Jump to content

Talk:King's College London/Archive 2

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archive 1Archive 2

I don't believe the image is currently being used correctly so I've removed it until it can be replaced with an appropriate version.

1. It appears very low quality - a suitable version is said to be available by contacting design@kcl.ac.uk (according to [1]). Perhaps it can be found elsewhere...

2. More important however, is that this version appears to have been cropped in such a way so that only the text elements are presented without concern for the "Exclusion zone" - "Do not undermine the logo’s integrity by crowding it with other visual elements. In order for the logo to be seen clearly wherever it appears it should always inhabit the exclusion zone. No text or other bold visual elements should appear within this space. The exclusion zone is the measurement ‘x’, which is the distance between the baseline of the ‘K’ and the baseline of the ‘L’." I think the white space surrounding the logo is integral. Pictorial advice is available at [2] (page 2). Pete Rooke (talk) 01:39, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

I have restored the image. It is of ample quality for display at 200px wide. While Wikipedia respects copyrights where they exist, it is not our practice to observe the additional style demands that organisations make in relation to their logos. Per WP:LOGO, logos should be accurate, of high quality and used in a neutral fashion. This seems to be the case here. — mholland (talk) 02:20, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
It looks OK now, either someone has managed to upload a better version or it's the fact I'm using a different monitor... Pete Rooke (talk) 22:01, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
Hi. The raising now of this topic prompts me to pass on misgivings I've had for some time. Though the infobox's hidden label says logo, I suggest that this merely indicates loose use of language and is best not taken literally. In almost all instances, as far as I can see, articles on academic institutions display here the crest or coat-of-arms, which are certainly not logos. Use here of what is indeed the KCL logo produces an ugly but, what is more serious, redundant or tautologous result. The head of the article is dominated by the words, "Kings College London Kings College London". How does this serve the purpose of good communication?
The so-called logo is presumably of recent origin. As indeed is the unpunctuated, therefore semi-literate, usage Kings College London. The consequence, as so often happens, of an ill-judged and costly branding exercise. It has more to do, in other words with the world of advertising, as the term logo suggests, than academia as such. Where, apart from letter headings and promotional material, is it used? Even for these limited purposes, for how long has it been in use? I'm no fan of heraldry, but use here of this logo, implying as it does that it not only is but perhaps always has been KCL's identifying emblem, is, on top of its other unfortunate effects, anachronistic.
The perfectly good coat-of-arms is available an inch or two beneath. A simple transposition would eliminate problems of redundancy, anachronism and sheer ugliness. Eager to hear any well-reasoned arguments against. Wingspeed (talk) 22:46, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
I couldn't agree more and it's not without precident in that Imperial, RHUL and Heythrop (all UoL) lead with the coat of arms. If you look at the standard bearers in terms of quality articles - Oxbridge/HYP have followed what seems to be the far more sensible route. What we have now is essentially a letterhead in pride of place. I could understand if it was a relatively new/modern business school but KCL isn't. I believe this page has been modelled on UCL's which perhaps explains the formatting in that they don't seem to have a coat of arms(?). Pete Rooke (talk) 01:06, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
Same thought had occurred to me about the relatively new/modern business school factor. I agree, scarcely applies here. Regards Wingspeed (talk) 01:18, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

For the record, I don't much mind which goes at the top (logo or arms, seal for US universities) and {{Infobox University}} was designed to be flexible like that. If the arms date from the time of the College's foundation, it is possible for anyone artistic enough to render them and upload a high-res/vector copy. My only additional comment would be that whether you like the wordmark or not, it is KCL's principal graphic identifier (this is why we put images in the infobox - for identification). In this respect, KCL is unlike some other institutions, which use all or part of their arms for identification. — mholland (talk) 03:42, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Just noticed the switch-around. Certainly an immense improvement aesthetically, etc. And the logo, less lasting and likely to fall in due course to the vagaries of fashion, is still there beneath, so there can be no possible confusion. My thanks, for what it's worth, to whoever did the shift. Good job, as the Americans say:) Wingspeed (talk) 00:03, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
Just a point about the coat of arms. I note that they are not the true colours of the arms as seen here. Is anyone able to fix this ?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.75.193.83 (talk) 00:06, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
They look fine to me. In heraldry, colours aren't exact, and an artist has licence to render, e.g., Gules as any shade of red he or she chooses. — mholland (talk) 04:55, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

