Talk:Breyer State University

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OTRS icon This article is the subject of a request emailed to the Wikimedia Foundation:

Issues identified are: Clarification of diploma mill status; clarification of ownership and operation
 The OTRS ticket number is 2007080910015888
Please discuss these issues here, being mindful of the policies on living individuals.

Contents

[edit] People

Actually some of the people are in fact mentioned in the article. Not to mention, those vandalizing this article also contribute quite reqularly to the wikipedia entries of the people listed in the post. Seems rather self-serving? [1]

LOL! I can see why the guy doesn't bother with a domain name, what with them costing over ten bucks and all... Just zis Guy you know? 19:55, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Content removed

Removed lengthy diatribe from Talk page. It did not mention Breyer State U at all; it disparaged several individuals, none of whom are mentioned in the BSU article. And it referred to information found "at the link below" as if that offered some authority, when "the link below" was a cached version of material not currently posted at that blog. BuckRose 19:16, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Licensure

The user SimonP has repeatedly removed any information describing Breyer State University-Alabama's licensure and replaced it with clearly biased remarks including "claims to be..." . The school is a legally operating university.

Added factual information about incorporation (from Idaho and Alabama Secretary of State websites). Breyer's own website states that it is not available to Idaho residents. And the New Republic article, while clearly unflattering to Breyer (among others) is credible. BuckRose 16:19, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Anti-edits by Bsuinfosys (talk • contribs)

So, you have a problem with reproducing verbatim the Alabama college system's statement on licensing: "The license is issued to operate in the State of Alabama AND IS NOT ASSOCIATED WITH ACCREDITATION." (All-capitals text reproduced verbatim). Sorry, I don't have any such problem. And if I did, I would certainly still want to see the text included, rather than removing it and leaving in the bit about approval, since that pretty much inverts the facts.

I see you also have a problem with "see also: diploma mill". Why is that, I wonder? It looks to me like an entirely relevant link, given the other verifiable facts about the place. Do we say it is one? Nope. Do we say that it displays some aspects of one? For sure. See also? Fine by me.

And I see you have a problem with List of unaccredited institutions of higher learning too. Is it accredited now? No? OK, that stays then. And you don't like List of unrecognized accreditation associations of higher learning? So the "accrediting" institution is now recognized? No? So that stays then.

And there seems to be a link you don't like: State of Michigan- cites Breyer as unaccredited. I checked it, it's OK - Michigan State is a reliable source, your concerns are laudable but misplaced.

And it's fine to re-state the comment from ODA linking the school to the St. Regis University fake degree scam, I know you think redundancy is bad, but it does save poeple having to trawl around the cited sources to find important related information. Less isn't always more, is it?

I can see why you want to remove Council on Higher Education Accreditation, since the place is not accredited, but the coucil is relevant to discussion of unaccredited institutions as well. Accreditation mill? Doesn't that rather describe the situation where the school's president "accredits" his own school? Seems like fair comment to me.

Oh, wait: bsuinfosys. Ah, now I understand... Just zis Guy you know? 20:11, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notability

Subject is notable because the organisation is a diploma mill that continues to attempt to secure unustified credibility. Article is needed to alert the unwary. There has been a recent major scandal in the UK because of a self-styled "expert witness" whose only qualifiction was a $100 PhD from a diploma mill like this. --Red King 00:18, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removed questionable external link

I removed the just-added external reference:

  • IvyUniversities, a non-profit review group cites Breyer's lack of accreditation but suggests that its degrees may be recognized by companies on case to case basis.

I looked at the site -- there's nothing to indicate that it's a reputable source of accurate information, and a few warning flags. One, no one is named -- there's no board of directors, no founder; just the comment "We are a board of professionals from various Fortune 1000 companies involved in the consulting, IT, and marketing industries." Maybe, maybe not. Second, there's no indication of how long this "non-profit" organization has been around, how long they've been supposedly reviewing online schools. Three, some of the information seems out of date. Kennedy-Western has renamed itself Warren. Naropa is hardly "new." BuckRose 21:48, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removed new text

I removed the following text, added as a statement of Breyer's arguments why it is not a diploma mill: "because it gives students challenging exams,in core courses, make them take needed courses,and an adviser is assigned. For Ph.D., they follow all the processes required of a regular university." Not only does this text need copy-editing, but the arguments quoted are not in the cited source. (Note: Even if this were in the cited source, since the cited source is Breyer's website, this information could not be stated as fact, but merely cited as a claim by Breyer. --Orlady 19:34, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] General clean-up

