Talk:University of Toronto

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/Archive 1 — Jan 2004 to June 2007

Contents

[edit] College list

Why was the list of colleges deleted? Great work has been done on the U of T article, but I'm not sure if deleting the list altogether was the best thing to do. Orane (talk) 22:33, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm still writing up an expansion to that section. Generally in Wikipedia we prefer to have prose that describe and explain the subject instead of a bunch of lists. Unless of course if the entire article is meant to be a WP:LIST. Jphillips23 00:26, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
I've been here for many years, and I'm not aware of such a preference. If information that would be better written in prose is listed, then we have a problem (see prose line). But in a case like this, there is nothing wrong with having a list of the colleges.
Additionally, why do you insist on reverting any mention of UofT being placed at #1 in rankings in the intro, despite the fact that other articles have similar styles? You probably feel close to the article for some reason (it seems to be the only article you have edited) but please mind WP:OWN. Orane (talk) 01:10, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
Please look at Wikipedia:Embedded list: "Most Wikipedia articles should consist of prose, and not just a list of links. Prose allows the presentation of detail and clarification of context, while a list of links does not. Prose flows, like one person speaking to another, and is best suited to articles, because their purpose is to explain.". It is more useful for a reader to see paragraphs that describe and explain the colleges;a list that names them off one by one isn't very meaningful. There is nothing wrong with lists in general, but that doesn't mean we should be using them in every case. Maybe we can think about creating a stand-alone list of colleges? This is the way that the Cambridge lists its colleges, and also the way Oxford lists its colleges as well. Notice how the lists aren't included in the articles themselves.
I don't really understand why you have a problem with the rankings. The rankings are still mentioned in the lead, and your version and mine are basically the same: The university is consistently placed among the leading academic institutions of the world.[1][2][3] The only difference is that for some reason you seem to emphasize the Newsweek ranking and not the others rankings. In fact, it seems you were the one who added this sentence to begin with, and the original version is much closer to mine. Can you let me know why it's important to single out Newsweek?
And for the record, I don't feel particularly close to the article, although I do prefer to concentrate on one subject at a time. Other editors have made edits to my work in this article and I'm fine with it. But I do respectfully disagree with your edit. Jphillips23 23:21, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
Exactly, it says, "most of Wikipedia's articles..." It doesn't state nor imply that you can't have lists. It works perfectly in some cases (like 300). Additionally, the 'list of colleges' wasn't a list per se— it was a table. Anyhoo, if you have the time and are willing, then by all means, expand it.
I have no preference for the Newsweek ranking. I only used it since it was the most recent ranking, and it used data from a number of different rankings (including the Times ranking and the Academic Ranking of Universities) to come up with a aggregrate score for each university. U of T is placed at the top of all three rankings for Canada, so I could easily use another one. As it stands now, the ranking mention seems out of place, like an afterthought. Featured articles on universities have numerical rankings in the introduction. Why can't this? Orane (talk) 00:56, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Adding Residences....

How about adding a section about the residences and listing all of them? Dm ca 18:52, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Cool, go ahead. If you need help, just PM me.

It won't be a problem, just copy/paste the residence table, the one which indicates each residence's attributes and available utilities. -- Ahm2307 20:43, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Heraldic Arms

I've never seen any official U of T document or website that uses the coat of arms currently located in the article's infobox; in fact, the tilted shield strikes me as incorrect. I know that the arms that the infobox previously contained are in official use, and so I'd say the update to the arms should be undone. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.93.173.91 (talk) 18:11, August 23, 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, I've never in my life seen that one. It looks like something someone just designed, in which case it definitely doesn't belong. --216.13.92.212 19:47, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
The tilted shield is called a shield accouché (I understand the word means something quite different in modern French) - it's not uncommon in very old European drawings of arms. The artwork itself looks to me like the work of a College of Arms artist, and may be from an original grant of arms. It's certainly not incorrect for the shield being drawn at an angle, but I've tagged the image as lacking a source all the same. — mholland (talk) 21:00, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
I've added the source to the image page...the image is from the "Society of Heraldic Arts" website. nattang 21:17, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the swift response, Nat. — mholland (talk) 22:02, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
I think it looks cool...I've never seen it EVER before, but it seems valid; it has all the artistic symbols, so I say keep it!Ahm2307 20:39, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree it looks much better than the real U of T coat of arms, but I'd say 216.13.92.212 is correct in that it seems to be something someone just designed, without any official endorsement or use by the university. Also, I'd imagine that the shield accouché, though a real heraldic feature, wasn't actually asigned to U of T's logo, in which case it's just creative embellishment by the Society of Heraldic Arts. In any case, as nice as that new coat of arms looks, it's not the one in official use and so should probably be removed. — User:65.93.173.91, 24 August 2007 —The preceding signed but undated comment was added at 00:55, August 25, 2007 (UTC).
It is not in official use, so it should not be used. Matter closed.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Baderyp (talk • contribs) 09:08, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
"Official use" isn't the proper criterion - many universities do not use their arms at all, or use them only for degree certificates, preferring corporate branding on other documents. And Image:Uoftcrest.png is quite a poor rendering of the arms, in my opinion. It's black-and-white, not reflecting the proper colours of the arms, and isn't the rendering used by a majority of pages on the utoronto.ca website. Additionally, the image lacks a source and fair-use rationale. For the time being, I have reverted to Image:UofT Heraldic Arms.gif, but if consensus here requires an upright shield, there are several better renderings currently in use. — mholland (talk) 15:14, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Just to add my 2 cents, I'm a current UofT student, and I have NEVER seen that coat of arms being used anywhere, that includes official documents, signs, buildings, paraphernalia and so on. This is the most widely used shield, which appears on nearly all the official documents, building signs and even my UofT keychain! I've also occasionally seen this one being used, most notably the 2005-2006 edition of the UofT Campus Map. You might want to have a look at this site, as well as pages4-7 of this document, which points out what the official crest should look like. You might find this site quite interesting as well. -- 31 August, 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.244.89.175 (talk) 19:40, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

<<< I've added an upright version of the tradition shield. This should be acceptable to most as the upright shield is used in the vast majority of university articles. Jphillips23 20:49, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

It's strange that the two other campuses (Scarborough and Mississauga) are hardly mentioned! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.12.121.252 (talk) 03:43, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I actually saw the Heraldic Arms on Monday at the University. they're part of the war memorial near the tower/east side of UC. nattang 14:46, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Endowment

Charities directorate lists U of T's endowment at roughly $2.2 bn. http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/ebci/haip/srch/sec/SrchInput03Render-e?bn=119269751RR0001 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.232.23.95 (talk) 06:48, 26 March 2008 (UTC)