Template talk:Infobox university/Archive 20

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Proposal: Deprecate the sports parameter

ElKevbo (currently on a wikibreak but hopefully back soon) brought up in 2019 that it's not clear exactly what the |sports= parameter is for, and it doesn't seem anyone has found any clarity since. The |nickname= parameter is what we use for linking to an institution's sports program (whether we should rename that is another discussion; let's take things one step at a time). The documentation says "Primary university sports", which I interpret to mean listing out the sports offered at an institution—there's no way that's due for the lead, even at something like a Big 10 school. Shall we deprecate it (and its |athletics= alias)? {{u|Sdkb}} talk 21:07, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

I think the use of nickname to link to the sports programme is probably limited to the US, so 'sports' or 'athletics' are used as the infobox parameter for at least some universities elsewhere in the world. It might be best to consolidate these all into a single parameter, making it clear in the documentation that it is intended as a link to the sports programme rather than a listing of sports played, but 'nickname' doesn't make sense for this internationally so we shouldn't deprecate the others. Robminchin (talk) 06:41, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
Turning |Sports= and |Athletics= into aliases works for me. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 06:52, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
My vote is for deprecation. I see it very often abused for listing every single sport and game offered (often I see Carrom) and I don't see how these lists are anything but WP:UNDUE. --Muhandes (talk) 09:50, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
  • @Robminchin and Muhandes: I added a tracking category a few days ago, and looking at the results from that, they are...a complete mess. It seems that many pages are misusing it where they should be using |sporting_affiliations=, others are using it for |nickname=, and still others are using it for listing out the sports offered. That means that we can't really turn it into an alias for nickname, since that won't work for the affiliations uses, nor can we turn it into an alias for sporting_affiliations, since that won't work for the nickname uses. I'm going to go ahead and mark it as deprecated in the documentation, but for the template itself, I'm not sure how best to handle this. Removing it would probably harm pages misusing it in place of a different parameter in the short term, but it'd give them a kick to change to using the correct parameter. Thoughts? {{u|Sdkb}} talk 22:48, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
    I'm also going to remove it from the "check for unknown parameters" list, which will cause an error to display in article previews wherever it's used (but not to readers). {{u|Sdkb}} talk 23:02, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
The only option I see is a manual clean up. It's still better than leaving the parameter as it was. Maybe one day I'll look at it, I'm currently too busy with other cleanup initiatives. --Muhandes (talk) 06:38, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
I fixed a handful of these yesterday, but it will take a while to do a manual cleanup. In the meantime - I had been monitoring Category:Pages using infobox university with unknown parameters often and fixing the new problems it identifies daily. But now it is filled with uses of |sports=. Could you prevent that (Category:Pages using infobox university with the sports parameter can be used for the cleanup). Thanks. MB 15:12, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
@MB, I noticed that the unknown parameters category was previously empty and assumed someone somewhere was monitoring it—thank you for doing that! I've made a tweak, so hopefully it won't be filling up the unknown parameter category now. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 18:36, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Tangent about nickname parameter

