Template talk:Infobox university/Archive 7

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Athletics versus Sports

The template includes two separate fields, "Athletics" and "Sports" (keyed off the parameters |athletics= and |sports=). Does anybody with a long memory recall why there are two? Perhaps they should be combined. On the doc page, both parameters are listed under "Usage" but only |sports= is described under "Description of fields". HairyWombat 19:55, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Probably a perceived "dialect" difference. Supposedly UK (and others?) prefer "Sport" as a subtitle in an long-ago discussion. Supposedly American prefer "Athletics". Student7 (talk) 23:13, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I have added the parameter |athletics= to the "Description" section of the doc page alongside the parameter |sports=. I will also reorder things in the sandbox version of the template so that |athletics= is next to |sports=. HairyWombat 02:40, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Update request

{{edit protected}} As per Talk page here. (Consensus on Talk page above.) Evenfiel (talk) 00:22, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

What exactly are you requesting? I see lots of discussion on the talk page. I am disabling the request for now. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 03:19, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

{{edit protected}} Besides delinking common terms, which was already done, m-dash should be changed to n-dash and the "budget" parameter should be added. The doc version also has some other minor changes. Evenfiel (talk) 09:22, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

done. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:22, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Next time, you could just ask for the sandbox version to be deployed. Administrators are simple people, so simple requests work best. HairyWombat 18:51, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I first thought that was what every admin would do. It was my first time requesting such a thing. Evenfiel (talk) 23:41, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I tried to use the budget parameter, but it didn't work. Any idea why? Evenfiel (talk) 01:45, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Try it now. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 02:45, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

It works now. Thanks! Evenfiel (talk) 10:11, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

School Anthem

Several universities have their own school anthem. Would it be an idea to add a field for that? Daofeishi (talk) 18:06, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

The template {{Infobox laboratory}} has the parameter |fightsong=. I had never heard of this, so assumed it was a USA thing. The Wikipedia article Fight song suggests it is associated with a sports team. A parameter |anthem= might therefore be a useful, less US-centric, and more general addition. HairyWombat 20:49, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Whereas I'd probably support removing |fightsong= as a field and not adding |anthem=. Neither one seems like particularly useful information for the infobox. Esrever ^(klaT) 20:58, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree. This seems like the very definition of non-encyclopedic trivia for all but a handful of institutions with famous anthems or fight songs (Notre Dame, U.S. Naval Academy, etc.). ElKevbo (talk) 22:16, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Tribal Colleges

As there is a section for religious affiliation, I was hoping that someone could a 'Tribal Affiliation or something to that effect for the numerous tribal colleges around the world. Simply adding them to the general "Affiliations" section at the bottom does not work well and should have its own section like religious affiliation does.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Dsetay (talk • contribs) 07:48, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Colonies Chris, 8 March 2011

{{edit protected}} Please unlink the subheadings [[Date of establishment|Established]] and [[Mascot]]; these links don't add any value, per WP:OVERLINK. Colonies Chris (talk) 12:49, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Thought you usually waited a few days for others to comment? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:53, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

The link to Mascot certainly adds value. Date of establishment links to an article with little value, but the article may be improved. I say keep these two. HairyWombat 22:57, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Date of establishment, even were the article to be expanded, offers nothing to the user of this infobox, because nothing more is needed - the heading 'Established' is self-explanatory. In the case of Mascot, the article that's linked to is a good one, but there's no point in linking to it here. 'Mascot' is an ordinary English word, not some esoteric technical term that requires explanation. It would be comparable to linking to, say, English language - that article has a lot of solid information, but to the person wanting to know the medium of instruction at a university, all that information is utterly irrelevant. Colonies Chris (talk) 09:15, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Another subheading that should be unlinked is Motto, for the same reasons given above. We'd be better off without these valueless links, which appear in thousands of articles. I'll allow a few more days for comments. Colonies Chris (talk) 09:52, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

