Commons talk:Category scheme higher education institutions

Some questions/issues

• How old does something need to be "historical"? Criteria needed.
• "Campus" is problematic. While many universities and colleges have a "campus" many do not; in many European countries, a campus is not the norm, as buildings are simply scattered through a city. I'd go for "buildings" and maybe "facilities" as more general. Also, many universities (and some colleges) have facilities in multiple cities (consider Antioch University, scattered around the U.S. or the University of Washington, which besides its main Seattle campus (not its original campus there, by the way) now has large facilities in Bothell and Tacoma. And I'd definitely want to allow for the possibility of multiple campuses.
• What do you think of buildings that, at the time of the photo, are either former or future university/college facilities? For example, many universities and colleges have grown by taking over existing buildings (often, in the U.S., homes).
• You mention alumni and faculty, but miss administrators.
• College sports deserve a category.
• Where do you intend sororities and fraternities to end up? We already have Category:Fraternity and sorority buildings in the United States and its subcategories.
• In general, the scheme seems to be based on North American practices. For example, most European universities have distinct buildings for each faculty (like a U.S. department), which is not accounted for here.

- Jmabel ! talk 17:33, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Standard naming on Commons (and generally on en:wikipedia), except for half of US (that has been disputed) is Commons standard format: Alumni of xxx University. --Foroa (talk) 18:00, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Thanks for the comments. It helps to get a worldwide view of this, because I don't know a lot about European or other universities. About each one:

• Yeah, "historical photographs" is not very descriptive or robust to changes in time. Do you think it is even worth it to have a category of old images? If so, we might do something like "Images of Wiki University from the 12th century," etc. However, a potential problem with that is that if we create a category for one century, we might as well have to for every century, and then we end up with one for the 21th century which is completely useless as it will contain 90% of all files.
• The reason I chose "campus" rather than "buildings" is that a campus can contain things other than buildings, e.g. fountains, walkways, open fields, etc., and I want a category to just dump stuff on (so that it's kept out of the main category). How would you categorize a structure which belongs to a European university but is not a building? Also, for scattered facilities, we could do a "Wiki University main campus" category and categories for each of the auxiliary campuses.
• Could you clarify what you intend to be done with such former/future buildings? Because as far as I can tell, we don't need to handle them as a special case.
• We could do something like Category:Stanford University, which has Category:Stanford University people and under that alumni and faculty. I've added that the the proposal.
• OK, I've added "Wiki University athletics." (Is "athletics" an acceptable word outside the US?) Also, for subcategories for individual sports, would you prefer the name of the university or the name of the team be used? For example, "Stanford University football" or "Stanford Cardinal football"?
• We could start just putting images of frats and sororities under both "Wiki University campus" and "Wiki University student organizations," but if enough of them accumulate, we could create a category called "Fraternity and sorority buildings in Wiki University." In practice, I do not see many photos of frats or sororities
• Sorry, but what do you mean by "distinct buildings for each faculty"?

In addition, I'd like to request your opinion on several things:

• Do you prefer "Wiki University people" or "People of Wiki University"? I think "Wiki University people" sounds slightly better, but becomes awkward if you replace "Wiki University" with a long name such as "University of California, Los Angeles."
• While we're on the topic of UCLA: When, if ever, is an extremely well-known abbreviation (e.g. to the point that it is as well-known than the full name) acceptable for naming subcategories? For example, should we have "University of California, Los Angeles buildings" or "UCLA buildings"?
• I am of the opinion that the main category of a university with hundreds of files or more underneath its category structure should be generally kept free of files. Do you agree? However, I am indifferent to whether wordmarks, logos, or other insignia should go in the main category (so that they present the user with representative symbols of the university upon visiting the category) or we should have a subcategory for such files (so that they are treated the same just as any other file). What do you think of this?

King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 18:22, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

en:UCLA (disambiguation) and es:UCLA_(desambiguación) includes another university, so no reason to shortcut. In Europe, the fact that a university is scattered over a city doesn't mean necessarily that it is has so many campuses. Commons naming standard is "People of xxx". Moreover, "xxx university, campus xx, medical faculty people" becomes funny. --Foroa (talk) 18:56, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

"athletics" is fine for North American universities, but in Commonwealth English, the term "athletics" refers specifically to what we in the U.S. would call "track and field". It may be misleading, but I'm not sure there's a common term that works in both dialects. For North American universities, categories should certainly be of the form "UCLA Bruins football" or "New Hampshire Wildcats women's ice hockey" or "Tennessee Lady Volunteers basketball". I can't say how other regions handle intercollegiate sporting competitions. Powers (talk) 21:34, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

I'd also go up one spot in the category tree, and say the parent of "UCLA Bruins football" should be "UCLA Bruins". cmadler (talk) 14:11, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't see any reason for the main category of a university to be empty of photos. If there's a lot of something, then it needs a category, if not, not.

I think that if we are going for a consistent naming scheme, it has to be "People of...", "Buildings of...", etc. That one always works; the other, while often more "natural", is clearly not right for some longer names (per Foroa's example).

I understand why you like "campus", but it doesn't work. Some universities have no campus. Some have multiple campuses. Some campuses (campi? (just kidding)) are the sites multiple independent institutions. There may be many where "main campus" is appropriate, but not all.

As noted above, "athletics" in UK usage is much narrower.

Former/future buildings: consider for a medieval madrassa in Granada that became part of the University of Granada in recent years. Would we want to classify a 16th-century sketch of the building under "Buildings of the University of Granada"? I don't necessarily object, just wanted to make sure we make the decision consciously.

