Talk:University of Edinburgh

Thomas Jefferson quote

I commented out the quote from Thomas Jefferson as I'm not sure it belongs with the history of the university. link The fact that Thomas Jefferson wrote to a family member doesn't seem relevant, also the emphasis seems POV (ok Thomas Jefferson thought the courses were great in 1786, but...). Any other opinions?

Looking to replace the current photos of the Old Medical school, New College, and Teviot Row House with modern photos

To avoid confusion for first-timers reading this page (that these places no longer exist), would it be better to replace them with more modern versions of them instead? I've consulted with a few individuals who felt this way before they came to the university, but let me know your input. FrederickIIisg (talk) 13:33, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Current Version

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Replacements in consideration

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@FrederickIIisg: Surprised no-one has replied to this before now. Thanks for finding these images. I think there is historical interest to keeping the old images, as they attest to the antiquity of the university. It's possible a 'Then and Now' section could be added, or that the two could be placed side by side, however this is already a huge article with sub-articles sectioned off into separate articles. Lest there be confusion as to whether these buildings are still standing as you infer, perhaps the captions could reflect this. Let's give that some thought. Chrisdevelop (talk) 09:11, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm unsure why we didn't pick this up back in 2022. I think the problem - if it is one - is that the article is both long and fairly picture-heavy, so I'm always inclined to not add extra pictures or sections to it. I trimmed the 'Notable people' section a few years back since it was getting a bit silly, but like any good thicket, it's just grown back.

That said, I like both the historic and modern pictures, but don't think a juxtaposition would do much since any listed building will look the same anyway (the three above illustrate that pretty well). @Chrisdevelop, I'm happy to support any ideas you have here. Reworking the captions a bit might be a solution? — Arcaist ^{(contr—talk)} 08:59, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

@Arcaist: The captions link to articles about the buildings that contain up-to-date images, so I'd be happy to leave the historical images where they currently are in the main UoE article. The fact that newer images can be reached with a single click is probably sufficient to avoid any confusion as to whether these historic buildings are still standing, and if so, what sort of condition they're in. The images added by Frederickllisg might be considered as replacements for some that are currently on the sub-articles, if they're of better quality. I agree about the burgeoning notables, that should really only have highly recognisable names on the main article. There is a sub-article List of University of Edinburgh people that contains a lot more links to notables past and present, and some of the less well-known notables currently on the main UoE article could move there. While I think about it, I am struggling to find corroboration for Carl Orff as having been either an alumnus or staff member. His name comes up on the Music Society article and it's in the List article, so still researching this. Any inside knowledge? Chrisdevelop (talk) 00:15, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

@Chrisdevelop: Agree on basically all counts re: the pictures. If you notice anything low quality, go right ahead.

The notables have always been a concern of mine, especially since there is another subpage, and I dislike the tendency on university pages to present line after line of alumni - it smells a bit of puffery. We've tried to combat this by separating inventions from just names, but it's still very long.

If you want, we could start a topic here on the talk page and see if we can agree on 1-3 names per 'category' (writers, biologists, etc.) that are worth mentioning? — Arcaist ^{(contr—talk)} 15:12, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

@Arcaist: Yes a good idea. A set of criteria could be developed for a notable to warrant inclusion on the main page that are more robust for UoE than are general criteria for inclusion in Wikipedia itself. For a start, international recognition is I think a sine qua non, i.e. a name that someone in every town in every land would know, e.g. Charles Darwin as distinct from Charles Galton Darwin. How that is decided is the nub, and it's likely to be Eurocentric. It would be good to get input from others. Chrisdevelop (talk) 17:21, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Moving 'Colleges and Schools' to academic profile?

Hi all,

I'm new to Wikipedia but I thought I would ask: would it make sense to move colleges and schools to the academic profile portion of the page? I would think rewriting a small blurb regarding the schools would function well for the governance portion while moving the juicy parts to the academic section? Bobbyshmurday (talk) 21:04, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Hi Bobby, welcome to Wikipedia! Sorry it's taken so long for someone to answer your suggestion. I have taken a look at the two areas you mention, and 'Academic Profile' has to do with the University's performance and international reputation, and the measures taken to sustain and enhance that - hence the categorisation 'profile'. The Colleges and Schools are administrative layers integral to the University's organisational structure, and so I believe they're best left under present heading of 'Organisation and Administration'. Does that make sense? Chrisdevelop (talk) 02:50, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Boosterism

@Arcaist There has been at issue with the placement of rankings in the lede of a university article, which I of course flagged as a WP:BOOSTER issue. What was previously there was certainly a WP:SYNTH of the sources which reached a conclusion not supported by the sources.

Adding individual website rankings in a university's lede has always been a very poor outlook IMO, especially that on the university — a university such as the University of Edinburgh certainly doesn't require the appraisal of a ranking to be one of its defining features. This is why most inclusions of such information in the lede (including the original sentence in the lede here) usually fall far short of WP:HIGHEREDREP, specifically WP:UNDUE. The revised sentence you have in the article still falls short of WP:UNDUE — ARWU and THE specifically do not have the body weight to support such a prominent place in the lede, QS maybe just barely.

When I did a brief read-through of the article, I did spot some WP:SYNTH and WP:UNDUE problems (I'll post them later). I appreciate your attentiveness in communicating your WP:COI, but some things have slipped through the cracks. GuardianH (talk) 21:10, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

@GuardianH I don't think things are quite as clear-cut. Placing ranking information in the lead is not "of course" a boosterism issue — students and the interested public use them routinely to form opinions and make choices, they serve as the basis of public policy, and they guide decisions by the universities themselves. It's an elementary characteristic of a university, whatever we feel about the utility of ranking universities in the first place. For the record, I'm not a fan of comparative rankings, and am quite aware of their shortcomings. But whether you — or I — believe Edinburgh "doesn't require" ranking information is immaterial, given how widespread their use is.

The last RfC (which you linked) consequently did not reach the conclusion that ranking information has to be removed, but I'm happy to be corrected.

Regarding the body weight of the rankings, that seems to be a matter of opinion. The RfC concluded that "There was insufficient discussion to find a consensus on whether inclusion of text on specific individual rankings are appropriate in a lead section." I don't see what the specific standard for inclusion would be, save for the fact that those three are the most-cited comparative rankings. Given that you insisted that a short 'synthesis' sentence has to be removed, the only alternative is to state the non-synthesized rankings. If that is still too much for you, then I don't understand what the solution would be: synthesis is unwelcome, and stating the data is also unwelcome - but removing all ranking information goes against the RfC consensus.

On a sidenote, I disagree with your interpretation of WP:SYNTH — using three different rankings of 22, 30, and 38 to say "top 50" is a summary, not an improper synthesis. It isn't reaching a conclusion that's not supported by the sources, since all three sources place the university in the top 50. But maybe I'm reading WP:SYNTHNOT wrong. — Arcaist ^{(contr—talk)} 21:38, 29 October 2023 (UTC)