Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/University of Wisconsin (disambiguation) (2nd nomination)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.  

The result was keep. Seraphimblade Talk to me 05:36, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

University of Wisconsin (disambiguation)

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

Prior AFD overturned at deletion review, but not strongly enough to avoid this discussion. This is a technical nomination as the deletion review closer, but I will comment. Original deletion rationale was "Page is superfluous as University of Wisconsin is now a redirect to UW-Madison. Per consensus on the talk page, the article can be deleted and the relevant information placed in the specific articles as history of the various universities." Whether there ever was consensus as described in that nom was challenged in the first AFD, and the history is now somewhere in the history of Talk:University of Wisconsin, so I'm not going looking for it, but there certainly wasn't such a consensus at deletion review. GRBerry 00:39, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Delete With what's on the page, no need for a dabpage. Could be noted at top of the larger institution's page, but leading to a disambig is too much. Alex43223T 01:43, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment What does it cost to have the page around? Why is it worth deleting?  Does it serve our readers, most importantly outsiders?  That will depend on what, if anything, links here.  GRBerry 00:39, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete Dab pages are to distinguish between unaffiliated institutions with the same name (see Queen's University (disambiguation)). This one here is the same institution over time, something that can easily be solved editorially with a dad header if necessary. Whether University of Wisconsin should links to University of Wisconsin-Madison or University of Wisconsin System is a different question entirely (with different solutions, see University of Michigan vs. University of Illinois), but this foul compromise serve nobody, least of all the readers. ~ trialsanderrors 00:53, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment As a resident of the state, and a graduate of one of the associated institutions, I'm painfully aware of the "brand confusion" that the current organization causes. As per the page, I'm torn between this page adding more confusion, or serving as a concise usage note that clarifies for people that these are in fact separate institutions. I think two things are needed -- a better explanation of the relationship to the System on the UW-Madison page, and a clearer explanation on the System page. On the other hand, it's certainly cleaner to have just one dab link at the top of each institution's page. -- Dhartung | Talk 02:32, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete This is a poster family for dab headers. There are only two values for UW; each should link directly to the other. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:12, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment. At this point I came in and fixed the third bullet point to link to the third article, University of Wisconsin (1956-1971), which would seem to invalidate the previous comments about the length of the dab page. Most people should never see this page, but it will reduce the length of the hatnotes on the listed articles. On the other hand, I completely agree with User:Trialsanderrors that the survival or deletion of this page is a separate matter from where University of Wisconsin should point. I cannot agree with the suggestion in the deletion review that we are dealing with that issue here. Dekimasu よ! 13:11, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep with the change to identify 3 different University of Wisconsin articles, this is page is needed as a dab. -- Whpq 16:01, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong keep - Dab pages are cheap. This is the reason we have dab pages, to deal with confusion. I stumble across incorrect uses of the name all the time, even in high-profile contexts. -- Orange Mike 16:06, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep. There can now be no doubt (if there ever was) that the term University of Wisconsin means different things to different people. There are in fact strong POVs in two different directions, resulting in edit wars and repeated listings at WP:RM, and making an already confusing situation still more tangled to the outsiders who need the term disambiguated. Attempts to delete the page, or to reduce it to a two-way disambig to justify this deletion, seem to either be part of these POV promotions, or to stem from misunderstandings as to the function of a disambig page. Andrewa 16:24, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep, per Dekimasu and Andrewa. I lived on Washington Street on Madison's Isthmus for a while, and knew the name was used a couple of ways, but I'm still surprised by the way this has become virtually a POV war.  Given the third meaning of the term at University of Wisconsin (1956-1971), and the demonstrated variety in users' expectations, this is worth the pennies-a-year cost of a dab page compared to hatnotes.  F*ck 'em Bucky!  Barno 19:48, 15 March 2007 (UTC)  (Later: I would support keeping Dhartung's proposed dab page in preference to the current basic one, but I would prefer keeping either rather than deletion.  Barno 13:44, 16 March 2007 (UTC))
