Template talk:Infobox university/Archive 19

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Template shortcomings

The template, as far as it refers to staff numbers, is very unfit for purpose. Speaking as someone who worked in a major UK university for 34 years as neither an academic nor an administrator, the restriction of staff numbers to these two categories seems misleading at best.

In my experience the average university, at least in the UK, has the following types of employee:

1) Academic - characterised by a teaching role 2) Academic related - such as librarians 3) Research - characterised by little or no teaching and a preponderance of external funding (research grants) 4) Support staff. administrative, secretarial, occupational health and other 'support staff' such as technicians (not research) and IT support 5) Estates staff, plumbers, gardeners, electricians etc.

Therefore, the infobox should have available categories such as "Academic" and "Other staff" at the most parsimonious, as the majority of non-academic employees of any university will not be 'administrative'. Or a fuller choice might be "Academic", "Research" and "Support staff" or "Other staff".

I can say that at the moment there is no uniformity in the treatment of staff numbers between university articles, some have all staff under the title "Academic staff", while others have academic and research staff lumped together as "Academic" and very many have staff labelled "administrative" who are most definitely not administrators in any sense of the word. Urselius (talk) 20:45, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

I concur with this concern. "Administrative staff" is a vague term, and many institutions don't seem to categorize their staff this way, making it difficult information to find. I would support adding a "total staff" option that could be used instead. I don't think we can really justify more than two lines for staff in the infobox; further details belong in the body. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:41, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

I have no idea how to edit infoboxes, but 'academic staff' needs to be replaced by 'other staff' or 'total staff'. The present situation leaves no uniformity between university articles as the poor choice between the present two options leads to individual editors making individual interpretations of what numbers to place where. Urselius (talk) 16:48, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

@Urselius, I can edit the infobox if we find consensus here. Forcibly deprecating the existing parameter would be a much bigger step than just adding a new option, though, and I'm not so sure we'd want to do that, as it'd wipe out the information for a large chunk of our existing articles, where we have to trust that anyone who added it did so correctly. As a middle ground, we could put in the documentation here that "total staff" is preferred.

I think "total staff" might be better than "other staff", as it's simpler. Requiring people to subtract the faculty from their count could get messy if, for instance, the faculty count is updated but the total count isn't. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:02, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

Adding an option for 'total staff' would probably be the best way to go. Editors could then have a simple input of total staff numbers and academic staff (the concept of 'faculty' does not exist in the UK and in many other countries), with the option of adding administrative staff, if this number is definitely known. Urselius (talk) 19:27, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

• Note: I'm preparing to add a |total_staff= parameter, since Urselius and I seem to be in agreement and there has been no further input following my invite at WT:HED. One wrinkle is that |staff= already exists as an old alias for |administrative_staff=. I'm doing an AWB run to hopefully clear out Category:Pages using infobox university with the staff parameter so that we can deprecate the parameter. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:27, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

  I have now finished the AWB run, and cleared out the use of the |staff= alias everywhere except some user sandboxes and other places that don't matter. I'm going to go ahead and remove it from the template and add the total_staff parameter. The administrative_staff parameter will continue to work for the pages that have it, although I'll note in the documentation that it is less preferred. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 05:57, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

   Done both. Please let me know (or just revert) if there are any issues.​ {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 06:22, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Looks good, thanks. Urselius (talk) 11:38, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Should I create a new Infobox/Template or try edit the Infobox university?

Hello. First off, my apologies as I am new to Wikipedia. I am trying to figure out how to make changes to a page (shingwauk kinoomaage gamig) that uses the infobox university. For example, we do not have a dean, but a director of operations and a director of academics. I am wondering if I should delete the infobox university entirely from this page, and try to build something else. Or if I should stick with this infobox and learn how to edit that. Any assistance or advice would be much appreciated. PaulRSawa (talk) 19:15, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

@PaulRSawa, hi again! What you want is |head_label=, which allows you to define a custom position. There's currently only one of those, but I'll edit the template to add a second one. Give me a minute to do that, and I'll demonstrate it at Shingwauk Kinoomaage Gamig and you can just fill out the actual person. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:25, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Update:  Done. Let me know if you have any trouble and I'll be happy to help. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:35, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

