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User talk:Eik Corell

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Cyfuture

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Toreeva Talkpage

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User talk:Ramblersen#Frederiksberg

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Talk:Valles Marineris#New_paper_on_lava_tubes

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Talk:Neoconservatism#Hillary Clinton

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User talk:2601:285:203:EDF0:380E:BB7D:FE56:C76

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Vijayanagara Empire

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Southern Levant

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Talk:TheLiberal.ie#COI editing.2C_part_2

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Talk:Baylor University#Removal_of_Title_IX_scandal

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User talk:Sciencewatcher

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Talk:University of_St_Andrews#University_of_St_Andrews.27_ranking

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Have you discussed this on a talk page?

Yes, I have discussed this issue on a talk page already.

Location of dispute

Users involved

Dispute overview

We can't agree on whether the ARWU ranking should be included in the lede.

Have you tried to resolve this previously?

Tried a third opinion, but the person giving the third opinion appears not to have understood the problem, and didn't say anything useful. I clarified the issue and left a message on his talk page, but no response also.

How do you think we can help?

It's a dispute between two editors. The content in question isn't too difficult to understand. I'm hoping a few more eyes on the dispute would resolve it easily.

Summary of dispute by Kioj156

Please keep it brief - less than 2000 characters if possible, it helps us help you quicker.

Most of the discussion of the topic is located here [11], I disagree with Banedon's edits because he/she is insistent on removing the THE Arts/Humanities/Social Sciences world ranking without giving a valid explanation and replacing it with text of every single world ranking. I don't see the need for this when most university wikipedia pages only make mention of the university rankings they perform better in in their leading paragraphs - universities like KCL, Edinburgh, Manchester make no mention of their poor performance in national rankings and focus mostly on their world ranking performance. KCL, for example, only mentions QS and THE ranking and ignores ARWU. I see no reason as to why this should be different for universities which perform better in national rankings, as is seen on the university pages of Exeter and Lancaster. As long as the world rankings are included somewhere in the wikipedia's page, such as the Rankings and Reputation section, I don't understand Banedon's persistent need to change the existing leading paragraph. Kioj156 (talk) 21:48, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Talk:University of_St_Andrews#University_of_St_Andrews.27_ranking discussion

Please keep discussion to a minimum before being opened by a volunteer. Continue on article talk page if necessary.

I see this dispute involves multiple things, not just the ARWU rankings. The THE Arts/Humanities/Social Sciences etc thing I removed because with the international rankings included, the text becomes quite bloated. I'm OK with leaving it there, but the section on rankings in the lede becomes big. Certain universities make no mention of their poor performance in national rankings, but the effect of this is that it makes the university looks better. I don't see any reason for this per WP:NPOV. Further national rankings only affect universities in that country, while the international ones allow comparison of UK universities with those from other countries. For that reason I would include the international rankings instead of the national ones if space becomes an issue, and since there are three major international rankings, all three should be included regardless of how poorly a university performs on any of them. Besides those familiar enough with the methodologies of the three rankings would understand why University of St Andrews' ARWU ranking is so poor.

That the articles on the other universities don't all mention the three international rankings is not an argument for this university not doing so - it simply means that the other articles should be changed. I would make a RfC spanning multiple sites to discuss this, but I don't know where to put it. Banedon (talk) 01:31, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

Moderator Statement

I accept the role as moderator for this case. After the opposing party replies, I will open the discussion. ThePlatypusofDoom (Talk) 12:36, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Discussion

I have opened the Discussion. Please discuss in a civil manner. ThePlatypusofDoom (Talk) 17:43, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

I've just skimmed the dispute on the talk page. I think that rankings, insofar as they are multifactorial in their methodology, can vary greatly, and are not necessarily concordant from one year to another, should probably not go in the lead para as a general rule for unis or other institutions. doing so places one at risk of cherry-picking on the basis of either most-recent or perceived authoritativeness of the rank-er. the prominence of a particular rank just seems guaranteed to provoke unproductive discussion. the lead para for a historical institution is supposed to reflect the least-varying characteristics of the wholeness of the institution, more or less, IMO. SubcommandanteLOL (talk) 06:17, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

