Talk:University of California, Berkeley/Archive 6

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A. Papandreou as a notable staff member

Andreas Papandreou was a professor at Berkeley in the '50s and the chair of the department of Economics (a reference here). He was elected Prime Minister of Greece 3 times in the '80s and '90s. IMHO he 's notable enough to be added in this list of notable alumni and staff in the main article of Berkeley. Are there any objections to this addition? Hansi667 (talk) 10:35, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

"Callus"

This page is linked to at Callus (disambiguation). Is this reasonable? Dejongbrent (talk) 19:51, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

It doesn't sound right to me. Someone trying to make a point? The insertion was done here by an IP editor, without explanation. I have removed the link. Dhtwiki (talk) 21:39, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Adding information about historic cooperative store at UC Berkeley

Greetings,

I'm trying to figure out where the best place would be to post information about a cooperative store that existed at Cal in the '80's. The store was called Cooperative Connections, and was operated in the basement of the Student Union for about five years. I have some information, and can probably dig up some photos (I was an active member for two or three years), but would also need to do some research before publishing an article. I'm just wondering if/where it would be appropriate to post such an article on Wikipedia.

Thanks for any suggestions as to where to post this information.

LeeTramp 05:42, 1 August 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amosslee (talk • contribs)

A separate section for Athletics?

How do we feel about making Athletics as one of the main sections as opposed to subsection of "Student Life and Tradition" life as it is now? Revenue sports like football and basketball produce over a million dollars in profit for the university which is something very different from all other student activities. Similarly millions of dollars are borrowed to build and maintain complexes specifically for intercollegiate sports. Coaches get paid more than the regent. There are different enrollment standards between intercollegiate athletes and regular students. It can be argued that the big game is a tradition that should stay in the current section. Its a good point and something can be worked out where it goes under both sections or only stays in Student Life. Also intramural sports do fit in under student life and a subsection can be created for them. If there is no problem with the above I would like to make those changes. Rybkovich (talk) 23:43, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

I oppose what you suggest. The current "Athletics" subsection is small, smaller than the "Student groups" section above it, written in a very succinct manner, but it even goes into the debt incurred in rebuilding the stadium. What you seem to be concerned about involves a few sports, football especially. There even is a separate article on Cal football that doesn't discuss the semi-professional aspects of such sports. Dhtwiki (talk) 08:37, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

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Yes, thank you. That was one I wanted revived. Dhtwiki (talk) 17:53, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

Abortion clinic

I recently declined a speedy on Aanchal Chugh, as she's one of the members of the student government that recently voted to implement an abortion clinic on campus and she was selected for a project with the White House - enough to where she passes A7 criteria. I don't think that she really passes notability criteria on her own, but I do think that the abortion clinic would quite possibly/likely merit a mention somewhere in the article or perhaps merit its own page eventually.

I figured I'd mention this here in case anyone wanted to help with Chugh's article and see what can/should be merged into this article. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 10:42, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

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Have belatedly checked these. Dhtwiki (talk) 09:00, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

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Link is working and seems to support text. Dhtwiki (talk) 07:35, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Peer Review

Overall, the article is very thorough and detailed. However, especially in the student groups section, it would be nice to see a more comprehensive list of the student groups rather than just simply listing a few. Maybe an external link to another article with a newly updated list every year can provide more information. Other than that, the article has a lot of information and is backed by an extensive and wide variety of sources. --Mchang20 (talk) 23:52, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

The article overall looks great. It's very concise, neutral, and the sources are all reliable. However, I do think that the athletics section can be expanded especially after the 2016 Olympics. The golden bears brought home 21 medals from Rio. This is astonishing, and is something we should definitely put an emphasis on. Other than that, recent student movements should also appear in the article, the riot occurred on Feb 1st regarding Milo Yiannopoulos' canceled speech is an example. To summarize, making sure the article is up-to-date is crucial. --Freyachun (talk) 00:18, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

"Leading" university

Dhtwiki is edit-warring to include the adjective "leading" in the lead sentence of this article. He or she is citing WP:STATUSQUO to support his or her reversions, an essay that I don't quite understand and a shortcut that is especially confusing given that the word in question was only added to the article one week ago so it can't be considered the status quo at all. In one of his or her edits, he or she remarks that "other universities tell upfront how prestigious they are" but I don't know of any well-trafficked article that does so in the very first sentence. In fact, to do so would seem to contradict the specific guidance we have developed for college and university articles. Two editors have specifically objected to this, an unregistered editor inserted the word a week ago, and one editor is edit-warring to retain it; there clearly is not a consensus to add this word so it must remain out until that changes. ElKevbo (talk) 10:21, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Is the addition of "leading" of such recent vintage? There's no consensus to take it out without discussion, either. I do know that there has been considerable back-and-forth for some time in this article on proclaiming UC Berkeley "prestigious" or some such term that others might find peacock-worded. I considered "leading" as probably the consensus choice. The articles on both Stanford and Harvard both use the term "most prestigious" in the first sentence, which I'd checked before I wrote the relevant summary. I would say that OP, in this at least, shows his haste in coming to judgment. Dhtwiki (talk) 04:13, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
The word "leading" is a typical WP:PEACOCK word and is too vague to be a concrete verifiable fact. Even the phrasing "one of the most prestigious" should be avoided as well, for similar reasons, in my opinion.--Jasper Deng (talk) 04:25, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

