Talk:Curry College/Archive 1

Archive 1

Higher Quality

I am a recent graduate of Curry College and I am going to help make this article by expanding it and filling in a lot of the content. I marked it so I can refer back to it in a few days while I gather information. --^BuGs^ 14:12, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Arms

Should discuss as separate from seal (shown in colour usually only on podium, typically at graduation). --Daniel C. Boyer 21:24, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Bio2-level lab

It should either explain what is meant by this or link to a separate article that explains it. --141.219.44.180 19:48, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

You're right. Fixed. Cribcage 07:52, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

156 House

Should mention. --Daniel C. Boyer 16:24, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Copypaste

This is from Curry's "About us" webpage[1]:

Founded in 1879, Curry College is a private, four-year, liberal arts-based institution located on a wooded 135-acre campus in Milton, MA just seven miles from downtown Boston. Accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC), Curry College offers 20 undergraduate majors, as well as four graduate programs.

This is the current article lead[2]:

Founded in 1879, Curry College is a private, four-year, co-educational[2] liberal arts-based institution located on a wooded 137-acre (0.55 km2) campus in Milton, Massachusetts (next to the Blue Hills Reservation) in the United States, seven miles (11 km) from downtown Boston. Curry is accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC). Curry offers 20 undergraduate majors as well as three graduate programs.

I'll start some cleanup efforts of my own, if there are no other volunteers. --Aepoutre (talk) 18:18, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Curry Alumni who died in September 11, 2001 terrorist attack

^-- To whomever posted this, do you have a list? -- JedOs 21:41, 4 December 2005 (UTC) That is completely unnecessary. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.2.81.144 (talk) 19:13, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Endowment

US$33,000,00. That's not even a number. $33,000 or $33 million, you pick. 209.150.49.147 (talk) 01:57, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Founder

The lead paragraph says that the school was founded by Samuel Silas Curry. Then the very first paragraph of the History section says the school was founded by Anna Baright. Later, we learn that "In 1885," (six years after being founded in 1879) "the school became the School of Expression and, in 1888, the school was chartered by the state. Silas Curry became the head of the school, and Anna Baright Curry became a professor."

So Anna Baright founded the school, and Samuel Silas Curry took over six years later. --MopTop (talk) 00:10, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Title of section listing alumni

An editor is asserting that "Notable alumni," the title of the section of this article that lists alumni that either have their own Wikipedia article or at least a reference, violates WP:NPOV. I disagree. First, asserting that people that have their own Wikipedia article or substantial coverage in reliable sources are "notable" is de facto true, at least using Wikipedia's definition of notability. If someone disagrees with that core guideline then he or she should either (a) try to change it or (b) find another website to edit. Second, that section is title is nearly ubiquitous in articles about (U.S.) colleges and universities. Of the twelve featured articles that are about entire colleges or universities, five explicitly use "Notable" as part of the title of the section that addresses this topic. So clearly there isn't a consensus among Wikipedia editors that this adjective is POV when used as part of the title of this section. (The other seven articles use "People" or "Alumni" as the title of this section; I would be fine using that title in this article if the section were actually about the entire population of alumni or people associated with this college. But right now the section is solely a list of alumni with an article and one alumnus with a specific reference.)

In summary, this is an absurd objection that is completely out of step with editorial consensus across this project. ElKevbo (talk) 18:18, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Not "absurd" at all; see WP:Manual of Style/Words to watch#Editorializing which says to avoid terminology of such nature to stay impartial per WP:Neutral point of view#Impartial tone. Personal opinions on the people don't belong in this page. Whether other articles use it or not is irrelevant and frankly not a convincing point. One also could remove the section altogether to remove neutrality issues. In any case, you're totally misconstruing what such a removal is. Snuggums (talk / edits) 18:43, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

A list of topics that have Wikipedia articles is de facto notable; labeling it otherwise is simply obtuse. And the fact that multiple featured articles that explicitly use this language shows that it has undergone the highest level of review that we have and editors who apply our most stringent standards find it perfectly acceptable. You're welcome to your opinion but you're clearly far out of step with the established consensus and editing to push that opinion, especially edit warring, is disruptive and unacceptable. ElKevbo (talk)

Don't mischaracterize my actions; I'm not trying to "push" anything and calling me "far out of step" isn't even remotely true. I also seriously doubt there's any "established consensus" that you suggest. Whoever inserted such language into other articles probably didn't read the guideline on editorializing plus keep in mind that article standards have become stricter over time. It also doesn't mean we can't correct mistakes others added within pages. Snuggums (talk / edits) 19:27, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

You begun an edit war in this article without even the courtesy of trying to open discussion in Talk; that's textbook pushing your own opinion. The fact that this language is used in hundreds of articles, including many featured articles, is de facto evidence of consensus. If you'd like to challenge it, you're welcome to open discussion with others; I recommend WT:UNI as the most appropriate venue with interested, experienced editors but of course you're welcome to start a wider RFC if you'd like. You're not welcome to edit war in one obscure article to try to get your way. ElKevbo (talk) 20:07, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

(Shakes head in disappointment) No, pushing my own opinion would be more like if I went into an actual guideline page for colleges and universities (which doesn't exist) for layout and unilaterally removed all traces of alumni from the guideline. You're also making an obvious exaggeration for language use, and even if other pages did feature it, that's not an excuse for repeating or maintaining a biased and unencyclopedic tone. Snuggums (talk / edits) 21:06, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

It seems to me that you're misconstruing WP:Manual of Style/Words to watch#Editorializing. That is specifically about "The use of adverbs such as notably and interestingly, and phrases such as it should be noted, to highlight something as particularly significant or certain without attributing that opinion".

