Talk:University of California, Los Angeles

Rating

While the phrase "is considered one of the top schools in the country" may be true, it violates NPOV guidelines. We need more specific statements, as in "it has 8 graduate or professional schools ranked in the top 10 by US News & World Reports." (I don't have the actual number). JoelWest 08:10, May 9, 2004 (UTC)

Academics

I added rankings from what I consider to be the most reliable (if a bit dated) source, the National Research Council.

Athletics

Is anybody up to the task of fleshing out the athletics section? For such an athletically successful university, the athletics section is pretty small.

Added the fact that Jackie Robinson is a Hall of Famer (8/20/04)

Personally it seems to me there should be separate articles about the different athletics programs. I've created a UCLA athletics category and am going about just sticking existing articles about the players and coaches into the subcategories. --Howcheng 17:46, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Athletics still needs to be better deliniated. Red Saunders ought to be discussed as the coach who brough t ucla its first football championship as opposed to a guy who just designed the uniforms. --Amerique 00:37, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Berkeley

It's interesting to note that Berkeley's entry is longer than UCLA's... I thought Berkeley was always a rival school to LA... --Allyunion 07:05, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

No. Berkeley and UCLA don't share a rivalry as much as say....UCLA vs USC or Cal vs. Stanford. Other than the occassional sporting events between UCLA and Cal, there isn't much sense of rivalry.

Correct. The rivalry between UCLA and Cal is nonexistent. UCLA v. USC is the one and only rivalry. In recent years, with the success of Cal's football program, there has developed somewhat of a rivalry but it is no where near as heated and passionate as the rivalry between UCLA v. USC. Many people view UCLA and Cal as UC cousins, hence further diminishing any sense of a true rivalry between the two schools.

We seem to be on the brink of an edit war...

Someone keeps editing out certain contributions of mine to this article without explaining why, and it is becoming annoying.

Here are the two contributions to this article which have been edited out which I think should stay in:

1. It is important to explain that UCLA doesn't have a hotel or hospitality management program because that makes clear why it is so weird that UCLA owns and operates its own hotel under its own brand. Some universities, like Cornell, do have such programs, yet they don't run hotels. And other universities do have hotels on campus but they only own the building; the hotels are operated by private franchisees of the major hotel chains.

This is idiotic, no one cares about some goddamn hotel; this isn't the fucking Marriott, it's UCLA! Are you an actual student or do you just clean the toilets in Ackerman?

Relevence

Many editors might look at the issue of UCLA's conference center, and its medical center too, as minor details in the background. Perhaps individually they are (though the medical center is large and growing). We shouldn't miss the forest for the trees. In this case the forest is the collection of business operations that the UC system engages in. Rather than an odd fact, the conference center sentence could be part of a review of the university's profit or loss-making enterprises. (How about the illicit cadaver business, - how many universities have that, eh?)(I've heard that patents are becoming a major revenue source for some schools, for example, while patent litigation has entangled at least one. Not sure about UCLA - might all go to UC Regents.) If anyone does the research in this direction I'm sure they will find some interesting material. -Willmcw 06:33, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)

Defending the inclusion of the information which some anonymous user keeps wanting to edit out

Congratulations on your ability to fill a page with several paragraphs of pointless intellectual masturbation; if only your contributions to the article were equally compelling.

Of all the noteworthy achievements that UCLA can claim as its own, like being the birthplace of the Internet or discovering AIDS, you chose to highlight some trivial point concerning the UCLA hotel. Your bullshit Libertarian sci-fi extrapolations from the fact that a publicly funded university runs a hotel are 1. laughable and 2. a surefire sign that someone hasn't been taking advantage of the female (or male?) population in Westwood.

And is the person who cannot deduce that UCLA College is, in all likelihood, the same thing as The College of Letters and Sciences the kind of student we should be letting in?

NO.

What idiot would think that UCLA abolished its undergraduate program, from Wikipedia of all fucking places? T-H-I-N-K.

