Wikipedia talk:WikiProject University of Oxford/Archive 8

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Rating of Importance

Latest comment: 5 years ago11 comments3 people in discussion

Has there been any discussion of which articles are within the scope of WikiProject University of Oxford and how to rate them on the project's importance scale? If so please could somebody link me to it? Are the importance ratings used by the project or are they too subjective to be useful? The article statistics show 54% of articles are unrated (5,550 out of 10,191). I have read the general guidance at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Release_Version_Criteria#Importance_of_topic.81.86.211.166 (talk) 11:36, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

I don't remember anything formal. Some of the informal principles I have intuited from practice are (1) for institutions Top level for all colleges and high profile institutions (e.g. Bodleian), High level for departments, Mid level for sub-departments, institutes, and sub-pages of colleges; (2) for people Top level for almost nobody except perhaps Chancellor and VC, High level for major internal figures and really major alumni, Mid level for most internal figures and major alumni, Low level for other internal figures and general alumni. A lot of articles are rated too high (I have just taken a couple down but it would take ages to do all of them). Jonathan A Jones (talk) 15:29, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Oh and your recent edits mostly look about right, except that Fergus Millar should be Mid as a living holder of a highly prestigious statutory chair. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 15:34, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

@Jonathan A Jones:, Thank you for your advice. I have some further questions and a comment, let me know if you are not the best person to ask, (or just too busy).

1) A lot of the Unrated articles were tagged by a bot as in scope with Importance=Unrated in December 2009. Would it be possible to message the project community to rerate any unrated articles that should be Mid and above and then get a bot to rate the remainder as Low?

2) What did you mean by a highly prestigious statutory chair? I see the Camden chair is 17th century, but all oxford chairs are prestigious. Is there a way to tell if a professor is statutory or not? Some departmental websites seem to have this information, while others do not.

3) I have been defaulting to Low for unrated internal figures and alumni, but will take on board any suggestions. It would be an interesting exercise to compile lists of High and Mid level internal figures and alumni and update the project flags accordingly, but at present the selection is somewhat random. I have made a spreadsheet of the project articles as at 11 September and High importance contains around 10 internal figures and 11 alumni and Mid contains around 133 internal figures and 107 alumni. I have not analysed the Low and unrated articles for obvious reasons.81.86.211.166 (talk) 08:57, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

As you can see the project is very quiet at the moment (it has been much more active in the past) so hoping for much to get done by other members seems a little optimisitic. I'll try to answer your specific questions though. (1) Trying to tell the nature of a Chair is a bit tricky these days unless you have good local knowledge. Compared with ten years ago the number of Professors has vastly increased because of (a) the introduction of Titles of Distinction, which meant that many University Lecturers became Titular Professors, (b) the change of the main academic grade at Oxford from University Lecturer to Associate Professor, with Titular Professors now becoming Titular Full Professors, and (c) the recent appointment of large numbers of researchers on the RS4 grade, which are in effect Personal Full Professorships. As a consequence almost all the permanent staff are some sort of Professor these days. The Statutory Chairs are much rarer (about 200of them) but it can be hard to tell them from the more common positions. The most prestigious ones are likely to have their own articles such as the Camden Professor of Ancient History, but there's also a list at List of professorships at the University of Oxford which seems to be taken from [1].

It's not easy to come up with rules for High/Mid/Low but as a start I would suggest that for alumni anyone listed on the main page at University of Oxford#Notable alumni should normally be Mid or High, while for current staff any holder of a Regius Chair or any chair with its own article, plus any Head of House, should be normally be Mid. Ordinary staff members should just be low, as should other alumni. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 14:19, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

@Jonathan A Jones:, As the project is quiet I would prefer to rate articles in line with the existing rated articles, to keep the priciples simple and classify most articles as Low.

