a new article is needed. Many times, the history reveals what the university is famous for. It's always been the format with countries, states, and provinces to list the history first. --Jiang 08:28, 11 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I actually disagree with the convention that history comes first (but I could hardly change that since it's so entrenched). Usually, you look for current information about topics, not the history. Encarta places the history at the end. World Book Encyclopedia places it at the end. Encyclopaedia Britannica places it at the end. Encyclopedia.com places it at the end. Columbia Encyclopedia places it at the end. So why, oh why do we place it at the start?! (That's how I reacted when I saw the country template.) --seav 08:50, Aug 11, 2003 (UTC)

The difference is that the other encyclopedias have lengthy intros, and pursuant to the wishes of our dictators, we don't. Maybe we should not make it a standard and leave it to personal discretion. --Jiang 08:49, 12 Aug 2003 (UTC)

[edit] University systems

What about university systems versus individual universities? Like University of California versus, say, UCLA and UC Berkeley? What about high schools that are under universities? --seav 00:15, Aug 11, 2003 (UTC)

My belief on this is that you should have a master page for the university system (i.e. Indiana University System) and separate pages for each major campus/division of the school (i.e. Indiana University at Bloomington). The system is distinct from the individual campuses, and we don't want to privilege "main" campuses (UCLA/UC-B) over "other" campuses (UCSD).--Paul Musgrave 00:19, 11 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I'd say: One entry for each university, i.e. one for UCLA and one for UCB, if they are known as such. If there is something like a university system, mention it in the table (type of school?), make it a list of it's affiliated universities. Re highschools -- how important are they? -- till we *) 00:21, Aug 11, 2003 (UTC)

I think the template should apply for both, in adapted form. Subjects such as enrollment in the UC article would list total enrollment of all campuses. Campus size/mascot would be left out. The individual campus articles would list campus founding date (e.g. 1919 for UCLA) and chancellors (as opposed to the president of the university wide system) --Jiang 00:24, 11 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I ran up against this distinction the other day with the University of Maryland. Most often links meant to refer to University of Maryland, College Park, but others were talking about the system. I ended up doing: University System of Maryland (which is the official name of the system). I'm not sure there's sufficient commonality between such systems and actual universities to support a common format. -- Bill 20:02, 12 Aug 2003 (UTC)

The UC system is not the "University System of California" or "University of California system". Most of the time, "University of California" is used to refer to the entire system, there a good number of links refer to the Berkeley campus, which was the sole/main campus when the subject was there. I think in those cases "University of California" should just be changed to "university of california, berkeley". After all, Berkeley is the only campus claiming these people as its alumni. --Jiang 20:10, 12 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Likewise, Indiana University is the system, whereas Indiana University Bloomington is the main campus, as this is how the institution refers to itself with respect to its system. Conversely, Purdue University System is the system and Purdue University is the main campus in West Lafayette, Indiana, because this is how the institution refers to itself with respect to its system, except that "Purudue University systemwide" is the term used by the institution far more often than referring to a "System" as a proper noun. I do not think that Wikipedia should dictate a single solution on system versus main campus, but instead should strictly defer to the institution's established conventions. Optikos 17:48, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Student groups

Should student groups be put under "Students" or "Sports and Traditions"? --Jiang

Sports and Traditions, so that Students is more for "official" info (enrollment, maybe courses, maybe racial mixup), and the SaT (maybe we need another name, maybe Sports, Traditions and Activities) is more for recreative things/inofficial things. -- till we *) 11:09, Aug 12, 2003 (UTC)

How's "Sports, Clubs, and Traditions"? --Jiang 06:31, 14 Aug 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Student union and media

...what about some space for student unions ... and also for student media - newspaper, radio station, etc.? And is anyone actually implementing this yet? Warofdreams 18:54, 15 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I think that goes under "Sports, Clubs, and Traditions" --Jiang

I agree, even if this sounds a bit strange to me (as a former active Student Union member). Re the implementing question: good question, maybe we should give some people some tasks to do (e.g. all some hundred German universities) as soon as the layout questions (see above) are settled. -- till we *) 12:57, Oct 17, 2003 (UTC)

Fine, but in that case can we have a slightly different title for the section?  :::::Maybe "Student Union, Sports and Traditions" (the union presumably covering clubs) Warofdreams 16:57, 17 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Not every school has a student union or calls it that. "Student groups"? --Jiang

How about the title is made appropriate for the university? Not all universities consider their sports imporant. For some clubs is not as important as traditions. Others might like to emphasize student unions/media groups/activism etc. --seav 14:14, Oct 18, 2003 (UTC)

Sounds like a plan. --Jiang

[edit] List of articles with template applied

Here's a list of articles where the standard is applied so that we can see what needs to be done. When you apply the standard, please add your article to this list. Also you may briefly state a problem that the template helped solve.

• Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Germany
• University of the Philippines, Diliman, Philippines
• University of Western Ontario, Canada
• Warsaw University, Poland
• University of California, Riverside, applied after serious controversy over what should or should not be in the main article. The original page was blocked for a while, but it was unblocked after I reworked the piece in my own Sandbox and then applied for unblocking and substituted my work for what was there before. Unfortunately, the controversy may continue, but now at least all the editors working on University of California, Riverside have a template to point to. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis 00:10, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tables and logos

See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Universities/tables

[edit] Lists (and categories) of people associated with universities

The following discussion is copied here from Wikipedia:Categories for deletion.

For comments and further discussion, please see below the frame.

Ctrl_build wrote above: "College pages get clogged with the allumni lists, but the allumni lists are disorganized hulks. Wikipedia really needs bulk cleanup on this. Anyone agree?"

The question is: what to do with the lists? When to separate the lists from the main page?

I agreed above that these categories are bad and lists are better, but I suppose Jerzy has a point in that it may be difficult making complete lists and thus it may fit better into the kind of things that are usually categorized. However, I still think, at the moment at least, that lists are the way to go, as they have the advantage in sorting and commenting the items. In addition, some groups of people may well be placed in chronological order according to succession.

Anyway, I would like to have opinions on on what to do with these lists:

1. How to sort people? Alphabetic sorting allows one to list a person only once, even if he or she has contributed to different fields, but generally, when looking at a particular university, I would be more interested in seeing people in particular fields listed together. That says more about the history and characteristics of a university. (Which philosophers have been studying or teaching in Heidelberg? Which American politicians graduated from Harvard?)
2. Listing faculty and alumni separate or together? I think the former practice is based on modern America, with its enormous number of institutions, but for many older universities and universities in smaller countries these groups overlap to a very large degree and its seems pointless to list so many people twice.
3. Common naming standard? "People associated with..."? "...affiliated with..."? Something else?

/ Tupsharru 15:57, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This is mainly a response to User:Jerzy's comments above, to which in answer I must say an emphatic No, because an additional problem with a category in this case is that when we have list of alumni/faculty, we are also looking for additional information: what that person is known for, and that person's relationship to the institution (was the person an alumni, a faculty member, a donor, and so forth; what year did that person graduate; etc.). That is why, for example, list of Harvard University people (go take a look at it right now) is more useful than Category:Harvard University people. Perhaps—and this is a very conditional perhaps—in the future the category system is improved, we might consider then creating such categories, but right now, the net effect of these university categories on Wikipedia would be huge and disruptive to Wikipedia's biography articles. Consider, for example, someone who has only the slightest association with a university (for example, the person lectured at the university for a single year). It would be acceptable to list that person on the list version, because it would not disrupt the biography article of that person. But if we had a category, then we would have to add the category to the biography article. Now what if this person had lectured at or been a visiting professor at many universities, as indeed many distinguished academic scholars have? We could end up with something like eight or more university-related categories on a single biography page (one university-related category for the person's undergraduate study, one for the person's graduate study, two for the person's past teaching appointments, one for the person's current teaching appointment, one for where the person received an honorary degree, one for where the person made a significant donation, etc.). —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 10:54, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)

Another category of this type was just created by User:Icairns: Category:University of Exeter alumni. Perhaps there should be some attempt to find a consensus on whether such categories should exist and, if that would be agreed upon, on what they should encompass. Personally, I still prefer lists. / Tupsharru 17:05, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I created category:University of Exeter alumni today to follow category:University of Birmingham alumni, which was created last 18 June and has no discussion page. Ian Cairns 17:38, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I have listed this as unresolved at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion. It can, of course, be brought up again. (Perhaps it would be wise to start a listing that specifically addressed only whether such a category is ever appropriate?) -[[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 20:43, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] "Avoid academic boosterism" guideline