One or more portions of this article duplicated other source(s). The material was copied from: http://pb.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/24/11/440-a and http://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/news_details.php?news_id=997&year=2009. Infringing material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.) For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences or phrases. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:53, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Excessive Boosterism

Relating to some comments mentioned on this discussion page, there is quite of boosterism going on in this article which needs to be removed. I tried to put a more neutral pic, however, Ragoon11 reverted all my changes. I believe that the lead should reflect the summary of history, key memberships, and rankings (if necessary at all). However, we can see now lots of biased expressions such as "most highly-ranked", "elite", "prestigious" just in one paragraph. Furthermore, the lead states only international rankings which put King's in a favourable position (UK league tables show absolutely a different pic). I'm not going to fight with editors who are apparently directly or indirectly connected to King's but there are real problems with several uni articles (I noticed UCL, LSE, King's) which need to be addressed. 188.223.81.158 (talk) 16:12, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Firstly thanks for coming to the talk page. To take your issues in turn:
- The lead is factual and cited. King's is a prestigious university, and that is cited. King's is highly ranked in league tables, and that is cited (the lead does not say that King's is "most highly-ranked".
- Regarding which league tables are referred to, this article will be read by people from all over the world, not just the UK. To describe King's position in global league tables in the lead therefore seems most appropriate. To avoid the possibility of bias the position in all three major international league tables has been given, not just the most favourable to King's. UK league table positions are detailed in the Rankings section, there is no attempt to hide them. The lead is designed to give a flavour of the university only.
- The word 'elite' in relation to the Golden Triangle has already been deleted, although this is almost certainly a fact I accept that the word 'elite' evokes negative feeling in some and could be misleading.
- I personally have NO connection with King's. I have never studied there, worked there or had any commercial dealings with it.
- Since you are so keen to suggest that editors of this article are connected with King's, perhaps you would like to describe your connections with University of Durham, where you have been actively editing.
The lead to the Durham article currently states that Durham is 'a prestigious collegiate university' (with no citation) and includes a quote from a newspaper that Durham is "Long established as a leading alternative to Oxford and Cambridge". Rangoon11 (talk) 16:29, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
I agree with the IP and have removed that paragraph from the lead -- it goes against WP:UNDUE and WP:NPOV. In relation to the latter, one would not include the positive stuff without also noting the recent negative publicity and other rankings that are less favourable, and it's better to keep all of that stuff out of the lead. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 20:11, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
Completely agree with Nomoskedasticity, selective favourable rankings and biased statements should be removed from the lead 87.194.84.46 (talk) 21:43, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
You will have to try harder and come up with some actual arguments rather than just saying that you agree. They are not 'selected', the rankings for ALL three of the major global rankings are given, in alphabetical order. I know that you are jealous that you can't put the same FACTS in the Durham University article, but please get over it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.24.190.146 (talk) 22:10, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Lead

Please can Derekspage and VHarris44 explain their recent large scale and undiscussed edits to the lead, and in particular:

- How they believe that the sentence 'King's is one of the most highly-ranked and prestigious universities in the world and part of the elite 'Golden Triangle' of British universities' is supported by the citation which they have introduced, which doesn't even mention King's (unlike the one which they have removed, which stated that King's is in the Golden Triangle (but not that it is 'one of the most highly-ranked and prestigious universities in the world'))?

- Why they feel that the sentence 'King's also has high reputation in academic fields such as Law, Medicine, History, Management, Dentistry, Literature, Geography, Music, French, German, Classics, Philosophy, and Psychiatry.' is acceptable with no citation at all (leaving aside the grammar issues)?

- Why they feel that the sentence 'According to QS World University Rankings in 2010, King's College London was ranked 21st in the world, placing the school 7th in Europe and 5th in the UK.' is acceptable with no citation, and why have they removed my inclusion of the other two main global rankings?

- Why they feel it necessary to state in the first line that King's is 'British' when a few words later it was already stated that it is based in London, United Kingdom?

- Why they feel it necessary to add reference to Oxford University and the University of Cambridge in line three?Rangoon11 (talk) 12:27, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Great Windmill Street School of Anatomy incorporated into the King's College?

