Wikipedia talk:Userboxes/Education

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Wikipedia:Userboxes/Education is part of WikiProject Userboxes. This means that the WikiProject has identified it as part of the userboxes system. WikiProject Userboxes itself is an attempt to improve, grow and standardize Wikipedia's articles and templates related to the userbox system, used on many users' pages. We need all your help, so join in today!


Contents

[edit] example code

Just as I said at Wikipedia_talk:Userboxes/Location#code_example, I don't think the example code I added is a great idea, because it doesn't allow for the insertion of categories with which users at the same school can find each other.

Until there is a good category-enabled userbox template creation tutorial (which is as yet beyond my ability because I am just learning templates), the example code is better than people not finding their schools. --James S. 19:08, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Location-specific education templates

The current system seems a bit too convoluted for ease; having such tiny, broken-off pages for all the different education-by-places subpages isn't very efficient. Why not merge these into the much more well-developed individual locations, like Canada and Brazil? Then we could simply provide links and say "go to the Location pages for area-specific education templates". Wouldn't that be easiest? -Silence 04:38, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Help please?

I'd like to create a userbox like the University of Newcastle for the University of Melbourne, including "the angel" (as the arms are often called) which is shown on the page about the Uni. Unfortunately I cannot work out how to do it. Can anyone assist? Avalon 03:20, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

  • Done.evrik 04:14, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Homeschoolers

Would it be bad to have a userbox for homeschoolers? Something like This user is homeschooled/homeschooles. Or we could have one userbox for homeschool students and one for the teachers (parents).

[edit] Students?

It seems like there's a distinct lack of boxes for students studying particular degrees or studying at particular universities. I'm a Wikin00b; can anyone comment/help out??Leon... 03:43, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

If you make a Template for your school, please make the appropriate entry in the Wikipedia:Userboxes/Education by region. Please help us to improve the catalog.--- Louie 16:33, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] more students

for those of us currently enrolled in high school, how bout boxes for AP classes? Tobias087 07:39, 2 April 2006 (UTC)


ok how's this?

AP This user is currently enrolled in AP {{{class}}}, and is going to be scoring {{{adverb}}} on the test.




if you like it, then move it to the template namespace, and put it on the page. Tobias087 22:28, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] BFA Missing

Noticed that the BFA is missing from the University Degrees section. Someone want to put together a template for it so it shows up? Teliis 10:04, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Nevermind, figured out how to make userbox templates (took a while to dig that up) and went ahead and added it in myself. Enjoy the BFA artists of the world! Teliis 19:41, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] boarding school

Perhaps this would be very useful as it can limit wiki time! Banana.Girl 12:00, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Major|Degree|Subject Userboxes

I think these two topics merge well. Maybe we need to integrate/rearrange existing userboxes so as to allow scholarly qualified Wikipedians to coexist with advanced aficionados. See topic below.

[edit] majors

Wonder why there are "favourite subjects" userboxes but no "major" userboxes? I realize "major" might be a U.S.-only term, but surely "favourite subject" is not British English for what you specialize in? --Lukobe 07:36, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

As you say, "major" is American jargon. "Favourite subject" looks British because of the spelling; yet the label is broad enough as to include majors, minors, areas of concentration, specialization, or interest, hobbies, and plain curiosity. I think the current label does the job---and though I speak mildly Virginian, I like British spelling too ;-) Louie 20:09, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Fair enough :) --Lukobe 01:01, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Degree | Subject userbox

