Talk:Life University/Archive 1

Archive 1

Overlinking

As with many things here at Wikipedia, various interpretations of proper linking practices exist. There is no single and absolute rule that governs in all situations. My reversion of overlinking here was done to clean up the article and make it easier to read. None of the dates, as they were written, were of special significance, and linking them contributed nothing to the content of the article.

My reasoning was primarily based on this article on Overlinking. Other thoughts on the matter can be found here, regarding Avoid overlinking dates.

The reasoning in the links above becomes obvious when one looks at the article with and without the overlinking. The difference in readability is striking! -- Fyslee 20:31, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't agree that there's overlinking of dates going on here, though. From the article, overlinking occurs primarily when there's only a partial date to be linked (i.e. the year only, or maybe the month and the year). Thus, there are an abundance of links on the page for little or no servicable reason. This arguably is not the case where complete dates are given. The date preferences work only when month, date, and year are linked (in whatever order). Without that link, the date preferences become useless, and the reader is forced into the conventions of the editor.

That said, the editor aiming to improve upon the readability of the article might do well to eliminate broken and otherwise useless links in this article. I've removed links to Sid Williams, as the subject of that link is likely not to become notable enough to warrant a separate article; Council on Chiropractic Education, as there is no article currently in place for that subject; and the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, as the value of that article is highly tangential to the subject matter at hand. I also removed the intrawiki link to the controversy section, as I'm sure all can agree that a link which merely skips over a scarce paragraph of text is hardly useful. Please advise if this, alternatively, improves the article's readability. -- SwissCelt 21:39, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

It looks better. What about the dates? What usefulness is achieved by linking them? Maybe this is an area of special interest for some Wikipedians, which I don't understand as yet....;-) Enlighten me, please! -- Fyslee 23:02, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

It's not so much the ability to click on the dates, hyperlinking to articles about those dates, as it is what the MediaWiki software does to dates when they're hyperlinked. You may note that in the United States, dates are commonly given in month day, year format: E.g. February 12, 2006. However, in Europe, the convention is day month year, with no commas: 12 February 2006. A few Americans (including yours truly) prefer this convention as well, as I'm sure some Europeans (including some Britons) prefer the American convention. Wikifying the dates does this automatically for us, depending upon how our date preferences are set. Now if we can only have some way of automatically displaying the neighbor/neighbour convention.... ;-) -- SwissCelt 00:19, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Link to Proboards forum site

Links to forum site are typically never allowed. However, a number of editors (or one with sockpuppet accounts) keep inserting a link here to a forum site stating that the information found there cannot be found anywhere else. My question is, what information is of such a value to our encyclopedia that it justifies a link to it? Levine2112 19:46, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Poor arguements. 63.17.56.54 19:50, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I didn't make an argument...I only cited Wikipedia policy. You need to justify what info on this Proboards site you think can't be found anywhere else and thus makes this forum a valuable link here. Otherwise it will be deleted. Levine2112 19:53, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

You didn't make an arguement. Your arguements are poor. 63.17.56.54 20:01, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia external linking policy typically prohibits links to forum sites. Please repsond preciselty why this one should be allowable. Levine2112 20:04, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Your arguements are poor. Get a life. 63.17.56.54 20:08, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Okay folks, brace yourselves! I am one of six admins at Chirotalk, and even I do not consider it a reliable site (in the Wikipedia sense) to use as an external link here. It is clearly a discussion forum, and such links are not allowed here, except if there was an article about it here (which was tried by someone at one time).

So, 63.17.56.54 (apparently a skeptic), I'll have to disappoint you and support Levine2112 (a chiropractic supporter) on this one, in spite of the fact that I'm very much a skeptic. We're writing an encyclopedia here, and even skeptic sites need to be evaluated case by case. Sometimes they are okay, and sometimes not. I can understand any suspicions you may have as to the motives of a chiropractic supporter who removes such a link, but in this case he actually has Wikipedia policies on his side, unlike at other times, where his POV is the dominant factor. Read WP:EL.

Levine2112, we need to talk about your deletions of links to some Quackwatch articles. I actually support a couple of them. I would be more than happy to help you evaluate their appropriateness. I don't give them all blanket approval as links here. That way I might be able to support you, as I'm doing here. I think we can cooperate on this one.