Top Public university in the world

I do agree that leading should not be used. At the same time I am okay with it. This is what the next sentence shows. "Founded in 1868, Berkeley is the oldest of the ten research universities affiliated with the University of California system, and is often cited as the top public university in the United States and around the world." I can allow them to say the top public university in the US, though this is highly controversial and I would personally disagree. At the same time the claim that UC Berkeley is cited as the top public university in the world is not objective and does not meet criteria for verfiability. This is a very egocentric, and forgets about many top public institutions outside of the US, such as The University of Cambridge or University of Oxford who were established over a 1000 years before Berkeley and have had much more history and influence, even shaping Harvard University and other top US schools. Thus, this wikipedia is an not WP:Promotion advertising and is an encyclopedia article. The claim that UC Berkeley is better than Oxford and Cambridge (which are both public universities in the world) cannot be cited as verifiable, and the latter part of this sentence needs to be removed or adjusted. Mikecurry1 (talk) 21:19, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Adjustment to remove UC Berkeley as the Top University in the World despite all the universities in Europe and Asia, was undone. This WP:Promotion and does not meet wiki standards for verifiablity. In the THE rankings there are many universities IN THE WORLD (not just the US) that receive government public funding cited above UC Berkeley (including the University of Oxford ranked #1 internationally, University of Cambridge, Imperial College London, ETH Zurich, University College London, etc.). Moreover, in the QS rankings there are many more public universities in the world who are ranked above Berekely (where UC Berkeley is 28th). While it is contentious to say Berkeley is cited as the best university in the US, it is simply advertising WP: Promotion to say Berkeley is cited as the Top Public School in the World (which is beyond verificability) and too controversial for an encyclopedia article. Even when information is presented from a verifiable source (such as the AWRU rankings), it needs to be presented from a Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. This statement does not use a neutral point of view, and is WP:Promotion. I will remove the end part of the sentance, and allow for the part of the sentence about best public university in the US, which is still highly highly contentious.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.183.13.60 (talk) 21:42, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
Replies:
1) The fact that no one has discussed this topic with you does not mean you have the "consensus".
2) Again, "often cited" is objective reporting, not advertisement. It is not saying "always cited", or denying the ranking of THE or QS. Read ARWU and US News. Also, read "US News Best College" (for domestic ranking).
3) In addition, your argument only involves ranking. Cambridge and Oxford receive funding from UK government; UC Berkeley receives funding from California state government. See the difference? Also, your argument pays no respect to the university. It is affiliated with 92 Nobel prize winners, 13 fields medalists, and 22 turing award winners, etc. It is an academic center in the world, and has made significant contributions to the world. A direct example is the atomic bomb.
4) I do not wish to argue more with you as of now. Stop your random & meaningless attack.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.63.167.146 (talk) 03:28, 29 January 2017 (UTC)
First of all, UC Berkeley being often cited as the top public university in the U.S. is a FACT. It is not "highly contentious" or biased. One may personally disagree, but that does not change this FACT. Secondly, as the previous person mentioned, ARWU and US News often cite Berkeley as the top public university in the world. This is also a FACT. If one really wants to argue using THE and QS rankings, again it does not change the FACT. But let's just talk about THE and QS briefly. I should mention that these two commercialized rankings are based on U.K. and were one company in the past. QS uses a ranking methodology that greatly favors U.K universities, and this is highly controversial, inconsistent and self-contradictory; for example, in 2015-16 edition, UC Berkeley has 35 subjects that rank top 10 worldwide according to QS subject ranking - more than any other universities in the world (Stanford has 33 and Harvard has 30), but it ranks 28th in QS overall ranking, which is ridiculous. In particular, to favor UK public universities, QS assigns 20% to student-faculty ratio which immediately lowers the positions of U.S public universities. As a professor, I never know anyone in academia who pays attention to QS overall ranking. As for THE, it is more reasonable for it uses a ranking methodology which shows some balance among U.K, U.S and other countries. However, it is still a highly commercialized ranking compared to ARWU. After all, no ranking is "perfect", but this is not our central concern here. The sentence "often cited as the top public university in the U.S and around the world" is a FACT, and there is no need to remove it.
Minimumbias (talk) 19:13, 29 January 2017 (UTC)
Please cite some sources that explicitly support these claims. Note that (a) a source that simply places this university at the top of a particular ranking system in a particular year does not support the claim that is being made and (b) a Wikipedia editor that uses the rankings from multiple sources over multiple years to support this claim is engaging in original research by synthesis. A claim of this nature will have to be supported by a secondary or ideally a tertiary source since it is by definition based on synthesis of multiple sources. Take a look at how the similar claim in the lead of Harvard University is supported for an idea of how this can be done. ElKevbo (talk) 20:49, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

- I understand what you meant. As I said, the claims about different ranking systems and methodology are NOT our central concern here. We are not in a Wikipedia page of ARWU, QS, THE or US NEWS. And the data & numbers I listed here are not original researches - they are from the official ranking websites (one may cite the websites, but they are not the central topic and the citation work is laborious). The central topic is the report of ranking results. Most importantly, it is not just a particular year or a few years; for example, ARWU has consistently placed Berkeley as the world top public universities for the past decade (since 2007), and US NEWS Best Global Universities has consistently placed Berkeley at the top public position since its inaugural version in 2014 (same for US NEWS domestic university ranking). Again, citing sources for all these results here is laborious and I don't have time, but if one ever doubts my claims and wishes verify, just go to the official ranking websites. Minimumbias (talk) 22:33, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

The fact that UC Berkeley is cited as the top public university in the world is not a FACT, from a WP:neutral point of view. It is a fact, in the same way Trump artificially selects his facts by whatever sources back up his argument, rather than from a WP:neutral point of view. Had QS World University Rankings voted UC Berkeley the number 1 public university in the world, it would be established as a valid ranking by you. The same for the Times higher education world university rankings. Rather, 3 rankings (THE, QS, the AWRU) are the main global rankings used in Europe. They are the only ones that wikipedia reports for global rankings on their tables in europe. US News Global Ranking is quite a new ranking to the world university rankings. Moreover, US News previously used the QS ranking to determine its world rankings. Most importantly, UC Berkeley cannot be cited as the top public university in the world, without discounting the University of Cambridge or University of Oxford. Finally, I sense a WP:Conflict of Interest as my guess is that you are affiliated with UC Berkeley. This is clearly advertising WP:Promotion. I am fine with the first part of the statement, UC berkeley is the top public university in the US, rather it cannot be cited Berkeley is the top public school in the world (especially with Cambridge and Oxford, who in my eyes and in various rankings Berkeley has not yet surpassed). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.183.13.60 (talk) 02:09, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
Agree, UC BERKELEY DOES NOT HAVE SUFFICIENT SOURCES TO CITE IN AN ENCYCLOPEDIA THAT IT IS THE TOP PUBLIC UNIVERSITY IN THE WORLD, IT HAS BEEN STARTED 1000 YEARS LATER THAN OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE (both public universities). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:E000:6003:5900:8C2B:F8DD:194A:52E8 (talk) 07:30, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
First, stop yelling at us; it's rude. Second, please stop comparing public institutions in the U.S. to public institutions in Britain; they're very different (nearly opposite, in fact) conceptions of "public."
In any case, I removed the rest of the statement from the article. It was pure synthesis for a Wikipedia editor(s) to make up a list of rankings and draw any strong conclusions. If someone wants to add this information back into the article, please find several high quality sources that explicitly make the point. ElKevbo (talk) 13:04, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

- First, "synthesis" is a must for Wikipedia. Why? Because every Wikipedia article is not a crude mixture of paragraphs, sentences and words taken from various sources. It is written by editors who must do some synthesis and create a "consistent & smooth" article.

- Second, the tricky part is to determine the proper level of synthesis in each article in order to keep the articles as objective as possible. A most important criterion for judging the proper level is the "consensus". The sentence "often cited as top public university in the U.S and around the world" has been accepted by most UC Berkeley page editors. It has been in the lead for a long time. Moreover, similar usages have been adopted in the leads of many other universities: 

   1) Harvard: "... it one of the world's most prestigious universities". 
   2) MIT: "...often cited as one of the world's most prestigious universities."
   3) Stanford: " ... become one of the world's most prestigious universities"
   4) UChicago: "It is one of the world's leading and most influential institutions of higher learning, with top-ten positions in numerous rankings and measures."
   5) Cambridge: "It is consistently ranked as one of the world's best universities"
And, so on.....

- Third, I believe the sources, given the variety, authority and general popularity (I don't wish to get involved in any endless argument of validity of these terms), do support the claim.