I believe that most fraternity and sorority buildings at most U.S. universities and colleges are not on campus. They're near campus, but not on. For example, at the University of Washington in Seattle, they are in a neighborhood north of campus.

- Jmabel ! talk 16:54, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

The location of fraternity/sorority buildings varies. In my experience the most common thing seems to be some on-campus and some off-campus fraternity/sorority houses. cmadler (talk) 18:44, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

@cmadler: It seems a bit redundant to have both a category called "UCLA Bruins" and a category called "UCLA athletics."

@Jmabel: OK, the "People of..." style seems like a good boilerplate rule to use. Regarding "campus," note that "buildings" does not work either, for the reasons I mentioned above. So I'm leaning towards "Facilities of Wiki University." Or should we make an exception for US schools with one primary campus? Regarding "athletics," I'm fine with replacing it with "sports." Or should there be an exception for the US again? For former/future buildings, I personally do not have an issue with labeling it "Buildings of the University of Granada." For fraternity/sorority buildings, again it's not a big deal since they are not that prevalent on Commons, but if you feel it shouldn't go under the campus category we could always make "Fraternity and sorority buildings of Wiki University" a direct subcat of the main category. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 19:52, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the question of how to handle college sports categories is a long-unresolved matter: Commons:Categories for discussion/2011/05/College athletic programs has been active for eighteen months with no consensus either way. Powers (talk) 20:04, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

OK, let's put that issue aside for now. Again, what does everyone think about "Facilities"? Or should we have American universities on a different standard, using "campus"? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 03:24, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Seems to me that as a top level (immediately under the specific college/university), "facilities" is the most general. In the case of many U.S. colleges/universities, for most of their facilities the reasonable next level down would be a campus. But consider Wesleyan University (my alma mater, FWIW). There are literally dozens of off-campus buildings, including at least one (the Green Street Arts Center) half a mile off campus in the North End of Middletown plus the grounds of Long Lanes Farm, a former reform school. They also used to own the St. Clement's, also known as the Taylor Estate, across the river in Portland, Connecticut. I believe the university or certain student clubs also own (or have owned) a few other parcels of land around New England, including at least one as far away as New Hampshire. There are other examples I could give even for that one university, but these leap to mind. I believe that I could come up with similar examples for almost any other major college or university I know at all well. - Jmabel ! talk 04:30, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

I just redid the category scheme on the project page; please tell me what you think.

About a syntactic detail: Do you think my use of "of" and "at" in each case where I use them is idiomatic? For example, "Student organizations at Wiki University" or "Student organizations of Wiki University"? I would have liked to make them consistent across the board, but there are some cases where only one is possible and the other either does not make sense or does not have the intended meaning (e.g. "Events at Wiki University" or "People of Wiki University"). The words "in" or "on" may also be appropriate.

For "University of X" type names, would you put "the" in front? For example, "Buildings of University of California, Berkeley" or "Buildings of the University of California, Berkeley"? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 06:44, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

I think if they are structured this way (as opposed to "University of Kentucky buildings", for example) the definite article is needed. Unfortunately, the naming of universities is not always a neat and simple thing (see en:University at Buffalo, for example). cmadler (talk) 14:52, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

After thinking about this for a few days, I've got a few thoughts.

• First, as a general rule, I think it's better to formulate the category names as "Wiki University X" rather than "X of Wiki University". This also would allow us to avoid definite article issues as discussed above (so "University of Kentucky buildings" rather than "Buildings of the University of Kentucky").
• I'm not necessarily opposed to a subcategory for aerial photos, but it's worth keeping in mind that every other subcategory is about what is depicted rather than how it is depicted.
• Should the "insignia" category also include logos, perhaps as a subcategory?
• Breaking down "people" into "alumni", "faculty", and "administrators" might be too much, particularly when you consider the possibility of administrators also being appointed as faculty. For a university administrator also appointed as faculty who's worked at several different schools, this could quickly balloon into a ridiculous number of categories!
• "Wiki University buildings" should normally/optionally/as appropriate include a category for "Wiki University student housing", which as subcategories might include "Wiki University residence halls" and "Wiki University apartments" (or "Wiki University apartment buildings"?).
• With regard to the whole facilities/buildings/campus naming issue, we need to keep in mind distinctions of location, ownership, and use. For example, en:Rupp Arena is an off-campus facility used by the University of Kentucky. en:Robinson Forest is an off-campus property/facility owned and used by the University of Kentucky. en:Eagle Crest Resort (Ypsilanti, Michigan) is an off-campus property owned by Eastern Michigan University, but operated, at least in part, by Marriott. This is not a simple issue, and there might not be a good one-size-fits-all approach.

Thanks, cmadler (talk) 16:27, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

• That is the position I began with, though I had concerns that something like Category:California State Polytechnic University, Pomona student organizations would sound awkward (too many nouns together). Of course, if we go with "Wiki University X," it solves not only the definite article issue but the more important issue of which preposition to use (in, at, or of).
• I mean, "Historical images of Wiki University" (assuming we can sort out the scope) is also about how it is depicted, so it won't be alone. We could also have "Videos of Wiki University" which, again, is referred to the medium via which the work is conveyed (i.e. "how").
• I do intend for logos to go in insignia; your subcategory suggestion is nice.
• I disagree with Jmabel's addition of administrators for the same reason. I think if there really are any notable administrators who are not also faculty, we could just put them under the main "People" category.
• Good idea about the student housing.
• I don't think it's necessary. I intend for the "Facilities of Wiki University" category to be a catch-all for any tangible, immobile object, be it a building, sculpture, field, etc., that is associated with the university in any of the ways you have mentioned.

King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:19, 28 November 2012 (UTC)