This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

You're correct in what you say.

But academic boosterism is a perpetual problem with Wikipedia. The peacock feathers grow, and grow, and grow, and there is a continual need to prune them. In the past it was a problem with Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, too, by the way.

One reason for having a section on "Ranking and Reputation" is that if there is such a section, the boosters are usually willing to at least keep all the rankingcruft in that section. If there isn't, I think you will find that rankingcruft tends to make its way into the lead paragraph. Or, even worse, statements like "[XYZ university] is generally regarded as among the most prestigious in the world."

I hope your edit remains stable. However, if I see rankings in the lead section I intend to re-create a "ranking and reputation section" again. I try to put sections like that around third or fourth down, but people keep moving them up... Dpbsmith (talk) 20:41, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

You left a note on the talk page of US Battlefield UAVs (1) offering to help with cleanup. That page is a subpage for History of unmanned aerial vehicles which is undergoing a massive rewrite and reorganization to do just what you suggested. The page you left your note on will eventually be eliminated, with all the model-specific info being moved to model-specific pages, and the general history content moved back over to the main page. If you still want to help, you are invited to join the fun...more info, to-do and done lists are on the talk page for History of unmanned aerial vehicles Akradecki 16:39, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

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Could you share the explanation of your username?

I have this mental picture of a room with a wall covered with Mad Magazine covers, perhaps arranged so as to spell out Tech is Hell. Dpbsmith (talk) 02:31, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

It's just a long-standing username of mine has stood the test of time since no one ever has registered it for anything. When I was growing up, my friends and teachers often said I resembled Alfred E. Neuman, so I kept the name. Madcoverboy 04:18, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi! You might be interested in Wikipedia:WikiProject History of Science (which also deals with all things STS).-- ragesoss 21:20, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for uploading Image:MIT companies.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable under fair use (see our fair use policy).

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Why remove Lobby_7.JPG, a fairly good-looking picture, when the view of the campus looking east is an abomination? If any picture should be deleted, that's the one. Michael Hardy 04:06, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

On the merits of the picture, I felt Lobby_7.jpg was (1) duplicated by Mass_av_77.jpg with regard to showing the same building, (2) was somewhat overexposed with the light through the windows, (3) did not really convey the details, scale, or impact of the room. The fact that the pictures on the right seem to run into other sections is a problem, so I chose to remove this picture based on the (lack) of merit as well as the length of the thumbnail. I like the east-looking from west campus picture because it does an adequate job of placing MIT within a larger geographical context as well as presenting a different perspective from the rest of the "gee-whiz" Neo-Classical and post-modern building pictures. Madcoverboy 05:39, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Dear Madcoverboy,

After seeing the excellent work that you've been doing on the MIT page, I just wanted to say hello. I nominated the Ohio Wesleyan University page in the FAC process a few days ago and it you think that my experience with the page might be helpful in any way, do let me know. I'd love to help out if I can. LaSaltarella 23:15, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Just a note to let you know that when you reverted some vandalism to Rail Transport, you didn't revert it completely: a lot of stuff that the vandal had omitted was left out after you removed the inappropriate text. I've put it back now, and also added a standard warning to the user's page who vandalised the article. Best wishes.  DDStretch   (talk) 20:36, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

		The TomStar81 Spelling Award
		Be it known to all members of Wikipedia that Madcoverboy has corrected my god-awful spelling on the page Armament of the Iowa class battleship, and in doing so has made an important and very significant contribution to the Wikipedia community, thereby earning this TomStar81 Spelling Award and my deepest thanks. Keep up the good work! TomStar81 ( Talk) 02:28, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I added about three paragraphs about indepdence all by itself, I hope that is not too much. I tried to see what POV issues in the culture article are, but I think I caught them all. The bit about the festivals and parades were mentioned by the Belarusian Embassy, so I wanted to make some mention. I also revamped the sections on the food, drink, music and dress. I hope you like it. :) User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 06:43, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

The inaugural March 2007 issue of the WikiProject History of Science newsletter has been published. You're receiving this because you are a participant in the History of Science WikiProject. You may read the newsletter or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Yours in discourse-- ragesoss 04:17, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

For your contributions to Wikipedia and humanity in general, you are hereby granted the coveted Random Smiley Award
originated by Pedia-I
( Explanation and Disclaimer)

