Talk:University of Texas at Austin/Archive 4

message: As my edit comment indicated, I see no reason this information should not be included in the article.  If there is a legitimate reason for not including it, please post it here.  --Ntmg05 19:07, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Princeton Review rankings

message: I just reverted the addition of an external link which was added without comment as the first external link.  If the new link will add anything to the article, please explain what it adds.  If it does provide some useful content, it still probably should not be the first link. Johntex\talk 21:10, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: External links

message: Why doesn't the Wiki discuss the events of August 1st 1966? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.162.1.32 (talk) 16:05, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It does, and links to an extensive article at Charles Whitman as well. Grouse 18:43, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tower Sniper 

message: I think that this article needs a reference to UT austin's new title: number one party school in America. 70.196.2.42 20:13, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Party school

message: All,
I made some changes today. I didnt erase any text from the article. Most of what I did was cosmetics, intended to uplift the article's image. When compared to articles like MIT, I think the article needed (and still needs) a facelift. So here's what I did:
*Added some images. There was (is) a lack of campus images. Fortunately, I found the LBJ and Hobby-Ebberly pic.  I'll shoot some more pics myself soon.
*Replaced the Memorial Stadium pic with the wide angle pic of the Stadium. Similar to what the MIT article does for their campus pic.
*Moved pics up and down to match pics with text topic.
*Deleted pics like the bus pic, and replaced with pics like the Barbieri painting to upgrade the school's image. (having a bus isnt something that noteworthy).
*Added gallery of famous people. I wasnt sure about John Wheeler or Walter Cronkite. I decided for Wheeler.
*Standardized size of images, for perusal flow of text.
*Fixed and added some captions and links that are hard to find in the article.
I hope the changes are pleasing and acceptable to most if not all folks here.
Finally, I think the article still needs work. The way the article is written, it seems to give an impression that UT Austin is just big on partying and football games, while academic prestige and educational excellence have taken a back seat. And that isnt a fair depiction I'd say. Compare to MIT's article to see what I mean.
Be cool.--Zereshk 22:45, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Summary of recent changes

message: Not sure of other Aggies has posted this up, but bonfire is no longer done, at least officially, at A&M.  Bonfire should be in past tense.  Oldag07 19:30, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: goodOldag07 19:42, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Aggie Bonfire

message: For the article to maintain its GA status, the copyrighted images need detailed fair use rationales. Look to other passed GA/FAs for examples. Let me know on my talk page if you have any questions. --Nehrams2020 07:05, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry if I wasn't clearer, but almost every single university GA that I looked at had this problem and I didn't have time to go through and mention each and every image that needed a FUR. Any copyrighted image, or any non-free image, needs a FUR according to the GA criteria. The images in question for this article are :Image:UT Austin seal.png and :Image:Texas.gif. Please let me know when they are added. --Nehrams2020 05:22, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for your reply.  I had checked all the photos and found them to be all free.  I didn't check the logos.  FAR's have now been added for both logos.  Best, Johntex\talk 17:50, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: GA comment

message: Officially, UT is known as "The University of Texas at Austin." The "T" in "The" is NOT capitalized in the middle of a sentence. Likewise, "university" is ONLY capitalized in the complete proper name, and NOT in the casual phrase, "the university," even if it refers to UT Austin. Please note that these styles are set by the university's office of public affairs. They represent changes from year's past, but they should dictate all future references to the university. 
 --macae 09:43, 4 June 2007
*Can you give us a link to the PA office's site to read these styles for ourselves?  TheMindsEye 16:04, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Capitalization Useage

message: Once an article attains GA status, it must remain at that quality level or improve. If the quality declines, the article can lose its GA status. The concerns I have for this article are:
*The Matthew McConaughey image. (Disclaimer: I am the one who tagged it as PUI and it may yet be ruled acceptable for Wikipedia.) This issue is fairly minor.
*The "UT in popular culture" section appears to be trivia. Very little or none of it actually contributes to the article. It's just a bunch of disconnected fluff. This is a major issue.
*Almost none of the "UT in popular culture" section contains citations. Of course, if it's deleted, no problem. However, if it stays, it must at least be verifiable. This is a major issue.
Please understand, I'm not attacking. I believe that failing to correct these issues weakens the article and makes it a bad example of what a GA should look like. If these things are not fixed or if the consensus is to allow them to remain unchanged, then I will nominate the article for a review of its GA status and get feedback from a larger sampling of editors. →Wordbuilder 00:47, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I am nominating this article for review at WP:GA/R. Please feel free to participate in the discussion there. →Wordbuilder 20:27, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've responded there. jareha (comments) 02:41, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

