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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Ohio Wesleyan University

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 05:45, 9 March 2007.

Ohio Wesleyan University

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I've spent a considerable amount of time working on the Ohio Wesleyan University article. The article has had two peer reviews (which are here and here). The peer review found no major problems and the suggestions for improvement have all been addressed. user:Rintrah, user:Galena11 and user:SandyGeorgia from the League of Copyeditors have been incredibly helpful with both feedback and editing over the course of the last three months.

This is a self-nomination in that I have made most of the edits to the article, but I have sought feedback from many and have received positive comments. Thanks for any feedback, LaSaltarella 19:27, 3 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support. Article is thorough, well-written and meets FA standards. (Full disclosure: I am one of the editors LaSaltarella contacted to review the article, and made a few edits and suggestions which have been incorporated into the article.) —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 05:56, 4 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - I'm an alumn of OWU and want to see this as an FA. I've also been one of the articles main critics. The article has improved drastically (namely in the POV aspects that bothered me during it's previous FAC nomination) but it still has problems and reads choppy to me.
-The introduction is choppy---possibly the most important section of the article, but in this article it is the weakest section.
  • Comment. Thank you for the comments! I appreciate it very much! Since I have to give credit where credit is due the League of Copyeditors has been behind improving the writing in the article. I will bring up the same issues that you mention here with the two editors who helped me with the copyediting and will try to address them, if necessary. Thank you once again for providing valuable feedback! LaSaltarella 07:54, 4 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • This article isn't, IMO, too far away... and I do believe that I will probably be able to support it... but as much as I would like to, I think it needs to be cleaned up a little more. One thought on the intro... I REALLY liked the into to the sports section and felt like that first paragraph could be moved to the intro to flush out the intro. It really is almost there.Balloonman 08:44, 4 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
-I have major problems with the continual usage of term Wesleyan as there are over 20 different schools that have rights to that moniker, but most notably Wesleyan University. OWU or Ohio Wesleyan would be much more appropriate. Since the school uses OWU on it's own website, I think the occurences of Wesleyan (by itself) should be replaced by OWU.
  • I suspect that this would be an exception, because "OWU" as you know is how the students/faculty refer to the school (for those not familiar, we say "Oh-wooo", not O.W.U.) I very rarely, if ever heard somebody refer to the school as "Wesleyan" because that does create confusion. I would posit that this abbreviation is more along the lines of an accepted acronymn for the school.Balloonman 21:45, 5 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
-"In the annual celebration for George Washington's birthday in 1862, an attending senior endorsed Wesleyan's "ideals of democracy" during his oration." What does "attending senior" mean? What relevance does he/she have?
-The Female College should have it's full name used the first time it is used, not just it's common name.
-"yet no major buildings were built in this time." seems out of place/disjointed.
-The article states, "formal ties to the Methodist church were severed in the 1920s" but the official website reads "OWU maintains an active affiliation with The United Methodist Church."<http://www.owu.edu/about.html> The affiliation is loose, but it is more than just a historical one.
-"More recently, Wesleyan has achieved several academic and athletic recognitions." The only academic citation to follow is from 1986.
  • Is there something more recent? Otherwise, get rid of the words "more recently." You introduce the period starting with 1984 and the item used to support "More recently" is 2 years later.Balloonman 21:45, 5 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The opening line covers the athletic recognitions, which start 16 years later. Can we think of another way to rephrase that? LaSaltarella 05:18, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
-The article jumps around in tense--- EG the chapter that begins with "Wesleyan continues to undertake construction projects" immediately gives a recounting (in past tense) of construction over the past 15 years.
  • I am not sure how we can avoid this for this specific paragraph. The focus in the paragraph on the transition between the past history and the present. Any suggestions will be much appreciated. LaSaltarella 20:18, 5 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
How about something along the lines of, "Over the past 2 decades, OWU has undertaken numerous construction projects. This began with the rebuilding of [what's that dorm that was rebuilt] and the new union building.... It continues on today with the construction of...."Balloonman 21:45, 5 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
-None of the sources cited support, "Since 1983, Ohio Wesleyan has been listed in U.S. News & World Report among colleges that attract the highest percentage of international students." One doesn't work, the other three deal with specific points in time and raw numbers. They are citing places that offer awards based on numbers not percentages (granted, the fact that the school has more international students than larger schools is a good indicator of percentage, but it isn't what is cited.)
-"because of resulting shortage of people wanting to live in off-campus housing due to the off-campus lottery cap." Shouldn't this be: "Because of the number of people forced to remain on campus due to the off-campus lottery cap?"Balloonman 06:52, 4 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure if my rewording that last point is any better. But when I read that there is a "shortage of people wanting to live in off-campus housing" it says "We need more people to live off campus, thus we are going to force people to live off campus whether they want to our not." When I was there (and I believe you said it is still the case) that the problem is that more people want to live off campus than the campus allows. So the shortage isn't the number of "people wanting to live off campus," but rather the number of lottery picks allowing people to live off campus. If I'm wrong, let me know.Balloonman 08:47, 4 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support now, concerns met Comment: (mostly taken from User_talk:LaSaltarella#OWU_final_thoughts and edited for conciseness). I became involved with the article in peer review and have made comments since. I think it is much improved but am still concerned about the following before I can support it here.