159.63.167.146 (talk) 19:37, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Repeatedly edit warring with other editors and labeling their edits as "vandalism" is not a way to garner cooperation or approval; in fact, it's likely to lead being blocked. Cut it out.
Please read WP:SYN again. It's quite clear. You need to cite reliable sources that explicitly support your claim. So far all you've cited are some contemporary rankings, none of which explicitly make the claim that you're trying to make. The most you could claim from that collection of sources that the university was highly ranked in a few specific years. That doesn't come close to supporting a claim of "consistent" or "prestigious."
Since you've brought up some of the other articles that have or had similar text, I encourage you to more carefully read those articles and the cited sources. The Harvard article in particular has solid sources that support the claim; note that the sources are much more varied than just a few recent rankings and those sources make the explicit claim that is in the article.
Stop edit warring, stop labeling other editors' edits vandalism, and find some better sources. ElKevbo (talk) 17:28, 18 February 2017 (UTC)
The problem is that words like "prestigious" and "consistent" are never used in Berkeley's page (Harvard, MIT and etc pages use such words). These are highly subjective terms and substantial sources are surely needed to support these claims. In fact, it is still subjective to determine how many sources are "enough" to support such claim (MIT only has 4 sources, by the way, some of them are repetitive and others are from another online encyclopedia). But Berkeley page uses words "often cited", which are far more conservative and "objective". You claim that the supporting sources are only some contemporary rankings, but first of all "often cited" means "cited in university rankings", and secondly let me remind you that the first widely-recognized global university ranking (ARWU) was published in 2003. Then how can we find a widely-recognized global university ranking that is not contemporary? In addition, until now there are only 3-4 global university rankings which can be regarded as "widely-recognized" (ARWU, THE, QS, and sometimes US News or CWUR). So the sources provided here in Berkeley's page are enough to support the claim "often cited" (as explained by "Minimumbias" above that the "top position" is not just for "a few" years, it is for more than a decade). 159.63.167.146 (talk) 04:08, 19 February 2017 (UTC)
So you're engaging in synthesis to make your point, right? Please don't do that. Find independent, reliable sources that explicitly support your claim. Other encyclopedias and similar tertiary sources would be idea; independent sources that say similar things are quite desirable and provide an excellent argument for including the material in an article (as opposed to material that is only found in one or two sources that may not be important enough for including in an article). ElKevbo (talk) 04:55, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

UC Berkeley speaking Event 1st of February 2017

Hi everyone,

I propose adding article content surrounding the UC Berkeley public speaking event involving ‘Milo Yiannopoulos’ on the 1st of February 2017. I think this is a high enough profile event to warrant a short piece about the events that took place. I have added a subheading ‘Media attention’ and included a short referenced contribution several times, however someone has deleted my content — NativeEarthC1tizen (talk) 20:55, 8th February 2017 (UTC)

Now, and I will admit this, I do believe that the event should be mentioned in the article, but not as its own section. A condensed form of the section, maybe no more than a sentence or two, in the History section should suffice. SkyWarrior 21:00, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
A separate article could be created, and I agree the Berkeley article should only have a few sentences devoted to the incident. See University of California, Davis article, "2011 pepper spray incident and aftermath" section as a model: reference to a main article, 2 sentences about the incident, and a paragraph devoted to the various consequences of the incident. Contributor321 (talk) 21:27, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
I agree that it's worth mentioning but in the context of the entire history of this university it only merits a few sentences at most (and primarily because the president brought the story to international prominence). Of course, we can revisit this decision should the story continue to develop. ElKevbo (talk) 22:19, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

For the record, this is the disputed content that was recently removed from this article:

On the 1st of February 2017, a high profile media event took place at UC Berkeley when hundreds of anti-Trump demonstrators forcefully disrupted a speaking event featuring the gay conservative speaker Milo Yiannopoulos.[1][2][3] The Guardian reported that one individual protesting at the event “dressed in black and wore a face mask, carried a banner that read “Queers bash back.” He said, "he identified with the “antifa” (anti-fascist) movement."[1] The Guardians further reported that “a group of black-clad anti-fascist activists shot fireworks at the speech venue.”[1] The news website Heat Street reported that individuals were, “smashing windows with police barricades and destroyed several large light fixtures."[4] The Antifa members dressed in all black and wore gas masks and face coverings to hide their identity.”[4] While UC Berkeley’s own news website stated that “150 masked individuals with paramilitary tactics, including hurling Molotov cocktails, setting fires, throwing fireworks at police, pushing barricades into windows and damaging campus and city property.”[3] The Washington Times writes that a woman supporting the ‘Milo Yiannopoulos’ speaking event at the UC Berkeley University campus who got caught up in the violence was “sprayed in the face with pepper spray by an unidentified assailant after giving an interview with a television crew.”[2] The Guardian reports that the speaker at the UC Berkeley event ‘Milo Yiannopoulos' said, “the Left is absolutely terrified of free speech and will do literally anything to shut it down.”[1] The UC Berkeley’s news website said the UCPD has launched an investigation into last mights riotous actions. [3] Less than 24 hours after the riot at UC Berkeley, KTVU news reported that “A UC Berkeley student was attacked on campus Thursday. The student, Jack Palkovic, is a member of the Berkeley College Republicans. He said he was with fellow students talking to media outlets at the foot of Sproul Plaza when two men attacked him.” [5] Further KTVU news reports stated that “UC Berkeley Police arrested Sean Suess, a 27-year-old man from San Francisco and Devonte Gaskin, a 28-year-old from Oakland. Both men are being held at the city jail and officials said the men are not affiliated with the campus. They are facing battery charges.”[5] Jack Palkovic said, ““The vitriol reaction we’re seeing from the very left, progressive left, not everyone, but some, it’s worrisome,” Diaz added.” and, “I think it’s unfortunate in a civilized society you can’t wear a hat,” Palkovic said. “I'm still going to wear the hat, especially after what happened last night.”[5]

And this is content which currently appears in the Milo Yiannopoulos article:

On 1 February 2017, Yiannopoulos was scheduled to make a speech at UC Berkeley at 8:00 pm. Over 1,000 people gathered to non-violently protest the event.[6] Prior to the event, more than 100 UC Berkeley faculty had signed a petition urging the university to cancel the event.[7] According to the university, around 150 masked agitators came onto campus and interrupted the protest, setting fires, damaging property, throwing fireworks, attacking members of the crowd, and throwing rocks at the police.[8] Among those assaulted were a Syrian Muslim who was pepper sprayed and hit with a rod by a protestor dressed all in black who said "You look like a Nazi"[9], and a white woman who was pepper sprayed while being interviewed by a TV reporter.[10] Citing security concerns, the UC Police Department decided to cancel the event.[6][11] One person was arrested for failure to disperse, and there was about $100,000 in damage.[12] The police were criticized for their "hands off" policy whereby they did not arrest any of the protestors who committed assault, vandalism, or arson.[13][14] President Donald Trump criticized the university (i.e. its students) on Twitter for failing to allow freedom of speech, and threatened to defund UC Berkeley.[15][16] After the incident, Yiannopoulos' upcoming book, Dangerous, returned to number one on Amazon's "Best Sellers" list, and as of 5 February 2017, still holds this position.[17]

