Wikipedia talk:WikiProject University of California

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This page falls within the scope of WikiProject University of California, a WikiProject interested in improving the encyclopedic coverage and content of articles relating to University of California, its history, accomplishments and other topics. If you would like to help out, you are welcome to drop by the project page and/or leave a query at the project's talk page.
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[edit] Re: WP:UCAL redirect

I experimented with some others, but all the obvious ones seem to have been taken. Ameriquedialectics 01:03, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I wonder if we can steal WP:UC from Wikipedia:User categorisation, a project that's been inactive for at least a year, if not more. Per Special:Whatlinkshere/WP:UC, only 11 pages link to WP:UC. In case anyone actually uses the shortcut to get to the user categorization page, we could easily put a disambiguation notice on top, something like "WP:UC" redirects here. You may also be looking for Wikipedia:User categorisation. szyslak 01:39, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
Go for it. Just make sure to change the WP:UC link to the full "Wikipedia:User categorisation" for these pages, so no one gets confused. =) --Dynaflow babble 02:06, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
I went ahead and changed WP:UC to redirect here, and fixed some of the obvious redirect problems. the redirects in archive space or areas i couldn't make sense of i didn't mess with. Ameriquedialectics 02:50, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
Just in case anyone still types "WP:UC" to get to Wikipedia:User categorisation, I added a dab notice, which includes other possible meanings of the abbreviation. szyslak 07:23, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] University of California discussion from Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals

Description 
WikiProject University of California is a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of the University of California system.
Interested Wikipedians (please add your name)

—# Amerique

  1. Szyslak
  2. Dynaflow
Comments

An early draft of the project page is at Wikipedia:WikiProject University of California. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kintetsubuffalo (talk • contribs) 06:41, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Just nominated University of California, Riverside for FAC

It is also the first article talk page to sport the UC project template. Feel free to review or help out as inclined. Ameriquedialectics 23:08, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok, so the FAC was delisted after only five days. User:Raul654 hasn't responded to requests for clarification as to why he halted it. I've requested assistance from the League of Copyeditors, but don't know if they will get to this article anytime soon. Anyway, my intention was, and still is, to get this article to FA, and this would go faster as part of a larger project of this group. As I see the various UC articles, UCR's is closest to meeting the Wikipedia:Featured article criteria, followed by UCSC's. UCI's article has a lot of great content and prose but it hasn't gone through the WP:GA review process and there is a lot that would need to be done before it could pass criteria 1 (b). UCSC's article looks good but there is a lot more content that could go into it:[1]. Irvine also has more bibliographic resources:[2]. All the bibliographic stuff on UCR only covers the Citrus Experiment Station and so is mainly useless for its article.

So I propose collectively concentrating on UCR for now, getting that to FA, then migrating whatever comprehensive references could be used from that to the other article projects. SC's and I's articles could then be worked on simultaneously until either is ready to be nominated for FAC or GA, then we would concentrate on either article exclusively once it's at its respective review process. Ameriquedialectics 23:38, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm rather tired of working on the UCR article for the time being, but I found a trove of references for the UCSC article here: [3] FA drive? Ameriquedialectics 21:08, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I've been intending to expand the history section of the UCSC article for a while now, using the UC archives and possibly making a trip down to browse Special Collections at the McHenry Library, but I've been slammed with work. I anticipate having time to work on it in a few weeks. We've already gotten it to GA, and I'd love to see that article hit FA. After that, I'd like to propose concentrating on a GA -> FA drive for the top-level, University of California article. --Dynaflow babble 23:36, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
No rush for free labor! But yeah, considering how newspapers tend to write about how new developments affect the UC as a whole, developing the main UC article would be easier than, say the UCR article, as there are far more comprehensive references to work with. The main UC article already is pretty good, if a bit too much information and too disorganized for my tastes; a lot of the sections such as "Admissions," and units within "Peripheral enterprises" could be forked off or discussed in other articles that are already there, particularly the national lab articles or other UC campus articles. GA for UC would be relatively easy, but a colossal effort would be required to get it through FA, in my opinion. (UCR is pretty much "built-out," at this point.) Ameriquedialectics 00:48, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
I've gotta say UCSC is definitely the most interesting UC campus. Whoa doggie.Santa Cruz mourns one that didn't get away Ameriquedialectics 03:22, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Project tagging

I have begun the mighty task of tagging UC-related article with the {{WikiProject University of California}} template. I've already tagged every article the {{University of California}} navbox links to, along with every article that's directly in Category:University of California (but not the articles in the subcats). Here's roughly how many articles in each subcat need to be tagged. (I say "roughly", because a few are already tagged.)