    When OWU opened, it was an academy (prep school) for 2 years before becoming a University. This is mentioned in connection with the academy's closing in the 1920s, but I think it needs to be said at the beginning first. Also, the first college of the university was the College of Liberal Arts established in 1844. I think it is inaccurate to say "By the end of the 19th century, Wesleyan had added a College of Liberal Arts (founded in 1844)..." as adding implies there is something in existence to add to, but this was the first college and my understanding is that the University came into existence with the college's formation (unless the Academy was somehow the same as the University, which would also need to be explained here if true). The Academy and College of Liberal Arts need to be mentioned in the Founding section.

    I also wonder about the choice of buildings in the article and worry it might run into WP:Recentism problems, as it seems most buildings built in the past 50 years are mentioned, but none are mentioned between the purchase of Elliott Hall in 1842 and building University Hall in 1893 (the first 51 years). See History of Ohio Wesleyan University for other buildings built then. I would argue that for a very new University the decision to build a second or even third building is a much bigger event than building two dorms 110 years later (i.e. Thomson and Bashford Halls). Obviously not all buildings on campus now or in the past need to be mentioned, but some are omitted that probably should not be.

    Finally three minor points: I would add that the Ohio Legislature approved Poe and Elliott's charter; I am also not sure of the significance of a student in Ohio in 1862 praising Washington; and I am not sure that the other members of the Ohio Five (now mentioned in the article body) are worthy of inclusion in the lead paragraphs (which are a summary of the most important things in the article). Ohio Five yes, all other members no. I think the article is very close to FA and hope this helps, Ruhrfisch 21:01, 4 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Strong Support - Great article definitely worthy of FA status. Clearly, a lot of time and energy has been invested in this article. Extensive copyedits from so many editors (such as user:Josiah Rowe, user:LaSaltarella, user:Ruhrfisch, user:Rintrah, user:Galena11 user:SandyGeorgia, user:Indrian, user:A bit iffy, user:BryanD, and user:Balloonman; I probably missed a few other significant contributors in the history). It is amazing how many people helped out. Full disclosure: I did some copyediting of the history section as well. I think most the minor issues raised above are valid, and I will assume that you will fix those. I agree with Balloonman that the lead is a bit weaker than the rest of the article, which is somewhat disturbing since that is what should be the strongest. I think adding a bit about athletics would be a wise decision (also, I agree that the first paragraph of athletics would be a prime candidate for picking stuff from) or something else that is particularly important. I think two more sentences in the lead should make it more thorough and perhaps flow more naturally as right now somebody might say the lead is a bit choppy. -Bluedog423Talk 03:39, 5 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Despondent comment. In brief, I haven't read this article and I don't want to do so. ¶ I'm very much in favor of providing explicit sources, e.g. via footnotes, for information given. However, I'm amazed and dismayed to see an encyclopedia article with over two hundred footnotes. For an academic paper in law, or possibly an encyclopedia article on a Really Big Subject (e.g. general relativity), perhaps. But for an encyclopedia article on one university? I'd take it as a tip-off that something has gone very wrong here. ¶ Here's an example, chosen pretty much at random: [[Patricia Wettig]] (1974), the actress who plays vice president Caroline Richards on ''[[Prison Break]]''; and [[Clark Gregg]] (1984), the actor playing Richard in ''The New Adventures of Old Christine'' with [[Julia Louis-Dreyfus]].<ref name= "clarkgregg">{{cite web| url = http://www.cbs.com/primetime/old_christine/bios/clark_gregg_bio.shtml | title = The New Adventures of Old Christine | publisher = CBS |accessdate = 2007-01-06}}</ref> I wouldn't have thought that TV actors were sufficiently notable even to be worth a mention in this article (though I don't begrudge them their own articles); if they are notable then surely their appearances are known by those who will be interested and don't have to be repeated here, and their own articles will anyway both tell which programs they appear in and also provide evidence for their having graduated from this or that university. ¶ That was alumni, but I could have chosen something else. It's necessary that "information" is verifiable and relevant and of