Thanks. On a related subject, I know from experience that |nickname= is often used for the school's acronyn, which belongs in |other_name= - which puts it near the top of the infobox instead of in the sports section. I see that the documentation shows |sports_nickname= only now. (Not sure if this was a recent change). We should probably deprecate |nickname= also. Do you want to put these into Category:Pages using infobox university with the nickname parameter for future manual cleanup as well. MB 20:56, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
That's a good point. Let's consider |nickname= a deprecated alias; I'll set up a tracking category for it and we can work toward changing all instances of it to either |sports_nickname= (if it was used correctly) or |other_name= (if not). {{u|Sdkb}} talk 21:20, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
I don't understand the AWB rename request. Don't we need to keep |nickname= until we go through them all to see if they should be moved to |sports_nickname= or |other_name=? MB 22:16, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
@MB, I think the situation with the nickname alias is a little different than the one with |sports=. For the sports parameter, because it was badly documented and displayed with a label that worked with various uses, a reasonably cautious user could have added it for any one of several purposes without any indication they were misusing it. For the nickname alias, though, it's long displayed in the sports section with a wikilink to Athletic nickname, so any editor who used it for an other name was making a mistake they could've caught if they'd been more cautious, which is unfortunate, but not something we need to take responsibility for. I also see far fewer instances of that mistake. Given those things, I think we should just rename all uses of |nickname= with AWB runs and then remove the alias from the template code, which will prevent future confusion. We can hope that the present misuses will eventually be noticed, and we can correct any we run into during the AWB run, but if we miss some, that's not introducing any error that wasn't already there. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 23:25, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
I don't think I agree. I just looked at around twenty random articles using |nickname=. I would say, in this un-scientific sampling, that around a third were mis-using it for an acronym or something similar. I also noticed a pattern that most of the ones using it properly seemed to be American schools and most of the ones that should have used |other_name= name were in other countries. I think it's easy to mis-understand the proper use as many infoboxes are created by copying one from another article without reading template documentation. If we don't let AWB rename it, but just display the deprecated message during editing, they too will eventually be corrected. MB 01:28, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
Oh, a third? I didn't realize it was that high. I'll go do an AWB run now, checking to only correct those using it correctly, and then I'll remove the rename. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 01:31, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
Okay, I just did almost all the A's and B's (except for the few that weren't clear which), and I removed the AWB automatic rename. As I went through them, it became clear that your spot check was correct: there are a ton of misuses, so we need to go through manually. There's still more than 2000 to correct, so it'll be a fair bit of work. For anyone who wants to assist, use AWB and replace |nickname and | nickname with |sports_nickname and | sports_nickname respectively where warranted. Then switch the replace feature to change to |other_name and do another run. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 02:21, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
The category hadn't finished populating. Now it is at 4100, and it seems to have added US schools first. It looks like the percentage is even higher now that there are more non-US schools represented. MB 21:25, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

Tangent: Proposal: Denonym

I have also seen instances when the (athletic) nickname has been misused where the denonym for non-sporting people affiliated with the university is used. I have noticed this while editing Philippine-based schools, I don't know if this issue persists in schools outside the country. For example in University of Santo Tomas (has long been fixed by me for a while already): "Thomasian" would be listed as the (athletic) nickname when its actually a denonym while "Growling Tigers" the actual varsity team name/athletic nickname would be listed in the "athletics" field or some other field. So I propose adding a separate denonym field. Hariboneagle927 (talk) 06:02, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

In the cleanup I have done so far on |nickname=, I have noticed this too. Some uses of this field are moved to |sports_nickname= and others go to |other_name=. The only ones I have found that don't fit either are denonmys (which I am leaving in |nickname= for now). So we have to decide to add |denonym= or not include this in the infobox at all. MB 22:04, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
I'm not sure non-athletic demonyms are important enough to add to the infobox; they can be included in the body. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 22:14, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
@Sdkb: An alternative is to make the athletic nickname field name more explicit. Make it show up as "Athletic nickname" not just display "Nickname" (with an easter egg link).Hariboneagle927 (talk) 13:55, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
We'd run into the same WP:ENGVAR problem as with |sporting_affiliations= if we did that, as "athletics" in many countries means the sport of athletics, not all sports. I'm not sure if "Sporting nickname" would an improvement over the status quo, particularly given (1) that it'd force us to go onto a second line, and (2) that many colleges use their athletic nickname widely outside purely athletic contexts. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 00:35, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
@Sdkb: How about "Sports team", "sports nickname" or "College sports team nickname". 1.) Sure it wouldn't be concise but would address the vagueness. 2.) As you noted many colleges use the athletic nickname outside athletic context. But some don't as mentioned in my example above. Hariboneagle927 (talk) 06:08, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Are you trying to address vagueness to the reader, or to the editor when putting data into the infobox? If the latter, that is being fixed. |nickname= can eventually be removed when all uses are changed to either |sports_nickname= or |other_name=. This will take some time, but this is about 10% done already.

On the proposal to add |denonym=, there appears to be insufficient support for this. Mentioning again to confirm consensus before I just delete any of these found in the nickname field. MB 20:49, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

There might be a possible use-case for things like Oxonian and Cantabrigian, which are based on the Latin name, but this is probably too specialised to include in the infobox and can be handled in the text where it's wanted. For most universities, standard English rules for forming denonyms apply so it's unnecessary. I'd say go ahead and delete from nicknames. Robminchin (talk) 23:45, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Image_size parameter tracking

There is a tracking category that was added 5.5 years ago by an editor that hasn't edited for over 5 years. I'm guessing this was part of a plan to replace uses of image_size with image_upright. Although that is preferred (MOS:IMGSIZE), implementation hasn't gained much traction here or in other infoboxes. Can we remove it for now since no one currently using it for anything. My reason it that it is a bit of a visual distraction when checking an article to see that I have made all the intended fixes before saving. MB 04:06, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Jonesey95, there has been no objection to this. Can you remove this? Thanks. MB 21:13, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 Done. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:01, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Request change or alias of vice-president.

