Talk:South Florida Bulls

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Move / article name change? Requested move 1 March 2018[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus to move the page at this time, per the discussion below. Dekimasuよ! 18:43, 7 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]


South Florida Bulls → USF Bulls – The university has tried to distance itself from the potentially confusing "South Florida" name for several years now, as described in detail in this article from today's Tampa Bay Times, which prompted me to make this overdue move request. The older generation of Tampanians and USF grads still occasionally throw out a reference to "South Florida", but "USF" is much more commonly used.
This change in usage is difficult to substantiate using search engine results, as "South Florida" is much more likely to being up items related to Miami rather than to USF in Tampa. But upon further reflection, perhaps that does prove the point after all. In any case, a move and redirect is appropriate here, imo. Zeng8r (talk) 15:04, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose move. This is similar to the Northern Illinois Huskies situation, wherein the university brands its sports teams under an initialism but reliable sources use the longer name. In addition, unlike with NIU, the name "USF" is ambiguous at the Division I level because of the San Francisco Dons.
    • reply As explained in the linked article and explained by yours truly above, "reliable sources" pretty much unanimously use the initials in this case, and have done so for over a decade. And there should be no confusion with San Francisco since, as you pointed out, they're the Dons, not the Bulls. Zeng8r (talk) 02:10, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      • Counter-argument: For my San Francisco argument, though there would be no conflict in article titles, there would be confusion in contexts where only the school names are used - such as team schedules and the like. As for your other attempted rebuttal, the linked article certainly qualifies as a reliable source, but the majority of national reliable sources continue to spell out "South Florida". ONR (talk) 03:10, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. Major media outlets like ESPN are still using 'South Florida'. Corky 03:18, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • comment I'm not going to get into a heated argument over this, but the responses to what I thought was a no-brainer move are puzzling. The university has used "USF" as its official name since 2003, as reflected in the article above and (more importantly), in its brand management guide (link here), which never once uses the phrase "South Florida". Why wouldn't the athletic department's main Wikipedia article title reflect the name of the school, as determined by the school? Articles about companies or people shouldn't arbitrarily reject their current names just because some media members still use outdated versions, so why should that be the case here? The ESPN score crawl should not take precedence over what the school actually calls itself, imo. Zeng8r (talk) 11:48, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • The standard on Wikipedia at least since 2012 (when I joined Wikipedia) has been to use the COMMONNAME which takes precedence over WP:OFFICIALNAME. That's why Northern Illinois is named that way and not NIU. It's not just ESPN that uses 'South Florida', it's NBC Sports, CBS Sports, etc. Corky 15:46, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      • Clearly, the main article about the university belongs at University of South Florida. But in the case of the sports program, the name was changed 15 years ago, which was before you joined Wikipedia, or I joined Wikipedia, for that matter. The relevant guideline at WP:OFFICIALNAME is the part where it says that "historical names should be preserved as redirects", which was my proposal. And while, yes, some national media outlets still use the "South Florida" verbiage, it is extremely rare here in Tampa, where the school is actually located. Zeng8r (talk) 20:00, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. "South Florida Bulls" appears in books much more often than "USF Bulls". Many of these books were published in the last fifteen years. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 00:00, 3 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • Initialisms such as USF are obscure to outsiders, which is another reason to use the more explicit South Florida. The important thing is that titles exist to serve the needs of readers, not the university's public-relations strategy. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 12:14, 3 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion[edit]

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A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion[edit]

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GA Review[edit]

Unsuccessful. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 14:18, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

GA toolbox
Reviewing
This review is transcluded from Talk:South Florida Bulls/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Lee Vilenski (talk · contribs) 23:19, 25 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]


Hello, I am planning on reviewing this article for GA Status, over the next couple of days. Thank you for nominating the article for GA status. I hope I will learn some new information, and that my feedback is helpful.

If nominators or editors could refrain from updating the particular section that I am updating until it is complete, I would appreciate it to remove a edit conflict. Please address concerns in the section that has been completed above (If I've raised concerns up to references, feel free to comment on things like the lede.)

