Talk:James F. Jones (educator)

NPOV issues and Original Research

I tried to improve the page by keeping out large, very poorly negative sections of the article which could be considered BLP violations in favor of a "criticism" section. If you disagree that this isn't the way to go please tell me why. Thanks! Winner 42 Talk to me! 01:36, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

But much of the rest of it is criticism too. It seems to me that the article in its present form is highly unbalanced and verging on an attack page. It needs going through in detail by someone with knowledge of the American college system who can weigh up the value of the references and represent the contrasting views. Edit warring should not continue: Noyster (talk), 19:19, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

It seems a number of editors are editing in an attempt to bias the article against Jones. Winner 42 Talk to me! 20:37, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

This is the not place to list grievances against Jones. While a controversy section is perfectly valid, controversies need to be source from reliable sources, not editors own research. The current state of the article could be libelous. Listing before and after rankings around his tenure at Trinity in an attempt to imply Jones' responsibility for the fall is also potentially libelous. Paraphrasing a media report (and referencing that report) concerning the drop in ranking is more appropriate. --RadioFan (talk) 04:02, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

• Has the POV issue(s) been resolved? If so, the tag can be removed. If not, the items still needing to be addressed need to be mentioned here so that they can be cleaned up. Softlavender (talk) 00:16, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

I attempted to fix the POV issues with a more balanced view of Jones' entire career while at the same time maintaining the criticisms levied against him, including substantive sections on Kalamazoo College and his Academic biography, and including verified sources on Jones' accomplishments in addition to his criticisms. The introductory section was also revised to better reflect other university presidents, e.g., Peter Salovey. The work was thoroughly cited and I took great care to do so. Then the very next day a user undid all changes and returned the site to the negative attack format and I was accused by that user of whitewashing and revisionist history. It's hard to fix the POV issues when folks keep insisting on maintaining the page as an attack page. --Bimdieke (talk) 18:08, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Your edits [1] removed huge amounts of cited material. Many of your additions were self-cited, POV and/or WP:PEACOCK. -- Softlavender (talk) 02:00, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Softlavendar, you can't simply remove independently cited material and claim POV. If you have specific concerns with the edits you have to make them clear and justify them. Based on your past behavior it appears you are affirmatively trying to ensure this remains an attack post. What is your bias here? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bimdieke (talk • contribs) 06:34, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

Proper footnote format -- Minimal upgrades

I appreciate there's been lots of work -- and lots of contests -- on this article. I'm here in the role of passer-by/momentarily interested/minor cleaner-upper. I do what I call Wikipedia talk:Bare URLs/Archive 1#Minimal upgrades. This was one of the worst I've encountered. One can see what I did here, mostly 'minimal upgrades'. It looks a little better, gives a little more info. I hope someone(s) who care(s) more about this article will work harder to get full footnotes into it; including retroactively. I view my fix as 'hopefully interim'. Cheers. Swliv (talk) 21:13, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

My upgrades effort has evolved and the 'minimal upgrades' effort has been reversed. I've now worked my way back through to this article and now removed the MinUpg's here; along with some other work on citations and such. Cheers. Swliv (talk) 20:47, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

Plagiarism/Direct Copying

In looking over the article, I've noticed that quite a bit of it is directly copied/plagiarized from the Trinity College and other websites. Any idea as to the procedure here? I'm fairly new to Wikipedia so I'm not sure if I can just remove it for future re-writes or leave it as it is for the time being? Winner 42 - I see that you also have been concerned with original + non-biased content here, thoughts?Ladysif (talk) 05:18, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

@Ladysif: Thanks for the edits, I just ran a copyvio detector and it looks like there are are even more instances of copy+pasting going on here from here and here. I have since removed the blatant instances of violations. For better or worse the content was poorly sourced and very positively written. This means that we might be running into issues with WP:UNDUE weight given to the criticism of him. Perhaps moving the criticism into the general biographical section might help with this. Not entirely sure though, what are your thoughts? Winner 42 Talk to me! 13:37, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

i think it would make sense to maybe move the Trinity information into the biographical section and maybe keep the SBC separate since it's now an ongoing legal battle. I've been working on the Sweet Briar page, but unfortunately don't have much time to give this one the attention it needs right now as I'm currently in exams and all that. I'm happy to help with re-structure and re-writes in the next couple of days, and given that this is a person who's currently in the limelight, it's probably best to get these issues fixed sooner than later.Ladysif (talk) 21:37, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Comment on the Latest Amendments

Somebody has put a bunch of largely positive stuff on the page, all of which lacks any citations, and removed much of the material which was previously there and which was very well documented. Gee, I wonder who that could be? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 223.197.54.209 (talk) 15:43, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Well, if it remains uncited, it can be deleted in a month or so. Softlavender (talk) 23:15, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

This isn't the place for conspiracy theories - it was found that this page was predominantly plagiarized some time ago and I posted it on the 'articles for improvement' page a few weeks ago for that reason. If anything was removed it probably wasn't relevant, was poorly written, or plagiarized. Ladysif (talk) 01:24, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

The IP isn't talking about removal of plagiarism. They are talking about the edits made by Bimdieke, an WP:SPA: Special:Contributions/Bimdieke. -- Softlavender (talk) 01:30, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

External links modified

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• Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20150909101643/http://www.trincoll.edu/givingtotrinity/trinityfund/Pages/Progress.aspx to http://www.trincoll.edu/givingtotrinity/trinityfund/Pages/Progress.aspx

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Problematic claims

I have just removed the claims that Jones aimed to effectively shut down the Greek system, and that his stay there was untenable. Neither is supported by the sources given. The claim about the Greek system, the closest thing was that some members of houses said that they would be forced to shut down, but the article is only citing them as saying it rather than saying it was true; even if it was true, the closure of certain houses is not the same as ending the whole system; and even were that not the case, we cannot assume that was the effect that Jones intended.

