Talk:Union College/Archive 1

Tone and links

The "Distinguished alumni (selected)" section has a promotional tone that doesn't use the neutral point of view. I suggest making it less of an argument about how succesful Union College alumni have been, and letting the sources and entries speak for themselves. Also, I'm concerned about the number of external links in the text. WP:EL says External links should not normally be used in the body of an article. Instead, include appropriate external links in an "External links" section at the end of the article, and in the appropriate location within an infobox, if applicable. On the whole, the article looks like a great improvement. Thanks for the effort.   Will Beback  talk  05:14, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

• I will be rewriting the lead paragraphs for the Alumni section. We'll also probably make the alumni list a separate page. UraniaNott (talk) 13:41, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
• Lead paragraphs of Alumni section rewritten to remove partisan tone. Eliphaletnott (talk) 15:23, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
  • This is simply my style of writing. I worked hard to make the entire article as neutral as I could, as well as thoroughly documented. Probably overdid somewhat. I can rewrite the introduction to the alumni section if you think it wise. Perhaps I could just provide some prominent examples, as other sites do, and leave the rest of it for the reader to evaluate? Eliphaletnott (talk) 12:03, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
    • No such thing as being too documented or sourced. Always err on the side of citation, which you've done a great job of here. upstateNYer_{formerly wadester16} 20:54, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

I plan to reduce the links as I complete my copyediting of the article. upstateNYer_{formerly wadester16} 11:47, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Rewrite of the lead

Can this section from the current lead be worked into the history section? It is too in-depth for the lead and is missing from the history section; it is interesting and notable enough to be here, just not in the lead:

Certain that General Burgoyne's defeat at the Battle of Saratoga two years before would mean a new nation, nearly 1,000 citizens of northern New York (which then included what eventually became Vermont) began the first popular demand for higher education in America. Local academic and religious activists persisted in these efforts for sixteen years until the Regents of the University of the State of New York recognized the school with that institution's first charter.

Thanks. upstateNYer_{formerly wadester16} 00:25, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Rankings

Rankings added from current web editions of US News and Forbes. Eliphaletnott (talk) 15:21, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Athletics

I will work on an expansion of the Athletics section. Eliphaletnott (talk) 17:03, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, as noted, "A link to Achilles Rink is definitely warranted." Otherwise, this looks fantastic! Bearian (talk) 21:01, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Pictures

First of all, bravo on the revision of the article. It obviously includes some well-thought changes and major effort. Please change the picture of the Nott Memorial (at the top of the article) to a picture of the Official Seal of Union College. Use other wiki pages of colleges / universities as a guide; they all have their official seal at the top of the article. Also, what happened to the list of well-known alumni that was in the previous article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Adotj (talk • contribs) 16:21, September 2, 2009 (UTC)

If you look at the wikicode, the official seal and logo are both there, but commented out. These images are fair use, and cannot be used outside of the actual Union College article. Also commented out are relevant categories and some other information that is not yet pertinent to the rewrite. Once we migrate it over, the images and categories will be included. upstateNYer 22:18, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

The distinguished alumni section has been radically expanded and made more inclusive; it is in the collapsed subsections under "Distinguished Alumni". Probably, after the dust settles, it should all be moved to a daughter page. Eliphaletnott (talk) 23:10, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

|}

Radio Station

Something missing from the old version of that article is a mention of the radio station, which I think is warranted here. upstateNYer 14:42, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Feedback

(In response to the request on WT:UNI)

General comments:

• There should be a section on the administration, organization, and finances as per WP:UNIGUIDE
• The tone often drifts into an unencyclopedic tone (too textbooky or conversational)
• Many sections have too much detail or background info. For example, a description of college rankings is not required before the rankings section (that the rankings section should be replaced with an infobox notwithstanding).

