User talk:Sam Harmon

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[edit] Welcome to Wikipedia!!!

Hello Sam Harmon! Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Below are some recommended guidelines to facilitate your involvement. Happy Editing! Kukini 15:36, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
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[edit] The Oval

Yes, I found that a while back. It is quite the source. Thanks. Rkevins82 16:58, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of Ohio State University people

How do you find them? Athletes are easier to find than, say, businessmen in my experience. Also, I've updated the to-do list for to-do list for the Ohio State University. Rkevins82 20:03, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] College Football Project

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[edit] Response regarding the Ohio State half-story

By not telling the entire story, you are in violation of academic boosterism making Ohio State seem better than it actually is. The majority of Ohio State's rankings are composed of index scores ranking things such as endowment (Given that OSU will take practically anyone into their undergraduate, this automatically disqualifies any validity in these index scores) and research rankings which are uncomparable to a far older undergraduate based institution in the State of Ohio. - --Miami University alumna (Not Miami of Ohio)

Please expand on how the rankings have made Ohio State look better than it is? The rankings are all legitimate, respected university rankings and properly sourced. According to your logic, it could be argued that by not listing every ranking where Miami of Ohio is ranked second or lower to Ohio State that its "recognition" section is incomplete and misleading also. As for the validity of these rankings, they are not based solely on endowment. It's also been two decades since Ohio State did away with the loose admissions standards that Jim Rhodes forced upon the university. Today it is as selective--if not more so--than Miami of Ohio. Here are links to the most recent freshman class profiles.


Miami of Ohio Freshman Class Profile

Ohio State Freshman Class Profile


You've left out about a laundry list of other factors that truly illustrate the fundamental differences between the two schools. If you take a look every year at US News's National University rankings, on 75% of the criteria, Miami ranks higher (ie. retention rate, student to teacher ratio, student athlete success rate, alumni donation rate, graduation rate (much higher) in four and six years, money and teaching resources placed towards undergraduates etc. The only major criteria Ohio State ranks higher on is endowment (OSU, you and 55,000 of your closest friends), and peer review score based mostly on the amount of research being conducted. Miami places limited emphasis on research and most of its emphasis on teaching undergraduates. Princeton Review's extensive listing of criteria that goes into their Selectivity Ranking (www.review.com) cites Miami at a 94 versus Ohio State at an 81.
The Ohio State Freshman profile link you included includes a ACT to SAT Conversion which inappropriately miscalculates the closeness. There is far more ambiguity in the ACT which only has ranking scores in intervals from 20 to 36 as opposed to 400 to 1,600 (old SAT scale).

I do concede Ohio State has vastly superior graduate and professional schools other than Miami's obscure niche programs in Paper Science, Gerontology, and several others.

Princeton Review Admissions Selectivity Overview
Well, that's one analysis where Miami outranks Ohio State. I do have to wonder about the methodology considering that Ohio State has an advantage in top-10% class ranked students, Miami has a 5 point advantage in average SAT, and the schools accept roughly the same percentage of applicants, how that could lead to a 13 point gap between the two schools, I don't know. They must put an awful lot of stock in the percent of out of state students is the only thing that I can see. And Miami of Ohio is clearly doing everything it can to attract out of state students. I've seen the raw data, and top-10% in-state students are choosing Ohio State over Miami of Ohio in record numbers, which is entirely understandable when you consider that it's the higher ranked school, offers all of the opportunities of an AAU university and costs 30% less than Miami of Ohio. The only reason that Miami of Ohio is keeping pace overall with Ohio State in admissions is that they're scouring every suburb in the midwest for applicants. The fact is that admissions selectivity is statistically close enough to be argued either way. Combine that with the faculty and other resources that come from being an AAU university and one sees why Ohio State is ranked higher than Miami of Ohio in survey after survey. I understand how the "mother miami" mentality refuses to accept this and forces you to cling to these cherished illusions of admissions superiority to Ohio State. It's all that you have. And as far as that endowment goes, size does not explain the ten-fold gap! Ohio State is only slightly more than twice the size of Miami of Ohio. Besides, wouldn't all of these incredibly bright, talented Miami of Ohio graduates donate at far higher numbers than Ohio State's?
I just fell upon this discussion and I see both sides. I don't think you can say because Ohio State is a member of this AAU makes it any more prestigious -- when I think of Ohio State I think of any other state school (Fill in one of the 50 states + State University). You saying that being an AAU university is elite. This is comparable to when Miami boasts it to be one of the original public ivy league schools.
The way I see it, Ohio State is more of a sports and research Big 10 school and Miami is more of an undergrad academic type of school. My two cents.
I do believe, as would most any academic in America, that AAU membership is a significant indicator of quality--particularly as it relates to faculty. It, in and of itself, is not an indicator of elite status, but is certainly an important component of elite status for all but private, liberal arts colleges such as Kenyon or Oberlin. And, it certainly is a legitimate reference point for a wikipedia article on Ohio State or any other AAU member. Also, I would put AAU membership as a far more relevent indicator of a university's quality than a book that was the highly subjective opinion of one man and based on twenty year old data. What's really ironic is that Miami and Vermont were only included in that book (over more likely candidates such as UCLA, Wisconsin or Illinois) as a controversy-creating and book-selling gimmick. That's not much to hang one's hat on twenty years down the road.
The main contention of this debate was the inclusion, by an anonymous editor, of a ranking where Ohio State was second to Miami of Ohio. My contention was that if this was "good for the goose it was good for the gander" and should Miami's article detail all of the rankings in which Miami is second, or worse. to Ohio State, which drew the inevitable response of "those rankings are irrelevent" and "Ohio State is only ranked higher because it has a higher endowment" as well as misguided and outdated accusations that Ohio State has open admissions. The anonymous editor can cling to his illusions all he wants. The fact of the matter is that Ohio State is in the process of passing Miami by for admissions selectivity and the next five years will more than prove my contention. Just this year--in order to get its yield over 30%--Miami had to raise its acceptance rate to 78%. Momentum and history are on Ohio State's side. In five years, this won't even be a legitimate debate.
All in all, I think that Miami is a fine university. I don't believe that it's Ohio State's equal, but that's besides the point. My suggestion would be for this anonymous poster to register, and discuss any thoughts concerning the Ohio State article on its talk page. I also would hope that he's not the one constantly vandalizing the Ohio State alumni page by removing its Nobel Prize winner section.--Sam Harmon 00:37, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bill Krause

