Talk:Stanford University/Archive 1

message: Stanford U. is not in Palo Alto! All addresses direct to "Stanford, CA" and not "Palo Alto, CA". --Jiang 20:43, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: Stanford, CA is NOT a city as explained in the article.  I would like to see some confirmation and proof otherwise.  Kowloonese 06:18, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)

text: Ok, my bad then...the article used to call it a "town" and someone changed it not too long ago without me noticing... --Jiang 06:21, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  Municipal association 

message: Hi, I have reverted the page back to last edit. Some people seem to feel that anything that damages the school's reputation should not be placed here, even if it's true. Please recognize that Wikipedia articles should be neutral. Therefore, both positive and negative aspects of the school should be written. In this most recent case, Jengod decided that the comment "Stanford ranks lower than Harvard, Yale, and Princeton in U.S. News Rankings" to somehow be a violation or vandalous. This is a fact, and there is nothing wrong with stating it as such.
:The comment was a crack at Stanford's ranking, deliberately inserted by a Yale IP address into the first sentence of a long article, in an attempt to make Stanford look bad.  The presentation of facts can be manipulated to influence opinion almost as well as opinionated writing. silsor 02:42, Feb 26, 2004 (UTC)
:"Although Stanford students often refer to their school as the "Harvard of the West", for the past 10 years it has consistently ranked below Harvard, Yale and Princeton in the U.S. News and World Report annual college rankings."  I reverted because it was denigrating and useless, but provide me a table of USNewsWorldReport undergrad and grad schools rankings for Stanford, Yale, Princeton and then Harvard. If it turns out to be true, which I suspect it is not, then surely add it in. It <I>definitely</I> won't start a ranking war amongst college rivals throughout the U.S. Also, a quick look at the edit history of Acorn and the IP address that made the origin edits reveals a very short Wikipedian history almost all of which is devoted to dismissing "lower Ivies" and promoting the prestige of Yale-Harvard-Princeton. All of which are damn fine institutions, but this is not a college fair, this is an encyclopedia. jengod 02:56, Feb 26, 2004 (UTC)
:"Stanford ...[is] one of the most prestigious [universities] in the world" is as NPOV as such things get. Does anyone doubt it's true? It's not even saying 'top thousand', much less 'more prestigious than Reed College'. --wwoods 08:22, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Stanford is a wonderful university. All this ordinal comparison (Harvard > Stanford, etc.) is childish; there is similar controversy on the Duke page. Casting ill-informed aspersions on someone else's alma mater doesn't magically make your own more prestigious. JTM 19:47, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rankings & Reputation 

message: The German phrase "Die Luft der Freiheit weht", found on the Standford emblem, is subbed incorrectly ("Let the winds of freedom blow"). A correct translation would be:
"The winds of freedom blow"
Even more correct:
"The wind of freedom blows"
: Yes, "the wind of freedom blows" is the most correct translation. But I'm guessing they're leaving it as "the winds of freedom blow" because of the Beavis and Butthead connotation that "blows" carries. As in, huh huh dude... like, the wind of freedom totally BLOWS! User:Jawed
:: It is a bad idea to  change a translation to thwart a misinterpretation by immature high schoolers, when the incorrect result leaves millions of mature Germans thinking that this university cannot teach the German language properly.
Well, to be a stickler about it, a word-for-word translation would be "The air of freedom blows" -- former Stanford pres. Gerhard Casper (German by birth) noted that -- but that's not really in the spirit of the motto, which I think was originally Latin.  "The winds of freedom blow" is a perfectly reasonable and arguably more poetic-sounding translation.  In any event, I don't think a plural version of "die Luft" even exists, and it's certainly not always the case that you would want to be so literal as always to match number in a translation -- die Hose and die Brille, pants and glasses respectively, are both singular in German but plural in English, for example. -Ergative 19:37, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think it's a question so much of avoiding immature misinterpretation rather than being more idiomatic English. In English, metaphorical winds are almost always plural: "the winds of change", "the winds of war", "the winds of fortune", etc. I think "the winds of freedom" is much more natural sounding than "the wind of freedom". Although this doesn't match the exact syntax of the German, I think it captures the intent of the German while sounding like more natural English. Of course, one can find examples of singular metaphorical winds, so one could aruge that this alteration is not strictly necessary. Nevertheless, surely German speakers understand that not every phrase can be translated to English with word-for-word exactness. Nohat 19:43, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: (On edit conflict, also what Ergative says) Nohat 19:43, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

text: I just realized (long after the fact), that I forgot to sign this edit.  And it took me a fair amount of research too.  Darn. -- ericl234 talk 10:36, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)
Hello - just came onto this by accident and want to bring in another aspect: the reason "Luft" was chosen (back some hundreds of years ago) is because Air is something haptic static and somewhat consistent (as  opposed to "Wind" which is basically just running through!) "Luft der Freiheit" is something you breath and my guess is the original Latin meaning was going into this direction (if time or language wasnt already pre-assuming so). The German plural for "Luft" is "Lüfte"; the plural for "Wind" is "Winde" - both commonly used esp for poetic contexts. Whereby "Lüfte" is more like "into high skies" - (that brings me into a new frame of mind). 
Feb 19th 2006
Not wishing to be too pedantic here, but my take (for what it is worth) is that "weht" refers to "Freiheit" (Liberty, instead of Freedom) rather than "Luft" (Air), so it is not so much that the wind is blowing but that liberty is present in the very air (I guess "Liberty hangs in (or floats on, or is carried on) the air" might be another possible translation, but it's still awkward). I choose Liberty over Freedom since the well-known phrase contains "...with liberty and justice for all..." and I guess that would have been more significant then.  AncientBrit 20:52, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

text: The last post is wrong! the verbum refers to the nominative cause (which is air!) - freedom is only the genetive (Air of freedom)! 70.23.108.53 13:25, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mistake In Translation 

message: This article needs an expanded lead section about 2 paragraphs in length. --Jiang 04:48, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lead section 

message: Could someone merge CSLI with this page, or rename and expand the CSLI article, thanks--nixie 01:17, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[CSLI]] 

message: Please contribute more pictures: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stanford_University
Jawed 08:10, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stanford pictures in Wikimedia Commons 

message: I recently walked by the old Chemistry Building on the Stanford campus. It has been unoccupied for a very long time -- the grass around it is waist-high, there are trees growing in front of the doors, the windows are shuttered, and the entire building is fenced off. The building carries the inscription "1900" on the front. It's a window into the past.
Does anyone know what's up with this building? Why is it unoccupied and abandoned? Jawed 07:58, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: My understanding is that it's structurally unsound as a result of one earthquake or another.  It's a historically significant building, so they can't/don't want to tear it down, but renovating it probably wouldn't be cost-effective. Ergative 13:28, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Old Chemistry Building 

message: Has anyone here actually witnessed Full Moon on the Quad? I'm a student here and eager to try this out :) Are there really just girls waiting to make out with guys? Please enlighten me.
: this hardly seems like the place for this question, but the answer is, more or less, yes.  i say more or less because it depends on your definition of "make out".  of course, it varies by girl, but my (one year of) experience indicates that it ranges from a peck on the cheek to a slightly longer kiss with tongue. -- ericl234 talk 09:29, May 20, 2005 (UTC)
::It's complete debauchery.  Streakers, people openly having sex—I mean, you pretty much see it all there.  So sketchy.  Sophrosune (talk) 20:20, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Full Moon on the Quad? 

