Talk:University of South Alabama/Archive 1

Fair use rationale for Image:USouthAL logo.gif
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BetacommandBot 19:57, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Merge discussion - South Alabama Soccer Complex
The contents of South Alabama Soccer Complex should be merged into this article and a redirect created. The South Alabama Soccer Complex is a single reference stub, the stadium is not independently notable and so the article should be merged in accordance with established practice. – ukexpat (talk) 15:27, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Image deletion discussion
Relevant deletion discussion at .--GrapedApe (talk) 18:03, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Housing stuff
http://www.southalabama.edu/bulletin/bulletin9798/studaff.htm

The document is from the 1997-1998 bulletin WhisperToMe (talk) 13:01, 2 February 2012 (UTC) http://www.southalabama.edu/bulletin/bulletin0506/studaff.htm http://www.southalabama.edu/trustees/minutes/1966/072666ec.pdf Turns out they had a family housing complex. Not sure if it's still there WhisperToMe (talk) 13:12, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Upper Gulf Coast
"Only major institution of higher education on the upper Gulf Coast." How do we determine that? Does UWF not count as a major institute of higher education? Or is Pensacola not part of the "Upper Gulf Coast"? Regardless that statement could stand to be clarified. I note that a Google for "upper gulf coast" brings up 8 pages about the northern Texas coast, and two about the western Florida panhandle. This seems more like boosterism than encyclopedic fact. Thehappysmith (talk) 18:40, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Criticisms of campus safety
I recently removed the statement the university has come under great criticism from the lead section because there was no source to back up this claim. Multiple news articles would be required to justify this 'great criticism'; the source provided didn't even mention the university. user:BigDwiki, I would quite like to know your justification for reverting my edits.  Quasar G  t - c 23:57, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
 * My rationale is the news reporting, criticizing the college. I have now added both sources.BigDwiki (talk) 01:24, 11 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Campus Safety Magazine says all these rankings are bullshit here valereee (talk) 15:51, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
 * It seems that this article is biased towards the colleges, as it's a website entirely focused on them. The Business Insider article is neutral and sourced based on federal data.BigDwiki (talk) 17:14, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

Request edit on 2 September 2017
Request removal or revision of the section within the University of South Alabama page titled Criticisms: Campus Safety. This section contains information that is more than five years old, and is no longer considered current by federal reporting standards (i.e. the Higher Education Opportunity Act, the Clery Act and the Campus Crime Statistics Act). Current campus safety information, which by regulation covers 2013-15, is available here: http://southalabama.edu/departments/police/resources/fireandsafetyreport.pdf. USA Marketing and Communications (talk) 15:51, 15 September 2017 (UTC)
 * the fact that it is more than five years old is irrelevant. Theroadislong (talk) 16:17, 15 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Obviously this user's job is to paint the University in a positive light. The article needs to maintain a neutral point of view and must include this information. The university is known within the community for it's crime and lack of campus safety, as well as its PR that attempts to counter it.BigDwiki (talk) 02:41, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Center for Dyslexia and Talent
I notice that you keep adding a paragraph about an incident involving the Center for Dyslexia and Talent. You need to stop doing that until you can find an independent reliable source. Your only source is a letter posted at linkedin. That is not an acceptable source. Until you find such a source, stop edit warring it into the article. -- MelanieN (talk) 02:16, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Sources now added.BigDwiki (talk) 02:29, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you for trying, but they have been rejected by another administrator. We need REPORTING on this situation from some independent, reliable source - maybe a local newspaper? And that means actual reporting - not just reprinting the press-release-cum-letter from the organizer. -- MelanieN (talk) 02:52, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
 * A wikipedia mirror, a news-skinned wordpress blog, and a linkedin post are not WP:RS. Secondary coverage in reliable sources is required for items like this that impact WP:BLP. Kuru   (talk)  03:03, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