The link to Motto definately adds value. There isn't any reason why it should be removed. HairyWombat 01:45, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

A user of this infobox is there to find out information about a university or college. They can be assumed to have a reasonable level of competence in English, so they don't need to have terms like Mascot or Motto (or least of all, Date of Establishment) explained to them. The infobox's purpose, under these subheadings, is to tell them what the mascot or motto of the college is, not to lead to divert the user into a side turning. Whether the articles linked to are good or bad, sparse or comprehensive, is simply not relevant - they're a distraction from the purpose of the reader using the infobox. By your argument we should link every single term in the article in case some reader might find it an interesting diversion. Colonies Chris (talk) 00:46, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

+hu

+hu hu:template:iskola infobox --grin ✎ 07:19, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

hu:Sablon:Kollégium infobox would seem to be more appropriate. HairyWombat 14:50, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Inserted hu:Sablon:Kollégium infobox; please correct if you wish (the page is unprotected). -- Mentifisto 02:08, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Edit

{{editprotected}}

Please replace Faculty (university) link with Faculty (academic staff). The former article was split, because it contained two quite duistinct topics. Lothar Klaic (talk) 22:04, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

 Done. -- Mentifisto 02:08, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Replace calendar parameter

Should the calendar= parameter (for Academic term: quarter/semester/trimester) be replaced? It was removed with the new template code in 2007, without any discussion as far as I can tell. It seems like useful information to list. Dualus (talk) 01:33, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Microformat fixes

In:

| label2     = <span class="note">[[Motto]]</span>
...
| label3     = <span class="note">Motto in English</span>

please remove both spans, which areunhelpfully including generic labels as part of the emitted hCard microformat. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 22:01, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

 Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:06, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Removing unhelpful heading links

The subheadings Motto and Mascot are just ordinary words, with no special significance here. Could they please be unlinked? Colonies Chris (talk) 11:22, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

 Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:18, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Colonies Chris (talk) 08:13, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Street Address

Why is the "streetaddress" field missing? It exists in the "infobox school" template. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 05:00, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Because this is an encyclopedia. Also, the university website is listed, so the street address is only a click or two away. HairyWombat 05:24, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Parameter for namesake

{{Infobox settlement}} has a named_for parameter, identifying a settlement's namesake. Since in nearly all cases a university knows its history well enough to document who or what they were named for, I'd like to suggest that this infobox follow infobox settlement's lead and add a named_for parameter.

I thought about making this an {{edit protected}} request but before I do so, I wanted to see if currently active editors in this area might have reasons to disagree about the utility of such a parameter. Thanks in advance. 67.101.7.140 (talk) 21:37, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Oppose: I don't have numbers, but I would have thought that the vast majority of universities are named after a place rather than a person. There are exceptions to this, for example, Stanford University, but I still question the utility of such a parameter. HairyWombat 21:56, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

For: While public schools are usually named after locations, many if not most private institutions can trace their name back to a specific person or something or otherDsetay (talk) 06:18, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Comment: I don't understand HairyWombat's issue. Quite a few existing parameters don't apply to quite a few universities, so I don't think a "vast majority" litmus test is appropriate. For example, not all universities have graduate schools, so the parameters related to that don't apply to them. Parameters like latin_name, mottoeng, closed, province, state aren't in the "vast majority" category. Plus there are multiple parameters for leadership roles (officer_in_charge, chairman, chancellor, president, vice-president, superintendent, provost, vice_chancellor, rector, principal), many of which don't qualify for the vast majority. 67.101.6.132 (talk) 02:39, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Established --> 'Date of establishment' link in subheading

Please unlink this subheading. This is a straightforward term that no reader needs a link to understand. Colonies Chris (talk) 08:06, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Okay, done. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:01, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Colonies Chris (talk) 15:41, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

image vs. logo?