After ongoing frustration with the boosterism that repeatedly crops up in Wikipedia's university articles (see Talk:Ivy League, Talk:List of famous universities and colleges in the United States, Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/HYP, among others), I have created a draft of a guideline similar to "avoid weasel terms" but specific to the academic articles. It's now at User:Rbellin/Avoid academic boosterism. I'd be happy to see edits improving it and/or comments on its potential usefulness/uselessness. -- Rbellin 19:51, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Parent categories for universities and colleges

There's some discussion going on at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion concerning what we should call the parent categories that contain universities, colleges, and other similar institutions. (It looks like there's a trend toward looking at alternatives that do not explicitly mention either colleges or universities, since those terms are so ambiguous and depend so strongly on context.) -Aranel ("Sarah") 16:55, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed Poll on University Naming

As a result of the recent identity crisis of the University System of Maryland's College Park campus (currently University of Maryland, College Park), a survey has been proposed regarding naming conventions for colleges and universities: University of Maryland, College Park/Vote

The proposed survey consists of two parts. The first aims to resolve the specific name for this campus and the usage of the term "University of Maryland".

The second, and potentially more important, asks whether a policy should be added to Wikipedia:Naming Conventions stating a preference for using either short or long names for colleges & universities that can be idenitified in multiple ways (i.e. "University of Texas" vs. "University of Texas at Austin").

Since this proposed poll could potentially have wide ranging impact, I am posting this notice here to get additional feedback on the proposed language. Also, feedback would be appreciated on whether or not the broader issue of naming conventions should or should not be addressed concurrently with the issue of Maryland's identity crisis. Please post comments at the talk page associated with the poll itself.

Those interested in the history leading up to this proposal should refer to Talk:University of Maryland, College Park

Dragons flight 09:08, Mar 25, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Poll on University Naming Conventions is Open

Having gone several days without significant additional comments. The above mentioned poll on university naming conventions has now been opened for voting. Dragons flight 17:28, Mar 27, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] When to breakout alumni/faculty/etc. lists?

AFAIK, breakout articles usually wait until the size of the main article makes the breakout necessary. However, a bunch of alumni/faculty/etc. lists have been broken out of the parent article even when the parent is nowhere near 30k, and the list is short enuf to not be unwieldy yet. Has this been proposed/discussed/decided somewhere other than here? Anyone else agree it's unnecessary, probably a waste of time/effort, and actually more cumbersome than leaving it all in one article so readers don't have to use a second click to see the list, when there are only a couple dozen names (EG List of University of California, Santa Barbara people), and the main article is small (EG University of California, Santa Barbara--12k). Especially since, also contrary to Wikipedia:Summary style, the entire lists are being removed, with no 'summary' of the most notable ones left in the section. Niteowlneils 22:36, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I agree on both points, and there is no general agreement on this as far as I know, but I don't think there is any point in having a discussion about the issue, as people will do as they like anyway. Tupsharru 13:18, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Portal:Education needs attention

Perhaps someone who participates in this WikiProject might care to lead an effort to clean up Portal:Education? 66.167.136.148 02:42, 11 October 2005 (UTC).

[edit] Articles for the Wikipedia 1.0 project

Hi, I'm a member of the Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing using these criteria, and we are looking for A-Class and good B-Class articles, with no POV or copyright problems. Can you recommend any suitable University articles? Please post your suggestions here. Cheers!--Shanel 04:31, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] xml directory?

Hi. I'm not sure if I'm asking this in the wrong place. I was looking for a list of all the computer science departments, in the UK. Is there scope for, for example, having a xml database of all the universites, all their departments, and the webpages relating? Is this out of scope for wikipedia? I'm not sure how this would work, but it seems like an interesting idea? If this is just cluttering up the discussion, I don't want it to, please feel free to remove it! Richard —preceding unsigned comment by 84.9.72.135 (talk • contribs) 22:56, October 22, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Residential Halls and Colleges

Articles for Deletion seems to have a few people who want to delete articles about residential Halls or to merge tham into the main University article. For example there was recently a call to delete Holland Hall at the University of Exeter. After calls to merge it into University of Exeter, the closing admin more sensibly merged it into University of Exeter Halls of Residence and also merged several other articles on other Halls into the same place. Then there was debate about a Hall at McMaster University but these was kept after no consensus. It then was merged in. See Talk:Whidden Hall for some interesting ideas. Smuts Hall is up for deletion now - see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Smuts Hall. Here I am not going to offer opinions on whether these types of articles should be merged, except to say that if these articles were as good as those on Oxbridge Colleges, they would not have been merged. In fact they were bad. The main point is that I think this project should try to formulate some guidelines about articles on residencial halls and colleges and also on how to keep them NPOV and stop nonsense being added. As an example of such nonsense see the call for deletion on a "part" of a College at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Oswald, Grey College, Durham. Look at the article itself. --Bduke 03:03, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