interest to some readers, but from my PoV -- perhaps atypical, which is why this is a comment and not an oppose vote -- it's not sufficient. From my PoV you also have to distinguish between what is and isn't important to the reader who has moderate but not unlimited time and patience. A lot of what's in this article does not seem to be important, and the result is an article so garrulous that I for one don't want to read it. -- Hoary 07:48, 5 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • The problem isn't that the article somehow "overreferences" what it presents as facts; it's that many of those facts are trivial. ¶ I suspect that this article isn't actually intended to be read straight through; rather, it's intended to be searched within, via Ctrl-F or however the reader's browser does it, and have bits of it read. To me, that's not a good encyclopedia article. ¶ Back to my example. Do you really believe that the article is helped by having descriptive sentences (referenced, of course!) about individual television actors who've graduated from OWU? I'd suggest either a list of people, of which a sample entry would be "Patricia Wettig, actor (1974)", or (much better) to relegate that function to a category and instead to survey the indisputably notable graduates (as opposed to mere TV actors and the like) in a single short paragraph. -- Hoary 23:56, 5 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I think this is a fine article, with good structure, but it suffers from foonote overkill. A proper lead is a summary of the body and won't need 10 footnotes, they should be in the body. But in this case, the body has over 200. Something seems amiss here.Sumoeagle179 16:02, 5 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • First, thank you for the compliment regarding the article. I really appreciate it! Many users have invested a lot of time in improving it via several Peer Reviews. Regarding the footnotes, I am reposting my comment from above. My understanding throughout the whole process of improving the article is that, unless it is a fact, the rule given in the page "Ten tips to make an article FA" is Cite everything!. User:Yannismarou/Ten rules to make an article FA provides more explicit advice than that by saying One citation for each sentence!. For a couple of sentences the citations were added as they seemed to be controversial issues at a particular point in time and in others, the context dictated it if it covered a longer period. Correct me if the User:Yannismarou/Ten rules to make an article FA is to be interpreted differently. If there are facts that don't citations, do let me know and we'll correct that. Thanks again for your time! I greatly appreciate it! LaSaltarella 20:27, 5 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment I agree that for featured articles unless there is a direct quotation in the lead paragraphs (which needs a ref), typically citations are in the body of the article. Leaving one ref in for the direct quote saves 9 (from 205 refs now to 196 refs). It appears to me that the refs were added piecemeal as the article was written and so have some duplicates that could be condensed into one ref with the use of <ref name ="blah"> tages (as is already done for a few refs, such as current ref #3 "About US. The Five Colleges of Ohio"). For example current refs #114 and #115 are both "Learning at Linden" and seem to be the same ref (and neither works when you click on the link). Or current refs #132 and #133 are both to the OWU Greek life web page and its History sub page, so you could link both to one ref and add see also History subpage.

      I also wonder if there couldn't be some condensation of book footnotes. I searched on the Tull book notes and there are currently 14 different refs for this book, four of which are duplicates (current refs #49 and #50 are both "Tull p. 182", and refs #139 and #140 are both "Tull p. 132"). I think you could get away with condensing all 14 into just five refs, saving 9 more refs (at end of my comments). So just these saves 20 refs or about 10%.

Tull A = "Tull pp. 180-183" (substitute for current refs #43 (p. 180), 49 and 50 (p. 182), 51 (pp. 182-183) and 52 (p. 183))
Tull B = "Tull pp. 40, 127-132" (current #6, #139, #140)
Tull C = "Tull pp. 26-29, 49" (current #91, #190)
Tull D = "Tull pp. 140, 142-143" (current #105, #146) or pp. 140-143
Tull E = "Tull pp. 98, 99, 102" (current #152, #156) or pp. 98-102
    • There are 19 refs for Hubbart, two of which are duplicates (to p. 38, #20 and #21). Suggested way Hubbart refs are condensed to five refs, saving 14 more (34 refs gone, about 16% fewer): A (six notes now) "Hubbart pp. 10, 14, 22, 38, 45"; B (five notes now) "Hubbart pp. 68, 72-80, 87-88, 90, C (six notes now) "Hubbart 110, 112, 121, 127", D (three now) "Hubbart pp. 140-160" (now #42 plus #39 (p. 142) and #41 (p. 141)) and keep one "Hubbart pp. 160-164" (now #44).