♠ TomasBat ( @)( Contribs)( Sign!) 21:20, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I hope you won't be sorry that I'm starting to look at the MIT article again. Dpbsmith (talk) 20:29, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Nice job on that article, as well as seeding the Haus article. Much appreciated. Birge 15:34, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

The May 2007 issue of the WikiProject History of Science newsletter has been published. You're receiving this because you are a participant in the History of Science WikiProject. You may read the newsletter or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Yours in discourse-- ragesoss 06:33, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

In this edit you changed a statement that MIT has about 6000 graduate students to one that MIT enrolls about 6000 graduate students ANNUALLY. If you consider that average time spent getting a PhD must be at least three years, that would imply there are more than 18000 graduate students. That seems WAY too high (especially since the three-year average seems like an underestimate, so the figure would probably be even higher). Do you have any source for that figure? Previously it said MIT has about 6000 graduate students, which seems plausible, and someone has recently changed it back to that. Michael Hardy 03:07, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

In your peer review of Georgia Institute of Technology, you said that "Citations are a little bit lacking in many areas (but good use of existing citation templates)" ... would you mind going through the article and using {{ fact}} in areas that need it? I've just written an alumni section, and I've got the material to reference it out the wazoo, I'm just not sure how deeply I need to cite the article. — Disavian ( ^talk/ _contribs) 06:32, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I saw that you removed the phrase "highly selective" from the Middlebury College article. I tend to agree now that it does not have a place in the lead, at least in the first sentence, but I think we should then be consistent and remove it from other colleges' articles, like Amherst College and Williams College. Thoughts? -- Cielomobile ^{talk / contribs} 03:31, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for uploading Image:MIT-seal.gif. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

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I am not sure if you are an Aggie or not, but your changes on the FTAB have been pretty good.

Howdy! As a current or past contributor to a related article, I thought I'd let you know about WikiProject Texas A&M, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Texas A&M University. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks and related articles. Thanks and Gig 'em! Oldag07 06:34, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

BTW Yes, I am a hardcore aggie. I know the importance of the band and such. however if the school is only ranked "high", than the band should not be ranked at the same level. Thanks and Gig Em! Oldag07 06:34, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I've been dithering with the concept of reducing the size of the article for some time. Your actions have now broken the ice. Thanks. Regarding academic boosterism, yep - it's an issue, especially FSU and UF.

How about nominating History of FSU for DYK? Majoreditor 17:29, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Never did that before, but sounds like a fine idea. I'll research it. Sirberus 18:54, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Personal Fancruft

