This is an archive of past discussions with User:Randomeditor1000. 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.
Hello, Randomeditor1000, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:
Dear Randomeditor1000, I'm Redseeker69. Look, maybe you and I can become friends -- or at least compromise on things pertaining to Metro State's Wikipedia page. As I've stated before, I graduated from MSU 20 years ago. I'm a proud MSU alumnus! When people visit MSU's page, I want them to find lots of relevant info about the school. I want to be sure that they understand all the basics about MSU and I think U and I are doing a good job of that. It's obvious that both of us are passionate about the content on MSU's Wikipedia page.
I recently moved to a new residence. Right now, I don't know where all of my MSU literature is. I have boxes full of it. It's all packed away inside boxes in a large storage room. I don't know how long it will take me to locate it. Rest assured, all of the info that I post about MSU comes from official MSU literature or MSU's website. I would never make up anything about the school and put it on MSU's Wiki page. However, I've had problems getting straight answers from MSU literature and employees myself. For example, every source I look at and every dept. and person at Metro State that I talk to gives me a different number of alumni. Nobody seems to know exactly how many alumni we have -- I keep getting conflicting info.
In summary, before we start deleting each other's text again, can we discuss it first somehow? Please respond back to my "talk page."
Redseeker69, hello. My purpose in editing and revising the Metro State University wikipage is to provide a more accurate page based on the WP:Five Pillars, in specific verifiable content. You have re-added content and claims which I have specifically called out as not being factual based on the current sources I have identified on the Talk:Metropolitan State University page. Additionally, primary sources are not the most useful to Wikipedia as we emphasize secondary sources.
While I appreciate that you are a Metro State Alumni, and that you have a desire to add certain content it should be WP:Verifiable and not based on your own personal belief, memory or opinion. We need to reduce the amount WP:POV in these content because they amount to statements that are not based on fact. Another issue is to provide WP:Undue weight to original research or statistical data. I have done the same with many other Minnesota universities (I am not singling out Metro State by any means).
I took the opportunity to add a brief history of the institution in chronological order, added the correct enrollment, added the university logo and reduced several claims that are either no longer factual or were just puffery meant to make the university appear positive.Randomeditor1000 (talk) 02:39, 7 July 2015 (UTC)
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UCO2009bluejay, Sorry when I originally viewed the revision it was in Internet Explorer 10 and it had appeared the change would have removed the boxes altogether. I didn't realize that you were getting at the topology of the categories themselves. Please accept my apologies for the misunderstanding. Randomeditor1000 (talk) 15:46, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
lol sorry about what? I know you were just editing the page. The page creator and I haven't gotten along with in the past so I came to you for the suggestion! After re-reading my suggestion above, it may have sounded like I was a little bit... how can I put it? lol Corkythehornetfan (ping me) 04:17, 8 August 2016 (UTC)
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Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Minnesota State University, Mankato, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page All Seasons Arena. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.
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You are invited to participate in the 20,000 Challenge, aiming for 20,000 article improvements and creations for articles relating to the United States. This effort began on November 1, 2016 and to reach our goal, we will need editors like you to participate, expand, and create. See more here!
Hello, Randomeditor1000. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.
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In most cases, once your account is four days old and has ten edits, you should be able to move an article yourself using the "Move" tab at the top of the page (the tab may be hidden in a dropdown menu for you). This both preserves the page history intact and automatically creates a redirect from the old title to the new. If you cannot perform a particular page move yourself this way (e.g. because a page already exists at the target title), please follow the instructions at requested moves to have it moved by someone else. Also, if there are any other pages that you moved by copying and pasting, even if it was a long time ago, please list them at Wikipedia:Requests for history merge. Thank you. — Diannaa🍁 (talk) 12:22, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
Yes, I see that was wrong. Sorry about that. There has been some confusion regarding the specifics to this topic as the branding has been unclear even locally. Randomeditor1000 (talk) 16:23, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war according to the reverts you have made on Jeff Rohrman. Users are expected to collaborate with others, to avoid editing disruptively, and to try to reach a consensus rather than repeatedly undoing other users' edits once it is known that there is a disagreement.
32.218.35.22 You are either intentionally not logged in or trolling me. You haven't provided any information yourself on the talk page and have not made any references to wikipedia guidance such as ::WP:MOS, WP:UNIGUIDE or others that would support your position on those specific edits. So please go ahead and read this information with regards to your edits. Randomeditor1000 (talk) 17:05, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
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Hi Randomeditor1000. After reviewing your request for "rollbacker", I have enabled rollback on your account. Keep in mind these things when going to use rollback:
Getting rollback is no more momentous than installing Twinkle.
