Talk:USC

Bold U of So Cal

The repeated, prominent placement of University of Southern California in bold above all other uses violates NPOV. Watch for future vandalism.Thomas B 02:51, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

npov

This does not violate the npov because these two universities are the only American english speaking entries. As well as the two most common and popular searches. Placement and heading do not prevent others from searching for the other "usc" entries.

Wikipedia is not solely an American resource. Judging by wikilinks, UN Security Council and United States Constitution both significantly exceed the University of South Carolina in prominence. Even if that wasn't true, placement at the top of the list is sufficient to direct attention to these common searches without distorting their overall relevance. This is in line with the MoS on Disambig pages, which allows common usage to indicate order, but reserves level 2 headings for dividing large disambiguation pages by subject matter. Incidentally, please sign your comments. Thomas B 21:39, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

order of pages

The links were recently alphabetized. That definitely conflicts with the MoS, which insists that more frequently used pages should always be at the top of the list. Southern California should be at the top, it just shouldn't be bolded like a heading, making the rest of the entries look like footnotes.Thomas B 08:10, 16 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I put them in order of popularity by wikilinks, as suggested by the manual of style. I also consolidated the topic headings a bit, which may be controversial in its own right. Having the Somali Congress off by itself seemed odd to me, when it seems somewhat like the Constabularies, so I conceptually split the non-education entries by groups in legal organizations and legal documents, using government and law as the headings. There might be more descriptive words for those sections, or a better way to divide them. Thomas B 23:26, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Seems like the goal of section headings should balance between the number of sections and the number of articles in that section, so the various sections should have about the same number of articles in each. There might be an huge number of conceptually proper ways to split up pages, but you're really trying to subdivide a list to make searching through it more efficient. To that end, there shouldn't be headings with only one article under them, and the headings should each have about equal weight. There's undoubtedly a better way to split these articles up, feel free to change it. Thomas B 23:26, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

An Inevitable Compromise

The sections currently distinguish between American and International subsections. While wikipedia is not solely an American resource, the American entries, taken together, are currently most popular. I fully endorse the current version, which places the American Universities in a distinct section at the top, yet has every section, subsection, and article ordered by wikilinks. Excellent job, folks. Thomas B 23:34, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(I'll let someone else start. :) Thomas B 15:47, 5 August 2006 (UTC))[reply]

The problem is that the University of Southern California (and South Carolina to some extent) are seemingly referred to as USC more often than the others, mostly due to their sports teams. Nearly all the internal links leading here are meant for one of those two. The "American/International/Non-American" split is very awkward...I'd suggest we not have two seperate headers like that, but that we just list those two at the top of the list of universities. Kirjtc2 15:56, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How it is now seems very good; separating by American and Non-American. It's easily understandable, and makes finding the correct article pretty easy. If anyone is worried about which of the two, American or Non-American, should be first, it should go by which have more links. It looks like this has already been taken care of. -- Nataly a 21:25, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How do we know the American ones are referred as USC more often than the others? Besides, ordering by the number of links is not always right - due to systemic bias, the American usages may be more familiar to us, and thus they would be linked to more often. --Schzmo 23:16, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikilinks are a definitely poor indication of real world popularity, especially due to issues of systemic bias. But there's a few points that make this okay. First, DAB pages aren't stating how popular articles are in the real world, they're just a tool for wikipedians. As such, user popularity is most relevant, and wikilinks reflect that pretty accurately (so reflecting systemic bias is actually a good thing here). Secondly, when choosing a piece of data that reflects article popularity, its ease of use might outweigh its imprecision. A well designed and thorough 1 million person survey might be more accurate than a count of hits on google, but the latter is far more accessible and independently verifiable. Wikilinks are easily available to every wikipedian, they can be quickly and easily verified. They make an extremely handy proxy for popularity (even if not 100% accurate). Finally, if a lower entry is deserving of a higher ranking, and someone familiar with that entry feels slighted, using wikilinks encourages them to improve their favored article. All DAB pages involve some article competition, and the spirit of wikipedia is best captured if we channel that competition into improving other articles and their integration with the encyclopedia. Thomas B 20:01, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The latest events: Tobias rightly pointed out that American != US, making me feel silly for missing it. His move to "US American" was vetoed as awkward, and I rather agree. US / Non-US sounds more proper to me, but the editor indicated he found that unwieldy as well. Now everything's basically back the way it was before the trouble started, with the schools towards the bottom of the page. Maybe we can just make it through football season without school pride effacing all traces of the latest revisions.Thomas B 02:45, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Akon or Slimshady?