FWIW, I've opened a case at the conflict of interest noticeboard about this article, and confirmed that there have been no previous disclosures there by Kioj156. SubcommandanteLOL (talk) 06:40, 12 June 2016 (UTC)
Personally I think rankings should be included in the lede paragraphs of universities. I expect to see them, and I would think any article on, say, Harvard University that does not mention that it is one of the most prestigious universities in the world (and cite rankings to back that statement up) would be incomplete. One problem is that there are lots of rankings out there, and cherry picking which ranking to use can make a university look better or worse. That's why I think the most objective thing to do is just to cite the three most widely-followed international rankings: the THE, QS and ARWU. Another problem is that the rankings change from year to year, sometimes dramatically so (like when QS changed their methodology a year ago). However I think this can be overlooked, and the articles updated every year - after all many other things like FIFA rankings also change every year. A final problem is that because the three rankings use such different methodologies, a university can do well on any of them and then poorly on the others. University of St Andrews is one such case. It's easy to understand this if one is familiar with the methodologies (see [12]), but without such knowledge it can be confusing. I do not know the best way to handle this - perhaps a footnote explaining the discrepancy could be used. Banedon (talk) 00:52, 14 June 2016 (UTC)
that harvard is one of the most prestigious universities in the world is not in dispute, and one can find ample RS to support that, from many different time periods. It is one of the things that so far, has not changed much. I would expect that statement, "Harvard is considered by many to be among the most prestigious universities in the world" to be in the lead para, and uncontroversial.
rankings are a different beast entirely. They are solely for marketing, either of the body producing the rankings (to call attention either to themselves or a particular issue) or the institution itself. I would find their inclusion, perhaps as a separate section, to be completely uncontroversial, but to select one or another to place in the lead para, it will necessarily have to be cherry-picked, based on whether an editor finds those rankings compelling. Perhaps I think that the Washington Monthly's rankings of US schools based on educational value-for-money (as they have defined it) should be placed in the lead para then. then you have yourself the makings of an edit war.
Or perhaps the scenario is that someone thinks the ranking of the business school is important enough to put in the lead, based on someones rankings. should that be in addition to, or displace a hypothetical precipitous fall in ranking by the law school?
I have no quarrel whatever with placing published rankings in the article, merely their placement in the lead para. SubcommandanteLOL (talk) 01:48, 14 June 2016 (UTC)
Perhaps Harvard wasn't the best example ... but an article on a not-so-prestigious university like the University of Washington should still be able to say it is firmly in the upper echelons on the prestige ladder. Giving the rankings in the lede also allows direct comparison against universities for which it would be difficult to impossible to find RS for, e.g. is the University of Washington more prestigious than the University of Lancaster? Looking at rankings would give an immediate answer, but one would be hard-pressed to find a source that compares those two universities explicitly.
Otherwise I don't strongly disagree with what you wrote: I still think the lede paragraphs should give the rankings, but I can understand why another reasonable editor might object to it. I would, therefore, start a RfC on this subject. Looking around WikiProject Universities [13] would be the best place to do this. If Kioj156 does not object (this involves more than the University of St Andrews), I'd say move this discussion there. Banedon (talk) 01:57, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

Talk:Biryani

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Talk:Honor Oak

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Talk:Constitution of_Medina#First_Constitution_of_Democracy

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Talk:Anglo-Saxon settlement_of_Britain

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Talk:Neoconservatism#Hillary Clinton

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Talk:Kodak Black

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Talk:Unseen character#Maris_Crane

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Talk:Farmaan

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Talk:G12 Vision#Low_quality_.22Concerns.22_section

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Pro-Beijing camp

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Talk:Zika fever#research

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Talk:Mahmoud Abbas#WP:RECENTISM

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