I've moved the list to the main project page per discussion below szyslak 05:49, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I didn't link to the alumni cats because it's been generally agreed that students and alumni are not part of this project. There are very few people, aside from athletes, who were mostly notable as UC students (for example, 1960s political activist Mario Savio). However, I did link to the categories of sports team players. Although I don't personally think everyone who played for a UC team should get a UC WikiProject tag, I figure (a) some of you might possibly disagree, and (b) perhaps we could just tag the most notable athletes.

I've assigned quality and importance ratings to the articles I've tagged, but if you run into an article you're not sure how to rate, you can leave it unrated for now, and someone will come along later to rate it. Most of the time, the rating and importance are obvious. And the ratings I assigned haven't been set in stone, so feel free to change them if you disagree. szyslak 12:43, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Note: I've tagged all lists of alumni and "people", but not lists that include only faculty. szyslak 05:50, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Seeing as this is a huge working list I propose moving it to project space, and leaving the athletics, alumni, faculty and various other "people" subcategories for either another project entirely or for a far later stage of this one, i.e. once the various institutional articles and the few important biographies of people critical to the UC's overall development are worked out, which at our current pace would take years. I agree that individual students and alums for the most part should not be a part of the project, (though "student life" and various alumni stats and support organizations would be) and I would go so far as to say that faculty who are not important to the UC's overall institutional development shouldn't be either, i.e. most faculty. (For the most part faculty, unless they are an administrator or some such, are more important for their contributions in their respective fields than for their associations with a university, anyway.) I personally have got little interest in working extensively in athletics articles, and this is where you're likely to encounter both the most adamant editors and the worst POV problems, so I'm willing to leave the various athletics subcategories to editors who mainly care about those aspects of their respective university articles, rather than make athletics a project of this one. Ameriquedialectics 17:45, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Are you saying we shouldn't tag athletics articles? I fully agree UC athletics is not one of our highest priorities as a project (it's certainly not one of my high priorities as an editor). However, I think what really matters is whether the articles are related to UC, not when or if this project will get around to working on them. When we tag an article, we're just saying "This has some significant relation to UC", not "This is something we as project members consider a high priority". So I say we just tag the athletics articles, whether or not any of us do anything about them. But I don't support tagging the articles for individual athletes, at least in most cases. Coaches, on the other hand, probably are within our scope, since they're so tied to their schools in the public's perception. (I've even listed John Wooden as an example of a "High"-importance article on the assessment page, though I'm open to choosing a different article).
On the subject of biographies, I agree that most faculty members, like students/alumni, are outside our scope and maybe shouldn't be tagged. For example, a notable anthropology professor at Berkeley is notable because of his anthropology work, not because he works at Berkeley. I've tagged a few such articles, all of which are (perhaps incorrectly) in the cats for the main UC articles. But I might just take them off, and the rest of you can feel free to do so too. Of course, lists of faculty (and even alumni) are well within our scope. And well they should be, because many of these lists need help. szyslak 01:27, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
I'd rather leave the sports aspect to people working on the individual university articles than make it an agenda of a systemwide project. I mean, Cal football only represents the university at Berkeley, likewise UCLA etc. That's my opinion. Ameriquedialectics 04:29, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
Not that anything is "incorrect." Everything is a matter of opinion, you know. But even John Wooden is only affiliated with UCLA. gotta go Ameriquedialectics 04:54, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
Of course! We're a new project, and not everything is settled yet. We'll come to a firm decision on such matters in due time. For now, I don't plan on tagging athletics articles, and none are tagged yet, except for a few templates that were tagged some time ago. On the separate issue of faculty bios, I went back and untagged the few I'd already tagged via TW rollback. szyslak 05:39, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tagging category pages

When tagging non article pages please take the time to learn how to do it correctly. Category pages should be tagged using the following tag