text: I've deleted both the gallery of "notable people" (which included the photo of Matthew McConaughey) and the "UT in popular culture" section, which hopefully addresses all the concerns you've raised. jareha (comments) 07:40, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Might want to fix the refs according to WP:CITE. miranda 16:28, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Review of Good Article status

message: overall the rankings section seems a bit much, IMHO. most reasonable folks will agree that UT Austin is a premier institution. listing every ranking one can find may strike the reader as unnecessary and undignified. for instance:
:"U.S. News & World Report consistently ranks Texas as the best public university in the state of Texas." that's stating the obvious (although Aggies would have a pretty legit reason to protest). typically stating an institution is the best in a state ain't saying much at all and only lesser institutions should have to resort to such statements.   
:"Number one law school in the nation for Hispanics"...
:"UT Austin does not have a medical school, but has associated programs with other campuses and allied health professional programs on campus." this statement really necessary? absense of a medical school doesn't really correlate to the quality of an institution. Mct mht (talk) 07:12, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What about readers who are out of state? They'll most likely be unaware of these facts.--BirdKr (talk) 18:40, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  laying it on kinda thick 

message: Should I nominate this for FA status? RC-0722 communicator/kills 22:48, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I would have it peer reviewed to find out what needs to be improved in order to meet the featured article criteria. It definitely can't become a FA now, as there currently are too many lists and missing citations, among other issues. BlueAg09 (Talk) 22:58, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I completely agree with BlugAg. Go with the peer review first. →Wordbuilder (talk) 23:03, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: OK. RC-0722 communicator/kills 19:06, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  FA 

message: I have removed the name of the university in the infobox because the logo used would match the inclusion of the name so explicitly. User:NThomas76207 reverted this move without any reference to my original edit; hence, I redid the edit, but if there are any objections, please talk about them here first. Even if other UT universities include the name, it just looks so tacky and unintelligible in this case. I'm interested to here how others feel, though. Thanks! --Eustress (talk) 15:39, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You should not have removed the name from the top of the infobox, even though it is repeated in the graphic. Having the name at the top of the infobox is standard regardless of what the logo says. This isn't an ad; it's Wikipedia. →Wordbuilder (talk) 16:02, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Would you mind stating what style guide says it is required? I think it's just suggested, and in this case, I think it is better without. --Eustress (talk) 16:12, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (infoboxes), which state, "... the fields in an infobox should be consistent across every article using it..." In practice, not all infoboxes are consistent, but we should strive for that and this doesn't fit within "causes of inconsistency". →Wordbuilder (talk) 16:40, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

text:  If you look at the page for the University Infobox (specific section), it clearly states along with established and city, name is a required field. I do agree however both the name field and the word mark are redundant but just like User:Wordbuilder said "This isn't an ad; it's Wikipedia". I added the The University of Texas at Austin Wordmark because the seal was removed. FA articles like Michigan State University, University of California, Riverside, Georgetown University and Cornell University all have the university's seal in the "image_name" field, and the official wordmark in the "logo" field. So in addition to adding the required field "name", can we move the wordmark to "logo" and add the university's seal back to the "image_name" field? NThomas76207 (talk) 16:46, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yeah, does anyone know why the seal was removed in the first place? Copyright issues? If the seal could be put back on, then the article would be consistent with the aforementioned universities, in both the name and picture items of the university infobox. Thank you for your insights! --Eustress (talk) 17:08, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The seal was removed because no one added a fair use rationale (FUR) to it. That was the only issue that I saw for it being deleted. I see no reason it couldn't be uploaded again, a proper FUR with valid backlink added, and be put back into the article (see this as an example). Remember it has to have an FUR for every article in which it is used. →Wordbuilder (talk) 17:54, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Besides this page what other pages would the UT Seal be used on?NThomas76207 (talk) 02:20, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Tech's academic logo (not official seal) appears in the articles for the individual colleges. I don't know what kind of articles UT has in that regard or what logo would be used for them. →Wordbuilder (talk) 02:47, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Anyway to find out where the last UT seal was located (url)? NThomas76207 (talk) 02:49, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Here's the one that used to be here: UT seal. →Wordbuilder (talk) 03:12, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Redundant name in infobox