message: I removed this copyright notice from the page:
University seal and S-tree images © Stanford University
because I thought it was unnecessary as the copyright status of each image is clearly explained on each image's Image: page, which can be found by clicking on the image. It is important that in cases like this we don't make it appear as though it is our policy to specify copyright status of each image inline on every article. If we did, articles would just be long mazes of copyright info. Keeping on the separate image info page is both sufficient and preferable. Nohat 00:17, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of copyright notice 

message: According to Stanford's official atheletic site :
 Since 1981, Stanford has been known as the Cardinal. Stanford was known as the "Indians" from 1930-72. As for the mascot, Stanford does not officially have one. The "Tree," which is a member of the Stanford Band, has been mistaken as the school’s mascot, but it is not.
This site  says otherwise:
The Stanford Indian has been officially removed as Stanford's Mascot with
the "Cardinal" (color not bird) taking its place as the official mascot.
but I would trust the first source more. btm talk 05:57, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know how much this counts, since it's sort of hearsay, but I am a current Stanford student and it's widely thought around campus that our mascot is the color cardinal. Hbackman 06:00, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: For college teams named after colors, Cornell University, Dartmouth College and Harvard University come to mind.  Only Harvard's page lists an official mascot, but they all have some sort of mascot(s) (official or not).  I think that often the terms "mascot" and "team name" are used interchangeably and that this leads to confusion.  Usually the mascot and team name are the same, but in a few cases they are not.  In Stanford's case, the Tree is used on the athletic logo, and seems to be often mistaken as the mascot.  Regardless, Stanford's official position seems to be that there is no official mascot. btm talk 07:21, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I am a current Stanford student. The University does not have an official mascot. Our sports teams are called the Stanford Cardinal (yes, the color, not the bird) and the Tree is the Band's mascot. Krawnight 18:55, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mascot 

message: Right not, the "academics" section reads, "The University has approximately 1,700 faculty members, including 17 Nobel laureates . . ."  I'm not sure this is accurate.  Stanford's facts page lists 16 Nobel Laureates, not 17.  Of the sixteen, eight are emeriti (i.e. retired), three are Fellows at the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank located on the campus but whose Fellows are not professors in any department and do not teach.  Three are at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and also presumably do not teach, which leaves two (both in physics).  The inclusion of emeriti, in particular, seems erroneous to me. --Elliotreed 03:05, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nobel Laureates 

message: I think that this page should be moved to Stanfurd University, because that's the proper name. Anyone agree?  --Ixfd64 08:28, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ha ha. (You actually got me there; I thought you were actually proposing a ridiculous move...) Flcelloguy (A note?) 22:26, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  move to [[Stanfurd University]]? 

message: This article was moved from Stanford University to Leland Stanford Junior University, citing Wikipedia:Naming conventions (schools). I have two problems with that:
*The old version of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (schools) conflicted with Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names), a well-established policy, for no apparent reason.
*It is not clear that the university preferentially calls itself "Leland Stanford Junior University". http://www.stanford.edu/ has about four occurrences of "Stanford" alone, two occurrences of "Stanford University" (including the lead graphic and the copyright notice), and zero occurrences of "Leland" or "Junior". On its contact page, its postal address is "Stanford University/ Stanford, CA 94305".
I'll move it back. Melchoir 02:19, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's on the school's official seal, for Pete's sake. The diploma given to gradautes says "Leland Stanford Junior University." The marching band is the Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band as noted on the school's website.. Microsoft's Encarta encyclopedia says Leland Stanford Junior University is the official name. What more do you need? I'm moving it back to follow school-specific naming guidelines. Please have a good, documented reason before you change it again in direct contradiction of Wikipedia guidelines. ⇒ BRossow T/C 02:38, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Since you've cited WP:NC(S), I advise you to have a second look at it; you might be surprised at what you find. Common sense dictates that we don't unilaterally implement new "guidelines" having no consensus and no history. Please consider that not everything in the Wikipedia: namespace is correct. Melchoir 02:42, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Common sense more appropriately dictates that we don't change guidelines or POLICY without discussion and consensus. Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#School_names is official policy stating that school articles use the full, official name of schools. It is the exception to the rule. You simply cannot unilaterally change policy to fit your own needs without input or consensus from the community. ⇒ BRossow T/C 03:04, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you really want to be conservative about changing policy, you should support me in challenging new additions which themselves never gathered policy or consensus. This edit to Wikipedia:Naming conventions inserted language ("full official name") that never gathered or even sought broad support. There was a quick poll on parentheses, so I left that bit in. These changes from November 2005 were never implemented and flew under everyone's radar until you took it upon yourself to act as if they were standard operating procedure. They aren't, and for good reason. Melchoir 03:13, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's been on the books for nealy half a year, according to what you just said. That alone says to me that it's a sound policy, having been in place for that long without anyone changing it until you came along and decided all on your own that you were going to change long-standing policy, regardless of your perception of how it came to be policy in the first place. ⇒ BRossow T/C 03:32, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Melchoir 03:35, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