UNDUE and PROMO concerns
I have removed the Criticism section in its entirety, which I believe is a revert under the WP:BRD cycle, and I'm starting this thread to begin the discussion. I don't have the PAG or RfC to link to, but I'm fairly certain that there was broad consensus for not having separate "Praise" and "Criticism" sections in articles, instead favoring the approach of presenting both "good" and "bad" information in a neutral way, properly sourced, in encyclopedic tone and summary narrative style. What this article really needs is a History section, telling the story of the university from its founding to the present day. In the course of that narrative, information about, for example, the shooting and other significant events, can be presented. Without any history in the article at all, presenting only negative history such as the shooting is, in my view, WP:UNDUE, and that's why I removed the section. I have a separate WP:PROMO concern, which is that the article reads like a pamphlet or advertisement for the school. I'm not sure if I'm alone in my views of UNDUE and PROMO so I'm raising it for editors to discuss. Thanks in advance for your thoughts. – Levivich 18:14, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I was planning on raising this subject as well; I wasn't aware of the praise/criticism consensus, but I'm not surprised as I was unable to find other university articles that had separate sections for that. It seemed very WP:UNDUE to mention crimes and lawsuits unless they received significant broader coverage. OhNo itsJamie Talk 18:28, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Promo definitely. The article needs a good scrubbing for promotional language and content. Student:faculty ratio maybe, but 44.1% of their classes have fewer than 20 students? Nah. --valereee (talk) 19:52, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Edit warring to remove "Criticisms" section
An unregistered editor has begun edit-warring with multiple editors to remove the "Criticisms" section of this article without any discussion here in Talk and feeble edit summaries ("Removed opinionated text." and "Removing a section that a previous admin threw out and banned the admin.").

I do not have a strong opinion about this section's inclusion in the article. It appears to be relatively well-sourced and the information is related to the subject. There may be legitimate questions about due weight. There has also been a previous discussion about the relative balance of the section but in my opinion the correct way to address that concern would be to add the broader "History" section that is sorely missing from this article so these incidents can then be placed into a proper historical context.

I do, however, have a very strong opinion on an editor deleting negative material from an article without any discussion and bizarre edit summaries. It raises serious concerns about whitewashing especially when the university has previously asked for this information to be removed from the article (albeit a few years ago). ElKevbo (talk) 05:55, 10 February 2021 (UTC)


 * I completely agree with this. The section used to be larger but has been trimmed down over the years due to the ‘undue’ rationale. While it is indeed rare for other universities to have such a large criticism section, this particular university seems to have a disproportionate amount of negative publicity does warranting the sections inclusion. The section absolutely needs to stay as it provides great neutrality to the article and a balanced perspective. All of the content in the section is very well sourced, and I don’t find any of it to be speculative. It seems like the only editors wanting to remove the section or affiliated directly with the University and have a direct conflict of interest. ManuelLopezztalk 06:00, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I'd removed this before as it was added by a (now banned) editor with a clear axe to grind. The IP that reinstated the material is very likely that blocked user, given the geolocation. While I'm opposed to PR/whitewashing of articles, I do have concerns about the wording and weight issues (see previous talk section).  There are three parts to that criticism section (1) a shooting of an unarmed student; didn't get a lot of national attention; Wikipedia is not a police blotter. (2) A lawsuit is newsworthy, but then again, I suspect that universities are routinely sued for things like this. I'm on the fence regarding this one. (3) one local columnist wrote a scathing critique of the police action here, but I'm not convinced that per WP:UNDUE it merits inclusion here. OhNo itsJamie  Talk 15:54, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Regardless of who added it, it is well-written and well-sourced. If we're in the business of having a page that is 95% positive about a subject and 5% negative, this article certainly fits that. Also, every single IP that has edited the article is within the same geolocation as the University and many of the IPs that have tried to remove the content are University's own IPs. The student shooting got significant major media national attention. I just googled it and Daily Mail (UK), CBS News, Huffington Post, and Chicago Tribune even covered it. How is that "didn't get a lot of national attention"? ManuelLopezztalk 20:09, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Please don't make edits such as this one that not only restore the material in question but also revert many edits by many editors with content unrelated to your specific objection. If I am mistaken and you do genuinely intended to make that edit (e.g., making the "p" in "public university" capitalized in the lede, saying that football games scheduled in 2012 are in the "future") then you need to provide some kind of argument or justification. ElKevbo (talk) 20:18, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Allegations of sexual harassment connected to the university's volleyball team
An unregistered editor is edit warring to remove a new, one-paragraph section titled "Volleyball Team Sexual Harassment Case". The contents of this section:


 * A ninth alleged victim has come forward claiming former University of South Alabama women’s volleyball coach Alexis Meeks-Rydell sexually harassed her and subjected her to physical and psychological abuse when she was a member of the team. Cassadi Colbert, a former USA women’s volleyball player, also contended that university officials knew of the harassment and abuse but did nothing to stop it in her lawsuit filed late last month in Mobile federal court.