Bk33725681 (talk) 23:31, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

References from examples above
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
  1. ^ a b c d The Guardian – World. The Guardian (2017-02-01). Retrieved on 2017-02-07.
  2. ^ a b The Washington Times – Home – News – National. The Washington Times (2017-02-02). Retrieved on 2017-02-07.
  3. ^ a b c Berkeley News – Campus News. Berkeley News (2017-02-01). Retrieved on 2017-02-07.
  4. ^ a b Heatstreet – Home – Politics. Heat Street (2017-02-01). Retrieved on 2017-02-07.
  5. ^ a b c KTVU – News. KTVU News (2017-02-01). Retrieved on 2017-02-07.
  6. ^ a b "Milo Yiannopoulos event canceled after violence erupts". UC Berkeley News. 1 February 2017. Retrieved 2 February 2017.
  7. ^ A Free Speech Battle at the Birthplace of a Movement at Berkeley, New York Times, February 2, 2017
  8. ^ Fuller, Thomas (2 February 2017). "A Free Speech Battle at the Birthplace of a Movement at Berkeley". The New York Times Co. Retrieved 2 February 2017.
  9. ^ How Violence Undermined the Berkeley Protest, New York Times, February 2, 2017
  10. ^ Woman pepper sprayed by Berkeley protester, Fox 5, February 2, 2017
  11. ^ Mele, Christopher (1 February 2017). "Berkeley Cancels Milo Yiannopoulos Speech, and Donald Trump Tweets Outrage". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 February 2017.
  12. ^ Bodley, Michael (2 February 2017). "At Berkeley Yiannopoulos protest, $100,000 in damage, 1 arrest". SFGate. Retrieved 3 February 2017.
  13. ^ Berkeley Police Criticized For ‘Hands-Off’ Approach To Violent Demonstrators, CBS Sacramento, February 7, 2017
  14. ^ Police criticized for lack of action during U.C. Berkeley protests, ABC 7, February 2, 2017
  15. ^ Savransky, Rebecca (2 February 2017). "Trump threatens funding cut if UC Berkeley 'does not allow free speech'". TheHill. Retrieved 2 February 2017.
  16. ^ Rahim, Zamira (2 February 2017). "Trump Threatens to Yank U.C. Berkeley's Federal Funding Over Protests Against Milo Yiannopoulos". Time. Retrieved 2 February 2017.
  17. ^ "Milo Yiannopoulos' Upcoming Book Grabs Top Spot On Amazon's Best-Seller List". The Huffington Post. 3 February 2017. Retrieved 5 February 2017.
And your point is ...? Contributor321 (talk) 00:42, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
It is much easier to discuss the content in question if we can actually see it. Bk33725681 (talk) 06:06, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
Yes, it is easier to have the text in question on this page. The two accounts include too much about individual incidents to be proper summaries, but the second account is better in that regard, although it, too, could use some trimming. Dhtwiki (talk) 14:44, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
Let us compare the Milo event with other events which were significantly more notable. The entire Free Speech movement takes about 1 line in the article, having lasted for months and with thousands of students taking part. The People's Park protest of 1969, which included the National Guard being deployed, takes about 1 line as well. The Milo event is irrelevant when compared with these two, and, despite its recency, should take less space than either. UCaetano (talk) 21:56, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
Agree. This is a bad case of WP:RECENTISM. And given the (welcome) brevity of the article's history section, this event doesn't warrant a mention at all. Brycehughes (talk) 02:08, 12 February 2017 (UTC)


Please see my suggestion below on this topic (Controversies/Protest section needed? (Speaking events of 2017)). There is currently yet another incident very similar to this shaping up, and it seems we may need a new section or new page dedicated to the various guest speaker incidents of 2017. Studstwitch (talk) 04:19, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Top public university around the world

I'm not sure that Oxford and Cambridge are less cited as the top public universities. Maybe "among the best public universities" is better? --RaphaelQS (talk) 20:02, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

- This topic has been discussed in a previous section, under "Leading University". 159.63.167.146 (talk) 03:47, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

The article doesn't claim that it is cited more than Cambridge and Oxford, only that it is cited "often", which is true. UCaetano (talk) 07:42, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
Yes of course, but this gives the idea that this is the consensus. --RaphaelQS (talk) 10:01, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
This statement seems to toe the line of NPOV, but as currently worded (..often cited as...) it is just fine. In addition, the statement is backed up with nine distinct citations currently. This seems to be adequate. One of the key word choices is "Often", the removal of which I agree could give the impression of consensus. I see no conflict with NPOV policies as it stands. Studstwitch (talk) 04:27, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Name Change

When did the university go from being simply referred to as the University of California in 1868 to its current name of University of California, Berkeley for the former names section of the template? -- WikiEditor668 (talk) 07:15, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

According to History of the University of California, Berkeley...
The history of the University of California, Berkeley, can be traced to the establishment of the private College of California and its merger with the Agricultural, Mining, and Mechanical Arts College to form the University of California in 1868.
However, this statement does not contain any citations, so further research would be needed.
In March 1873, the trustees of Toland Medical College transferred it to the Regents of the University of California, and it became "The Medical Department of the University of California."[12]
1905 seems to be the most likely date from what I can tell, though I can't find anything distinctive. I hope this helps. Studstwitch (talk) 04:43, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Controversies/Protest section needed? (Speaking events of 2017)

Hello All, forgive my rough wiki etiquette, this is my first contribution to the site. I'm still learning the ropes.

There is currently another speaking engagement at this site which seems to echo the previously mention Milo Yiannopoulos incident from February. Currently, there is yet another clash going on involving a speaking arrangement by Ann Coulter. The gist of the story currently is that she was invited to speak, and again there was another clash among student groups, concerns over violence and free speech, and a threat of a lawsuit against the college if the engagement cannot go through.

Considering this is now the second newsworthy "Clash" at the college in 2017, it seems pertinent to add a section regarding these speaking events, possibly with separate subsections for each incident.

I've got a few links here to news articles detailing the lastest events (Again, please excuse the formatting):

I'm not sure these are the best sources but they will give some detail on the present situation.

Any thoughts or suggestions on this idea, or feedback for myself for future editing are both extremely welcome.

Thank you. Studstwitch (talk) 04:15, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Studstwitch Yes, this should be mentioned here, though most of the coverage should still be at 2017 Berkeley protests#February 1 220 of Borg 06:57, 24 April 2017 (UTC)


merger proposal

An editor proposed merging the Berkeley school of political theory into the UC Berkeley article. This is an inappropriate merge proposal. The Berkeley school of political theory is a school of THOUGHT, not a sub-unit of UC Berkeley. As a school of thought, it has had theorists from all over the world -- it just is named after Berkeley because some of the original creators were there. But it is not part of Berkeley. I have removed the MERGE tag, per Template:Merge, but if you want to discuss, please do so at Talk:Berkeley school of political theory. --Lquilter (talk) 18:02, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

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"Often cited as a leading research university..." in lede

Until just a few minutes ago, this article included the following statement as the close of the very first paragraph: "...and is often cited as one of the world's leading research universities and the top public university in the United States." It was accompanied ten separate references. IcarusLivesX removed many of those references using the edit summary "The number of citations for this sentence was ridiculous. Some of them were the same source from different years (2012, 2016, 2017); some sources mentioned sources that were already included on here--redundant." I then removed the text and the remaining references using the edit summary " well now the cited sources are insufficient to support the claim; more in Talk."

The core problem here is that the original statement was poorly supported and editors aggregated a lot of small, individual sources to support the statement. If the statement is accurate and important enough to be included in the lede of this article, it must be (a) explicitly supported by high quality references and (b) further discussed and elaborated in the body of the article. Moreover, this statement is a very strong one so it requires exceptionally strong evidence. The Harvard University article has a similar statement and it was workshopped quite a bit before editors were able to reach a consensus so it may be a good model to follow. ElKevbo (talk) 19:43, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Sources are strong enough to support the claim. Your judgement of "insufficient" is biased. A lot other universities (Columbia, Cambridge, Caltech, etc) which use similar or even more aggressive statements with much fewer sources stand intact. What is the meaning of repeatedly attacking the page of UC Berkeley? 128.135.98.41 (talk) 22:17, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
By the way, I am not happy with your irony when you said "well now the cited sources are insufficient to support the claim". 128.135.98.41 (talk) 22:22, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
I don't give a damn what you're happy with. What you've reverted into the article simply is not supported by the cited sources. You're trying to make some grand claims about prestige and dominance but you're just citing some ranking systems. So I've edited the article to reflect that. If you really think that your version should stand then it's incumbent on you to find sources that actually support it; simply cobbling together a bunch of sources that kind of say it is not sufficient nor is it honest. ElKevbo (talk) 14:48, 26 August 2017 (UTC)
First, I don't understand your understanding of the claim. The claim has little to do with "prestige". The words "leading" and "top" are simply reporting the results of various rankings, so what is the problem of citing ranking systems? Secondly, your repeated claims of "insufficient" is your very own judgement. You cannot disprove what the sources support - the ranking results. Thirdly, watch your mouth. 159.63.167.146 (talk) 18:05, 26 August 2017 (UTC)
Those references, if they are necessary, really rclutter the lead, which is supposed to be a summary of what is stated in reference body, which is where those references should go. Dhtwiki (talk) 22:29, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