text:   Melchoir 03:37, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I apologize for failing completely to see your point in providing these links. It's quite logical that a policy would have more links than a guideline, that a "parent" guideline would have more links than a "child" guideline, that an "ancient" guideline would have more links than a more recent guideline, and so on. Right? ⇒ BRossow T/C 03:50, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Two of these three pages have been applied hundreds of times each. One of them has never been applied before. NC(S) has been "on the books" only in the most technical and superficial of senses: it was there, but no one ever used it. You know those laws that turn up in trivia collections, how in X town it's illegal to chew gum and whistle on a Tuesday? That's what we're dealing with here. I'm sorry if you happened across the page and took it at face value, but now it's time to undo the damage. Melchoir 04:16, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Or, turning your argument around, I'm sorry that a then-guideline was applied that you didn't know about and you disagree with, but it's been "on the books" (whether or not you think it's only a technicality is irrelevant, IMHO) for months without dispute. Feel free to discuss it, obviously, and argue strenuously against it if you disagree, but it's not up to you to unilaterally decide that it doesn't apply and wipe it from the records. ⇒ BRossow T/C 04:21, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is not a courtroom; there are no judges to be swayed by technicalities. If I did anything unwise, it was not preserving the old language in the proposed guideline. Well, I'll fix that now. Melchoir 05:18, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Actually UPenn's official name probably is University of Pennsylvania.  The Trustees bit is the legal entity that controls the university (Just as at Stanford "The Board of Trustees of The Leland Stanford Junior University"  does).  At Stanford the full name is used on legal documents and by the band but Stanford University is the usual phrasing (though any Stanford student should know the full name [the band ensures that]).  I assume Rhode Island isn't listed under its official name (admittedly that itsn't an university)--Erp 21:15, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Nope, Rhode Island's title is Rhode Island, but the bolded title within the article is The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.  I don't see why this can't be the case for universities and college, however. Jesuschex 21:26, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I'll go you one worse. I struck the full name from an article where it appeared because I've never heard the full name before, but with "Junior" appearing so prominently in the name, it read like...well, like somebody from Cal had been editing the article. :) —C.Fred (talk) 02:01, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Speaking of moves... 

message: Under notable faculty, who is M.A.L.? I didn't find anything on google search. It needs verification. --Codeblue87 05:14, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Meh, reverted. Melchoir 05:47, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  M.A.L. 

message: Full Moon on the Quad is a two-paragraph article that was proposed for deletion. Rather than send it up to AfD for deletion consideration, I think it may be more constructive to just merge it in with the traditions section in the main article. Additionally, the other traditions could be expanded with a few sentences describing the nature of the tradition. Yes, after the merge, Full Moon on the Quad could live on as a redirect to the article. Any objections? —C.Fred (talk) 15:16, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Never mind. Based on the quick reaction, I've sent it to AfD. —C.Fred (talk) 20:30, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Traditions and [[Full Moon on the Quad]] 

message: A more interesting figure than Endownment (money which is not spent on research) is the actual figure that the university does spend on research and teaching. Please add it to the page.
:What exactly are you asking?  The Endowment is important since the interest on that is a fairly constant source of income (to be exact the law requires a certain percentage of the endowment to be spent each year which might be greater or less than the interest in a given year, though an institution can choose to spend more).  This money can and is spent on research and teaching. The university can use it to fund research that hasn't yet attracted outside sponsorship (seed money); it can also use it to fund undergraduate student research or to pay for graduate student fellowships and so on.  According to Stanford Facts 2006, the budget was $2.9 billion dollars not including the capital budget (e.g., new buildings) --Erp 16:45, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Yearly expenses 

message: The ASSU is not mentioned anywhere in this article (besides a red-link as part of the Stanford navigation thingy at the bottom). It's finals week, so I can't really do anything about it, but maybe someone else can?
Samois98 06:36, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Stanford Axe is probably a better place for it. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 06:37, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Or actually, let's move it to Wikiquote: q:Werner Heisenberg. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 06:59, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  ASSU Mention? 

message: I'd rather not get into a revert war about this, but the Stanford duck syndrome is mentionable. I'll provide some documentation and put it back in.
Samois98 23:40, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stanford Duck Syndrome 

message: I removed the entries here per WP:ALSO. Can anybody help with how the portals should be incorpaorated into the article? Should the See also section title remain for the portals?Thank you. --70.109.223.188 (talk) 13:44, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  See also section 

message: I think that the discussion and data comparing areas and volumes of the campus of different universities is a bit off-topic here. At least I think it should be moved towards the end of the article. There are more important matters to explain first, e.g. philosophy and values of the University, etc. What are your views on this?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.219.187.39 (talk) 20:13, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  The biggest campus 

message: Where are the citations of this article? --Roged (talk) 00:45, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Good catch, the reference section was removed at some point.  The article has many citations, but needed a  marker in a reference section in order to display them. --Leivick (talk) 00:59, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Where are the citations? 

message: There exists a popular story that a lady in "faded gingham" and a man in a "homespun threadbare suit" went to visit the president of Harvard about making a donation, were rebuffed, and then founded Stanford.  This story is untrue. The historical account is that the Senator and Mrs. Stanford visited Harvard's President Eliot and asked how much it would cost to duplicate Harvard in Palo Alto. Eliot replied that he supposed $15 million would be enough. However, the Stanfords were gracefully rebuffed in securing A.D. White the president of Cornell University as Stanford's founding president.  Instead, White recommended David Starr Jordan, White's former student. They eventually settled on David Starr Jordan, president of the Indiana University, although they had offered leaders of the Ivy League twice his salary to direct Stanford.
This sounds more like a history textbook than an encyclopedia, and it's also awkwardly written. Anyone want to change this? 168.169.151.225 (talk) 15:23, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Go for it. Madcoverboy (talk) 15:53, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Paragraph is poorly-written 

message: Currently, this article uses https://www.pgnet21.♦stanford.edu/giving/part/tsc/download/images/env_l2Cover.jpg or https://www.pgnet21.xn--stanford-2j5e.edu/giving/part/tsc/download/images/env_l2Cover.jpg as one of its source. This link does not work, and the domain xn--stanford-2j5e.edu which looks like some Internationalized domain name is not even registered. Or maybe it's just a typo? Does anybody know the correct URL for this link? Otherwise, I guess we should delete this reference.--Stacalusa (talk) 16:11, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I've put in a replacement URL which I hope gives the source meant.  --Erp (talk) 17:04, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  https://www.pgnet21.xn--stanford-2j5e.edu/giving/part/tsc/download/images/env_l2Cover.jpg 

message: The Stanford Roble Gym article has been nominated for deletion.  Since we don't have a Stanford University project, I thought I best notify people here.  Comment at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stanford Roble Gym.  The article definitely needs work and there is concern it does not meet the requirements for notability. --Erp (talk) 01:12, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Roble Gym 

message: The fountain hopping section needs a citation. The Stanford Daily describes it.
http://www.stanforddaily.com/2002/05/24/fountain-hopping-a-popular-stanford-spring-tradition/  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.180.97.4 (talk) 21:48, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for this reference. I have added it to the article. Got any more? I see that citations have been requested for many of the items in the "Traditions" section.  --MelanieN (talk) 17:05, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citations Needed 

