Talk:Duke University/Archive 3

The Name

There is no information where the name Duke comes from? Washington Duke? James Buchanan Duke? --Rlbberlin 01:55, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

A vandal deleted the whole history section, how/why it was named should be in there if I'm not mistaken. --ImmortalGoddezz 02:12, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

• yeah, this is now fixed

broken/vandalised

Wow, somebody should fix this and I dont know how.

The most popular activity of Duke students is certainly NOT rape, but I can't figure out how to edit that line out

• It has been fixed.

Protect Request

Please protect this page from being vandalized again.

• I think being unprotected despite repeat vandalism sort of comes with the territory when an article is featured on the front page Bwithh 17:00, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
  • See WP:NOPRO. — Dark Shikari ^talk/_contribs 17:29, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Also see NOPRO's Talk Page if you would like to weigh in on whether FAotD should at least be semi-protected. DukeEGR93 17:58, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Co-educational?

Eh? Isn't this a bit an odd thing to specify in the first line? Bwithh 17:00, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

• I tend to agree and deleted that word way back when it was up for Featured Status. My rationale was that it was obvious and somebody pointed me to Wikipedia:State_the_obvious#State_the_obvious. Even if we are supposed to "state the obvious," I don't know if it's significant enough to state in the first sentence. In the three other American University FA's (Cornell University, University of Michigan, and Michigan State University), only one (Univ of Michigan) has "coeducational" in the first line. So, I think either is fine, it's just a matter of preference.-Bluedog423^Talk 17:08, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Fix the bug!

• Disagree - it should be kept as some schools are still single-gender institutions. most FA University articles state as such. — BQZip01 — ^talk 20:16, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

More Vandalism

I hopefully corrected some additional vandalism: someone added the phrase "Singapore is a dictatorship". Yay.

Joe V. 22:26, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

FAotD edits and picture layout

After about 150 edits, here are the changes: changes. Excluding the two added refs (one by User:DukeEgr93 and one by me) and picture layout changes, there is a whopping total of 6 minor edits (2 misspellings, addition of "Latin for" for the motto, wikilink to William Preston Few and a short phrase following it, addition of the ranking of the physician assistant program in "notes," and a new wikilink to The Chronicle).

Anyways, I was wondering what others thought of the picture layout changes. Here is how they used to be: old layout. Specifically, look at these sections to compare the old and new: Undergraduate, Rankings, Libraries and Museums, and Football. The new version places the photos under the headings of the sections, which makes sense since they belong under those headings. However, it causes the heading to be on the left with no text beneath it, which I personally think looks bad. With the photo beside the section (the old way), it is still obvious which section the photo belongs to (there is really no difference), but the placement of the heading is above the text instead of above the photo. Thoughts? -Bluedog423^Talk 01:29, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Duiki

The Duke University Wiki Project has now been underway for over 6 months, with only a few regular contributors and very few contributions from expert wikians. We still need help building the global reference for Duke University.

I guess I am asking the many extremely dedicated people who continue to work on this particular article if you won't also contribute an article to Duiki every once in a while. We could certainly use the help.

It's fine that you want to get the word out about Duiki and I'd encourage people to add to it as well as edit it. However, please do not add advertising within this article as you have done in the past.[1] Adding excessive external links to this article leading to Duiki is not productive and very annoying. Wikipedia is not to be used as an advertising tool. Thanks for your understanding. -Bluedog423^Talk 06:13, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Also, I think you'd get a lot more people to edit Duiki if you allowed anonymous IP edits. Just my opinion, though. I know you are trying to reduce vandalism, but having more contributors is definitely key.-Bluedog423^Talk 04:51, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Merge with Construction projects at Duke University?

Yes. Anyone disapprove? --Jesse Harris (Blacice) 21:27, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

• I agree. Too specific and would fit nicely into article. Not 100% against its own article, but definitely think it should be merged if there are no good arguments against. Nobody is going to search for Construction at Duke specifically. Not notable. Kushboy 06:31, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment. That is a daughter article that was once a part of the main article, but was separated out because it was thought to be too clunky. --Ttownfeen 20:29, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose "merge," support deletion - I oppose a futher "merge," as the articles are already merged to a certain extent. That is, I do not think any additional information about construction projects should be mentioned in the Duke University article as there is already a paragraph summarizing the projects. If the bulleted list is added it would definitely be bad for the article; contributing unimportant details while hurting the flow and prose. However, I would not be opposed to deleting the Construction projects at Duke University article if others think it is too detailed and unimportant. -Bluedog423^Talk 02:13, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