Conclusion: Chirotalk is not suitable in this case. -- Fyslee (First law) 20:16, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for piping in, Fyslee. And I apreciate yhour candor. For clarification, I too am a skeptic. I subscribe to the scientific skeptical way of thinking -- in that I need scientific evidence in order to accept something as truth. Also, I am not trying to do a blanket deletion of all Quackwatch links throughout Wikipedia... I am only deleting ones that are to articles that are baseless, making unsupported attacks rather than scientifically sound arguments against, and stating unverifiable opinions as facts (which could very well mislead the reader). This is similar to linking to a Bolen article which makes a "libelous" statement and presents it as fact. I certainly would appreciate more of your help in this respect. thanks. Levine2112 20:22, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Fine. Bring them to my talk page and we can look at them. Even I have deleted Quackwatch links that have been improperly placed! -- Fyslee (First law) 20:29, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

You know I will! (Or we can discuss on each of the plethora of articles where links to Quackwatch have been added. In general, Quackwatch is way too partisan of a site to be deemed reliable. However, I know that can vary article-by-article on Quackwatch (depending on the author and the kind of research which was used and made in the authors's assessment). Thanks again. Levine2112 20:39, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Re-arranged article

I re-arranged some things in this article to establish a flow that introduced the college and it's programs before the controvesial stuff. I don't think I cut out anything important. If I did, feel free to put it back in. -- Dēmatt (chat) 21:20, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Nice work! Levine2112 21:56, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Infobox

This article needs an infobox. I tried putting this in the project tags but I can't figure it out.Moonraker0022 (talk) 18:26, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Blanking

Editors, as you are noting, a lot of vandals are blanking this article. What can be done to protect the content?~~AB

Restore and make them discuss here. Undiscussed edits need not be respected. Note that 3RR doesn't apply to obvious vandalism, and blanking is vandalism. -- Brangifer (talk) 02:39, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Recent edits to #History

Most of the material added is unsourced, or sourced only to Dr. Barrett at chirobase.org, which may not meet our standards for reliable sources, especially per WP:BLP, as many of the people named are living. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:34, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Furthermore, the accreditation controversy should be moved to the #Accreditation section, to the extent verifiable. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:37, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

This is really tricky. It's hard to maintain the flow of the history and loss of accreditation which are so important in understanding the place. The prior article was awful, completely ignored the institution's troubled history. It read like an ad from the Life U admissions office. We need to do better. --ab —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abotnick (talk • contribs) 22:54, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Wow, big improvement there. People won't like it but it's true. --AB —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abotnick (talk • contribs) 04:53, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Some advice. Make sure you are using good sources, and as much as possible provide URLs. Keep the language more neutral and avoid fluffy language, either pro or con. No editorializing. Just let the facts speak for themselves. The story does need to be told, so do it carefully. Always log in and always sign your comments. -- Brangifer (talk) 02:43, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you Brangifer. I did attempt to keep the writing neutral. Please let me know if there are any sections that need additional work. I did add the remaining missing citations except for the blurb about the school being the largest chiropractic school in the country. I didn't write that so I'll let whoever wrote it dig that one up. ~~AB —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abotnick (talk • contribs) 05:19, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Remember to sign your comments with FOUR tildes. -- Brangifer (talk) 14:13, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Will do. Thanks Abotnick (talk) 14:38, 8 October 2009 (UTC)AB

RS/N comment about Life University situation

Note section there. -- Brangifer (talk) 20:16, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

In addition, additional third party ref's of any sort are needed. right now only the rugby section is referenced to a decent third party source. the others are primary sources (which are ok, but not great) and the school website (self-published, not good). --Rocksanddirt (talk) 23:12, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Reverting to prior version

I have reverted the article to its version of 21:58, 20 September 2009. Far too much of the added content is unrelated to the university itself, and negative statements about people and the college are poorly sourced. Editors should familiarize themselves with undue weight and other related neutrality issues, as well as the need to provide substantial references from reliable sources for any significant statement, or one that is likely to be questioned. In particular, the biography of living persons policy applies to material relating to living people regardless of where it appears in the encyclopedia.