message: For completeness, I'd like to propose that information about the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design be added to the [centers and institutes] section. Please change:
Stanford is home to the John S. Knight Fellowships for Professional Journalist and the Center for Ocean Solutions, which brings together marine science and policy to develop solutions to challenges facing the ocean.
to:
Stanford is home to the John S. Knight Fellowships for Professional Journalist and the Center for Ocean Solutions, which brings together marine science and policy to develop solutions to challenges facing the ocean. It also houses the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (the "d.school"), a multidisciplinary design school that integrates product design, engineering, and business management education.
Tom Nguyen (Adobe) (talk) 00:58, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The information checks out. I have added it to the article. --MelanieN (talk) 21:13, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adding Hasso Plattner Institute of Design under "Research centers and institutes" 

message: Update endowment (now $16.5 billionAs of September 26, 2011.  ).
: Done --Jnorton7558 (talk) 22:29, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I changed it to "As of August 31, 2011", the valuation date in the reference. 72Dino (talk) 22:41, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Update endowment 

message: Currently, in the external links, there is a link to http://stanford.wikia.com/wiki/Stanford_University_Wiki named "Stanford Wiki". However, as far as I can see it, the "Stanford Wiki" has hardly any usefull content, and is full of advertisement. I do not think that this link is relevant. Therefore I suggest that we delete this link.--Stacalusa (talk) 16:15, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I commented it out and added reason why so people won't be encouraged to put it back in. --Erp (talk) 17:09, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stanford Wiki 

message: Much of the information in the article is old (for example, why does it list the fundraising from three years ago, and no other year is even mentioned?), and there seems to be a lot of key information about the university missing. Most importantly, there seems to be an excess of useless information; for example, why would there be information on the mobile homes that once occupied the space of a few current dorms, which were built many years ago? Lots of other random information too. The only way to include the more vital information is to get rid of a lot of other information, unless we make the article longer. Is the article too long already?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.59.249.107 (talk) 01:34, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Stanford-affiliated people are so unconcerned with this article, this gem still exists: "A new environmentally friendly Environment and Energy building is also planned" -- that building was finished three years ago. 66.59.249.107 (talk) 05:26, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Whole Article Needs Revision 

message: The current selection of student groups used as examples seems rather arbitrary. Should we make an article for Stanford University student groups with more details on their history, formation, and funding structures, and with a more complete categorized list of groups? Unless there are just a few student groups that stand out far more than others, this current list is pretty meaningless as a representation of Stanford. Poseidon^3 (talk) 18:22, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: First things first might be describing the general areas of the groups, highlighting one or two significant ones per area.  The areas are:
* Athletic/Recreational
* Careers/Pre-professional
* Community Service - perhaps Alternative Spring Break?
* Ethnic/Cultural - Stanford Powwow because they organize the single largest student run event and it has been going on for nearly 40 years.  
* Health/Counseling - The Bridge Peer Counseling Center and/or Sexual Health Peer Resources Center
* Media/Publications - Stanford Daily, KZSU
* Music/Dance/Creative Arts - the arts groups are covered a bit in the arts section
* Political/Social Awareness - 
* Religious/Philosophical -
* Fraternities/Sororities - these are covered separately
Significance means either size, historical importance, or influence.   I've put in a few that could probably be mentioned.   Any other suggestions?--Erp (talk) 04:43, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Student Groups 

message: Stanford has according to some sources such as http://nt.cra.org/scripts/rankcs.pl?TOP=108&DIRECTION=DESC&ORDER=QUALITY the highest-ranked Computer Science department in the world and is listed as top ranked in all others; why isn't this mentioned in the Academics section? 74.128.201.242 (talk) 05:02, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Computer Science 

message: The History section is loaded with small anecdotes about the founding years, and trails off after 1905. It neglects the real history--there is too little on the students, the faculty, the administration, the programs and centers, and the impact of the school over the last 120 years. And it needs a bibliography and citations to the many good studies. Compare the entries on Harvard, Yale and Princeton. Probable we need to spin off the origins story into a separate article.Rjensen (talk) 21:14, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Poor history 

message: I attended Stanford University and noticed that two traditions were left out. I have added them to the article since they are very big and well-know traditions within Stanford.
1. Secret Snowflake -Students are given three dares by anonymous residents within their dorm.  These students have to perform these dares (one a night for three nights) in front of the whole dorm.  These dare can range from tame activities (e.g. singing Like a Virgin in a wedding dress) to extreme (e.g. nudity, stunts).  This week of dares is carried out near the end of fall quarter before Christmas Break.
2. Valentine's Day - In the freshmen dorms, all of the guys in the dorm wake up all of the girls very early in the morning on Valentine's Day.  Each girl is given a single rose and is then brought to the dorm lounge where all of the guys serenade the girls with a love song.
Nicolef6 (talk) 07:41, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Additional traditions at Stanford 

message: Since Aug 7 2008, the article has contained a mention of the many technology companies founded by Stanford alumni.  Here is how it read as of yesterday:
:Stanford faculty and alumni have founded many prominent technology companies, including Cisco Systems, Electronic Arts, Google, Hewlett-Packard, LinkedIn, Sun Microsystems, and Yahoo!. 
But yesterday, three editors, 169.229.82.172, 136.152.209.172 and DeusExa, insisted on deleting it.  The only explanation offered was in 169.220.82.172's edit summary, "Does not represent all fields, too narrow"'. I restored it twice, the second time remarking, "Once again restoring a useful sentence that's been here over 1000 edits.  Before undoing, please discuss on talk page."  That discussion didn't happen; the sentence was simply deleted again.
I should point out that even though DeusExa objects to this sentence in the Stanford article, he added a similar statement to the UC Berkeley article.  Also, the IP addresses for both the IP-identified editors traceroute to berkeley.edu, so this may be just a Stanford/Berkeley rivalry thing.  (But if so, I don't think it belongs here.)
Obviously, having already done 2 reverts, I won't do another.  Instead, I call for some discussion.
With a statement that's been around so long, through thousands of edits, and which appears helpful, I think the presumption should be that consensus supports the statement being there.  It may be that there's a good argument for removing it, but I think that argument should be made and so far, I don't believe it has.  Comments, please?  Msnicki (talk) 01:19, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems clear that the sentence should stay. If you need additional reverting of this removal (while avoiding WP:3RR yourself), give me a holler. --MelanieN (talk) 15:38, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Somebody mentioned at the Administrator's noticeboard discussion about this situation that the sentence in question was not supported by citations. So I just added a citation that supports all the original companies and several others. There can be no further justification for deleting the sentence since it is supported by citation. --MelanieN (talk) 03:39, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

text: I was just about to point out that it appears that DeusEx is affiliated with Berkeley and even added the same type of info to the Berkeley article, but you've gone even farther and traced the other IPs back to Berkeley--kudos to you. I'm actually surprised that some Berkeley-affiliated people who go so far as to apply a double-standard and childishly keep reverting edits without even explaining why. It's a rivalry, of course, but come on, this takes it way too far. Hopefully once the page is unlocked, they won't continue this pointless battle. 66.59.249.107 (talk) 10:58, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Your hope did not come true. DeusExa did it again today. --MelanieN (talk) 14:57, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alumni who have founded technology companies 

