This is an archive of past discussions about Template:Infobox university. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Someone mentioned recently that this parameter is probably being overused. Unfortunately I can't find that post now, but I have had some thoughts on what "University name in Latin, if commonly referenced" means:
This is for the university's Latin name, not a translation into Latin of the English name. If there no evidence that a Latin name is ever used, this parameter should be blank.
If the only usage is on the university seal and degree certificates, which are self-published primary sources, this is evidence of the name existing, per WP:ABOUTSELF, but does not demonstrate that the name is "commonly referenced". Putting the Latin name in the infobox on the basis of this is likely to be WP:UNDUE
If the Latin name is "commonly referenced", it should be relatively easy to find evidence of the Latin name, possibly in abbreviated form (such as in post-nominals), used in WP:RELIABLE sources.
And, on a related topic:
The Latin name should be in the nominative (with universitas or collegium for university of college), but sources may use a different Latin declension (seals and. In particular, seals will often have something like Sigillum Universitatis Illyriensis (Seal of the University of Illyria) on them, using the genetive form. Degree certificates may also have something like Praecis et Coratores Universitatis Illyriensis (The President and Trustees of the University of Illyria), again using the genetive. WP:Competence is required means that editors need to be able to recognise and deal with this if they're going to edit this parameter. Robminchin (talk) 23:36, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for bringing this up; I've certainly argued for less use of this parameter. I'd also like to add that post nominals can sometimes be abbreviations of English as in Soton and that, because of the way adjectives also decline in Latin, it requires some skill to determine whether the nominative is Illyriensis or Illyriense. McYeee (talk) 23:58, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
I'd normally leave it a week to give people a chance to comment and discuss how best to implement this in the documentation. Robminchin (talk) 20:44, 26 August 2024 (UTC)
For the new documentation, possibly something like: "University name in Latin, if commonly referenced. This should not simply be a translation of the English name but should have a reliableindependent reference showing use (possibly in abbreviated form) as the Latin name. Use only seen in self-published, primary sources, such as the institution's seal or degrees, is likely to be WP:UNDUE in the infobox. The name should be given in the Nominative." How does this sound? Robminchin (talk) 15:59, 5 September 2024 (UTC)
That looks good to me. I've updated the documentation to your wording, except that the links don't seem to render. I have no idea why they don't, but I don't think it has anything to do with my edit. McYeee (talk) 19:59, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
I looked back in the history, and it seems that other links aren't rendering in the documentation from before your edit. I thought they had worked in the past (and clearly people have added them in the past), so maybe something has broken in the rendering engine? Robminchin (talk) 20:49, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
I am going around to the various infoboxes to update the style so that logos (and by extension, seals), are visible in the Dark Mode (see User:Robertsky/To-do/Infoboxes). The use of the image parameter here is rather fluid dependent on whether there are seal and/or logo available. (This also means that there is no images of the universities in the infobox apparently?).
As there are plenty of infoboxes to go through, I would like to solicit feedback in the meantime, in addition to the Dark Mode changes, to other potential adjustments to the infobox such that there will be:
seal= parameter;
someway to dynamically set seal and logo position based on the presence of the values in both seal and logo parameters. Some positions I have observed so far:
seal -> other params -> logo
logo -> other params
seal --> other params
some semi-automated work to sort through the articles to update the infobox with the new parameter.
Feel free to experiment in the sandbox. You can also look at the "monthly parameter usage report" linked from the documentation to get a sense of how parameters are used. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:54, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