The Charles Bell article states that "Windmill Street School of Anatomy was incorporated into the new King's College London". However, I find zero mention of Great Windmill Street on this article, which I find odd. In the meantime, I have redirected Great Windmill Street School of Anatomy to the Great Windmill Street article, but perhaps it ought to redirect to this article instead? --Mais oui! (talk) 16:44, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Working towards Good Article status

As per Brianboulton's comments in the peer review in June 2012, I think we should start to address these points. I have copied them here for clarity:

  • The lead is supposed to be a broad summary of the contents of the article, not a collection of facts. The detailed statistical information should be given in the body of the article, and cited there.
  • The History section looks thin and incomplete.
  • The article is seriously under-referenced. The "Campus" section has scarely any references, and other sections e.g. History, have many uncited statements
  • Nearly all the sources are online. What steps have been taken to research literature (books, articles etc) that might deal objectively with aspects of the College?
  • In addition, the article appears to be overdependent on sources belonging to Kings College itself.
  • Reference formatting requires standardising, and there is at least one dead link
  • The prose does not look well organised, with rather too many single-sentence paragraphs.
  • I think you need to study one of the "College" articles that has made it to GA, and see if you can work up this one to that standard. I reommend Jesus College, Oxford. Brianboulton (talk) 00:22, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

--Trillig (talk) 04:28, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

That's a good idea Trillig. I am more than happy to lend a hand. Merlaysamuel :  Speechify  14:03, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
Good to hear. :-) I have been slowly working on the History section given its importance. I don't think it's worth rewriting the lead until the other sections of the article have been completed. Besides that, there's the minor but rather boring task of changing the date formating of all the references to "day month year" e.g. 1 January 2013, but again I'd say it's not worth it until we get the content sorted.Trillig (talk) 03:59, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
I support efforts to move the article to GA and think many of the recent edits have been excellent, with the reservation that I feel too many sub headings are creeping in to the history section. However I feel the lead as is is actually pretty good, and serves both as a balanced overview of the topic as well as a summary of the article - it does address things like history, academics, organisation, alumni and campus. It could perhaps be expanded a little more - for example para 1 could have a couple more sentences on history - but I think it is broadly fine and well strcutured and far better than the leads of most UK university articles, which are generally full of promotional puffery or very thin. Rangoon11 (talk) 22:52, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
Many thanks for your input Rangoon11. I have taken on board your comments about too many sub-headings in the History section by removing one. I don't really envisage any additional sub-sections to be added. I accept your point that the lead is pretty good, but I think it would be right to move the detailed ranking data to King's College London#Rankings as I have not come across a GA class university wiki which includes that level of detailed ranking info in its lead. I'd appreciate any further thoughts you might have. Trillig (talk) 14:58, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Table ranking

Why the use of a pompous word like "prestigious" to describe King's in the first sentence? The college may well be prestigious to some, but Wikipedia is not an advertising agency. Why does the writer feel the need to command the reader? The record of the institution is the only basis on which to settle its claims to praise. Please drop the description. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 167.102.134.98 (talk) 20:47, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


It might also be good to point out, concerning what is written below, that King's placed 8th in the UK in the THES world rankings, after Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial College, London School of Economics, Univ. College, Edinburgh, and Manchester, and I believe in the Shanghai Jiao world rankings placed 9th in the UK--these rankings might demonstrate King's reputation internationally--the school seems very well known outside of the UK.

The ranking that placed King's 4th has clearly been chosen in order to put the college in the best possible light. This is not supposed to be an advertisement for King's but rather an informative article about it. It is not the case that King's is generally regarded as the fourth best university in the UK.

In 2006 the Sunday Times University Guide (view as pdf: [extras.timesonline.co.uk/stug2006/stug2006.pdf]) ranked King's 13th after Cambridge, Oxford, LSE, Imperial, UCL, Warwick, York, Durham, Bristol, St Andrews, Bath, and Nottingham.

In The Times table King's came 18th after Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, LSE, Edinburgh, UCL, St Andrews, Warwick, York, Bristol, Durham, Nottingham, Bath, Loughborough, SOAS, Royal Holloway, and Manchester.

This table from The Guardian shows King's coming 7th to Cambridge, Oxford, LSE, UCL, Imperial, and SOAS.

The tables change year-on-year and are of course different in the different publications that produce them, but there was a table - admittedly now three-and-a-half years old - that was very useful. According to the Telegraph table of tables 2003 King's was ranked 15th in the UK, coming after Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial, LSE, Warwick, Nottingham, UCL, York, Bristol, Manchester, SOAS, Bath, Birmingham, and Loughborough.

