Talk:Williams College

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 Williams College was a good article nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these are addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Reviewed version: October 12, 2007
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Williams College is part of WikiProject Massachusetts, an effort to create, expand, and improve Massachusetts-related articles to a feature-quality standard. For more information on this project or to get involved see the WikiProject Massachusetts project page.
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Contents

[edit] Winter Study?

I'd say Winter Study is a 'distinguishing feature' of the college, right?

[edit] Userbox

Williams userbox: {{user Williams College}}

W This user attends or attended Williams College.

SERSeanCrane 06:02, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge

It has been suggested that Williams Record merge with Williams College. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Williams Record (second nomination) for current debate & to give your opinion. SERSeanCrane 17:42, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Now that the Record has been merged into this article, I must ask why student media falls under the ¨Distinguishing Features¨ sub-head? Doesn't it make more sense to move that section into its own sub-head like Sports?

[edit] Trustees

I think this article needs something on how Williams's trustees are chosen and what influence alumni might have. Dartmouth established its system of alumni trustees in 1891 on the basis of the system Williams used at the time ("the Williams Plan"). Dartmouth's system has become controversial over the last 25 years, and information about the Williams experience could be useful. Do Williams alumni mount political campaigns in order to be elected to certain seats on the board? --Tungstenkid 16:09, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree that this would be a useful addition. Please add it! Background info here:

http://www.ephblog.com/archives/002274.html

Although I think that some of this is out of date. (Is there still a different between term and permanent trustees?)

David.Kane 14:36, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA fail

GA review (see here for criteria)
  1. It is reasonably well written.
    a (prose): b (MoS):
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a (major aspects): b (focused):
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    Fair representation without bias:
  5. It is stable.
    No edit wars etc.:
  6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
    a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
  7. Overall:
    Pass/Fail:

[edit] Comments

It may look like the article is in bad shape due to the number of categories that I didn't think passed, however most of them were very close to passing but one or two things pushed them over the edge. Overall the article was very good and I think it can easily become a good article in no time. Here are my suggestions to make that happen:

  • There were some problems the article encountered with regard to the manual of style. Most things were excellent, but a few sections (Recent events especially) need to have more wikilinks.
  • The layout of the sections could be better. Athletics should have its own section, the student activities should be coupled under broader headings (Other publications don't need their own heading for a one sentence description. Consider removing sub-sub-headings for Student media (meaning remove Williams Record, the radio station, etc under that sub section) and streamlining all campus media into a few concise paragraphs. This leads me to my next point...
  • The article is at times not focused enough. Sections like Williams Record go into unnecessary details such as "To maintain its independent status, the Record relies on revenue generated by local and national ad sales, subscriptions, and voluntary contributions for use of its website". This doesn't seem to be particularly important. It might be if the Record started this trend or is known for it, but almost every newspaper does this and readers can find out this information via a wikilink to either college newspaper or newspapers. Check every section for this unfocused information. Pretend you are a reader not familiar with Williams. What info will be useful to you?
And by whose exact Point of View, and needs, and interest, is "focus" defined? Does "useful to you", here, mean "useful to the audience (potential readers)," or "useful to the Wikipedia Project?" KenThomas (talk) 08:25, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
  • The article takes a rather shocking turn with regard to references. The first half of the article is horribly under-referenced. Various claims (especially in the lead like "Williams is the second oldest college in Massachusetts. According to current and many past U.S. News and World Report rankings, Williams is the #1 liberal arts college in the United States" need two separate references but aren't referenced at all. I know the US News info is cited later in the article but every time that statistic is presented it needs a source. Any claim that is potentially controversial, uses a statistic, or is quoted needs a reference. The second half of the article does a superb job of providing these, but the first half needs a lot of work.
Are you seriously asserting that there is any question that Williams is the second oldest chartered college in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts? This is poppycock: WikiPedia's so-called "verifiability rules," instead of requiring actual verifiability by a neutral definintion, place the (work) burden of verification on submitters. Shall I provide the King's record of the charter for you, so the WikiPedia project can solicit more funding? Do the research yourselves, or compensate your contributors for their work, but stop disguising the criteria for inclusion as "neutrality" and "verifiability" when in fact the criteria is "you verify it for Wikipedia, or we censor you." KenThomas (talk) 07:44, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Furthermore, references could be (but don't have to be for GA status) better cited in the References section. Consider using citation templates to give more information including date, publisher, author, etc. This would make the article a lot better. I know some sources already have a few bits of info, but they can always be expanded.
  • I'm not sure that the sources used in the article are verifiable. For statistics and information that is descriptive about the university's campus or history it's OK to take from Williams sources, but I think the article relies to heavily on sources from williams.edu. Try to find external references from newspapers, online journals, or even other university websites.
Does this mean that Harvard and Stanford (etc) prevail because they can pay to be represented in external sources, but not smaller institutions? Does Wikipedia's Point of View only represent those who can pay to be published? KenThomas (talk) 08:25, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I wasn't sure if the article had original research or not because the information in question wasn't cited. Once you put those references in I think it will be clearer.
  • The article could be more broad. The capital campaign section could be its own primary section about budgeting, endowment, development, capital, and fundraising. This is one of the important aspects of university articles that is rarely touched on. However, it's important to include and should be easy to find since Williams has a very large endowment. Also, there is very little information about the academic structure itself. What schools does the university have? Is there only one liberal arts school? Is there an engineering school? Does it offer doctorate programs? This can all be included in an expanded Academics section.
Williams is not a University... etc. That anyone who could write the above naive farce, is given authority to pass judgment on the quality of the Williams College article, ... reveals exactly how ludicrous, confused and weak the claims and foundations of the Wikipedia Project are. "Is there an engineering school...?" This is fair question for a high-schooler (if that), but absurd for an "editor" of an "encyclopedic" "publication": allowing the purely ignorant to pass judgment on the "quality" of "facts" they themselves have no capacity to verify... is purely fraud. KenThomas (talk) 08:14, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


  • The Distinguishing features section should be integrated into the rest of the article. School colors and mascot can go under the new athletics section and alma mater can be included in the alumni section. Campus landmarks can also be expanded to simply Campus and should touch on the setting of the university (rural, urban, what is the landscape, what is the structure?). Recent events can also be integrated into the rest of the article. New construction can go under the campus section, the capital campaign can go under budget and fundraising, and the house system can also go under campus.

That's pretty much everything I saw. The article needs some work, but with a few structural changes and some new references I think it's well on its way to GA status. Let me know if you have any questions or need clarification on anything! I'm part of the University WikiProject too, so I can help. Also feel free to take a peek at other University Good articles. —Noetic Sage 22:47, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

'Your' asserted judgment via criteria for a (so-called) "NPOV" (etc) article is, alas, entirely corrupted by the limited perspective and needs of the Wikipedia project (and largely, of its economic underpinnings). To rewrite the Williams article according to these criteria would censor and omit all that is unique and valuable about Williams under the falsehood of Wikipedia's asserted "neutrality"-- which is in fact only the Wikipedia's Project's particular, highly self-interested and deceptive, Point of View-- "the cult of Jimmy Wales." KenThomas (talk) 07:56, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Comments on "Highly Selective"

