Talk:University of Maryland, College Park/Archive 1

message: The article definitely needs some discussion of Maryland's academics, but I think there's a better direction.  Remember, this in an encyclopedia, not a school handbook.  Someone who's interested in each of the Colleges can find information on the UMD website.  The focus of an encyclopedia article should be "what makes Maryland interesting or different from other schools" and "what are UMD's most important characteristics."
To put it another way;  I was in both Gemstone and Honors.  We should probably have a mention of Gemstone, because there's nothing quite like anywhere else.  The Honors Program isn't worth more than a passing mention, because it's pretty much like honors programs elsewhere.  Now, one thing that would be interesting: I remember hearing somewhere that about one third of Maryland students are in a special academic program of one sort or another (Honors, Civicus, Gemstone, Scholars, etc.)  That's unusual, and it's something the administration has pushed for.
IMO the first thing that needs discussing is Maryland's up-and-coming (or UVA wanna-be, if you want) status.  Twenty years ago, Maryland was a safety school.  Today it has a lot of top departments, admission is rather tough, and it's getting harder to get in every year. Isomorphic 02:34, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Choice of information

message: Someone had the bright idea of linking to the real websites of various academic programs.  This is a great idea.  With that in mind, is there a prefered way to organize all that in a two-column format, or should I just put a table in there?  --Howardjp 13:45, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Academics 

message: There are two recent alumni additions (Darren Mock and Robert DeLeon) which were promptly vandalized.  Neither of them have current pages within Wikipedia and Google does not link either of them with the University of Maryland.  Therefore, I am pulling them from the list.  If anyone can produce reasonable justification for adding them, be my guest and present that justification in the list.  --Howardjp 14:37, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I vote a strong "yes" for Bias, who was famous before infamous, and "no" for Blair, who is only the latter. Sfahey 03:59, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I thought both were already on it.  I could be wrong and too lazy to look.  If you want out of Blair on a technicality, he never graduated.  But he was editor-in-chief of the DBK when MacGruder started The Boondocks, which is also of some minor importance.  -Howardjp 13:11, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Did Jim Henson ever graduate? I seem to recall hearing that he didn't. --Arensb 18:48, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent Alumni Additions 

message: copied from WP:RM
* University of Maryland, College Park --> University of Maryland; 
**University of Massachusetts Amherst --> University of Massachusetts; 
**University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign --> University of Illinois;
**University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill --> University of North Carolina; &c.  
**Current naming conventions support having these articles at their most common name. I hate to do a group proposed move, but I tried bringing this up on the talk page here, and the Naming conventions talk page, and on various individual pages, and I've only gotten any actual discussion going at [this page] john k 03:47, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one sentence explanation and sign your vote with ~~~~
* Strongly Oppose this multi-move. These are not a set of similar moves, each one should be posted to WP:RM seperatly and due notice given on their talk pages. Philip Baird Shearer 10:36, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Add any additional comments
It is not clear to me what is going on here. There has been a request to move this page and others in a multi-page move on WP:RM so:
* why was not move template added to the top of this page or any of the others?
* why was no posting made to this page announcing this?
* why is the poll not open and how are people meant to register their support or opposition to the moves?
-- Philip Baird Shearer 10:18, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Requested move

message: ::Add any additional comments
It is not clear to me what is going on here. There has been a request to move this page and others in a multi-page move on WP:RM so:
* why was not move template added to the top of this page or any of the others?
* why was no posting made to this page announcing this?
* why is the poll not open and how are people meant to register their support or opposition to the moves?
-- Philip Baird Shearer 10:18, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion

