Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Texas Tech University

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Priority ratings

The priority ratings to include when adding an article to the project are:

• Top
• High
• Mid
• Low

We need to decide which level belongs to which type of article. Obviously the main article is top. What about the main athletics articles (football, basketball, etc.)? Traditions? Coaches? Athletes? Alums? →Wordbuilder (talk) 02:21, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

IMO it should go something like this:

Top Priority

• Texas Tech University
• Texas Tech Health Sciences Center
• Angelo State University
• Texas Tech University System
• Texas Tech Red Raiders

High Priority

• Red Raiders Football Team (possibly even top priority)
• Red Raiders Mens Basketball Team
• All of TTU's individual colleges and schools

Mid Priority

• Most Coaches. *Bob Knight, Mike Leach, and Marsha Sharp probably rate 'high'.
• Notable People List
• Traditions
• Mascots
• Specific athletes. *Harrell and Crabtree probably rate 'high' priority due to their national visibility and possible Heisman candidacies. Welker and Zach Thomas too. Zach was wearing a TTU shirt while lifting weights on "Hard Knocks". Amendola might even fall somewhere between medium and high due to his visibility on "Hard Knocks" and making the Cowboys practice squad. As a rule, I'd say 'high' priority athletes are ones whose names are fairly well known outside of Texas.

It may not be PC to rate womens basketball, baseball, volleyball, etc below football and mens basketball, but in reality there's little debate. Football probably finances all the other sports except mens basketball. I don't think mens basketball generates a ton of money, but it can at least pay for itself.--Elred (talk) 05:12, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking along the same lines. Perhaps, for Wikipedia purposes, we should just put all athletics articles at High. I think a sliding scale for individuals is appropriate and should be based on two things: national visibility and the impact they had a Tech. →Wordbuilder (talk) 05:22, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay, here's what I came up with. Let me know what you think. →Wordbuilder (talk) 17:27, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Looks good to me.--Elred (talk) 01:23, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I made some changes to this. Here are some of the criteria I used.--Elred (talk) 01:48, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

1. Top Priority - this is just for the actual universities, the system, and the Red Raiders 'umbrella'.
2. High Priority - this is for prominent current TTU athletes (Crabtree, Harrell, etc), nationally recognized celebrities/journalists, current politicians, retired/deceased politicians of lasting prominence outside of the region, TTU alumni currently playing prominent roles (all-star, pro-bowl, etc) in professional sports (Welker, Zach Thomas, etc.), the individual academic units (colleges), and the individual sports teams (football, baseball, etc.).
3. Mid Priority - almost everything else.

• another blanket criteria that I applied is that a 'high-priority' article should, or would probably, be created by some random user on wikipedia regardless of whether or not we, as TTU boosters, cared about it. IE, someone would create and update the "Wes Welker" page even if we didn't.--Elred (talk) 01:48, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

[outdent] That holds true for almost all of the articles for athletes who have graduated. Should they all be rated as High?

• That was more of a criteria for exclusion than the inverse. In other words, if we should rate something high priority it probably wouldn't be a stub currently. Some things that have little relevance to TTU are complete articles, but still have little relevance. --Elred (talk) 16:58, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Some of the articles seem to fall right at the edge. For instance, Emily Jones. I can see why she could be rated Mid (e.g., article not created or edited by anyone outside of the project). I can also see why she could be rated High (e.g., reporter for Big 12 and Texas pro games on FSN and anchor of Big 12 Showcase gives her a presence that is more than regional). It's really not a big deal just as long as no one takes a change too seriously. →Wordbuilder (talk) 02:13, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

• True, but I was trying to use relativity as best as possible for the categories. I couldn't justify Emily Jones being rated as equivalent importance with Rawls College of Business or Red Raiders Football or a current US Congressman. She's got a pretty cool career, but it's not terribly important. Also, if Crabtree goes into the NFL next year, is drafted top 5, and becomes an impact player, he'd remain 'high-importance' in my opinion. On the other hand, if Graham finishes his stellar TTU career and doesn't make it in the NFL (and thus becomes an assistant high school coach somewhere), he'll drop to 'mid'.--Elred (talk) 16:53, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

• I do agree that if someone does well at Tech but fails to turn it into something in the long run, then the rating should drop. However, you dropped Dave Parks from High to Mid, even though he was a #1 NFL draft pick, was selected for three Pro Bowls (which was one of your own criteria), and was inducted into the Football Hall of Fame. I know he's retired now, but those things should qualify him for a High rating regardless of how much time passes. →Wordbuilder (talk) 17:11, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