A question I would ask is whether the residence halls have specific significance on their own or not. If they are not significant on their own then they will most likely not be written to a high standard anyway and will be subject to deletion more often than not. I dont know what guidelines to follow to determine significance though. It seems like a vague area to me. Ansell 03:26, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Athletics

In the United States, the men's basketball and football programs at Division I schools have an importance and significant approximately equivalent to that of professional sports teams - the University of Miami's football program, or Duke's basketball program, is at least as significant as any given NFL or NBA team, and even the programs of smaller places (say, Winthrop University's men's basketball team) seem to be more important than many minor league baseball teams that have their own articles (minor league baseball, for instance, is never shown on TV, while mid-major or minor conference college basketball can be found fairly frequently). Discussing these teams in the context of a small athletics section in the article about the school is bound to seriously limit the amount of quality contributions we will get on the subject. Some schools have separate articles on their athletics program, generally (Virginia Cavaliers, Florida Gators, and so forth). But even these are going to give short shrift to the basketball and football teams, which ought to have articles at least as extensive as the articles on NBA and NFL teams, imo. I'd like to suggest a) that articles on University athletics programs be made a general policy for Division I schools; and b) that the most notable programs, especially men's basketball and football, ought to have their own articles, so that we can go into full detail about these notable subjects. Note that, say, the Washington Redskins, article, gives details of the team's performance in every year since its foundation. Why shouldn't there be an article on Florida Gators football which does the same thing? Is anyone interested in working on improving this area of wikipedia's coverage? john k 01:09, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Indian Institutes of Technology

Hi everybody,

I needed help with the page on Indian Institutes of Technology. The problem I am facing is that since it is about a group of universities under a common title, I can't really concentrate on any single one when discussing the usual sections like endowments, campus, etc. as it would appear odd. Can you suggest me in what way should I structure this article so that it conforms to the highest standards of Wikipedia. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 18:11, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

There are examples of groupings of universities that may be more appropriate such as Ivy League and Group of Eight (Australian Universities). Endowment is not a universal concept. Also campus does not have to relate to groups of universities. I don't know whether there is a specific structure mandated for this type of article. Conforming to the highest standards of wikipedia may seem to be a virtuous act but in reality things are always being formed and reformed. Leave feedback about what works and people will be able to critique it. Ansell 03:13, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Initially I planned it on lines of Ivy League, but some people objected to the format so I had to reformat it. Furthermore, they both are very short and wouldn't help in the long run. A lot of changes have been made over the past few days. Please comment on how the article appears now. In my personal opinion, it is FA material barring the fact that the Table of Contents is a bit too long. Other suggestions are welcome, here as well as on Peer Review. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 16:26, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Australian Catholic University- peer review

I was wondering if anyone had the time or inclination that they might do a peer review on the abovementioned article I've been working on? Soundabuser 10:29, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Eckerd College POV

I put a POV tag on Eckerd College, which an anonymous someone removed while claiming the article was fine. Since my concerns weren't addressed, I put the tag back. Only a handful of people edit the article, and I suspect many/most of them are connected to Eckerd in some way (including myself). Some external feedback would be nice. Anyone feel like reading it over? I indicated my concerns on its talk page. – Zawersh 01:22, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] University College of the Fraser Valley

I took the liberty of updating the University College of the Fraser Valley with a lot of information, and removing it's stub status. I notice there are several sections this project would like. Should I go back and fill in the missing desired information, or is the article good the way it is? - Superwad 08:46, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mount Holyoke College

I was wondering if a few of you could come on over to the Mount Holyoke College article and check it out. I suggested some much-needed merges, and as I'm unfamiliar with any conventions with separate articles, especially ones that have been established by this wikiproject, I'd appreciate the help. Many thanks! -Rkitko 03:26, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Looks like the main contributor over at that page has gone ahead and taken my suggestion on the merges. The page could use some help, though, if a few of you want to help out! Thanks, all. -Rkitko 05:54, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notable Faculty Members?

