Talk:.edu

PaulMitchell.edu
I think paulmitchell.edu is a great/surprising example of a non-university with a .edu domain. I'm not willing to spend the time to integrate it, but I think it should be (perhaps right after deltacolleges.edu). --Mrcolj (talk) 17:01, 9 July 2010 (UTC) My Guy — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.106.8.150 (talk) 18:27, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Remove list of non-school domain holders?
I am questioning the purpose of the table of domains registered by "non-schools". This now begins to dominate the article, is all likely uncited and unverified, and doesn't really contribute more than a simple statement to the fact that other organizations have been grandfathered in. Perhaps a separate 'list of...' article is less dramatic than removal. Kbrose (talk) 19:30, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, the table is not a comprehensive list, but essentially a list of examples. I wouldn't want it to become a separate list, because I think that would impart more perceived importance to the table than I think it deserves.
 * As for sourcing: In principle, the whole list could be sourced to Whois (or specific whois results).
 * To reduce its dominance of the article, the table could be replaced by some shorter tables or text discussions about the various "types" of registrants that aren't educational institutions but hold .edu domains. For example, I see that several registrants are education-oriented museums -- those could be discussed as a group. Also, the domains that aren't currently being used for anything in particular (like mindless.edu) could be dropped from the table. --Orlady (talk) 20:35, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

How about math.edu ? 67.111.218.42 (talk) 15:27, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
 * What about it? Kbrose (talk) 15:29, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with Kbrose above. I am going to consolidate the intro of this section elsewhere and delete the list. Per WP:UNDUE, this one minor aspect of the domain shouldn't get more coverage than the thousands of .edu domains that meet the norm. Novaseminary (talk) 04:27, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Reinsertion of the list table

 * Orlady reinserted this table. Because no consensus was established here, I again removed the table (leaving the explanatory, relevant text) with this edit. I would consider making this a SAL, but it does not belong in this article as is. Novaseminary (talk) 03:38, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I restored the list, and I spent quite a bit of time cleaning it up -- removing dead domains, adding sources for information in the table, etc. I'll try to respond to the various objections that have been raised to its inclusion:


 * 1) "Uncited and unverified." The list that I restored is not unverified.
 * 2) "Original research." I strenuously object to the theory that the list is original research.
 * 3) "Wikipedia is not a web directory." The list is not a web directory, but a list of examples. This is an article about a Internet top-level domain, and it is entirely reasonable for such an article to tell about and list some individual domains within the TLD. (For another example, see .com.) I do agree that a comprehensive list of .edu domains would be ridiculous, but there is no pretense that this is a comprehensive list.
 * 4) "The would be OK as a stand-alone list, but it can't be included in the article." I don't know where that is coming from. There is no policy or guideline against putting Manual of Style/Embedded lists into Wikipedia articles. Furthermore, this article is not nearly long enough to need to be split, with or without the list.

As I see it, the "grandfathering" section of the article is seriously deficient in its current form because it does not contain any insight into the scope of usage of grandfathered .edu names (i.e., the types of entities that registered these names before 2001 and are still using them). I am not personally aware of any reliable third-party sources for this information, although I can find plenty of Internet sources that aren't WP:RS. The U.S. Department of Education statement that some "suspect" or "illegitimate" institutions use these names tells only a small part of the story, as there are many legitimate entities that use them. I could look at the list of active registrants and describe them ("museums, research organizations, K-12 schools, health systems, libraries, non-US institutions, ..."), but that would be original research. On the other hand, if the article says that the Smithsonian Institution uses a name in this TLD and gives the name, a reader can easily verify the information -- and saying that the Smithsonian uses si.edu is hardly a piece of original research. --Orlady (talk) 05:04, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Table
For purposes of further discussion, here's the list, originally posted as it most recently appeared in the article, and subsequently edited to improve it:

The following table lists a few examples of the grandfathered uses of .edu domain names by entities that would not qualify under the current eligibility criteria to register a name in the .edu domain.


 * References for the table

--Orlady (talk) 05:04, 24 November 2011 (UTC)