U.S. News and World Report collegiate rankings are bullshit; they regularly rank UCLA and Cal behind schools that have never produced a single Nobel Prize winning graduate, including Stanford, Notre Dame and Brown. Steinbeck won for literature, but he dropped out and almost never attended while being a Cardinal.

And learn how to write; your prose is drier than Barbara Bush's crotch.

---

You're a whining little crybaby troll in an adult's body looking for an online pissing contest. So here goes.

First, Wikipedia is not a blog. See the Wikipedia policies on the community portal. If you want to cuss till the cows come home and demonstrate that you have the intellectual immaturity of a four year old, get your own goddamn Web server. Or we can take this to ArbCom and you will probably be banned. Permanently. Like the notorious "Mr. Treason."

Here's another test. Try talking like that to your professors some time in the middle of class. I look forward to reading in the Daily Bruin of your expulsion.

Second, Wikipedia is not a blog. Wikipedia style is supposed to be neutral, not loaded, bitchy, or biased. If that means dry, so be it. See the Wikipedia policies.

Third, libertarianism is not b.s. In fact, it's the dominant political philosophy in the U.S. The only difference between left and right is how much to outsource, and how much to screw the poor (or not). Get with the party, fool. Start reading some Rand and Rothbard (as well as some Nozick and a little Rawls and Galbraith for perspective). What the hell do you believe in? Communism? Hedonism? I'm a utilitarian, by the way.

Fourth, U.S. News and World Reports rankings are bullshit. Most intellectuals know that. But everyone pays attention to them anyway, even universities who say they don't care about rankings. It's recursive, like race. It's bullshit that matters because people care about it. And people care about it because it matters. Circular, yeah. But if that were the only test of validity, then "race" would have been replaced a long time ago by "ethnic group." But race is in Wikipedia anyway because it still matters. Same thing with U.S. News and World Reports. That's why the rankings should be mentioned.

Fifth, Wikipedia is NOT aimed solely towards a UCLA audience. The people most likely to look up an article on UCLA are probably people not at UCLA, and in fact, are statistically going to be among the vast majority of the human population who are not even qualified to attend here. You are assuming that the audience has the ability to make that deduction and would not see it as a non sequitur. I am thinking about the larger Wikipedia audience. Think about people who have never been to college or whose families may never attended college (like the vast majority of humanity), and may be unfamiliar with the arcane conventions of academe (like the subtle difference in meaning between "college" and "university"). You sound like a spoiled brat who takes college attendance for granted.

Finally, your disdain for philosophy or any kind of intelligent analysis is a defensive mechanism. It advertises your pathetic ignorance. Congratulations, you just revealed your inability to grasp the complexity of human existence. With a small mind like yours, you'll always be a mere technician, not an intellectual or a professional.

If you'd paid attention in history class, you would realize that most of the great successes of our time come from people who pay attention to details and think a lot about them and what they mean. Details matter. That goes for everything, whether it's business, law, government, science, engineering, whatever.

Some analysts argued that Carly Fiorina just got fired from HP because she's a great salesperson but doesn't know jack shit about details because she never worked operations. A lot of dumb managers get fired because they think certain details are "below them" while they're too busy partying (and humping) till 5 in the morning at the hottest nightclubs. Bill Gates became the wealthiest person on the planet because he's a notorious micromanager and he knows and thinks about everything.

Anyway, I suspect that's why you're too chicken to create an account, because then your stupidity could be traced back to you someday.

--Coolcaesar 11:17, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Ralph Bunche

I think that Ralph Bunche, Bunche Hall and the Sculpture garden might get more attention if their annotations survived. This deserves a note in the UCLA article -- An alumnus and Nobel Laureate, who previously served in Middle East negotiations at the risk of his life, has a campus building named in his honor. Ancheta Wis 13:33, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

UCLA branding

Not sure about the points, for or against, the relevance of UCLA hospitality operations, but if that goes some discussion of UCLA as an apparel brand overseas might be interesting:

http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/DB/issues/99/06.14/news.international.html

Ideally, these topics would be backgrounded by information about UCLA as a place and as a research/education institution. Some discussion of athletic history would also not be inappropriate.

