User talk:Timrollpickering/Archive 7

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This is an archive of past discussions on my talk page. 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.

AfD nomination of Mark Connelly (historian)

An editor has nominated Mark Connelly (historian), an article on which you have worked or that you created, for deletion. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also "What Wikipedia is not").

Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mark Connelly (historian) and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~).

You may also edit the article during the discussion to improve it but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate. Thank you. BJBot (talk) 01:29, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

London Meetup - January 12, 2008

Hi! There's going to be a London Wikipedia Meetup coming Saturday January 12, 2008. If you are interested in coming along take part in the discussion over at Wikipedia:Meetup/London7. The discussion is going on until tomorrow evening and the official location and time will be published at the same page late Thursday or early Friday. Hope to see you Saturday, Poeloq (talk) 02:33, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

New WP:UNI/COTF!

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)

BATL page move?

Hi Tim

Please see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Barts_and_The_London%2C_Queen_Mary%27s_School_of_Medicine_and_Dentistry#Does_this_page_need_moving.3F

What do you think??

cheers

138.37.199.206 (talk) 11:32, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

WP:UNI/COTF Round 5

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} 09:01, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

The WikiProject Universities Newsletter: Issue V (January 2008)

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 21:59, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Round 6 of University Collaborations of the Fortnight has begun

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)

Post-nominal letters

Hello.

First, thank you for removing that nonsense about post-nominal letters for old boys of various schools. Your prize-giving example was spot-on. I once played in an orchestra for a school light opera production (not my own school) and old boys in the orchestra were identified by the letters OA. However, they wouldn't use these letters in any other setting.

To answer, as best I can, some of your questions:

1). Do the universities all have any official post nominal style to identify the institution? "Exon" and "Ebor" strike me as simply copying the local Bishop's style after "Dunelm" for "Durham" (whereas "Oxon" is the bishop copying the university). And other ones in circulation seem curious - I've read that "Cantuar" is similarly the style for Kent but never seen this myself, and "Cantuar" just means "Canterbury", not "Kent" or "Kent at Canterbury" (the university's original name).

(And if it's based on the bishop then some of the university's newer campuses are under the Bishops of Rochester (Roffen) and Gibraltar in Europe (who doesn't appear to have a style). Putting "BSc (Guildford)" after a Surrey graduate would be especially silly!)

I've tried to deal with this here: Universities_in_the_United_Kingdom#Post-nominal_abbreviations. You give the name of the university, not the name of the city it's in, though in most cases that is the same thing (exceptions being Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Brunel, and the newer universities that have a combination of city and something else, such as Metropolitan or Brookes). Oxon and Cantab were obviously the originals and there's some justification in continuing to use them (though I wouldn't do so myself) merely because they are time-honoured and widely understood. Where there is an episcopal see of the same name graduates of an archaic bent seem to have adopted it. I was once told by somebody in a fairly senior public office that one of his colleagues remarked with absolute seriousness how many members of the Winton family had been bishop of Winchester. So if anyone if going to use the less common Latin terms they should do so with caution!

As for the page of post-nominal letters I'm not sure whether it's appropriate to include the universities. I'd favour something like, 'Degree, which may be followed by the name of the university'. To be complete the list ought to include all the hundred and more universities in the UK, which is not practical.

2). The exact order for listing degrees causes a lot of confusion, particularly when one holds degrees from multiple institutions or with the same names (e.g. someone who holds both an Oxbridge MA and a real MA) or even those who've returned to their first institution for a third degree or studied out of order. Plus do Certificates and Diplomas come between the relevant degrees, before, after or not at all?

For these purposes it doesn't matter whether you think an Oxbridge (or Dublin) MA is a "real" MA. It is still an MA! I'd follow the rule laid down by Oxford in the document I quoted in the Universities in the UK page. The junior degree comes before the senior. To respond to the situations you refer to: John Smith, MA Birmingham, MA Cambridge; John Smith MA Oxford, MA Reading (the universities in alphabetical order). John Smith, BA DD London, MA PhD Manchester. Certs and Dips come after degrees.

3). I don't think the Associateships are actual degrees, and for that matter the other Imperial associateships aren't listed.

As in the American Associates degree, or as in the Associate of the Royal College of Organists? The latter is a degree of sorts, just as a barrister once told me that Utter Barrister is a degree, but it is not what we usually mean by a degree. I should list it after Certs and Dips. It's much the same as a medical qualification - membership of a certain level in a royal college (but equally of a non-royal college like Trinity College London).

4). "Legal Qualifications", "Medical Qualifications" and "Teaching Qualifications" contain a lot of academic awards - should they be separated out or appear alongside the academic ones?

As noted elsewhere, LPC and BVC don't get listed. DipLaw, GradDipLaw, PGDipLaw, GDL, etc could be listed with diplomas. I don't know about teaching qualifications. In the list they are classed as something separate. I don't know if they are. PGCE, CertEd, DipEd, and anything else with Cert or Dip are Certs and Dips and I'd list them as such. The exception is a medical diploma, which is awarded by a royal college rather than a university.