		The Copyeditor's Barnstar
		In the Wikipedia tradition, I award you the " The Copyeditor's Barnstar" for bringing the article on Florida State University to a substantially higher standard of quality and organization...even though this award, given with sincere appreciation, is likely to be regarded as mere clutter and cruft on your userpage (lol). Sirberus 11:58, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments on my FA nomination of Confederate government of Kentucky. I have responded to the comments as best I can. I have also asked editors from related WikiProjects to see if they can address your concerns. I hope you will eventually consider supporting this nomination. I would also like more information on how you think the lead needs to be reworked. Admittedly, I wrote most of the prose and may be too close to it to see the errors, so specifics are necessary. Thanks. Acdixon 18:06, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry if I am coming across as a pest, but the FA vote on this article is quite close right now, and I'd like to take additional steps to garner your support if possible. Significant changes have been made by myself and North Shoreman over the last several days. If you can now support it, that would be great. If not, specific instances of what needs to be improved are appreciated. Thanks. Acdixon 14:06, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I think I found everything that you are looking for; I still do not know who were the major players in making the document happen, other than the guy who signed it into law. I don't know what were the exact issues that had to be debated for 3 years, but the dissolving of the Supreme Soviet and the blocking of reforms by them was an issue. I added more into the influences that I could find, but most government sources stated that they wanted to introduce dying out Belarusian traditions and base the document from others that withstood time, like the US Constitution. The Belarus Constitution didn't influence others yet. I have not seen much academic or judicial work mentioning about the amendments themselves, since most of the talk about the document were the changes made in 1996 and 2004. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 05:24, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Since the FAC page is getting to large, I will post some of my findings. Belarus, to my knowledge or by research, has never been under a state of emergency before. Democracy groups have mused about the idea of a state of emergency if Lukashenko loses an election in the future. [1] [2] Others thought Lukashenko would use this move to stop elections in 2001 [3], but it was never done. There is a national law dealing with the state of emergency and martial law, according to Article 63 of the Constitution. The Council of the Republic under Article 98 have to approve the actions within three days after the President issues the order. I need to find the law in Russian (maybe English) to see what it says. Section V deals with local government and what rights they have. The equivalent to states in Belarus are called Oblasts. There are cities within the oblasts and they have their own governments. Local taxes can be collected, but I am not sure what the tax system in Belarus is set up like. The national budget is passed by the House of Representatives, but I need to read up more on it. There is an oversight committee mentioned in the Constitution I don't know what laws were in conflict, but that is what the Implementation law was passed. As for is this is a response to the Soviet system, all I know it is trying to bring back Belarusian traditions that were lost due to Rusification. I do not know if this was a direct response to Soviet-policies, but Rusification was an official Soviet policy when Khrushchev was in power. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 20:11, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I have addressed many of the issues you raised in your comment, and replied to the rest with counterarguments. I would appreciate it if you would review the changes. Anomie 16:30, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I am again waiting for your response to my replies. Anomie 19:00, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I am curious as to why you moved some of Northwestern's buildings into one page without discussion or consensus? Many had the potential to be greatly expanded (e.g. Dearborn Observatory) and most other Universities have separate pages for buildings of significance. if anything, Deering Library should be merged into the University library page since it is technically part of the main library now....- AKeen 01:55, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree. The result of your efforts is a huge, unwieldy article. An article on a list of Northwestern buildings is appropriate, but it shouldn't be a merge from all individual articles. It should be a concise list, linking out to the main articles. johnpseudo 04:02, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I see now the conversation you've had with AKeen. While I agree that the majority of campus building articles are non-notable, I think it's obvious from how unwieldy your "campus building" list and "residences" list have gotten that there are exceptions to the rule. If only to make your lists readable, please leave the more-notable building articles as there are. johnpseudo 04:10, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I was also trying to assume good faith, but was frankly quite shocked to find several articles redirected within minutes. I understand what you are trying to accomplish now with the building compilation page, but not every building is "abandoned" or "stubby" enough to merit redirection. In any case, I think everything is fine now, though I hoped you would have initially sought consensus. Anyway, I commend you efforts to clean up NU articles, many of which drastically need it. I hope we can collaborate on articles in the future. Cheers. - AKeen 05:15, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Since you appear to be significantly better at writing leads than I am, would you care to take a hack at improving the lead on Georgia Institute of Technology? Thanks. — Disavian ( ^talk/ _contribs) 20:08, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

The FAC was closed as not promoted, which is a decision I agree with. I still have a lot of work to do expanding the article content-wise, and a vacation coming up in a few days. Thanks for helping. I'll be sure to notify you when I nominate it again. — Disavian ( ^talk/ _contribs) 00:52, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

As someone with whom I have reviewed or worked with on an article or talk page, I humbly request your assistance in reviewing the Aggie Bonfire page for Featured Article status. Any/all constructive input is welcomed and appreciated on the FAC nomination page, but please read the instructions for reviewing before you make a comment. Thanks in advance for your assistance. — BQZip01 — ^talk 05:22, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

As multiple merges have been proposed, I'm going to discuss them here, despite what you say on the talk page. You are making a mistake to start with MIT. the individual departments of the most famous universities probably have enough famous faculty and graduate,s and references to the departments, to be individually notable. I think such articles should be severely restricted, but removing the articles on the very best departments in one of the worlds best university universities in their subject is not a reasonable way to go about restricting them. Perhaps it might be good to centralize this discussion at one place, and since you are proposing the merges, this seems a practical one. DGG ( talk) 05:15, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

It's not a matter of removing the articles, but redirecting and reincorporating the articles. Coverage of the topics is spotty; I believe a central page might facilitate standardization of structure, coverage, etc until such time that an article could stand on its own without being an indiscriminate list of information/faculty, orphaned/abandoned, or stubby. I certainly agree that many of the MIT departments meet notability requirements to be included within wikipedia, but much works needs to be done to establish why MIT EECS, Mathematics, Economics, Biology, etc. merit their own articles over any of the other similarly notable departments.

