User talk:Queen Douglas DC-3

Wikiproject Education in Australia

Hello! I saw the significant contribution you made to the article University of South Australia and you did a good job! After skimming through your edit history and saw you have been editing universities for quite a while, I was wondering if you would like to join the WikiProject Education in Australia. I came across it a few months back and noticed it was inactive for quite a while, so I have been working on getting it to become active once more, so if you want to help, consider joining the project, if you have any questions, feel free to reach out on my talk page or reply to this message. - Thanks. 2024 is Underway (talk) 07:46, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Greetings! I'm trying to write articles for every university in Australia so it might be a good idea to join eventually. So far I've expanded the University of Adelaide, University of South Australia and Adelaide University mainly due to similarities. They still have several issues but I'm only trying to improve articles to meet B-class criteria. I'm unsure which university I'll expand next but thanks for your comment. Queen Douglas DC-3 (talk) 07:58, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No worries and I don't know how I would be able to help, because I mainly focus on primary and secondary schools, but if you need any help with the articles you're working on don't hesitate to reach out to me. Good luck with your project on writing articles for every university in Australia, that is an enormous feat! 2024 is Underway (talk) 08:11, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry to bother you again, but you mentioned you were unsure which articles to work on next, I managed to come across this Category:Australia university stubs, hope it helps. 2024 is Underway (talk) 23:10, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not bothering me at all, I'm taking a break but I'll see what I can do. Queen Douglas DC-3 (talk) 00:08, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've taken a look and I might work on it later as I'm currently drafting a large project that will take me about a month to write before it finishes. Queen Douglas DC-3 (talk) 00:47, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

ok, Good luck on this ominous sounding project! 2024 is Underway (talk) 03:48, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Latin names of Universities

Thank you for fixing and citing all those Latin names of Universities! I added a lot of the citation needed tags you removed, and I'm glad to see they're no longer needed. That said, do you have a sense of how widely used those Latin names are? There's been some talk of due weight at template talk:Infobox University and I get the sense that you're more knowledgeable about this kind of thing than I am. McYeee (talk) 23:25, 11 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! I'm not quite sure actually so I'm definitely not the best person to ask. Based on the little that I know, Latin used to be an academic language used in Europe and the early colonies when there weren't as many universities as there are now. For context, there are maybe four Australian universities with Latin names and it is only actively used by UQ. When I first began editing, I literally thought that Wikipedia expected editors to translate university names to Latin for some reason and I believe that is likely why editors keep attaching false Latin names to university articles. It is associated with ancient and colonial universities and aren't really useful in a world where English is the de facto academic language. The other issue is that although I've added a bunch of Latin names for universities with sources, it doesn't actually mean that they were ever used outside of one or two instances. While the sources are still reliable, the context surrounding the sources are dubious. Additionally, a lot of American universities only have it on their seals and it shouldn't be used in those instances at all. The parameter should be removed altogether and the older universities with actual Latin names, like Harvard and Pennsylvania, should mention it under a free label. There weren't a lot of universities in existence when Latin names were used so having it be a universal feature in an infobox used on 27,000 articles is odd and will only lead to more editors being confused. The feature is likely an obsolete remnant that only still exists because nobody knows its purpose but there are existing alternative and native name parameters, and free labels, so it doesn't need to exist. Queen Douglas DC-3 (talk) 00:08, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Are you aware of a source for the claim that "There weren't a lot of universities in existence when Latin names were used"? and that this is also true of universities that in some sense matter? If this can be sourced, it would probably be a good argument to bring up on that talk page. I think your right about the origin of all that false Latin. McYeee (talk) 00:15, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

According to this document, scholarly use of Latin started being replaced by English at around 1500. I skimmed through it but it probably has a citation somewhere. It only mentions the English-speaking world though but it should be enough considering that this is English Wikipedia and all universities founded before 1600 are ancient universities that predate all American universities. Queen Douglas DC-3 (talk) 00:37, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]