      My guess is that the other books and other duplicates could save 20 or 30 more refs. In any case, the use of p. and pp. is not consistent for the books and needs to be cleaned up. Hope this helps, Ruhrfisch 17:19, 5 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

      • Thank you, Ruhrfisch! I really appreciate your help! User:SandyGeorgia helped me tremendously with the referencing two months ago as is evident in both Peer Reviews. I added and dropped a few since then, but it is entirely possible that some of the formatting rules have changed. By all means, let me know if there are formatting issues. :) Thank you, once again! LaSaltarella 20:40, 5 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • You are very welcome. Combining duplicates violates no policies. Putting similar page numbers together doesn't as far as I know, but you may want to check with SandyGeorgia to make sure it doesn't violate policy. If this doesn't work, another thought would be to do the book refs by chapter (all from Ch. 1, all from Ch. 2, etc). Hope this helps, Ruhrfisch 21:47, 5 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • If I understand it correctly, the last of those ideas is a bad one, reducing the number of notes (and, trivially, of bytes) while retaining the same number of places where notes are referenced and causing the reader who actually wants to look the stuff up to go through entire chapters rather than directly to the specific page. You may wish to reread my comment above (newly elaborated), where I say that the problem is of the number and triviality of the factual assertions that are made (and that of course need referencing). -- Hoary 23:56, 5 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Has a self-congratulary mood that kinda bugs me, and can be pretty boring at times, but I can't really argue with its FA status. Good work LaSaltarella and congratulations! Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 23:34, 5 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - I really wanted to find at least one major mistake... Nearly all of the sentences are referenced. Well done! NCurse work 17:14, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: Very comprehensive page but I do wonder if over 200 footnotes are strictly necessary. Is the place that contraversial? Giano 14:54, 7 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose: I would put this article as much better than good article but less than featured. The pictures are superb and the article certainly cannot be accused of not citing its sources. However, it seems disjointed in many places, whether this is a result of someone just turning a list into a paragraph, a lack of context for the content, or just the sheer volume of footnotes seemingly following every sentence, the reasons vary. What I'm trying to say is that I don't get the point of the content in many sections.
In the history section, for example, I don't necessarily care about when every building was built when I don't know what the building is or why it matters - these details might be better left on the List of Buildings page. The article does good job of pointing out how Wesleyan responds to major historical/cultural events (Great Depression and Vietnam), but what of the Civil War, WW2, or end of the Cold War? There are passing references made to the troubles Wenzlau had, but what are they and how did national coverage by the Washington Post contribute to his resignation? Given the authors' ability to marshal facts for the profile section, I would like to know more about how Wesleyan was challenged in this period between Vietnam protests and pre-9/11. Why did Warren conduct so many interviews and what topics did his discuss?
The profile section is just a torrent of facts, which, granted, many other universities' sections are as well, but this seems as though someone turned a common data set questionnaire into a paragraph. Tell me about trends, not just numbers in the abstract - ie, are average SAT scores, yield rates, etc going up or down? The whole paragraph starting on socio-economic equality is unnecessary - need-blind admissions, financial aid, etc are not unique to this university and no arguments are advanced as to why OWU is unique.
The campus section is too concise, probably a by-product of information being parceled off into sister pages. Now would be a good time to mention the size of the campus, not in the introduction. Where is it in relation to notable/major landmarks/cities? Is the campus urban or rural, does the campus blend into the neighboring area or is it strictly demarcated? What's its approximate shape and how are buildings distributed within it?
Many items in the student life section (acapella groups, governing bodies, etc) do not seem to merit mention. That they exist is uninteresting - most universities have analogous groups. What have they done or why are they interesting?
Reading over the sister page Activism at Ohio Wesleyan University, I think almost all of it should be brought back to the main article because it talks about events and topics that have stimulated debate and reveal something of the moral/ethical character of the university's community.
The notability criterion for the alumni seems to have been set low, as was mentioned before. Authors of textbooks, professors at Harvard, actors in minor roles? Scrub away some of the cruft.