In short, redirects are cheap until such time as the article-editing community develops a critical mass. Unfortunately for some reason, editor shortages seem to be endemic to historically notable universities (Ivy League, MIT, Stanford, UChicago, etc.) while there are thriving editor communities among less-notable universities and colleges (Texas A&M, Ohio Wesleyan, Georgia Tech, Michigan State, etc.) -- in the case of MIT and its role in GNU/GPL call it irony, elsewhere call it karma. :) My merge propsals are utilitarian attempts to concentrate efforts among disparate editors rather than wasting time on maintaining "WikiProject MIT" guidelines that no lay editor will pay attention to. When a passing editor attempting to boost the Chemistry department has to come to terms with what a Physics editor has already contributed, one might hope that competition among the disciplines breeds improvement. Madcoverboy 05:36, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Ah, you've found one of the problems: what is a truly major university?--all of us disagree on individual instances of this; I am not fan of anything from Texas, but I think Texas A & M counts as major. One of the problem is that otherwise not quite first rate schools can have isolated good departments. On the other hand, most of MIT's departments are notable. And you've found another--in general, the alumni of some of the best schools have other things to do than write WP articles about their alma mater. However, all WP content is subject to that--there's an inclusion bias in favor of whoever's active. And thus your suggestion that it should depend on the willingness to write a good article is correct--but it leads me to the conclusion that if someone does, it shouldn't be rejected because of a firm rule against such articles. Until we have more experience, perhaps the best thing is to permit some experimentation. DGG ( talk) 06:23, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks for inviting me. I warn you that I don't plan to do much heavy lifting on this, though. Dpbsmith (talk) 17:31, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

XD This is too great! I would have never thought id be in the new york times. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shreveport Paranormal ( talk • contribs) 04:48, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

The September 2007 issue of the WikiProject History of Science newsletter has been published. You're receiving this because you are a participant in the History of Science WikiProject. You may read the newsletter or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Yours in discourse-- ragesoss 01:06, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Well shucks, I see you had added collaborative methods to your list of studies after I had made contributions to it; I feel flattered. Your studies sound interesting, do you have anything fun to share? — Parhamr 06:47, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

The September 2007 issue of the WikiProject Universities newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you for your continued support of WikiProject Universities! -- Noetic Sage 19:39, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

You either nominated a WP:FLC or closed such a nomination this year. As such, you are the type of editor whose opinion I am soliciting. We now have over 400 featured lists and seem to be promoting in excess of 30 per month of late (41 in August and 42 in September). When Today's featured article (TFA) started ( 2004-02-22), they only had about 200 featured articles and were barely promoting 20 new ones per month. I think the quality of featured lists is at least as good as the quality of featured articles was when they started appearing on the main page. Thus, I am ready to open debate on a proposal to institute a List of the Day on the main page with nominations starting November 1 2007, voting starting December 1 2007 and main page appearances starting January 1 2008. For brevity, the proposal page does not discuss the details of eventual main page content, but since the work has already been done, you should consider this proposal assuming the eventual main page will resemble either an excerpted list format or an abbreviated text format. The proposal page does not debate whether starting with weekly list main page entries would be better than daily entries. However, I suspect persons in favor of weekly lists are really voicing opinions against lists on the main page since neither TFA nor Picture of the day started as weekly endeavors, to the best of my knowledge. Right now debate seems to be among support for the current selective democratic/consensus based proposal, a selective dictatorial approach like that used at WP:TFA or a non-selective first in line/calendar approach like that used at WP:POTD. See the List of the Day proposal and comment at WP:LOTDP and its talk page.-- TonyTheTiger ( t/ c/ bio/ tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 18:47, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

The October 2007 issue of the WikiProject Universities newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you for your continued support of WikiProject Universities! — Noetic Sage 19:57, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

List of Massachusetts Institute of Technology departments and laboratories, an article you created, has been nominated for deletion. We appreciate your contributions. However, an editor does not feel that List of Massachusetts Institute of Technology departments and laboratories satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in the nomination space (see also " What Wikipedia is not" and the Wikipedia deletion policy). Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Massachusetts Institute of Technology departments and laboratories and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of List of Massachusetts Institute of Technology departments and laboratories during the discussion but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. Noetic Sage 18:07, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