message: Since we have gone several days without further comment on language, I have opened the poll at Wikipedia:University of Maryland, College Park/Vote.  Dragons flight 17:11, Mar 27, 2005 (UTC)
:Please note that the poll will only be open about 1 more day, and the issue of what to call the University of Maryland is still pretty close.  So if you have an opinion, now would be a good time to visit the page and say so.  Dragons flight 18:21, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)
::Well, that was an interesting exercise that established very little.  With a 9-9 split on the name, there is clearly a lack of consensus on this issue.  As a result this page should probably stay the way it is for the foreseeable future.  I must admit, I am surprised with the outcome, but then if everyone thought like me there would be no point in asking the question.  If people want to revote this issue in some months time, be my guest, but I don't plan on introducing and orchestrating any future votes on this matter.  Dragons flight 19:23, Apr 10, 2005 (UTC)
:::Yeah, I'm also rather surprised. Ah well, you win some, you lose some.  john k 19:26, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This now leaves us with the current foolishness.  University of Maryland should not redirect to University of Maryland, College Park any more than University of Maryland, College Park should have been moved.  Would anybody be willing to agree that University of Maryland should be a disamig page now?  -Howardjp 16:01, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree. Sfahey 03:27, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Poll is 
open
 closed 

message: Over the past few weeks, I've cleaned up most of the ambiguous references to University of Maryland.  For those of you interested, roughly fifteen percent of the references should not have gone to UMCP, but rather to the University of Maryland, Baltimore page.  A handful should have gone to University of Maryland University College.  One should have gone to UMBC.  None were actually references to UMES.  Some were easy.  Obviously, references to the medicial or law school clearly mean University of Maryland, Baltimore.  Otherwise, Google is your friend.  Further, when a reference is date-sensitve (for instance, "XXX graduated from the University of Maryland Medical School in 1934..."), I used the form: University of Maryland since the school would have been known as University of Maryland at the time, but is clearly UMB today.  There were many of these.  Atheletics links usually refer using Maryland Terrapins, so these were cleared up using Maryland Terrapins, as appropriate.  As it stands now, there are 319 links to University of Maryland, College Park.  Of those, 35 link through University of Maryland.  And of those, 16 are user, project, talk, or other pages for which style guidelines do not apply.  That leaves 19 still ambiguous pages for which I was unable to determine which campus they are refering.  Here is the current list:
Old list deleted, 10/6/2005
*Arguments for the existance of bigfoot -> pulled reference, no UM school has heard of Stephen Irosen
*Bigfoot -> pulled reference, no UM school has heard of Stephen Irosen
*Elaine Marshall -> UMCP, only campus with textiles major
*G. Spencer-Brown -> UMCP
*James L. Walls, Jr. -> pulled reference entirely, see Talk:James L. Walls, Jr. for details
*Joe Moore -> UMCP, comm major only there
*John H. Collins -> UMUC per 
*Nguyen Khang -> UMCP per http://www.engr.umd.edu/news/e@m/02_e@m_Winter_sm.pdf
*William D. Houser -> UMUC, per email from UMCP and UMUC archvists
*William Lacy Clay, Jr. -> UMCP, per Congressional website
Any assistance in clarifying these references would be appreciated.  -Howardjp 13:05, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  A second go at the redirect question 

message: I agree with Howardjp that a category such as "notable" alumni or "famous" faculty is very ambiguous and allows for an unwieldy list of entries.  Though this encyclopedia is a good indicator of who should be included into this list, wikipedia should certainly not be the sole - determining factor.  The alumni list should either be kept to a minimum or become a separate article.  For now I will revert to maintain the current list.
If you were to assume Wikipedia should be the only determining factor in success, Michigan has a few notable business graduates, UVA wouldn't be able to recognize the president of NASDAQ nor the chairman of AT&T, while Berkeley would show off a mediocre athletics program.  We need to find some other way to handle lists of alumni and faculty.  Jussenadv 13:05, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The alumni list is completely out of control.  How does anyone feel about splitting it into a separate page? -Howardjp 13:56, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No strong feelings on this, but I agree with your just-completed deletions of that goofy ranking stuff.  UMCP is regretfully hung up on that stuff.  It is embarrassing to see posters and banners bragging of #19 this and #3 that, with no context (ie, just how many Criminology depts. are we "competing" with?) Sfahey 23:18, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Every school is, regretfully, hung up on that stuff.  I've given up on trying to keep it out of the UMBC page.  But whatever. -Howardjp 12:22, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revert Explanation 

message: How about a section that links to each of the benefactors, assuming their biographies are appropriate?  I've started (godawful attempts) at Glenn L. Martin, Robert H. Smith, A. James Clark, Philip Merrill.  I have not seen any other pages with such a setup, but it could go either at the Alum / Distinguished, or perhaps after the college list.  Rbeas 19:00, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Non-graduate former students are considered alumni by most schools. -Howardjp 12:54, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  College Benefactor Names 

