Talk:University College London/GA2

GA Review

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Reviewer: Mike Christie (talk · contribs) 15:33, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

I'll review this. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:33, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

I'll try to start posting comments later today, but I have an immediate question. The article is very long, at over 10,000 words. Are there opportunities to move some material into sub-articles per summary style? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:35, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

There are already quite a few sub-articles, and at least one that has been merged back in as not independently notable. I moved quite a lot of stuff from the history section into the sub-article when preparing it for GAN. A section that could probably be trimmed is 'notable people' – there is already a sub-article, but names tend to accrete in the main article. I trimmed out quite a few people who couldn't be verified, but didn't move any to the sub-article. Robminchin (talk) 17:54, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Images

Some of the images have incorrect licenses, but I'm not going to hold up GA for that unless it means that an image on Commons is in fact not out of copyright. For example, File:Four founders of UCL.JPG says own work of the uploader, but it's by Tonks. As far as I can tell (I'm not particularly expert on image licensing) it's out of copyright; it was probably "never published in the US", and it's been more than 70 years since Tonks' death. Another example is File:Otto Hahn (Nobel).jpg, which has no US tag; I think it needs PD-1996.

• What's the evidence that the following images were released under the licences stated?
  • File:Ucl engineering.jpg
  • File:Francis Crick 1995.jpg
  • File:Charles K. Kao cropped 2.jpg
• I think there are too many images. I have a fairly wide screen, and I am getting the images bumping into each other on the right margin. I tried it with a narrower browser window and got ugly chains of images sticking out below section endings. I would suggest cutting enough to allow the images to sit separately at the right hand edge of the screen.

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:13, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

The Four Founders, I assume the 'own work' refers to the photograph being taken by the uploader, rather than being a UCL publicity photo or some such (which is dubiously copyrightable, but often has copyright claimed anyway making it a bit iffy). The Kao image has an email on file with the Wikimedia Foundation confirming the release. The other two have a licence, but you're right that there doesn't seem to be any evidence that the uploader actually had the right to release them under that licence. As the 'Faculties' section looks to have an issue with overlapping images (I normally browse on mobile, which handles images differently and doesn't have this issue) I've removed the engineering building. I've replaced the Crick image with one that looks more secure in its licence. I've also removed some other images from the article. Robminchin (talk) 22:48, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

I missed the email note on Kao's image; thanks for pointing that out. The new Crick image is fine. Thanks for removing some images; it's just about OK on my screen now. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:16, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Sources

Footnote numbers refer to this version.

• What's the evidence that the following are reliable sources?
  • FNs 45 & 46 are to a blog; it seems to be some sort of academic project, but I can't find out who is running it.
  • FN 74: elk.informatik.hs-augsburg.de a reliable source?
  • FNs 75, 88: dcscience.net
  • FN 156 -- smartcre.com -- I can't get the main webpage to display so I can't find an about page.
• FN 178 is 'Google search for "UCL crest"'. This is not a reliable source.
• FN 362: ukwhoswho.com is not reliable; see WP:RS/PS.

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:31, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

• 45 & 45 are an academic project run by the Bartlett (the UCL school of architecture), the Bartlett's pages for the project can be seen on archive.org at [1].
• 74 is an article that can be found in various places, including uploaded to Research Gate by Vint Cerf. It was published in The Online User's Encyclopedia, Boston: Addison-Wesley, Bernard Aboba. I've improved the citation to make the origin clearer.
• 75, 88 – David Colquhoun is a well-known academic and a writer on quack science and university management
• 156 – There's an about page at [2]
• 178 – Removed
• 362 – I didn't know that. I will look for another reference, although I note that WP:RS/PS says that it should be regarded as a self-published source – I would think that the claim Davidge attended UCL would thus fall within WP:ABOUTSELF if assessed on that basis.

Robminchin (talk) 00:02, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

I couldn't track down any other sources for Davidge, so I removed that entry. Robminchin (talk) 03:38, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

All these are OK based on your responses. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:20, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Lead

There's no problem with having citations in the lead, but since everything in the lead should also be in the body, there's no need to cite the lead unless something is a direct quote or controversial in some way. Not an issue for GA, but I thought I'd mention it.