I am alumnus of Austin College, which has a Wiki page. I have noticed that other college and university pages list "Notable Faculty" members. It would be my intention to start such a listing on the Austin College page since, in my opinion, there are faculty members there whose records of publication, leadership in professional associations, public service, and other accomplishments make them notable under the guidelines of WP:N and as I have also seen on other university pages. Any suggestions or comments from the WikiProject Universities?Jackkelley1410@hotmail.com 03:04, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Key articles for Wikipedia 1.0

Hello! We at the Work via WikiProjects team for Wikipedia 1.0 would like you to identify the "key articles" from your project that should be included in a small CD release due to their importance, regardless of quality. We will use that information to assess which articles should be nominated for Version 1.0 and later versions. Hopefully it will help you identify which articles are the most important for the project to work on. As well, please add to the Zoroastrianism WikiProject article table any articles of high quality. If you are interested in developing a worklist such as this one (new) for your WikiProject, or having a bot generate a worklist like this one automatically for you, please contact us. Please feel free to post your suggestions right here. Thanks! Badbilltucker2 23:30, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Structure in relation to history

I really believe that a university's history should be the first complete section after the introduction. This has taken a standard among university articles I have seen. I think we should move history as such in the main article. --Noetic Sage 21:42, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I just did a quick search on four universities: Yale University, Witwatersrand University, University College London and Humboldt University. They all put history (or in the case of Humboldt, an equivalent) in the first section after the introduction. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis 23:45, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I would also agree. Prior to coming across this WikiProject, I was cleaning up college and university articles related to Kentucky, and I put History first intuitively. Acdixon 14:10, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Format for categories

Having discovered the broader naming conventions for categories pages, I've relocated this discussion to: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (categories)#University categories Timrollpickering 15:48, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hood College

I am trying to work to improve my own college's article (basically I've built it from a stub [1] up to what it currently stands at. However, being a relatively small school, I'm not too sure what to include in here. DOes anyone have some suggestions on what I should write about? Metros232 15:14, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Metros. Thanks for stepping up to the WikiPlate to expand the entry on Hood College. I would suggest starting with the history, which you can find at http://www.hood.edu/welcome/glance.cfm?pid=glance_history.html . Be sure to paraphrase and cite your sources. You certainly have a find school there, and I look forward to seeing your contribution. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis 19:17, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I've already used a bit of that history (take a look at the references). I could maybe get another paragraph out of that by adding more of the details of the early beginnings, but where do I go from there? What else should be addressed aside from history? Metros232 22:14, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Just click on project page on the page you are now on, then scroll down to Structure. GeorgeLouis 01:45, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 21:27, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox Professor

• I have created a preliminary infobox for professors. The bare template with usage instructions can be found for now at User:Chabuk/Sandbox, and a filled out example can be seen at User:Chabuk/Sandbox2. Please let me know what you think, what improvements can be made, if there are any fields that I've left out, etc, etc. Thanks! -- Chabuk 18:29, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Where would you put this infobox? Sincerely, GeorgeLouis 02:36, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

• On articles for Professors. For example, Alan Dershowitz, Desmond Morton, Gil Troy, Paul Axelrod and so on... There are hundreds of these articles, and the infobox makes them a lot easier to read... -- Chabuk 03:19, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

• Since no one elseseems to have any comments, I'll assume we're okay with it and I'll add it to the main project page tomorrow. -- Chabuk 04:30, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for taking so much time to do this. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis 05:27, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

To be blunt, I find it completely useless. Nothing personal; I think most biographical infoboxes are useless, and we have far too much of this kind of garbage in articles already (not just infoboxes, but navigation boxes, succession boxes etc. etc.). You should not be surprised if you will be reverted when you start adding it to articles. Tupsharru 05:45, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Well that was constructive. That being said, this is exactly why I asked for input before putting them on the articles. Personally, I find infoboxes and other boxtypes very useful, I'm sure others do as well, otherwise we wouldn't have so many around. I would very much like to get more feedback, so its not just me in favour, and you opposed. And I'm not sure if that last part of your comment was a threat or simply a guess, but I must say, if people were to start blanking the infobox after not taking the opportunity to give feedback during its creation, I would be a little taken aback. -- Chabuk ^{[ T • C ]} 05:50, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