The statement that his stay in the position was "untenable" was not a claim that the source made... and even if it had been, it's a point-of-view, not a fact.

The material underneath that about Sweet Briar is also problematic, in that the listed source is this document, which has the usual problems of WP:BLPPRIMARY and more, as there is no verification that the unsigned document is what it is assumed to be. It's just a file on a government server, no verification that this is a final draft that was signed. --Nat Gertler (talk) 13:09, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

The more I look at this article, the more of a mess it is. It really looks like someone was trying to build an attack page on the subject. Unsourced and undersourced claims, original research, items picked and chosen to give a negative spin... this article is in sad shape. I've scraped off a little, but it needs a lot more. --Nat Gertler (talk) 14:04, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

I have just removed some sub-sections of synthesis that created contriversies out of nowhere, or attributed them to Jones when the sources did not. On the other hand, User:Unbiased Editting, despite the username, is showing clear bias and is trying to whitewash Jones by adding asides and explanations that are not given in the sources. Neither is appropriate. Huon (talk) 21:21, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

I tried to fix some of the most egregious problems. Wording implying that he committed criminal acts, or that a judge ordered him to resign, implying criminal acts, requires strong sourcing, indeed. Someone should fix the Greek part as well. Collect (talk) 23:01, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Conflict of interest

At least one major contributor to this article appears to have a close personal or professional connection to the topic, and thus to have a conflict of interest. Conflict-of-interest editors are strongly discouraged from editing the article directly, but are always welcome to propose changes on the talk page (i.e., here). You can attract the attention of other editors by putting {{request edit}} (exactly so, with the curly parentheses) at the beginning of your request, or by clicking the link on the lowest yellow notice above. Requests that are not supported by independent reliable sources are unlikely to be accepted.

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50 years of missing information

Where is the information about Jones’s education. His schools and degrees? And the information about his career before Trinity College? All of this information is in the public domain yet does not appear here. And information about his books and publications?

As this entry is written it just appears to be a place where people unhappy with a few of the policies he was charged with carrying out can come to Bitch and Moan. (NOTE:Presidents do not make policy, Boards do.) And, as with so much on the internet it is all done anonymously. I would expect better from a vehicle claiming to have an anti-harassment policy! Unbiased Editting (talk) 13:25, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

In the reliable secondary sources discussing Jones that I'm aware of, his education is hardly discussed. I couldn't find anything about his career before Trinity College either. You're welcome to present sources (which won't be in the "public domain", but that's not necessary) if you know of them. It's unsurprising that controversial actions get more media coverage than uncontroversial ones. Huon (talk) 14:37, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

I am truly saddened that this continues to be a place for those unhappy with just 3 of the polices Jones was charged with carrying out at two of his positions can simply attack and harass him. I have followed his entire career. What a sad day it is that those small people who cannot get past minor disappointments in life continue to remove information about 50 years of his life and career. Why are you so afraid of the whole truth about this man? He was an outstanding teacher and scholar with a stunning career! Unbiased Editting (talk) 16:38, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

I don't know anything about Jones or these incidents, Unbiased Editting, but I felt that I had to revert your edits because they did not appear to be based on reliable, published sources that readers could check verify the material. References such as "Woodward Academy Records" are not sufficient. Are these records published? How would a reader check them? Please see Wikipedia:PUBLISHED and Wikipedia:Verifiability for guidance on this. Cordless Larry (talk) 17:08, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Now I am truly puzzled. Go to the entry for Eileen Wilson-Oyelaran and the first foot note is “Kalamazoo College”. School records are not private. And in most of the cases for my husband, if the college website lists all previous presidents, he would be listed. Certainly archives from his years in administration would have him listed on a school’s website. Unbiased Editting (talk) 23:35, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Reverting the COI SPA

Hi, in order to revert the massive changes made by the COI SPA, I've WP:BOLDLY reverted the article to the state it was before that user came on the scene. Obviously good-faith edits were made in the interim; I hope experienced editors will not mind redoing their policy-based edits. Thanks, Softlavender (talk) 19:28, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

It's a complicated one, this - we've had COI SPA edits and edits by others trying to address genuine BLP concerns. The former need to be dealt with, but let's take care not to undo the work to make the article BLP compliant. Cordless Larry (talk) 22:36, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

I think it has been resolved now. Collect reverted my wholesale mass revert and replaced it with a less POV version; I then corrected some facts and added one or two points. Softlavender (talk) 22:41, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

There is still some overlap between the content of the career and criticism sections, which I think could be merged into a single career section. Cordless Larry (talk) 23:05, 8 January 2018 (UTC)