This template has two image-related parameters, "image" and "logo". The documentation says:

image_name

University-related graphic, preferably the university's official seal or logo. Use the image filename without File: namespace prefix. Produces an image of 200px by default.

logo

Use for an athletics logo, corporate emblem, or similar graphic. Enter full image syntax.

I find this confusing. If image_name is "preferably the university's official seal or logo", then what is "logo" for? Is it exclusively for an athletic logo? Is it acceptable to use a photograph of the campus in image_name and to use the logo parameter for the university seal?

This question is prompted by this edit, in which an IP editor replaced the image_name parameter with the university's seal and used the logo parameter for a photograph of the campus, which I find the strangest interpretation of all. I think we would benefit from more clarity in the template documentation. —Tim Pierce (talk) 02:30, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

The unregistered editor has it right. They are not very intuitive parameter names and if we could do it all over again I imagine we'd choose more appropriate names. But most articles use the institution's official seal as the "image_name" at the top and the institution's wordmark as the "logo" at the bottom. The "logo" is often associated with the institution's athletic teams but only because the athletic teams are often the most visible representative of an institution for many people.

I've seen a few articles that use a photograph as the "logo" but it usually looks amateurish to me. But this also seems to happen almost exclusively for articles where we don't have a wordmark or other appropriate image.

Is that helpful? If so, do you have any suggestions on how to improve the documentation so it's more clear? ElKevbo (talk) 02:40, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

For an example of ElKevbo's explanation, which is 100% correct, see University of Tennessee. — Huntster (t @ c) 02:50, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Excellent choice for an example! Tennessee alumnus ElKevbo (talk) 02:58, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

That does help. I would suggest renaming the template parameters:

university_seal

The university's official seal or logo. Use the image filename without File: namespace prefix. Produces an image of 200px by default.

athletic_logo

Use for the university team's athletic logo or mascot. Enter full image syntax.

No matter how clearly this is documented in the template, a generic parameter name like "image_name" -- which in other templates almost always means a photograph -- is going to forever be misinterpreted. —Tim Pierce (talk) 04:46, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

If no major objections are raised in the next few days to renaming the image and logo template parameters to university_seal and athletic_logo, I will file an edit request. —Tim Pierce (talk) 12:43, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Objection to "athletic_logo". For a lot of universities, especially outside the US, the sports teams don't have that much overall importance or a single brand identity. For UK universities the problem is that different institutions make a different degree of use of the coat of arms/shield on the official logo and there are repeated disputes over which way round they should be presented. Renaming one of the fields to be a sports logo (which is sometimes the main day to day use of the coat of arms!) is not going to make things easier. Timrollpickering (talk) 12:52, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Okay, that makes sense. I guess I don't care as strongly about the "logo" parameter as I do about the "image" parameter. Are there any objections to renaming "image" to "university_seal" or something similar? —Tim Pierce (talk) 14:02, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

My personal preference would be to not change "image" to "seal", but not because I don't recognize the source of confusion (indeed, looking at many university articles, the confusion is quite evident). My objection is because I don't think we should automatically presume the use of the "seal" is best in this spot.

While I'm sure the decision to recommend placement of the seal here was made for good reason (presumably a quick, official identification of the subject of the article), there are instances where the requirement of the seal here can actually render confusion. Specifically, I refer to the University of Illinois system. The seal of the system was used originally as the seal of the University of Illinois, located in Urbana and Champaign. After well over 100 years of being a single university, after a long (and too complicated to explain here) process, U of I became a "system", with schools in Chicago and Springfield, but retained only the one seal. UIC and UIS do have their own wordmarks, and that is all they use on their own websites, as it identifies their respective schools. But they have no seal, other than the one that they now share with the Urbana-Champaign school. Their articles are far better served by use of their own wordmarks in their infoboxes than the seal that for nearly 150 years has represented in the minds of most Illinoisans a school located far away from them. And probably, as it is also highly recognized, the Urbana-Champaign campus should use their wordmark as well. All of these are certainly far better recognized as symbols of their basic school, and they're every bit as official as a seal. HuskyHuskie (talk) 15:58, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

This sort of case is going to be rare, and can be handled by careful wording on the doc page. Renaming parameter |image_name= to |university_seal= looks good to me. HairyWombat 16:25, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Rare? Perhaps. But not unique--the same situation exists with the University of Missouri System, in which there is one seal for four schools. Seems clear to me that their articles would all be improved if they each used their wordmark instead of their shared seal.