message: Since the vote was taken on the University of Maryland redirect back in March, I have systematically gone through every article that links to University of Maryland and fixed each reference.  I did not keep records of how many or who they linked to, but that can be gotten from my contributions page.  Regardless, as of a few minutes ago, I finalized the last reference (there are still about two dozen, however they are user, talk, or project pages for which style guidelines do not apply).  With this in mind, I'd like to move University of Maryland to redirect to University of Maryland (disambiguation).  Please discuss.  -Howardjp 14:54, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Nobody said anything for almost two weeks.  I made the change.  -Howardjp 12:56, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dumb redirect 

message: There has been some confusion concerning the date of the first day of classes at College Park. The opening-day ceremonies actually took place on October 5, not 6. The Baltimore Sun  of Oct. 6 and the Washington Evening Star of Oct. 6, all say the ceremony took place "yesterday." The American Farmer, for November 1859, also gives Oct. 5 as the opening date. In the first edition of George Calcott's history of the University, he says the opening day was "Monday," October 6. But this is not possible, since Monday was October 3.  This error has been perpetuated ever since. At any rate, Calcott has corrected the error in the just published new edition of his book. Corrections are beginning to appear on some University websites: www.150years.umd.edu/Media/  PatO 02:36, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  First Day of Classes at College Park 

message: I suggest that fan behavior be created as a subsection of athletics.  You may want to use this source as a starting point: http://www.umd.edu/umnews/studenttaskforce.html I have deleted your (User:192.195.66.45) statement on fan behavior once again.  First you provided no references.  Now you have made the same claim, citing news articles about a single basketball game that occurred almost four years ago.  If you wish to make the claim that these fans have been a "black mark" since the late 1990s, you must provide the evidence.  Please keep in mind: Wikipedia:NPOV. Jussenadv 02:07, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[User:192.195.66.45]] 

message: Recently the section "Campus legends" was changed to "Campus icons." I don't think "icon" makes much sense here. The relevant definition:
: Icon n.
: *A person or thing regarded as a representative symbol of something.
While that fits, somewhat, as a description for Testudo, it doesn't work well for The Point of Failure or Morrill Hall. Whereas the relevant definition for "legend" is:
: Legend n.
: *A traditional story sometimes popularly regarded as historical but unauthenticated.
: *An extremely famous or notorious person, esp. in a particular field : the man was a living legend | a Wall Street legend.
It seems to me that Testudo could use his own section as mascot, and he could have the stories from his history placed there. The stories about The Point of Failure or Morrill Hall do seem to be legends, although I'm not sure if two legends need their own section? I feel that's a decision better left up to those who have and are working more on this article than I am. — Vijay 20:55, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Icon vs Legend 

message: This article failed the GA noms due to lack of inline citations. If you feel the this article is still GA quality please feel free to seek a review. --Tarret 21:58, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Failed GA

message: Here's an alternative Userbox template for any Terp to use:   JGHowes 16:06, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: New Userbox template

message: Just looking at it the first thing that I notice about this article is it's lack of references.  There are entire sections that have no references.  Do not post anything without a reference. While there are other things this is the biggest area of concern that you should try to fix, in the meantime I will thoroughly review the rest of the article. I really feel like putting a fact tag on the entire article.  It is well written but without sources it cannot be verified. Professor Davies 18:17, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  GA Fail 

message: The section regarding campus legends clearly contains some original research.  These claims need to be cited, or they may be deleted. --tomf688 (talk - email) 05:01, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have added citations to some of the campus legends, but I was unable to find anything about the biology-psychology building. I am going to keep looking. Krobilla 00:44, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: After searching UMD's web page, doing a google search, and searching The Diamondback, I was unable to find anything about Bio-Psych building. I propose that the section be removed. Krobilla 00:50, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for your work.  I agree, and I'm going to remove it. --tomf688 (talk - email) 04:11, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Original research 