HalfDome added a PhD|Subject userbox that seems redundant to me. You contrive the same message by using User:PhD and selecting the appropriate Favourite Subject. Otherwise we may see duplicates of Degree userboxes all over the place. I acknowledge that I may be wrong on this, so I didn't ask for deletion of the template. In fact, this issue points to the related problem of "majors" and "minors" in American College education. Many Wikipedians would like to say "I'm a BA in Classics and Mathematics, MA in Economics, a Lawyer, and PhD in Politics", and stuff like that; others simply would say "I got my MBA; and I like History and Medicine". Either result may be achieved combining existing userboxes. Please apply Occam's (or Ockham's) razor here.--- Comments welcome, Louie 20:40, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I guess we don't want to multiply userboxes beyond necessity :) --Lukobe 01:01, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
There are at least three problems with Louie's suggested alternative to the userbox that I created for the benefit of Wikipedians trying to illustrate their expertise to other Wikipedians.
  • For some individuals, their favorite subject is not the one that they have their PhD in. For example, there are individuals for whom math is their favorite subject, but they get a PhD in economics because of the better job prospects it offers. These individuals would not be able to do what Louie suggests unless they lie on their user page.
  • Seeing that someone has a PhD and has a particular given favorite subject does not confirm that they have a PhD in the given subject because that person could be as I just described in the previous point. As such, a person viewing these boxes would not gain the same information that my box would give them.
  • Some individuals like to keep the number of userboxes on their page as small as possible. Louie wants to have them use two userboxes to illustate a PhD in a given subject, while I have created a convenient alternative that requires only one.
For the purpose of following the goals of the Wikipedia project of creating a massive encyclopedia, userboxes are most useful when they illustrate expertise of users, so that others can contact them if they need help with articles. Saying you have a PhD does not provide any information about what exactly you might have expertise in. My box fixes that, and as such, I would maintain that it is, in fact, much more useful than the basic PhD userbox. HalfDome 21:06, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
Agree with HalfDome: PhD (and Dr.Phil., Dr.Philos., Dr.Art., etc.) is a very broad category and bears value only if it is specified in what field this person has doctoral level competence. It is quite possible to have a Ph.D. in internal medicine and have assyrology as one’s favourite subject. The proposed juxtaposition would be quite misleading in such a case. -- Olve 23:51, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
I see HalfDome's point, indeed; what worries me is whether we should allow/do the same for all conceivable "generic" degree. As I said, me may end up with a generic "BA", and "BA in S", or even "BA in S_1, S_2, ..., S_n", etc., plus "Favourite subjects. Perhaps we need to place these degrees in a different section, like "Degrees and Areas". Our fellow accounting Wikipedians are doing something like that already.--- Louie 16:12, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
I still maintain that the real value of degree userboxes for the goals of the Wikipedia project is indicating areas and levels of expertise. Would anyone disagree? Definitely most of the degree userboxes already indicate areas and levels of expertise. Eg. law degree, master of theology, etc. For the few that do not indicate the area of expertise, such as PhD, MA, etc., I think it helps with Wikipedia's goals to provide an easy way for individuals to specify the areas.
It strikes me as though Louie is jumping way down the slippery slope with his concerns about "BA in S_1", etc. It's not hard to come up with all sorts of reasonable things that could be done if that situation were to arrive, but that is not the discussion we are having here, and regardless of whatever the community decides here, the community could still decide whatever it wants about "BA in S_1" if that discussion were to come up. Why bring it up now other than to confuse the current question?
So... is there any non-slippery slope reason for why not to show people the possibility of a PhD subject userbox on this page? HalfDome 15:55, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
As I said, HalfDome, I think I see your point... perhaps better now.--- Maybe we have this mess because of the way things got organized back in the 13th Century (most places had only 4 schools: Theology, Law, Medicine, and Philosophy; and Philosophy was a placeholder for anything but Theology, Law, and Medicine).--- Anyway, what about opening a section "Degrees & Subjects", and put all these "Generic" Degree userboxes, like "Degree in Field", in there?--- Louie 17:40, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
Hi Louie. Okay, I think I see where you are at now. It sounds like we have come to a consensus about the box being useful, but you are concerned about how that box (and other similar boxes) are organized on the page. Yes, that 13th century organization does make things interesting. My initial thoughts are that we would want the boxes to be organized in such a way that people could easily find the box they want on the page. I worry that if the two PhD boxes were separate, someone might find one of them, but then not be aware that the other exists.
Of the 40 actual degree boxes that are listed (i.e. the red boxes), I count 10 of them (including the doubles for BS, BSc and MS, MSc) that would be more useful if a subject could be specified. It seems to me that even in the case of all ten being created, they wouldn't really cause trouble for anyone who was looking for a specific box, if they were included in the list with the other degree boxes.
HalfDome, please single out those ten userboxes which may have subject specification, and put them with the PhD userbox in Generic Degrees. Thank you. Louie 18:29, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
What do you think? Do you think having the subject boxes together with the non-subject boxes makes it easier for people to know that they both exist? Do you think the list would be too long? Maybe it could be broken up into undergrad and postgrad degrees? Or perhaps is there even a reason for the non-subject boxes if subject boxes are available?
Cheers, HalfDome 00:56, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Excuse me if I didn't read your posting before, Halfdome.--- Well, I see someone else added a userbox saying s/he is a Psychology graduate student, and I had a little argument with a Philosophy major. Maybe you're right, and we need some generic Degree|Subject, and Student|Level|Subject userboxes. I don't know if we have to place them under subject or degree. Maybe we need to rephrase that "favourite subject" to make it generic enough as to include both professionals and amateurs. What do you say?--- Louie 21:46, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rearrangement of academic Degrees and fields