Do other editors think that it is appropriate to have the phrase "highly selective" in the opening line of the article? That seems to me to be a very subjective statement. Even if it is a universally accepted idea, it would seem to me to be more encyclopedic to just give the data and let the reader reach the conclusion that the university is highly selective on his or her own. It's just like if the Hitler article started out by calling him "controversial", "bad", or "notorious". No matter how accepted those statements are, it would be better that the facts in the article demonstrate those claims rather than actually using those words. Chicken Wing (talk) 21:49, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Seems fine to me. In the context of US College admissions, "selectivity" refers to both how few students and college accepts, how many accepted students choose that school, and how many other elite schools those students were (or would have been) accepted it. By any measure along those lines, Williams is one of the most (top 10) selective schools in the country. If you have a different definition of "selective," then provide it. If you think that by this (or some other) definition, Williams is not "highly" then argue that. David.Kane (talk) 18:09, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
The point isn't to disprove that Williams College is highly selective. The point is that the statement fails to follow Wikipedia policy.[1] The term "highly selective" is not encyclopedic. It's hard for me to believe that I could open any print encyclopedia and find it refer to any college as "highly selective". Chicken Wing (talk) 19:43, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
I think "highly selective" should be replaced (both for Williams College and Amherst College). Chicken Wing refers to the policy of presenting facts rather than subjective conclusions. But as David Kane has pointed out, "highly selective", is not a subjective statement about the college, it is merely an objective fact. Readers can decide from the facts if they think Williams is an elite school or a good school, but it's objectively "highly selective". This seems encyclopedic to me. Npdoty (talk) 06:54, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

To repeat, what is not factual about "highly selective?" First, "highly" is just an adjective. Once you admit that Williams is "selective," then you are pretty much forced to admit that, among the colleges that might be called "selective," it is in the top 5%, if not 1%. And there can be no doubt that Williams is selective. Moreover, I have now found a neutral citation. See the | Re-accreditation Report. They (page 25) refer to Williams as having one of the "most highly selective student bodies in the country." So, if an outside body in a formal report refers to Williams as "highly selective," I think that we are on fairly safe ground. I would add this as a footnote to the article, but I have never figured out Wikipedia's footnote usage. David.Kane (talk) 17:20, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

A third-party source stating something doesn't make it encyclopedic. Statistics would be encyclopedic. Adjectives (and in this case, adverbs) are by their very nature, not very encyclopedic. I'm sure we could find third party sources to say that George W. Bush is "very" retarded or that Adolph Hitler was "really" bad, but that doesn't make those claims encyclopedic. "Highly selective" just reads like a bragging rights claim for a prestigious school. Chicken Wing (talk) 22:53, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
You need "statistics?" Fine. How about a 16% admissions rate? US News rates Williams the 2nd most selective liberal arts college in the country. If you think that the article needs to cite these statistics, feel free to cite them. David.Kane (talk) 00:51, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
I've re-added "highly selective" on this page and at Amherst College and added a citation to the US News rankings, in hopes that this compromise will satisfy all parties. Npdoty (talk) 06:48, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
I still can't imagine ever opening an encyclopedia and seeing it refer to a school as "highly selective", just because that's not how encyclopedias are written. It's not the proper tone for an encyclopedia. But, it's not worth it to fight it. Chicken Wing (talk) 04:18, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree that this phrase should not be in the article, not only because it is not encyclopedia language, but also because the numbers don't suggest Williams is "highly selective". It maybe "selective," but certainly not highly so. The acceptance rate is more than double that of some other schools (Princeton, Stanford, etc.). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.232.115.207 (talk) 19:27, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
The citations we've given above (and the citation for the claim in the article) note that Williams is the second most selective liberal arts college in the nation (out of 100 or so). I'm sure there are American universities with considerably lower acceptance rates, and I suspect that there are graduate programs or educational fellowships with acceptance rates a good deal lower than Stanford's undergraduate acceptance rate. I think it makes sense to quantify its selectivity over all the liberal arts colleges, would you disagree? Npdoty (talk) 23:08, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
I think that highly selective would be subject to ALL colleges, not just the liberal arts... It should at least say highly selective when compared to other liberal arts colleges or something like that. But whatever, this article was probably all written by rich egotistical snobs who went to Williams, so if it makes them feel good about themselves, might as well leave it in. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.232.115.207 (talk) 13:21, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Efs

says this is pronounced /eefs/, which is not English. can someone correct it? I have no idea what it's supposed to mean. — kwami (talk) 01:01, 1 April 2008 (UTC)