message: I think this page has lost its way a bit. In my view, the main page should really be that--a primary overview. Some of the sections get into far too much detail, most of it uninteresting to those who are seeking general info. I'm trying to use the University of Virginia as a model page. We should leave all these extra details and factoids off the main page since there are so many sub-pages devoted to individual topics (e.g. athletics, notable alumni). Some of the changes I list below have already been made but there are some things that I would like community feedback on before any action is taken.
Suggestions:
*Pictures
**Why are they so tiny? Perhaps we can enlarge the pictures once superfluous information is removed (see below).
*Academics
**List the colleges, in two columns if need be, to break up the endless lines of text.
**Move the info about the Nobel Laureates into this section (see UVA's page).
**Get rid of the info about the honors programs, except those that are exceptionally interesting, such as Hinman CEOs. The first sentence of the paragraph says it all, "The Honors Program is similar to most other honors programs throughout the country." So why is it on the page??
*Athletics
**I'm a UM alum and I love the Terps but can we please just move the team histories to the athletics page? I say highlight the major events (NCAA tourneys, etc) and have the general team info.
*Testudo
**I'll try to find references for those events and add a picture. Right now, it's just a glob of text.
*Notable People
**We need to cut back on the people. Moving the Nobel Laureates up to Academics will give up some space but others just simply need to be moved to the list page. I mean, do we really need to mention the Athletic Director of the University of Oklahoma? UM's own athletic director isn't even mentioned on the page!
***The criterion I would use for this section is to think about whether your mother would know who these people are: Jim Henson, Connie Chung, Larry David, Congressman Hoyer? Probably yes. Joe Castiglione? Michael Griffin? Gordon England? I would say probably not.
**The list of all athletes turned pro is neat but doesn't need to be on the main page; there are just a lot of them. They should be included in the separate Terrapins Athletics article or in the notable people list.
*Sections that should be removed or seriously overhauled.
**Hoff Theater - remove.
***I disagree with this. The Hoff Theater is a rather interesting part of being at Maryland for a lot of people. 
**Events - remove.
**Department of Public Safety - remove.
**The Greek Life section should really be about ALL student life at Maryland. A list of frats and sororities is, in my view, pretty useless.
**References: I don't know why the same page (e.g. the UM Timeline) has to be referenced over and over. Isn't once enough to link to the information? Perhaps better primary source references can be found. I will definitely look. Thanks, Epicadam (talk) 22:38, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: General Housekeeping Comments

message: There is a very special Jim Henson comemmoratory statue at the University. Angie Y. (talk) 19:39, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Jim Henson statue

message: Isn't the school officially entitled: University of Maryland and not University of Maryland, College Park, which is just a form of clarification when discussing the University of Maryland System?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Josephabradshaw (talk • contribs) 14:41, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Name 

message: The "Greek life" section has a list of the fraternities/sororities on the campus, but doesn't contain much other content.  It would be nice to have it expanded to at least a couple of paragraphs. --tomf688 (talk - email) 05:07, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Greek life 

message: Perhaps these should distinguish between graduate and undergraduate programs. UMD generally does better on the former than the latter. VasileGaburici (talk) 11:14, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, I beg to disagree. It depends on the major. I strongly advise any current student to speak to Barbara Gill, the Director of Undergraduate Admissions. There is a lot to be said for some of the LEP (Limited Enrollment Programs), such as the business school. The Undergraduate Office are unable to allow any student into their desired LEP major even if they jump the hurdle and make it into the incoming frosh class, without them having significantly higher grades than are required just to be eligible for Fall admission, so she surely has references to show the necessity for this, and why UMCP is such a sought-after school. In addition, don't underestimate the Honors program. I don't know if it is still as good as when Dr. Mack was head of the main program until 2005? I seem to recall 2004, UMCP was ranked 4th, or something like that for the residential living-learning communities (I hope I'm remembering correctly.) Wish we could do research, but that's forbidden here.. another question for Barbara Gill, perhaps. --leahtwosaints (talk) 17:41, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rankings 

message: Please see my tardy addition to the Co-op question above. Thanks.--leahtwosaints (talk) 17:41, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Food Co-op

message: He was just removed from the alumni list.  Hrm.  His article says he attended the Agriculture College of Maryland.  Isn't that now part of UMCP?  Henrymrx (t·c) 05:37, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, UMD was known as the Maryland Agricultural College until 1916. However, the John Walter Smith article was incorrect (I fixed it); the second source cited there says specifically that he did not attend college. As governor, he did do some things involving the management of MAC, which I guess is where the confusion for that article's editor arose. Strikehold (talk) 05:59, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[John Walter Smith]] 