"Duke" NOT "Dook"

Although cute, someone has vandalized this page (again) and changed all references to "Duke" to "Dook"... Can someone competent please fix? Wikipedalist 01:09, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, apparently somebody at the North Carolina Research and Education Network doesn't like Duke. -Bluedog423^Talk 18:09, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Duke's official colors

I think Duke Blue is Duke's official color, while royal blue and white are for athletics. This DUMC page specifies that Duke Blue is Pantone 287. Can somebody change it?

Football

The football section of this article is incredibly biased. The way it is written, it comes off as that duke used to be a big time power, but they have only recently done bad. Not true. Duke is one of the worst programs of all time. The last time Duke finished a year RANKED was 1962. Not exactly "in the last ten years" as the article states. They have only finished in the AP Polls top 10 5 times in their history and they aren't even one of those old programs like Minnesota that won big but as football became more modernized couldnt do anything. Somebody needs to fix this to show how bad of a program Duke football is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.8.145.30 (talk • contribs) 17:35, March 8, 2007

Thank you for your suggestion. When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). --ElKevbo 23:54, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I would disagree that "Duke is one of the worst programs of all time" - but it obviously depends on what you define as "one of the worst." I'll piece apart your argument. There are 117 Division I-A football teams, so saying that Duke hasn't finished in the AP top 25 (I think it also used to only go up to 20 teams), does not indicate that Duke is one of the worst since there are 92 teams that are unranked, meaning Duke could still be better that 78% of Division-IA. I'm obviously not saying that Duke was ranked 26 every single year, I'm just saying that argument proves nothing except that Duke hasn't finished in the top 20% according to the AP poll in a while. Great, so haven't a lot of teams. That would hardly qualify as one of the worst of all time. I would argue that there are plenty of teams that have been unranked for large stretches of their history. Your AP poll statistics just show that Duke has not been one of the best programs - and I agree completely with that. Also, Duke has been ranked as high as #12 as recently as 1994, just year-end have not fared well. Likewise, Duke's overall record is better than .500, so that would seem to indicate that they are not "one of the worst programs of all time." How can a team's program with more wins than losses be one of the worst of all time? I think you are comparing Duke to other ACC teams; and I would definitely say Duke has been one of the worst in the ACC. But I would not say that Duke is one of the worst in all of Division-IA. Duke's 1999-2001 teams are ranked by ESPN as the 7th worst of all-time Worst. So, I think it is accurate to say that Duke used to be decent and has had some good seasons, but in the past ten years has compiled one of the worst records in Division I-A. Unless you can show statistics that 90%+ of Division I-A has been ranked more than Duke, I would say that Duke is definitely not "one of the worst at all time" and I would even go so far to argue that Duke's overall record is probably better than 50% of all football programs in Division I-A. -Bluedog423^Talk 17:52, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

That's a whole lot of original research (by both parties). If one has reliable, citable references asserting the quality of Duke's football team (or lack thereof), please add them to the appropriate article(s). Otherwise, we need to refrain from trying to make our own judgments based on statistics and comparisons of win-loss records. --ElKevbo 18:04, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Your argument is certainly fair about the top 25. However, lets examine Dukes yearly records. they have never had ONE ten win season. The article insinuates that Duke has just recently fallen on hard times. In the last ten years, they have 2 winless seasons. Last 20 years-3 winning seasons. 5 winning seasons in the last 30 years. That is the mark of an awful football program, and not one that has just recently fallen on hard times as this article states.

"Otherwise, we need to refrain from trying to make our own judgments based on statistics and comparisons of win-loss records"

What other "citable evidence", do you suggest, when judging a programs football team? I would love to hear it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.11.162.55 (talk • contribs) 23:43, March 12, 2007

Newspaper accounts, books, reports, television shows - the same things we cite for everything else.