— DroEsperanto (talk) 22:29, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

• I am working on a rearrangement and expansion along these lines, together with a revised format for the alumni article--albeit slowly. Eliphaletnott (talk) 13:52, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

• To increase your responses, I've started a formal peer review which should provide plenty of helpful information. -Mabeenot (talk) 19:34, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
• Thanks. I think I already see some use of the article for PR purposes, which I shall monitor. Eliphaletnott (talk) 20:49, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

• The formal PR got lots of helpful responses. Let me know if there are any specific tasks you and upstateNYer could use some help with. I may have some free time this weekend to devote to an article. (As a side note, be sure to cast your vote for next month's WikiProject Universities Collaboration of the Month). -Mabeenot (talk) 03:52, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

• Oops. By "PR", I meant "public relations" (probably by someone at the institution). However, I was subsequently led to the peer review talk on this article, and will try to make some changes per the feedback.Eliphaletnott (talk) 18:20, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
• I'm thinking that the must urgent editing need is for greater compliance with standard WP practice, with which I am not so familiar as others.Eliphaletnott (talk) 18:20, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Peer review

For ease of getting to it, I'm transcluding the ongoing peer review below. This is a transclusion. To edit the Peer Review, please click here; it will automatically update after you refresh this page. See below. upstateNYer 01:06, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Endowment

As of December, 2009, the unofficial UC endowment value was just under $320, according to the UC Finance Office (personal inquiry by me). But this may not be a sufficient source. Eliphaletnott (talk) 15:18, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

You are correct, that is original research and should not be in this encyclopedia. If the information is published, then it becomes verifiable. Until then, the NACUBO numbers should remain. Thanks, Alanraywiki (talk) 15:35, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

---

Union College

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because editors UpstateNYer and Eliphaletnott have been busy substantially updating the article over the past few months. They requested an informal peer review on WP:Universities#Peer_review in September and WT:UNI in October, but further comments from a wider audience would be appreciated.

Thanks, Mabeenot (talk) 19:45, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Quick comments: These aren't thorough suggestions, so I'm not taking it off the unreviewed notice at the top (where it might attract someone else's attention), but I might come back later.

• First off, nice work in just a few months!
• Images need alt text per WP:ALT
  • Save for later; we'll get more important things done now so we can pass a GAN. upstateNYer 05:20, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
• Check the disambig & external links. Several disambig pages are linked, and, when I checked, there was one dead link and (I believe) one ref that needed an access date.
  •  Done Not sure why it's claiming that link dead; it brought me there from the check page... upstateNYer 05:17, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
• Can something like what the Family Guy article has done with its voice cast (scroll down a bit) be done with the Minerva system pics?
  • Changed the whole section so it's a non-issue. upstateNYer 05:20, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
• The all caps sayings in Seal and motto should be lowercase, per WP:ALLCAPS, and italicized per Foreign terms
  •  Done upstateNYer 05:14, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Nice work! Liquidluck (talk) 07:45, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Finetooth comments: The article has quite nice images; the prose is generally flowing, and the article seems broad in coverage. Liquidluck's suggestions should be addressed, and here are some more things to consider.

Overlinking

• Only terms that are likely to be unfamiliar to many speakers of English need to be linked, and most terms should be linked only on first use. What needs to be linked is a matter of judgment, but I would say that history, biology, psychology, and engineering don't need to be linked. United States does not need to be linked at all and certainly not multiple times. Centuries are not normally linked. In "Presidents of Union College", Eliphalet Nott should be linked on first use but not on second use or in the caption. Ditto for other links in the lower sections. Too many links are distracting rather than helpful.
  • I'll go thru and take a look; hopefully my counterpart will also. I always link the United States when listing a location (i.e. city, state, US) because it follows the other two locations consistenly. I also always link anything in an image caption that may be linked in the article. This is good for browsers who are skimming the article but reading the captions. This gives readers a quick opportunity to click a link, rather than search long and hard for its use in the article. And for the list with Nott in it, isn't it better practice (by formatting and consistency, if nothing else) to link him there as well, since you're linking everyone else that has an article? But for the other ones, I'll heed your advice. upstateNYer 01:23, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Capital letters

• Many common nouns in the article are being treated as proper nouns. Example: "The Board consists of four Life Trustees, 21 Term Trustees, four Alumni Trustees, two Faculty Trustees, two Student Trustees, and the President of the College. The Governor of the State of New York is an ex officio member. The Board meets three times annually, in February, May, and October. The Board appoints the President of the College upon vacancy of the position; it may also appoint an interim president should the need arise." Shouldn't this be "The board consists of four life trustees, 21 term trustees, four alumni trustees, two faculty trustees, two student trustees, and the president of the college. New York's governor is an ex officio member. The board meets three times annually, in February, May, and October. The board appoints the president upon vacancy of the position; it may also appoint an interim president should the need arise"? Ditto for lots of other common nouns in the article.
• Done, I think.Eliphaletnott (talk) 18:31, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Lists

