Talk:Occidental College

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of the following WikiProjects:

Talk:Occidental College/Archive 1

Contents

[edit] Notable Professors

Eliminated "Notable Professors" section which was over-the-top selective promotion of individual faculty, and not an accurate reflection of the overall quality of faculty. Other wikipedia entries for respectable liberal arts colleges do not have such a section. --Ignat 17:12, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure that this is acceptable, it wasn't necessarily pov and I don't think discussion of the issue of this issue on the talk page prior to your changes, you are free to edit, but wholesale removal is too extreme. Your removal of the picture of the fountain was also extremely questionable. I am reverting your edits. Especially seeing as how you do not have an existing registered username. Making slighter modifications made in the order to remove pov parts of the article after discussion on the talk page is a better way of editing this page. Also, the fact that "Other wikipedia entries for respectable liberal arts colleges do not have such a section" is not a reasonable basis for such massive edits.Asedzie 17:38, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

-I agree with Asedzie here. What is wrong with presenting true information? To the extent Oxy has stars, it's legitimate to point this out, and more to the point is *useful* to those who might wish to know something about the school. The real issue is whether the information presented was untrue, or the manner in which this was presented was NPOV...the mere presentation of information (despite the approach of our anonymous user-vandal) isn't POV as opposed to non-presentation. If other college's pages don't include this information, the solution isn't to cut the Oxy page, but to expand the others.

Timothy Usher (tried to sign the recommended way, but tildes remained tildes)


I am trying to find some reasonable way to say that this college is one of the more well-known colleges in the country, but people keep editing these parts out. First there was "higly-competitive" then "commonly ranked as one of the top colleges in the country", I will now put "highly selective", but does anyone see this as still too pov? How does it compare to other similar colleges?`I think this is a reasonable detail to have about the college in an encyclopedia, after all people who are not familiar with the school should be able to get an idea of the school's general reputation from this page. Any ideas?Asedzie 17:47, 9 March 2006 (UTC)



[edit] Kathy Augustine

I have re-added Kathy Augustine to the "Notable Oxy Alumni" list following the unexplained deletion of her name by User:Ignat. According to one of the sources I used to create the article on her, she is a graduate of Occidental College. --TommyBoy 19:52, 14 July 2006 (UTC)


I think we should put back a lot of the Alumni unecessarily deleted by User:Ignat.Asedzie 03:24, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I replaced a few of the names. I mean, who is User:Ignat to say that these people aren't notable? After all, they have wikipedia entries, they must be important to somebody.Asedzie 03:30, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

What makes someone notable? Are there standards, or is someone notable if some wikipedia contributor thinks they are notable? What's the standard for someone being non-notable? Is someone non-notable if some wikipedia author thinks they are not notable? Unless we can resolve this, then it seems that individual wikipedia contributors should be able to make both notable and non-notable judgments and edit accordingly.

By the way, the rhetorical "Who is x to say that ..." has no argumentative force with me, since matters of contribution to this or other wikipedia entries are not judged on the basis of credentials or other forms of authority, but by collectively developed reasoned standards of correctness and appropriateness. --Ignat 16:01, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Further Thoughts: Reading beyond the "who is to say" rhetorical device, Asedzie argues that if someone has a wikipedia entry, then they are notable, and if they are notable for wikipedia generally, then they are notable alums.(Is having a wikipedia entry also a necessary condition for listing among the notable Oxy alums? If so, several names will need to be eliminated.) First, someone may have a wikipedia entry and may still not be notable. Even if they meet these standards, they may not be notable in the context of the Occidental College article. So I guess I'm conceding that the issue is somewhat complex, and I'm all for resolving it. My general worry is remains (and I brought this up with the "notable professors" section a while back) that these lists are not balanced and just reflect the interests of those who contribute. --Ignat 18:25, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Although I am actually becoming more and more indifferent about the direction of this page everyday, I have one simple policy regarding the Alum section. If I hear about someone considered famous or newsworthy on the news or in the paper, or if I read about them on wikipedia I add their name to the list. It has nothing to do with my "intrests" as you so obliquely state. It is just what I do for every page that I work on. I'm sure the majority of other users do it the same way. As for the "who is x to say" rhetorical turn, which "collectively developed reasoned standards of correctness and appropriateness" are you using to remove names. It seems to me that you are presuming that you have some authority or ultimate objective viewpoint when you take out indidividuals that you don't deem noteworthy. You need to try to practice what you preach. But this is beating the issue to death. I've already discussed this with you on other issues, I admire your persistence, but I question your motives in constantly changing the page. What is your endgoal in editing the page? What kind of information would you like it to contain? These are important questions for you to answer so that we can understand what kind of point of view you are bringing to editing in general, as well as the page specifically. Asedzie 3:46, 01 August 2006 (UTC)