There are currently 8 different sources (though there were more), some of which actually refer to each other. They're redundant and unnecessary. One of the citations is not even from a reputable source. Why is it necessary to cite the same source from different years if one link already provides rankings from past years? Many other pages have similar statements with less citations and there have been no problems. We can remove some citations and eliminate all this clutter. IcarusLivesX (talk) 23:33, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

UCB and Cal Berkeley

BUjjsp has twice removed "UCB" and "Cal Berkeley" from the opening line of this article. In the first edit, he or she stated that "The source says explicitly not to use UCB or Cal Berkeley" and in the second edit he or she used the edit summary "So should we add "Bezerkley" as well? And "U$C" for the University of Southern California page? Best to stick with what's officially recognized in academic circles." I find both arguments to be very problematic. The first argument says that we must allow the subject to control the content of this article, a premise that nearly all editors would firmly reject out of hand and doesn't merit discussion. The second argument is similar but appeals to "official [recognition] in academic circles." That is not a standard that we use in Wikipedia and it's not even one that is supported by evidence. I agree that the university's marketing department discourages the use of those terms but they still seem to be quite widespread (otherwise why would the university's marketing department have to explicitly tell people to not use them?); I get about 196,000 hits in Google when I search for "Cal Berkeley" including news organizations who have recently used the term. ElKevbo (talk) 17:10, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

@User:ElKevbo
Edit 1) I cited the source in question because it was clearly assigned to the alternative names of the university in the header. The text is as follows: "The University of California, Berkeley, (also referred to as UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, UCB, Cal Berkeley,[7]". Given that I looked into the source and saw that it said that "UCB" and "Cal Berkeley" were not appropriate references to the university, I assumed that whoever added the source and the alternative names had misread the source material itself.
Edit 2) That's quite a logical leap to insinuate that I'm arguing in favor of allowing "the subject to control the content of this article". I'm merely suggesting that we stay away from names that seem contentious, which doesn't seem unreasonable. Your logic seems to suggest that we include all names are in "widespread" use. Then I ask, where should we draw the line? "Bezerkley" is a common reference to the university used by both students and other parties, yet I'm confident that we can both agree that inclusion of this term would be inappropriate for an encyclopedia.
To your final point, I'd suspect that you get 196,000 hits on Google for "Cal Berkeley" because it includes both, "Cal" and "Berkeley", which are both official names of the university. BUjjsp (talk) 17:32, 12 September 2017 (UTC)
If you haven't already done so, it may be helpful to review WP:COMMONNAME; it's our primary policy on naming conventions for articles and has useful guidance for this kind of discussion.
I think there's also some discussion on this topic in the archives of this Talk page. It appears to me that "UC Berkeley" is quite widespread and warrants inclusion based on the number of sources that use it. It doesn't appear to me that "UCB" is used enough to warrant inclusion; the links in the archived discussion are either broken, out-of-date, or unconvincing. ElKevbo (talk) 00:37, 14 September 2017 (UTC)
We should distinguish between official name and university recognized nicknames which may well be trademarked and unofficial names. Supported by the current source and also http://www.berkeley.edu/brand/img/downloads/UCB%20Brand%20Guidelines_FINAL_small.pdf are "University of California, Berkeley" (especially in more formal settings), "UC Berkeley" (standard settings/first use in a publication), "Berkeley" (subsequent use especially in an academic context), "Cal" (when referring to the athletic program or alumni but not academics). Other unofficial names would require other sources to support their mention in this article. A hunt showed that UCB is also used for University of Colorado, Boulder and University College of Bahrain (which btw uses the domain name ucb.edu.bh) and I must admit I've rarely heard it used for Berkeley (I'm in the Bay Area so I do hear the various names frequently) so I would avoid mentioning it in the intro (perhaps in a footnote which pointing out its use by other institutions). "Cal Berkeley" or "Cal-Berkeley" is another matter. It shows up in names like "Cal Berkeley Democrats" (https://www.caldems.com/) and is frequently used informally but this still needs to be documented. --Erp (talk) 03:30, 14 September 2017 (UTC)
By their use being discouraged, "UCB" and "Cal Berkeley" are documented as being in use by the reference cited in the article. Dhtwiki (talk) 07:38, 14 September 2017 (UTC)
@User:Dhtwiki: I don't think that's necessarily the case. When I run a google search using the term "UCB", I don't find any sources that actually use the term as a reference to the university. Moreover, the source discouraging the use of "UCB" does not necessarily confirm its prevalence. It may simply be trying to preemptively avoid the common style of acronym associated with the other UC campuses (UCLA, UCSD, UCI, etc.) BUjjsp (talk) 08:13, 14 September 2017 (UTC)
The usage is now rare and I suspect mostly now seen more as an error by people who don't know better. For instance I did find it used in the Stanford Daily archives to refer to Berkeley (or to the University of Colorado, Boulder) but the usage when referring to Berkeley has declined drastically since the 1980s (the decade with max usage in the Daily; there has been no usage of it in latest few years of the archive, 2010-2014, to refer to Berkeley). --Erp (talk) 14:27, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

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Edit warring over endowment

Can the unregistered editor(s) who is edit warring over the endowment figure in the infobox please (a) stop edit warring and (b) discuss his or her objections? Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 04:00, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

Endowment Field in the Infobox

I noticed that there existed some controversy over what Berkeley's total endowment consists of, and I think the primary confusion on the part of those pushing for the $1.8 billion amount is that they are only looking at funds within "The University of California, Berkeley Foundation". However, based on the endowment reports (especially the second source which describes asset designation more in detail), which I have included as sources in the infobox, both the "foundation" endowment assets, as well as the "regents" endowment assets "for the benefit of the campus" are collectively classified under "Total Campus Endowments". In other words, UC Berkeley's total endowment, as classified by the overarching University of California, as well as the Berkeley campus itself, consists of both sets of assets. The 'NACUBO' source previously included separates the "Berkeley Foundation" assets from total endowment assets designated to the university, and consequently, does not reflect the entire Berkeley endowment. Please refer to the official University of California endowment reports for more information, which lists Berkeley's endowment at approximately $4.3 billion. Thank you. BUjjsp (talk) 07:09, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 March 2018

In opening intro change "one of the best universities" to the original description of "one of the most prestigious universities" as the citations clearly demonstrate UC Berkeley's well earned title due to quality of academics and expansive and extensive historical reseach output. 2607:F140:400:A017:B4C8:3C21:7E64:45DC (talk) 00:55, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

 Not done see WP:PRESTIGE. Corky 02:29, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Academic boosterism