message: This is probably nitpicking, but the updated Stanford Logotype now has a stylized underscore and the word "University" is more condensed as can be seen on their identity guidelines website: http://www.stanford.edu/group/identity/ug_sig_sys.html
--Pfenixfire (talk) 11:41, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stanford Logotype 

message: Please change in "Athletics" to reflect the 2010-2011 championships:
:Since then, Stanford University has won it sixteen straight years, winning sixteen out of the seventeen years it has been offered.
to:
:Since then, Stanford University has won it seventeen straight years, winning seventeen out of the eighteen years it has been offered.
:— the NACDA Director's Cup, formerly known as the Sears Cup — every year for the past sixteen years. 
to:
:— the NACDA Director's Cup, formerly known as the Sears Cup — every year for the past seventeen years. 
:Stanford has earned 100 National Collegiate Athletic Association national team titles[136] since its establishment, second most behind the University of California, Los Angeles, and 465 individual NCAA championships, the most by any university.[137] The 100th championship was won by the 2010-2011 Stanford Men's Gymnastics team.
to:
:Stanford has earned 101 National Collegiate Athletic Association national team titles[136] since its establishment, second most behind the University of California, Los Angeles, 439 individual NCAA championships[150] and 467 individual National championships, the most by any university.[137] The 100th championship was won by the 2010-2011 Stanford Men's Gymnastics team and the 101th was won by the 2010-2011 Stanford Women's Water Polo team.
NOTE: please remove "[136]" or replace the link to "http://champions.stanford.edu/history/by-the-numbers/" or use [150]; [150] should link to "http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/champs_records_book/summaries/combined.pdf" (remove "combined.pdf" if inappropriate.)  Add the Women's Water Polo win or remove both if we've moved past the 100th win.
Thanks.  Michael - Class of '91, Ind. Eng.
IFerrets (talk) 00:06, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Done Jnorton7558 (talk) 14:24, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit request from IFerrets, 30 June 2011 

message: Somebody added a "lead is too long" note to the article. I don't agree with them. The lead is four paragraphs; that is an appropriate or even modest length for this very lengthy article. I don't see anything in the lead that is excessive or should be removed, and I would be inclined to simply remove the note without making any changes. Anyone else agree? --MelanieN (talk) 14:59, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I had the same thought.  I suppose some of the discussion of the origins of the university in the second paragraph could be moved into the History section but other than that, I don't see anything wrong with the current lead.  Msnicki (talk) 15:02, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I just took a look at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lead section)#Length. It says that three or four paragraphs is the appropriate length for a lead if the article is more than 30,000 characters. This article is over 100,000 bytes. I don't know how bytes translate to characters, but clearly a long article like this is SUPPOSED to have a lead of three or four paragraphs. I put a note on the talk page of the editor who added this, asking for them to come here and comment. --MelanieN (talk) 15:08, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

text: Okay, you're right, that's your opinion.  But if you'd like anyone to agree, it'd be helpful if you could put a little meat on it, perhaps by proposing (and I suggest doing it here) some specific changes.  Otherwise, I propose to remove your tag and seek consensus support to do that.  Msnicki (talk) 17:30, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for your opinion. In mine, it barely skirts the surface of what is in the article - exactly what an intro should do. It certainly doesn't "probe into every little corner". And it totally complies with Wikipedia style in its length. But I'm not married to it in its current form. If you have specific suggestions of what constitutes too much detail, let's hear them and reach consensus. --MelanieN (talk) 18:09, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: BTW I just checked the leads for the articles of several comparable U.S. universities. Princeton's, Columbia's, and Yale's leads are about the same length as Stanford's. Harvard's, Cal Berkeley's, UCLA's, and MIT's are longer. None of the ones I checked are shorter. --MelanieN (talk) 18:20, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

text: Good call - the lead rather strictly follows the guide set forth by Wikipedia, including information it should and avoiding excess information. 66.59.249.107 (talk) 02:45, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lead too long??? 

message: Another editor has inserted a reference to this ranking system.  I challenge the importance and noteworthiness of this ranking system.  There doesn't appear to be any methodological information to help us understand its reliability and validity.  Nor does this ranking appear to be widely used or respected.  On those bases, I propose removing this addition. ElKevbo (talk) 20:09, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Human Resources & Labor Review ranking 

message: While the article is definitely strong as is, there are many areas in which it's lacking. Some are completely fine - the intro, the sections on libraries, athletics, Greek life, etc. But most need improvement:
* History - currently it's very hit-or-miss; some eras/points ignored, others (like football - really?) overemphasized. Here's one source to draw on: http://www.stanford.edu/about/history/
* Campus - mostly good information, but it needs to be reorganized. The "landmarks" and "faculty residences" sections are out of place, and the random picture of Lake Lag needs to moved. There should also be a section on sustainability.
* Administration and organization - should include a list of the schools (perhaps with other info, such as whether it grants undergrad degrees), rather than embedding such in the text.
* Academics: Research centers and institutes - needs to be expanded. Perhaps it should include a section for interdisciplinary studies, which are important. This could be a starting point: http://stanford.edu/academics/programs.html
* Academics: Rankings - this needs to be made more concise, and I think a table would do well for much of it. Also we need a review of which rankings should be included and which ones shouldn't.
* Arts - good section as it is, but there's a lot more recent information to include (such as SICA, the Arts Intensive, the Anderson building, the McMurtry building, the Bing Concert Hall, etc.)
* Dormitories and student housing - poorly written (huge paragraphs) and very outdated information (e.g. it still mentions the pre-Manzanita housing, which I'm sure very few people on campus even remember).
* Traditions - needs sources, should be pruned for what's actually a tradition and what isn't.
* Student groups - there seems to be no method to what's included and what isn't.
* Notable alumni, faculty, and staff - stats on current faculty need to be moved to the "Academics" section, which is what other university articles do, leaving the last section as "Notable alumni."
* pictures - the article needs more pictures that are recent. Some ideas: Green Library contrasted against the pic of the destroyed library from 1906, the new engineering quad, a pic of one or two of the dorms in the dorms section, etc.
* other sections - perhaps we should add more sections that other universities often have, such as controversies (e.g. the ROTC debate, the FIRE controversy at the ed school), pop culture references, etc.
* sources - many, many statements need sources. Almost as important: since we currently have a great many sources (160), we could consolidate many statements' sources. For example, there are 7 sources citing Stanford as the top fundraising university over the years; perhaps we could link to one source showing the fundraising totals over the years.
It seems like a lot, but most of these sections have remained essentially unchanged for years, so this is really just a conglomeration of changes that should have happened a long time ago. I can make changes slowly, but hopefully other Stanford-affiliated people will step up as well.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Loslix (talk • contribs) 01:25, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for a lot of good ideas. I just moved the faculty information to Academics as you suggested and will continue to work on this list. In particular there is a lot that is out of date and needs updating. --MelanieN (talk) 18:33, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Overhauling the article 