• Looking through the lead to check that everything is indeed in the body, one thing I can't find in the body is "the largest by postgraduate enrolment" which also happens to be one of the few parts of the lead without a citation.

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:48, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Citation for this will be the HESA enrolment statistics. It looks like it's mentioned in the "Student body" section (where it's phrased as "largest number of postgraduate students"). Robminchin (talk) 17:09, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

History

• Since the article is so long, I'll point out places where I think some material could be cut. One such is the list of colleges that preceded UCL's admission of women; I can see mentioning Bedford is reasonable, but do we need to list three other instances?

I've removed these

• The same comment applies to the next paragraph -- the mentions of Newcastle and Bristol.

I removed Newcastle. Bristol being the first to educate women and men together is significant to mention as UCL's marketing department likes to claim that they were first in 1878, which then ends up being added to the article.

• "In 1898, Sir William Ramsay discovered the elements krypton, neon and xenon whilst professor of chemistry at UCL." This seems out of place here. There are so many notable people and discoveries that it would clutter the history to include all of them; the history section is structured mostly as an administrative history, and I think it would make sense to keep it that way. In any case you have a separate section for notable people and Ramsay and his discoveries are mentioned there. I suspect I'm going to ask you to consider reducing the length of that section but the point stands.

Removed

• "reconstituted as a federal university": I don't know what "federal" means here. Also, this sentence seems to repeat information from the last sentence of the previous section; is there are a reason the information needs to be in both sections?

I've re-written this to (hopefully) explain better what was happening. There is mention of this in both sections as the reconstitution of the UoL, is a logical division in UCL's history, but I've tried to reduce the repetition.

• "Due to its failure to address the situation on campus at the time, a majority of the authors of the 2020 report on eugenics at UCL that led to the university's apology refused to sign the final report." I don't follow this. The report was critical of the university's behaviour? And the university failed to correctly respond to the eugenics conferences at the time those conferences were held? Why would the authors fail to sign a report that they felt correctly criticized the university?

The report was limited to only looking at historical eugenics, and so didn't cover the more recent eugenics conferences or other "current" issues with racism.

• Without dates for the eugenics conferences it's hard to know whether the short paragraph about Bartlett is out of chronological order, but given the later dates in the eugenics narrative it feels that way to the reader. I'd suggest moving it up above the eugenics paragraph.

The eugenics paragraph covers a lot of time, from the early 20th century through to more recent events that triggered (but weren't covered by) the report in 2020 and the subsequent renaming of buildings. It was placed chronologically at the point where the Galton Laboratory was established in 1904, but might sit better in the more recent history with a short sentence at the time of the lab's foundation. I've tried this to see if it works.

• There are also no dates for Mosley, but since Oswald Mosley died in 1980 I would assume the bequest and contribution postdate 1980, in which case that seems to be in the wrong section.

Solved by the move above.

• "The blogs that helped to stop the merger": this may be an accurate characterization, but I think it overstates what the sources say. The Guardian article only says that Conway ran a supporting blog, and makes no comment about whether the decision was influenced by it. The sourcing for Colquhoun is just his own blog. I would suggest just cutting the sentence -- the previous sentence makes it clear that there was internal opposition and that that led to the abandonment of the plan, which for a history section is the main point.

Done

• "and its creation followed negotiations between UCL Vice Provost Michael Worton and South Australian Premier Mike Rann": do we need this? It's always hard to keep extra details out of the more recent subsections of a long history section, and this seems a good opportunity to trim a few words.

Done

• "The UCL Australia satellite campus closed in December 2017": this confused me -- the first sentence of that paragraph gave me the impression the new entity was the "UCL School of Energy & Resources", and now we get a link to a previously unnamed entity, UCL Australia, saying it has been closed.

I fear I may have trimmed the renaming out when cutting down the section earlier! I've added a bit to say it was later UCL Australia.

• "As of 2019 the University of South Australia and UCL are offering": can this be updated? And perhaps "were continuing to offer" would be a better tense to use.

Re-wrote this.

Tweaked. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:38, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

• Do we need the details of the changes to the UCL East developments between 2011 and 2018?

Probably not. I've trimmed this down.

