User talk:ElKevbo/Archive 17

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

Internship

Hi - I have undone the previous removal of my edit here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internship#China I am unsure how you can view this as a how-to of any kind. The information on this post is important for anyone visiting China as an intern, and the whole idea about an encyclopaedia is to provide information that pertains to that subject matter - which is ex7actly what that does. Having a family member who has done just this, I only wish they had access to this kind of information at the time.

I would appreciate this being left in as there is nothing but useful information from those in China.

Thanks.

Lambda?

may i ask what the problem was? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Edwin34120 (talk • contribs) 07:01, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

The primary issue is that you added copyrighted material verbatim. It's also problematic that you made many assertions that were not supported by reliable sources. That's a particular issue in the article you edited since it has a troubling history of editors making unsourced claims in that article and the article of your rival organization as members of the two organizations attempt to discredit and one-up the other. Unfortunately for you, the other organization appears to have a more credible claim for historical primacy supported by reliable sources.

Instead of continuing to edit these articles haphazardly, I recommend opening a discussion in the Talk page of one of the articles to address the issue directly. ElKevbo (talk) 18:47, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

As I indicated to Edwin34120 directly, there is quite a bit of what he added which is useful, but separating out the Copyright violations and NNPOV makes it such that reverting to the beginning is probably the way to go. I have moved the table of chapters that he created over to the already existing List of Lambda Theta Phi chapters article and will pull other things that are Neutral point of view like founders as well.Naraht (talk) 19:51, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Ok, so can i refernce the work? as i got everything from lambda offcial website. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Edwin34120 (talk • contribs) 06:25, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

You're welcome to add or edit material using reliable sources! But I again caution that this article has been contentious so it may be wise to work out any potentially problematic edits in Talk instead of continuing a long-running battle with your rival organization. ElKevbo (talk) 16:06, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

SPI

Just a heads up, regarding Wikipedia:Administrator's noticeboard/Incidents#Alarming sockpuppet, an SPI should be filed even if it's obvious. We often use the archive page of each sockpuppeteer to keep track of their socking history, and it is very helpful to have past socks in there. Best, King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:09, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks; I'll keep that in mind in the future. But this particular sockpuppeteer is quite prolific so it appears that several admins already have a process in place for blocking and documenting his or her sockpuppets once they know about them. ElKevbo (talk) 16:07, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Kindly cease edit warring on Phillips Academy

Perhaps Wikipedia administrators may think themselves above the rules. But it looks like you are edit warring on the article Phillips Academy by deleting an entire section, which was subsequently restored, which you then deleted again without posting a satisfactory explanation on the talk page. My sense is the deleted material is correct; there is no reason to assume it is false or biased; you are undoing the work of many contributors over much time and preventing chances for sources to be found. Would not a more appropriate action be to tag the section as “unsourced”? But a larger concern is a violation of Wikipedia's rules by consistently reverting material which is against the spirit of 3RR.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:29, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Reliable sources aren't optional. If you have sources, please feel free to replace the content and add the sources. And feel free to justify including the material, too. ElKevbo (talk) 15:32, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

It is a matter of judgment. When material is controversial, or likely to be questioned, inherently dubious, or biographical in nature, then rules are more stringent, and it makes sense to delete such information. If you knocked out all material in Wikipedia which didn't have a reference, you would delete perhaps two thirds of the encyclopedia.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:39, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

"any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation." It's not so much an issue of judgment as one of manpower and lack of consistency among editors; we often let material slide through despite a lack of sources simply because we don't think it's worth our time to deal with it right now but not because we think that the material should be sourced. In this instance, I think it's worth taking a few seconds to address this particular section because it's problematic on several counts with lack of sources being the most obvious. ElKevbo (talk) 15:46, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

And now that you've seen fit to lecture me about this section and then revert my edits you're going to open a discussion in the article's Talk page, right? ElKevbo (talk) 15:47, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

In Wikipedia, we all police each other. Just a matter of following the rules, is it not? Yes I'll open a section on the PA talk page.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:54, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Replying to your edit comment

I just noticed your comment on this edit. Thanks for noticing. I think I was working on multiple things and accidentally overwritten on someone else's comment. Cantaloupe2 (talk) 17:34, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

No problem! ElKevbo (talk) 20:08, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

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Copyright comments for Northeastern

He ElKevbo,

I received your message about copyright and donating material. If I am the copyright holder, how do I place information on Northeastern's wikipedia page without it being deleted because that is what keeps happening (particularly by you? Please don't send me to a link. Explain to me what I need to do in order to get this information posted.

Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bacampus (talk • contribs) 14:35, June 20, 2013‎

This page has all of the details. But essentially you need to prove to us that you indeed are the copyright owner. No one knows who you are except that you're a Wikipedia editor so we generally look for an e-mail sent to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org or a notice you've added to your own webpage releasing the material under a free license that will allow us (and anyone else) to use and modify the text. I hope this helps! ElKevbo (talk) 01:52, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Penn State child sex abuse scandal: 26 July 2013

I'm not sure why you think that Wikipedia is not a place for relevant information to the article cited. According to The Pennsylvania State University's Payroll Office, that employee could not have possibly been in a place to witness what he said he had witnessed at the time. This single event was cited by Louis Freeh, who investigated Penn State, as "probably, in the report, the most horrific rape, that’s described." It was this event that the NCAA used against Penn State to show that their culture was corrupt from the top all the way down to the janitorial staff. And now that event has been proven false. I'm having a hard time seeing how this shouldn't be included in the Wikipedia article.

How can I appropriately put that in the page?

Adamshellenbarger (talk) 16:05, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

You're using a primary source to perform original research. If others have already made the connection then it may be ok to include the information by citing their claims. But it's not ok for a Wikipedia editor to do that by him- or herself. ElKevbo (talk) 16:12, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

This is research performed by an independent investigator who has over 27 years of experience as a Federal Investigator. Other than the fact that Penn State did not pay him to write this report, he is no different than Louis Freeh. I'm not the investigator, just someone who has read the report. He called Penn State and they verified that the janitor was not employed by Penn State at the time and would not have had access to where the incident took place. Adamshellenbarger (talk) 16:24, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm not questioning Freeh's credentials, the credentials of his colleagues, or the quality of their report. But it's a primary source and we rarely use primary sources in Wikipedia because that requires us to make difficult judgments about the meaning of the source, its quality, and its place in the larger context. We rely heavily on other experts to make those judgments and cite their secondary and tertiary sources. In other words, we need to ensure that this is really important and interesting and not the isolated interest or opinion of a Wikipedia editor and we do that by looking to see if others have already discussed it in their work. Does that help? ElKevbo (talk) 16:49, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

I suppose I understand, but I don't necessarily like it. I feel that this is pertinent fact, but I guess if it truly is other people will report it soon enough. Thank you for your time. Adamshellenbarger (talk) 06:08, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Rutgers and eggs

I commented in support of your action at Talk:Rutgers University#Eggs and activism and advised the user to join the discussion and against starting an edit-war. I'll keep an eye on it. --ColonelHenry (talk) 23:04, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Re:WP:SOFIXIT

I'm loathe to add any substantial content outside my field of expertise without very careful fact-checking and making sure I understand the material. At the same time, there's no way I'm going to release my professional work under a free license without a signature, so workaday copy edits, fact-checking and talk page comments are it for me. Thanks for the invitation, though.24.19.234.62 (talk) 20:48, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

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Talk:Lehigh University‎

Sigh. Always happy to lend an opinion, but never know how I get trolled so hard.  RasputinAXP  23:30, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Wittenberg University

To me, it looks like a 1995 incident that was the subject of a 1995 censure that was re-published in a 2000 article. Am I reading that wrong?--GrapedApe (talk)

Yeah, that looks about right. Given that, I don't see how we can discuss it in an article that makes it appear to be about recent or continuing activities. If it's a single incident from 1995 then I'm not sure why we need to mention it at all. Do you agree or should we take this to the article's Talk page for wider input? ElKevbo (talk) 03:30, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

I'd be inclined to favor including it: it's a strong charge from a well-respected group, even it it was a one-time thing. I'm not hellbent on it being in there, though. Talkpage is probably the way to go. Wittenberg University#Censure by American Philosophical Association. Feel free to re-phrase my statement of your position.--GrapedApe (talk) 03:35, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Cool; thanks! I've replied there. ElKevbo (talk) 04:17, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