In 2003 King's had been ranked 18th= (Daily Telegraph) 10th (Financial Times) 10th (Guardian) 21th (Sunday Times) 18th (Times) 27th (Employers).

--Oxonian2006 13:28, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes I do agree that wikipedia is not an advertisement place for any university. So, all the ranking should remain as it is published. It is also true it should not be like your post, it was too rude! Your post tried to underestimate King’s actual reputation. So, please no advertisement and no hate. Let's be neutral. Niaz(Talk • Contribs) 06:00, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
OK, sorry to have offended anyone! I didn't mean to. I was just making the point that the information appears to have been selected so as to portray King's in the best possible way. I don't want to underestimate its reputation, which I know is good. However, there are more than three other universities that are consistently ranked higher. These tables are only a vague guide anyway and they come up with some surprising results. Universities all have different strengths anyway - for example, Imperial and Loughborough hold no interest for me as somebody interested in history, art, theology, and Byzantine studies - much better to go to Lampeter, which that 2003 Telegraph table of tables ranked 77th. Goldsmiths came in 56th, but it's produced more Turner Prize winners and nominees than any other art college in the country (or it had done at some point in the Turner Prize's history). I know King's has a very good reputation in theology, and its War Studies department is one of the best in the world. King's also offers disciplines such as dentistry and nursing that aren't available at many of those sometimes higher-ranked universities. Averil Cameron was at King's for many years before she moved to Oxford. I'm not sure what that says. Probably that King's has some first-rate scholars on its staff but that being head of an Oxford college is an opportunity too good to turn down (cf. Colin Bundy, who moved from SOAS to Oxford, and his predecessor Tim Lankester, who made the same move).--Oxonian2006 12:20, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
I have created a new section entitled Ranking and showed King's position in different rankings. I tried to avoid advertisement attitude and placed actually rankings along with necessary references. Please have a look and comment if any update is required. Niaz(Talk • Contribs) 07:15, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

King's College, London

I know the ignorant will sadly still do it, but please will editors stop writing "King's College London" in articles that describe events when it was called "King's College, London", as it was until very recently. Wikipedia is not revisionist. We use the title of things at the time, not now. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:36, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Please note we are rebranding to "King's London": http://www.kclsu.org/blogs/blog/Student%20Officers%20Blog/2014/12/09/Kings-Rebrand/ 87.112.189.120 (talk) 18:13, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Lead Paragraph of Article

The lead paragraph has been subject to edit war over the wording of King's College being a "prestigious British university" or "world's most prestigious universities". Editors (including anonymous editors) continue to edit the wording "prestigious British university" to "world's most prestigious universities" without providing any relevant references even on being notified several times that "unreferenced POVs" are discouraged. LondonMan (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:28, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

I don't care on the description, but would simply inform or remind that lead does not need cites if what is said is sourced elsewhere in article. --YeOldeGentleman (talk) 19:49, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
The lead paragraph of an article should provide a fair representation of the topic and should have a neutral POV. As a potential resolution of a previous edit war, I reworked the lead paragraphs to include the concerns of some editors that the lead did not fully communate KCL's reputation. So highlighting the specific strength of KCL in research and its high ranking in reputation among British universities I phrased KCL as a "prestigious British university". To unilaterally edit it to "world's most prestigious universities" without any referenced POV, rankings, selectivity, support statements etc. appears unnecessary as it does not add any extra information that has not already been delivered (that KCL is reputed) but risks being controversial.LondonMan (talk) 21:10, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
@LondonMan: How about "one of the leading research universities in the UK"? It's one of the six (if memory serves) that absorbs the bulk of research funding. I'm not in favour of "one of the world's leading unis" and the like, because there is an obvious distinction between somewhere like Harvard, Oxford, and so on, and a second-tier university like King's. King's is, realistically, a second-tier university just within the UK. It simply does not have the cachet of Oxbridge, Imperial, and a few others. I'd stick it alongside Durham, York, etc. A good university, but a step down from the top bunch. I'm not being snooty; one of my degrees is from KCL. --YeOldeGentleman (talk) 17:48, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
@YeOldeGentleman: "King's is a part of the academic 'golden triangle' of highly research intensive and elite southern English universities,[4] regularly ranking as one of the top universities in international league tables." This fairly represents King's strength and global reputation and position of King's as an elite and prestigious university. However this keeps getting undone into "world's most selective, prestigious and research intensive universities, forming a part of the academic 'golden triangle'" by editor/s using anonymous ips. Can we protect the article from further anonymous vandalism?