This page currently uses words such as "best," which, subjectively "well earned title" is still highly subjective and is not objective information (Refer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Avoid_academic_boosterism for Wiki's guidelines on Academic Boosterism - specific examples of using the word "best," "prestigious," etc is not encouraged). There needs to be consistency in the Wiki community as to how we allow subjective phrasing of these universities are. University of Chicago resolved this problem by providing objective information as such: "It holds top-ten positions in various national and international rankings"

I brought this to attention for Columbia University and Princeton University both pages in which their sentences of academic boosterism has been deleted. We should do our best to provide as objective information as possible and do the same for the Berkeley page. 68.65.67.46 (talk) 23:47, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Rather than edit war across multiple articles with many editors, I recommend you begin a centralized discussion. WT:UNI would be a suitable venue. Or you could jump straight into an RFC but I think that may be premature without at least working with several editors to nail down the exact issue(s) that need to be addressed and how the question(s) should be phrased. (I'd definitely be supportive of an RfC on this issue that sought to omit Wikipedia editor-selected rankings entirely from the ledes of articles and limited discussion of prestige to statements explicitly supported by multiple highly quality, independent, and authoritative sources e.g., the compromise we forged at Harvard University several years ago.) ElKevbo (talk) 01:30, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
Note that, as I said in one of my edit summaries at the article, "Avoid academic boosterism" is an essay with one major contributor and not "Wiki's guidelines", as the essay page itself notes. There have already been discussions here on how much to make of Berkeley's reputation in the article. Dhtwiki (talk) 02:08, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Yes, there has been much discussion but no consensus and people have been editing however they want regardless. Read above - nobody agreed. People just stopped talking and then others just started editing on their own whim. Just like now, how someone put up the same sentence AGAIN without concensus.2600:1010:B049:BF82:A1C2:195D:95EB:6E84 (talk) 03:46, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

You can't just pick and choose which universities can be considered "ranked among the best universities" because then where do you draw the line? Top 10? Top 20? Top 100? Every single university mentioned on the rankings list? It's completely subjective and inaccurate to only have certain schools you feel are worth having this sentence in and exclude others. For the sake of having an encyclopedic, objective information, we should follow University of Chicago's page model where it states "It holds top-ten positions in various national and international rankings." When you start acknowledging that Berkeley is ranked "among the best universities" that means ANY university that is on the rankings list you cited (USNWR, AWRU, Forbes, etc) qualifies to make this exact same statement on their page whether their rank was 1, 10, or 100. And if you really want to be nit picky here and say, well top ten, WHICH top ten? Yes, Berkeley hits top ten in a few publications - most certainly not all (ie USNWR = #21)

If you go by schools being ranked on multiple lists, a lot of schools can make that same claim - WUSTL, Vanderbilt, Penn State, Amherst, Williams, West Point - all are "ranked among the best universities" on all of those lists you cited.

Also, the best public university thing doesn't apply anymore either. Check your latest data, UCLA took them in USNWR and Forbes this year. I have nothing against Berkeley; I'm saying if you're going to make a claim on one page, be consistent on every page2600:1010:B049:BF82:2045:60A:9826:5FD4 (talk) 04:14, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

