Talk:Eagle Scout (Boy Scouts of America)/Archive 4

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Contents

Similar awards

I'm thinking of splitting this into something like List of highest awards in Scouting or some such. I've never been real happy with this section and it is continually tweaked. I think it worked better when it was a list, but the list format didn't survive the FAC. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 20:36, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

  • why not. --evrik (talk) 20:56, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Try using a template. That's what we're doing on College football for awards, bowl games, conferences (soon) and other things that really need to be a list but can't because of the desire for FA status. z4ns4tsu\talk 21:43, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
I don't get it- I don't see any templates there. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 02:00, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
At the bottom of the article, there is a template for individual awards (Heisman, et al) and one for the bowl games. These both replaced long lists of the same information. We also just today created two more templates that haven't been put on the page yet, but will replace the lists of conferences. They're at {{NCAA DI-A Conferences}} and {{NCAA DI-AA Conferences}}. z4ns4tsu\talk 03:52, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I get it now. The only problem is that the similars awards section gets edited fairly often- using a template will make it more complicated for editors. Something to think about though. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 11:35, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I sandboxed a list at User:Gadget850/Sandbox4 --Gadget850 ( Ed) 19:45, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Nice, Gadget850. See: List of highest awards in Scouting. Dddstone 00:53, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

It really should be "Scouting and Guiding". I was waiting until we resolved the WOSM/WAGGS issue. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 03:07, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Guides are Scouts too, it's one movement, if not whey did girl guide/girl scouts form into one organization--WAGGGS. It's like the difference in car and auto.Rlevse 03:10, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Someone noticed

http://markyork.blogspot.com/2006/11/eagle-scouts.html --evrik (talk) 21:25, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

This one cracked me up. Raul654 03:06, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
Raul, I rolled my eyes when I read that. It disgusts me that so many men (and it's always men) mock those who choose to become Scout leaders. --Habap 14:00, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
I thought it was crass. It may have been satire, but still crass. Rlevse 14:40, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Eagle Scout Statistics

I made a revision to the to the After becoming an Eagle[[1]] section pertaining to the percent of Boy Scouts who attain Eagle, This revision was reverted soon after, to make clear my reasoning i will explain myself, by gathering two numbers from wikipedia on overall members found on Boy Scouts of America, which states there have been OVER one hundred million members, then the number of Eagle Scouts to have attained the rank, 1,835,410, using a calculator 1,835,410 divided by 100,000,000 equals .018 which is almost 2 percent not almost 5 pecent, I understand the citation of scouting.org says "...only about 5 percent of all Boy Scouts do so. This represents more than 1.7 million Boy Scouts who have earned the rank since 1912." but we must understand that the person who wrote this may have been "rounding" up or simply guessing at a percent instead of statistcally finding the correct amount. I feel that this should be voted on and a decision should be made otherwise the statistics contradict themselves. Please reply to this subject with your feelings on it.--Joebengo 02:01, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

You are presuming that this number is over the life of the program. If you consider that 49,895 Eagle Scouts were awarded in 2005 out of 879,789 Boy Scouts + 63,637 Varsity Scouts then it works out to 5.3%.[2] I recall the number was stated as 4% years ago. I think giving a percentage for the life of the BSA is misleading as the requirements have beeen changed over the years and the signifigance has changed from a super merit badge to a rank. There were less than a hundred Eagles in the first ten years- that is a big skew. I do think we need to clarify this. How about:

"In 2005, 5% of the Boy Scouting membership were awarded Eagle Scout."

--Gadget850 ( Ed) 02:51, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

That does sound a lot better but it doesnt seem like the right fix for the problem permanently, would it be better to consider adding an additional section about the statistics of eagle scouts?

--Joebengo 01:37, December 25 2006 (UTC)

Just make it what it is, a whole para isn't needed, just one sentence that says something like "While the percentage of Scouts making Eagle Scout each year has been as low as 2%, in 2005 it was 5%." Sumoeagle179 12:43, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the lowest was in 1911 at 0%. We just had this discussion over at Scouter.com [3]- some claimed it was as high as 20%, but a lot of that was "gut feeling" numbers. I did some searching then, but there are no real sources. Let me know if you find anything. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 13:05, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

So what is the consensus here? "While the percentage of Scouts making Eagle Scout each year has been as low as 0%, in 2005 it was 5%.", or should we just put "Over the history of the Boy Scouts of America only about 2% have attained the rank of Eagle"?--Joebengo 04:54, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

How about ""Over the history of the Boy Scouts of America only about an average of 2% of Scouts have attained the rank of Eagle, but in 2005 it was 5%" ... with the ref of course.Sumoeagle179 14:03, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm really wondering just how much these numbers add to the article. The only reason to quote a percentage like this is to emphasize the "rarity" of Eagle Scout.
"In 2005, about 5% of the Boy Scouting membership earned Eagle Scout– over the life of the program, 1.8 million young men or about 2% of the total have earned Eagle."