It can be kept - I just had never heard of him and couldn't find anything in a (brief) Google search. Rkevins82 18:43, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Our Vandal

I've already humored him and posted external links for all of the Nobel and Pulitzer winners on the talk page, and he's still vandalized the page twice since. This guy is beyond redemption and IMO is somewhat disturbed emotionally. The fact is that no other alumni page verifies every single entry, nor should we have to. I might add this guy has no apparent problem with Nobel sections on other university alumni pages. If this guy has a question about someone, he can bring it up for discussion on the talk page. Nobody should have to waste time jumping through hoops to satisfy the needs of a known and repeated vandal. Besides, it's not the validity or the verifiability of these people that's driving this guy. It's their very existence--and the lack of similar people at you know where--that is motivating him, and as such no amount of pandering is going to satisfy him.--Sam Harmon 15:22, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

It will be minimal (as you've done with Pulitzer, Nobel). Rkevins82 15:24, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
No problem. I would suggest posting the verifications on the talk page for a couple of reasons: not cluttering up the main article and not setting a precedent. My guess is that if he expands his focus it will only be to the more prominent/prestigious entries. If you remember, he once vandalized the academia section by removing only the entries from prestigious universities while leaving the others in place. Any guesses as to his underlying motivation? BTW, all of the people that I found were done through various web searches. If you have any questions on specific people, let me know, and I'll be happy to help.--Sam Harmon 16:01, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
As to motivations, one can only speculate. I am surprised that the editor went to the length of registering as a user and writing some text on his user page. Only time will tell what he intends. When I make the references for the talk page, I will put them in ref format, so we can transfer them if we want at a later date. Rkevins82 17:09, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
The edit summaries left by the vandal show how odd a creature that person must be. The AMA request would have been fun. Rkevins82 03:53, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Quit being such an irritant! Your actions are a favor to no one! What did you guys attend Delft University of Technology or something?! Pretend that you can earn someone's respect, because you are a MA excrescence to me... Hopefully I can have the opportunity to have nothing to do with you in the near future? There is no need for confusion about who is vandalizing: you have been a disservice to many for too long! As I have said elsewhere: vandalize Clemson's page instead, Bwahahahah!!!! - VicenteVicente

[edit] The Ohio State University

So do have anymore thoughts on what should be done with the box I added to the Ohio State University page? My biggest problem with it is that it's kind of hard to read, whereas the M*chigan one is easier using the color gold. Stubbleboy 18:52, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Unspecified source for Image:Woody.jpg

Thanks for uploading Image:Woody.jpg. I notice the file's description page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. If you have not created this file yourself, then there needs to be a justification explaining why we have the right to use it on Wikipedia (see copyright tagging below). If you did not create the file yourself, then you need to specify where it was found, i.e., in most cases link to the website where it was taken from, and the terms of use for content from that page.

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[edit] Ohio State University

Greetings! Please see Talk:Ohio State University for my rationale concerning recent edits to that article. -- SwissCelt 22:59, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nobels

Done. Rkevins82 20:30, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ohio State Article

The bot is definately wrong regarding the entry on Ohio State's article. The bot is tagging it as an invalid ISBN number. The number, however, was taken directly from the text and clicking on it leads to numerous library locations for the book in question.:ISBN 814201415.--Sam Harmon 21:11, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Hey Sam. This ISBN has only 9 digits. The current generation of ISBNs all have 10 digits. It's clearly invalid. EdJohnston 21:18, 8 September 2006 (UTC).
If you add a leading zero you get 0814201415, which is valid and is found by Amazon. EdJohnston 21:21, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Ed is quite correct, but thanks for the note anyway. Also note that it was changing the template, the flagging as invalid occurred a while back. Rich Farmbrough, 21:32 8 September 2006 (GMT).

[edit] Ohio State

Why was a free concert image removed due to irrelevance? It was in the article where it discussed free concerts for students. How is that irrelevant? - hmwithtalk 11:02, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Understandable, and thank you for replying. We both have the same goal: to better the Ohio State article. I misread some of the text, so thank you for letting me know. - hmwithtalk 20:31, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] OSU History

I saw that you were thinking about making that history article, so I gave it a start. I knew it needed help, so thanks for doing so much work on it. I think it's getting a pretty great start. - hmwithtalk 00:44, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

I assumed that you did, since you seem to be the main editor in all things Ohio State. I didn't mean to do that, and I am glad you organized it into better sections. It does flow much better now. I was hoping that someone would help out with it. - hmwithtalk 00:54, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Worthington

I have no idea why the Honors site refers to it as "House". This terminology is not officially used elsewhere, nor is it used in common usage. All physical markers refer to it as "Building". It's entirely possible that this is just a mistake on the website, as the building has also sometimes been mistakenly referred to as "Worthington Avenue Building", even though the street name is "Worthington Street". --- RockMFR 21:39, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

On a related note, yes, the dormitory portion of Lincoln is referred to as Lincoln House -- this could probably be changed, though it's a trivial matter. --- RockMFR 21:41, 27 May 2007 (UTC)