I am attempting a general clean-up of the article because it's messy. I am removing some material that doesn't seem appropriate (e.g. synthesis, quotes in foreign languages) but mostly just eliminating redundancy, trying to word things better, fixing format, changing the section structure and sentence order so that similar things are grouped together, and so on. I have no agenda, connection, etc., and am not trying to slant the article in any direction other than being a better article here. So feel free to further improve or object if something I do makes it worse instead of better. Wikidemo (talk) 19:44, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Additional material

After finishing the cleanup, in the process of searching for additional sources I came across apparently reliable material linking this institution to James Monroe University, part of a defunct diploma mill chain whose operations were rather scandalous. Accordingly I made this edit, which I'm mentioning here because this new material, unlike the clean-up, does substantively change the article. Wikidemo (talk) 21:30, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Negative and Bias

After reading the article it seems to be very negative and bias. I don't think it really represents a neutral point of view. Additionally some of the citations don't even work or go to anywhere that is relevant. Also I would like to note how can you list something as a reference for something as negative as calling Breyer State a diploma mill when the source does not work? According to this logic I could make up a bunch of sources and list them praising this university as the best thing since Harvard and not have to back anything up! In an attempt to keep this neutral there should be a disputed claim put on it. capthonesty 10:31, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

The information derives from the sources, which are real. Sources need not be online. If an institution is widely called a diploma mill and has been claimed to be an affiliate with and under the same management as others known to be frauds, that is highly pertinent information. That is bias. It would be bias to deny this in order to make it look good. In fact, the only activity from your account is to try to slant the article in favor of the subject. You have not raised any specific dispute. I am therefore removing the "disputed" tag. Wikidemo (talk) 15:53, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
I think what you mean, capthonesty, is that the link doesn't work. This happens regularly with online sources, particularly newspapers and magazines, because most of them remove articles after some time. However, that doesn't mean that the article was never published, so it is still perfectly acceptable as a source. Readers can still access the article through a library or databases like LexisNexis, so the information can be verified. If you have another dispute, you should probably elaborate a little bit more here - so far you've only said that the article is negative and biased, but you haven't explained why you feel that way or provided any information that counters the claims in the article. Natalie (talk) 16:39, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

--Thank You--- I'm sorry I'm still a little green behind the ears to the whole wikipedia thing. Now that it has been explained to me in King's english I guess what I was doing did seem a little out there. From now on I will find sources to back up what I'm saying. I promise! capthonesty (talk) 8:30 15 February 2008 (UTC)

  • Here are all the references I was able to uncover discussing Breyer State University:
(sections removed - please link and/or summarize; copying long stretches of text from a newspaper article raises copyright issues - Wikidemo (talk) 16:54, 16 February 2008 (UTC))
  • I found no reference evaluating Breyer State University in any depth that did not characterize it as a mill, but feel free to search. Cheers! bd2412 T 04:20, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] OTRS ticket

Will be emailing to get clarification on the reason for the removal of apparently accurate, sourced information about this institution's now-defunct umbrella organization. The characterization of the material as "false statements" is clearly counter to the major newspaper and US government sources.Wikidemo (talk) 20:25, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I understand the reason for removing the child porn information, since the source cited in that section does not mention Breyer State in connection with child porn. However, given Breyer State's acknowledged affiliation with St. Regis, some description of the issues surrounding the closure of St. Regis needs to be retained in the article.
Also, the edit summary for the deletion does not indicate any reason for the removal of the link to the Breyer State University Istanbul website. The existence of that website seems like a notable detail; if the operators of Breyer State claim not to be affiliated with this Turkish website, perhaps they could supply a citeable source to quote saying that it is unrelated.
Finally, there was no explanation for the removal of the sourced information regarding the domicile of Breyer State's owner, but I know from past experience that Breyer State and/or Mr. Flarey assert that Mr. Flarey's domicile is irrelevant. (Perhaps that viewpoint can be communicated to the participants in WP:UNI who are adamant that the physical location of a school's main office is one of the single most important facts about any university article that must be included in every school's infobox, as discussed at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Universities#Infoboxomania, Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Universities#Consensus?, Template talk:Infobox University#Infoboxomania and Template talk:Infobox University#RfC on Proposed Changes to this Infobox.) --Orlady (talk) 21:36, 5 March 2008 (UTC)