Your principles (1) for institutions seem to have largely been followed, but in practice the levels for people are (2) High level for exceptional internal figures and alumni, Mid level for really major internal figures and really major alumni, Low level for other internal figures and alumni. Rating all Heads of House and all prominent chairs as Mid would be a change from what has been done so far and require more maintenance to keep up to date when heads and professors retire.81.86.211.166 (talk) 15:14, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Before embarking on a lot of work you should ask yourselves if ratings are really worth the trouble at all. They are really only useful if they tie in to a grid by importance and quality, and people then go through them to improve high importance but low quality ones. Generally I'd suggest only up to 50 at Top & maybe 150 at High rating. Below that it hardly matters. Otherwise the whole system is just a distraction from actually improving articles. Having "Air Chief Marshal Sir Christopher Neil Foxley-Norris" at Mid is fairly ridiculous, but so what? Johnbod (talk) 15:34, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Basically agree: I get far more worried about Top and High than about Mid and Low. The sugested article counts also sounds about right. I need to take another look at the The Encyclopaedia of Oxford, which provides a useful physical example of an admittedly personal assessment. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 16:28, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

@Jonathan A Jones: and @Johnbod:, that suggests that the answer to one of my original questions "Are the importance ratings used by the project" might be "not much". My initial thought was that the grid would look tidier if a bot could rate all the 5,000 unrated articles as Low, but even that would be a low priority if the grid is little used.81.86.211.166 (talk) 16:13, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

I would imagine its not very relevant to the vast majority of articles, which are alumni bios. But it might be useful for articles directly about the Uni, if anyone uses a grid as a tool for giving editing priorities. That wouldn't be me, but might be someone. Johnbod (talk) 16:25, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

I can imagine using the Top/High ratings to guide me to articles that need work; indeed I have even done that once or twice in the past when I really had nothing better to do. But not below that. And there's no need to ping me every time you say something: I watch this page so will know what is going on. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 16:31, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Pamela Sue Anderson

Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

The present Wikipedia entry on PSA has the warning that it is too basic and, if nobody expands it, it will soon be erased. I believe that, from 2001 to 2017, when PSA was an Oxford academic she was quite representative of the teaching and research staff of the university. Furthermore several remarks on the Oxford academic life (for example, whether female students are at a disadvantage when compared with their male colleagues) are found in interviews and documents left behind by PSA. I have no experience nor time for drafting a presentation more substantial than the present version of PSA's entry. All I could do is put together a number of URLs that can be utilized by someone wishing to do the job. Those URLs are stored in a section of the talk page of PSA's page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hdjf3 (talk • contribs) 01:42, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Roger Bannister images

Latest comment: 5 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Hi - could if somebody is around Oxford and able to take some quality pictures of the Roger Bannister running track on Iffley Road and the collection of his trophies in Pembroke that would be very appreciated! Currently working on Roger Bannister at User:Ostrichyearning3/rb if anyone has any suggestions. cheers, Ostrichyearning3 (talk) 13:48, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Hdjf3 (talk) 02:13, 27 November 2018 (UTC)== Entry on the late Pamela Sue Anderson (PSA for short) ==

Requested move

Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Oriental Institute, Oxford that may need your input. Please come and help. Thank you in advance! Paine Ellsworth, ed. ^put'r there 19:46, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Category:Fellows of former colleges and halls of the University of Oxford

Latest comment: 4 years ago2 comments1 person in discussion

I have started a discussion on merging Category:Fellows_of_former_colleges_and_halls_of_the_University_of_Oxford into Category:Former_colleges_and_halls_of_the_University_of_Oxford. Please contribute if you are interested.TSventon (talk) 10:10, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

On a related topic, I have requested a move from New Inn Hall to New Inn Hall, Oxford, see Requesting technical moves#Uncontroversial_technical_requests. TSventon (talk) 11:18, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool

Latest comment: 4 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.

We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:25, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

RFC at Oscar Wilde

Latest comment: 4 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

There's an RFC underway at Talk:Oscar Wilde:

What is the best option for the lead image (See MOS:LEADIMAGE)?

Your participation would be welcome! Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 17:57, 27 April 2020 (UTC)