Talk:Dartmouth College fraternities and sororities/GA1


GA Review

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:  

First of all, let me say that I love all the effort that was put into the images, it really makes the article shine! There are a few problems, however, that need to be addressed before I would feel comfortable promoting this to GA status.

  1. The biggest and most obvious problem is citations. Since the majority of this information is not "common knowledge" and could be potentially challenged, there needs to be a lot more citations throughout this article. Here's a list of statements that require citations:

I think all of these concerns have been addressed. I took the liberty of adding some subheading of sorts to make it easier to track the comments in the article.--Kharker 21:08, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Fraternities

  • "All of the surviving fraternities closed for the duration of World War II, as the campus was largely (although not exclusively) used to educate, train, and house Navy sailors and Marines being prepared for combat." (Expansion of the fraternity system)
Cited.--Kharker 15:10, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
  • "Notable alumni of the chapter include National Football League all-star Reggie Williams, class of 1976, and current Executive Vice President of Baseball Operations in Major League Baseball, Jimmie Lee Solomon, class of 1978." (Alpha Phi Alpha (ΑΦΑ))
Cited.--Kharker 21:07, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
  • "Renovations on the Alpha Chi Alpha physical plant were completed in fall, 2004; the new Alpha Chi Alpha building is able to house twenty-one resident brothers." (Alpha Chi Alpha (ΑΧΑ))
Edited, cited.--Kharker 21:07, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
  • "The brothers of Bones Gate strive to live by their credo of welcoming friends to their house: "This Gate Hangs High and Hinders None. Refresh, Enjoy and Travel On."" (Bones Gate (BG))
Cited.--Kharker 21:07, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
  • The second half of Gamma Delta Chi (ΓΔΧ)
Cited.--Kharker 21:07, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
  • "Theta Delta Chi has several distinguished alumni, including Robert Frost, who attended Dartmouth for a time in 1892." (Theta Delta Chi (ΘΔΧ))
Cited.--Kharker 21:07, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
  • "Notable alumni of the chapter include the United States Secretary of the Treasury Henry M. Paulson, Jr., class of 1968, and benefactor to Dartmouth College Barry MacLean, class of 1960." (Sigma Alpha Epsilon (ΣΑΕ))
Cited.--Kharker 21:07, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
  • "In the summer of 2007, the Sigma Nu residence underwent significant structural renovations to bring the building up to the College's Minimum Standards and improve living facilities. Improvements included an enclosed fire escape running from the basement to the third floor, a redone kitchen and bathroom, new flooring, a new study room, and alterations to bedrooms." (Sigma Nu (ΣΝ))
Cited.--Kharker 21:07, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
  • "Members of Sigma Phi Epsilon become brothers the moment they sink their bids, without having to endure a traditional pledge period. A prominent alumnus of the New Hampshire Alpha chapter is Theodore S. Geisel, class of 1925, better known as "Dr. Seuss" (Sigma Phi Epsilon (ΣΦΕ)) — also, this part somewhat fails to state the obvious, in that people unfamiliar with fraternities wouldn't understand the term "the moment they sink their bids" (unless you explained that in the lead, in which case ignore this comments — it's been a while since I was at the lead of this article. Haha.)
Edited, cited.--Kharker 18:43, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
  • "Current General Electric Chief Executive Officer, Jeffrey Immelt, class of 1978, is a former president of Phi Delta Alpha." (Phi Delta Alpha (ΦΔΑ))
Cited.--Kharker 18:43, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
  • The second half of Chi Heorot (ΧH)
Cited.--Kharker 18:43, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Sororities

  • Anything in the opener of Sororities that isn't mentioned and cited elsewhere in the article
Edited, cited. Removed the sentence about house ownership - difficult to prove in a single citation, not really that important anyway.--Kharker 19:30, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
  • "In its short time at Dartmouth, Alpha Xi Delta has graduated a Rhodes Scholar and multiple Fulbright Scholars. Alpha Xi Delta embraces its national affiliation for its progressive ideals, strong sisterhood, and promotion of achievement through the "Realize Your Potential" campaign." (Alpha Xi Delta (ΑΞΔ))
Edited, cited. I couldn't easily find a reference for the Fulbright Scholars claim, so I removed it.--Kharker 19:30, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
  • "Because no national association currently exists for Native American cultural interest fraternities or sororities, Epsilon Chapter associates locally with the National Association of Latino Fraternal Organizations." (Alpha Pi Omega (ΑΠΩ)) — This was one of the uncited facts in the opener and it needs to be cited in one of the two places.
As it's very difficult to prove that something does not exist (even if it really doesn't), I've instead changed the wording.--Kharker 19:30, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
  • "a move that eventually precipitated the dissolution of that organizing body as other Greek organization on campus followed suit. Delta Delta Delta remains a member of the Panhellenic Council, which represents the interests of the sororities on campus." (Delta Delta Delta (ΔΔΔ))
Cited.--Kharker 19:30, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
  • "The current Epsilon Kappa Theta residence is a Victorian house over 100 years old. The organization maintains communication with both its Epsilon Kappa Theta and Kappa Alpha Theta alumnae." (Epsilon Kappa Theta (ΕΚΘ))
Cited, removed last sentence, which was not that important.--Kharker 19:30, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
  • "Despite being a young sorority, Kappa Delta Epsilon has a large membership and a number of traditions." (Kappa Delta Epsilon (ΚΔΕ))
Removed that sentence, it's contribution to the paragraph was too weak anyway.--Kharker 19:30, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Everything in Kappa Kappa Gamma (ΚΚΓ) except the already-cited first sentence.
Edited, cited. I cannot easily find a reference to support the Hannah House connection, so I've removed that sentence.--Kharker 19:30, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Coeds