And cut out the snarky tone - it's unnecessary and it adds nothing to this discussion. --ElKevbo 04:50, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Women's basketball

The men are out in the first round, the women are the number one team in the nation, and barely a mention about the women's program that I can find here, let alone an article. For shame! Wahkeenah 10:24, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Feel free to add it then! It is a wiki after all ;) I'd definitely recommend adding a section about women's basketball to Duke Blue Devils first (women's golf already has a section; women's b-ball definitely deserves one too!) and then including only the most important information to this article. Thanks! -Bluedog423^Talk 06:21, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. The head coach just won a major award and their program has been very successful lately. There was also a story at ESPN.com about the students camping out for a woman's game, an event usually reserved for their men's team, but I can't seem to find it (was it for their game against NCSU?). --ElKevbo 06:26, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Image sizing

Image sizing on this page violates WP:MoS. I'm trying to get other articles up to GA status and I'd like to know the rationale for that. — BQZip01 — ^talk 04:32, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Probably, people prefer overall aesthetic to devotion to hard-and-fast rules that aren't. Remember Ignore rules that prevent you from improving Wikipedia. --Ttownfeen 03:12, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

But that overrides user settings and make it look REALLY bad in a browser window of 800x600. Please explain — BQZip01 — ^talk 13:57, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry. Explain what? --Ttownfeen 00:10, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Please explain why the rule isn't followed throughout the article, not just one instance. On a 800x600 browser window, these pictures look bad and take up over half the screen. Ergo, they don't help "overall aesthetics," only in certain browser windows. — BQZip01 — ^talk 02:18, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Most people have a larger screen than 800x600 so it was thought to make the article look the best for as many people as possible. If you have a more typical size (i.e. larger than 800x600), the pictures look awful when reduced to the size you are suggesting. So, who should win out? People with small screen sizes or people with larger screen sizes? I think it should go to the majority. The first wesbsite that I found with statistics for visitors' monitor resolutions from a web designers site from April 2006 can be seen here under the FAQ of "What screen resolution should I design for?" This data suggests only 9% of people have an 800x600 browser window or below, while 91% are larger than that. The majority of people (61%) view it on a 1024x768 display. On that display, the pictures sizes look good to me. Hope that answers your question as to the rationale of the picture sizes. -Bluedog423^Talk 19:20, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

(moved to the left for viewability (sp?) purposes) I disagree, but let me state my rationale first. Wikipedia provides each user with the ability to size standard images (which I have done on this computer), but the images on this page do not conform to the set standard and override my user settings, as it does with all users. Should we make it difficult for approximately one in ten people to view these pages? I don't think so. If you truly believe this page would be better viewed in another manner, please change YOUR user preferences. I agree with you that wikipedia has the default set too low, but you can change your default settings. I cannot change hard-coded-size images.

In short, to answer your questions/assertions, "So, who should win out? People with small screen sizes or people with larger screen sizes? I think it should go to the majority." I think no one group should "win out." Everyone can adjust to their own preferences based on their own situations. — BQZip01 — ^talk 19:59, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I understand what you are saying, but the truth of the matter is that 99% of visitors to wikipidia don't set user preferences for photo size. That's not an official statistic, obviously, but just based on the fact that the vast majority of visitors are anon ip addresses, and I'd say at least 50% of registered names don't set the preferences. I personally don't have them set (since I use multiple computers) and I'd say I'm somewhat active. Other university FAs also have similar sized images: Michigan State University, Cornell University, History of Michigan State University, Ohio Wesleyan University, and Oriel College. For full disclosure, some FAs do follow what you are suggesting such as University of Michigan, Texas A&M, Rajshahi University. I don't think either of us is going to be able to convince the other that our rationale is better, so we're probably going to have to just agree to disagree. Cheers! -Bluedog423^Talk 20:28, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Disagree immensely. Ignore all rules does not mean:

"that you shouldn't listen when somebody points out to you that you're breaking a rule. They might have a good reason for suggesting you follow it."

"that one isn't responsible for reasonably forseeable effects of one's actions on the encyclopedia and on other editors."