I generally provide an overview of things I read through the article on a first glance. Then do a thorough sweep of the article after the feedback is addressed. After this, I will present the pass/failure. I may use strikethrough tags when concerns are met. Even if something is obvious why my concern is met, please leave a message as courtesy.

Best of luck! you can also use the {{done}} tag to state when something is addressed. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs)

Please let me know after the review is done, if you were happy with the review! Obviously this is regarding the article's quality, however, I want to be happy and civil to all, so let me know if I have done a good job, regardless of the article's outcome.

  • Lee Vilenski Thank you for the review, I've added citations for the items you asked for below. Are there any other items that require citations or additional problems? Geolojoey (talk) 22:42, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It wasn't really a list of things that needed citing, it was an examples list. For your convenience, I've gone ahead and put citation needed tags in the article where they are neccesary. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 10:58, 30 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you,  Done. Geolojoey (talk) 22:21, 30 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Links[edit]

Prose[edit]

Lede[edit]

General[edit]

There's some uncited items here, could we look at that before we go much further? Examples:

USF varsity teams have won a total of 161 conference championships and 6 national championships. The school's athletes have won an additional 197 individual conference championships, 19 relay conference championships, 19 individual national championships, and 4 relay national championships. Bulls teams also have four national runner-up finishes in the NCAA and two in the ICSA, plus numerous individual and relay national runner-up finishes. Club teams representing USF have won 15 national championships.

  • This claim has many different citations throughout the article but would require 10+ links directly after this statement. I can copy them over from other parts of the article but it wouldn't look very organized. Geolojoey (talk) 22:40, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

They were ineligible for the Division I-AA playoffs as they were to transition to Division I-A the following year.  Done - The cited article does not directly mention USF but it states the same rule preventing Delaware from being eligible in 2024. Geolojoey (talk) 22:40, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The team grew rapidly and moved to Division I-A in 2001, where they remained an independent. In 2003, the Bulls moved to Conference USA, but they would leave for the Big East Conference in 2005. The Big East eventually became the American Athletic Conference in 2013 as part of the major college football conference realignment.  Done Geolojoey (talk) 22:40, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Bulls lost their three remaining games, but played with notable improvements.  Done Geolojoey (talk) 22:40, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Some notable former USF football players are George Selvie, Jason Pierre-Paul, Marquez Valdes-Scantling, and Marlon Mack.  Done Geolojoey (talk) 22:40, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]


  • So, I think there's a real issue here with tiny paragraphs and subsections. There are 80(!!) sections in this article. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 14:18, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • On this, the history section has eight subsections, but could easily just be two. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 14:18, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not sure about some of these bold links. I get that we can bold suitable redirect targets, but really, the mascots? Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 14:18, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Baseball, men's soccer, men's cross country, men's golf, men's swimming, men's tennis, and women's tennis - these are easteregg links. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 14:18, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Golden Brahmans' men's swimming team nearly became the first team in USF history to win a national championship - this is so verbose. "They nearly did a record", can we not just say they came runner-up? Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 14:18, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • The men's basketball team was founded in 1971 and was by far the most significant step in USF's young athletic history at the time - editorialising. What does this even mean? Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 14:18, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Runners up" - this is plural in the sense of more than one "runner-up", not in that there was more than one member of the runner-up team. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 14:18, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Article has so many "First time ever" and "first team in USF history". Its suggesting an importance that already exists because we haven't mentioned it before. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 14:18, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • See In 1978, USF won the Sun Belt Cup (now known as the Vic Bubas Cup) for the first time as the Sun Belt Conference's all-sports champion for the 1977–78 academic year. They would go on to win the Cup again in each of the next four years and seven of the next eight - this could say that they won the Cup seven times from 1977 to 1985, but instead focuses on the first time and the rest as an afterthought. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 14:18, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Article doesn't seem to denote acronyms at all. Just states the organisation name, and refers to them by their acronym later. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 14:18, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Review meta comments[edit]

  • I'll begin the review as soon as I can! If you fancy returning the favour, I have a list of nominations for review at WP:GAN and WP:FAC, respectively. I'd be very grateful if you were to complete one of these if you get time. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 23:19, 25 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • Hi, I took a look through, but the prose here and general formatting/MOS isn't quite up to GA standard. 14:18, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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