• I dunno. It's not that big of a deal to me either way. Maybe we should rank things like the individual colleges and the sports (football, basketball, etc.) as top-priority. The problem isn't Dave Parks being 'high' priority, but it's his priority in comparison to many things that are exponentially more relevant. Despite his accomplishments, I can't justify to myself that his article rates as 'highly relevant' to TTU. Welker and Zach Thomas are currently in the news (and on ESPN) almost daily and I'm pretty sure their pages get more traffic than Parks' does. The criteria I laid out aren't perfect by any means. A lot of it is just what feels right. Honestly, when I was moving things around I had to click on his page to learn 'who he is'. I feel that, in the process of running the gauntlet that you and I have run, we're probably among the top 1% of 'people who know a bunch of junk about TTU'. That said, I didn't know about Parks and that gives me (I believe) a fairly reasonable perspective on his current visibility/priority level. However, it doesn't really matter to me if you feel strongly about it.--Elred (talk) 04:54, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

• I think current visibility should be secondary to overall accomplishment. We might be overthinking this. The list is just a set of guidelines and not rules. Let's just do our best to get things ranked. If we disagree, it's probably only going to be by one degree (High vs. Mid, Mid vs. Low) and not that big of deal. →Wordbuilder (talk) 13:47, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Academic Signatures on College Pages

Do we want to include the Academic Signatures on the college pages? I was working on the Texas Tech University College of Architecture page today and put up the coat of arms with the academic signature in place of just the university coat of arms. Does everybody agree that this is the direction we want to go, and if so can somebody make sure I uploaded them with the correct information.--MarkRomero (talk) 03:26, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

We had those things up for a while, but we replaced them with the shield for several reasons. 1) the infobox already says "College of Architecture" (or whatever college) right above it. So it's redundant. 2) Because the text is wide, it makes the shield very small. It looks better with the shield being larger. 3) using the the shield without the text is the most efficient because we can use the same one for every college. Combining all of these factors we decided that using the shield alone is the most effective way to handle this. How you have it now, it says "Texas Tech University College of Architecture" both above an below the shield image. Further, if we are to keep continuity among the college pages we'd have to do this with every one of them (thus creating the redundancy everywhere). I think using the shield the way it was is the most elegant solution. Does that make sense?--Elred (talk) 04:13, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

It does make sense, and that is why I was checking before I went and placed them in all of the college pages. The reason why I placed them there, was that some of the other university's had the signature in their college infoboxes. --MarkRomero (talk) 08:29, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I have reverted the change that I made to College of Arch and College of Arts & Sci --MarkRomero (talk) 01:41, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Cool. I'm glad you're working on the Arch page. It's good to have someone with a specific interest in each academic unit working on that page.--Elred (talk) 17:53, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I am not actually affiliated with the CoA (other then the fact that I go to Tech). I am an undergrad in the College of Engineering. I was just going down the list of stubs, and arch was the first. --MarkRomero (talk) 01:47, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Either way. We really should try to work over the engineering and business pages. Those are probably to two highest profile units at the university. I know the college of engineering has been in the news a lot lately. It's a good time for engineers and especially petroleum ones. I think TTU needs to try to become the preeminent school for oil/energy studies. Many of the pieces are already in place.--Elred (talk) 18:42, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I have made several additions to the Research Center section of the CoE page. I would appreciate it if somebody would review them to make sure everything sounds coherent :). Also I have made a suggestion on the layout of the page in the Talk Page of the CoE. --MarkRomero (talk) 15:57, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Coordinators' working group

Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. — Delievered by §hepBot (Disable) on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 06:44, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

"Scarlet" vs "red"

There is a current disagreement (primarily between Arverniking (talk · contribs) and MarkRomero (talk · contribs)) regarding whether the official school colors are red and black or scarlet and black.

According to this, the former is dubbed "Texas Tech Red". However, there are plenty of Google hits showing this official color as "scarlet". The way I see it, since scarlet is a shade of red, all scarlet is red but not all red is scarlet. Further "Texas Tech Red" is the exact shade of red/scarlet that is used by the university. The official colors should be listed as "scarlet and black" since it is more precise than "red and black".

Interesting take. I'd want to go with the more general, because it offers more latitude of interpretation. That is to say, scarlet is red, so why not say red and leave it at that? Especially in light of things like Texas Tech Red Raiders and Raider Red (not Texas Tech Scarlet Raiders or Raider Scarlet), this makes even more sense to me, but I have no association with the university -- not sure if that makes me ignorant or just less prone to non-NPOV and COI issues. Either way, I guess it's obvious which way I've started to lean. --King of the Arverni (talk) 17:13, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