I think I've said this before, so I apologize if I'm repeating myself. I think a good article on Occidental or anything else is one that doesn't reveal the particular interests and background of the authors. If someone were commissioned to write an article about Occidental for, say, a college guide, and one wanted to include something about notable alums, one would have to do some research. It wouldn't be o.k. to just include the things one came across in casual reading. That's because one's casual reading may be selective and not comprehensive. If my main interest is folk-rock of the early 60s, my famous alum list may be a bit skewed. A good editor will help with things like this. If Wikipedia is just about adding facts to a heap of facts, it really isn't going to result in helpful and informative information. So I guess the problem is that my standards are too high. If no one can make editorial judgments, if it's o.k. to add but never to remove, then let's just pile on the facts. --Ignat 18:01, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I've removed alums w/o articles from the list. This doesn't, however, mean that everyone with an article is notable. MrVibrating (talk) 07:19, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Edit Links

Is it just me or are all of the "[edit]" links on the page bunched up under the "Free Speech and Civil Rights" section? Hopefully someone can fix (or explain) this. N1000 17:20, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

What browser are you using? I find this sometimes happens with Firefox. To fix it, just change the font size using ctrl + or ctrl - --Ignat 03:25, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sources

As wikipedia's standards for citing sources get ever tighter, articles like this become problematic because there are no sources proffered to establish that all these alums actually went to Occidental.-Dmz5*Edits**Talk* 17:14, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Removed your tag for several reasons. First, this is one of thousands of college articles with this problem. Why single it out for a tag that references are needed? If you want to do this you will have to put tags on every college article that doesn't individually cite every alumnus - Oberlin, Macalester, Middlebury, Humboldt State, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, etc., etc., etc.. Second, every one of the biographies for those people has Occidental listed as the person's college. There's another 50 or so articles you will either have to tag or do research for sources and cite. If you are up to the task of finding all of the citations for these people that went to these colleges and citing it in their bios, go for it, I applaud you. Otherwise, I don't think you should tag only one article with the references tag to show that all colleges need to have their alumni properly cited from now on. But I'd have to say that I agree that this will be a problem for every single one of these articles in the future.Cinxin 14:40, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Complete Overhaul

Occidental's page is pretty weak compared to other colleges of its size and stature. It could definitely use more picture and more information about its history and buildings. Is there any way to do this? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jkfp2004 (talk • contribs) 23:21, 13 May 2007 (UTC).

I did as best I could to expand this article. Hope it's alright. Notecardforfree 23:35, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Occidental"

What is the Latin name of the school? Because "Occidental" by itself only means Western, not "heart". Second, I am curious how diverse the school's offerings are - I attend the School of Oriental and African Studies which is quite intentionally *not* a school of Occidental (Western) studies. Does Oxy cover Eastern topics? LordAmeth 12:05, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

You are quite right about Occidental's Latin name. I was misinformed when I wrote the introduction and have since corrected the error. The school offers a wide range of studies, both of the west and of the east. One of the school's goals is to create a cross-cultural awareness and perspective for its students. Incidentally, the school's motto is "Occident Proximus Orient." Hope that was of some help. Notecardforfree 19:00, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, I was just curious. ^_^ LordAmeth 22:56, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
But what is the Latin name? And what does "West of the Now" mean?12.214.62.215 (talk) 04:28, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
That motto, Occidens Proximus Orienti means "The West is nearest the East", according to their website. And because the article makes a claim about a Latin name with nothing to back it up, I zapped it. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 04:58, 6 February 2008 (UTC)