Insisting on the use of the same seal for each of these schools is akin to requiring the use of this picture in the infoboxes for Bear, Lion, and Zebra. So again, I do not support changing the infobox to require the university's seal. HuskyHuskie (talk) 19:53, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

The template instructions and the Wikiproject guidelines already require that. This discussion is only focused on cleaning up the names of the parameters of this template now that the instructions and guidelines have crystallized. If you want to object to and change those guidelines, please do so in another discussion thread (where I will support such an effort). It's too messy and confusing to continue to conflating these two issues. ElKevbo (talk) 20:53, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

I have replied at ElKevbo's talk page. My respectful request remains that the word "image" in the template not be changed to the word "seal". HuskyHuskie (talk) 22:11, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree with HuskyHuskie. The school's logo, athletics logo and seal are generally three different items, especially for a university. And on top of this, using the athletic logo in the infobox may constitute unnecessary use of a fair use image. The Haz _talk 00:51, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Seal/logo position

Many schools do not use the school seal as a primary identifier. If we're not going to change the field names (as per the above discussion), I propose adding an option which would reverse the position of the two images: put the school logo as the top image, and put the seal as a secondary image. That way the fields could still be semantically correct, while allowing for the many schools that rarely use their school seal. And it wouldn't affect any existing infoboxes. —Designate (talk) 18:39, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Works for me but I don't know if others will buy it. There has been bizarrely vociferous opposition to the idea of not using seals as the primary identifier for institutions with exceptions being made only on a case-by-case basis (and possibly because some of those cases have slipped under the radar of those who would oppose an exception). There are very few U.S. institutions that use their official seal as their primary identifier so we don't do our readers any favor by insisting that the seal be the first image they see. ElKevbo (talk) 19:22, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Add "Parent Institute" line

The infobox is used for a number of law schools, research institutes, medical schools, etc.. In situtions such as this, a "Parent Institution" line would be very handy. Thoughts? nf utvol (talk) 19:16, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind seeing this, but parent institute can easily go under affiliations at the moment as there is not strict definition (and I searched the archives to be sure of this). I understand what you mean though (ie. Harvard College or Harvard Medical School would list Harvard University under Parent institute). The Haz _talk 01:11, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Add "Graduate students" line

The infobox needs a "Graduate students" line because this is the typical term used in American English and it is also widely found in British English (e.g., at the Oxford and Cambridge websites). Doremo (talk) 13:32, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Could you explain a little more what you are proposing. What would be entered in this new parameter, given that the template already has the parameter |postgrad= for the number of graduate students (and parameter |doctoral= for the number of doctoral students)? Alternatively, are you suggesting that only the label of the existing parameter |postgrad= be changed from "Postgraduates"? HairyWombat 16:35, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm suggesting that a parameter "graduate" should be added for the number of graduate students. The template already contains some synonymous (or near-synonymous) parameters (e.g., "rector", "chancellor"). If synonymy is not desirable, then I would suggest that the parameter "postgraduates" be changed to "graduate students" because it's the sole term used in American English and is also widespread in British English (e.g., prevalent at both Cambridge and Oxford), making it the most international and widely understood term. However, if other Englishes (Australian? New Zealand?) have only "postgraduate" then synonymous parameters would be preferable so that the terminology could be tailored to individual universities. Doremo (talk) 18:58, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Acceptance Rate

Hi, I am finding resources on the acceptance rate %'s of schools from US News. Here is an example: http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/fairfield-university-1385 and I am having trouble adding it. Any chance we can see this section posted into the infobox sometime?