• "Chapman settled the case for £70,000." A candidate sentence for cutting; the point the paragraphs needs to make is about the harassment claims and the changes instituted as a result, and this is a side detail.

Re-wrote this

• The last paragraph of the section could be trimmed. I think all we need is that the application for university status has been assented to, but implementation is pending.

Re-wrote this

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:06, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Robminchin (talk) 04:01, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

Campus and locations

• Not a GA issue, but the first paragraph of "Bloomsbury" is essentially two long lists. These might be better presented as tables or bullet lists.

I've cut this down, as it probably doesn't need to list where all the departments are.

• The second paragraph is unsourced.

Bother, I thought I'd spotted all of those before. I've cut this down as well and merged it with the first paragraph. I'm working on tracking down references.

Now have references. I removed the Ear Institute as it's not clear that it moved following the move of the hospital next door (the Dental Institute is very happy to tell everyone about their new place around the corner from the new hospital, the Ear Institute has nothing about moving).

Trimming the text made the image overflow bad again, so I moved the Bloomsbury building images into a gallery. Robminchin (talk) 21:06, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

• Some of the details in the UCL East section seem redundant with the earlier history section. I also think you could cut quite a few details from this subsection -- half a dozen different statements of how much square footage different phases are or will be, and so on. And do we need to mention the Mayor did the groundbreaking?

I've taken out the history and extraneous details.

• Not a GA requirement, but it would be nice to have a small map of London with the main campus locations marked. As an ex-Londoner I get a fairly good picture of where it is but most readers won't.

I've added a location map template with sites around the city marked. I couldn't fit the Institute of Ophthalmology in without it getting too crowded (it's between Bloomsbury and UCL East), so I've commented it out. Robminchin (talk) 04:25, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:19, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Organisation and administration

• "The senior leadership team at UCL includes the visitor." Suggest glossing this inline, in addition to the link; most readers won't know it.

Done

• "The current chair of the council is" and "The president and provost since January 2021 is" both need an "as of".

Done

• I don't think we need the list of provosts; this is an article (and section) about the current state of the organization.

I've moved this sub-section to the History of UCL article Robminchin (talk) 21:14, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

• "There are also two academic units outside of the faculty structure": my sense of what's valid British vs. American English has become polluted after decades on each side of the Atlantic, but I think this is an American usage. Shouldn't it be "outside the faculty structure" in British English? There are two more instances of the usage in the next couple of paragraphs.

Fixed the examples I found.

• "Prior to that date, a different logo was used, in which the letters UCL were incorporated into a stylised representation of the Wilkins Building portico." Unsourced.

I've added a link to an archived version of the UCL homepage with the old logo. This is a primary source, but it's something anyone can look at and see that that was the logo in use at the time.

• "Students' Union UCL requests teams not to add or change this logo": I took a few seconds to understand this; if it means what I think, then I'd suggest "Students' Union UCL requests teams not to use this logo or modified versions of it" as a clearer way to say it.

It looks like it should have been "not to add to or change this logo". I've updated the text.

• "UCL's traditional sporting and academic colours are purple [rgb(80,7,120)] and blue celeste [rgb(164,219,232)]." I don't think we need the RGB, but if you think it's worth keeping I'd suggesting putting in a footnote with an explanation of what the numbers mean and probably a link to an explanatory article.

Removed Robminchin (talk) 00:19, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:44, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Academic profile

• The section structure seems a bit fussy and leads to repetitive reading. Going down to the fifth level for the individual research centres means very short sections, and the reader encounters text like this: "London Centre for Nanotechnology / Main article: London Centre for Nanotechnology / The London Centre for Nanotechnology (LCN) is ..." A table or bullet list might be a better way to preset this, or even a series of paragraphs, which would at least avoid the repetition of the headings with the first few words of each sentence. And there's no need for a {{main}} link in a subsection if the link is present in that subsection; in all three cases I think it would serve the reader better to link from the sentence instead.

  I see another editor has just made the change I suggested; I think that's an improvement but will leave this unstruck to check you agree. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:57, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Robminchin (talk) 00:20, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

• Much of the "National" subsection in the "Reputation and rankings" section is unsourced.