@PaulRSawa, I see you tried to add a third position with |head_label3= for "Director of Library & Archives". That won't work, because this template has only defined two. I also don't think that sort of position is important enough to list in the infobox, which should only have the leader of the institution and maybe the second in command. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:43, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Sdkb, Ouch! That's my position! I guess I can keep on making the edits that I'm most concerned with for now, and then try to figure out how to do a new infobox/template later. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PaulRSawa (talk • contribs)

@PaulRSawa: Creating a new infobox template is an extremely difficult thing to do, so I definitely wouldn't recommend that. If you really want to list all the directors, you could use this code:

|headlabel=Directors
|head={{bulleted list|Operations: Dianne Roach|Academics: Lauren Doxtater|etc.}}

But again, I wouldn't recommend that. The parameters for this template reflect community consensus, and we've chosen to leave out parameters for more minor administrative positions not just since we haven't bothered to code them but because there's very limited room in infoboxes, and they should therefore contain only the most essential information. Listing out every one of the institute's directors might be something better to do in the body (although even there, it shouldn't be excessive—directors change all the time, so you don't want to make the article more difficult to keep up to date). {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:50, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

I think adding a second head labels is not a good idea either. In fact, even the first one is a source for much work cleaning up entries where people add the "head of cantina". Add it to the body if it is important. Leave the infobox to the most important positions. At the very least, I'd think this merits discussion. --Muhandes (talk) 07:07, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

@Muhandes, fair; I've  Undone the edit. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 15:59, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Thank you Sdkb!

Much appreciated for the edit! Am I able to add another head-label myself? I would like it to be | head_label3 = Director of Library & Archives I tried to add this myself, but without success. PaulRSawa (talk) 19:44, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Symbol parameter

The symbol parameter appears to have been added in 2018 as part of a merge with the now-deleted Infobox academic division. It's unclear which pages use it (I've set up a tracking category, so we should know shortly), and it's not usefully documented. It'd be helpful if an admin could look at the deleted doc and let us know what if anything was there. Courtesy ping Fastily who did the deletion. I suspect we may want to merge this parameter to the mascot one or something else. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 07:23, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Here's the text of the page at the time of deletion. -FASTILY 07:36, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response! So we have the symbol of the division (for example, the pink tie of the University of Waterloo Faculty of Mathematics) as the original doc. Looking at the Waterloo page, it seems a pretty niche application, so I'm inclined to convert it to a free parameter and then deprecate. Let's wait until the tracking category populates, though, just to make sure it's not more widely used. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 07:52, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Okay, so there are only ten pages that use the parameter, many of which seem to be misusing it. I'll go through and convert them to using the free parameter and then deprecate. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 18:21, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Okay, category has been emptied. Please let me know if there are any objections to deprecation, otherwise I'll move ahead with that shortly. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 18:35, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Deprecate away. --Muhandes (talk) 19:14, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

 Done. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:05, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

This does not look done to me. I can't make sense of the diff, but |symbol= is still there. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:21, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

Oh, that's weird; maybe the renumbering messed with it or maybe I just messed something up. Fixing now. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 01:42, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Done. Thanks for the catch, Jonesey. It looks like making the change and then clicking infobox renumber undid the change. Courtesy pinging User:Frietjes, who maintains User:Frietjes/infoboxgap; this might be something to fix or note in the documentation. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 01:46, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

the renumber script loads the contents of the textbox when the script is first loaded, so if you load the page, then make some changes, and then run the script, it will use an old version of the textbox. I have modified the script to reload the textbox when you press the buttons. Frietjes (talk) 13:41, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Perfect; thanks! {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 16:54, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Splitting campus parameter

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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The campus parameter is currently used both for a qualitative description of the campus type (i.e. rural, urban, etc.) and for giving its size (e.g. in acres). As a matter of clean coding, I think this should be split into two by introducing a new |campus_size= parameter. New pages or old pages someone wants to update would remove the size info and place it in the size parameters. In all cases, the display would remain the same, but the cleaner code would give us additional flexibility in the future. Thoughts? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:32, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea in principle, but going through and cleaning up the current usage sounds like it could be quite a large task. Would it be better to introduce "campus type" and "campus size" now and deprecate "campus", then alias "campus" to "campus type" in six months time (or some other reasonable period)? Robminchin (talk) 05:30, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