If the international character of the university figures so prominently in both the intro and in rankings, why does it only warrant 3 paragraphs? In conclusion, I feel (1) this comes across as a "glossy brochure" and (2) that this page has become too balkanized - I can tell that a lot of interesting information was moved off onto sister pages, leaving this main page with many sections filled with, well, filler. Madcoverboy 02:49, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Dear Madcoverboy, thank you for your feedback! I really appreciate your time and comments! I've been working very closely with two editors for two current Featured Articles for Universities, the Duke University and the Michigan State University ones. They were incredibly helpful and at various points even contributed as much as I did! I have worked with numerous others editors (evident from my Talk pages and the PR pages) who had brought many articles to FA status in the past. Some of your concerns brought up above relate to requests from these editors in the past two Peer Reviews. I encourage you to take a look. Unfortunately, striking a balance at times may involve tough decisions: what one editor dislikes may be what another editor likes. As most of them had substantial experience with Featured Articles, for the most part I only listened to what they had to say. My guiding criteria has been consciously trying to stay with the general editors' consensus. Unless a concern is brought up by more than one users, it is hard to strike an aggregate balance between likes and dislikes of the WP community. I will try to address the specific concerns brought up above. Thank you, once again! I really appreciate your feedback! LaSaltarella 14:59, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • LaSaltarella, I don't think that anyone has disputed that you (together with others) have put an enormous amount of work into the article. No need for you to remind us. ¶ "Unless a concern is brought up by more than one [user]": the concern about length and exhausting coverage of relative trivia has been brought up by at least two users, Madcoverboy and myself. It's possible that Madcoverboy and my ideals are incompatible with those of the other people who have rushed to say "support"; but I find this hard to believe: most FAs are long and (while I cannot speak for Madcoverboy) I usually approve of them, reading them (by which I mean reading them in their entirety) with pleasure. ¶ By contrast, I find this article unreadable. I keep wanting to skip. As I skip, I notice such attractions (?) as photographs of Charles Fairbanks, Frank Sherwood Rowland, Shirin R. Tahir-Kheli and Branch Rickey. I had never heard of any of them. This is not necessarily a criticism of either them or the article. My criticism of the article is its presentation of stuff about them that is (or should be) in the articles about them, to the extent of showing their photos: I don't understand how the physiognomy or taste in clothing of (say) the 26th US veep tells anyone anything about OWU (moreover, I have a niggling feeling that I've read somewhere, perhaps in a piece by Gore Vidal, that the position of veep was near-meaningless until fairly recently). -- Hoary 23:57, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you, Hoary! I appreciate your time and opinion! It certainly adds an interesting perspective. You mentioned earlier "From my POV you also have to distinguish between what is and isn't important to the reader who has moderate but not unlimited time and patience." Several considerations have guided my inclusion of material to account for what is important on the subject, most notably, Undue weight and Let the facts speak for themselves. I realize that these NPOV rules might have compromised what some consider interesting in general. My first priority has been to follow the FA guidelines and NPOV is certainly one of them. Just to help me understand your request, what are the specific changes in the text that you would like to see? Specific example of what you want to see get changed and how you want it changed will help me a lot! Thank you for your time again!!! LaSaltarella 00:33, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Excellent article that is definitely worthy of FA status. A lot of time and energy has been invested in this article and it shows. Enduchus 04:02, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - worthy of featured status - I've got no complaints. CloudNine 18:05, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Great prose, amazing pictures. Definite FA. к1иg---f1$н---£я5ω1fт 20:08, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. A lot of work has gone into this article; this is one reason why I didn't want to oppose it previously, when I instead wrote a "despondent comment". That comment doesn't seem to have had any effect; perhaps this will. A lot of material in this article might belong in an OWU website (which already exists and within which any interested person is free to browse) but it does not assist an article within an encyclopedia, which should cut away trivia dutiful listing of the unremarkable and instead provide a summary that (among other things) is sufficiently concise to invite a straight-through reading from start to finish. -- Hoary 23:57, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you, Hoary! I appreciate your time and opinion! It certainly adds an interesting perspective. You mentioned earlier "From my POV you also have to distinguish between what is and isn't important to the reader who has moderate but not unlimited time and patience." Several considerations have guided my inclusion of material to account for what is important on the subject, most notably, Undue weight and Let the facts speak for themselves. I realize that these NPOV rules might have compromised what some consider interesting in general. My first priority has been to follow the FA guidelines and NPOV is certainly one of them. Just to help me understand your request, what are the specific changes in the text that you would like to see? Specific example of what you want to see get changed and how you want it changed will help me a lot! Thank you for your time again!!! LaSaltarella 00:33, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Well-written and comprehensive article. It caters to readers across levels of interests and deserves to be Featured. One suggestion though; it may be helpful to trim and consolidate the footnotes, so as to balance comprehensiveness and compactness. --Ajaypp (I am here..) 05:28, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.
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