Fixed. Robminchin (talk) 03:49, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

• Are all of these rankings worth mentioning? This is an indigestible chunk of statistics, and the data is presumably ephemeral anyway as the rankings are no doubt re-issued every year. Wouldn't it be better to summarize the rankings, both across ranking organizations and across time, by saying things like "UCL has consistently ranked in the top ten over the last X years in most/all subjects, except/including ..."? A reader coming to this sections would like an overview statement.

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:08, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

I've removed the minor global rankings and the large mass of global subject rankings and given the range of positions in the main global rankings over the last ten years. I've also added an introductory paragraph for the goal rankings and extended the introductory paragraph for the national rankings. Robminchin (talk) 04:43, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Admissions

• "UCL runs a contextual offer scheme called Access UCL." What is a contextual offer? Having read the rest of the paragraph I can guess, but without a link it's an opaque opening sentence. Judging from a quick web search this is standard academic language in the UK, but I haven't seen it in the US.

I've re-worded this to (hopefully) make it clearer. Robminchin (talk) 23:45, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

• I think the table in the "Widening access" section is too detailed for a summary article, though I admit it's not immediately obvious what subarticle it would be most suitable for. Six years of data seems more than is necessary for a summary article. Reducing it to just the most recent year would allow a narrative explanation of POLAR metrics (ideally without using the acronym except perhaps in a footnote).

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:22, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

I looked at cutting down the table, and found that a single year didn't really justify having a table at all, so I've moved the information on the latest year into the text and removed the table. Robminchin (talk) 03:22, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

That addresses the point I raised, but looking at the section again I wonder if we can reduce the admission statistics table as well. There are six years of data here too; I think for this top-level article just the most recent year would suffice. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:13, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

I've cut this down to the most recent year, and made a couple of other minor edits to reduce the width. Robminchin (talk) 17:03, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Student life

• The first paragraph of the "Sports" subsection is unsourced.

Fixed

• Do we really need the dimensions of the sports halls/courts/games area?

Removed

• 'which has historically been known as "Rags"': the rivalry is known as "Rags"? The use of "rag" later in the section makes it seem to be a reference to rag week; "rag" in my student days meant (and still seems to mean) a student charitable society.

That's certainly the normal modern meaning, but this section is referring to what "had historically been known as rags". My Concise Oxford Dictionary also gives "3 a a rowdy celebration b a noisy disorderly scene", which fits with the OED definition given in the Origins section of the Wikipedia article on rags: "An act of ragging; esp. an extensive display of noisy disorderly conduct, carried on in defiance of authority or discipline". The reference cited here (an exhibition by King's College London archives from around 20 years ago) refers to "the rivalry between two of London's leading higher education institutions, rivalry that spilled out onto the streets of London in the form of the student rag". In 1920 the Birmingham Daily Post noted the start of a shift to rags being charity events: "Durham University students have set a new standard in 'rags,' for their programme yesterday was of a constructive rather than destructive type, and as the procession marched through the city a collection was taken for the hospital. This is a good example to the student world, and calculated to do more to commend culture to the people than those meaningless orgies which have taken place elsewhere in the past, to the destruction of property and the detriment of law and order." (Birmingham Daily Post, 29 June 1920, quoted in The University of Durham 1832–1932, C.E. Whiting, 1932, London: Sheldon Press)

I've added a bit of text here to clarify things; it looks like it got over-trimmed in earlier editing

• The "Student campaigns" section starts its account in 2010. I find it hard to believe that's not recentism -- surely in the 1960s there was some UCL student activism? I don't think this is necessarily a GA issue as the criteria only require broad, not comprehensive, coverage, but it might be possible to find some earlier material to add.

I'll take a look.

I've added in some earlier stuff. Robminchin (talk) 04:54, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:43, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Student body

• It took me a minute to figure out what "PGR" and "PGT" stand for in the pie chart caption. I think there's room there to expand the legend a bit to make that easier to parse.

I've expanded the words to hopefully comprehensible abbreviations; writing them out in full spills the entries onto multiple lines.

• However, after expanding the table underneath the pie chart, I wonder if it would be better to convert it to six more rows of the table. That would save space and perhaps allow the table to start uncollapsed. For example, if the table were wider, it could be structured so that the British data was on one row, with column headings showing ethnicity; the combined data and headings would take two rows. Two more rows would give the international data, with different column headings, and so on. Just an idea.