message: There is currently an RfC on this question at Talk:University of Maine#Flagship RFC. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 12:54, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I don't know about Maine, but the College Park campus was declared the "flagship" campus by the state legislature sometime in the late 80s or early 90s.  No, I don't have a source for that. I can probably dig one up if you want to make a big deal out of it. Henrymrx (t·c) 13:10, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

text: The College Park campus is referred to as the flagship campus on the University System of Maryland's website: http://www.usmd.edu/institutions/Profile.php?Inst=UMCP CheeToS (talk) 06:45, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Whether the "flagship" status of a university can be presented as objective fact

message: Isn't generally best for someone who is actively working on the article to do the GA nom?  Perhaps they still plan on adding more content, cleaning things up, etc.  --Omarcheeseboro (talk) 19:54, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Content wise, I think this article is at the GA level already, and I think the reviewer will likely ask us to do things like reference secondary sources, format them using the cite templates, and other technical things that I do well, so I decided to try for GA status. If anyone doesn't want to try for that, let me know. JamaUtil (talk) 21:37, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The article is coming along well, but there are still several sections with no footnotes (starting around the faculty section onwards). This will be asked for in the GA review... Strikehold (talk) 21:53, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I see no reason to rush the nom.  While it's likely not to be reviewed for at least a few weeks, it could be picked up anytime.  I feel it's best to withdraw the nom for now and go over the tasks to improve the article. --Omarcheeseboro (talk) 22:02, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Let me know when you're ready! JamaUtil (talk) 17:33, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  GA Nomination 

message: I recently noticed that there were a few new footnotes linking to pages for maps and whatnot. Is this truly necessary? For example, under the "Campus Description" header, it says "A map of campus can be found here [59] and a walking-tour map featuring campus landmarks can be found here.[60]" with the footnotes linking to PDFs of maps. Can't you simply mention the information without linking to it? Plus, aren't footnotes supposed to be used to validate a statement rather than transfer you to a page like a bibliography? I just think it's weird and I don't see other university wikis with that. 
The footnotes are also in the Resident Life header (can't you just name the halls in a grid rather than redirect people to the DRL website?) and the Transportation header (I doubt anyone besides those associated with the university care about Zipcar services, and those who do care already know how to access them so a link on Wikipedia is really unnecessary)
Like I said, I just think the footnotes and the sentences in general are weird and unnecessary. Why write "you can find this thing here" when "here" doesn't even lead to anywhere? --Kamaki (talk) 01:03, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree they were weird, I changed them to:  ..X is here and ..Ys are here.  I do think they have some useful information, I only took out the one on current parking rates, but left all the location ones in. JamaUtil (talk) 14:55, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, but inline external links are even worse.  See #2 in this guideline about External links. I left a note on your talk page. --Omarcheeseboro (talk) 15:03, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unnecessary footnotes 

message: This hasn't been brought up in a while, so I want to gauge current consensus. Does it make sense to move this article to University of Maryland? I believe doing so satisfies WP:COMMONNAME and "University of Maryland" redirects here anyway. Thoughts? Best, epicAdam(talk) 16:32, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Page Move? 

message: The Rankings section of this article is in shoddy shape.  Rankings from different years are used, and there's no consistency.  New 2010 numbers are out there and available, we just need to find the best, most WP:NPOV, and most WP:RELIABLE sources.  Here are a few after a quick search:
* UM Newsdesk 2010 Facts and Figures
* Academic Ranking of World Universities Official Website
Let's try to bring all the facts and figures up-to-date.  Amit  ►  13:07, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: A recent edit (diff) altered a lot of the University's national/international ranking numbers.  The edit summary that was given states "I have updated the ranking for this current year", but there are no updated references or new references.  In fact, some of the older references date back to 2007 and are either dead links or completely invalid now.  These facts/figures are contentious, but important to this article, so please, before updated ranking numbers, make sure you have a reliable source ready to include as a reference.  Thanks!   Amit  ►  13:48, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Out of Date Rankings