LondonMan (talk) 00:35, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Not done: requests for increases to the page protection level should be made at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. Cannolis (talk) 01:21, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
It is obvious that LondonMan does IP edits in order to avoid to engaging in edit war. King's is one of the world's most prestigious and selective Universities. We can't write that it is regularly ranked amongst top, as it is not encyclopedic. Look at UCL, in which is written that it is one of the most prestigious, but there is only one source, which even doesn't state that. Yuckyhulas7890 (talk) 15:47, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
I am not doing edit warring using anonymous IP addresses. I am not based in UK. King's is a prestigious and elite university and a top ranked global institution. Compared to King's introduction in the past (which was ambiguous), I have cut down and updated King's introduction to highlight its global prestige especially in research and alumni clout, with specifically highlighting its reputation in the lead paragraph. In fact "King's is a part of the academic 'golden triangle' of highly research intensive and elite southern English universities, regularly ranking as one of the top universities in international league tables." is a very nicely phrased description of King's stature and reputation, which by no means underestimates King's global stature, and there seems to be no reason to be fixated on the phrase "world's most prestigious and selective universities" that may be controversial and thus susceptible to future edits. King's rankings are mixed regarding a claim such as world's most prestigious (it ranks 31st in reputation rankings and varying in global rankings from 19th (QS) to 55th (ARWU)). Moreover entry standards of King's although quiet high, UCAS points do not support a claim as most selective. UCL in contrast, owing to its higher global rankings (7th (QS), 6th (URAP), 17th(THES rep), 18th (ARWU)), and very high research performance (REF, Horizon 2020 results etc, Nobel laureates) is quiet often cited in media as a "top university","elite","prestigious" etc, and the current lead paragraph has remained stable for a long time. LondonMan (talk) 19:40, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
Of course UCAS says that. Sources added. I have more. This is wikipedia, and we can't say that UCL is better because for this because for that etc. Why do UCL have just one source which even do not mention that UCL is one of the most prestigious.Yuckyhulas7890 (talk) 18:55, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for a credible citation, that provides the historical justification to the claim. I have rephrased the contentious line as "King's is considered to be one of the world's most prestigious universities, forming a part of the academic 'golden triangle' of highly research intensive and elite southern English universities.", making some minor changes.LondonMan (talk) 20:49, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

LAW

According to several sources and rankings, king's is considered to be the best law school.--78.149.194.211 (talk) 16:38, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Relocation

Can we relocate this page to King's College London - that is the official name as on the website.

Resolved
 – Aloneinthewild (talk) 15:48, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Endowment

Wouldnt a category of "Endowment" of the university be appropriate in the quick facts pane like for other universites?

The Financial Statements of Kings states the endowment of the college for 2005 as £103 million as can be found on page 14 of this link. http://www.kcl.ac.uk/finance/financialstatements/financialstatements2005.pdf

Therefore can some once change it or is alright if i add it to the main page quick facts?

Resolved
 – Aloneinthewild (talk) 15:48, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

virginia woolf alumna kcl

Woolf alumna of king's college london? the oxford world's classics edition of 'to the lighthouse' has a woolf timeline which says that she studied history and greek at kcl...please update

Resolved
 – Aloneinthewild (talk) 15:48, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Notable alumni

I made some changes to the alumni section which have since been reversed, although the edit summaries were not clear in showing this was happening. Firstly, I believe one of the two images (Higgs and Tutu) should be moved lower down. Although both are of equal merit the current format causes an orphaned block of text between the images which is not desirable. I reduced the number of images in the gallery as this was growing large, some are not well known international figures. Perhaps we can discuss this? Aloneinthewild (talk) 16:06, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

History

I made some changes to the history section which have since been significantly added to with overwhelming historical details, meriting a 'History of King's College London' page to be started. Most of the details added recently as well as other details are still in the newly-created page. Let's keep the history section of the King's College London main page quite brief. Padudarrific (talk) 16:18, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on King's College London. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at {{Sourcecheck}}).