--Gadget850 ( Ed) 14:37, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Done. We had numbers in three different sections. I simplified the lead-in and moved the others to history. I think this is now more clear. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 16:30, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

"Eagle Scouts are expected to set an example for other Scouts and to become the leaders in life that they have demonstrated themselves to be in Scouting. As such, they are disproportionately represented in the military, service academy graduates, major professions, business and politics."

This statement is not at all supported by the citation. The citation only mentions statistics about people who were "Scouts" not specifically those who reached the rank of Eagle Scout. Since "Scouts" are undefined in the source we are left to assume they are claiming that anyone who spent a single day in the "Scouts" is to be considered a "Scout" and thus they statistics are biased. However, this is incidental. The main issue is that the stats don't relate to Eagle Scouts at all. So, the citation is a prejudiced source and it does not cite a neutral source for the statistics it claims. The two sentences about disproportional representation in "major professions" (whatever those are) are unsupported and the tone does not seem at all neutral. Since it is not supported by the citation or any real world statistics, I suggest it be removed completely unless a neutral source can back it up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.14.94.250 (talk) 07:47, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Your claim is not completely accurate...one example, the ref shows roughly 2/3 of military academy students are Eagles, which means Eagles are a high percentage of military officers. I've also added another book as a ref. — Rlevse • Talk • 13:15, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

History

I think a bit of reorganization of the history material would be better presented as:

History

  • General
  • Requirements
  • Medal
  • Badge
  • Other insignia

--Gadget850 ( Ed) 16:35, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

How about making it in your sandbox first so we can compare them? Rlevse 17:36, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Check out User:Gadget850/Sandbox2. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 19:34, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

OK with me.Rlevse 11:45, 1 January 2007 (UTC)


Blood Drive As An Eagle Project

I was noticing in the examples for Leadership projects, one of the examples including running a blood drive. The blood drive itself does not totally count as leadership since the blood center self-corinates (its a matter of picking a phone and asking them to be at place for a time and date, nothing else). I bring this up beacuse another scout in my troop did a blood drive a few years ago. After the scoutmaster confence (and a jackass stunt at school), the scoutmaster tried to revoke that sign-off, to no-avil. Ever since, this scoutmaster has been cracking down on possible eagle canidates (including me). Just my two cents. KB1KOI 23:07, 10 January 2007 (UTC) (soon to be Eagle scout,currently pending BOR)

So whats the point here? Do you have a question or are you just stating something? --Joebengo 23:36, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

We have had one Scout do a blood drive in my troop. I wasn't his mentor (and I can't give blood... moo), so I'm not sure exaclty what was involved, but I do recall that he promoted it to the point where they had to turn away donors. So, yes- it is a legitimate example. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 23:46, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Blood drives are possible as Eagle projects, but the Scout has to set it up so he shows leadership--the reason people frown on them is that it's easy for one not to do much at a blood drive. NOw, if the SM already approved it, he can't unapprove and he's not the final sign off anyway as the district adv chair is. Rlevse 01:16, 11 January 2007 (UTC), a district adv chair
This is My understanding, and I am by no means an authority. As far as I know, Blood Drives are frowned upon as Eagle Projects because they don't require as much leadership from the Candidate as most other projects. However, they, as I understand, as much less frowned upon for Scouts with Special needs, or the mentally/physically handicapped. I don't believe this is official policy, but that is what appears to me. I DO NOT KNOW THIS FOR FACT. The blood drives I have seen though required the scout to recruit X number of donors and get the word out and coordinate that. Again, I don't know any of the above as fact, but this is what I believe from talking to, and listening to people. Maybe it's local/unofficial/personal opinion. God I Hope I disclaimed that enough. Dachande (talk) 14:45, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Correct, most district adv chairs frown upon them for that reason. — Rlevse • Talk • 14:49, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Similar awards in other organizations

Didn't we have the Billy Mitchell award here at one time and remove it? Ditto for the Royal Rangers and some other non-Scouting groups. While I can appreciate that other organizations describe their awards as their equivalent to Eagle Scout (which makes Eagle more notable), this is going to drag out like the Scouting awards list did.