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Miscount of votes

Actually Mistercontributor seems to have indicated that the lawsuit section only sticks out because of the rest of the article looking like an advertisement which is more in consistency with what I said. Grape has also agreed that the section is notable enough given all the sources in mainstream media. The only person you have agreeing with you is an uncivil former administrator and his friend and one other person. That's four at best if you the opinion of an uncivil party who is clearly only there for contention really counts as an opinion. The matter is still pending. AmericanDad86 (talk) 20:40, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. After re-reading his response, it looks like he did not directly support either side of the dispute but instead brought up further questions and issues. But the primary issue of you being the sole editor supporting this material and multiple editors advocating for excluding it remains. ElKevbo (talk) 21:44, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

I never said I'm RasputinAXP's friend... DarthBotto _talk•cont 07:19, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

ElKevbo, it is clear from your constructive and civil editing style that you truly do have what is best for the article at heart. Your editing style proves that to me. You have a very respectable editing style. I thought I would just put that out there. =) You and I probably could have come to a resolution on this matter ourselves what with our respectable editing styles without all the interference from uncivil editors. Cheers! AmericanDad86 (talk) 00:17, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

RfC on Liberty University

Hi - would you please move your reply in the survey section to the threaded section? Our guideline says " Feel free to ask people not to add threaded replies to the survey section. This will make the RfC easier to read for the editor who closes it, which is especially important for RfCs that attract a lot of responses.". I'll add a note to the RfC about this. Or you might remove it entirely - the concept of WP:Notability doesn't seem relevant to this. Dougweller (talk) 09:42, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

I've moved the question as requested but I refuse to remove the question entirely as it's completely appropriate and applicable. If I have understood her statement correctly then it's nonsensical and leads us down all sorts of black holes if we agree that Wikipedia RfCs are sufficient to establish that events are genuine controversies and meet the threshold for inclusion in articles on that basis alone. ElKevbo (talk) 17:30, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

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Your back must hurt from carrying all that water

My spiritual advisor has been encouraging me to focus less on winning all the time. Maybe we should give in on this one. [1] EEng (talk) 03:09, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

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OSU

University of Oregon mission statement as approved by the Oregon State Board of Higher Education

References to the University of Oregon being the flagship institution and the only flagship institution (in these contexts, "the" in place of "a" designate singularity):

• On page 2: "The University of Oregon is a comprehensive research university that serves its students and the people of Oregon, the nation, and the world through the creation and transfer of knowledge in the liberal arts, the natural and social sciences, and the professions. It is the Association of American University flagship institution of the Oregon University System." (emphasis mine)

• On page 3: "As noted in the preamble to the University of Oregon mission statement, this University is Oregon's Flagship Association of American Universities institution. This status, affirmed by the Oregon University System Board sets a context for the considerations of institutional mission fulfillment." (emphasis mine)

And finally, the biggest piece of evidence:

• On page 5: "Selective Flagship Institution. We seek to enhance our flagship status within the Oregon University System by attracting and admitting the most promising undergraduate students from Oregon's divers communities, other states, and the world. To this end, we will develop clear, comprehensive, and more selective admission standards that elevate our current admission criteria consistent with our academic mission and our role as the flagship university in the State of Oregon, while at the same time ensuring unbiased assessment of promise from all student groups. We commit to improving our student retention to the extent consistent with our public mission and to graduating most students within four years." (emphasis mine)

Nowhere can I find Oregon State University formally verifying flagship status, or even informally mentioning it. Ckere (talk) 15:57, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

I've replied on the article's Talk page. ElKevbo (talk) 16:34, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

UNIGUIDE discussion heading

Instead of "Mass removal of Washington Monthly rankings" as the section heading, I suggest replacing the section heading with "Washington Monthly rankings in University ranking template". That's the real issue, not Steeletrap's editing. Thanks. – S. Rich (talk) 22:54, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

No thank you. My objection is specific to the manner in which she has tried to make this change across multiple articles with no prior discussion and a demonstrated willingness to edit war, not with the substance of the change itself. Although I do object to the substance of the change that is an issue about which we can have a reasonable discussion and reach consensus; the behavior is disruptive and not up for discussion. ElKevbo (talk) 02:04, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Understood. What I was trying to do is get the discussion focused on whether Washington Monthly is appropriate in the template. But Steeletrap got the idea that the WikiProject talkpage thread was about her. IMO, instead of a "Hey folks, look at what this particular editor is doing on this or that page", I think a less editor-focused message would have worked better. More like, "Hey folks, look at some of the recent edits on this or that page." Who knows. Maybe you did not know, but in past discussions with (or involving) Steeletrap, I've seen the issues become muddled. So, while I have been tempted to say more, I think I'll steer clear of anymore involvement. – S. Rich (talk) 02:17, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

SPI for Megscaves123?