@Robminchin: Calling the parameter "campus type" and having "campus" be an alias seems even better, as there's less potential for confusion. Is there any reason for a six-month pause? I'd like to just make the change, and it'll filter out over time (or more quickly if someone finds a way to go through using AWB). {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:46, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

Here's a preview of the code; I tested in sandbox and it appears to be functioning fine. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:58, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

The suggestion for six months was to give time for pages to migrate to the new layout. Or, as you suggest, the change could just be left to filter through. Either probably works. Robminchin (talk) 06:33, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

Is there consensus for campus size at all? The documentation for |campus= is Type/nature of the institution's campus (e.g. urban, rural, multiple sites). As far as I can say, if it is used for the campus size it is a misuse of the parameter for something it was never intended to do. I would argue that campus size is contestable and unclear (built size? land size? includes recreational facilities?) and therefore it may not belong in the infobox at all. If it is included, a clear definition will be needed. --Muhandes (talk) 10:00, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Type/nature is also contestable - who determines when an area crosses from rural to suburban or suburban to urban? Size is more likely to be sourceable. I don't see a problem with it. MB 14:28, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Agreed, campus size seems pretty straightforward to me: it's the number of acres owned by the institution. Some universities own farms or nature reserves away from their main campus; in those cases, they're typically noted separately. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:28, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Punctuation

One thing we'll need to decide if we do perform the split is what punctuation should go between the two values. Potential options are:

• Nothing (i.e. Urban 47 acres (19 ha))
• A comma (i.e. Urban, 47 acres (19 ha))
• A semicolon (i.e. Urban; 47 acres (19 ha))

Thoughts? I lean against nothing but am ambivalent about comma vs. semicolon. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:32, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Comma seems better grammatically to me; there should be a pause there. I've always used a comma when editing this field manually. (I also unlink urban/suburban/rural per WP:OVERLINKING - noting this since you linked the example). MB 16:17, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Hmm, interesting point about overlinking. I'm ambivalent, as it's a little borderline—I could conceivably see someone finding it useful if they e.g. don't understand what the boundary is between urban vs. suburban vs. rural, and linking is cheap (especially when there's not an MOS:EGG issue), but you're right that they're pretty common terms. In the vast majority of cases, they seem to be linked currently, so it might be worthwhile to start a separate discussion if you'd like to move toward systemic unlinking.

Also, one other option to put on the table: having a line break instead of punctuation. It's not too essential we arrive at the exact perfect solution now—one of the nice things about splitting these parameters is that we'll be able to change the punctuation in the future if we want just by making an edit to the template. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 16:57, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

I'd go with a comma, although as it's a line in an infobox rather than a sentence in a paragraph it probably isn't strictly necessary. Robminchin (talk) 04:34, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Surely we could automate/semiautomate a process to update these rather than rely on individuals to update them. Buffs (talk) 12:57, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

That seems feasible if anyone wants to code it. Something like "if there's a comma, followed by a number or {{convert}}, then use that as the split point". It might be considered a WP:COSMETICEDIT, though. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:19, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

It seems that if only 'campus_size' is filled in, it automatically places a comma before it, giving something like "Campus , 1,709 hectares (4,220 acres)[3]". Robminchin (talk) 06:12, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

And another punctuation issue is that if a reference is cited for the campus type this end up going before the comma, contrary to Wikipedia's style. I'm wondering if dropping the automatic punctuation might be better. Robminchin (talk) 06:26, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out those things! I just fixed the issue with the dangling comma if only campuu_size is used. For the reference, I'm not sure there's any super elegant solution. Putting the reference in the campus_size parameter might be best, but really, university infoboxes shouldn't be filled with references per WP:LEADCITE. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 08:08, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing that quickly! I'm not sure how much WP:LEADCITE really applies to infoboxes, which frequently give basic information that isn't necessarily repeated in the body. I would interpret it as talking about the actual text of the lead. Robminchin (talk) 23:24, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Image_name parameter

Category:Pages using infobox university with the image name parameter has over 6000 articles. |image= is what is currently documented. Having this alias causes no real problems, but |image= is more common across infoboxes, and there is probably a slight chance that some people might think it is for a caption. Should we put this is the AWB automatic rename list so it is removed from articles that are run through AWB for other reasons? MB 21:30, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

Absent any evidence that people are actually getting confused by |image_name=, I don't think this is necessary, but it wouldn't do any harm. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 01:55, 5 September 2021 (UTC)