message: I undid the edit by Eustress (talk) that removed the university wordmark to better match other university articles. While it is redundant, the "logo" field contains the wordmark for each of the following universities:
1.) Cornell University (FA)
2.) Georgetown University (FA)
3.) Michigan State University (FA)
4.) University of California, Riverside (FA)
5.) Florida State University
6.) University of Chicago
7.) University of Houston
8.) University of North Dakota
9.) University of Oxford, (although in reverse; Wordmark is the "image" and the seal is the "logo")
According to the university's Visual Guidelines section on the wordmark, The University of Texas at Austin wordmark is the primary means by which we are recognized and should appear on as many forms of communication as possible. I interpret this to include Wikipedia. Ultimately our goal is to reach FA status and copying the same format as other featured articles should only help to enhance this page. NThomas76207 (talk) 02:30, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds good. I've resized the logo a bit smaller and removed the disclaimer (which none of the FAs you have referenced carry). Thanks! --Eustress (talk) 02:37, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Cool. I never realized they weren't on those other pages... Disclaimer just seems to get in the way. NThomas76207 (talk) 02:46, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wordmark 

message: I removed the following text from the Campus section of the article and replaced it with a brief summary because I felt it was very tangential to the section. It could possibly go in its own article or something, but I just wanted to inform everyone of the change. Thanks! --Eustress (talk) 14:43, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. I never felt that that extensive of a writeup of the event belonged in this article. →Wordbuilder (talk) 14:58, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: UT Tower Shooting

message: The previous revision of the Rankings section was very good.  However, I decided to format the information in a table so that it looks cleaner and is easier to read.  Additionally, I added a table indicating rankings for various programs in The Graduate School. (talk) 03:55, 17 July 2008
The Rankings section has been a mess for a long time, with facts about the same programs scattered throughout the article, a lot of uncited claims, and a lot of "wordiness". I've significantly modified the section for (what I think is) the better—the section starting with overall rankings and then working down to individual programs. I've included the original text below for your convenience. Go Longhorns! --Eustress (talk) 02:30, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Added back in the Washington Monthly ranking comparison between A&M and UT-Austin.  Considering the number of Texas high school students choosing between the two schools, this comparison is valuable information.  To remove the A&M reference while maintaining the mention of higher rankings by Harvard and Princeton appears to be a biased editorial decision.  --Macae (talk) 02:35, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The TAMU reference is irrelevant and potentially POV, so I have removed it again. However, in all fairness, I've removed the references to Harvard and Princeton as well. Thanks. --Eustress (talk) 12:37, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:   Potentially POV?  It is a factual statistic.  Removing it while maintaining the Harvard and Princeton references represented a POV edit.  But if you would prefer to remove those as well, at least it then represents a consistent edit.  Seemed like they all were valid comparisons to make and worthy of inclusion but I will not start an edit war over it.  --Macae (talk) 15:44, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

text: It is not uncommon for school rankings to be compared to each other.  That is, in fact, what a ranking is: a comparison of a current school's position against those of other schools.  I see no POV problem with the inclusion of all three comparisons so long as they are supported by citations. will381796 (talk) 21:13, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Selecting which comparisons to make, even when they're "factual" and supported by references, is inherently POV.  --ElKevbo (talk) 21:19, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: ...but now that I take another look at this issue in context, I don't think including both the Ivy League institutions and TAMU is bad or objectionable.  The phrase originally used to describe TAMU ("first-ranked") is redundant and a bit of a needle but if that's removed then I don't object to including both references.  --ElKevbo (talk) 21:22, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Now, if someone opens up US News & World Report Rankings and picks 3 random schools to compare to school A, then yeah, that's pretty POV.  But if an article in a magazine or journal or whatever reliable source you care to use makes the specific comparison within the body of the text, then I see no problem with its inclusion.  The first example is POV as we the editor are choosing which school rankings to compare and present in the article.  The second example is, in my opinion, not POV as we are not the one making the comparison.  The editors would simply be adding a fact reported by another reliable source. We're not the one making the comparison and deciding what to compare to what.  An independent, verifable, reliable source did.  All we're doing is listing what has been published.  will381796 (talk) 21:26, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, since the ranking in question (UT Austin #19; from source http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2007/0709.natlrankings.pdf) doesn't directly make any comparisons between specific schools, it's probably best just to leave it as is, and readers can follow the link to the original file to make their own comparisons and conclusions. --Eustress (talk) 21:38, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

text: I would be opposed to the addition for sake of room in the article and also because it mostly uses one (USNWR) ranking. --Eustress (talk) 03:11, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

text: As a note, some of those rankings are outdated. For example, UT Austin has dropped to 51 in the newest THES ranking. UT is now 26 instead of 16 in the ranking by Zhejiang. Whsie (talk) 03:13, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The years are shown with the rankings...if you can update them, please do; if not, please provide a reference so we can update them. Thanks. --Eustress (talk) 12:36, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

text: The latest THES ranking is here-http://www.topuniversities.com/worlduniversityrankings/results/2007/overall_rankings/top_400_universities/ with UT at 51. Whsie (talk) 06:47, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rankings section overhaul