As far as I can see *all* parameters separate with underscores *except* vice-president. I request that either vice-president be changed to vice_president *or* (probably better) that vice_president be made an alias for vice-president.Naraht (talk) 14:00, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

 Done. Good catch. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:16, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
Jonesey95 Um. I was prepared for a formal process with votes on choices... Thanx.Naraht (talk) 18:15, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
But those are no fun! Happy Halloween. This is your treat. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:31, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
I formally approve of this process. Sorry we are out of votes and choices. --Muhandes (talk) 22:10, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
Thanx. But does that mean I have to dress up in costume to edit Wikipedia now?Naraht (talk) 12:37, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

Category:University articles with infobox university issues

Created [:Category:University articles with infobox university issues] and placed

  • Category:Pages using infobox university with conflicting parameters
  • Category:Pages using infobox university with unknown parameters

in it. (reflecting the way that Infobox Fraternity does it) It .ay make more sense to have a single category for *all* of the tracking categories generated by the infobox not just the "needs work" ones. This is definitely the Bold...Naraht (talk) 19:02, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

I don't see much use, it's just another layer to add confusion. We already can see the cats for this template at Template:Infobox university#Tracking categories. MB 22:28, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
I understand that, for me, it is just easier to jump to one of the other categories if I end up there first rather than getting to the template page. Ideally though, shouldn't most categories at least have some parent?Naraht (talk) 13:23, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Links to persons

Hello! It is not clearly obvious for me why the person fields of the template (like rector) do not generate a link to the article? Is it intentional, and if yes, why; or is it accidental, and if yes would someone kindly fix it?

It is a problem since otherwise referenced articles looklike orphans; also linking is nice, as most of the infoboxen already do that (like person, for spouse for example). --grin ✎ 14:46, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Hi Grin! Could you clarify what you mean? The fields can wikilink to the person if you enclose the value in brackets, e.g. [[Lara Tiedens]]. But rectors/presidents/etc. don't always have an article, and sometimes someone different with their same name does, so we couldn't make an automatic wikilink. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} talk 15:34, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
There are two possible sources of a person in a template: it may be simply typed into the template arguments or pulled from Wikidata. You are right in the first case, since the manual entry may be basically any free-form string.
However the data from Wikidata must be a proper article object (it is not possible to include it any other way) so it is guaranteed to exist in some languages, and most often that "some language" is English, so automatic wikilinks can be created in relative safety that they will not be red; and in case they are it's even better to suggest to have them created in English, since the article already exists in another language and the person is indeed referenced by the infobox. --grin ✎ 15:46, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
This template doesn't currently pull from Wikidata; I've been working on changing that but it's not deployed yet. It is true that every university president is notable per WP:NPROF #6, so we could change the TemplateData type from line to page, but that still wouldn't do much beyond VE. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 16:04, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
It is unclear what is being proposed here, but if auto-linking the names of people in parameter values is being contemplated, I strongly recommend against it. Disambiguation is hard, and many undetected incorrect links will result from any auto-linking code. See Template talk:Infobox artwork for a recent discussion of auto-linking failures at that template. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:30, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
@Jonesey95: it is not clear to me, in turn, what you mean by "incorrect links". Wikidata contains very specific objects which are connected to their respective and very specific articles, there is no mislinking (to disambiguation or else) involved. Links shall use WD article and not some "fuzzy name matching". (If artwork infobox does that it's clearly a bad idea.) --grin ✎ 08:40, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
Set up a demonstration of what you are proposing, I guess. Then we'll have something to discuss that is more clear. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:38, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Proposal: Add student publications parameter

I have noticed that several pages that utilize the university infobox template (for example, Georgia Tech, Harvard University, and Columbia University) utilize the template's free label for the university's student newspapers (such as, for the examples listed above, Technique (newspaper), The Harvard Crimson, and Columbia Daily Spectator). Several of these publications are notable enough in their own right to warrant their own Wikipedia articles, including some that are not included in their respective university's infoboxes (such as Farrago (magazine) for the University of Melbourne). It may be beneficial to have a dedicated parameter for student publications. -JJonahJackalope (talk) 20:05, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