I'm not completely convinced that this material merits inclusion in this article. But edit-warring to remove this information is unacceptable, particularly when the most recent edit summary was "Not relevant to a university". The editor in question also claims to be an alumnus which raises additional concerns about a conflict of interest. ElKevbo (talk) 19:49, 12 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Why does this University have an entire section dedicated to legal and other matters? Universities across the country are commonly dealing with these matters but I rarely if ever see them listed on their Wiki pages. A quick google search returns many cases of campus shootings and federal lawsuits against colleges and universities across the nation but only for this University do I see these things so prominently included. For example, the U of Mich is in the midst of settling a federal lawsuit on sexual abuse charges and four people were recently shot at Temple University. Should these be included in a "Legal and other matters" section on their Wiki pages? It's pretty evident that a certain user spent a lot of time in the past on this and at times has even used what I suspect are his own personal blog site and linked-in pages as citations. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:4C4:4002:E90B:6847:EC3B:6706:C02D (talk) 07:43, 4 July 2022 (UTC)


 * The primary reason why this information is in a dedicated section is that there isn't a broader "History" section with which this material can be integrated. You're welcome to write a new history section and move this material into it!
 * There is similar material in other articles about U.S. colleges and universities. The University of Michigan article includes a "Safety" subsection that mentions the sexual assault scandal that you mentioned in addition to several other issues. The challenge with material like this is that it often falls afoul of WP:NOTNEWS and doesn't have a lasting, significant impact on the institution. These articles have to cover the entire history, organization, funding, accomplishments, and challenges of very complex organizations that are often old (by U.S. standards) and large. So we have to be very selective about what to include as we cannot - and should not - include everything. ElKevbo (talk) 23:54, 9 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Finally, a recent edit (yours?) objected to this material on the grounds that "Alleged accusations and pending litigation aren't relevant." That is worth discussing as that is certainly true in some cases. But these cases need to be judged on their individual merit and in this instance there may be enough substance in reliable sources that this merits inclusion. There is certainly a difference between "someone who isn't credible files a lawsuit unlikely to succeed" and the serious, credible allegations being made here by people who are credible. ElKevbo (talk) 23:54, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed
Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: https://www.al.com/news/mobile/2022/06/ninth-former-player-claims-ex-university-of-south-alabama-volleyball-coach-sexually-harassed-her.html?fbclid=IwAR1fHoqKt07BKDsGVXuGCUlAO3eOLZzRO3IoUP_43WUqmKz9OlLus60A0vM. Copied or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.)

For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, and, if allowed under fair use, may copy sentences and phrases, provided they are included in quotation marks and referenced properly. The material may also be rewritten, providing it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Therefore, such paraphrased portions must provide their source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. Mako001 (C) (T)  🇺🇦 02:12, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Spodle seems to have rewritten it, if you would like to take a look. Yoshi24517  Chat   Online  02:25, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Oops, you looked at already, sorry for ping :/ Yoshi24517  Chat   Online  02:26, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
 * All good. (I hit the "Cclean" checkbox in the tool by mistake when I requested cv-revdel). Spodle's rewrite is good. I happened to stumble across this one whilst on RC patrol. I will admit that I have previously done similar myself, and restored material which is problematic (or even a copyright violation), without looking too closely at what I was actually restoring, even if the reason for removal was entirely invalid. Mako001 (C) (T)  🇺🇦 02:38, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Pinging @Spodle as I did another rewrite of the section, would appreciate it if you looked over it. Also section probably can still be expanded further potentially.  Just ' i ' yaya  03:29, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Looks good to me. I think you could add more details about the allegations so the section can properly summarize it. SpodleTalk 03:42, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Yeah definitely, I'll go over it again tomorrow if I remember.  Just ' i ' yaya  05:35, 10 July 2022 (UTC)