Also, how does the phrase: UCLA "is considered one of the top schools in the country" violate NPOV guidelines if it's not a contestable statement? I don't see how this statement can be considered in any way contentious or partisan. If Berkeley's listing can get away with using the word "prestigious," why can't we toot our own horn a little?

Typos to fix

Once the page is unprotected, can someone fix two typos in the third paragraph of the "Campus" section - change "1960's and 1970's" to read "1960s and 1970s". Thanks. -- John Fader 13:30, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Names

Can you people sign your names on this page. The guy without an account, get one, ot put someting. I can't follow this interesting, yet vulgar, conversation. Oh and keep political comments about Barbra Bush out of Wikipedia Howabout1 03:30, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

He's back...

Looks like the anonymous coward is back. Article protection may be needed again soon, if we get into another tug-of-war over article content.

In reviewing my scorching counterattack above, I realized I had missed the most obvious cheap shot: And how would you happen to have carnal knowledge of Barbara Bush anyway?

--Coolcaesar 13:20, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Activism

While I'm not up to writing it, there is a noticable (that is, total) absence of any mention of UCLA's activist history in this article. While student activism might not be as interesting (to some people) as the UCLA Guest House, the fact that a few Panthers were shot in Campbell Hall as a result of the FBI's Cointelpro program in the 60s might be worthy of some reference.

http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/news/articles.asp?ID=27016

--Amerique 09:30, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I agree on mentioning the history of activism at UCLA, as well as the importance of UCLA to the birth of the Internet.

ucla happenings

i think this is a notable campaign and should be documented.

Perhaps a blurb in the Traditions and Events section.

Snow

I do believe the "First and ever snow at UCLA" is worth a place in the article. The snow is a very special moment for UCLA and the climate in Southern California Lowland. It is also documented in the timeline of school history. http://www.uclahistoryproject.ucla.edu/Timeline/Home.asp#30s --Geographer 13:46, May 26, 2005 (UTC)

Wrong, it's a worthless piece of information and the photo is incongruent with the text surrounding it.

To begin with, we ought to have some old picture showing the campus. The snow picture fits that bill. None of the photos are especially "congruent" with the text. Please note that other editors like the photo. Thanks, -Willmcw 15:16, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

I concur. --Coolcaesar 22:05, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I have warned this anon who keeps removing the picture about the Wikipedia:Three-revert rule. Evil Monkey∴Hello 00:33, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)

Maybe if the page was protected for a short time the issue would resolve itself? Hopefully, -Willmcw 05:58, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)

UCLA History

2005 June 3 (PT). However the discussion is resolved, Wikipedia readers might be interested to know that the UCLA Alumni Association recently mounted the "UCLA History Project" website: www.uclahistoryproject.ucla.edu/Home.htm The site includes photographs (yes, there's a snow scene or two), a timeline, and information on the history of UCLA.

C. B. Brown, UCLA University Archivist.

Humor

This whole section was removed. Some of the other UC sites have humor sections, why not UCLA?

• University of California Lightbulb Jokes

--evrik

To Evrik: There are major problems with the lightbulb jokes. The main problem is that they are not well-known. Most UCLA people are not familiar with them, but are much more familiar with certain jokes about USC---such as the joke that what USC students say to UCLA students is "Would you like to supersize that?"

Please familiarize yourself with relevant Wikipedia official policies at Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not, Wikipedia:No original research, and Wikipedia:Verifiability.

Even if they could be construed as neutral within the bounds of the NPOV policy, the lightbulb jokes constitute original research and are not easily verifiable (that is, they are not published in some reputable printed source). Furthermore, even in the unlikely case where those jokes came from some official book with a title like "American Lightbulb Jokes," their wholesale publication on Wikipedia would probably constitute copyright infringement.

