Template talk:Infobox university
This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Infobox university template. |
|
Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23Auto-archiving period: 92 days ![]() |
![]() | Template:Infobox university is permanently protected from editing because it is a heavily used or highly visible template. Substantial changes should first be proposed and discussed here on this page. If the proposal is uncontroversial or has been discussed and is supported by consensus, editors may use {{edit template-protected}} to notify an administrator or template editor to make the requested edit. Usually, any contributor may edit the template's documentation to add usage notes or categories.
Any contributor may edit the template's sandbox. Functionality of the template can be checked using test cases. |
![]() | This template was considered for merging with Template:Infobox institute on 25 January 2014. The result of the discussion was "no consensus". |
![]() | This template was considered for merging with Template:Infobox academic division on 22 January 2015. The result of the discussion was "no consensus to merge". |
Q1: Can you add a new field so that I can list an important person at a university?
A1: Probably not. To preserve due weight, there is consensus that only someone "essential to understanding the institution" should be listed. Normally, only one person — the head of the institution — qualifies for this, although in rare cases where top authority is shared jointly, two or (even more rarely) three people may qualify. All others should be mentioned in the body or just omitted.
There are many existing fields for listing people. If you are working on a university with an unusual name for a top authority, the |head_label= parameter can be used to provide the name of the role and the |head= parameter can be used to provide the person in it. However, this method should not be used to list anyone other than an insitution's top authority. |
![]() | This template does not require a rating on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||
|
Type
[edit]The current TemplateData proposes using formulations like [[Private university|Private]] [[Proprietary education|for-profit]] [[law school]] for |type=
. This poses problems:
- Accessibility. If all of the links are unclicked (or all clicked) a reader cannot easily distinguish between Private for-profit law school, Private for-profit law school, Private for-profit law school, etc.
- Semantic meaning. This approach amalgamates multiple types into a single, undifferentiated phrase. This makes it difficult for technologies like screen readers or data reusers to interpret.
The simple solution is to amend the TemplateData to recommend that, where there is consensus to list multiple types, they be formatted as a list, using {{flatlist}}, {{ubl}}, or any similar option. Courtesy ping to users in the discussion that prompted this post: @Moxy, ElKevbo, and Sdkb:. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:24, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
- I prefer the status quo.
- For the given example, a flatlist would potentially look like
. I dislike that approach for grammatical reasons. "Private" is an incomplete thought on its own. When we say
Private for-profit law school
, the "school" can apply to everything, but if we broke them apart with a horizontal list, we'd need to say
, which would be redundant.- Private school
- For-profit school
- Law school
- MOS:SOB is qualified by
When possible
. Blue seas are never desirable, but they're not forbidden either, and I'd argue that here is one place they're inevitable, since having appropriate links/grammar takes precedence. Sdkb talk 05:23, 19 April 2024 (UTC) - Note: See Talk:Columbia University § Type for prior discussion. Sdkb talk 05:25, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
- I agree with Sdkb and with the points made by ElKevbo in the linked discussion. MOS:SOB states "When possible, do not place links next to each other" (emphasis added). The flat list suggested not only looks terrible but is also ungrammatical, so isn't a possible option.
- The semantic meaning is given by standard application of English grammar, so shouldn't be a problem for any competently designed screen reader, any more than 'large green apple' or any other phrase with multiple adjectives. Robminchin (talk) 17:59, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, the noun at the end of the phrase is not just an affectation of a few Wikipedia editors - it's critical because this template is used for all kinds of institutions e.g., colleges, universities, schools, seminaries. And if piped links and phrases with multiple adjectives in Wikipedia are an accessibility problem then I'm afraid that's a much bigger problem than we can address in this one template. ElKevbo (talk) 21:36, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
a much bigger problem than we can address in this one template
. I agree, but if that was a reason not to address a problem we'd never get anything done. Conversely, I don't agree with the "grammatical" pleading; "type: private" is a perfectly reasonable fact-value pair, and is widely used not only in this template but in others as well - compare for example {{infobox company}}. Similarly the "kind of institution" piece; if there is a desire to clarify the institution type then list it as a type, making it clear and available to reusers, rather than repeating it across multiple entries or tying it to one in particular. As to "when possible": here it is possible. Aesthetic preferences are not a good reason to discard that possibility, nor is "it's not forbidden". Nikkimaria (talk) 01:19, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
- I'm sorry but I don't understand what you mean by "rather than repeating it across multiple entries or tying it to one in particular." This isn't an "aesthetic preference" - it's the cleanest, most straight forward way to handle this.