Hi. Was an SPI ever opened for Megscaves123? Given that this user is presumed to be a sock of a very prolific sockmaster (Mangoeater1000), I think it would be a good idea to get some more solid documentation on record regarding this new sock. Thanks. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 06:53, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

The editor in question is so prolific, well-documented, and obvious that I don't see the point but you're welcome to jump through the bureaucratic hoops if you like! :) ElKevbo (talk) 07:53, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Re your message: Sorry about the delay in getting back to you. I wandered off during the weekend. I see that C.Fred took care of the account. -- Gogo Dodo (talk) 19:14, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

South University

Hi ElKevbo, in case you hadn't seen my note on the South University Talk page, I wanted to give my thanks for reviewing my draft and moving it live. I also wondered if you might be able to add the university's logo to the infobox for me? I uploaded it under a fair use license but it will be deleted if not added into the article by next Wednesday. I'd be really appreciative of your help. Thanks, 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI) 19:57, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Done. ElKevbo (talk) 20:51, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank you so much! 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI) 21:56, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Your opinions on dealing with paid editors that are unable to follow our policies or work with others?

Glad you're noticing the editing. Any opinion on what to do with an paid editor, that cannot seem to understand our policies and guidelines for sources, that cannot understand or follow content policies, cannot follow WP:COI, and cannot follow WP:DR and WP:CON? --Ronz (talk) 15:39, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Seek a third opinion, file an RfC, or otherwise raise the issue elsewhere. Continued edit warring isn't getting you anywhere. ElKevbo (talk) 15:45, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll start with WP:COIN, and see if we can get him blocked without too much drama. --Ronz (talk) 16:03, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

UB

That's fine about not including Mrs. Gernatt Saraf, however there are others in the article that are not noteworthy. If she is to be deleted, then they should also be deleted. Thanks. Daniellagreen (talk) 01:30, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Please feel free to trim that section of the article! ElKevbo (talk) 02:16, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

I did trim that section, and you un-did it. Daniellagreen (talk) 00:53, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

No, you didn't trim that section. You added one person. Are you really asserting that the Operations Manager of the Gernatt Family of Companies is as notable as the other people in this section: Dr. Benjamin Franklin Goodrich 1857- Founder of B.F.Goodrich tire company, James H. McGraw 1884 - Founder of McGraw-Hill Companies Set a higher standard for industrial journalists., Louis Boyer '65 - Owner of Polyloom Corporation of America, was the first to develop artificial turf, and Karl Holz '73 - President of Disney Cruise Lines? It doesn't seem likely that the Operations Manager of nearly any company is comparable to that list of distinguished people!

We must be selective in the material we include in many articles, including the UB article, and it seems reasonable to me that we exclude from this article alumni who haven't made an extraordinary contribution and left a mark on history. Does that seem reasonable to you? ElKevbo (talk) 01:11, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Fredonia

Do you have something against the Gernatt's? There are people included in the Fredonia State University alumni section who are not "as noteworthy" as others. That is all a matter of opinion. If you are going to delete Donald R. Gernatt, then you should also delete those others who are not hyperlinked. A reviewer shared with me that if someone is not noteworthy, they may not be included in a section, but that doesn't apply across the board. They can be red-hyperlinked. Therefore, if you remove him, then please remove the others who aren't hyperlinked. Let's be fair. Daniellagreen (talk) 00:50, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Once again, you're free to remove others who also fail to rise to the level of noteworthiness for inclusion in those articles. I - and other volunteer editors - are under no obligation to do so ourselves. We do what we can to the level of our interest, energy, and time. It bothers me that you have added these people to these lists so I reverted your edits without malice. You're free to open a discussion in the articles' Talk pages but please don't begin an edit war by reverting my edits (my edits aren't special in any way; it's simply bad form to revert someone's edits when they've reverted yours because the next step in that cycle is discussion in Talk). ElKevbo (talk) 01:17, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, ElKevbo. You have new messages at Jeffrd10's talk page.
Message added 13:45, 11 November 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