There have been a series of proposals to initiate a Featured List of the Day on the main page. Numerous proposals have been put forth. After the third one failed, I audited all WP:FL's in order to begin an experiment in my own user space that will hopefully get it going. Today, it commences at WP:LOTD. Afterwards I created my experimental page, a new proposal was set forth to do a featured list that is strikingly similar to my own which is to do a user page experimental featured list, but no format has been confirmed and mechanism set in place. I continue to be willing to do the experiment myself and with this posting it commences. Please submit any list that you would like to have considered for list of the day in the month of January 2008 by the end of this month to WP:LOTD and its subpages. You may submit multiple lists for consideration.-- TonyTheTiger ( t/ c/ bio/ WP:LOTD) 17:58, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

If you have any comments or responses to my (many) merger nominations related to standardizing coverage of MIT-related topics, please leave them on the proposed target articles' talk pages, not here. My likely responses:

• You can either fight an WP:AFD based upon wide consensus on what should be in Wikipedia or keep the content on wikipedia by merging it.
• If I removed the POV, uncited, advertising, fancraft about your non-notable organization, there wouldn't be an article left. Wikipedia is not a soapbox, directory, or indiscriminate collection of information.
• Just because other university groups have stubby and orphaned pages doesn't mean you get to have one too.
• Before you fork content or create a redundant article, expand the existing section on the main article first to demonstrate that it needs a separate article.
• Yes, I am a mergist.

I am standardizing rankings descriptions on (American) university pages. I prefer that university pages not include rankings as all as rankings are POV. Too often some rankings in which a university is well-represented are chosen over others where the university is not in the Top-n. In other cases, universities allude to previously high standing rankings even if they are no longer in high standing. Othertimes, rankings are recontextualized to portray the school better (50th in the nation, but 3rd among Colleges west of the Mississippi, founded in 1859, and with 7 syllables in the title). If an article does have a separate section for rankings, I am listing the university's standings in the all major rankings (USNews, Shanghai Jiao Tong, Times Higher Education, Newsweek Global 100, Washington Monthly, and Center for Measuring University Performance) and deleting uncited boostercruft ("...is regarded/considered/recognized as the best...") to make it as NPOV, verifiable, and least COI as possible. This is my template:

XXX University is ranked YYY among national universities by U.S. News and World Report (USNWR), ^[1] YYY among world universities and YYY among universities in the Americas by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, ^[2] YYY among world universities and YYY in North America by The Times Higher Education Supplement, ^[3] YYY among national universities by The Washington Monthly, ^[4] YYY among "global universities" by Newsweek, ^[5] and in the YYY tier among national universities by The Center for Measuring University Performance. ^[6]

USNWR ranks XXX School of Business YYY, ^[7] School of Law YYY, ^[8] School of Medicine YYY in research and YYY in primary care, ^[9] the School of Engineering YYY, ^[10] and the School of Education YYY. ^[11]

I'm a student at MIT; I actually went to the MIT news office, human resource office, and alumni association last week, asking them to update the website to include (at least) the visiting scholars/professors at MIT. However, MIT refused to do so. Other colleges (like Harvard, Columbia, and Cambridge) all include visiting scholars/professors and also those part-time students in their total Nobel count. I think MIT deserves the same attention. —Preceding unsigned comment added by MITBeaverRocks ( talk • contribs) 07:33, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