 * University of Wisconsin (1956-1971) is a vague stub; it should be merged back into University of Wisconsin System, from which it appears to have come; if it is not, dab headers will still work. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:53, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment: Hmmm? It's neither flagged as a stub, nor does it seem vague, have I missed something? It's short, certainly, with plenty of scope for expansion. The problem with a merge is that it's not obvious which way to merge. Someone who graduated from Green Bay before 1971 graduated from the University of Wisconsin, but they didn't graduate from UW-Madison (obviously), nor from the UW System as it didn't yet exist. Probably we'll have strong opinions on both merge options if we try. Why fix what ain't broke - especially as all possible results seem pre-busted? No change of vote. Andrewa 08:32, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment My thinking on this is that the 56-71 institution is not fundamentally different from the U of W System, so merge in that direction. What is missing and needed, though, is an article History of the University of Wisconsin that covers all of this. It should all be explained in one place. -- Dhartung | Talk 10:54, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment: Agree on the need for a History of the University of Wisconsin article, and also a more general one on the history of the State University systems of the USA. I have previously started a general article on these systems, but even the history section of this article remains a very basic stub - it would be a candidate for deletion as a sub-stub if it were a separate article. I have also previously suggested creation of the history article you suggest, but even the inclusion of a history section in the UW-Madison article was resisted, apparently by alumni of the institution. It's been an interesting discussion. Contributors of content to the articles seem a lot thinner on the ground than those to the debate. That's the basic problem IMO. No change of vote. Andrewa 19:32, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment Instead of a dab page, why not write something like University of California? &#8212;SparklingWiggleGet a job! 20:46, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
 * reply to comment - Because a lot of UW-Madison people, in particular, feel that that would be inaccurate and misleading. They will be found primarily among those supporting the elimination of this dab page, insisting that "everybody knows" that "University of Wisconsin" really means the school in Madison and nothing else that can't be dismissed with a hatnote, and that people looking for the place in Madison might be traumatized by hearing anything to the contrary. (Not that I have a POV on this, of course.) -- Orange Mike 22:41, 15 March 2007 (UTC) in a computer lab of a University of Wisconsin not in Madison
 * Iow, because the two factions can't come to an agreement we create a third, worse solution. The beauty of collective decision making... ~ trialsanderrors 02:16, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm puzzled, Trials. Why do you use such terms as "foul" and "worse solution" for a simple dab page? There's no particular stigma attached to dab pages, and they strike me as useful objects. What makes them (or at least this one) so objectionable in your eyes? -- Orange Mike 02:27, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Quite simply, if 50% of our readers expect to find UW-M when searching for University of Wisconsin and 50% expect the UW System, half of the readers are lead to the right spot no matter which one we pick. If you link to the dab page nobody is led to the right spot. A Pareto-dominated solution. ~ trialsanderrors 02:36, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Taken to its logical extreme, that argument implies that there should never be dab pages for any situation where there are two or three options, however different; sounds to me like a very abstract and academic objection. -- Orange Mike 03:02, 16 March 2007 (UTC) (I'm assuming you meant UW-Madison up there when you typed "UW-M"?)