message: Are these in fact two different places or one in the same? Should the name be change to one or the other or should both be used? Is one perferred over the other or is one official? Ttenchantr (talk) 17:34, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: They are two different places.  Professorville is an area of Palo Alto not owned by Stanford where many early professors lived  (not so many now as most can't afford it).   The faculty ghetto (which is a nickname) is on Stanford owned land where the residents own the improvements (housing, landscape improvements) but lease the land.  Leaseholders must be University faculty or senior staff (which staff can vary a bit) or emeriti.  If the leaseholder ceases to have that status, they must sell out (an exception is that a widow or widower who is not themself eligible can stay on until death or remarriage). --Erp (talk) 14:32, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Faculty Ghetto vs. [[Professorville]] 

message: Someone just proposed splitting off the Libraries section into a separate article, Stanford University Libraries. Discussion is supposed to happen on this talk page. Personally, I don't favor the idea. The libraries are adequately covered in the present article without overwhelming it, and they are not significant enough for a separate article IMO. --MelanieN (talk) 16:30, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I was going to start a talk page discussion yesterday but I forgot to. Anyway, my theory is that many major universities have articles about their libraries/library systems; we could also merge and redirect the Green Library, J. Henry Meyer Memorial Library and Stanford University Libraries Digital Image Collections articles into said Stanford University Libraries article, while giving a broader coverage of the subject. Disavian (talk) 17:35, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, you're right - I see that other major universities do have articles about their libraries. However, I'm not so sure about redirecting the existing articles about individual libraries to that page. Would you really put all the detail from those articles into a "libraries" article? I notice that Harvard University Library does not redirect, but retains separate articles for its major libraries. So do Princeton and Yale. So I would oppose a redirect of the individual libraries. I'm still not sure this separate article for libraries is justified, but I am willing to be convinced. The example of other major universities goes a long way toward convincing me. --MelanieN (talk) 17:56, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: P.S. OK, this settles it! If University of California, Berkeley Libraries get a separate page, so do ours! (j/k) --MelanieN (talk) 18:05, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

text: You don't have to redirect them. It's up to you... I'm just proposing it. :3 Disavian (talk) 18:52, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I thought other people would chime in here - this article has more than 200 Watchers - but nobody has. Looks like you can go ahead and create the article if you want. Thanks for the suggestion. --MelanieN (talk) 13:52, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, not everybody edits Wikipedia every day, and I feel like active editorship is on the decline as of late. I don't have the hard statistics to back that up, though. Nobody is going to object to more comprehensive coverage of a subject, although it seems the greatest barrier to entry is actually creating the relevant article. Disavian (talk) 17:10, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think there's a hard and fast precedent either way for including or excluding this content. In the interests of being bold, I would encourage you to go for it and if it's a total catastrophe, we can go back to how things were before. Madcoverboy (talk) 18:49, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

text: Thanks, great job! I have added some comments to the article's talk page. --MelanieN (talk) 18:59, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: BTW you were absolutely right; there is more than enough material for a separate article. --MelanieN (talk) 19:18, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Wow, you've added a lot of referenced content! Nice job. Disavian (talk) 01:12, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

text: I took a stab at improving this tonight. Disavian (talk) 06:34, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Split off Libraries into a new article? 

message: As noted here, the article doesn't state what year the first class graduated. Seems like 1895, but that's just a guess. Can this be researched and added with a citation. Daniel Case (talk) 22:44, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds like a great idea! Esrever (klaT) 22:53, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Most sources seem to say 1895; in particular that year is given for Herbert Hoover who is always cited as a member of the first graduating class. (There is even a picture of that class here: ; is that a picture we would be able to use?) However, 1895 was the first graduating class that attended all four years at Stanford. It appears that there were transfer students who graduated as early as 1892. --MelanieN (talk) 19:05, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  First graduating class? 

message: I've added a notes section to allow people to smooth out the main body of the text.  Notes should be used for extra information that isn't directly relevant but might be of interest and aren't significant enough to include in its own article (I used it for a digression on the two other parcels of land that made up the initial endowment but have long since been sold; both are mentioned in other articles which I linked to in the note).   --Erp (talk) 22:12, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I had to add some notes to the James E. Boyd (scientist) article for things that clarified existing text but were not entirely relevant, and I think it's a good example of using them properly. Figured I'd chip in my two cents. Disavian (talk) 07:57, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notes to remove clutter 

message: The article used to say that "more than 50" faculty, staff, and alumni have won the Nobel Prize. An ISP just changed that to "17". But
According to this, there are 17 Nobel laureates on the faculty RIGHT NOW, so there are obviously many more associated with Stanford if one counts alumni and deceased faculty. 
This lists the current 17 as well as 6 of the most prominent deceased faculty; there are many others. What would be a fair number to list, and do we have to detail all of their names in the article? Maybe we should make a category or a list so that we don't have to cite them all here in the article which is already overly long? --MelanieN (talk) 13:42, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually I see there already is a place to list such affiliations; it's at List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation#Stanford University. That list is somewhat problematic but already includes 27 such affiliations. I had started on a separate, more detailed list which you can see here, but I think I will concentrate on updating the existing list instead (it's very incomplete) - and then put an updated count into this article. --MelanieN (talk) 14:24, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I updated that list, it now has 43 entries. I modified this article to say "more than 40". --MelanieN (talk) 16:01, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stanford's Nobel laureates 

message: In the second paragraph of the "Endowment and fundraising" section, it is claimed that Stanford University was the first university to obtain more then 1 billion dollars a year in research funding during the 2012 year. I believe this information is inaccurate because I have read of other schools, such as the University of California San Diego (UCSD) receiving over a billion dollars in research funding during the 2010 fiscal year (see this article on the UCSD website. Also the original Washington Post article used for reference no longer exists (reference 90). If I am wrong, please point me to an updated reference which can be used to replace reference 90, otherwise we should look into removing this statement.
Spacemars88 (talk) 00:08, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: It wasn't research funding but endowment fundraising (http://bigstory.ap.org/article/stanford-university-1st-college-raise-1b).  Different items.  Stanford spends about 1.27 billion on research each year according to its facts page; this would be paid for both by external monies and from the endowment.  --Erp (talk) 02:35, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for the calcification and updating the reference to the page you have shown Erp. --Spacemars88 (talk) 01:42, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possibly Inaccurate Statements in "Endowment and Fundraising" Section 