There is nothing to be constructive about. The box is redundant. Everything in the box will be in the first couple of paragraphs of any good biographical article. And along with every other box of some sort that other people are going around adding to articles, it will completely overwhelm the actual text of the article. We are already seeing this happen all over Wikipedia. Tupsharru 07:22, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Another point: People are not giving feedback because they have not noticed. Not everybody who will eventually find this box added to an article on their watchlist are also watching this particular low-traffic talkpage. Tupsharru 07:56, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

And a further point - the box looks a bit US centric. "Professor" in other countries means only the senior ranking lecturers in a university - "academic" would be a better term for the box rather than one that will just encourage loads of edit summaries like "Remove Infobox Professor - he/she is a Reader". And "State" should not be a required value - it's very confusing trying to use that term in countries that don't have federal structures (for instance in the UK does it mean the county, which is sometimes the same as the city, the region, which isn't terribly meaningful for many and/or an anachronism, or the constituent nation?). Timrollpickering 12:06, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

• Now that actually was constructive. Thanks Tim, though I'm Canadian, not American, I totally get what you're saying, and I'll certainly change that. And contrary to Tupsharru's negative attitude towards infoboxes, I find them very useful summaries of information. -- Chabuk ^{[ T • C ]} 16:15, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Despite the comment above: "Personally, I find infoboxes and other boxtypes very useful, I'm sure others do as well, otherwise we wouldn't have so many around." - I think you will find that many people don't like infoboxes. Maybe not as many as like them, but a significant number most certainly do not like them. I personally think they should only present information from the lead section, and only in tabular form, and only obvious, relevant, important points. They should not be constrained into a straitjacket to be the same across thousands of articles, they need to be flexible to work on 1000s of articles. Different countries, different subject areas, and so on. Of course, biographical infoboxes are different from science ones, but have a look at the infobox on Earth. Is that really useful? I spend ages trying to find the data I want, and usually end up looking it up somewhere where it is presented in a more accessible format. Also, please don't use flags on this infobox. See Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein and Template:Infobox Scientist. Carcharoth 08:47, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

1. I have written quite a bit on boxes and their addition to articles, and a classic mistake of logic is demonstrated, above: Silence is not consent. Additionally, the emergence of WikiProject X has encouraged fragmentation and allowed the participants of such projects to think that they have some validity above the individual editor's. That, too, is erroneous. If there is a Project for humans, that project would not get precedence on the look and content of all articles on all humans. To actually gain something like consensus for a box that is going to be applied, there would need to be an RFC or a long, long running discussion at the Village Pump.
2. Secondly, the very premise is slippery. To suggest "Professor" is a useful distinction is to mistake the world. "Professor" was the vocation of W. H. Auden and C. S. Lewis, most of the successful fine artists of the 20th century, most of the physicists who have made breakthroughs, etc. So, can the ProfessorBox replace the ScienceBox? Can it replace the Authorbox? They both have "Projects" with small participation talk pages (and silence as consent for their boxes).
3. Finally (here, anyway), the premise that a box makes an article "easier to read" simply doesn't bear up. A box makes an article easier to not read. It makes it easy to excerpt and avoid an article's prose. However, supposing that there are persons whose readings are enhanced by a box jutting into the screen, how many persons like that are there? How many persons find the boxes tedious, repetitive, and insultingly reductive? How many find them redundant? Who decides that one segment's improved reading is more important than another's visceral distaste? Since what's at stake is improved reading versus strong disaffection, I would argue that the calculus would be against the box. Geogre 12:38, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stablepedia

Beginning cross-post.

See Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team#Stablepedia. If you wish to comment, please comment there. ★MESSEDROCKER★ 03:02, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

End cross-post. Please do not comment more in this section.

[edit] University ratings

Looking through a good number of UK university articles it sometimes seems as though the ratings cited are far more those that show the institution at its best rather than a common standard for comparison with similar universities locally and nationally. Plus the ratings aren't even year consistent, with many seemingly only citing the highest place in a particular listing in the last few years, making comparisons harder. (Also some of the information about ratings is appearing not in a dedicated section but elsewhere, sometimes even in the introduction to the article, as though making a pre-emptive defence.)

Is there any way that a standard set can be worked out as to which listings should and shouldn't be included? Obviously most of this would need to be country specific (although are there many international ratings?) and even then there are always going to be institutions that don't appear or aren't really relevant to them (for instance a lot of UK newspapers rankings are based on full-time undergraduates so Birkbeck, University of London is often left out) but something firm would make the information far more balanced and easier to compare within countries at least. Timrollpickering 03:15, 11 December 2006 (UTC)