The current wording has been up for some time without being contended, so should remain until there is consensus to change it. Also, not just the text but also all the references were removed. References are hard to set up and shouldn't be removed on a whim. What I remember from the previous discussions is that the expression of UC Berkeley's claim to fame isn't out of line with articles on other universities that can lay similar claim to being well regarded. Dhtwiki (talk) 11:14, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
I agree that the references are valid - they should be kept there if the sentence needs it. The previous discussions (in above sections) did not come to an agreement of any kind. Someone just simply wrote the sentence without a consensus. Additionally, I disagree, I think that the main page should not contain sentences that are currently in dispute (and in fact, it hasn't been "some time without begin contended" - this very dispute was debated a few months ago and it was semi protected again, people forgot about it, and someone discreetly put the sentences back in there. We can check the edit histories if you'd like.
UC Berkeley's claim to fame is certainly a subjective one - and the other universities I assume you're referring to DID change their phrasing to better reflect objective information. Fame is a hard metric to compute. Take a look at Princeton University's talk page (where they got rid of the word "prestigious" altogether; the main page states: "From 2001 to 2018, Princeton University was ranked either first or second among national universities by U.S. News & World Report, holding the top spot for 16 of those 18 years."); Columbia University which had a HUGE debate in the talk section and eventually opted for using their admissions statistics to send the same message (the main page states: "Columbia currently stands as the third most selective college in the United States and the second most selective in the Ivy League."); Stanford University that made the recent edit to also take out the academic boosterism statements (the word "prestigious institution" was taken out - the main page states: "Stanford is known for its academic strength, wealth, and proximity to Silicon Valley."); and as mentioned previously so did University of Chicago. The other issue is, "the expression of UC Berkeley's claim to fame isn't out of line with articles on other universities that can lay similar claim (i.e. "ranked among the best universities") to being well regarded," so I'd like to repeat myself this means that ANY university that cites the same sources as the ones we did in this article - AWRU, USNWR, Forbes, Washington Monthly, etc. can all make the claim that they are "among the best universities in the U.S." since, after all, AWRU ranks 500 worldwide, USNWR ranks the top 100, Forbes top 200 for both national and liberal arts college in one rankings list, etc. etc. etc. The issue is that there is a very large inconsistency across university pages in general. Other university pages that DID make a similar claim (i.e. "ranked among the best universities"), modeled off the same sentence structure as UC Berkeley, and cited the exact same sources ALL had their sentences deleted and rejected (i.e. Vanderbilt University, Washington University in St. Louis, Johns Hopkins, Emory University). So this makes little practical sense to keep such a disputed, subjective information on the main page.
As a solution, I don't understand what is wrong with following UChicago's model of "It holds top-ten positions in various national and international rankings." That seems to meet a pretty middle ground in speaking of UC Berkeley's successes on the national and international stage but doesn't make the generalized claim that they are among "the best."
Lastly, because this seems to go ignored, I will state it again in bold the current sentence on the main page must be edited because UC Berkeley is no longer the "best" public university in the U.S. UCLA beat them out in both Forbes and USNWR this year. I also think it's funny that many UC Berkeley advocates always argue how biased USNWR is but when it comes to the global graduate rankings and the public school rankings they are suddenly in favor of it (I know about the faculty to student ratio and endowment and the whole issue of the bias against public institutions, you don't have to remind me. I've done my research. I just think it's quite a double standard and rather hypocritical to cherry-pick data from the exact same USNWR source and disregard the ones that don't fit their argument).128.218.43.91 (talk) 21:45, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
LOL. Did you just fabricate the ranking results of US News? Go read U.S News "Top Public Colleges" 2017-18:[1]. UC Berkeley is ranked as the "Top 1 public school", and it has been as No.1 consistently for many many years. In addition, go read U.S News "Best Global University Rankings" 2017-18 [2]. UC Berkeley is placed as the 1st public university in the world and, in case you haven't noticed, UC Berkeley has been placed 1st public in the world since the inception of this ranking in 2014. Now, regarding your claim that "UCLA beat them out in both Forbes and USNWR this year", in 2017-18 UCLA is placed 1st (tied with Berkeley for the first time) in "US News Top Public Colleges", 13th in "US News Best Global Universities" (Berkeley 4th), 48th in Forbes (Berkeley 29th) [3]. How did you draw your conclusion that UCLA beat Berkeley? LOL. Note that the Forbes ranking of "Best Value Colleges" [4] is NOT its ranking of universities overall. So, unfortunately, your claim based on US News & Forbes that "UC Berkeley is no longer the "best" public university in the U.S." is your imagination.
Ultimately, the content you have trouble with is the sentence "It is often ranked among the best universities in the world and the top public universities in the United States." To be perfectly exact and objective, I agree that it should be "It is often ranked among the top 5 universities in the world and the top public universities in the United States by some measures", something similar to UChicago's statement. You can't deny this statement now, since it is now directly supported by the sources (more sources can be provided, if needed) For instance, similar to U.S News Best Global University Rankings, ARWU has placed UC Berkeley as top 1st public university in the United States and top 5 worldwide every single year since the beginning of the ranking (2003) [5]. And so does the "Times Higher Education World Reputation Ranking" - top 1st public in the U.S and one of the six superbrands worldwide each year [6] [7] [8]. After all, yes, the original sentence should be modified to the new version in order to be perfectly objective, but completely deleting this sentence is groundless.
LOL. "I have nothing against Berkeley; I'm saying if you're going to make a claim on one page, be consistent on every page". If this is really true, you should also go argue with MIT, Caltech, University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, etc, instead of spending a whole lot of time here arguing in the Berkeley's Talk page.
LOL. This is my attitude towards your constantly changing the IP addresses and reporting other editors, in order not to be reported first or blocked due to engage in edit warring. What are you afraid of if you are on the side of justice? LOL. 205.208.121.233 (talk) 05:04, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
First of all, there is no need to be rude and so venomous. The point of this Talk page is to have a debate on how to best revise the main page for the Wiki readership. There is no denying that UC Berkeley is an excellent university and at no point during any of my statements above did I say that Berkeley was a horrible school - I just think the word "best" is like "prestigious" - it is highly subjective and promotes academic boosterism without unbiased information. I also did not immaturely rebuttal all of my paragraphs with "LOL." The point of this is to provide as much objective information as possible without "overselling" ANY academic institution. To me, when you say "best" it means the very top/one and only. Since there is a tie for 1st between UCLA and UC Berkeley I don't consider that there is a "best" or a "winner" this year. Perhaps my phrasing was poor in stating "beat" because you're right, they tied. Also, I verified my sources - the Forbes ranking was for the Best Value Colleges for UCLA being ranked higher than Berkeley. This is true and verifiable. I'll own up to my mistake. You just had to present that counterargument with your source. You didn't need to be rude with the other unnecessary text about how things are "in my imagination," accusing me of "fabricating US News data," and aggressively stating "You can't deny this now" - do you know how to participate in a public collaborative community? Your behavior and immaturity tells me no. Also, you've only strengthened my previous statement further that very proud UC Berkeley supporters actively cherry pick US News rankings to however they please. Yes public university rankings and the global rankings cite those accomplishments but you completely disregard the national university one because Berkeley is ranked #21? Take all, or take nothing from US News. Next thing you know, you're going to be making excuses about how the national university one is biased against public schools because it takes into account faculty:student ratios and endowment per capita. Be an adult - if you're going to use US News, don't cherry pick the rankings within the publication you like. If you don't like them, don't use them in your argument. Otherwise you're presenting an incredibly flawed argument. Also, the global ranking for US News, AWRU, and TIMES all discuss student research publication data - so it has mostly to do with the graduate programs and faculty research activity - it has nothing to do with the undergraduate reputation (which some rare undergrads do publish, this is not what is reflected in the scoring systems of these three ranking data).
To clarify your false assertion " LOL. "I have nothing against Berkeley; I'm saying if you're going to make a claim on one page, be consistent on every page". If this is really true, you should also go argue with MIT, Caltech, University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, etc, instead of spending a whole lot of time here arguing in the Berkeley's Talk page. " I am getting there. I worked through the Columbia debate, Chicago's was done before I was even there, Stanford's was pretty much done as well. Princeton's and Yale's didn't need any edits at all. Their intro paragraphs were either incredibly objective with respect to their reputation and ranking data (Princeton) or nonexistent (Yale). I'm not targeting or wasting my time on one specific page - it just happens that at this point in time, I happened to be editing the UC Berkeley page and it was met with a lot more resistance. Stanford's took two edits - no further arguments.
I'm not on the side of justice - that's a rather bold assertion for any one human being. And I'm not going to act like I'm a saint that knows the divine truth or whatever answer you're looking for. The IP addresses are changing because I have a laptop, a smart phone, and various work computers that when I take a break from work, or come home, or in a coffee shop browsing on my cell phone, I often make edits to Wiki pages. Feel free to group them all you want as one user to some administrative board but some of those computers are public (i.e. work shared computer - I work at a university). You can call it sockpuppeting or whatever all you want, I'm just living my normal life logging into wiki when I have an electronic device with WiFi access conveniently near by. Additionally, I've only reported editors who I feel like are only undo-ing edits that maintain their subjective biases on the wiki subject matter. I'm not going to contribute any further to this specific discussion about my choices or personal life so if you're not convinced as to my rationale for having multiple IP addresses - frankly, I don't know you and I don't really care. I care more about hearing from others, and yes, even yourself, and a wide variety of wiki user opinions so we can reach a mutually agreed sentence on how to best structure this phrase that has been brought up as an issue in the past.
So pushing all of that dogfight and bloodbath aside, let's try and keep progressing to the rightful order of business shall we?
You said, To be perfectly exact and objective, I agree that it should be "It is often ranked among the top 5 universities in the world and the top public universities in the United States by some measures", something similar to UChicago's statement. Well, it looks like we do have some kind of agreement that this hits a decent middle ground between making quantitative measurements for UC Berkeley's reputation, but also strays away from any subjective diction. How about "Its graduate programs are often ranked among the top 5 universities in the world. UC Berkeley is considered one of the top public universities in the United States" ("by some measures" is unnecessary since we'll have the citations in the footnotes so readers should know which sites that statement is derived from). 128.218.43.91 (talk) 06:48, 12 April 2018 (UTC)