- It really seems like you've come here to "show how it should be done" without any regard for the experience and expertise of any of the editors here who have worked in this area and worked with this template for many years. I appreciate your questions and your recommendations but they don't seem to acknowledge that we do it this way for some very good reasons. ElKevbo (talk) 01:28, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
- I.e. actually present "Type: University".
- I do appreciate that you (collectively) have worked with this template for many years. But that doesn't mean the way you've chosen to do it is the best or only way, and in this particular case the local approach here diverges from projectwide guidelines and best practices. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:44, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
- As has been pointed out to you earlier on the thread, the way it is done here is entirely in keeping with the guidelines: MOS:SOB is quite clear that there will be times when the use of multiple links sequentially is unavoidable and thus acceptable. It is also clear that the opinion among editors here is that your proposal is not a workable solution. Robminchin (talk) 19:54, 21 April 2024 (UTC)
- I also note that the infobox company template has four mutually exclusive options for 'type'. This is a very different usage of 'type', referring specifically to ownership, that makes no sense for universities. It cannot serve as a model for this template. Robminchin (talk) 19:58, 21 April 2024 (UTC)
- As has been pointed out to you earlier on the thread, the way it is done here is entirely in keeping with the guidelines: MOS:SOB is quite clear that there will be times when the use of multiple links sequentially is unavoidable and thus acceptable. It is also clear that the opinion among editors here is that your proposal is not a workable solution. Robminchin (talk) 19:54, 21 April 2024 (UTC)
- I do appreciate that you (collectively) have worked with this template for many years. But that doesn't mean the way you've chosen to do it is the best or only way, and in this particular case the local approach here diverges from projectwide guidelines and best practices. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:44, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
- The obvious, simple solution to this is: "Law school (private, for-profit)", which solves both problems (links not being separated by any non-linked characters, and phrase run-together as if a unitary expression), without requiring use of any templates like
{{hlist}}
. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 09:40, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
adding a tuition field
[edit]Hello, I was wondering if anyone else would support adding a tuition field to this infobox? I think a lot of people looking at universities on Wikipedia would want to be able to quickly see that. We could add an in-state tuition and out-of-state tuition box. Any feedback? Hannahthom7 (talk) 13:57, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
- This seems like it might be a good idea. It might be better done as two definable labels, as "in-state" and "out-of-state" are US-specific (the UK equivalents would be "home" and "international", for example). Would we want to also include fees for (post-)graduate courses? At that point things could easily become complex with different fee levels for different schools. Robminchin (talk) 21:34, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
- No thanks. This is way too complex and ever-changing to be appropriately captured in the infobox as has been discussed many time (in the Talk page archives). ElKevbo (talk) 21:43, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
- We should not add this field. It would be highly misleading, because a large proportion of people do not pay the nominal tuition rate, and the true cost of attending a university or college often includes housing and meals and other fees that are not accounted for in a standard way. We run the risk of having outside people saying inaccurate things like "According to Wikipedia, it costs $60,000 per year to attend Foo University." – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:45, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
Template-protected edit request on 30 May 2024
[edit]![]() | This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
for update the logo of JE Mondejar Foundation College MMS2024 (talk) 13:31, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
Not done for now: Please provide a link to the new image. - FlightTime (open channel) 13:34, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