There is a good likelihood this article can be expanded and improved. The results of the edits in the last two weeks, however, did not meet Wikipedia content policies. Risker (talk) 21:53, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Is Riskier an editor? his comments are not specific to the items deleted and constitute Blanking. list and discuss changes. the accreditation history of this institution is relevant, as it's beliefs and present teaching violations. reverted.Abotnick (talk) 23:45, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Waiting to discuss per Brangifer's comment. Waiting for policy on official correspondence from governmentment agencies and institutions. Please flag article that neutrality is being disputed due to omitted content.Abotnick (talk) 00:14, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Not that it should make any difference (any editor's comments should be respected), but Risker is quite qualified to do what he did and to even indef ban you on the spot if you aren't very careful. You should have clicked on his sig and checked out who he was before responding. Risker's status and powers are: "WP:ABUSEFILTER, WP:CHECKUSER, WP:OVERSIGHT, WP:SYSOP, 12972 edits since: 2005-12-27". Risker is a sort of "super administrator" and is in a very trusted position. Very few individuals at Wikipedia rank higher. I suggest you respond here and discuss things before doing anymore editing on this article. You have received gentle warnings here and on your talk page, but you have instead proceeded to edit without learning policies. You're skating on very thin ice. Do your homework. That means (1) clicking on ALL the links that have been provided to you on this page and your talk page, (2) studying that content very diligently, and THEN (3) altering your behavior accordingly, even if it hurts. You no doubt have questions, so ask them here and Risker will likely answer some of them, but don't expect Risker to do your homework for you. Questions that show too much evidence of shoddy homework will only cause the noose around your neck to tighten. -- Brangifer (talk) 00:18, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh my. BullRangifer, please don't put too much emphasis on what else I do around here besides edit, this reversion to prior form wasn't intended to demonstrate my standing within the community, and certainly any of my content edits are open to discussion. Some of the issues I saw before reverting: lots of minimally sourced information about living people, referring to some as "Soandso, aka Suchandsuch" (a red flag for BLP issues), an extreme focus on "DE" without any direct link to its relationship to the university, and massive block quoting (at times out of context). As I indicate above, there is some useful information in amongst this that probably belongs in the article. Time to sort the wheat from the chaff. ¶I expect to have quite limited editing time in the coming week or two (I am supposed to be on a wikibreak), but I have asked others to also help in sorting out what proposed additions are useful, well sourced, and focused on the university. ¶Erm, and just for the record, I'm a "she". :-) Risker (talk) 06:12, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Please excuse me for bragging for you. I'm just a fan ;-) My apologies dear lady, and my long-standing respect for your work here is by no means lessened thereby. On the contrary! Respect. Of course your status here shouldn't make any difference, as I started by saying. Ultimately it's the edits, application of policies, and collaborative work that should count most. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:44, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

I think there is a problem with the types of sources accepted by Wikipedia in that verifiable, reliable sources are being rejected. In this case it is rejecting reliable, verifiable sources that may be the only referenceable sources in a matter. For example, the matter of student complaints. Life University has no state overseeing agency and the CCE accreditor has a written policy that all complaints are confidential. The school itself wrote to the CCE accreditor asking not even to address my complaint on the grounds that I could potentially litigate against them in the future. Another problem with litigation is that they usually seek to seal judgments. So there is no transparency. Moreover, as the article about false advertising at Life University and most other chiropractic colleges shows, they actively misrepresent and puff up their statements to sway students into attending. Life is unique that in addition to this they went beyond and pulled a bait and switch by promising to teach differential diagnosis and then teaching the false diagnosis system. I tried to break through their efforts to cover up these problems but the rejection of the references here is restoring the shield and helping them mislead students to believe that the school will give them a quality education when the reality is that legally, they can not comply with the CCE regulations but CCE is permitting this to happen there and most likely at other chiropractic schools so much of their standards are sham. I disagree that the sources are not verifiable. In my opinion, the problem is that the editors are not doing their legwork in verifying them. In its present form the article's summary is grossly inaccurate due to ommissions. I'll follow the editors use of my contributions and comment if it seems appropriate. Risker and Brangifer be aware that in the articles present form it misprepresents the school. I think one of the policies discussing references talked about the problem. What wikipedia seeks is a concensus of major groups rather than to get to the truth of the matter. Risker the comment on your page about seeking to find out if something is true is very ironic in this case in that you have blanked out the most important information about this school and put students at risk by telling them about its rugby program while the real iceberg of problems lies below the surface uncovered. Given your limitations, I may have to get the article published elsewhere so it can be cited here. Also, why is there no neutrality warning?Abotnick (talk) 14:47, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Abotnick, what I gather (mostly by reading between the lines) is that you have evidence that this institution has a history of fraud, and has at some time lost its accreditation from some accrediting body. The latter happens at an unfortunate number of institutions for a great variety of reasons, sometimes nefarious, sometimes careless, and sometimes related to academic underachievement. Sometimes accreditation can be lost when key faculty leave. (For example, this can happen when a program in dietetics loses its only instructor who is also a Registered Dietitian. They will lose their ADA accreditation.) Remember that there are many accrediting bodies. Losing accreditation from one accrediting body is, IMO, not in itself worthy of an encyclopedic article describing the institution. It could easily lose balance from being focused on the institution to being focused on the faults of an institution. (Describe -- don't persuade.) Far more important, IMO, is a list of accreditations the institution currently holds. Past mistakes sometimes get rectified to the satisfaction of the accrediting body, and accreditation is restored. And if a university or college is only accredited by institutes with poor reputations, the list of accreditations alone speaks volumes about the school.