I would support this, except for the fact that in most cases (at least in the U.S.), the student newspaper has no official status with the university, because it seeks to be independent and clear of any conflict of interest. Of the examples above, the Technique looks like it is the only one with official status; the Crimson is published by The Trustees of The Harvard Crimson and the Spectator is published by Spectator Publishing Company. The outlets that do have official status would be e.g. The Harvard Gazette, but those have less influence; they're basically the university PR departments. If we created this as an explicit parameter, it'd be all but impossible to enforce using it only for student newspapers that have official status, so I think it's better to just use the free parameter for those cases and to remove it for others. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 22:13, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
In the UK, and from the examples offered also Australia, 'official' student publications are normally associated with the Students' Union so can be easily identified (e.g. The Beaver (newspaper); Palatinate (newspaper); Gair Rhydd; Glasgow University Guardian). There are a few exceptions, notably Varsity (Cambridge), which was founded by an American post-grad and modelled on the Harvard Crimson, and Cherwell (newspaper) and other publications from Oxford Student Publications Limited, but the SU-owned model is overwhelmingly the most common and both universities have SU-owned papers as well (The Oxford Student and The Cambridge Student). This parameter might not work well in the US of the tradition of different there, but it might still be a good idea for other parts of the English speaking world. Robminchin (talk) 04:18, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
Being published by the student union is very different than being published by the university, since they're normally distinct legal entities, so the UK model doesn't seem all that different from the American one. Note how, in the case of The Oxford Student, the URL is separate from the university's URL. We shouldn't be including it in situations like that. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 09:09, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
Students unions exist under the Education Act 1994, and the governing body of the university is legally responsible for seeing that they operate "in a fair and democratic manner" as well as being accountable for their finances, approving their constitution, and various other responsibilities. They are also covered by all of the rules about free speech, freedom of information, etc., that apply to the university as a whole. They will normally be a separate corporation but they are very much part of the university as the official body legally charged with representing the students. This is very different from the independent trust model of the US student newspapers (you may be confusing them with the Union Societies at Oxford, Cambridge and Durham, which are independent). Robminchin (talk) 00:25, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
Is the question "Should we have a 'Student newspaper'/'Student newspapers' parameter or is it intentionally focused on the broader category of 'Student publications'? If it's about the student newspaper, it may be a simpler discussion as it's more bounded (although determining which publications should be included may not be straight-forward for some institutions).
I would not be in favor of a broad "Student publications" parameter because it's such a broad category that it would encompass many publications at many institutions: newspaper(s), journals, reviews, yearbooks, etc. It's unworkably broad and not the kind of critical, summary information that should be in an infobox. ElKevbo (talk) 21:29, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
I think there's question about whether it's critical summary information anyways, even putting aside the concerns above. As much as I have an affinity for student newspapers and appreciate their importance, I would probably remove a sentence in a college article lead on them. Are they really more DUE for the infobox than e.g. the student government? I think it's probably sufficient to just discuss them in the student life section and (as I've argued before) put them in the external links section. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 21:38, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Generic affiliations parameter follow-up

It's been nine months since this was last discussed. I find that in virtually every article, anything in this parameter can be put in |religious_affiliation=, |athletics_affiliations=, |academic_affiliations=, |accreditation=, and occasionally |parent=. I propose that as a simplification, we move towards deprecation. Since it is used in over 6,000 articles, I suggest the template issue a preview warning message as it does now for |sports= suggesting a more specific parameter. Then perhaps it can be completely removed in a few years. Pinging Sdkb and ElKevbo who participated in the last discussion. MB 03:49, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Sounds like a reasonable plan. Robminchin (talk) 06:07, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
Sounds fine to me. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 07:55, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
I am not convinced that this would be a good change. Tribal colleges are the only significant group of institutions that I can think of as an example but there are others e.g., religious universities affiliated with a specific church such as The Master's University. ElKevbo (talk) 02:42, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
Hmm. For tribal colleges, that could be put in |type=, as it's not too different from single-gender or HBCU institutions, which typically express that in the type field. American Indian Higher Education Consortium would be an academic affiliation. The Master's University is tricky, too; I don't know what we'd do for that, other than using a free field to define "Affiliated church". {{u|Sdkb}} talk 02:59, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
Yes, tribal college is in the "type" parameter. But if we remove the "affiliation" parameter, where would we list the specific tribe(s)? ElKevbo (talk) 03:33, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
Oh, hmm, yeah, that would end up having to be a free parameter. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 03:37, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
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