Template-protected edit request on 23 July 2024
[edit]![]() | This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
Please add a field for university “Acceptance rate” TapticInfo (talk) 12:21, 23 July 2024 (UTC)
- I'm not convinced this is a basic parameter for universities globally that needs to be in the top infobox. For US institutions, 'admit rate' (which is presumably what is being requested here) is already given in template:Infobox U.S. college admissions, which is (usually) placed in the admissions sub-section under academics. That seems a far more appropriate place for it. Robminchin (talk) 16:32, 23 July 2024 (UTC)
Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the
{{Edit template-protected}}
template. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:14, 24 July 2024 (UTC)
- I agree that this would not a good addition to this already bloated infobox. As Robminchin said, this is information best left for a more specific portion of the article body. Further, many editors mistakenly add material to articles about U.S. colleges and universities "admissions" processes when the information is only about undergraduate admissions; a generic parameter labeled only "Acceptance rate" would likely contribute to that confusion. ElKevbo (talk) 01:19, 24 July 2024 (UTC)
Use of latin_name
for romanization
[edit]Several universities, for example V. Dokuchaev Kharkiv National Agrarian University, have native names in the Cyrillic Script and have romanizations listed in the latin_name
field. I had removed some as obviously not Latin before I realized that's what was meant. Should the rest be removed as well? Should there be a field for romanization? Does the romanization belong in the lede? McYeee (talk) 21:48, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
- Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Romanization of Ukrainian, it looks like the {{lang-uk}}, {{lang}} or {{transl}} templates is the preferred method of giving both Cyrillic and romanized forms of Ukrainian names. I assume this would apply in the infobox as well, so using one of these templates in the "name=" field would seem the best approach, e.g.:
:name={{lang-uk| Харківський національний аграрний університет ім. В.В. Докучаєва| translit= Kharkivskyi natsionalnyi ahrarnyi universytet im. V.V. Dokuchaieva| translit-std= ungegn}}
- Robminchin (talk) 23:12, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
- Do you mean
::native_name={{lang-uk| Харківський національний аграрний університет ім. В.В. Докучаєва| translit= Kharkivskyi natsionalnyi ahrarnyi universytet im. V.V. Dokuchaieva| translit-std= ungegn}}
- or something else? I think
name
is for English? McYeee (talk) 03:14, 16 August 2024 (UTC)- Yes, so busy working out the other template I got confused on this one! Robminchin (talk) 04:07, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
- Done. Is there an easy way to search for university infoboxes with names listed in Cyrillic? If so, I'll look into fixing more of them. McYeee (talk) 22:18, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
- I don't know of one I'm afraid. There might be some clever thing that can be done with maintenance categories but that's not something I know much about. Robminchin (talk) 23:53, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
- Darn. Thanks McYeee (talk) 19:48, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
- McYeeeI'm going to play around with regex. I think that having the infobox in an article and then name (making sure native name doesn't hit) followed by an equals, and then at least one Cyrillic letter prior to the next pipe or closing brace would be what you are looking for, right? If you could tell me one that still needs to be fixed, that would help. (for Cyrillic letter, I'm going to use the range from A (Cyrillic) to Ya (Cyrillic). I know that might miss some letters, but I'm betting no university name will *only* have Cyrillic letters that are non-Slavic. Naraht (talk) 23:15, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
- Can't seem to get it working the way I want any examples, I can try to get to ping on?Naraht (talk) 23:29, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
- I think I may have explained my request poorly. Here's an example of what I'm looking for. Donetsk State University of Management. What's listed as Latin is actually a romanization, not a Latin name. I believe there are a few more of these and I may have deleted some of them thinking they were patent nonsense rather than a misuse of the template. What I was hoping to do is go through the list of universities with Cyrillic in their native names which also have latin listed to check to see if they are romanizations.
