Talk:University of Mannheim

message: similar to the discussions about founding dates of other institutions of higher learning ( see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Princeton_University#Fourth-oldest_vs._Fifth-oldest ) I'd suggest to write 1907 as the founding date, as the University claims itself. If you chose the accrediting as full university as relevant date, you'd have to change it for Harvard, Yale and others since they started out as colleges as well. 
Unless complaints posted, I'll change it end of the week. Opinions? MaxE 13:54, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That sounds reasonable. Or are there other arguments? Stefan Weil (talk) 07:16, 24 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Founding date 

message: I do not agree with the last changes by user Sacrumi. Yes, there are university championships in Germany (Deutsche Hochschulmeisterschaften). They are often used to determine which German university will represent German academia on a European level. See http://www.uni-mannheim.de/sport/ --> Ergebnisse
Further, I find it unfitting to change the establishment date without contributing to the discussion page which already deals with the topic and well explains reasons for the chosen entry of 1907. 
Giving reasoned backup for the change and finding support in it would save irritation and complaints such as this one by me now. 
Please tell me what and why. Thanks. 
Sorry, log-in didn't work. Will try to write signed-in next tiem. 
84.56.238.121 00:12, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Changes by Sacrumi 

message: I think the Rankings section's language is unduely advertising style for an encyclopedia. Mannheim is undoubtly the best business school in Germany and there are numerous rankings which show that impressively; so why not just citing them instead of making such vague claims?147.142.186.54 (talk) 17:36, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rankings 

message: The section about the Mannheim student life in my eyes is highly problematic. As a student from Mannheim, I am not aware of any Studentenverbindung that still conducts academic fencing. If this would be the case, there would certainly be a public debate concerning the issue. A source would be quite helpful here.
German Studentenverbindungen furthermore can NOT be compared to American or Canadian Fraternities. A lot of those groups of (male, german) students can be reasonably identified as belonging to the extreme right-wing political spectrum.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.209.43.79 (talk) 12:11, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: this article has been turned into an advertising brochure or blog by people employed by, or at, the university.  This whole thing is sourced (where there are citations) almost solely to the university's website, and per the Wikipedia is not a vehicle for promotion policy, this is not OK. Jytdog (talk) 16:23, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

text: Please also be aware of WP:RELTIME - nothing is "current" or "now" in WP, as articles have no datelines.  Please keep in mind that this is an encyclopedia, meant to provide a high level overview, summarizing accepted knowledge about the world to readers, for free.  that is the mission. Jytdog (talk) 16:26, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

text: I'm totally with you, Jytdog. The only thing, I don't agree with you is that it's bad if people "at the university" try to improve the article. Who should do it then? Nobody really seemes to care. This article has been out there for years as it is - at least that's what I suspect after working on it (and that has also been my motivation to join Wikipedia). We insiders know much better than "outsiders" what plays a role at our university and what does not (see the fraternaties or the Rowing thing that I wrote about below). I don't even mind if employees try to improve the article as long as they do it neutrally and without the "promotional garbadge" as you call it. I thank you for revising all of my changes. I hope we can make a real Wikipedia article out of this piece of crap ... because that's what it is...sorry...GiniVanDango (talk) 22:32, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: The 'we insiders" if completely wrong-headed.  Wikipedia articles summarize what independent sources say.  We use primary or self-published sources ONLY to fill in around the edges. What happens with this page in Wikipedia is that from time to time people affiliated with the university swing by and add a bunch of garbage sourced from the university about what is "currently" go on there. That is why this page is garbage.  If you want to be a Wikipedian then edit like one, and not like yet another WP:BOOSTER.  Find independent sources about the university and summarize them. Jytdog (talk) 22:37, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

text: Sorry, Jytdog, but what is an independent source for you? Newspapers? :D... which in 90% of the cases copy university press releases? And if there is no so-called independent source that has covered an event, does that mean that it didn't happen? According to me, it is important to write in a neutral way and not to use promotional language, but only relying on non-university sources will not give the full picture as I wrote below: There is neither a lot of scientific nor a lot of press coverage on universities in general to really quote external sources for the full picture without the universities' websites. GiniVanDango (talk) 23:06, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Not for me. For Wikipedia editors. That means you and everybody else. See WP:INDY.  What you think is important is not relevant.  You are nobody. So am I. We know what is important based on what independent sources say is important. Jytdog (talk) 23:34, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Student Life 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified  on University of Mannheim. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20150729153506/http://www.eduniversal-ranking.com:80/business-school-university-ranking-5palms.html to http://www.eduniversal-ranking.com/business-school-university-ranking-5palms.html
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 16 external links on University of Mannheim. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I trimmed a bunch of self-sourced or unsourced promotional garbage.
This page in Wikipedia (I cannot call it in "an article", as it not a Wikipedia article) is not an advertising brochure nor is it a proxy for the university's many, many webpages. Jytdog (talk) 17:11, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Trimmming 