The November 2007 issue of the WikiProject Universities newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you for your continued support of WikiProject Universities! Noetic Sage 19:53, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointers-- I am in the process of learning how best to get the students to both produce the work and get it formatted properly. It is a mixed bag in terms of how responsive they are. After my experience this quarter I have some ideas about how to get better compliance with formats. The difficulty is that most of them have no mark-up language experience whatsoever, and the topic is new to them, so for some, proper formatting is their last priority. My plan is to offer extra credit to those who can learn the proper formatting of particular aspects, and then encourage them to clean up as many of the articles in our project as possible. We will see if that works. Best, -- Htw3 18:22, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! And thanks for your helpful suggestions. Dylan 08:04, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Hey, I just wanted to let you know that I have started the COTF project. Please nominate your article for the Editor Nominated Topic ASAP. We'll have results for our first COTF on Thursday, 06 DEC 2007. The First COTF will span from 07 DEC 2007 ~ 20 DEC 2007. This will give us time to experiment with the project and measure the level of our success. As always, I appreciate feedback. Sorry if the instructions seem like I'm the COTF dictator. I'm just trying to get things running...and when we get things on the road we can talk about rotating the moderator position as necessary. Thanks for your support thus far! - Jameson L. Tai ^{talk ♦ contribs} 07:57, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi! Just wanted to let you know that significant changes have been made (including a copyedit) on the Lance Bass article that you opposed over at FAC. I've also left comments on some of your suggestions for improvement. Thanks. -- MgCupcake ( talk) 06:53, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Please place your name in the UNI/COTF Active Editors section if you would like to be contacted regarding RfCs, news, notices, etc that are pertinent to the COTF project. Thanks! - Jameson L. Tai ^{talk ♦ contribs} 11:27, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Hey! I was just reminding you that a new round of WP:UNI/COTF will start this Friday. Please feel free to nominate the next Editor Nominated Topic by this Thursday on the WP:UNI/COTF#Nominations page. Thanks! - Jameson L. Tai ^{talk ♦ contribs} 01:23, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I just wanted to let you know that Louis Slotin was copyedited by Awadewit. I would appreciate it if you could revisit the article, and make any other article suggestions at the FAC. Thanks, Nishkid64 ( talk) 01:05, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

The current University Collaborations of the Month are Ohio State University & Princess Nora bint Abdul Rahman University
Every month two B-, C- or Start-Class higher education-related articles are chosen for you to improve. Be bold! This COTM is organized by WikiProject Higher Education. ( vote for future collaborations or see past collaborations) This collaboration is effective: May 20, 2011 — June 20, 2011 until someone updates it. Pick the next WikiProject Higher Education COTM!

The new WikiProject Universities Collaboration of the Fortnight has been set and a new round will start on Dec 21 2007 and will last through New Years until Jan 03 2008. This will give our fellow editors time to celebrate as well as focus on getting Harvard University up to GAN/FAR.

Please express your opinions, problems, hardships, challenges, comments, questions, or other words of wisdom regarding this COTF to the COTF talk page's COTF 2 Talk Topics.

Happy Holidays and Happy Editing!

- Jameson L. Tai ^{talk ♦ contribs} 04:42, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Hey, I saw the note you left on Talk:Juno (film). The plot you've written looks pretty good but I'm no real judge as I'm not too active in film articles. In case you're interested, I just wanted to point out WP:MOSFILM#Plot as a general guideline for writing plot sections, since you asked. • 97198 talk 08:42, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

I left a note on the talk page about this issue. Cheers, Melty girl ( talk) 18:57, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

The December 2007 issue of the WikiProject Universities newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you for your continued support of WikiProject Universities! — Noetic Sage 23:33, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, Madcoverboy/Archive 1. May 2008 bring you many successful edits, featured articles, and less disagreements! Stay safe, and watch those broken bottles on the floor.

- Jameson L. Tai ^{talk ♦ contribs} 05:54, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

The current University Collaborations of the Month are Ohio State University & Princess Nora bint Abdul Rahman University
Every month two B-, C- or Start-Class higher education-related articles are chosen for you to improve. Be bold! This COTM is organized by WikiProject Higher Education. ( vote for future collaborations or see past collaborations) This collaboration is effective: May 20, 2011 — June 20, 2011 until someone updates it. Pick the next WikiProject Higher Education COTM!

Yes, it's that time again. New articles have been added. I finished this process early because I'll be running around packing and sorting out Friday's weather patterns so I can get back to Florida in time. Just in case things don't go well, at least I don't sabotage the COTF program. Anyways, the three new articles will start on Friday and you may edit the three technically still in COTF (although I've placed the collaboration-past tags already) or you may start editing early.

Here's something I want to try, start treating it as a peer review. Start by skimming through the article, making sure the article fits our article guidelines. Then review for content: any copyvio, notability issues, reference listings, following the Manual of Style.

And here's something even more radical. See if you can attract authors currently maintaining the different COTF articles to join our WikiProject and better yet, our COTF project. I found when I started this program, jumping ships and editing other universities' articles was a big leap, but it's been very fun so far. I'd like to see more people actively participating.