{{WikiProject University of California|class=Cat|importance=NA}}

Dbiel (Talk) 18:55, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

This was my fault. I have fixed the categories that I had previously mis-tagged, and will make a note of the proper format so that I won't make the same mistake again. --UC Bill (talk) 23:11, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The Preuss School UCSD

You guys want to review this article currently at FAC? Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/The Preuss School UCSD. Ameriquedialectics 18:17, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Image:UCLA Bruins Logo.png usage

I would like to inform this project that the image in this title does not conform with Wikipedia:NFCC#10c: (c) The name of each article (a link to the articles is recommended as well) in which fair use is claimed for the item, and a separate fair-use rationale for each use of the item, as explained at Wikipedia:Non-free use rationale guideline. The rationale is presented in clear, plain language, and is relevant to each use. Rather than remove each use which does not have a rationale right now, I'm giving advance notice that I will do so in the near future. I have put this page on my watchlist, so feel free to reply here if you'd like.--Rockfang (talk) 20:57, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Ha ha. Issues like this are exactly why I didn't want this project to focus on athletic articles. that logo only has one rationale and links to 21 different articles. there is no way I'm writing 20 separate fair use rationales. Feel free to remove all out of policy appearances, anyone who wants to put the image back up can bother with justifying it. Ameriquedialectics 21:14, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Be sure to get these too: Image:StanfordCardinal.png. Ameriquedialectics 21:36, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Updated with fur templates. Group29 (talk) 18:11, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Good Lord, that might just cause BetacommandBot to explode. Seriously though, as much as I think the main drivers of the WP:FUC policy page have gone overboard in recent months in making it as difficult as possible to use non-free media, I just have to ask: Are we justified in using UCLA's trademarked athletic logo that promiscuously? I'm sure the article on the band would be much better illustrated with a picture of ... well ... the band. And then there's this, which illustrates an athletic rivalry by setting a couple thumbnails of trademarked logos together, rather than a picture someone -- somewhere -- has to have of the schools' teams actually playing each other.
Wikipedia:WikiProject College Basketball seems to be working on creating articles on each and every year's UCLA men's basketball team (dating back to the mid-'90s as of now), but is it necessary to put the UCLA logo on every one of them? That's half the current usage of the image. Wouldn't team photos or pictures of those teams at play be more appropriate, and failing that, maybe one of those "Do you have a photo of x?" templates to hold the image's place in the infoboxes? This is out of control on college articles in general, but that UCLA logo's usage is particularly egregious. --Dynaflow babble 05:54, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
[UPDATE:] Thanks to Flickr, I found a CC-licensed pic of the band, so that article is now un-FUC'ed. Let's see what else I can find... --Dynaflow babble 06:35, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
UCLA-USC rivalry is now clear of FUCs as well. --Dynaflow babble 07:06, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
Victory Bell (USC-UCLA), cleared. --Dynaflow babble 08:38, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
Lexus Gauntlet is clear. --Dynaflow babble 09:27, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
Way to go on adding the relevant pictures! I am sure that Betacommandbot is made of sterner stuff. See the question on your talk page about the rationale. I read 3c about minimal use. They have danced around the issue and should settle on one use and only on the subject itself. Otherwise we have this kind of problem where "It is OK here, but not here". Group29 (talk) 14:30, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

[The following two posts have been pasted in from User talk:Dynaflow]:

Dynaflow, thanks for uploading the pictures to replace the UCLA and USC athletics logos. I read through Wikipedia:Logos more than once in the past few months. Would you please explain how you interpreted where the UCLA and USC logos are not fair use when used to represent the subjects in question: Victory Bell, UCLA-USC rivalry and Lexus Gauntlet. Thanks, Group29 (talk) 14:22, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I am going by the overarching Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria policy and the guidelines at Wikipedia:Non-free content, rather than just the Wikipedia:Logos guideline. In a nutshell, it is not that the use of the logos wasn't fair-use (by domestic copyright law) at the articles in which they were placed, per se, but that the way they were being used was at odds with how the Community has decided it wants to work with non-free content vis-a-vis free content.
Specifically:
    • WP:FUC #3 calls for keeping use of non-free media to an absolute minimum: "As few non-free content uses as possible are included in each article and in Wikipedia as a whole. Multiple items are not used if one will suffice; one is used only if necessary." If it's not absolutely necessary to include a piece of non-free media, then it shouldn't be included.
    • WP:FUC #8 says that, "Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding." For example, Image:UCLA Bruins Logo.png's use at UCLA Bruins would be acceptable because it shows the official logo of the entity which is the article's primary focus, and it is definitely germane, encyclopedic content when included there. The article would be poorer for the loss of it. On the other hand, the primary focus of the Lexus Gauntlet article is the competition over this thing. The use of Image:UCLA Bruins Logo.png (as well as Cal's, USC's, and Stanford's logos) as visual markers in subsections of that article was not necessary to the encyclopedic mission of the article, and little, if anything, would be lost by replacing them with something free -- which brings us to...
    • WP:FUC #1, which says, "Non-free content is used only where no free equivalent is available, or could be created, that would serve the same encyclopedic purpose. Where possible, non-free content is transformed into free material instead of using a fair-use defense, or replaced with a freer alternative if one of acceptable quality is available; "acceptable quality" means a quality sufficient to serve the encyclopedic purpose. (As a quick test, ask yourself: "Can this image be replaced by a different one that has the same effect, or adequately conveyed by text without using a picture at all?" If the answer is yes, the image probably does not meet this criterion.)" The answer was "yes" for the images I took out and replaced with free content. --Dynaflow babble 18:25, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] UC portal?

In line with developing the main UC article to GA, would it feasible to develop a UC portal? My coding skills are not that good, so someone else should probably initiate this, but here are some models we could use: Portal:University, Portal:University of Texas at Austin. A list of FA portals here: Wikipedia:Featured_portals. Ameriquedialectics 21:17, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Source of each university's endowment

I looked up a source used to cite the endowment of UC Riverside after an anonymous IP user asked a question about it. The question was answered, but from it, I found that each of the campus article do not use the same source to cite their endowment.

UC Irvine for example has the reported endowment of $189.4 million from the Annual Endowment Report of University of California (AERUC), but UC Irvine's press release reports it to be at $230 million. To make the matter even more cluster-numbered, I remember U.S. News and Report stating the university had $800 million.

UC Berkeley had the reported endowment of $2.4 billion from the AERUC, yet U.S. News and Reports states it to be over $3 billion.

Granted, the AERUC's report is somewhat outdated by a year, but it's probably the only authoritative source (against U.S. News and Reports) and puts all campuses under the same standards (unlike individual news releases by each campus). So should we use AERUC as our universal source despite it being outdated by one year or use the latest that are found from elsewhere?

--BirdKr (talk) 17:14, 2 March 2008 (UTC)


I would be for it, but I am also ok with using more recent campus press releases for this information, until the AERUC is updated again. I don't know what is holding the UCOP back from publishing an updated endowment report, but I would think the more recent endowment information provided by individual UC campuses is trustworthy. Just as long as the ref for this isn't US News, I'm ok with listing whatever figure that is supported by a UC source. Ameriquedialectics 17:55, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll be revising the UC articles that are using the U.S. News Report to cite the endowment numbers in a few hours. --BirdKr (talk) 20:50, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
It's done. I'll check up on UCOP often for the latest version--BirdKr (talk) 04:04, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
. An encyclopedia article should contain only information from authoritative sources. For UC endowment figures this would mean the AERUC or a press release from the University of California or a specific UC Campus, with preference given to the latest published reliable source. I agree with Amerique's suspicion that some media sources are lumping assets into their endowment figures that are not typically considered part of the endowment (see Talk:University_of_California,_San_Diego#Endowment and Talk:University_of_California,_Davis#Endowment for more discussion of this). I view the publication of larger numbers from non-authoritative sources (typically seen from anonymous IP posters) as a form of well-intended boosterism, but boosterism nonetheless.-- Vantelimus (talk) 19:03, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Renomed UCR for FAC

Those of you who were not involved in the last FAC please review this article. Ameriquedialectics 19:03, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] FYI: Someone nominated 2 UC student orgs for deletion

— Ameriquedialectics 21:28, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Yes!

[4]. The GimmeBot hasn't gotten to it yet, but it looks like University of California, Riverside just became WP:UC's first featured article. szyslak (t) 00:54, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Drinks are on me. Ameriquedialectics 02:09, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Celebrate!
Celebrate!
Once we're finished with Amerique's fine college wines, I'll bring over a few more drinks. Now let's have ourselves a California college party! Next stop, Santa Cruz! szyslak (t) 04:17, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
A California college party at WP:UC!