message: We need to consider whether what to do about the "Notable people" section - whether to continue to list a lot of people there as we currently do (I think there are close to 200 - a real mess IMO), or trim the list to only the very most notable, or banish them all to List of Stanford University people. I gather the original intent was to list only THE most notable people here (heads of state, Nobel Prize winners, business tycoons, sports superstars), with the main article being at "List of Stanford University people". But without any real clear criteria for what constitutes "most notable," the section is getting more and more cluttered up with politicians and anyone who started a business and every professional sports player of any kind - look at this recent addition of a dozen people - and IMO it has gotten way out of hand. Do you think we should a) leave it as it currently is? Or b) trim it according to clear criteria with a referral to a list article, as they seem to have succeeded in doing at Yale University and Princeton University? Or c) name no-one in this article, and push all of the people into a list, as they do at Harvard University? Opinions solicited.--MelanieN (talk) 03:46, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Wow! User:Madcoverboy just did a significant cleanup; thank you! --MelanieN (talk) 20:06, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem with User:Madcoverboy's "cleanup" is that it indiscriminately removes plenty of important people who are either leaders in their fields, or known outside of the US. We no longer have 'Azim Premji of Wipro - which is one of the biggest tech firms in the world, even though you're much more likely to have heard of it if you're in India. TPG Capital is (by many metrics) the biggest private equity fund in the world, and private equity is a massive part of Wall Street and high finance. And so on, and so on. I can see the argument for excluding many of the more minor figures, but that wholesale removal of anyone one hasn't heard of seems both capricious and arbitrary, and should have been discussed before it was just obliterated. Mandalini (talk) 09:45, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

text: On further investigation, we've also lost Sun Microsystems and Vinod Khosla; the major private equity fund Hellman & Friedman, and the analytics firm Palantir. We have Reid Hoffman, but not Peter Thiel, which is curious. I'm 100% happy to hash out criteria here for winnowing down the list, but I'll start adding the important figures back in again if there's no discussion. Mandalini (talk) 09:53, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'd strongly caution you to WP:AGF instead of accusing me of being "capricious" and "arbitrary" and "obliterat[ing]" sections in making a WP:BRD edit that clearly outlined a set of preliminary criteria. Peter Thiel is still present, FWIW. Madcoverboy (talk) 14:47, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

text: The problem is that we can't include everyone who minimally (has a wiki article) or even far from minimally (has a high importance wiki article) in the main article without bloating it beyond any reasonable limit (hence the List of Stanford University people article).  So criteria, the connection must be substantial either by graduating or having a major impact on the person [or on the university] or by being faculty (but not visiting or consulting unless that status is held for many years) or staff (but for a sizable amount of time or had a major impact) that should be the criteria for the list article and leaves how to choose who for this article.  Those people should _illustrate_ the breadth of Stanford's influence in discipline, geography, and time and no more than one or two examples for each intersection at most (I'll allow an exception if Stanford manages to have three or more alumni as heads of government/state at or near the same time in a geographical region).   Personally I would be inclined to drop JFK and Romney simply because they weren't at Stanford long and I'm not sure how much influence Stanford had on them (or vice versa).  --Erp (talk) 15:49, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

text: My heuristic is that a section with a daughter page like this one should err on the side of being consise and focused on individuals of unimpeachable historical notability. There is a clear bias towards venture capitalists, financial managers, and founders of the startup-du-jour that both reflects the prominence of Stanford alumni in these areas but also suggests a lack of historical and cultural perspective about the distortions of the Silicon Valley bubble. The 3rd largest IT company in India, private equity funds that 99% of the public can't recognize and modest capitalizations in the scheme of the corporate financial sector, and startup darlings employing a few hundred people and worth less than $1B don't make the cut in my book. As a start, I would recommend only including heads of state, chief executives and founders of Fortune Global 100 companies, recipients of major academic, athletic, and cultural awards. This would mean removing legislators, many of the listed companies and executives, and many athletes who have not repeatedly won national or international championships. Madcoverboy (talk) 16:20, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  That's kind of the lines I have been thinking along. Why do we list every (American) member of Congress, for example? Your list sounds like a good start. I might add Supreme Court Justices just because Stanford graduates have been so prominent there. --MelanieN (talk) 16:26, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  Even with Madcoveboy's suggestions, the section would still be quite large; it might be best to follow Harvard's example and have a separate article and leave only numbers here.  If we keep a section here, I'm open to a large Indian IT company since it is my understanding that (a) IT is big in India so there are many companies (and with nearly 150,000 employees Wipro isn't small) and (b) by not being primarily US (based in India but branches worldwide) it is a good [i]example[/i] of Stanford's influence beyond the US.   The Stanford connection is through the  chairman who took over in 1966 at the age of 21 after getting a BS in EE at Stanford and guided it to its present position (he is also in the top 100 wealthiest people in the world).  Do we have better examples for Stanford's non-US influence in IT/business?   --Erp (talk) 01:18, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  "People" section 

message: I have added a new History section on the early 1990's expense scandal involving Donald Kennedy. This is part of Stanford's history, therefore I think it belongs in the History section. Discussion is welcomed. Ianeds63 (talk) 18:17, 19 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Expense scandal addition 

message: I'm revamping the Student groups section by (1) moving arts, athletic, and religious related groups to the Arts, Athletics, and Religious section of the article; (2) weeding out defunct groups; (3) turning the rest into paragraphs illustrating each remaining area.   For (3) we need to decide what are the appropriate groups to list and where to put them.
* Media/Publications - the Daily and KZSU.  The Leland Quarterly is listed but I'm not sure it is significant enough; other candidates. What is the status of the Stanford Chaparral or of Flipside?  
* ethnic/cultural groups - huge numbers at Stanford.  The article needs to mention the community centers: El Centro Chicano, Native American Cultural Center, International Center, Asian American Activities Center, Black Community Services Center, and The Markaz Resource Center (also to be mentioned would be the LGBT Community Resources Center and Women's Community Center).  Highly significant student groups would be the Black Student Union and the Stanford American Indian Organization because of their historical as well as present impact.   I'm inclined to have a separate section under Student Body on all of this and also a bit about the history of diversity at Stanford. Any suggestions on title?  
* Business - I'm not really qualified to write about the business oriented groups.  
* Others - I'm inclined to move the Axe Committee to traditions or just drop it since it is connected in through the article about the axe.  Not sure of the significance of the Kite Flying group or the Robber Barons (and if significant the Robber Barons should probably be moved to the arts section).  
Thoughts?  Erp (talk) 02:51, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Student groups 