"that one can succeed in overruling an action that enjoys consensus support or act unilaterally simply by invoking "IAR". (See: Wikipedia:Consensus)

This rule is a consensus and should be followed except in extenuating circumstances (i.e. a weird-shaped image). This was the first University page I checked on, I will pass along my concerns to the other pages, but improper formating on other pages does not excuse improper formating on this page. — BQZip01 — ^talk 20:35, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to step in here, because there seems to be some fundamental misunderstandings. Bluedog423 talks about designing the page for screens, but that's not the job of the editor. That function is built into the software, so that each user can decide for himself/herself what size the images should be. That's under the "User Preferences" tab. By manually sizing images, you're deliberately disabling the User Preferences function, meaning you are dictating to everyone else that they should view things your way. That's somewhat rude. Actually, that's more than just rude, it borders on arrogance, because you're saying that you know better than I how things will look on my screen. As far as ignoring all rules, that is for the rare situation when following the guidelines causes more harm than good. IAR is the exception, not the standard, and you need to have a good reason - and justify it. Your personal view of how the article looks is not sufficient justification. So, please be respectful of the system and respectful of others and allow each person to decide how images should look on your screen. AKRadecki^Speaketh 21:22, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, just relax. I wasn't trying to be rude at all. I thought the tone in my comments were actually quite congenial, while your comments seem quite condescending to me. I previously said I completely understand what BQZip01 was saying, but I just had a different opinion. I was not the one who cited the "ignore all rules" rule; I just said that I think it looks the best this way for the majority of the users. I also definitely understand what you're saying about how it's annoying that setting the image size overrides the user's preference. My rationale for the sizes of images despite this fact was that the vast majority of wikipedia visitors do not have image preferences set. I really don't care that much and you are free to change the image sizes as you see fit. I was just trying to explain the motivation behind the sizes. Relax guys! It's just a wikipedia page. I don't see how I was being disrespectful at all, and I apologize if I came off that way, but I truly don't think I did and I'm kinda insulted that you think my rationale was rude and arrogant. -Bluedog423^Talk 21:57, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I think the point he was trying to make was that you seem to have an air of superiority when it comes to the page and that translates to arrogance when you ignore the rules with no logic other than "I like it this way." As long as it is changed, no harm, no foul. — BQZip01 — ^talk 22:22, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I never once used the rationale of "I like it this way." Anyways, I'm considering this discussion closed and I'm not going to respond to any more comments here. Take it easy, -Bluedog423^Talk 22:30, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Let me clarify, but first apologize: I didn't mean to say that your comments, Bluedog 423, were rude or arrogant, and I apologize that it came across that way. To clarify, I intended to say that persisting in adding thumb sizing back in when it's been pointed out that this contravenes MOS and UP, and thereby forcing the size on others is rude and arrogant. It was not directed at you specifically, but at anyone who so persists, and sadly, there's more than one editor out there who does this. So, Bluedog423, again, I'm sorry if my comment offended, irritated or othewise irked you. AKRadecki^Speaketh 22:40, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, I was gonna reply to say that I don't have clue what you're talking about (in the sense I am completely clueless in all things regarding programming and computer science), but I do know after reading this section (though I can't say I understand it at all). Regardless, you should go ahead make whatever changes improve the article. --Ttownfeen 05:16, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Need references

There are a lot of paragraphs without references and they are REALLY specific claims. I believe that as one of the few Universities that is a featured article, they really should have references. I added fact tags to show what I am talking about. — BQZip01 — ^talk 14:16, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I understand your efforts to make sure that these types of articles are sourced properly and verifiable - it's most definitely an important thing. Most of the cases where you put a fact tag, I agree wholeheartedly that there should be a source. However, frankly, some of the fact tags that you added seem a bit ridiculous to me. Some examples as well as some questions:

• 1.) In 2006, three lacrosse team members were falsely accused of rape; charges were later dropped, but the incident garnered significant media attention.

I mean, I could easily just take one of the 204 references in that article that say that sentence. Not very hard to do at all and seems unnecessary to me. But I guess I have no complete opposition to include one, so I'll add it in there for you.

That's exactly what I would do - grab a few references from the already-existing article, verify they're real and still available, and insert them into this article. No need to make work for yourself. --ElKevbo 22:32, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Concur. It just needs a reference. No malice intended. — BQZip01 — ^talk 22:38, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

• 2.) Duke University has two schools for undergraduates: Trinity College of Arts and Sciences and Pratt School of Engineering. The university's graduate and professional schools include the Graduate School, the Pratt School of Engineering, the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, the School of Medicine, the School of Nursing, the Fuqua School of Business, the School of Law, and the Divinity School.

This seems more like general knowledge to me, but I guess I could find a source that lists all the schools. Why is it necessary to have a reference for the names of the different schools but not a reference for "Duke University is a private coeducational research university located in Durham, North Carolina, USA"? If you argue that the names of the schools are not common knowledge (which I might agree with), I could argue that the location and coeducational status of Duke is not common enough knowledge so it requires a source. My point is this: where do we draw the line?