Maybe we need to place generic Degree userboxes along with Major|Subject. We may discuss this topic below. Louie 21:53, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I honestly am pretty okay with any reasonable userbox that someone creates related to education being on this page. I really do think Ph.D. Subject should be there as this indicates expertise in a field, which I think is very useful for Wikipedia. Similarly, I don't have a problem with grad student subject boxes being created, as these also indicate expertise. If something has to go, I would say have it be the favorite subject boxes, as these only indicate interest and not expertise. Still, though, I think it is better to keep these too. If people find the boxes to be helpful to have them listed on their userpages, why not let them be available?
I think the real question here is organization. That is, I think all reasonable boxes that are created should be listed, but the trick is then to organize them all in a way that they are easy to find. Put another way, the organization should serve the boxes, not the other way around. I sympathize that this is hard to organize because some items cross different categories, but I don't think boxes should be removed simply because of that.
Well, here, let me give it a try. We seem to have three things that might be getting entangled: subject, degree/qualification, and level/instituion type. (I think the jobs section and the extra-curriculars section are fine on their own.) Subject can pretty well be crossed with the other two, so that would leave the following:
  • Subject alone (i.e. the favorite subjects section)
  • Degree/qualification alone (i.e. BS, MBA, IB diploma, CPA)
  • Level/institution alone (i.e. in primary school, med student, jesuit student, VCE student)
  • Degree/qualification with subject (i.e. Ph.D. in subject, GCSE grade in subject)
  • Level/institution with subject (i.e. grad student in subject, majoring in subject)
Hm, okay, that seems pretty sensible to me. What do you think? Whatever you end up doing though, I do think it is best to keep all reasonable boxes listed, as they might all be found useful by some Wikipedian for their userpage. Cheers, HalfDome 15:21, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
I think I like the way you say. Do you think it makes sense to move some of these to a subcategory right in this page? Vgr, "Levels and Subjects".-- Louie 20:33, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
Cool, I'm glad that sounds good to you. I'm not quite sure if I understand you, but it makes sense to me to rearrange the boxes on the page using the subcategories I suggested. If I get some time, I'll try to do it, but given how busy I've been, you might beat me to it.... HalfDome 01:45, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New arrangement

I just did a little rearrangement of the education userboxes by qualification/schooling, following some guidelines proposed by HalfDome. I'd like to get some feedback. Some work to be done, but the plan is basically as outlined. Louie 16:24, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Louie, I like what you've done. I moved the generic degree boxes as you requested. I verified what the degrees meant, and it turned out that a couple more were generic than I thought originally. I made a couple other changes that seemed to me to make the page better: Made category heading be "Institutions By Location". Made a slight reorganization to section 2. Added the word "Subject" to the student-subject userboxes. And I put IQ outside of the degrees area. I think they all make the page better organized and easier to use, but feel free to revert if you disagree. Cheers, HalfDome 14:55, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Debate

I've noticed there doesn't seem to be a userbox for Debate so I've created a policy one.Maegereg 01:28, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

FIAT This user is a policy debater.

{{User:Maegereg/Userboxes/Fiatdebate}}

[edit] Chi Phi

Chi Phi brothers of Wikipedia rejoice, for I have made my first userbox. {{User:Bwowen/Chi_Phi}} Now, all I need to know is how the heck to put this on the main page and not screw everything up. I'm a relatively new Wikipedian. Can anybody offer a hand? Thanks! bwowen T/C 05:01, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hate userboxes

I'm slightly lazy and can't make userboxes if all of the entire universe was on the line, so could someone make userboxes that show the user hates a certain class? --Ihitterdal 00:55, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] White & Nerdy

I'm looking for a picture of a face of a typical nerd (male or female), with glasses, a big grin on his/her mouth, waving his/her hand. This to make a nice looking userbox with "This user is White & Nerdy". :-P SietskeEN 14:37, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Image:Nerd.jpg is probably ideal for you, but would never get past the copyright nazis (I am surprised they allowed it to be used on the page Nerd). You might just have to get a friend to dress up, photograph them and offer them immortality on Wikipedia. --Legis (talk - contribs) 16:12, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] International Baccalaureate

just another request. could someone please make a template for IB high schools/diplomas? would be greatly appreciated. I'm not very good at making custom userboxes, but if nobody replies to this i will attempt to make it myself. Connör 23:36, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

  • ok, apparantly someone read my request and made the IB boxes. so, thanks to whoever made them, 'tis greatly appreciated. =] Connör 05:18, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] SAT

Could someone create an "SAT" score userbox; it wouldn't have to be anything that fancy, just an SAT version of the current "ACT" userbox.LeeRamsey (talk) 03:13, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Taiwan

So I noticed that the Taiwan page was moved to be under China...um, any thoughts on this from the peanut gallery? The job seems only half-done, and by that I mean, you have to go to the China page, which then links to the separate Taiwan page. Either the two Taiwan schools listed should be listed on the same page as China and Hong Kong (and then have the Taiwan page redirect to the China page), or they should be separate altogether (as they originally were).

Can anyone point me in the direction of any Wikipedia guidelines regarding how to handle this situation? Perhaps something regarding rules about states where there are differences of opinion on de-jure / de-facto statuses, etc? Maryamanda (talk) 17:16, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Future Ed.

I created Template:User_MIT_Apply for users going to apply for the Hack school (not a bad thing about the school, the hacks are the infamous acts the students play, like hanging pianos or spelling in "greenspeak"), and I was wondering where I should place it. Feel free to respond on my talk page if needed. Cheerz!~ DarkZorro 19:04, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Post Doctoral Fellow

This doesn't fit any of the existing boxes. It would be nice to have "Post Doctoral Fellow in SUBJECT". Or at least "This Wikipedian is a Post Doctoral Fellow at a university". Or maybe even "This Wikipedian is a Post Doctoral Fellow in SUBJECT at UNIVERSITY". I may have a go at making it later, but what do people think? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Oboler (talk • contribs) 10:44, 8 May 2008 (UTC)