As used here, notable has a very specific and well-defined meaning, and is used to specify that only alumni who met Wikipedia's notability criteria should be included. This is in keeping with WP:LISTBIO, which says "articles about schools often include (or link to) a list of notable alumni/alumnae, but such lists are not intended to contain everyone who attended the school — only those with verifiable notability".

In this section title, notable is clearly not being used to editorialise but rather to specify the content of the section, thus WP:EDITORIALIZING isn't relevant and there is nothing non-NPOV about its use here. Robminchin (talk) 01:50, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Robminchin here: notable is clearly being used in such sections to establish an eligibility criterion for inclusion in such lists: alumni added to such lists should certainly meet the bare minimum requirement of passing the Wikipedia notability threshold (most easily shown by having an article which has passed some form of quality check by an editor other than the initial creator), although in many cases there will be too many such alumni and a further selection may have to be made. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 08:05, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

On the contrary, there is too much similarity between the terms "notably" and "notable" (which are clearly synonymous terms) to say one's fine to use within pages and the other isn't. The point of editorializing page is that personal commentary from editors should be avoided within articles. Even if one is refering to those warranting articles, there's also the concern of cherry-picking among famous figures based on unknown (and probably biased) criteria. Just using "alumni" as a section title or removing the section altogether eliminates such risks. Snuggums (talk / edits) 14:15, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Once again, if you'd like to expand the current section so it addresses all alumni then I'd happily drop my objection to the title of "Alumni" for this section. But right now the section is not about all alumni, only those who are notable, so that title would not be correct. ElKevbo (talk) 16:18, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

You are correct that "The point of editorializing is to that personal commentary from editors should be avoided within articles." However, notable here is quite distinctly not personal commentary, it is referencing a well-understood core guideline for inclusion. That it is similar to notably is not a good argument: the guideline is not against the use of the word but against editorial commentary – giving an opinion in the editorial voice "without attributing that opinion".

Here, notable refers to alumni who meet the Wikipedia notability criteria. It is not an editorial opinion that these alumni are notable, there are criteria and procedures by which Wikipedia determines notability, see Wikipedia:Notability is not a matter of opinion.

Further, I do not see how removing notable would prevent cherry-picking, in fact if the criterion that alumni have to be notable to be included was removed then either (a) the list would include all alumni, which is not a viable alternative, or (b) it would include some alumni, chosen using other, less well agreed criteria, i.e. cherry-picked. Unless you can explain convincingly how notable can be seen as editorial commentary, we should stick with the well-defined notability criteria and label the list accurately as Notable alumni. Robminchin (talk) 16:50, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Surely you jest; it absolutely would be inserting personal commentary to use such a description and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. You cannot reasonably assert that the two terms aren't very alike either. I'd be fine with reworking it so all alumni are summarized in some way (i.e. average number of graduates per year) as long as we keep it neutral. What we shouldn't do is have something that implies "these are the only names that matter" with only a select few when surely more big names than that attended the institution. Snuggums (talk / edits) 16:59, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

There is nothing non-neutral about listing notable alumni. You have failed to demonstrate that there is anything editorial about Notable alumni - "Surely you jest" is not reasoned argument. Robminchin (talk) 21:18, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Facepalm In case it wasn't clear before, I've pointed out that "notable" is quite similar to "notably" which WP:EDITORIALIZING discourages using within articles in order to maintain an impartial tone and keep out personal commentary. Using such a description and cherry-picking based on vague (plus likely subjective) criteria raises neutrality concerns. It looks like someone tried to implement their personal views on the people in such cases, implying they only find certain famous people worth mentioning. As for the idea of reworking the section altogether if not deleting the whole thing, I again am open to giving objective stats on the graduates or other things that summarize them succinctly. Snuggums (talk / edits) 21:50, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

We understand your argument perfectly well: we just don't agree with it. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 07:32, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

My last comment was mainly directed towards Robmichin, who seemed to take what I was getting at the wrong way. Snuggums (talk / edits) 11:23, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

I can see what you're saying, but you haven't shown that this is WP:EDITORIALIZING. The use of notable doesn't imply that only certain famous people are worth mentioning, it says that only people who meet Wikipedia's notability criteria are worth mentioning. This is standard practice (see WP:LISTPEOPLE), not editorializing.

One possibility for compromise might be to include a lead paragraph in the list describing the selection criteria, in a similar manner to a stand-alone list (where the use of notable in article names is discouraged, not because it is editorializing but because it is information that doesn't need to be in the title) (see WP:LISTNAME). This would mean adding something like "This is a list of notable alumni of Curry College" at the top of the list. This seems a rather long-winded way of saying the same thing as calling the section Notable alumni and doesn't actually avoid the use of the word notable, but does remove it from the section title. Robminchin (talk) 22:03, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

(Groans in frustration) The assertion I "haven't shown that this is WP:EDITORIALIZING" is absurd and you know it (even if you try to pretend otherwise) when I just outlined the flaws of its use, including a mention of the obvious similarity to the term "notably". Anyway, WP:LISTPEOPLE applies to the actual content of the list included rather than section titles. The term also isn't something that ever needs to be in a title anyway. We should apply WP:LISTNAME to section titles as it gets more to the point on what type of subpage (if any) one could expect within the section. If giving the graduates their own article, one could have {{main|List of Curry College alumni}} and its first sentence would be something like "The following _______ (i.e. celebrities, politicians) graduated from Curry College" before listing famous names. One could also create an intro like this even without a subpage. Snuggums (talk / edits) 22:56, 3 April 2018 (UTC)