message: Is there really any value in including this paragraph in the history section?
Visiting Stanford in 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt said of the campus and the university, "Now I have come to this great institution of learning and I wonder whether you yourselves fully appreciate the mere physical beauty of your surroundings. I was not prepared in the least (and I thought I was prepared for it) for the beauty of your surroundings. You have had these plans of your university made by a great architect, native to our own American soil, who himself had the sense to adapt—not to copy in servile fashion—but to adapt the old Californian architecture to the new university uses, and so we have here a great institution of learning absolutely unique, even in its outward aspect, situated in this beautiful valley with the hills in the background, under this sky, with these buildings, and if this university does not turn out the right kind of citizenship and the right kind of scholarship, I shall be more than disappointed."[36]
To me this adds nothing encyclopedic and is merely one of scores of possible quotes from scores of famous people. I think it should be deleted. 
Comments?  --MelanieN (talk) 17:30, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Hearing no objections, I will delete it. --MelanieN (talk) 21:53, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Roosevelt quote 

message: Looking over the history section, it really requires (a) an intro to guide what is going on in the section and (b) better organization among the subsections.  We can divide either chronologically or topically or a bit of both.  I would say key divisions would be 
* Origin and early years up to 1905/1906 (Jane Stanford's 1905 death and the 1906 earthquake)
** Foundation  (and including on both the history of co-education and non-denominationalism over the full course of Stanford history since both get mentioning in the original grant)
** Building the Physical Infrastructure
** Early Finances
* Earthquake through to World War II
** Governance including the role of Herbert Hoover (but remove most of Hoover Institute history)
* Post World War II
** High Tech
** Moving of the Medical School from SF to the main campus and the building of both hospitals (briefly). 
** Civil Rights Movement (mid 1960s could also be a major division since the university before was perceived as straight white Christian with separate judicial systems for men and women and after it has increasing diversity and awareness of diversity as part of Stanford).
I think the academic department history (for only two departments) needs to be merged into a survey of department/school history.  Thoughts? --Erp (talk) 05:04, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that the section is poorly organized and I encourage you to proceed along these lines. I think there might be value in one more heading or key division, namely "*21st Century". --MelanieN (talk) 15:16, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Good changes. I would still like to see (and will try to write) something about the enormous expansion of campus facilities in the 1960s (I remember a fundraising drive called the PACE program), coupled with the change of mission or target identity from "upscale west coast university" to "world class university". As for the "separate judicial systems for men and women", that was standard in secondary and higher education up through the 1950s; "Dean of Men" and "Dean of Women" were standard positions at every high school, college, and university. I don't know whether Stanford was a leader or a follower in abandoning that distinction, but pretty much all universities changed that system during the 1960s. For that matter, up through the mid 1960s women could not compete in varsity athletics, could not join the Band, and were restricted in many other ways - not to mention "lockout" and other in-loco-parentis rules in the women's dormitories (but not the men's).  --MelanieN (talk) 05:20, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

text: Not yet sure how to tackle the high tech/department sections but have started a civil rights section.   BTW the fraternity articles (in particular Kappa Alpha Order, Sigma Nu, and Alpha Tau Omega) are remarkably coy about their histories of officially discriminating.  --Erp (talk) 00:09, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  History section organization 

message: Stanford has released new info for the Class of 2018 here: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/june/facsen-yearend-meeting-061214.html -download 18:25, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  New student body statistics 

message: Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that :File:Stanford Oval May 2011 panorama.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on August 8, 2014. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2014-08-08. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. Thanks! — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:46, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I've taken this as an opportunity to start an article on the Main Quad at User:Erp/Sandbox Stanford Main Quad.  Help and suggestions would be appreciated. In particular I could do with an annotated line drawing or map of the structure (also does anyone have a reliable source with how big the Quad is? --Erp (talk) 01:03, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

text: *If you've put it in main space before 8 August, ping me and I'll link the article from the blurb (or you can do it). — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:18, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[:File:Stanford Oval May 2011 panorama.jpg]]

message: Today's Featured Picture, on the Wikipedia front page, is the magnificent panorama of the Oval and the entire Quad, taken by :User:King of Hearts. I really think this is the best photo I have ever seen of the Quad. Thanks to User:Erp for creating the article Main Quad (Stanford University) in time to be linked from the Featured Picture description. --MelanieN (talk) 18:43, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Today's Featured Picture 

message: The second line in the article is currently about how Stanford is one of the most prestigious in the world. This seems to be pretty clear boosterism to me: vague and serving only to generate a non-NPOV positive impression of the university. Any thoughts on why the Stanford article might be an exception? — DroEsperanto (talk) 17:34, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: It appears to be a pretty well-sourced statement that is important for readers to understand about this subject.  It's not nearly as well-sourced as I would like, however, and I understand the caution against including the material and the slippery slope argument.  But this seems like a well warranted exception since it is well-accepted, supported by multiple high-quality reliable sources, and of central importance for this subject. ElKevbo (talk) 18:08, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think the sentence crosses the line into blatant boosterism and the offending content should be removed or softened. Other superlatives like the largest campus or record of athletic success are revealingly left in less prominent positions. Dealing with boosterism crap like this has really driven me away from wanting to make substantive contributions anymore. Madcoverboy (talk) 19:14, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

text:  I tend to agree that the sentence is a bit too much.  Note that top-fundraising and most selective are ephemeral and a bit too narrow.   Next year Harvard might regain the top selective (for the US) or some extremely wealthy person leaves their fortune to some obscure university in Mississippi.  Also is it the most selective world wide?  The phrase "one of the most prestigious universities in the world"  is supportable. --Erp (talk) 05:07, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it's important to note all three factors, and I disagree about the boosterism; it is indisputable that Stanford is one of the top universities in the world. All three factors are critical pieces of information for the user to understand the topic. I'm going to refine the "most selective" statement though. The "top fundraising" part can always be edited out if the situation changes, but Stanford has been the top fundraising university for the last several years and this is not just a one-year thing. -download 02:00, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  Personally I hope it is the most prestigious university because of the great research and graduates that it produces not because it can raise the most money.  It is also highly US centric since according to the article cited top fundraising is strictly in comparison to other US institutions (I suspect some of the Gulf States are pouring large amounts of money into local universities) and is also only about donated money not money gotten from research grants/contracts or tuition or income from the endowment.  Note no amount of donor money would make a bad university prestigious on the world stage (though it might make it internationally infamous instead of locally infamous). --Erp (talk) 02:40, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prestige and reputation