The lead for any article shouldn't contain any references...which reminds me to mention that the facts contained in the lead need to be contained and expanded upon later in the article. Please remove these references in the article's lead. In addition, I draw the line at specific claims ("We have 8 colleges...") and things that need to be verifiable ("Our school is one of the elite in the country..."). — BQZip01 — ^talk 20:06, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Can you please specify where it says in WP:LEAD that lead paragraphs shouldn't have references? I can't seem to spot that myself. Thanks! --ElKevbo 22:32, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Inferred from "...introductory summations in any information source should not introduce significant material that does not appear in the main text, editors adding new material to the lead should be prepared to add and source it in greater detail in the body." Clear 'nuff? — BQZip01 — ^talk 22:37, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

• 3.) "In the rankings of doctoral programs by U.S. News & World Report, Duke ranked 1st in ..."

The reference is just the same as the other U.S. News & World Report 2007 rankings reference earlier in the paragraph. I guess I could just add the same one, but this information is not freely available as it requires a subscription fee or the magazine itself. Should I just use a reference that sites the magazine without a web link?

Which magazine edition am I looking for? I can claim that Time Magazine ranks the spider monkey as the best primate in existence, but someone would need to look through 50+ magazines of 100+ pages to find the information. Please just be specific and make it verifiable. — BQZip01 — ^talk 20:06, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry but I disagree with you. USN&WR publishes one edition of their college and university rankings each year making it relatively easy to identify. Further, they have a specific area of their website where they aggregate this data and make it available for those willing to pay for it (non-paying visitors can access a limited subset of the data). More specific bibliographic info would be welcome but it's not completely necessary.

And using the magazine itself as the reference instead of the web version of the rankings is perfectly acceptable. The precise media in which information was released is not important - we're concerned with reliability and verifiability. --ElKevbo 22:29, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't deny that using the actual magazine versus the website is inappropriate, merely that the information isn't referenced properly in a footnote. That's all. — BQZip01 — ^talk 22:33, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

• 4.) "Its freshman campus (East Campus) is composed of buildings in the Georgian architecture style."

Anybody can tell this from the photos in the article. Maybe many of your fact tags that you added at the end of paragraphs didn't necessarily apply solely to the last sentence, but rather previous sentences in the paragraph. I could understand you wanting a reference for "Much of the campus was designed by Julian Abele, one of the first prominent African American architects." which occurs earlier in the paragraph.

Exactly. Citations should be given at the end of a block of text. You don't need the same thing over and over at the end of every sentence, but the end of the paragraph is perfectly acceptable.

Examples:

Blah blah blah.^[1] Blah blah blah.^[1] Blah blah blah.^[1] should be

Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah.^[1]

Blah blah blah.^[1] Blah blah blah.^[1] Blah blah blah.^[2] should be

Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah.^[1] Blah blah blah.^[2]

Blah blah blah.^[1] Blah blah blah.^[2] Blah blah blah.^[1] should not be

Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah.^[1][2] and was correct initially.

Hope that is clear enough for you. — BQZip01 — ^talk 20:11, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Ah ok. I was under the impression that it was supposed to be like this: Blah blah blah.¹ Blah blah blah. Blah Blah Blah. Blah Blah Blah. Blah blah blah.¹ But I definitely could be wrong. -Bluedog423^Talk 20:33, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

• 5.) "Finally, most of the campus eateries and sports facilities including the historic basketball stadium, Cameron Indoor Stadium, are on West."

This is pretty common knowledge, in my opinion. I could just use the campus map as a reference, I guess, if that's what you'd want.

That is exactly what I am looking for. I had this same objection in the University of Oklahoma page's FA nomination. — BQZip01 — ^talk 20:06, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Random note about an incorrect correction you made: you changed "Another alumna, Melinda Gates" to "Another alumnus." Alumna is the female version, while alumnus is the male version. Alumni is the plural when there is at least one male, while alumnae is plural if you are talking about a group of solely females. Thanks! -Bluedog423^Talk 19:38, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I see that somebody already changed it back to "alumna." I was just looking at the differences when you made changes. Sorry! -Bluedog423^Talk 19:45, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

