Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Higher education/Archive 3

message: :: updated --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 15:07, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I have placed  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 talk ♦ contribs 11:21, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed deletion: New College, University of Southampton 

message: :: updated --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 15:07, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed deletion: Society of 1910 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Infobox university changes 

message: 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)
replies: text: *Comment: User:Tromboneguy0186 has terminated discussion.  - Jameson L. Tai talk ♦ contribs 21:08, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  It's tangential to this WikiProject as well 

message: 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)
thread_title:  BYU GA nom 

message: Anyone interested in possible policies (guidelines) about inclusion of university fight songs should review the discussion and offer your input at Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Fight songs. AUTiger » talk 07:26, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: 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 talk ♦ contribs 22:54, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fight song proposals 

message: 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)
thread_title: [[University of Heidelberg]]

message: 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  (Talk/ Contrib) 01:26, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I just gave my two cents on the article on the article's talk page. - Jameson L. Tai talk ♦ contribs 03:34, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Savannah State University]]

message: Hello all, 
I'd appreciate any help or input at Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/University_of_California, Riverside. How about an article improvement drive? Thanks, Ameriquedialectics 05:06, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: 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 talk ♦ contribs 05:42, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: [[University of California, Riverside]]

message: :: --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 15:03, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article for Deletion: Ivy plus 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Post 1992 UK Universities 

message: 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 talk ♦ contribs 03:46, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Where I was... 

message: 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.(talk • contribs) 23:06, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Tufts University]] dispute over a controversy 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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 talk ♦ contribs 20:59, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  University rankings (UK) 

message: 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  Talk 06:17, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Syracuse University Buildings 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Articles for deletion 

message: 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 . Hope this works better!—Noetic Sage 06:36, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Future AfD posts 

message: I just created  to redirect to . 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)
thread_title:  Template redirect 

message: 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)
thread_title:  STATISTICS 

message: 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:
# Help ensure that our article guidelines are helpful for students' unions articles.
# Enforce notability guidelines on these articles by deleting non-notable unions and ensuring notable unions have reliable sources.
# 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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 talk ♦ contribs 08:20, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  New task force for students' unions? 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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 talk ♦ contribs 06:43, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)

text: Anyone want to take care of this today?—Noetic Sage 03:46, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Georgia Tech Freshman Experience - Jameson L. Tai talk ♦ contribs 08:23, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notability of [[Georgia Tech Freshman Experience]] 

message: 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 (Talk,Contribs) 17:15, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requesting some feedback on [[Hofstra University]] 

message: 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)
replies: text: Uh, not trying to throw the policy back at you, but please review Wikipedia: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 talk ♦ contribs 04:37, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: Consensus?

message: * This is an open invitation to anyone who can help the University of Florida in our endeavors to expand the articles currently on Wikipedia.  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)
thread_title:  Invite 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: Ok, it's been done. --Sturm 20:57, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Good call. I agree with Mr. Sage. --Midnightdreary (talk) 21:50, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Department/Faculty articles 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: [[University Press (Florida Atlantic University)]]

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)
thread_title:  List of universities in London 

message: * 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)
replies: text: 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 Wikipedia, 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 talk ♦ contribs 08:44, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  incentive 

message: * 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)
replies: text: *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 talk ♦ contribs 06:52, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  ''' DOUBLE INCENTIVE!''' 

message: 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 Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Universities/Student Affairs. GreenJoe 17:55, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)

text: *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)

text: *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)
replies: text: *Unfortunately, lots of people seem very keen on keeping these articles separate, and seem to think Wikipedia 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)
replies: text: *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)
replies: text: *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)
replies: text: *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)
replies: text: 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 talk ♦ contribs 06:22, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

text: 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)
thread_title: New WikiProject proposal

message: 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  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 Wikipedia: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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: WikiProject Universities: Articles of unclear notability

message: 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)
thread_title:  New daily updated to-do list 

message: 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)
thread_title: Peer Review Changes

message: 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)
thread_title: Harvard transfer admissions

message: 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)
replies: text: I left a note on his talk page. KnightLago (talk) 14:17, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Indiana Wesleyan University 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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 talk ♦ contribs 06:19, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Which ones in are you questioning in particular? --Jerm  (Talk/ Contrib) 15:05, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Redlinks 

message: 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)
replies: text: I responded there. I hope that helps give clarity to the discussion a little.—Noetic Sage 20:42, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Still having problems... Wrad (talk) 20:59, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: 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 talk ♦ contribs 21:58, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  "Flagship" problem at [[BYU]] 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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%2C_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. Ameriquedialectics 17:19, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Endowment vs. Capital Campaign

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: Cornell University

message: 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)
replies: text: Blocked indefinitely for spamming. KnightLago (talk) 15:20, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Youniversity.tv

message: 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)
thread_title: Help!

message: 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)
replies: text: 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 Wikipedia:WikiProject University of California.  --Dynaflow babble 23:39, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Associated Students of the University of California]] 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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 talk ♦ contribs 23:23, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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 talk ♦ contribs 23:40, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I too support using both FTE and head counts. --Bduke (talk) 23:48, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: 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 , 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: Where are the numbers you are talking about? KnightLago (talk) 00:26, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: Is there an American version of this that anyone knows about? KnightLago (talk) 21:04, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: Student numbers at UK universities

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: UK University Rankings

message: Great Job!  - Jameson L. Tai talk ♦ contribs 05:16, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wow, this page looks great!