If you no longer want rollback, contact me and I'll remove it. Also, for some more information on how to use rollback, see Wikipedia:Administrators' guide/Rollback (even though you're not an admin). I'm sure you'll do great with rollback, but feel free to leave me a message on my talk page if you run into troubles or have any questions about appropriate/inappropriate use of rollback. Thank you for helping to reduce vandalism. Happy editing! Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 01:40, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
Please provide a source for "Wikipedia doesn't care where or how the assets are assigned" as well as which part of GASB 72 you believe states that "the net position including all assets (physical, monetary etc) are how all university endowments are shown."
I don't believe either is correct. For example, the University of North Dakota clearly states that its endowment was $268.4 million in FY17, and $230.5 million in FY16.
Meanwhile on page 6, they state their total net assets were $271,787,698. If you were in UND's shoes, and GASB 72 allows you to say that total net assets equals your endowment, wouldn't you advertise your endowment as $271.8 million instead of $230.5 million?
Erik-the-red (talk) 16:49, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
Yes, I would. What we are essentially discussing is the variation between each institutions financial management of it's endowment and public statements which frequently have variation. It's great that the Hawks have consistent messaging but that doesn't necessarily mean they are detailing every asset they control in their endowment. UND's audit separately accounts for Trust accounts (such as equity mutual funds or money market funds, securities), charitable giving, mineral interests by removing it from their investment totals. If these are asset types owned by the Foundation included as part of their 990 Tax Form as an asset (https://www.undalumni.org/file/documents/financial/2015_undaa_f_tax_return.pdf) why wouldn't we include that as part of the total endowment? The primary source in UND's case has decided not to include it in their total. How do you propose to divine which figure should be used that is representative for all institutions? Because they do not all report their assets the same.
The Government Accounting Standards Board published GASB 72 at: http://gasb.org/jsp/GASB/Document_C/DocumentPage?cid=1176165840291&acceptedDisclaimer=true. It states that for public entities (such as public endowments), Fair Value measurements should used for items A-G for accounting and financial reporting for investments valuation. (Page 103). How to do that is detailed in GASB 72 for each category.
Let me give you a contrast example to muddy your singular comparison: the University of Minnesota endowment.
Their 2016 Consolidated Financial Report (as required by law for a 501(c)3 is located at:
Page 30 Total assets less liabilities are $2,448,495,915
Which when you compare with the National Association of College and University Business Officers Commonwealth endowment study public tables does not match.
The footnotes states that the public tables include the total for the entire system of institutions and the full report seperates information each individual institution.
One problem is that the portfolio of assets assigned to the endowment may include Real Estate, Art, Monetary Foundation held investments, operating income businesses (such as sports, clothing, intellectual property) Particularly at larger institutions. Fair Market Value is always reported in the Financial Audit Report for US public university foundations, but it is nearly never used as the values shown or referenced on Wikipedia. The reason for this is unknown to me, likely because there is variation in the acceptable methodology for estimating these values per the GASB standards.
In addition to this, the value of the audit ($2,448,495,915) is close to their reported Tax Form 990 (2016), which is located at:
Net investments are listed on page 12 as $186,456,319 (which is an analogous data from the UND line you cite, but includes/does not include certain investments)
and then looking at their 990 Tax Form it very clearly shows:
Page 103 of GASB 72 does not state that "the net position including all assets (physical, monetary etc) are how all university endowments are shown." In fact, in your reply, you now describe it as stating "for public entities (such as public endowments), Fair Value measurements should used for items A-G for accounting and financial reporting for investments valuation." That fair value should be used for measuring investments in common stock, open-end mutual funds, etc. has nothing to do with your claim that "the net position including all assets (physical, monetary etc) are how all university endowments are shown."
As for the University of Minnesota, they also reported their endowment net assets on page 24 of the source you gave https://give.umn.edu/sites/give.umn.edu/files/2017-08/fy16_umf_audit_report.pdf. In FY2016, their endowment net assets - end of year were $1,385,239,417. Isn't it strange that even in your own example, the school you chose didn't report its endowment as equal to its net assets of $2,448,495,915?
Also, the "UMF" is the University of Minnesota Foundation. The source you gave clearly states that the UMF pertains to "all five University of Minnesota campuses" https://give.umn.edu/sites/give.umn.edu/files/2017-08/quarterlyendowment_june2016.pdf So if you think the UMF Quarterly Report of June 2016 states that the University of Minnesota (Twin Cities)'s endowment was $2.2 billion, then does that mean the other 4 University of Minnesota campuses have endowments of -$200 million? Obviously not. Since the Twin Cities campus is the main one, it makes sense that its $1,385,239,417 makes up the biggest chunk of the UMF systemwide $2.2 billion endowment.
If the horse isn't dead yet, why don't we take a look at the university with the largest endowment in the world: Harvard. They list their net assets at $42,411,330,000, and their endowment at $35,665,743,000 (page 15, http://finance.harvard.edu/files/fad/files/harvard_ar_11_12016_final.pdf). So I think we can confidently say that in general, net assets and endowments aren't equal to each other.