Let's start off the new year the right way. I want to see those articles in GAR and FAN soon. I was sad we didn't have enough people working on the Harvard article to push it to FA or GA. But no matter, let's start fresh and begin! Hope everyone had a good holiday vacation (and if you didn't get a vacation, I hope you got a lot of double time). - Jameson L. Tai ^{talk ♦ contribs} 10:42, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

The current University Collaborations of the Fortnight are:
Editor Nominated Topic	Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
B-Class Improvement Drive	California Institute of Technology
Start/ Stub Improvement Drive	Berklee College of Music
Every fortnight three higher education-related topics, stubs, or red linked articles are chosen for you to improve. Be bold! This COTF is organized by Wikipedia:WikiProject Universities. ( Nominate future collaborations or see past collaborations.) This WP:UNI/COTF is effective: Jan 04 2008 ~ Jan 17 2008.

Round 4 has begun! - Jameson L. Tai ^{talk ♦ contribs} 06:38, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

The current University Collaborations of the Fortnight are:
Editor Nominated Topic	University of Kent
B-Class Improvement Drive	University of Colorado at Boulder
Start/ Stub Improvement Drive	University of California, San Francisco
Every fortnight three higher education-related topics, stubs, or red linked articles are chosen for you to improve. Be bold! This COTF is organized by Wikipedia:WikiProject Universities. ( Nominate future collaborations or see past collaborations.) This WP:UNI/COTF is effective: Feb 01 2008 ~ Feb 14 2008.

Sorry about the late notice. My 21st birthday was on Wednesday and I was pretty much sick all day Thursday, so I wasn't able to get a chance to do this. Anyways, three new articles.

Note: I didn't place the Portal on the ENT because I felt that the portal was more like a collection of articles rather than an actual article focused on the university. This semi-goes against our original goals of the COTF in which university articles would get attention first before handling the subarticles. (Portal is more like a collection of articles). Anyways, if you believe it should be back on the ENT, I'll make sure it'll be Round 6's ENT, so if you do feel it should, talk on the COTF talk page.

Oh yeah, I hope the coding works. I'm using WP:AWB to do signpost delivery by "Append Text"...hoping that it'll work. If this comes out horribly, please let me know if I haven't already fixed the error(s).

Any personal questions regarding the management and coding of this program should be directed to me talk page. Thank you for your understanding. - Jameson L. Tai ^{talk ♦ contribs} 09:00, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

The January 2008 issue of the WikiProject Universities newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you for your continued support of WikiProject Universities! — Noetic Sage 22:01, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

The current University Collaborations of the Fortnight are:
Editor Nominated Topic	University of Phoenix
B-Class Improvement Drive	United States Military Academy
Start/ Stub Improvement Drive	Rollins College
Every fortnight three higher education-related topics, stubs, or red linked articles are chosen for you to improve. Be bold! This COTF is organized by Wikipedia:WikiProject Universities. ( Nominate future collaborations or see past collaborations.) This WP:UNI/COTF is effective: Feb 15 2008 ~ Feb 28 2008.

Enjoy! - Jameson L. Tai ^{talk ♦ contribs} 05:39, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Io. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.115.166.158 ( talk) 06:13, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you bro for your appreciation Syed Fayyaz Abbas ( talk) 00:22, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks man. Here, have one on the house: {{ Blunt}}

ˉˉ ^anetode ╦╩ 19:03, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

The February 2008 issue of the WikiProject Universities newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you for your continued support of WikiProject Universities! —Delivered on 19:20, 5 March 2008 (UTC) by MiszaBot ( talk)

I don't know if I'd call it a flamewar, that's a little much isn't it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Grant.Alpaugh ( talk • contribs) 05:25, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Well I'm on your side against the troll. :) Madcoverboy ( talk) 05:32, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Are you suggesting I'm a drive by admin [4]? How does creating a small group of dedicated "ITN admins" solve the problem that ITN was stale for a considerable period recently? -- Step hen 01:08, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Hope everyone got a good two week rest in observance of Spring Break. Here are the new articles for the next fourteen days until 27 Mar 2008.