No worries. I am not too big of a man to admit when I am wrong. — BQZip01 — ^talk 20:06, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Just wanted to make a quick note that many of the instances where you added a fact tag was information that was added after the article was selected as an FA. Not that it means that are any less important and FAs should still be held to the FA standard once they reach that plateau, but I just wanted to clear that up. Thanks! -Bluedog423^Talk 20:37, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Just make sure that you, and other editors, keep this one in your watchlist and keep it current. — BQZip01 — ^talk 20:44, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

James Duke statue photo

The photo needs to be removed from Wikicommons and needs to be uploaded to Wikipedia under the Template:Non-free 3D art tag. As peculiar as it may sound, pictures of statues are considered derivative works since statues are works of art. For pictures of public buildings, though, there is an exemption. It looks like Charles Keck was the sculptor of the statue, so adding his name to the photo description would be a good idea. BlueAg09 (Talk) 22:52, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, interesting. Didn't know that. I uploaded a new version, but don't know how to delete the old one. I assume it will automatically be deleted since it is now an orphaned image (i.e. not used in any article). Thanks for pointing this out! -Bluedog423^Talk 19:55, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

MUCH BETTER, but...

First of all, thanks for the sources. It looks a lot better. Make sure the dates in the references conform to WP:DATE. The ones that show up as 1-12-2007 are not formatted correctly. Using this example, it should simply be either
[[12 January]] [[2007]] shows as 12 January 2007
[[January 12]], [[2007]] shows as January 12, 2007

Note that each will change from user to user based on their settings, but if you notice, they all appear the same on your screen. In short, please get rid of the hard coding; it overrides user defined features and is not in compliance with WP:DATE. Once again, GREAT improvements overall!!! — BQZip01 — ^talk 04:25, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I am kinda confused, though. I don't have user preferences set, so I don't really know if it's working. I think the reason that it's not working is that the dates have a split up wikilink. Right now, it is [[January 12|1-12]]-[[2007]]. It should be just [[1-12-2007]], right? -Bluedog423^Talk 20:50, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

No, the second and third examples presented above by BQZip01 are correct, including the comma in the third example (the first example does not work, however). The reason your first example ([[January 12|1-12]]-[[2007]]) probably doesn't work is the pipe in the first part and the dash between the two parts. The reason your second example ([[1-12-2007]]) wouldn't work is that the day and month are ambiguous. Is that January 12, 2007 or December 1, 2007?

WP:DATE should have the best and most up-to-date information about dates and how (and when) to wikilink them correctly. --ElKevbo 21:08, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Aw damn. I am SO sorry. I made a typo late at night. It should be fixed above now. While it may be ambiguous, [[2007-1-12]] works within the accessdate function within citation templates, but you must remember the order Year, Month, Day. That said, you should use one of the aforementioned two examples. Once again, my humble apologies! — BQZip01 — ^talk 21:23, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Can't win for losing, BQZip01. From WP:DATE:

ISO 8601 dates, for example 1958-02-17, are unambiguous. However, they are not common in English prose, and are therefore unfamiliar to many readers. Accordingly, they should generally not be used in normal prose. This applies even if they are in a link: although the software will convert such dates according to users' date preferences (for example, [[1958-02-17]] → 1958-02-17), new users and unregistered users do not have any date preferences set, and will therefore see the unconverted ISO 8601 date.

This advice only applies to dates in normal prose. ISO 8601 dates may sometimes be useful elsewhere; for example, they may be useful (unlinked) in some long lists and tables for conciseness and ease of comparison.

Although, now that I think about, I think I may have accidentally or ignorantly used this date format in prose in a few place myself... :( --ElKevbo 21:25, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Request for some help at Georgetown

I am hoping that some of the fine editors who have worked on this article could lend their eyes to my Georgetown University article. In working on Georgetown's article, I look at Duke's often for inspiration, so I was wondering if I could get advice. I put it up for peer review, but more important would be the thoughts of the editors of a similar university. I am here because Duke, like Georgetown, is a historic, private, well respected, research university, and should have basically similar article styles. Besides any advice on article content, such as what's missing or what's unnecessary, I'm looking for ideas on how to better move up the wikipedia foodchain to FA status like Duke. How, at a smaller school, can I get more people involved? Who/where is good to ask for assistance? What should I avoid doing when posting it as a featured article candidate? Thanks for any time you can share.--Patrick 19:59, 24 July 2007 (UTC)