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Wikipedia:Featured article review/Duke University/archive1

< Wikipedia:Featured article review | Duke University
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept by User:Marskell 17:19, 11 June 2008 [1].

Duke University

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Notified WikiProjects Universities, ACC, North Carolina, and Durham NC; and Durham NC; users LaszloWalrus (talk · contribs), Bluedog423 (talk · contribs), and ElKevbo (talk · contribs).

I have concerns about criteria 4 (too long), 3 (too many images), and possibly 1(a) and 1(d), The article was ~50K when it was promoted and is now ~100K, and has perhaps lost focus. 152.2.128.80 (talk) 00:53, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I should probably be a little more precise... The are phrases like "captured national championships", "men's lacrosse program has been a recent powerhouse", "Duke's men's basketball team, a traditional powerhouse" (also not cited), "legendary coach Steve Spurrier" (my italics in each case) that don't sound very encyclopedic, and perhaps a little unbalanced. I'm not arguing that Duke University has a good reputation in academics and athletics, more it could be stated more objectively and with more brevity. I don't think the athletics section is following summary style well, given there are separate articles for athletics, football, basketball, etc. already. I think perhaps there's a little too much "cruft" in the academics and athletics sections.
I've also just noticed some inconsistencies between the infobox and article prose. For instance student population figures do not agree and there may be other details. I'm not sure the Blue Devil's athletic logo meets fair use criteria for this article, and it is used twice. I haven't checked the details of other image licenses yet.
I think this article needs to be carely paired down towards the length it was when promoted, with less images, and then comprehensively copyedited and peer reviewed. If that can be done during this FAR, then great, but I would tend to think it will take longer and might want to aim to perfect the good article criteria first. 152.2.128.80 (talk) 14:19, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
1.) The article is not too long. It is 94 KB when including everything such as citations. However, the prose is an acceptable length according [[to Wikipedia:Article_size guidelines.
2.) Citations are not needed in the lead when the repeat information in the rest of the article (as the lead should). Please see Wikipedia:Lead_section.
3.) Duke logo.PNG not fair use? Either you are not very familiar with wikipedia policies, or you have an ulterior motive. I assume good faith so I assume you are just new to wikipedia. Although you are posting from Chapel Hill...Duke's rival. Almost all other FA university articles use their athletic logos in them. Perhaps you thought the two reasons listed for fair use weren't enough (I'm not sure why), but instead of listing it as a non-free image, it would be helpful to add the appropriate rationale rather than proposing the image for deletion when it is clearly has been accepted by the wikipedia community that sports logos are acceptable for fair use.
4.) Re: phrases. "captured" is POV? Huh? Is "win" better? Doesn't really matter. The "powerhouse" and "legendary" terms were added recently and can certainly be re-worded or cited without a problem. Hardly a reason to de-list it from FA. Also, the vast majority of the cite needed tags are already cited, just not after every sentence. You have to look at the other citations in the paragraph. For example, I'll take the first fact needed tag that's not in the lead: "The academy was renamed Normal College in 1851 and then Trinity College in 1859 because of support from the Methodist Church." This sentence is verified by both the topic sentence citation and the sentence after it. It is generally accepted to not have a citation after every single sentence as this would make the article unreadable. The article already has 170 citations! (that is why it's almost 100 KB in length when including the citations)
5.) Thanks for pointing out the inconstancy of the number of students from the infobox and the article itself. That can be easily fixed - and the answer can be found be looking at the source article.
To be honest, I think this FAR has no merit whatsover as the article has barely changed from how it read when it was promoted to FA. The only significant change is additional citations, which is why the article size has increased. -Bluedog423Talk 01:19, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I wondered how long before someone from Duke would point out my IP address was in Chapel Hill. Given Durham is less than 10 miles from where I am now, would it really shock you that someone might have connections to both schools? You will recall that the two universities at times share faculty, staff, courses, and students are able to obtain credit from both and North Carolina State University. It's also common to see Duke undergraduates becoming UNC postgraduates and vice versa.