I'd like to make some changes to this list and I wonder if you think I'm right. In particular I want to put everything that is a university degree under degrees. For the purposes of post-nominal letters a medical degree, a law degree, an education degree, a nursing degree, a veterinary degree, etc is a university degree. Indeed in the case of law it is not a qualification to practise law. In the other cases the degree may be a qualification to practise but it can lapse. If a doctor is struck off he doesn't lose his medical degrees unless they are revoked by the university.

As mentioned on the talk page for post-nominals, I'm unhappy about religious orders being listed last. Debrett lists them between university degrees and medical qualifications. I don't think this is right either though I can't find any firm evidence that I am right - just my general experience. In the majority of cases Basil Hume would be described as Basil Hume, OSB, OM. This is not meant to show any disrespect to the Queen though it could be seen to show reverence to God (by whose Grace the Queen is said to reign). Most religious take a new name: thus George Hume becomes Dom Basil Hume OSB. I also quoted Henry Wansbrough, OSB, MA, STL, LSS. The monks and friars at Oxford are always described as John Smith, OP, MA, DPhil or John Smith, SJ, MA, PhD.

Finally, I wonder if some of those letters can be taken out, particularly Stonebridge Associated Colleges. I'm not sure that it deserves a section all of its own.

I'd be interested to know what you think since you seem to have taken an interest in this sort of thing.--Oxonian2006 (talk) 23:49, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

1). I'd agree that copying the Bishop's style is messy. With Latin pretty much defunct as the language of administration in nearly all universities (and towns for that matter as shown by the Bishop of Guildford) it has meant that there's been no obvious answer to this one, resulting in all these various unofficial terms. (The Kent case is further complicated as the uni's name from 1965 to 2003 was the "University of Kent at Canterbury" so basing a postnominal on "Canterbury" rather than "Kent" wouldn't have been that absurd by these standards, and nicking the Archbishop's style follows the way much of Kent's set-up was a conscious imitation of Durham.)

2). We've traded bats over the Oxbridlin "MA" before so I'll duck your bait. The problem here is really over whether or not a degree is an "award" or a "rank" - as I understand it someone who's been admitted to first the BA then the MA at at least one of Oxford/Cambridge/Dublin is strictly regarded as not having the BA anymore, in the same way that someone raised from an MBE to a CBE only has the CBE. And it would not be possible to get the same degree twice. However it's not clear if different institutions are awarding the "same degree" and there's also the case of getting them from the same - e.g. two MAs from the same institution, or from different London/Wales colleges or from the Council for National Academic Awards (incidentally do you know of any style guide that handles them?), or if a more superior degree overrides the existing one (exactly how seniority is determined is anyone's guess!). I've seen this one perplex many. The Oxford style guide is an interesting solution (although as the author seems to think the Aberdeen MA - which is an undergraudate degree - is on the same level as an MSc at most institutions I do wonder if it's fully thought through), but it may clash with some purists whom I've seen assert that there are strictly no equal degrees but everything can be mapped to an exact level, with the date of admission and the foundation date of the institution breaking ties on the same level. I get the impression the current state of affairs is a dog's breakfast with very little attempt to standardise presentation outside of individual institutions (and sometimes not even then - many a university prospectus is inconsistent on the same page!).

3). I was referring to the King's and various Imperial associateships (the latter of which are, AIUI, pretty much just formal membership of the old individual colleges that formed Imperial). From recollection the AKC was always awarded by King's, not the federal university or anywhere else, long before it even thought about degree awarding powers. So this would suggest the AKC is not a degree in the strict sense of the term, hence the confusion.

4). On the changes I'd agree - whilst some degrees are accredited by the various professional bodies, they are first and foremost academic degrees. I'm not at all sure about religious orders as it's a different field I know little about. But the changes you suggest sound good. Timrollpickering (talk) 10:58, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

When I have a spare moment I may well make those changes then.

I do see what you mean now about the standing of different degrees. I think with the OxCamDub MA that it's treated as if the same level as an MA from a modern university. This doesn't really make sense when you consider that a modern (or Scottish) MA requires more work, which would suggest that the OxCamDub one is a lesser degree, and that on the other hand the MA at Oxford, at least, and probably at the others, is in some way one of the highest degrees (in that a person with just an MA ranks above a Doctor of Medicine who is not an MA - though somebody who is an MA and Master of Fine Art ranks above somebody who is just an MA). When I get my Oxford MA I'll be tempted to list Oxford first as it's effectively my undergraduate degree though I think Oxford would tell me to put it second to be alphabetical. I should be becoming a London MA for the second time and I think the answer is that it's just listed once, though I'd be tempted to show off and say MA London (SOAS), MA London (Federal)! I guess most universities have an order of precedence and I would follow that. Practice is very inconsistent Some people say MA, BCL, because the BCL is a postgraduate degree and a higher level than the MA that replaces the BA, but others say BCL, MA, because BCL is bachelor's and MA master's. I do think that it's bad to say, e.g., BA, MA, MA. BA Bristol, MA London, MA Manchester, would be fine of course, to provide a mini CV, but on an envelope, if you're putting degrees, which personally I think is just about ok, John Smith, Esq., MA is surely enough.--Oxonian2006 (talk) 18:27, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

The Oxford order of precedence is frankly down right confusing. There's presumably a reason why the MA on its own ranks above so many of the higher degrees on their own but I can't fathom it, unless it has something to do with the old membership of Convocation. Oxbridge degrees confuse things far, far too much on this. I'd say put them in the order of level - so it should be MA, BCL because the latter is a postgraduate degree and the former isn't (in the sense that there's no study at Level M).