• When feasible, render lists as straight prose per WP:MOS#Bulleted and numbered lists. The list in "Undergraduate research" and the list of Minerva houses would be easy to convert to prose. The Theme Houses list would be easy to convert if you omitted the street addresses, which will be of little interest to most readers. I think the lists of rankings would also be easy to convert. The student statistics and data might be compressed and summarized in prose. I would also suggest eliminating the list in the "Landmark" section by deleting all the subheads.

En dashes

• Date ranges and page ranges take en dashes rather than hyphens. The en dashes should be unspaced.
  • Isn't there a script for that? Could I get the link if you have it? upstateNYer 18:45, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
• Done, I think.Eliphaletnott (talk) 18:31, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Links to external sites

• Direct links to external sites are OK in the "External links" section but not in the main text. All of the Minerva Houses have external links, and I see a few others elsewhere. Use an inline citation rather than an external link.

References

• Make sure that the citation numbers snug up against the end punctuation in the main text. I see that some have spaces between the punctuation and the number.
• Done, so far as I can tell.Eliphaletnott (talk) 15:25, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
• The reference section would be much easier to read if you created a Notes or Bibliography section below it into which you put the complete data for each long work that is cited multiple times. Then long, repetitious entries like "Somers, ed., Wayne (2003). Encyclopedia of Union College History. Schenectady: Union College Press. p. 599" would become "Somers, p. 599".
  • Amen to that; I just got chewed out by someone at my most recent FAC by someone who didn't like that style. upstateNYer 01:26, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
  •  Doing... but it will be a process... upstateNYer 05:38, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
    • Looks like it's  Done upstateNYer 18:45, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
• Some of the citations are incomplete. For example, citation 151 lacks a publisher, date and place of publication, and ISBN. Which edition are you citing?
• The DNB and the ANB are standard citations forms for these two works; I have added publication information, however.Eliphaletnott (talk) 15:25, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider reviewing another article, especially one from the PR backlog. That is where I found this one. Finetooth (talk) 07:08, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

• All of your suggestions were very helpful. Keep them coming, please.Eliphaletnott (talk) 15:25, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
• Should the "bibliography" be in effect only the works cited in the article, and the "further reading" other works, but not cited in the article? Eliphaletnott (talk) 13:31, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Yes. Even though Wikipedia is not made of paper, the repetition would be redundant if works under Bib were also under FR. upstateNYer 18:45, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
• Editing changes so far look great. Eliphaletnott (talk) 13:31, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
• I am currently seeking updated numbers for various statistics, as well as rankings numbers.Eliphaletnott (talk) 14:57, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

External links modified

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Logo Image

The logo currently displayed is not the official College logo anymore. That can be found here: http://www.union.edu/offices/communications/policies/style-guide/official-logo/

I don't know how to replace the current image on this page with the new logo. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Librariesmatter (talk • contribs) 16:49, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Rankings

Someone needs to update the rankings for Union College; they are out of date. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.248.164.43 (talk) 23:38, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

The Forbes ranking should be only for bachelor's degree institutions, within which Union is 25. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.248.164.43 (talk) 20:40, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Alumni of Union College, Schenectady, NY

I noticed an important omission on the list of notable alumni. John W. Taylor, a ten term congressman from Ballston Spa, NY (1813-1833). Mr. Taylor was Speaker of the House for two of those terms. He graduated from Union College in 1803 as valedictorian of his class (age 19). All of this information about John W. Taylor can be found on Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.97.139.10 (talk) 16:46, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

He's already included in List of Union College alumni; debatable if he's notable enough to be included in the Alumni section of the Union College article. Contributor321 (talk) 17:34, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

piano mania

It is true that Union is an "all-Steinway" school. But there seems to be some controversy about this category. Should we just leave it off the Union College entry? Eliphaletnott (talk) 20:39, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

I'd say it's too specific. Though, I don't see it anywhere in the article to begin with? upstateNYer 02:07, 2 April 2010 (UTC)