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Western State College of Law at Argosy University

Hi ElKevbo, I wanted to ask if you might be able to help me with another article similar to the South University article you helped on last month. After we finished up the revisions to the South University article, I posted a request on the Talk page for the Western State College of Law at Argosy University, another school owned by Education Management Corporation. As I did with South University, I have researched and rewritten the article on Western State. I discussed the draft and made a few changes with the help of another editor, however that editor has been absent from the discussion since the 24th of October. I've looked around on several other WikiProjects, but haven't been able to find anyone else to help finish the review process.

Would you be able to take a look at the draft I've prepared and let me know if you think it is ready to move live? My request, and the discussion with the editor who was involved earlier, is here on the Talk page. Thanks, 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI) 23:07, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Travel+Leisure

Thank you for starting the discussion at the Wikiproject Universities. I commented there. Banks Irk (talk) 20:16, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

ElKevbo; I tried to help but I am not sure if I did. If this type of information will be included in these articles, then the best option would be to show this type of information is bogus by adding additional information to these articles, as I did for the University of Minnesota article, as an example. - Mistercontributer (talk) 00:18, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

AFD of List of Dewey Decimal classes

I have put in a deletion request for List of Dewey Decimal classes as it appears to be a copyright violation. I'm notifying you as you have either made multiple edits to the article in the past year and/or on the talk page for that article and Talk:Dewey Decimal Classification. --Marc Kupper|talk 04:22, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

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Potential sockpuppet of Levineps

Recently, User:Oriole85 (contribs) has been sporadically popping up on my watchlist for category-related changes. A lot of new users do that, so it wasn't a particularly noteworthy thing for me. But then he kept showing up with a higher frequency, oftentimes making (what I thought to be) completely unnecessary over-categorizations to articles. I've been on Wikipedia long enough to know that User:Levineps (contribs) is one of the most notorious over-categorizers we've ever seen (and has the community sanctions, block records, and bans to show for it). So, I did about two minutes' worth of research and discovered that Oriole85's account was created / his edits began on November 5, 2013. When was the last edit by Levineps? November 4, 2013. That is not a coincidence IMO. I don't have (a) the time right now, nor (b) the motivation to formally open an SPI, but I'm hoping that one of the many people I'm notifying about this does. If you're wondering why you're being pinged about this, it's because I saw where you were one of the people who has left messages on Levineps' talk page at some point regarding his inappropriate editing. So now, in addition to all of the aforementioned issues with Levineps, it looks like a probably sockpuppet to throw into the mix. Jrcla2 (talk) 05:30, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

December 2013

Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that your edit to University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill may have broken the syntax by modifying 1 "{}"s and 1 "<>"s likely mistaking one for another. If you have, don't worry: just edit the page again to fix it. If I misunderstood what happened, or if you have any questions, you can leave a message on my operator's talk page.

List of unpaired brackets remaining on the page:

• work=The News & Observer|accessdate=September 20, 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Carolina North > Home|url=http://carolinanorth.unc.edu/|accessdate=September 21, 2012}}</ref>
• scrutiny, have scrambled to review their <nowiki>[sexual assault] policies."<ref</nowiki>}{{cite web |url=http://chronicle.com/article/The-Chronicle-List-This/143485/ |title=The 2013

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Removing My Links?

Hi I'm Richard, I am a little confused. Can you explain why these single links are not relevant to the subject and why you thought it was a good idea to delete them? As I am new to Wiki and it would be great to know as I have just put in a load of effort to supply supporting content for the subject areas. I thought video pieces with leading subject matter specialists would be of great interest to the wiki audience. Did you look at the content on the links I supplied?

Why did you delete my link with Video coverage from the WorldSkills 2011 competition? This was a single link with relevant content to WorldSkills (there were video interviews with the WorldSkills President, UK Government Ministers, the next WorldSkills President and senior International delegates etc).

The Martin Doel video on Apprenticeships was discussing international Apprenticeship development. Martin Doel is the CEO of the Association of Colleges and is one of the leading specialists in Further Education and particularly the development of Apprenticeships

I am also confused why you removed the Association of Colleges link to video coverage of their annual conference (again this was just a single link... with videos with the UK Skills Minister - who sets the UK skills strategy, Shadow Skills Minister, AoC CEO, etc, etc)

I am really confused about why you deleted the link to Noah Brown discussing MOOCs, considering his is one of the World authorities on distance learning and MOOCs.