 * Read my original comment above. IF there were an unrelated UW a dab page would make sense. ~ trialsanderrors 03:25, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I firmly believe that any Pareto-type effects are a direct result of the legislature voting to lump everything under one name, not any POV or bad-faith editors. These are bad enough for current/propsective students, but multiplied for us as we need to address the evolution of the term with some accuracy and utility. I believe a two-way hatnote solution only addresses the current name problem, and gives the historical name problem no help, as one has to search for the explanation. I would also throw more than three objects into the dab page, i.e. all the campuses, because while locals can certainly distinguish between UW and UW-M (see, that's Madison and Milwaukee, respectively) and UW-X and UW-Centers with some ease, out-of-staters need a little help. -- Dhartung | Talk 11:06, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete BUT only because there are three items in the category, which can easily be placed at the top of the largest/most important article as "University of Wisconsin redirects here, for the more specific Madison, or for ... etc". The only problem is figuring out which is best/most important/most looked for. Kopf1988 04:32, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep (as I have not actually !voted before). My arguments above suffice for the reason this is needed between the "at least two" articles we already have, but one must realize there are innumerable institutions associated wtih one or more of the campuses that also bear the name. My proposed revamp of the page to handle the entirety of the disambiguation problem, geographical, categorical and historical, is at User:Dhartung/Sandbox/University_of_Wisconsin_%28disambiguation%29. It's just a first draft and could be prettier or have better wording, but I think it's helpful both to navigate the different things with the name and to get some idea of their relationship to one another. The Site Map concept, call it. Yes, some of this is available by clicking through, and some of it is on templates for the various campuses, but none of it is currently in one place. -- Dhartung | Talk 11:43, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment: While Dhartung's proposal is more lengthy and more detailed than typical disambig pages, it appears much more helpful. Normally Kopf1988 would be correct, but we have already seen in previous discussions that his "The only problem is ..." brings strong arguments from both sides that shouldn't be dismissed.  The situation calls for more clarification than WP needs even for generally similar cases like the SUNY system.  Dhartung's proposed page puts all the related links in one place that can be used when "found by accident".  Putting a hatnote on two of the many articles would help only a fraction of the readers looking for information.  Putting all these details into a "history of" article wouldn't be quickly useful to most readers.  Barno 13:44, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment If you want a beefy dab page try Saint John or Springfield. Kopf1988 was in fact my inspiration. There are far more than three distinct "things" with the name! That's when I realized that this entire debate wasn't about whether we needed disambiguation -- that much is clear -- but on how many bins we're putting things in. Particularly given there are a number of items that don't fit easily in either, not to mention the things that are often confused with the university (like Concordia, or the Medical College of Wisconsin) or loosely affiliated with it.-- Dhartung | Talk 14:51, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment: Good lateral thinking. My three-way attempt was partly motivated by the desire to get a stable long-term solution, and at that it was obviously a miserable failure. There is a grammatical sense in which any University of Wisconsin - XYZ is a sort of University of Wisconsin, and we should remember that not all users (or even editors) of English Wikipedia are native English speakers. This version has a lot going for it IMO. No change of vote. Andrewa 00:19, 19 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep Naming_conventions is very clear. The creation of a dab page was appropriate in this circumstance. However, I would suggest an expansion of the dab page to a true article if this is a significant University system like the University of California. I see this already exists. However there is the historic school and the one in Madison so a dab page is still appropriate. &#8212;SparklingWiggleGet a job! 14:54, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep, useful as a bird's eye level disambiguation. Yamaguchi先生 05:54, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep - Dab pages are almost always worthwhile. Having lived in the great State of Wisconsin at one time and worked within the University system there, I can say this is a good one. --204.42.24.228 23:45, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep, expand, and strongly object to using this discussion as grounds to alter the University of Wisconsin redirect (rest of comment removed). Dekimasu よ! 06:47, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment: As you have chosen to put an argument here for the redirect going to UW-Madison, I can't see how you can object to anyone replying to it here if they choose. But agree it would be better to save that discussion for elsewhere. There was, for example, a discussion at WP:RM which was closed prematurely owing to the deletion of the disambig page. No change of vote. Andrewa 00:36, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
 * It was discussed as part of the deletion review that brought us here, and is discussed in passing above, which was why I included that comment. I'll remove the reasoning, but we seem to be in agreement that they are separate issues. Dekimasu よ! 05:29, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep. University of Wisconsin means different things to different people, full stop. RFerreira 02:45, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep With the condition that "University of Wisconsin" continues to redirect to University of Wisconsin-Madison, per User:Dekimasu. – Lordmontu  (talk) • (contribs) 21:56, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep, but University of Wisconsin System should be moved to University of Wisconsin, to parallel the Univeristy of California articles. Αργυριου (talk) 22:35, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment: The problem with this logic is that the situation with regard to the name University of California is different to that with regard to University of Wisconsin, and both are different to the situation with regard to the name University of Alabama, which (rightly AFAIK) is the name of the article on the "flagship" campus of that state system. See State University systems of the USA. It would be interesting to expand this article, as noted above, and document any overall trends and their historical backgrounds (while trying not to stray into WP:OR). No change of vote. Andrewa 02:30, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.