What do Akon or Slim Shady (rappers) have to do with USC? Also where did the other links go? I've never reverted a page back to a previous version but I'd appreciate it if someone could clean it up please. 172.193.26.95 06:50, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The UK Clothing Store?

USC is quite a large clothing retailer in the United Kingdom. The size of the company justifies that it should be represented on this page although I can't seem to find an article on it.24.187.26.104 (talk) 17:25, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Removals and reasons

Please add these back when articles are present or anticipated:

No-links

Ubiquitous Secure Computing, the new mobility group

"United States China"

Removed due to non-notability. Please provide sources indicating why this belongs here. I can't find any references to it at all excepting a commentary on some athlete, in which the company itself is referenced to only in name. I can't even find a website for the 'company.' 75.82.34.247 (talk) 12:04, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

United Nations Security Council

This is 'UNSC', not 'USC'. I assume this was a mistake on the part of whoever put it in. Removed unless a source can be provided on this acronym. R0uge (talk) 01:17, 30 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

University of South Carolina

There seems to be a dispute on whether the University of South Carolina should be listed here. Please discuss below on your thoughts about this. Irehdna (talk) 15:59, 8 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding of how to sort disambiguation pages is based on doing a lot of disambiguating, from talking (on Talk pages, of all places) to the small group of people who regularly disambiguate (such as Narky Blert, a master of the subject), from reading Wikiproject Disambiguation articles, and from reading Wikipedia documentation. I read and re-read instructions and guidelines, and I do make mistakes. Having said all that, a little flexibility is useful. The point of DAB pages is to help readers find what they are looking for. Although most DAB pages are sorted alphabetically or chronologically or both, some consideration is also given to readers who want to find quickly a particular term in a long list of items. One's eye is slowed down or stopped by indents and the use of too many categories with only a few items.

In America when most people hear or see "USC" they think of the school in Southern California. There are several reasons for this, and the reasons have nothing to do with one school being superior to another. It simply gets more attention. A greater number of readers look for the California school, unless someone can prove that more readers are looking for the South Carolina school. That was why I changed the DAB page, because I thought that term was more likely to be searched for. My edit was reverted and I was called obtuse. A normal day on Wikipedia. Although University of South Carolina does come before University of Southern California alphabetically, this is a good example where following a rule slavishly does more harm than good. As I said, DAB pages often benefit from flexibility. The point is to help readers distinguish between terms that are easily confused. USC of course can have several meanings.

One last point: the editor who reverted my change has done a lot of work on articles about South Carolina and the University of South Carolina, so there may be some bias here, which I don't mean as an insult. Bias is as natural as oxygen. I argued about it for ten minutes, which was probably ten minutes too long. If people feel the need to argue, I hope they do it about something more important than whether University of South Carolina ought to be listed before University of Southern California. I have tried to talk to IP editors and others about impartiality, but most of that has been wasted time. Nearly all my attempts at persuasion have been wasted time.
Vmavanti (talk) 17:46, 26 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

One more point. If we are going follow alphabetical order as an iron rule, shouldn't the headers be sorted alphabetically? Why do "Universities" come first? Many DAB pages have headers sorted alphabetically. It's a logical, easy way to find information.

University of State College

I can find no reference to Penn State ever being commonly referred to by this name or the acronym USC. There is no mention of this nomenclature in their Wikipedia article. Can anyone provide a source that would verify that this has ever been a name commonly used for this institution? If not, it should be removed from this disambiguation. GarnetAndBlack (talk) 17:09, 26 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

USC “most often refers to”

USC most often refers to the University of Southern California. Not just in the United States, but internationally as well. So, the University of Southern California should be listed first, above South Carolina. Otherwise, change it to “USC most often refers to, in alphabetical order:..”

“ In 2009, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office determined the “USC” belonged to the University of Southern California. Carolina sued, but the courts sided with Southern California, according to an article from the Los Angeles Times.

2603:7000:A903:B619:9C8A:4099:9E6:9ACC (talk)