The current University Collaborations of the Fortnight are:
Editor Nominated Topic	King's College London
B-Class Improvement Drive	Clemson University
Start/ Stub Improvement Drive	University of Hong Kong
Every fortnight three higher education-related topics, stubs, or red linked articles are chosen for you to improve. Be bold! This COTF is organized by Wikipedia:WikiProject Universities. ( Nominate future collaborations or see past collaborations.) This WP:UNI/COTF is effective: Mar 14 2008 ~ Mar 27 2008.

I've taken advice to purposefully scramble the articles so they must be multi-nation (so we don't get complaints that it's too US-centric). This time we've got an article in UK, one in US, and one in HKG. Hope this will suffice. As always, please let me know if there are any questions. - Jameson L. Tai ^{talk ♦ contribs} 23:04, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

The current University Collaborations of the Fortnight are:
Editor Nominated Topic	Kennesaw State University
B-Class Improvement Drive	Columbia University
Start/ Stub Improvement Drive	Chulalongkorn University
Every fortnight three higher education-related topics, stubs, or red linked articles are chosen for you to improve. Be bold! This COTF is organized by Wikipedia:WikiProject Universities. ( Nominate future collaborations or see past collaborations.) This WP:UNI/COTF is effective: Mar 28 2008 ~ Apr 10 2008.

OK... so Columbia's a B-class article looking at FA nomination. Let's see if we can push it through FAN! (And good luck to anyone who speaks Thai and can translate the Thai version of Chulalongkorn University article into English) See you all 5 days before tax day (for those of us who are US taxpayers)! - Jameson L. Tai ^{talk ♦ contribs} 03:44, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

The March 2008 issue of the WikiProject Universities newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you for your continued support of WikiProject Universities! —Delivered on 18:00, 31 March 2008 (UTC) by MiszaBot ( talk)

...a bunch for the star! :D — 97198 talk 03:41, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Hey! Do you know when were going to get that new part of ITN up and running? Because again in ITN/C we have the issue again. Spencer ^{T♦ C} 21:44, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

"restore 2008 Summer Olympics torch relay for MainPage balance. Incoming TFA is quite long." Or you could have promoted the items for Lorenz and Wheeler that have strong consensus for promotion. ;) Madcoverboy ( talk) 02:35, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Are you MAD, Coverboy? The ITN death criteria are sacrosanct !!!!! I dare not violate them....  :-)

Seriously, I indeed have looked at the two candidate pages. The relevant new material related to Wheeler's death was a single sentence in his wikibio:

On 2008 April 13, John Wheeler died of pneumonia at the age of 96 in Hightstown, New Jersey.

And ditto for Lorenz's wikibio regarding his death:

On April 16th, 2008, Lorenz died at his home in Cambridge at the age of 90, having suffered from cancer.

No background info about events leading up to the death. No info about the aftermaths or implications. (Typical about natural deaths of old, not so active people.) With so little relevant updating, I can't support their inclusion on ITN, a place on MainPage to showcase well updated articles (not to report news). So, I'll pass. Sorry.

BTW, I don't think there is strong consensus at ITN/C to have the two obituaries on ITN. Support appears fairly conditional with "iff". Instead, we may be closer to having consensus for a revolution at ITN. I'd rather have "Biography of the Day" on MainPage, and have obituaries posted there -- outside ITN! -- at midnight UTC the day after they died. But that's just me... Take care. -- PFHLai ( talk) 00:51, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the barnstar! I noticed that you are working on several Northwestern projects right now, so I figured you'd also like to know that I will be taking more pictures of the campus in the future. Paradoxsociety ( talk) 09:05, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

And one thanks from me as well ;-) -- Tone 17:58, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

You seem to be under the false assumption that Suharto did not appear on the main page. He appeared for a week, until the Super Bowl results came in and he was bumped off. Here: [5] Spencer ^{T♦ C} 21:47, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Okay. I'll do my best to continue where you left off. Spencer ^{T♦ C} 01:22, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

The April 2008 issue of the WikiProject Universities newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you for your continued support of WikiProject Universities! —Delivered on 21:31, 2 May 2008 (UTC) by MiszaBot ( talk)

A new May 2008 issue of the WikiProject History of Science newsletter is hot off the virtual presses. Please feel free to make corrections or add news about any project-related content you've been working on. You're receiving this because you are a participant in the History of Science WikiProject. You may read the newsletter or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Yours in discourse-- ragesoss ( talk) 23:35, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

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