  • "All three coeducational fraternities at Dartmouth own the land and residence buildings they occupy." (Coeducational fraternities)
Cited.--Kharker 20:24, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
  • "Since then, numbers have risen for both genders, striking a 50/50 gender balance by the beginning of the 21st century. Alpha Theta is best known for its Friday Night 'Tails events, Seven Deadly Sins parties, DartCON gaming conventions, and high ratio of summa cum laude and thesis writing graduates." (Alpha Theta (ΑΘ))
I just removed these sentences. They are a little too promotional, and made the paragraph overly long.--Kharker 20:24, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Defunct

  • "C. Everett Koop, class of 1938 and Surgeon General of the United States from 1982 to 1989, was a member of one of the final Alpha Sigma Phi pledge classes at Dartmouth." (Alpha Sigma Phi (ΑΣΦ))
Cited.--Kharker 21:13, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
  • "The organization was renamed Storrs House in 1970 before dissolving entirely." (Delta Kappa Epsilon (ΔΚΕ))
Cited.--Kharker 21:13, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
  • "A past president of the fraternity, Brian Dale, class of 1980, was one of the passengers on American Airlines Flight 11 that was hijacked and flown into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City during the September 11, 2001 attacks." (Harold Parmington Foundation (HPF))
Cited.--Kharker 21:13, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Other comments

  1. Just a quick question, but has this list been designed to specifically exclude non-social Greek organizations such as Phi Beta Kappa, service fraternities and sororities, honours Greek organizations etc. etc.? If so, it should be explained, perhaps in the lead, why these organizations do not fall under the scope of this article.
  1. There are no professional or service Greek organizations at Dartmouth College. There is a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, and I've expanded it's mention a bit in the history sections. The college does have "undergraduate societies", which are mentioned in several places in the article, and "senior societies". I've added a new "See also" section with links to the Wikipedia articles on Dartmouth's undergraduate societies and senior societies.--Kharker 23:09, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
  1. There should be a little footnote at the end of the History section noting which 11 Greek societies were available by 1900, so that the reader doesn't have to trawl through everything to figure out which ones they were.
  1. Done.--Kharker 23:09, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
  1. I haven't checked them all, but Ref #35 is broken, along with Refs #58 and #59.
  1. Unfortunately, The Dartmouth newspaper's web site was overhauled over the summer, and all articles prior to the overhaul are no longer available online. Previously, every article back to 1993 or so was online. I've gone through and removed the broken links.--Kharker 23:09, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
  1. There are several questionably POV statements, including:
  1. "The most famous alumnus of the Zeta chapter of Psi Upsilon is..." Degrees of fame are highly subjective... personally I may agree with you, but it should be edited slightly.
  1. Rewritten.--Kharker 23:09, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
  1. The last part of Sigma Delta (ΣΔ) bothers me a bit – my guess is because it sounds a bit like an advertising brochure (and thus non-neutral); a slight rewording would ease me a bit.
  1. Rewritten.--Kharker 23:09, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Therefore, I am putting the article on hold for a period of up to seven days, after which it may be failed without further notice. Once these changes have been made, I will review it once more, mainly for some of the smaller corrections, and alert you of any further concerns of mine. I will also go through and check all the references, to see which others (if any) are broken and to make sure all the citations match the facts that the claim to cite. Cheers, CP 03:05, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

GA Update

Excellent work thus far! I am thoroughly impressed with your commitment to improving this article and addressing my concerns, it makes my day. Tomorrow I will go through the article again and review once more, also going through the citations to make sure that they are not broken. Given your effort thus far, I suspect that the few things I might find will be addressed quickly and that I can pass it for GA — I am infinitely more confident about that than when I first reviewed the article. Also, re:The Dartmouth, I see you preempted my suggestion for dealing with the situation, another commendable effort. I don't mean to sound condescending (I'm very tired), but I really didn't expect that the work would get done before the hold expired, and I'm quite pleasantly surprised. Cheers, CP 04:38, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

  1. "Alpha Xi Delta embraces its national affiliation for its progressive ideals, strong sisterhood, and promotion of achievement through the "Realize Your Potential" campaign." (Alpha Xi Delta (ΑΞΔ)) requires a citation
I researched this a bit, and it looks like "Realize Your Potential" is not a very well documented program, and may be defunct as of a year or two ago. I found a more interesting philanthropic activity of the Dartmouth chapter to document and cite in its place.--Kharker 20:21, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
  1. To clarify a bit, when I said that the last sentence of "Delta Psi Delta (ΔΨΔ)" needed a citation, I didn't mean that you needed to cite the fact that they're not associated. Rather, I meant to say that you need to cite the fact that the other two organizations exist. Sorry for the confusion.
Cited, and I discovered another Delta Psi Delta at Linfield College.--Kharker 20:21, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
  1. Ref #69 is broken, so it should probably converted to the format you used on other TheDartmouth refs.
Oops - I guess I missed that one. Fixed it.--Kharker 20:21, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Once these three items are taken of, I will be more than happy to pass this for GA status! Thank you for your excellent work thus far! Cheers, CP 04:06, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks so much for your feedback - I know this is a long article, and I really appreciate the keen eye for detail.--Kharker 20:21, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Everything looks great and I'll be promoting the article to GA status! Congratulations and, again, thank you for all the hard work! Cheers, CP 15:08, 13 October 2007 (UTC)