- Also, can you link me to where I can run a regex search on field values? McYeee (talk) 23:55, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
- See https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=insource%3A%2Fnfobox+University%2F+insource%3A%2F%5B%5C%7C+%5Dname+%2A%3D+%2A%5B%5E%7D%5C%7C%5D%2B%5B%D0%B0%D0%90%5D%2F&title=Special:Search&profile=advanced&fulltext=1&ns0=1&ns1=1&ns2=1&ns3=1&ns4=1&ns5=1&ns6=1&ns7=1&ns8=1&ns9=1&ns10=1&ns11=1&ns12=1&ns13=1&ns14=1&ns15=1&ns100=1&ns101=1&ns118=1&ns119=1&ns710=1&ns711=1&ns828=1&ns829=1 , maybe I'm missing something, but I think in additon to having Infobox University, it has name (but with a space or pipe before) the the equals (with spaces) and then some number of characters that aren't pipe or close brace and then either an A in Cyrillic (either upper or lower), if I could get this to work, I'd expand to more Cyrillic letters.Naraht (talk) 23:59, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
- We want native_name to by Cyrillic. This revised search does that, but we also want to restrict it to pages with the latin field set McYeee (talk) 00:03, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
- See https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=insource%3A%2Fnfobox+University%2F+insource%3A%2F%5B%5C%7C+%5Dname+%2A%3D+%2A%5B%5E%7D%5C%7C%5D%2B%5B%D0%B0%D0%90%5D%2F&title=Special:Search&profile=advanced&fulltext=1&ns0=1&ns1=1&ns2=1&ns3=1&ns4=1&ns5=1&ns6=1&ns7=1&ns8=1&ns9=1&ns10=1&ns11=1&ns12=1&ns13=1&ns14=1&ns15=1&ns100=1&ns101=1&ns118=1&ns119=1&ns710=1&ns711=1&ns828=1&ns829=1 , maybe I'm missing something, but I think in additon to having Infobox University, it has name (but with a space or pipe before) the the equals (with spaces) and then some number of characters that aren't pipe or close brace and then either an A in Cyrillic (either upper or lower), if I could get this to work, I'd expand to more Cyrillic letters.Naraht (talk) 23:59, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
- Can't seem to get it working the way I want any examples, I can try to get to ping on?Naraht (talk) 23:29, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
- McYeeeI'm going to play around with regex. I think that having the infobox in an article and then name (making sure native name doesn't hit) followed by an equals, and then at least one Cyrillic letter prior to the next pipe or closing brace would be what you are looking for, right? If you could tell me one that still needs to be fixed, that would help. (for Cyrillic letter, I'm going to use the range from A (Cyrillic) to Ya (Cyrillic). I know that might miss some letters, but I'm betting no university name will *only* have Cyrillic letters that are non-Slavic. Naraht (talk) 23:15, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
- Darn. Thanks McYeee (talk) 19:48, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
- I don't know of one I'm afraid. There might be some clever thing that can be done with maintenance categories but that's not something I know much about. Robminchin (talk) 23:53, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
- Done. Is there an easy way to search for university infoboxes with names listed in Cyrillic? If so, I'll look into fixing more of them. McYeee (talk) 22:18, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, so busy working out the other template I got confused on this one! Robminchin (talk) 04:07, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
Thoughts on latin_name
[edit]Someone mentioned recently that this parameter is probably being overused. Unfortunately I can't find that post now, but I have had some thoughts on what "University name in Latin, if commonly referenced" means:
- This is for the university's Latin name, not a translation into Latin of the English name. If there no evidence that a Latin name is ever used, this parameter should be blank.
- If the only usage is on the university seal and degree certificates, which are self-published primary sources, this is evidence of the name existing, per WP:ABOUTSELF, but does not demonstrate that the name is "commonly referenced". Putting the Latin name in the infobox on the basis of this is likely to be WP:UNDUE
- If the Latin name is "commonly referenced", it should be relatively easy to find evidence of the Latin name, possibly in abbreviated form (such as in post-nominals), used in WP:RELIABLE sources.
And, on a related topic:
- The Latin name should be in the nominative (with universitas or collegium for university of college), but sources may use a different Latin declension (seals and. In particular, seals will often have something like Sigillum Universitatis Illyriensis (Seal of the University of Illyria) on them, using the genetive form. Degree certificates may also have something like Praecis et Coratores Universitatis Illyriensis (The President and Trustees of the University of Illyria), again using the genetive. WP:Competence is required means that editors need to be able to recognise and deal with this if they're going to edit this parameter. Robminchin (talk) 23:36, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks for bringing this up; I've certainly argued for less use of this parameter. I'd also like to add that post nominals can sometimes be abbreviations of English as in Soton and that, because of the way adjectives also decline in Latin, it requires some skill to determine whether the nominative is Illyriensis or Illyriense. McYeee (talk) 23:58, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- Is there consensus here? If not, assuming no one else says anything, how much longer should we wait? McYeee (talk) 20:18, 26 August 2024 (UTC)
- I'd normally leave it a week to give people a chance to comment and discuss how best to implement this in the documentation. Robminchin (talk) 20:44, 26 August 2024 (UTC)