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 23:48, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Golden Triangle

The neutrality of the clause in the introduction, "As part of the "golden triangle]]" along with the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, University College London, Imperial College London and the London School of Economics," is disputed. This sentence has two citations for which institutions are part of the "golden triangle". The first omits the LSE but includes King's, while the second includes the LSE but omits King's. Implying that King's and the LSE are definitely part of the "golden triangle " when the references state otherwise is incorrect; the earlier formulation of "often considered part of" (omitting the list of other institutions) was much better in this regard. "If different reliable sources make conflicting assertions about a matter, treat these assertions as opinions rather than facts, and do not present them as direct statements." (Wikipedia:Neutral point of view).

Robminchin (talk) 19:05, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

I can accept this. Let's add the usually bit back in.

118.201.157.170 (talk) 01:48, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

I've made a minimal correction to put "usually" in while retaining as much as possible of the earlier text. To my eyes the wording looks a bit clumsy now, but it is sufficient to remove the POV tag; we can discuss wording further above.

Robminchin (talk) 01:05, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Rob. I have been rather busy the last several days. Let me have some time to work it out.

Thanks

118.201.157.169 (talk) 05:11, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

GA Review

GA toolbox
Reviewing
This review is transcluded from Talk:King's College London/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Sj (talk · contribs) 18:28, 2 July 2016 (UTC)


Initial thoughts: At first blush, this article could be ready for FA review. It has 45 sections, 66 images, and 450 references. It is one of the better educational-institution articles I've seen: detailed, in a way that traces the history of a long-standing institution; monitored closely by editors; no ongoing edit wars. @Chanpeter:, I welcome your and others' responses to this review while it is open.

Writing
Good. Solid in places, a bit wordy & redundant in others. Fine style on average, with a consistent tone over much of the article. Full of solid & sourced information.
  • Some hanging one-sentence paragraphs, usually trivia that could be removed or summarized.
  • Lede is too long and breathless, in general the article suffers from 'verifiability over informativeness'.
Accuracy
Spot check is good. The article is very long, with hundreds of cites; and the Todo list on the talk page includes improving variety of sources.
  • There is was one [citation needed], about a minor, time-dependent, self-referential statement ("fourth-highest number of alumni entries on Wikipedia amongst UK universities") – that should simply be removed. Green tickY resolved.
  • References could use some cleanup: a number of refs could be combined into multiple uses of a single one, in a few places; one source is very heavily used.
Thoroughness
Comprehensive in areas (history of buildings and alumni), less so in others (development of the relationship b/t King's and UL, current state of affairs, relationship with its neighborhood).
  • Possibly too thorough in places: there's an overfocus on "achievements of alumni", taken to an extreme here compared to other top-tier institutions. That content could be reduced by 60-90% (listing the same people, but much more concisely).
  • 220K is probably too long; a more detailed article on one or more subtopics makes sense.
NPOV
A long history; distinctly biased towards the positive. No controversies listed, lots of random accolades and awards, as many institutional pages have; while that matches the bias in available sources (many publications give positive awards; few give negative ones).
  • the article would be better if it lost some of the trivial accolades and included some less-positive reviews. Green tickY reduced now in a few places. more work needed, but fine for now.
Stability
Stable over the past months.
Images
60+, high quality, of both campus and related people.
Overall
Clearly a Good Article. Could use some touchups, and I'd like to hear thoughts from current editors of the article. That said, if some of the detail were split off or summarized, and the references cleared up, it would be nearly ready for a full FA review.

– SJ + 18:28, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Hi @Sj: Thank you for reviewing the article. Hopefully it can be a good article soon. I've been trying to tidy up the article today, working on your suggestions. I think I agree that some of the article needs to be split off to reduce its length. Also, I removed a reference in the lead to being the "third oldest university in England", the citation provided did not support this (it was actually a King's source which said fourth). However, I know from the past this might be contentious due to the semantics over university founding dates. If you have any clear changes that are needed then 'll try to help when I'm on wp. Aloneinthewild (talk) 17:01, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

Hi @Aloneinthewild:, it's looking definitively better. Some specific suggestions:

  • Reducing size and repetition: move bits to the many detail pages that exist.
    • Condense & move some of "19th century" history to the detailed history page
    • Condense some of the "Campus" details where the buildings have detail pages
    • Summarize & slim "Rankings and reputation" to 2-3 paras + a more compact infobox
    • Reduce "Notable people" to a few paras: alumni, academics and staff, and laureates. Galleries of 10-12 photos are fine, but walls of names are not helpful to readers. The two! detail pages, for alumni and for laureates, do a much better job of presenting an overall view - the tables there are more readable and more comprehensive.
  • Expanding in places
    • "Faculties & departments" could use a bit more detail. These are current, and have no detail pages.
Marked as a GA; keep up the fine work! – SJ + 00:24, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Introduction section

The introduction section has recently been unstable due to edits by myself and and anonymous editor. In order to avoid edit warring, I am opening a discussion on this page.