Twillisjr (talk) 21:58, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Why would we want to include acceptance rate in the infobox? ElKevbo (talk) 22:50, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I can certainly think of reasons one could posit for its inclusion, but I'm totally opposed nonetheless. Infoboxes are intended to be supplementary materials for the prose we are supposed to be writing. HuskyHuskie (talk) 04:13, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I lean towards opposition but I think it's certainly worth examining if others would to add it or consider adding it. ElKevbo (talk) 05:32, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I would wonder about which rate to include at major universities, the undergraduate rate, or the law school rate, or med school, would we need them all? I guess I agree that this is better left for the prose where it can be fully explained and put in context.-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 14:23, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

In my opinion, infobox is a wonderful item to separate "short useful information that you can get in a snap" from a large article that is full of wonderful information. The acceptance rate is very important to students that are pursuing higher education. It is also critical to understand certain un-seen benefits to some universities. In my research, (as a Connecticut user), I looked at some statistical details of local private universities. Yale University in New Haven costs $40,000+ per year, Fairfield University in Fairfield costs $40,000+ per year, and Bridgeport University in Bridgeport costs between $20-$30,000 per year. The acceptance rate of Yale is between 7-8%, while the acceptance rate of Fairfield Univerisity is around 71-72%. While writing a paper, I found this information and was able to write "what unseen benefits Fairfield University must have" because it didn't make much sense. So, I think it is informative for people doing research, I think it should be given a rightful place on infobox rather than hiding in an article, and I think it helps your younger users when deciding where their future might lie. Please take some of these notes into consideration.

Twillisjr (talk) 17:56, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps this can be scripted into the page?: http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/ After all, it is a reputable source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Twillisjr (talk • contribs) 18:01, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

request to add Newspaper field

I propose the addition of a Newspaper field for the purpose of listing publication(s) that serve the University community. As previously noted--see this 2008 proposal many newspapers are already listed in the Infobox using the freetext label.

If there is objection on grounds of: "what if there are multiple newspapers?" then multiple titles can be listed, viz.:

  | newspaper = The Daily University News (1928-1960) <br> The New Daily News (1995–present) 

But if the only objection is: Many Universities don't have a newspaper. That's really not an objection; it's a challenge.

Adding a Newspaper simplifies the analysis of this and provides a "feed" via dbpedia for this and other uses.

The utility potential transcends all potential problems:

• Q: Where do I put an Alumni Magazine?
  A: Probably not in the Newspaper field; perhaps we should also add an Alumni_Magazine field.
• Q: What about publications from the Athletic Department?
  A: How are these publications notable?

Perhaps the value of dbpedia and the "Wikipedia Ecosystem" were not appreciated or well understood in 2008. Now, however, the value of the Infobox, I mean of a Newspaper field, is warranted. --TMH (talk) 18:54, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Still, this is supposed to be a "quick summary" box. That may be a good reason to reject otherwise reasonable additions. The shorter, the better. Also, most papers are not themselves, that notable. (Not that they don't have articles, I'm sure). The only one I can recognize outside my own school, is Harvard's. Seems more like publicity for the pub, rather than acquainting readers with what is really important about the school. IMO. Student7 (talk) 18:32, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Agreed with Student7. The infobox is intended to be a brief overview of the main points of the topic. The school's newspaper is definitely not a main point. — Huntster (t @ c) 21:11, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Agreed with Student7 and Huntster. Campus newspapers have little importance or relevance outside the school. In addition, infoboxes are used as quick references for commonly requested information, such as location, student body size, date of establishment, and other common almanac type information. Newspapers are a little too minutiae-esque for an infobox. nf utvol (talk) 21:37, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Agree with Student7 and Huntster and Nfutvol. The idea is by no means a stupid one, but on balance, it's not warranted, in my very humble opinion. HuskyHuskie (talk) 03:46, 9 February 2012 (UTC)