A previous discussion of this issue is here. →Wordbuilder (talk) 16:27, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I also found a discussion on MarkRomero's talk page. →Wordbuilder (talk) 16:34, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Hey, I wasn't aware of a "current disagreement". Mark Romero and I had a misunderstanding ad have been discussing it at User talk:MarkRomero#Colors. You can see there that I changed all boxes that were "scarlet" to use the hex color found at Scarlet (color). Mark Romero changed them back and I inquired as to a source for his claim. He provided one. I expressed my thanks for having done so and changed "scarlet" references to "TTU Red" per the official source he provided ([1] above). Mark Romero did not object, as far as I can tell. So, is there a disagreement? I thought that the aforementioned source seemed fairly clear on the matter, and in an effort to meet WP:V and WP:NPOV, I was more than happy to add it to the articles. Thanks for the link to an old discussion; I wasn't provided that before. --King of the Arverni (talk) 16:57, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

As you can see by the timestamps on my initial and subsequent comments, I chose the wording before seeing the discussion on MarkRomero's talk page. I based it on the edit summaries. Nevertheless, I think his response directly below indicate that the issue is not resolved. →Wordbuilder (talk) 19:08, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I do disagree with calling it TTU Red vs scarlet. I have always know the official colors to be scarlet and black, although I know that unofficially some refer to it as red and black. IMO the identity guidelines refer to it as TTU Red more for clarity sake, rather than keeping with tradition. Also, the identity guidelines are the first time I have ever heard the color referred to as TTU Red. As for verifiability I can provide a source that states the colors are scarlet and black. --MarkRomero (talk) 18:01, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Haha, well I'm sorry for my misunderstanding. I wouldn't have known if it weren't for our friend, Wordbuilder. Any reason you chose not to inform me first, Mark? While I'm sad that I wasn't told personally, I'm very glad that we have some other contributors to the discussion! --King of the Arverni (talk) 19:17, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Nothing personal, just happened so fast. I didn't log in and see your comments yesterday and by the time I got around to logging in today the names were already changed and the conversation moved to this talk page. --MarkRomero (talk) 20:09, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

In my opinion, I think the identity guidelines are there for depicting the specific color, not naming the color itself. I haven't done much research into the color scarlet, but they may have called it "TTU Red" because there was/is no name for that specific shade of red that they desired. I don't think their intentions were to have our own shade of red; if it were, I believe we would hear more about it from Tech, news releases, ect. The fight song also refers to is as scarlet. It sure would sound weird saying, "Fight for the TTU Red and TTU Black!" --Almosthonest06 (talk) 18:39, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

That's a very good point, Almosthonest06. I noticed that the history of the Masked Raider involved a "scarlet" cape. I wonder if the originators didn't know what scarlet was, haha, or if the marketing people just got carried away when they created "TTU Red". Either way, I'd like this to have coverage in the article, in a note if not the body, instead of a recurring talk page "disagreement". I'm honestly still surprised that I was the first to add any real mention of the colors, never mind a source (per WP:V). --King of the Arverni (talk) 19:17, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Here's my weigh-in on this. We had it as Red for a long time, then changed it to Scarlet in an attempt to preserve the traditional color name. Tech calls the hex code #CC0000 "Texas Tech Red" or something like that, but that's basically just to specify that color in layman's terms for thematic consistency (websites, print, etc). Typically, people describe the school colors as "Red and Black" but, in my opinion, that's just a sort of evolution/degradation of the language (it's easier to say). I believe when the color scheme was adopted, "Scarlet" was the name chosen to describe it. Likewise, I believe the university still officially says that "scarlet and black" are the colors. Fight, Raiders, Fight even describes it as Scarlet and Black (which qualifies it as canon as far as I'm concerned).

I would expect Harvard might take similar issue if someone realized the hex code for what they call "crimson" was actually called "berry red". I don't think many universities are terribly concerned about aligning their color palette with the traditional names they use for the colors. That being the case, I lean heavily toward leaving it as Scarlet.

A side note on the origination of color names, etc. I think now, with technology and the internet and such, the precision with which we can use, create, and identify color is infinitely larger than in the 1920s or 1800s or whenever these universities started forming their images. I'm sure there are a million examples of names like crimson, scarlet, vermilion, carnelian, rose, etc being used wherein those names will not remotely match the hex codes.--Elred (talk) 01:00, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Averni I just noticed you brought up mentioning the color name differential in the body of the article. I think that would be pretty inappropriate. Considering the article is already quite long and has been through the meat-grinder of the Featured Article process, I think adding something of such dubious relevence would do nothing but detract from the article's quality. That would basically draw this lengthy, irrelevant debate on the nature and use of "color names" into the body of the article.--Elred (talk) 01:11, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