The issues I have with the page as currently put in place by the anonymous user are:

  • Poor grammar: "It is also a member of numerous academic organisations, including the Association of Commonwealth Universities, the European University Association, the Russell Group." There should be an "and" before the last item in a written list.
  • Clumsy wording: "King's College London is consistently ranked among the world's top universities. King's College London is ranked ..." This is Clumsy and repetitive
  • Poor wording : A sentence of the form "As X, Y" is starting that Y is because of X. This construction is used in "As part of the "golden triangle" ... King's is regarded as one of the world's leading multidisciplinary research universities." This implies that King's being regarded as one of the world's leading multidisciplinary research universities is dependent on it being part of the "golden triangle", which does not appear correct and for which no evidence is offered.

Robminchin (talk) 19:04, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

Hi Rob,

Just saw this. Thanks for being open to discussion. Do provide me with some time and i'll get back to you on this.

- Z

118.201.157.170 (talk) 01:47, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Hi Z,
If you could manage to take a look at this summer time soon that would be good; it's been almost a fortnight now.
Robminchin (talk) 00:56, 31 May 2016 (UTC)
This looks better now, and there doesn't seem to be an ongoing edit conflict. There are a few other minor improvements (like unifying the use of "King's" as a shorthand) that I've made in the early parts of the article. – SJ + 18:34, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 11 external links on King's College London. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 05:15, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Lead

It seems the lead of this article is regularly changing, please can we discuss changes here first. (despite the numerous comment notes in the article which don't work). I've restored the format back to what I think is similar to when the good article was achieved. The format is 1)Introduction/ history, 2) campuses/ affiliations/ structure 3) alumni, reputation/rankings. Like a lot of other university articles the rankings seem to migrate to the top paragraph. It would be good to avoid this. If I've made any mistake let me know. Aloneinthewild (talk) 11:16, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

@Robminchin, you might be interested in this since it relates to your comments here made last year. Aloneinthewild (talk) 11:19, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
That seems a sensible edit that places things in an encyclopedic order. I agree that having the rankings higher risks giving them too much weight. Robminchin (talk) 16:33, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 22 external links on King's College London. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 23:57, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on King's College London. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 11:44, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 17 external links on King's College London. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 17:24, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion:

You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 12:08, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Please see the continuing discussion at commons:File:King's_College_London_crest.png over whether the file should be deleted. Aloneinthewild (talk) 20:02, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 16:35, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

Items to add

Some people from King's are probably editing this page, so please add a key research item, namely that the entire solution to theory of gravitational waves, recently confirmed by experiments was formulated at King's by Herman Bondi and Felix Pirani. A history is given by David Robinson, Gravitation and general relativity at King’s College London, European Physical Journal H 44, pp 181–270 (2019). Someone at the math department there can add the relevant item. I think Robinson is still alive, so maybe ask him. Physical8121 (talk) 15:58, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Foundation Date

Hello, I am writing here because of the following: the foundation date for King's throughout the article seems to be the one when the royal charther was granted (14th of August, 1829). However, at the top, the charter says: "The first meeting for founding King's College London was held... on Saturday June 21st 1828". For me, this reads as if King's was actually founded in 1828 and the stamp of approval was given in 1829. The charter is displayed in the main history article for King's: History of King's College London. Interested in the interpretation of others.2A02:1205:34E0:C0A0:4D2:F894:2E70:6946 (talk) 10:05, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

The normal interpretation is that the meeting was to discuss the founding, rather than the college being founded at the meeting. Thus, 1829 is taken as the year of foundation by King's. The text of the charter explicitly says that the petitioners (the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Duke of Rutland and the Bishop of London) "together with diverse others of our loving subjects, had agreed to found a College" (emphasis added) and then goes on to decree the foundation of that college. Note that the image on the History of King's College London page is not actually the charter, it is a commemorative engraving. The text of the charter can be seen at [3]. Robminchin (talk) 03:44, 3 January 2022 (UTC)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:King%27s_College_London/Archive_2&oldid=1234076636"