Newcastle

Sierra Nevada

Natty Light

Good work!Vantelimus (talk) 05:29, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] UC Template image

Hello all,

Any concerns or suggestions re: the image that goes in the UC template box?

I switched out this image of the map

with this pic of the "Fiat Lux" star above Sather Gate.


Dynaflow expresses concern over the Fiat Lux detail here: User_talk:Amerique#UC_template. I've copied my response to his talk page and open the matter up for further discussion here. Ameriquedialectics 21:08, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

  • The map image is great on the UC page because it is big enough to see the data. It doesn't work well for the UC Template box. A straight image of california without the campus locations would be better if you are going to change it back. I like the "Fiat Lux" star above Sather Gate image, but then again, I'm partial to the Berkeley campus and my preference may be due to that bias. The only problem with the "Fiat Lux" star is that it might not be emblematic enough for people who aren't familiar with the university system motto. Is there a copyright/trademark problem with using the University seal in the template box? Vantelimus (talk) 23:16, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes. --Dynaflow babble 23:27, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I posted this over at Template_talk:University_of_California, but I figured it's more relevant here. The university seal was adopted in 1910[5], and is thus in the public domain. See WP:Public_domain. It is not subject to copyright, so we don't have to worry about fair use. Though it's still a trademark. See WP:Logos. I think, correct me if I'm wrong, we can use the seal in the template. Nguyenmdk (talk) 08:15, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not a lawyer, but as far as I can tell, the seal still being in active use as a trademark means that it's not "free" and thus Wikipedia:Non-free content guidelines apply. I personally don't care, I even think it's a great idea, but putting the seal in the template would reproduce it all over the UC articles and thus violate the minimal use provisions of Wikipedia policy. I wouldn't be the one to revert for doing that, but plenty of other people will. Ameriquedialectics 14:49, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
I was think the same rationale that applies to Notre_dame_coat_of_arms.png applies here. That image was incorporated into Template:University_of_Notre_Dame. I think trademarks that aren't copyrighted are not WP:NFC, those guidelines seem to only deal with copyrighted works. Can anyone elaborate? Also, if this my theory is correct it would seem that there are a lot of images throughout wikipedia have their licensing info wrong. eg. Image:Harvard_shield-University.png, Image:Official_Yale_Shield.png (I'm betting these are pretty old seeing as how those universities are over 300 years old)Nguyenmdk (talk) 01:42, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
I find that argument persuasive re: Notre Dame's coat of arms, also per the further rationales on that image's talk page. There tends to be an atmosphere of "more heat than light" in discussions on WP surrounding free/fair use distinctions... not everyone is operating on the same "page," as it were. If you'd like to upload a clean version of the "unofficial seal" with a transparent background for use in the template I'd support using that for both the UC and UC wikiproject templates, but I'd expect it to draw controversy. Best, Ameriquedialectics 02:34, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I've thought about this and looked a few things up. Characterizing the UC seal as being in the public domain simply because its copyright has expired is incorrect. Something in the public domain may be used for any purpose by anyone. Trademarked intellectual property confers certain proprietary rights upon its owners, including the right to restrict its use in a number of circumstances. It cannot be used by just anyone for just anything. This makes trademarked content and public-domain content mutually exclusive; trademarks (which never expire as long as they continue to be used and defended) are non-free content by definition, regardless of copyright status.
Treatment of trademarks with lapsed copyrights as "free content" in Wikipedia will be frowned upon by the same logic that makes media licensed under the Creative Commons Noncommercial license unsuitable for general use here: because users are barred from using it in a certain range of possibly-desired applications, it is not truly free/libre content. The spirit of WP:NFCC, as it currently stands, would therefore call for us to treat the UC seal like any other non-free media, including the requirements that its use be kept to an absolute minimum and that it should appear only in the main article space -- both of which would preclude its use in template-space. </wet-blanketism> --Dynaflow babble 07:48, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Requested further clarification here. Ameriquedialectics 18:32, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Cory Hall

Cory Hall has been prod'd, encase you guys missed it. --Falcorian (talk) 16:11, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I can't find any good refs for it. Why not just fold all that to University of California, Berkeley Campus Architecture? Ameriquedialectics 20:42, 21 May 2008 (UTC)