Content-wise. I believe something looks like UChicago's statement is good enough, and it is not necessary to separate "graduate program" and "undergraduate program" in the first paragraph which serves to describe a general picture of a university. In fact, I think UC Berkeley can use exactly the same saying as UChicago's. Again, it is true that ARWU, US News (both global and best college) and Time Higher Education, all "often rank UC Berkeley among the top 10 universities in the world and the top public universities in the United States". There is no need to separately mention graduate program. From another perspective, among all major ranking agencies for world university rankings, I believe only US News ranks graduate programs, but it is only for domestic universities in the Unite States. So, your recommendation "Its graduate programs are often ranked among the top 5 universities in the world" lacks proper supporting sources and is technically not plausible. Hence, no need to separately mention graduate program in the first paragraph.
Regarding your self-explanations, LOL, I don't even have time and patience to read and care about them. LOL. The more you explain yourself, the more you sound like the blocked account User:Pdyusmep in previous section "Excessive Boosterism in Introduction and Overall", who is a sock puppet of User:RabidMelon. Many many editors are aware of you. And, unfortunately, you did not start the Columbia's case [[9]]. On the contrary, you are likely the very person who put up the "most prestigious" saying in Columbia's page and consistently engaged in edit war with other editors. But, eventually, consensus has established to remove Columbia's sentence regarding "prestige" and your accounts were blocked, and now you may just want to retaliate and remove similar sayings in the page of other universities. It is sometimes fun to watch you play different roles and use different tricks (use different IPs, report other editors, use "big" words, mention "sock puppetry", etc). LOL. But after all, the language you use and the behavior you display are always able to indicate who you really are.205.208.121.130 (talk) 04:04, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
I never said I started Columbia's discussion - I said I worked through the debate. LOL? What are you twelve years old? Your immaturity is quite pathetic. Also, your paranoia and false accusations of me being associated with two banned user accounts is quite sad - reaching, again, for far fetched claims based on little to no evidence (notice a sad little pattern here? Unlike you, most kids from a good school like Berkeley know the basics of decent academic research and formulating debates). Check the IP addresses - I highly doubt that, that user and I have any similarities in our location or patterns of writing. Or don't, because you bombastically state you don't care but you've definitely been responding a lot to the same topic you claim you don't care about, so you've only been doing self inflicting damage on your own reputation. I really don't care about you either nor do I want to have the energy to do so. Hopefully you'll learn to grow up and have an adult conversation at some point in your life and understand the distinction between blind propagation and objective data. But based on this conversation, I highly doubt that. You've been obnoxiously inflating Berkeley's reputation to much higher than the evidence suggests. By God I hope you're not a UC Berkeley student or graduate because they deserve better than to have you as an alum.
And no, that's misleading and misguiding to make a blanket statement that the institution as a whole is ranked top 10 by most measures. There's no such thing as a whole institutional ranking because that's the very purpose of rankings - to measure the performance based on a certain criteria (and those criteria could be cost effective value, social good, departmental graduate program rankings, undergraduate, etc). It depends on the MEASURE. Welcome to statistics 101. You cited it yourself above, Berkeley's ranking in Forbes and US News is well below the top ten (sometimes below top 30) when considering the undergraduate academics. Its research and graduate programs are top notch - no question (notice how I confirm accurate information that you boldly stated even though I'm on the "other side" of the conversation? That's how you have a respectful conversation with objective information. Hopefully you've learned a thing or two from this experience). But there's no such thing as a ranking on the entire institution. Their scoring criteria determines whether or not admissions rate (either undergrad or grad - but both is impossible), test scores (SAT/ACT for undergrad), research activity (definitely Ph.D and faculty), etc are being used. Also, you still never addressed the issue why other universities who have been ranked on similar lists can't all make the same statement that they've also been ranked "among the best"? Other elite institutions that are peers of UC Berkeley and having equally reputable and rigorous undergraduate academics like Vanderbilt, Washington U in St. Louis, UVA, Notre Dame, Rice, and Emory all fit this criteria whether you like it or not. And none of their Wiki pages have allowed this sort of statement by the editors or administrators. UC Berkeley is no exception from its peers.73.158.170.153 (talk) 20:49, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
LOL. Yea, keep on defending yourself like a maniac, as always. I only read the first two sentences and I stopped. LOL. Because those words simply don't deserve my time. Again, ARWU, US News (both global and domestic), Times Higher Education, CWUR all often rank Berkeley as a top 10 university world-wide and a top public University in the United States. If you deny it, you are denying facts (provable by sources, which many editors including me had provided above). No one really supports you here. Now I will update the sentence with proper sources. If you continue to edit war, all IP addresses you use shall be reported. 205.208.121.107 (talk) 23:55, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
Your perspectives didn't receive any support either. You just edited without consensus. I've already reported you to several administrators for lack of cooperation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.250.227.83 (talk) 02:30, 14 April 2018 (UTC)


LOL. Lack of cooperation with whom? You? Since you again and again denied the fact that "ARWU, US News (both global and domestic), Times Higher Education, CWUR all often rank Berkeley as a top 10 university world-wide and a top public University in the United States" (provable by sources, which many editors including me had provided above)", how can anyone cooperate with you? LOL. By the way, that's another trick that you often use: bluffing. And of course I have supporter. I agree with Dhtwiki for instance.205.208.121.107 (talk) 02:37, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
I also added your information the administrative boards for edit warring as well as the content dispute page. Hopefully we can get a third party opinion on the matter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.250.227.83 (talk) 02:51, 14 April 2018 (UTC)


Summary

These IP addresses belong to the same editor in the above discussion:

1) 68.65.67.46 (talk · contribs)

2) 2600:1010:B049:BF82:A1C2:195D:95EB:6E84 (talk · contribs)

3) 128.218.43.91 (talk · contribs)

4) 73.158.170.153 (talk · contribs)

5) 50.250.227.83 (talk · contribs)

The last one is now being blocked by administrator for edit warring. This editor then changed to another IP address:

6) 2600:1010:b065:7ba4:c589:dcfc:9aa9:6064 (talk · contribs)

This IP still engaged in edit warring with other editors, resulting in full protection of the UC Berkeley's page. Why are these IPs the possible sock puppets of User:Pdyusmep and User:RabidMelon? First of all, IP address 73.158.170.153 (talk · contribs) has the longest history of Wiki editing, and this editor had multiple edits for Columbia University, Teachers College, Columbia University, and Emory University, which are exactly the same as User:Pdyusmep and User:RabidMelon. In addition, this editor likes to report other editors whom he/she disagree to various "Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard", which are exactly the same as User:Pdyusmep and User:RabidMelon. What's more, this editor likes to use multiple IP addresses (sock puppetry), attack other editors and edit wars, which are exactly the same as User:Pdyusmep and User:RabidMelon. Last but not least, the editing language and editing behavior of this editor highly resembles that of User:Pdyusmep and User:RabidMelon. Although these IP addresses now belong to California instead of New York, people do move and travel, and it is also technically achievable through VPN or other proxy servers.

Content-wise, this editor insists that major ranking agencies such as ARWU, US News Best Global Universities, Times Higher Education, CWUR and etc are rankings of universities' graduate programs worldwide, which are obviously wrong. He/she argues that these rankings use "publication data" and research output, instead of SAT scores etc, so these rankings are for graduate programs. This editor continued to attack the following well-cited statement in UC Berkeley's page (1st paragraph), which is similar to UChicago's statement and which was supported and recognized by this editor himself/herself (see above discussions for details):

"It is often ranked as a top-ten university in the world and a top public university in the United States.[10][11][12][13][14][15][16]"

The editor himself/herself has made the following claim:

"As a solution, I don't understand what is wrong with following UChicago's model of "It holds top-ten positions in various national and international rankings." That seems to meet a pretty middle ground in speaking of UC Berkeley's successes on the national and international stage but doesn't make the generalized claim that they are among "the best."

However, this editor now consistently changed such saying into "graduate programs" only, despite the objections from other editors. He/she claims that he/she intends to improve the pages of many universities, but in reality he only focuses on Berkeley, ignoring the similar statements on pages of Harvard, MIT, Caltech, Cambridge, Oxford, etc. Be aware of this editor, for he/she has caused disruption on Berkeley and Columbia's pages. 205.208.121.161 (talk) 06:33, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

I'll just add that I remember that the description of being "prestigious" was added due to the fact that the Times Higher Education Reputation Rankings placed Berkeley, along with Harvard, Stanford, Cambridge, Oxford, and MIT, as the six most "reputable" names in higher education, which supports the prestige claim. BUjjsp (talk) 18:40, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 15 April 2018

Berkeley is the top public university, not a top public university Andrewjjohn (talk) 03:23, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

 Not done: @Andrewjjohn: There's no consensus of rankings to say they're the top public university; further, it would change year to year. —C.Fred (talk) 03:24, 15 April 2018 (UTC)


Additionally, they are not. UCLA tied with them this year.73.158.170.153 (talk) 01:53, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

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