If there is some sort of widespread and ongoing fraud at a university, the first thing to do is to have it investigated. (It sounds like you've taken steps here.) This can be civil or criminal, or it can involve any organization that has any kind of oversight (funding agencies, accrediting bodies, governmental agencies, etc). If there is a public finding of wrongdoing, then you have your source. If not, which seems to be the case (if I'm filling in the blanks correctly), then it is simply not encyclopedic content.

I am a neuroscientist with a PhD in nutrition. Believe me, I'm no fan of chiropractic colleges. I see them mostly as purveyors of widespread fraudulent information. But if I want to give evidence for that, I need to go to a forum where that kind of debate is appropriate. Encyclopedic articles are not a place for those arguments, particularly to the extent that they are based on one person's experience with one institution.

If there are prominent persons who are alumni of this institution, and they speak publicly about fraud or deception, then their statements can be used as source material. I.e., "Alumna Mary Smith said in an article published in the June 17 issue of the Journal of Whacky People that 'Freakshow University is nothing but a fraud!'" Otherwise, I think you have to let it go. Or at least not try to prove your case in the article. Good luck. Dcs002 (talk) 03:41, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Be Bold?

Removed now really dated section on "controversy" as the school has been under totally new direction and management since then and it's nearly ten years since the issue over accreditation. The whole controversy was really not a big deal even then, and keeping this only serves to denigrate a University trying to fulfill its mission, to educate doctors. And, BTW: I have personally never been a great fan of this institution... so no prejudicial opinions here. ^Д-р_{СДжП,ДС} 23:54, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

External links modified

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• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070427022849/http://www.life.edu/Press_Room/2007_April_rugby_ranked1.asp to http://www.life.edu/Press_Room/2007_April_rugby_ranked1.asp

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This looks like a puff piece for Life University. I suspect critical information has been removed.

Perhaps restore previous versions? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Outlawyr (talk • contribs) 16:27, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Which version are you thinking? I just gave it another re-read and it's strikingly neutral compared to what I was expecting. Maybe a couple peacock words which I'll remove now. SEMMENDINGER (talk) 16:35, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Question on Edits

Hey, @Justlettersandnumbers:, a couple of those big edits makes the page now read incorrectly. For instance; "The university is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award associate, bachelor, master's and doctoral degrees in chiropractic studies.[2]" As far as I'm aware, there is no such thing as a bachelors or masters in chiropractic in America. So that sentence now doesn't make sense. Before, it referred to the fact that Life is credentialed to give degrees in Bach, Mast, and Doct of various disciplines. I understand the rest of that section was built on primary sources... but so are most small university pages. Primary sources, while not ideal, at least help keep the information accurate if there's nothing better. The lead "Life University is a private university focused on training chiropractors and located in Marietta, Georgia." also makes no reference to the fact that the school is a University and therefore offers degrees in multiple disciplines, many with no relation to chiropractic. Also, why change from a university infobox? Please advise. SEMMENDINGER (talk) 00:01, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Just taking another look, especially at the now-removed section that outlined Academics, I am very hard pressed to find a single college on Wikipedia that uses anything other than a primary source to explain this section. I'm trying to see if I can salvage what remains of this page, but something like academic offerings is not likely a topic to be covered in a third party source. And I know WP:OTHERCONTENT isn't a great argument, but for goodness sakes, even Harvard University uses primary sources to reference its academics section (and... a lot of the rest of the page too). We could cut out large chunks of every university page on Wikipedia if we followed what was done here. @ElKevbo:, would love your input if possible, you're much better with these pages than I am, and I'm aware I could be completely wrong here. SEMMENDINGER (talk) 12:28, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

It's perfectly okay to use self-published sources to support uncontroversial claims about a subject. In articles about colleges and universities, particularly the "Academics" section, it's ordinary to reference materials published by the subject to support basic claims such as number and kind of degree programs, number of faculty, etc. On the other hand, claims about extraordinary topics - well-regarded programs, famous faculty members, especially prominent departments, etc. - should be support by sources that are independent of the institution.

Does that help? ElKevbo (talk) 18:52, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Perfect, thanks. Good to know for the future. SEMMENDINGER (talk) 19:48, 2 April 2021 (UTC)