 * On second thought, this wouldn't be an ok SAL. In this article, to avoid WP:OR/WP:SYNTH issues, this table would need to cite a source that lists these as relevant examples of this category of .edu domains; it needs context other than your or my take. Until you are "personally aware of any reliable third-party sources for this information", it fails WP:OR, even if you are 100% correct (and I bet you are). On top of that, this table blows the relevant issue way out of propotion (WP:UNDUE - "An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject."). And I agree that the grandfather section would ideally address "the scope of usage of grandfathered .edu names". But OR or a data dump can't make up for an absence of discussion of this in RSs. I'm sympathetic with what I think you are trying to do (and think the list here on talk probably accomplishes that goal), but don't think the article is the place to house this table. Novaseminary (talk) 05:16, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Come on! By logical extension, you appear to be saying that the article could not state as a fact that the Smithsonian Institution uses an .edu domain name and that its domain name was first registered in 1992, or that the Exploratorium in San Francisco has an .edu domain name that was first registered that same year. (See si.edu, exploratorium.edu, http://whois.domaintools.com/si.edu and http://whois.domaintools.com/exploratorium.edu for verification.) These are not the kinds of highly nuanced topics for which the sources must be deemed unreliable due to their being primary sources. --Orlady (talk) 15:01, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
 * We need secondary sources to show that the particular examples are important to anybody but you or me. If the "examples" don't appear anywhere but here, it shouldn't appear in the article. That is OR. Just because it is easy-to-do OR, it is still OR. The important take-away --the fact that some edu domains are not accredited schools-- is already in the article. And I would be fine with listing the number (for context) if it is available, but listing the actual domains is not helpful. A compelte version of this table is the type of thing that should be an appendix to an article or white paper or a personal website, not the majority of a WP article for which the exampels are the exception to the rule noted in the article. Novaseminary (talk) 02:44, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I believe you are using an overly narrow interpretation of Manual of Style/Lists and Manual of Style/Embedded lists. This is a list of examples, similar to what might be included in prose (and likely would be uncontentious if in prose form), but it is in tabular form because the information is awkward to present in prose. Selection criteria are admittedly vague -- it does not attempt to be a comprehensive list of all grandfathered .edu domains (there's no purpose in such a list), nor is it the kind of curated selective list whose membership must be based on the judgments of reliable sources (e.g., List of United States graduate business school rankings), nor a list of superlatives (e.g., the 15 highest-traffic grandfathered .edu domains). However, I think that's OK because: (1) the inclusion of such a list is justified by the need to provide some examples of the diverse types of entities that are using .edu domain names as a result of grandfathering, (2) every element on the list is (or can be) supported by reference citations sufficient to document that it is a member of the class of items listed, (3) it is difficult to imagine contention about whether or not any particular element belongs in the class of items on the list, and (4) although lists within articles can be targets for spammers, a selective list of non-educational-institution .edu domains is not likely to be a high-popularity target for spammers (and any spam can be dealt with when it appears).
 * Note that the current list could be trimmed to provide a more concise collection of examples, but there may also be other types of examples worthy of addition. I started with the collection of elements that were in the list that you removed in January 2011. I removed some domain names that no longer are used for websites or exist only as redirects to non-edu domain names, I combined some related names in a single row of the table, I added details and reference citations for most of the entries, and I added three domain names that are registered to K-12 educational entities, since that type of use was not illustrated on the current list. I think that all of the unsourced entries could be removed without diminishing the information value of the table (there's no value in listing every science museum or hospital that has an edu domain name); the entry for photography.edu also could be removed, since it doesn't illustrate much of anything in its current form. There currently is only one example of a non-U.S. registrant; it would be nice to have more such examples. I've thought about whether bircham.edu (Bircham International University, a non-U.S. institution -- although it is incorporated in Delaware -- that is not accredited by any agency recognized in the U.S.) should be added to the list, but I think that would become a source of contention because the article about is already contentious. There are numerous unaccredited U.S. schools using .edu domains (e.g., lcus.edu, ficu.edu, and kingsway.edu), but selectively listing some of those could be contentious, and I think they probably are adequately covered by the US Dept of Ed. reference citation. --Orlady (talk) 04:46, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

I think the examples in the prose currently are fine and relay the relevant information. More importantly, for what is there now, the third party source is not "Orlady (November 2011)". The fact that it is not a comprehensive list is why we need somebody other than us to have noted these particular choices in a reliable source (and even that is not perfect and can lead to POV if we are not careful). To my mind, a list of examples like this needs to be comprehensive (and useful--even if this were comprehensive, it would still not be useful) or cited to good RSs without WP:SYNTH. As it stands now, I don't think a single entry in the table complies with SYNTH, though I might have missed one, since not one of those sources note that the domain was grandfathered in. you are taking the current .edu criteria (A), the WHOIS or other information about the domain or org (B), and stating that the domain does not meet the criteria and was grandfathered (C). The grandfather issue already has a very prominent place in the article (in light of the thousands of domains that fit the rule, this is pushing WP:UNDUE "An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject."). Feel free to have the last word between us, but absent new arguments or others weighing in in favor of including this table of OR, I probably will sit on the sidelines. Novaseminary (talk) 05:40, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

West London Institute of Higher Education pages - John Olver
Sir or madam: you have the wrong photograph attached to John Olver's entry. You have attached an American politician, rather than the photograph of John as Rugby Union player. Thank you, John S Hunter