message: To the best of my knowledge there are no rowing competitions anymore in that the Uni Mannheim takes part. I will delete that and try to write a more encyclopaedic version of this paragraph. Jytdog deleted it and I agree with him (as with many others of his deletions) that a lot in this article seems to be promotional. Let's make a real Wikipedia article out of that ... I'm thankful for any help!GiniVanDango (talk) 22:14, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: STOP CITING THE UNIVERSITY WEBSITE.  Read the notices at the top of the page for god's sake. Jytdog (talk) 22:31, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

text: I'm so sorry Jytdog...I'm new to Wikipedia and not all that is on the University's website is wrong! The problem with univeristies is that there is neither scientific nor a lot of press coverage on the Universities, so most of the information cannot be cited from external sources...what can I do, damn!!!! Help me!!! :-)GiniVanDango (talk) 22:37, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Go to the library and find  independent sources. Jytdog (talk) 22:39, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sports and Athletics 

message: Would you mind if I delete the last section of the lead which lists all the associations of which the UMA is a member? It's repeated in the infobox anyway. Thanks for your opinion!GiniVanDango (talk) 13:49, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I was thinking the same, I've been bold and removed the section. Aloneinthewild (talk) 16:41, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lead 

message: Dear Jytdog, the text for the research category that I started to write is not promotional. The reference for the first sentence is the same as for the second, that's why I didn't add it. The Funding Atlas of the German Research Foundation is an independent and reliable source. And reality is that the UMA has this focus on the economic and social sciences for which the rest of this section is further proof. In the guidelines of WP:univeristies it says that authors should "mention distinguishing academic, historical, or demographic characteristics". The academic characteristic of the UMA is what I wrote in the first sentence...nothing promotional about that... Therefore I will undo your change and add the aforementioned citation to the first sentence (because that's the only thing you critisized in your edit summary when removing the whole section instead of the one sentence you didn't find ok)...not to be confused with an edit war...GiniVanDango (talk) 16:22, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Research 

message: this was utterly unacceptable. Jytdog (talk) 15:57, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, my fault. I wanted to add a source that is in English for this information in the lead, so that other authors who don't know German can check the information. It's a brochure by the Federal State of Baden-Württemberg (not by the University of Mannheim), thought that would count as a secondary source. As i mentioned above in the Research section: The UMA has a focus on the economic and social sciences which are tied to the other disciplines it offers. I can also cite it from a more independent source, it's gonna be in German, however, and can't be checked because it's a book from the library...I understand your critique, though GiniVanDango (talk) 17:37, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I understand that you understand that UM has a strength in economics and social sciences. Find a secondary source that says that.  Stop adding promotional garbage to Wikipedia.  You are learning  nothing about conflict of interest and how corrupting it is.  This is important everywhere in  life. Jytdog (talk) 19:19, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

text: Personal expertise is completely irrelevant in Wikipedia.  Completely against the spirit of this entire project - please erase that garbage from your mind. If you want to write based on your personal expertise please go start a blog.  When you created your account, and literally every time you save an edit, you agree to aim for the mission of WP and to follow community policies and guidelines.  This is in the Terms of Use, legally, but is also the spirit under which this entire project works.  Editing WP is a privilege that is offered openly, freely, to everyone. If people cannot aim for the mission and follow the policies and guidelines, the community restricts or removes editing privileges. If you cannot edit per the policies and guidelines on this topic due to your conflict of interest, we may have to ban you from this topic. Your behavior (every edit you make in Wikipedia is recorded and is linkable) will drive that decision.  Please decide if you can follow the policies and guidelines or not, and save us the trouble of taking community action. Jytdog (talk) 23:10, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

text: The ERC database is a primary source, btw. Again if you use independent, secondary sources and accurately summarize them there will be no problems. Jytdog (talk) 23:13, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

text: Dear Jytdog, I have requested a third opinion for our dispute...because I have discovered that I like writing university articles and I would like to contribute to other university articles, too, after improving the UMA article, I would like to know once and for all which sources are ok.GiniVanDango (talk) 12:16, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: On a procedural note, I try to follow TransporterMan's personal 3O standards, meaning I'm not going to edit this article in a way that is related to the content questions being discussed. I'm also not an arbiter or a purveyor of the absolute truth: I'm just another Wikipedia editor who has stated their understanding of policy and guidelines as they relate to this article. I don't plan on being an active participant in this talk page discussion in the future either; consider my 3O as an informal "hey, what do you think"-style response from an uninvolved editor. And of course there are alternative dispute resolution mechanisms for content-based issues if this third opinion does not help settle the matter; see WP:DRR. /wiae /tlk 17:06, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  I thank you very much for your opinion and I will accept Wikipedia's policy on citation even though I must confess that it goes a bit against common sense and my knowledge of how primary sources are often distorted in secondary sources as is also often the case with quality newspapers which are considered as "reliable" sources by Wikipedia. Check out this article as an example if you like (it's in German but it's worthwhile putting it into Google Translate): http://www.bildblog.de/5704/wie-ich-freiherr-von-guttenberg-zu-wilhelm-machte/ Nevertheless, I thank you for giving me a qualified and detailed answer on how the Wikipedia works. GiniVanDango (talk) 13:40, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: known issue. see citogenesis.  There is rarely anything new under the sun in WP Jytdog (talk) 14:28, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Advertising sourced to an advertising brochure, in the lead