Anyway, I'll assume good faith with you as you should with me. A FAR isn't an attempt to delist, it firstly an attempt to improve the article, and I think it is in need of much improvement.
I'll leave it for other people to comment on the size, but my person opinion is that it is too long. It may be I'm wrong, or is just extra citations, but either way, you'll need to split something soon if it keeps growing at this pace. I would suggest pairing down the athletics section, though, and losing some of the statistics in the academics section.
Some of the information in the lead isn't in the main body, but I agree that you don't need citations otherwise. You should double-check that everything is covered as I don't believe it is.
On the subject of athletic logos, you really shouldn't be using a non-free image twice. The non-free guideline specifically says use as minimally as possible. Also this isn't the athletics page and you could convey just as good message with a free image of an athlete. The non-free guidelines are what you should be looking at, not other articles. You need to fill in an appropriate rationale on the image page naming the article anyway.
Of course you don't need citations on every sentence, but some important points didn't appear to be covered by the citations you have, or the relevant citation needs to be more clearly attributed. Also if you use the link checker tool on the tool server, you will find a few number of broken links. That's to be expected given the dynamic nature of the internet, but they need to be fixed if at all possible.
It's merely my opinion that the article declined for the reasons above and needs to be reviewed, but please remember this is not person, it is a review and not a delisting and we're all working here to keep the article featured in the future. Thanks. 152.2.128.80 (talk) 02:17, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I'll take a deep breath here, and firstly admit a conflict of interest as a major editor of the UNC-CH article. That aside I agree that the lead doesn't need citations, though the only one I would question is the marine lab. I've never heard of it, and I can't track down the reference. My experience with trying to get UNC-CH up to a good article was that we kept athletics section short as we have so many other articles, and all it's hard to be truly NPOV in this part of NC as far as college sports go. ;-) We totally rewrote our reputation and rankings section which previously had long lists of US News reviews, though I've also noticed US News have updated their site with the 2009 graduate schools review, which might be the broken links referred to (I haven't checked). Personally, I have no opinion on the use of logos, but I'd like to see an image of game at Cameron more than the logo. I switched an outside view of the Dean Dome to an inside one for the UNC-CH article, so maybe that's not the most impartial suggestion. ;-) Is it too long? Well, I corrected the external links for you and it crashed my browser a couple of times. It was IE, though... I just looked at the diff, and I'd say the ranking section is where the problem lies (if there is one). It necessitates so many references and article length grows disproportionately compared to what it adds. As I said we rewrote the UNC-CH one, and it seems to work better, so that could be an idea. I'd also reduce the football section down, as you could possibly make the case that lacrosse is more notable than football as far as Duke goes lately. The Rose Bowls are the important football things to mention. This very much a "me" thing, but I'm not a fan of alumni sections since you have to make a judgement on who is "famous" enough, and you have a "list of ..." article to put detail in, so I'd shorten it. But then I'm not a great fan of Nixon or Elizabeth Dole, so I'm a bad person to comment on that section. :-) Hope this helps. Artichoke2020 (talk) 03:06, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Forgot to say that I would delete the gallery. They are nice pictures, but it looks awkward and breaks the flow of text. People seem to like commons galleries instead lately. Artichoke2020 (talk) 03:16, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I also have a conflict of image, as my user page reveals. ;) But I don't feel particularly loyal... Anyhow. As far as I'm concerned, the article is not at all too long. But the "fact" tags don't look good from the get-go. Mind you, as stated above, citations aren't needed in the lead; I'm going to remove them from there. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 07:32, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have addressed your wording concerns in the examples given above and added several new references. There are no fact needed tags remaining. I also made some other small edits. -Bluedog423Talk 16:27, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think that's much improved. I would just look at the first paragraph of the "Profile" subsection and the whole of the "Rankings" section now. I think would be happy with this as a FA if you could convey the messages in both without quite so many numbers. It's a little mesmerizing to read. I think the all part that you really keep from the first paragraph is the student numbers. Percentiles, SAT scores, etc. are a read turn-off for me as a reader. For the rankings, if you can get the message across in a third of the space it would be better. Perhaps be a little more selective with departments or look for a more general survey. I wouldn't list exact numbers for doctoral programs, but just say top 25, or top 10 and shorten the list. Also is there a more recent survey than 2002 regarding the integration of African American students and faculty? There may not be, but just wondering. Artichoke2020 (talk) 20:58, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • Personally, I agree with you that the rankings section is too long. However, if I parse it down, other users will make it just as long, but with less organization and far fewer sources (this is typically the section that people constantly add to and I can't monitor it that closely). Right now, at least, it's verifiable and reliable sources are cited. Furthermore, the format and length is similar to many other Featured university articles - so I must assume that it is accepted protocol to have such details outlined. Duke's ranking section has 368 words spread out over 3 paragraphs. Cornell, for example, has 526 words spread out over 7 paragraphs for its section and far more rankings. Other university FAs are shorter than Duke's, but contain the ranking information in the profile section. I think this is the only method that keeps it a certain length since if it contains its own section, people feel like they can add every single ranking that they can find. Also, in regards to the Profile section, everybody has a different opinion and it's certainly hard to reach a consensus. You may be turned off by the SAT scores, etc. but other people feel that these facts are key and the vast majority of other FA University articles contain such figures. It seems like admissions' selectivity is particularly emphasized in other university FAs and not as many figures about the student body itself - which seems odd to me. In any event, I could see how one could describe this section as containing too many numbers. I could also see somebody argue that the numbers are helpful to illustrate objective criteria. It's very subjective what is important in this section and what is not - I think we should use existing FAs as a guide. Cornell's profile section is similar to the first paragraph in Duke's, but then doesn't contain information about financial aid, current student's scholarships (the third paragraph in the Duke article). I personally think this paragraph is more informative than the first, but I could certainly delete the third paragraph to conform to this standard. Also, the 2002 survey is the most recent. -Bluedog423Talk 22:39, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • I see what you mean. I'd be happy to leave that to your judgement, as you're right, it is subjective. Looking at the third paragraph on financial aid, is the information in it especially notable for a private school? I have no idea as my connections are all to public schools, but unless it's really notable I would be inclined remove or reduce it. One final point, I notice the images in the gallery are fair-use, but that the template says that use should be for "critical commentary" on the work of art, genre or technique, or the school to which the artist belongs. I've interpreted that as meaning the article should be talking about the art or art school, it's not apparent that this is the case here. However, are they still in copyright? Artichoke2020 (talk) 19:05, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
          • Yeah, I agree that the images in the gallery don't qualify for fair use in this article. I have deleted them. I also deleted 5 sentences from the profile section that didn't seem that significant, including percentage of valedictorians rejected (doesn't really tell us anything) and some of the financial aid information. I do think it is important enough to mention that Duke practices need-blind admission as fewer than 40 institutions in the nation (out of thousands) practice it (also, while you might think it's obvious since it's an elite private institution, wikipedia's state the obvious policy seems to suggest to include it if it's important enough because it might not be obvious to others). I have, however, deleted the total amount of aid and the new financial aid policy guidelines as they don't seem to be as significant. Cheers, Bluedog423Talk 20:51, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
            • I think you've got the right balance. I'd be happy enough with this passing the FAR and remaining a featured article, though I'm by no means an expert so hopefully others will be able to back that up or offer other suggestions. Artichoke2020 (talk) 17:35, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • It looks better now. I still have concerns about 4 (length), but not enough to vote "remove" if this were FARC. 152.2.128.80 (talk) 14:39, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I believe the motto may be stated incorrectly. I think the motto, as it says on the crest, is "eruditio et religio" --Idreamtofblood (talk) 19:28, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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