Even if they are not copyrighted, their likely non-neutrality (jokes by definition mock their target) means that they are more appropriate for WikiBooks. That is why many joke pages have been transwikied to WikiBooks. Wikipedia is appropriate for an article that describes a class of jokes in the abstract, but not for an article containing the content of numerous jokes within that class. --Coolcaesar 03:10, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

I have a problem with the edits you made …

First of all. The light bulb jokes in question were under the title Humor. Humor has a place at universities. Instead of deleting the jokes, you could have added these jokes about USC you were speaking about. You also went and removed the humor links at the other UC schools as well. I see you left the racist jokes about the Chinese at UCI. Do you like racist jokes?

Second of all, the jokes are scattered across the internet and were known to me as student 20 years ago.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=university+of+california+lightbulb+jokes

Finally, the jokes are in the public domain. I think a humor section is appropriate as it gives some insight into the rivalries of the schools. Instead of deleting it maybe you could have linked to the area in wikibooks you were referring to.

--evrik

Again; you clearly have not bothered to read what Wikipedia is not. READ THE POLICIES, STUPID. Please see Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not. Humor has a place at universities, but not in an encyclopedia. This is an encyclopedia, not a joke book. This is an encyclopedia, not a university. I have heard proposals for a Wikiuniversity, though.

Next, if you actually bothered to read the policies as I recommended, you will realize that the fact you may have heard these jokes 20 years ago is completely irrelevant to satisfying the requirements of the Wikipedia:Verifiability policy. You must be able to cite a verifiable, notable resource that is widely accessible now.

A Google search is not enough. If you had ever studied critical thinking in college, you would know that not all publications or Web sites are reliable sources, and you would have the ability to discern between respectable sources (like the New York Times) and less respectable ones (like the Drudge Report or the average Geocities personal Web site). If you cannot understand that simple distinction, you should not be contributing to Wikipedia. The burden is on the editor adding controversial content to demonstrate that it is true, as well as neutral.

If you continue to vandalize Wikipedia in violation of Wikipedia policy, we can take this to ArbCom. I am confident that my reading of Wikipedia policy is correct and that the committee will agree with me, with the result that you will be banned like the notorious Willy on Wheels (and all your edits will be reverted on sight).

As for the jokes on the UCI page, I agree they are grossly inappropriate and should be removed, but I do not want to open that can of worms at this time. I prefer to fight my battles one at a time, as Wikipedia discussions can be extremely time-consuming and I have already had the unpleasant experience in the past of trying to explain to five immature Wikipedia users at the same time why their edits were inappropriate. In any case, it is Wikipedia policy that the vast majority of jokes are not worthy of mention on Wikipedia (with exceptions for the most well-known ones like the "You have two cows" jokes).

As for public domain, you have zero understanding of copyright law (which I took in law school). Under the 1976 Copyright Act, copyright attaches automatically by operation of law to any original work fixed in a tangible medium (and yes, the courts have ruled that jokes are original works and storing text on disk is sufficient for fixing in a medium). For creative content (like jokes) to enter the public domain, the copyright term must expire (highly unlikely now since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act in 2003) or the author must explicitly dedicate the work into the public domain. The burden is upon users to find the author and determine whether the work is in the public domain or not. Finally, copyright infringement is a strict liability tort and good faith is no defense.

Finally, I don't know very much about WikiBooks. If you want to place content on a Wikimedia Foundation site, it is your problem to identify the appropriate site (Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wikitionary, etc.) and add it there after ensuring your content's compliance with the site's general editorial policies.

I hope this makes sense; your prose is so confused that I am unsure if you have understood any of this. If you had to defend yourself in a capital trial, I have a bad feeling you would probably talk yourself right into the electric chair. --Coolcaesar 03:02, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Link

I removed a link entitled "Off campus housing" to a private website known as iHomeConnect. There is an ongoing discussion with the author about this link at User talk:24.24.130.247. He has been inserting this link into several SoCal college pages. Please contribute to the discussion. Thank you. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 05:25, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

--Coolcaesar 01:50, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Ethnic Studies

any reasonable objections to including a paragraph on ethnic and area studies at ucla? i think a mention is appropriate because the various ethnic studies centers are a direct consequence of campus activism in the 60s and because their configuration into independent research units is something else distinctive about ucla. Research in these areas is at least as as important as research into high technology.

here is a text i composed:

UCLA hosts four major inter-disiplinary research centers in Ethnic Studies: the American Indian Studies Center Asian American Studies Center, Chicano Studies Research Center, and the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies, all of which were independently established in response to student demand in 1969. Numerous other Area studies centers such as Latin American Studies, African Studies, and Near Eastern Studies provide students with an international scope in both research and academics.