I think that if editors want to compare their award to Eagle, then it should be done like we did with List of highest awards in Scouting. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 13:14, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Agree with gadget. Rlevse 18:45, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Merge

Previously on Wikipedia. Back in March of 2006, we had a consensus to merge the Cub Scouting and the Boy Scouting advancement articles as I have proposed below. These merges were made and the links and redirects fixed. In June 2006, User:Cool Cat unilaterally reverted all of these changes. There was a lot of discussion and acrimony, and we left it as it was.

It is now almost a year since the original merges and the articles in question have stood as stubs since then, with only a few minor edits. I now propose to reinstate those merges. These merges are effectively already done, as the information was moved back in March.

Merge Eagle Palms into Eagle Scout

As noted, this merge has effectively already been performed- this is a pro forma notice. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 13:55, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Please oppose, support or comment:

  • support.Rlevse 13:56, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Support The Placebo Effect 14:03, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Support merging Eagle Palms into Eagle Scout. --Habap 15:27, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Support Spin2cool 05:45, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

done; Redirects in articles fixed. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 01:02, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Pins

"The Eagle Scout Mentor pin was introduced in early 2004 in a gold-plated version, and was changed in early 2006 to pewter to match the mother and father pins."

The pin shown on ScoutStuff [4] has a gold color, but is not gold-plated. Also, the mom's pin was redesigned at some point [5] to match the [6] dad's pin. These are not pewter, but "antique finish". The mom and dad pins are also available in sterling.

The Eagle Scout Award Kit [7] seems to show all three pins in a silver color. I will try to take a photo of the current kit this coming weekend. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 16:21, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

The kits had gold (gold colored) mentor pins at first, but then pewter ones for the last year or so but the last few I bought had gold color ones again. Not sure why.Rlevse 16:46, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
It is back to gold colored. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 00:53, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I got a good photo of the current Eagle Scout Award Kit- should this be added? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gadget850 (talk • contribs) 13;32

If there's a good spot for it. Did you notice the mentor pins were gold, pewter for a year, then gold again? Rlevse 15:30, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

My brother made eagle, his ceremony was Saturday, 9-Feb-08. He gave me the mentor pin which was gold colored. I'd never heard of/seen them before and I made Eagle in 1999, but have been involved in Scouting since...I have attended Eagle COHs since 1999 and my bro's ceremony was the first time I'd ever seen a mentor pin. They also apparently did away with the father tie tack? Dachande (talk) 13:59, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

advanced U.S. military rank for Eagle Scouts

Apparently the army no longer offers an immediate rank advancement to all Eagle Scouts who enlist, but still fast track them for advancement. Any one have a source on this? Boatman666 01:52, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I deliberately wrote this as "may receive advanced rank" to deal with differences between the service. I never found a reference for the --Gadget850 ( Ed) 03:30, 25 March 2007 (UTC)Army- let us know if you find one.

The only source I have is that when one of my friends (who is a fellow Eagle) entered the service he was promoted 2 weeks out of boot camp while another Eagle was not, he inquired and his CO told him that Eagles get special consideration but that they are no longer able to give the defacto promotions due to a law suit. Boatman666 05:31, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I have a friend from high school and scouts (a fellow Eagle) who just recently this year enlisted in the Marines. He told all of us that his enlistment said he would leave basic training as a PFC. I don't know if this will actually happen, but the different services may deal with this issue in different ways. MBK004 05:51, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I have a fellow Eagle friend who recently enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and upon graduation from basic and tech school at Shepherd AFB he was given an additional stripe. He was told that this was due to his Eagle Scout rank. Falcofire 15:11, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Cool. This is in the article, see "Eagle Scouts who enlist in the U.S. military may receive advanced rank in recognition of their achievements". Consider joining the Scouting project. Rlevse 15:19, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

The US Army website states that: "We value our Eagle Scouts and Girl Scout Gold Award recipients, and are pleased to offer them an opportunity to join the Army at an advanced rank in recognition of their accomplishments." (http://www.goarmy.com/ycr/) So it looks like it's still valid. Lordjeff06 12:17, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Guestbook

We should put a guestbook thing up so Eagle Scouts can leave their signatures. That would be nice. Falcofire 17:23, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

(New discussions go to the bottom of the page; use the + tab at the top to create a new section.)
/
There is no place for that in an encyclopedia such as Wikipedia. I'm sure there are any number of forums where that could be done. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 18:00, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

There seem to be places for signatures in articles relating the further of science and the expansion of that article. If volunteers to help expand articles have room for a signature why not official Eagle Scouts? It is perfectly plausible and sensible. Falcofire 17:01, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

What article? How does this help an encyclopedia article? --Gadget850 ( Ed) 17:26, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Why revert?