"Inappropriate?" Really? Because the article is quite long? That's not a good enough reason for omitting information about TTU institutional identity, IMHO. I noticed the removal of the information. It certainly wasn't "inappropriately worded" as was claimed. I'm more concerned that one would remove information with a reliable source. If it's part of the institutional identity at all, rather than of the "dubious relevance," then it should be included. Furthermore, if it's featured in the infobox than it should be cited somewhere in the article itself to meet WP:V. I'm fine with leaving it scarlet; I've certainly agreed with some of the arguments made in favor of using that term. But I strongly defend the inclusion of that information, complete with reliable sources, in the article. New editors like me shouldn't need to sift through talk pages to know what the colors are and via what sourced that information meets WP:V. --King of the Arverni (talk) 03:16, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Please do not be offended by Elred's revert. It's not because the article is long, but rather the anguish WB and Elred went through to make that article an FA (both admittedly and unfortunately I did not have much of a hand in it); WB and Elred are therefore very protective of their work. Everything added must be well worded, sourced, and relevant. By "inappropriately worded," I think Elred meant the use of TTU. Throughout that entire article, the school is always referred to as Texas Tech, not TTU (correct me if I'm wrong, Elred). I also side with Elred on the fact that it should not be included in the body of the article. Adding a one sentence blurb about the colors of the school under the athletics section would hardly be notable as it is already mentioned in the infobox. If there were to be more to expand upon, such as the history of decision to use the colors, then the argument would be stronger for inclusion. "Their colors are TTU Red/Scarlet and Black" really doesn't fit or flow very well with the article. WB and Elred worked tirelessly on this darn thing so it could become an FA, so just keep that in mind if your additions are reverted or changed. There's always a good reason and intention. --Almosthonest06 (talk) 04:12, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

To meet WP:V couldn't we place 2 citations, to the identity and facts page, in the infobox next to the colors? I think that would satisfy anybody who is curious as to how we came up with the hex codes and the names. --MarkRomero (talk) 12:31, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

That would be perfect IMHO. WP:V is my life (on Wikipedia! Haha!). King of the Arverni (talk) 14:15, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

[outdent] I agree with MarkRomero and Arverniking about adding citations to support both the use of the hex code and the name "scarlet". Further, the <ref> tag is also intended to allow editors to include notes when something requires further explanation that is not ideal for the body proper. I think it would be appropriate to make such a note in this case. →Wordbuilder (talk) 14:46, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I love to be WP:BOLD, but I'd love to leave this to someone more educated on matters TTU (Mark, El, or Word); I think I've caused enough trouble here :-). Does that sound reasonable? King of the Arverni (talk) 14:55, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

No problem with being bold. That is the beauty of Wikipedia; disagreements force us to hash out a solution that is best for the project. If the citations/note is consensus, then anyone can take care of that. If you are hesitant because you are unsure of the wording, Arverniking, then one of the other of us can handle it. Do not feel bad; I do not think that anyone in this conversation has not had at least one edit reverted, changed, or otherwise corrected by someone else in this conversation. →Wordbuilder (talk) 15:04, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Spot on, Word. It's the "appropriate" wording that I'm concerned about. I didn't see anything wrong with the wording before, and the impropriety of it hasn't quite been spelled out for me by the claimant (who also seems to have community support in that respect), so I'd like someone better-informed to do the deed. I just wanted to communicate that, in case anyone had expected me to take up that mantle. King of the Arverni (talk) 15:20, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Elred can weigh in, but I think what he meant by "inappropriately worded" is simply that it is not called "TTU Red" except in behind-the-scenes things like choosing paint colors and web page specifications. The problem probably lies in the limited amount of space given to summarize something that needs a more detailed explanation. →Wordbuilder (talk) 16:16, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Specifically, by inappropriate, I meant the use of the word "their" in that sentence to describe the athletic teams. While it is actually correct when used in reference to multiple teams, it seems a bit unpolished. *We've gone to lengths to polish and massage the verbage and sentence structure in this whole article, so additions of this nature sometimes feel like someone drew dogs playing poker on our freshly painted Sistine Chapel. (no offense intended)  ;) Also, as others have noted, the mention of the colors in that part of the article sort of jumped the tracks on the flow of the paragraph. The other thing that almosthonest mentioned was that I've tried to always called it either "Texas Tech University" or "TTU". I have no objection to the TTU abbreviation in the first line, that's quite common. (Elred...at work) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.91.173.36 (talk) 21:39, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I have made the changes to the article that we agreed upon. Let me know if something doesn't look right. --MarkRomero (talk) 19:05, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Thanks for that. King of the Arverni (talk) 19:45, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Reactivate WikiProject Texas?

I have just marked WikiProject Texas as inactive. They have not answered their help talk page since at least August 2018, they are not doing assessments, nor do I detect any other project activity. Anyone interested in breathing life back into the project, please let me know if you have any ideas about how to do this. No need to ping, I have added this page to my watch list. Oldsanfelipe2 (talk) 23:05, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

WP Texas merger proposal

I have proposed a merger for all of the WikiProject Texas subprojects: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Council#Merger_proposal . Oldsanfelipe2 (talk) 17:41, 7 February 2020 (UTC)