--Amerique 00:34, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, what's the relationship of these institutions to the Ethnic Studies department at Berkeley? I'm not sure about this, but I was under the impression that UC Berkeley led the way on this issue, at least in the UC system. --Coolcaesar 01:50, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Berkeley had the first ethnic studies department but they organized it as a single unit. While that department still exists, different groups have since splintered off and formed their own units, which is closer to the model UCLA started out with in the first place.--141.213.141.69 03:40, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

In absence of protest, i am going to put it back up. If anyone objects please make an argument for why UCLA's ethnic/area studies centers should not be mentioned rather than deleting the reference entirely without explanation.--Amerique 21:00, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Largest University in California Error

To the author who constructed the UCLA article you wrote, "The University of California, Los Angeles, popularly known as UCLA, is a public, coeducational university located in the residential area of Westwood within the city of Los Angeles. It is the second-oldest campus in the University of California system and the largest university in the state of California."

The latter part of that statement, "...and the largest university in the state of California" is erroneous is you're referring to the physical size of the university. I'm not sure, but I believe that UCLA, in terms of student populace, has the largest student population of California universities; however, from the way the article is written, I believe you were referring to physical size of the university. In terms of physical size and area, Stanford University is the largest university in California comprising almost eight times the land area of UCLA.

that's the beauty of wikipedia, you can edit the information yourself!--68.40.13.92 18:57, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

In the University of California system, UCLA has the largest student population but actually is the smallest university in terms of square footage. The largest campus of the University of California is the Davis campus (due to its thousands of adjacent acres used as part of its agricultural programs).

Bruin Alumni, irrelevant?

I personally don't like Andrew Jones either, but the Bruin Alumni Association is at least as interesting, and potentially insideous, as the UCLA conference center in Lake Arrowhead. A two line mention of this guy will bring the activism section up into the 21'st century and is actually something new to report, as previous student-on-faculty spying at UCLA was conducted under the behest of the federal government rather than for someone, or anyone, attempting to emulate a neo-McCarthyist populist voice.--Amerique 16:56, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Someone promoting that group repeatedly tried to hijack the link to the regular alumni association, so they have a history here. I agree, that a sentence in the "activism" section would be appropriate. There was an article about the group in the L.A. Times this week. Anything beyond a sentence should probably go into an article of its own. -Will Beback 20:29, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I concur. I personally dislike those Bruin Alumni Association bozos — anyone who actually supports the holding of Lochner v. New York without at least conceding the drastic short-term social consequences of returning to that infamous legal doctrine is seriously nuts — but the incident is notable and should be briefly mentioned. --Coolcaesar 05:42, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Fresh news reports suggest that Jones has rescinded his offer to pay students for providing information on leftist professors, but that he will continue to staff his program on a volunteer, not-for-profit basis. As this story is clearly still developing, it may have been too early to attempt to encapsulate it in a single sentence. So, for the time being I am ok with removing the reference until a more definite denunciation can be made of it.San Jose Mercury News --Amerique 18:29, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Selectivity

I don't believe you can say for certain the UCLA is "currently the most selective in the UC system", even if the press release said so.

I am guessing they used the percentage as the indicator. While UCLA did suprass Cal percentage wise for 3 years by 1%, this year Cal's acceptance rate was 1-2% lower than UCLA's. Their average admitted GPA for the year that this press release quotes was 4.33 (v. 4.25), the average freshman class GPA was 4.25 (v. 4.15), and the average SAT was 1360 (v. 1347). So this statistic is invalid for the use of "currently" and somewhat invalid for the use of "most selective". Perhaps it should be said it is "consistantly one of the most selective in the UC system" OR "In 2004, UCLA was the most selective UC". --ckoala84