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:55, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

I think a graphical presentation tends to be better at conveying information than tables. The pie chart template is a rather clunky one and I'm in two minds about whether it would be better to make it up outside Wikipedia and import it as an image or to make it up using the template, which allows for easier editing and updating. Robminchin (talk) 04:42, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Notable people

• I think this section includes far too many names. Even just listing the winners of the Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals would be straining the limits for a section like this. I don't want to prescribe any particular number, but given that there are both categories and lists that cover this information, we only need the highlights here. I think the half-dozen absolutely most prominent, regardless of their field, should be named -- for my money that's Crick, Housman, Hahn, Higgs, and Kenyatta, but that's certainly arguable -- and then another dozen or so to show the breadth of fields covered, and then a listing of fields for which no names are given but for which there are famous alumni. Even doubling those numbers would be a dramatic shortening of the section. It's an index as it stands, not a readable section of an overview article.

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:04, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

I've started trimming out names and checking them against the sub-article to ensure that they're in there. Robminchin (talk) 23:26, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

This has been substantially trimmed. Robminchin (talk) 04:30, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Other

I still need to do spotchecks but will wait till the issues above are settled. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:04, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Spotchecks. Footnote numbers refer to this version.

• FN 54 cites "UCL apologised for its "fundamental role in the development, propagation and legitimisation of eugenics" in 2021." Verified.
• FN 79 cites "UCL was granted its own taught and research degree awarding powers in 2005, and all UCL students registered from 2007/08 qualified with UCL degrees. The same year, UCL adopted a new corporate branding under which the name University College London was replaced by the initialism UCL in all external communications." The second sentence is verified but the first needs another source.
• FN 109 cites "Following the passing of the University of London Act 2018, which allowed member institutions to become universities in their own right while remaining part of the University of London, UCL applied for university status in 2019." Verified.
• FN 122 cites "and the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour building (LEAF Award for best façade design and engineering and overall winner 2016)". Verified.
• FN 138 cites "This certification requires innovation throughout the design, engineering and construction process, and places the Student Centre among the top 1% of buildings in the UK for sustainability." This should say "non-domestic buildings".
• FNs 143 and 152 cite "There are also four vice-presidents, who are also members of the senior management team but whose role and manner of appointment is not specified in the statutes, for strategy, external engagement, advancement and operations." Verified.
• FN 165 cites "UCL is a member institution of the federal University of London and was one of the two colleges affiliated from the university's founding in 1836 (the other being King's College London)." Verified.
• FN 218 cites "UCL's open access institutional repository, UCL Discovery, and UCL Press, UCL's open access academic press are managed by UCL Library Services." Verified.
• FN 264 cites "UCL also runs week-long UCL Summer Schools for high-achieving students from disadvantaged backgrounds in partnership with the Sutton Trust. These give participants the opportunity to explore London, to develop skills in their chosen subject, to improve their university applications through personal statement workshops and talks by admissions tutors, and to take part in social activities." Verified. Some repetition of the wording on the website but I don't see an easy way around that.
• FN 296 cites "In 1922 Phineas, the UCL mascot was kidnapped by King's students, leading to a pitched battle in the King's College quad as UCL students recovered their mascot." Verified, but it would be nice to add a third-party source, so I clipped this.
• FN 312 cites "UCL also holds an institutional bronze Race Equality Charter award, which it first gained in 2015." Verified.
• FN 327 cites "and John Stuart Mill, who attended lectures on jurisprudence by John Austin". Verified.

I was a bit alarmed when the second one I checked could not be verified, but the remainder are good with one tweak needed, so I think that's good enough. Once the citation for the second one above is added I'll promote this. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:43, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! I've added the needed references and made the necessary tweaks. The newspaper story about the 1922 battle is very useful (and most entertaining). Robminchin (talk) 04:46, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Looks good; passing. Would you be interested in doing any GA reviews, by the way? You're a very experienced editor, and are thorough and accurate, and there is always a backlog at GAN. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:49, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Sure, and thanks for the great example of how to do one! Robminchin (talk) 03:12, 15 April 2023 (UTC)