You can check all the links here and they're all appropriate to the matter at hand -

http://www.fenews.co.uk/association-of-colleges-annual-conference-aoc-2013 http://www.fenews.co.uk/association-of-colleges-annual-conference-2013/j-noah-brown-ceo-of-acct-discusses-moocs http://www.fenews.co.uk/worldskills

Thanks for your help with this

Kind regards

Richard

— Preceding unsigned comment added by RichardBurdon (talk • contribs) 14:44, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

The only edits you have made to this encyclopedia are to add several links to fenews.co.uk to several different articles. That typically indicates that an editor is not here to improve this encyclopedia but instead is here to promote their employer or personal website. Do you have any connection to or specific interest in that website? ElKevbo (talk) 15:40, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Sooner than later

Hi ElKevbo,

I see that you are an education scholar. Let's discuss the relevance of the academic table. So you mention quantitative and psychometric concerns for the averages. Please elaborate on this. Are you saying because x school is ranked 40th and y school is ranked 41st and because we don't have the methodology to take into account the various percentages, we shouldn't average them? It seems a little farfetched and academic to me. They're just averages. It's hard to make a case that an average is truly original research. Technicalities aside, the reader could simply do averages himself. Why shouldn't the encyclopedia do it for them? The same goes for SAT scores.. It's a little abstract for my liking, but you have more knowledge on this area than I. I know faculty at Indiana, you've had excellent training.

Happy holidays DMB112 (talk) 16:08, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

You've chosen an excellent example. One of the primary issues is that rankings are usually assigned integer values which means that we naturally interpret the ranking system as being a scalar measure when they're usually ordinal at best. In other words, we have to know if the difference between 40 and 41 is a meaningful one and that the difference between 40 and 41 is the same as the difference between 1 and 2 and the difference between 400 and 401. In many cases, it's not a meaningful difference because the measurement itself has low validity e.g., it's a crappy measure. Is the university ranked number 1 really one hundred times better than the institution ranked number 100? One way to try to dodge this issue would be to work with some of the underlying measures that some of the ranking systems produce and publish that are used to place the universities in the final order. But it would be inappropriate for Wikipedia editors to independently innovate in this area; anyone interested in doing this would need to find some good extant literature that has already used this approach and been well-received by other experts in the field.

In the end, the ranking systems typically don't have the level of precision that people believe they do. Just because there are numbers assigned to things doesn't mean we can usefully apply all of the arithmetical and statistical manipulations that we would like to do to them!

You're on more solid ground with the more reputable standardized test scores e.g., SAT, ACT. Although there are many criticisms of those tests they have are purposefully constructed to have pretty good psychometric properties: the number of participants is much higher, the instruments are older and thus have had a lot more work done on them, the underlying constructs (academic aptitude) are simpler (but not simple!), and quite frankly the number of (very smart!) people who have worked on the instruments is much larger than the number of people who have worked on ranking systems. ElKevbo (talk) 17:13, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

But is there actual proven demonstration that the US News rankings are unreliable? Or do these complaints just come from the critical nature of higher education and competition. Agreed, their methodology isn't the best, but it is one of the most popularized and recognized forms of reputation. The reason I chose that ranking as opposed to THE, Washington Monthly, the National Research Council or whatever is because no other ranking is officially acknowledged by presidents, provosts, regents and the public. It's not our jobs as editors to make that call either. Regardless, I see your point.

Regarding criticism, there are critics for everything and anything. Again, I see your point. Thank you for your insight.

DMB112 (talk) 22:52, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Recent edit to South University

Hi Elkevbo, I'm wondering if you have a moment to look at a recent edit to the South University article and possibly revert it if you agree that it is not an improvement to the page. A few days ago an unregistered editor added a lengthy list of degrees to the article. I posted, in slightly more detail, about this on the Talk page here. I also have a more recent enrollment figure for the article if you would be willing to update that too, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks, 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI) 20:01, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

I've replied on the article's Talk page. ElKevbo (talk) 20:44, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, appreciate your help. Happy holidays! 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI) 21:12, 20 December 2013 (UTC)