Talk:List of fictional universities

Scope: the extraterrestrials

Until such time as someone creates List of fictional extraterrestrial universities or similar (and adds it to {{Fictional education navbox }}), I think the Unseen University, University of Maximegalon and University of Gallifrey belong in this list as having clear cultural links to Britain: the first created by national treasure Terry Pratchett, and the latter two emanating from the BBC. PamD 12:03, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Irish?

While the title says "British or Irish" none of the fictional institutions are said to be located in Ireland. Surely it makes sense to trim the category to fictional British universities and list any future Irish instances individually? 85.94.240.230 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 18:14, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

@85.94.240.230 Note Kings College, Dublin, and University College Limerick. Both in Ireland. PamD 23:06, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Internationalised - so now needs help from other editors

This page has been moved from "List of fictional British and Irish universities" to "List of fictional universities" after its nomination for deletion at AfD on the grounds of being over-narrow. The consensus was to rename it. I hope that other editors will now contribute non-UK&I entries to the list, with care. I tried to make a start with Monsters University, the top of the WonkHE rankings for 2022 ... but gave up as I wasn't sure of its location (Extraterrestrial, or US?) and its creators (Pixar, or the screenwriters, or ...). PamD 07:38, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

It's also possible that some uni names which were not ambiguous when the list was confined to UK&Ireland are now ambiguous and need a "Not to be confused with" note (that's now on my "to do" list). The next one on the WonkHE list certainly needs one: the fictional Winchester University of Dear White People is not the real English University of Winchester. PamD 07:46, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

In a brief search I've just found one relevant fictional German university, that of Weissnichtwo in Sartor Resartus attested by The Palgrave Handbook of Humour, History, and Methodology, p. 350, but I am not sure if that warrants inclusion or not. In general I am not completely sure what the inclusion criterea here should be.

I wonder if there are objections to changing "Extraterrestrial" for "Discworld" in the case of the Unseen University (and likewise for future examples from fantasy). "Extraterrestrial" to me at once suggests sci-fi. Just a flavor-thing, but still. Daranios (talk) 11:28, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

I'd prefer to have a category which would keep together those which are not on the earth as we know it, rather than split into "Discworld" and perhaps "Mars" etc, so that sorting would bring them together. Can you think of a better term than "Extraterrestrial"?

I think the inclusion criterion is something like: "Is it a reliably sourced fictional institution teaching at degree level?" (and not just a division of a real institution, as in Oxbridge colleges or imaginary departments, faculties, institutions etc of real places). Weissnichtwo looks splendid.

Weissnichtwo has a doppelganger on the shore of Lake Wobegon! See https://digital.car.chula.ac.th/pasaa/vol32/iss1/2/ and scroll through to its endnote on page 9 (26). I think it merits a mention. (Not least because, having found it by Googling, I was confused as to what level the fiction started - I checked the existence of Chulalongkorn University and the journal before reading through to that endnote.) PamD 12:19, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

And "Weissnichtwo", to a Brit like me, reads as "Weissnich(t) 2"! It took a moment to re-parse it: the "two" is so obvious. Language is such fun. PamD 13:40, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

:-) I can't really think of a good replacement word for Extraterrestrial either, so no problem with keeping it. "Fictional world" or "Fantasy world" might serve as a summary term to distinguish sci-fi from fantasy - which I think would be justified by the world being in the same universe where Earth exists but outside of Earth, while in fantasy it's mostly a different "universe" where Earth may not exist. "Fictional world" then would have the slight problem that it would fit invented planets in sci-fi as well, though. Daranios (talk) 09:54, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Deletion discussions for related lists

Currently, List of Cambridge colleges, List of fictional Oxford colleges and List of fictional Oxbridge colleges are all in deletion discussion. Maybe that is of interest to anyone interested in this page. Daranios (talk)

Location

@Rich Farmbrough: I created the location field without a space to save a little width in that column, though I see you have now added spaces. It needs the "UK:" rather than plain "England" so that it sorts sensibly. In fact I wondered about having a hidden sort key which would create a sort order with "UK" and "US" for entries like "England" or "California": that might be slightly Easter-eggish, but could perhaps be explained with a footnote linked from the column header. Any thoughts? PamD 13:23, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Not quite sure where you are going with this. I think your original sort order is fine, bearing in mind it sorts by the whole key so the Scotlands will all be together for anyone interested in that. If you sorted by sub-national entity primarily you have to decide which. Dumbartonshire or Scotland? You could have two columns but I don't think there's a lot of utility.

On a separate note, I think this is going to become an unwieldy list at some point, and will need splitting. I wonder if future Wikipedeans will do an alpha split or a country split...

All the best: Rich Farmbrough 13:23, 3 August 2024 (UTC).

I would lean against hiding the UK/US in a sort key. It would be somewhat confusing to see England and Scotland, etc. next to each other without seeing the UK. As both US: and UK: only constitute either three or, with the space, four characters, I don't thinkt that's a problem. (Speaking as someone who only looks at Wikipedia at a PC rather than phone, so if someone has a different viewing experience, input would be good.) Daranios (talk) 18:54, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

@Rich Farmbrough Re "unwieldy": it started as a tightly defined list of narrow geographic scope, but was hauled off to AfD and made to become global. Sad, to my (biased) mind! PamD 23:30, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that's more or less how I found it. I've added an interesting entry, Shanhe University. The associated article needs more work, perhaps over he next few days I'll find time. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 09:42, 4 August 2024 (UTC).