I don't think just putting the highest degree helps either - especially as MA on its own is commonly understood to mean one has an Oxbridlin or Scottish Ancient MA, not a postgraduate degree. Also the rule "only the highest in a particular 'faculty'" doesn't work either as for a lot of subjects, particularly in social sciences, whether you get a BA/MA or BSc/MSc can come down to accidents of history. I suppose for an envelope "BA (Brist), MA (Lond), MA (Manc)" would do the trick. Now what happens if the person is "BA (Brist), MSc (Lond), PhD (Brist)"? Timrollpickering (talk) 19:54, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the MA until recently meant membership of Convocation and brought with it the right to elect the Chancellor and Professor of Poetry. I'm not sure whether it's still a requirement for membership of Congregation but I think it isn't. From what I can tell the Vice-Chancellor himself is not an Oxford MA - he is known as John Hood MPhil (BE PhD Auckland) - another Oxford peculiarity of listing its own degree without "Oxford" and then other degrees in brackets. Following Oxford's Calendar advice I should say BA PhD Bristol, MSc London. As for the envelope, style guides will tell you that no degree is placed on an envelope other than DD. Indeed, for a doctor I would put Dr John Smith, unless he is John Smith, Esq., DD (or The Revd John Smith, DD). But my all means in an academic rather than social setting you would want to list all of the degrees.--Oxonian2006 (talk) 14:57, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I've recently received the latest copy of Transactions of the Burgon Society. Since the BS studies academic dress and postnominals are related as an outward symbol of academia, it might be worth seeing how they list them on their officer list (also onlien at http://www.burgon.org.uk/society/officers.php ). Extracts include:

Professor William Gibson MA (Wales), PhD (Middlesex), DLitt (Wales), FRHistS, FRSA, FBS

Which suggests the level of the degree takes precedence over putting all the ones from a single institution together.

Elizabeth Scott, MSc (Salford), B.Med.Sci (Sheff), BSc (Nott Trent), DPSN (OHN), CMIOSH, MIIRSM, RM, RGN, FBS

...but this suggests the order of degrees isn't always important.

The Rt Revd and Rt Hon. Richard J. C. Chartres, MA (Cantab), BD (Lambeth). DLitt (Guildhall), DD (London), DD (City), DD (Brunel), FSA, FBS

Which suggests each DD (and presumably lesser degrees) should be listed separately. Note also that different universities use different titles for honorary degrees (and DD is honorary in some and a higher in other).

Alex Kerr, MA (Oxon), MA, PhD (R'dg), MISTC, FBS

The way to handle the Oxbridlin MA and other MAs.

Nicholas W. Groves, MA, BMus (Wales), MA (EAng), BA (Lond), FRHistS, FBS

An interesting order, but one written by Groves himself.

Ian Johnson, BA (CNAA), AIL, MInstD, FRSA, FBS

How to handle the CNAA.

An interesting set, although I can't spot anyone who has both a Bachelor's and Master's in the same "faculty" listed, unless they're only listing the highest degree (and as there's an MA (Sussex), an MA (Wales) and MSc (Victoria NZ) listed first it's possible). In terms of whether one can get the same degree from the same institution twice over I'd reckon they strictly can't (you just take the course of study and pass it), but in practice ceremonies and certificates overlook this. What is clear above all else is that there's a lot of confusion about all this, a lack of universally followed style guides and even some universities aren't clear what they're talking about. Timrollpickering (talk) 13:41, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Invite

Century Tower

As a current or past contributor to a related article, I thought I'd let you know about WikiProject University of Florida, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of University of Florida. 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!

Jccort (talk) 16:28, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Universities Newsletter: Issue VI (February 2008)

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 19:22, 5 March 2008 (UTC) by MiszaBot (talk)

QMSU logo

Something odd going on here [1]. I would have changed the URL back to the one in your rationale, but that URL seems to be dead. I had a (very) quick look at the QMSU webpage and couldn't see this version of the logo anywhere. Perhaps you could sort it out before the Non-Free Image Police jump on you! Regards, --RFBailey (talk) 15:49, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Round 7 of WP:UNI/COTF is finally here!

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)

Award

		The WikiProject Doctor Who Award
		Belatedly, for your work on the UNIT dating controversy. Type 40 (talk) 10:39, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Irish Free State

For what its worth (if anything) - I posted a reply to your query at Talk: Irish Free State Redking7 (talk) 18:50, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

ROUND 8 WP:UNI/COTF

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)

WikiProject Universities Newsletter: Issue VII (March 2008)

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 18:02, 31 March 2008 (UTC) by MiszaBot (talk)

The above is preserved as an archive of past discussion on my talk page. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on my current talk page or the talk page for the article in question. No further edits should be made to this section.