Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of University of Waterloo people/archive1

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

The list was not promoted 20:12, 11 May 2008.

List of University of Waterloo people[edit]

I am nominating this article. I worked on it a bit and I've managed to bring it a long way in the past 24 hours. The references were a particular point of frustration! Here's what this article looked like this morning. I based the format of this list on List of Athabasca University people, an WP:FL. Gary King (talk) 23:26, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose on the grounds that the University of Waterloo is over-rated Should Jim Balsillie be mentioned here? He has donated quite a lot of money to UW and a RIM building is located right next to the campus. -- Scorpion0422 03:11, 17 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, because as far as I am aware, he is not a graduate or a faculty of the university. Gary King (talk) 03:16, 17 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, but the list says it is "people associated with the University of Waterloo", not just faculty and graduates, and donating a lot of money to the school would make one associated with it. -- Scorpion0422 03:21, 17 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I withdraw my comment. I did some googling and I found that he doesn't have as much association with the University as I thought he did. -- Scorpion0422 03:25, 17 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've added "This only includes faculty, alumni, staff, and former University presidents." to clarify. Gary King (talk) 03:39, 17 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy delete—Lead; relationship to articles; structure; entry criteria; POV; formatting.

  • I'm having a war against the straight, boring repetition of the title just after our readers have read it. "This is a list of people associated with the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada." I've re-arranged it thus as an example.
  • Why are "staff", "faculty" and "alumni" plain-linked? Aren't there specific sections in the related article you could link to? Dictionary words should not be linked.
  • Sloppy: "North American".
  • In any case, the lead is far too short: see the criterion that covers this. The information seems to have been arbitrarily chucked in, just enough for an excuse for a proper lead. Two medium-sized paras would be nice. Prepare and engage the readers so the list will mean something to them.
  • On what basis were faculty and alumni selected? Your own judgement? This needs discussion. The other lists seem to be all-inclusive, and thus not subject to such judgement.
  • On my browser, there's a huge amount of white space around the second and third lists.
  • A lot of the references seem to be under-described. Authors, original site name and owner?

TONY (talk) 11:50, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To disagree on a couple points - first, I think the changes you made to the first sentence of the lead contradicts Wikipedia:Lead section. You may be right stylistically, but I think that's something better hashed out in MoS discussions rather than in FLC. Second, I don't think the lead is too 'short' - it just needs to be long enough to provide context for the lists themselves, which I think this lead does decently (though not spectacularly) well. - Marrio (talk) 17:04, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Tony, with all due respect, I think you're on crack. Your objections are no reason to delete the list. As for your question as to who is included, I would suggest it's always a craps shoot. Because we need reliable sources, you're going to start with something like a list provided by the University, or perhaps a source that simply lists a lot of the alumni. In this case I imagine many of them were in the Waterloo article already. So then you go on the journey to prove they went to Waterloo. When I work on a list of people, I usually start with the person's own article for a reliable source. I think your objection to who is on it is unfounded. This is a Wiki. Anyone can be added at any time. Many lists just start randomly. It's not reasonable to ask the nominator where the names came from, and to object based on it's randomness. GreenJoe 14:46, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. If I were to compare it to the List that he used as a template, that is already a featured list, it looks very well done. The lead seems to meet the MoS guidelines, there are no red-linked people on the list, it does cite sources, and even has a few pictures for good measure. GreenJoe 17:18, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Length of lead: there's no black-and-white minimum, but for a nomination to be "among our best work", as required, I think it needs to contain more than just six lines or so that highlight matters in an ad hoc way. It's not just that the lead properly "summarizes the scope of the list and prepares the reader for the higher level of detail in sections subsequent to the lead". You talk of the Faculty of Mathematics, which is notable, I concede, but can you give us a brief run-down on the scope of the university? "faculties include those of x, y, z, ......". The lead says absolutely nothing of research, yet that is a prime role of Canadian public universities, and perhas some of the alumni listed are there because of their research track-record; who would know?
  • You haven't addressed my major point, which is how the list of faculty and alumni was selected: what are the entry criteria? Is it that you sat down one day and chose them yourself? For example, is the "undergradate celtic singer" (no further information provided, and the reference – 28 – leads to ... acid rain and boxes in the library. Hello? That was the first and only ref I looked at; can't bear to go further.
  • Please see talk for what seems to be unanimous opinion that lead openings should not slavishly repeat the wording of the title, and that the current rules do not in fact require this practice. TONY (talk) 10:22, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Saw it right after I posted, but thanks for pointing me there. But as to the question of who is included in these university people lists, it seems to me it should be anyone who meets wikipedia's notability criteria and attended the university. Now, if you have specific concerns about people that should be in the list but aren't or people that are included in the list but shouldn't be, I can understand that. But I agree about the lead. Marrio (talk) 01:15, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A few suggestions:

  • Half of the lead deals with the University, not with the list. As the lead is meant to introduce the content of the article, maybe it should say more about the people associated with the institution rather than facts about the institution itself.
  • I would recommend breaking up "Faculty and alumni" into "Faculty" and "Alumni", at least -- it's practically the whole list, and per 1(f), I would say "well-constructed" suggests a well-organized and sub-divided article for easier browsing. (If this list grows to include a lot, you could divide faculty by subject area, or alumni by post-graduation notability/career.)
  • There's a lot of empty space around the Presidents and Chancellors sections.

Other than those things, I think it's a solid list -- well-sourced, free images, etc. -- and I'd support upon addressing the above concerns. Dylan (talk) 16:56, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • EDIT: Oh, and in rereading the above comments, you should definitely come to a concrete and agreed-upon definition of what "associated" means. Dylan (talk) 16:59, 10 May 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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