Just curious as to why my edit making the reflist two columns was reverted. I've seen this on several articles. It makes the ref section more presentable, rather than a long list with large amounts of white space to the left. I've never seen anyone oppose such a change before. Wrad 03:46, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Do you really need to put this here and on my talk page? See your talk page. You didn't explain either. 2-column refs are less presentable and harder to read. I've seen multiple disagreements over this, most NOT involving myself.Rlevse 11:08, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I just wanted to see if other people agreed or disagreed with the change. I never said (on this page) anything about not explaining anything. I'm just bringing the issue up and asking what the pros and cons are. In my reading, studies have shown that columns make things easier to read for most people, as it is easier for the eye to follow a shorter line of text than a longer one. I just want to know what people prefer, as I've never run into an opposing argument before. Putting it on your talk page only makes the issue visible to you and me, and keeps others out of it. Wrad 15:39, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

This is a matter of style. I prefer the single column myself. When you click on the reference link in the article body, it pops down to the reference and highlights it; this works better with one column text in my opinion. We had this same discussion when the article made the main page a few months back. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 17:29, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Okay, just wasn't familiar with any opposing arguments. I'll just keep that in mind. Wrad 17:58, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Infobox and images

I am soliciting opinions on using the standard infobox. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 18:24, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

  • I like it, but are we really to 1.8 million?Rlevse 19:19, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
1,835,410 as of the end of 2005. I just added the reference- I know I added this number, but can't figure why I did not have this referenced. If anyone can find the numbers for 2006- the 2006 Annual Report is a bunch of fluff. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 19:49, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Since there are no other comments, I am going to update this image. Please note that this is going to orphan the current images.

If there are no objections, I am going to update the other images used here to convert them to .PNG format and rename them to a common format. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 13:57, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I have updated all of the images to PNG format with a common name format, a common size and a bit of cleanup. If there are no objections, I will tag the old images as orphaned so the bot doesn't start dropping messages. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 16:41, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Passive vs active

I came across this page and saw

Since its introduction in 1911, the Eagle Scout rank has been earned by more than 1.7 million young men.

in the lead. Could this be changed to

Since its introduction in 1911, more than 1.7 million young men have earned the Eagle Scout rank.

without loss of substance or style?

Regards, Kushal

PS: I wanted to be extra careful since it is a lead paragraph of an important article. --Kushalt 21:46, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Go for it. This is a style refactor; but active is better than passive for this. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 21:51, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Eagle Scout Leadership Service Project merge

Eagle Scout Leadership Service Project was forked back in July, but has failed to be expanded. There is really no merge to be done, just redirect.

You do realize that the article is just a duplicate of the section in this article? --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 15:57, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Yes, but we can strip the second two paragraphs from the main article. I like the fact that the focused article has so many links. These get lost on the larger article. --evrik (talk) 16:14, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Closing, merge failed --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 16
38, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Naming Eagle Scout Classes

Tuscarora Council, based out of Goldsboro, NC, just recently started naming Eagle Classes after a distinguished Eagle Scout. The distinguished Eagle is usually an Eagle who is a member of the local community and who has made major contributions towards some cause. The 2007 Class of Eagles was named the J. Louis Maxwell Distinguished Eagle Class. Has anyone else heard of local councils naming their Eagle Classes? I think this is a great tradition and one that should be more widely practiced.
Falcofire (talk) 17:36, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Nope, BTW, I used to live in Goldsboro from Cub to Second Class Scout. — Rlevse • Talk • 19:01, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
No, we just use the years. --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 20:26, 1 February 2008 (UTC); (Eagle Scout class of '76)

Tradition?

Has anyone ever heard of a tradition involving given an Eagle Scout a silver dollar (the one with the Eagle landing on the moon) at his COH? The district Exec gave this to my brother and his friend at his COH Saturday (9-Feb-08) and acted like it was a time honored tradition since the dawn of scouting, but no one in my troop had ever heard of it. The DE gave speech about the significance of the LEM being named the EAGLE and how like 75% of astronauts were involved in scouting and like a 1/3 were Eagles. (Statistics not accurate, used as an example). Anyone ever heard of this? And would it be worth including in the article?Dachande (talk) 14:07, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

To state the obvious: The "dawn of Scouting" is 1907, but the lunar landing was in 1969. This sounds like a local or personal tradition. Our previous Scoutmaster used to give a Scouting coin to new Eagles. There is something of a U.S. Army tradition that a newly promoted first lieutenant is to give a silver dollar to the first enlisted soldier who salutes him. Another military tradition is the challenge coin. There is no standard practice here, so I don't think this needs to be included. --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 14:53, 11 February 2008 (UTC)