An endowment is made up of financial assets by definition (https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44293.pdf). Endowments are typically investment funds, but may also consist of cash or property. My primary question in response to you is which assets are we to consider on wikipedia? As I showed universities are inconsistent in their accounting of specific asset types.
With reference to my Minnesota example, I was suggesting the value $3.2 Billion identified by NACUBO is the value for all five campuses, but you clearly missed that. The University of Minnesota Foundation holds 6 different primary endowment funds. The value $2.2 Billion refers plainly to the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities and the greater value $3.2 Billion is the value of all including the other campuses, the Alumni Association and presumably the Extension Offices. Which illustrates my point, even you could not keep straight the data in that example. The exact values also depend on how the audit includes or separates held assets. These range from simple common bond investments to holdings like real estate. Real estate has a fair market value as do other things like art. This is an example of a difference between your example UND and NDSU with regards to specific assets like mineral rights or real estate that are not included in the UND amount and are included in the NDSU amount. Which is why I cited GASB 72 which instructs the use of FMV, but apparently you want to extend my edit reasoning ad nasea.
To that end should Wikipedia include the value of these items as identified as assets or not?
Under your reasoning with regards to NDSU, why are we (on wikipedia) specifically not including all investments as identified on page 12 (17)? Why do I care that some investments are held under a separate fund? Rhetorically, the NDSU Foundation reported they control net assets of $215 million at the end of the year per their tax return to the federal government. Randomeditor1000 (talk) 15:02, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
Once again, your source (https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44293.pdf) does not state that "the net position including all assets (physical, monetary etc) are how all university endowments are shown." I don't know where you learned or heard that, but we can plainly see even from your own example of the University of Minnesota that in general, the endowment is not equal to the net assets (total assets - total liablities).
As for your question - "which assets are we to consider on wikipedia?" - I asked you for a source for your claim that "Wikipedia doesn't care where or how the assets are assigned." Now you've flipped my request back to me without addressing it. You did it with your first reply too. If Wikipedia really doesn't care where or how the assets are assigned, fine, but provide a source.
GASB 72, page 103 has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with your claim that "the net position including all assets (physical, monetary etc) are how all university endowments are shown." I can't believe you're still referring to it as if it supports your claim that endowment=net assets (total assets - total liabilities). It doesn't. It just specifies how certain investments should be measured (at fair value).
You keep making a big deal about how universities have different categories of assets in their endowments. So what? We have now seen several examples - NDSU, UND, UMN, and Harvard - one of which was selected by you (UMN) where the universities separately disclosed the value of their endowments, and in each case the value of the endowment was different from the value of the net assets.
Yet you persist in arguing that endowments on university Wikipedia pages should be taken from the value of the net assets. Once again, the Harvard financial statements are the clearest, because they explicitly show how their endowment is a subset of their net assets. When all the universities we have discussed so far all provide primary sources that explicitly state what they consider to be their endowments, why you think it's a good idea to ignore that and go with some unsourced belief that endowment actually equals net assets is beyond me.
By the way, I don't mean to be argumentative, but when you said "Let me give you a contrast example to muddy your singular comparison," I couldn't help but think of the Mike Milligan line from Fargo, Season 2 about what Minnesota nice really means. Sorry for the snark, but from my POV, you're conjuring up a ton of red herrings and using sources like (GASB 72 and the CRS report) that are not relevant to your claims.Erik-the-red (talk) 15:50, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
Yes, you certainly are too busy talking past me and taking my responses out of context. Let no one accuse you of seeing opposite points of view. I didn't respond to your two questions because I don't have to. I wasn't arguing with you, I was trying to reason with you. But here you go, you win.
Rather, you have succeeded. I will acquiesce on your specific query. Net assets of a university foundation are not equal to endowment, based on your observation from these three examples. The University of Minnesota example you could not reconcile or explain and actually cited the wrong amounts. None of these examples are primary sources that answer the question which we are discussing "How to calculate xyz institution's endowment?" or What data source or value should be shown on Wikipedia? I pointed out very specifically the calculation issues with these examples. That is why I raised GASB 72 which is a generally accepted accounting practice (e.g. accounting standards) which I cited are used on endowments and could be reported on wikipedia as fair market value. I'm hopeful since this is all black and white to you that we can be consistent across university pages but I seriously doubt that given the lack of a consensus just between you and I. For now I will stick to the NACUBO study for official information. Even USNews (https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/north-dakota-state-9265) publishes vastely different information and we post their rankings as a primary source on a majority of pages. Just to be clear, I didn't attack your state or culture. I didn't presume your residence or culture. I would appreciate if you kept your own snide and offensive remarks to yourself. There is irony in using Fargo as a retort about Minnesota - particularly in the fact that Fargo isn't located in Minnesota and yet the movie and TV Series is perceived in popular culture as representative of some homogeneous Minnesota culture. Randomeditor1000 (talk) 17:09, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
Decision: Revert to Eirk-the-red revision of figure.
This is an archive of past discussions with User:Randomeditor1000. 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.
