Wikipedia:Peer review/Lindenwood University/archive1

Lindenwood University

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because there has been considerable work done to this article by myself and a few other editors over the past 6 months to a year. I think it is getting close to a GA but open to ideas to improve the article even more. Thanks, Bhockey10 (talk) 22:20, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Brianboulton comments: More detailed comments will follow, but here are two areas for immediate attention:-

• Several links to disambiguation pages are revealed by the toolbox to the right of these notes.
• A number of your reference links are dead: 2, 8, 18, 41.
• Ref 7: I cannot find the reference title on the linked page.

  I still can't locate the article on the source page. How do I find it? Also, I prefer to do my own strikes. Brianboulton (talk) 00:16, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I misread that comment, the ref was an old ref not cited correctly that I fixed, But now I see after clicking the link, it might be a dead link. I could not find any reference to the fairly trivial pop culture info and since the Ref 7 was impro/a proper link to the article was never given form years ago. Since we really don't even know if it ever existe, I just trimmed the trivial info and found a new article from a major newpaper for the other important/notable info in that paragraph.

As far as strikes: My opinion, and I’ve seen done before: esp in rapidly changing collaborative work areas/to-do lists, is for editors to strike out as they go to make things easier for other editors see what has been done and what still needs to be done. However, this is my first peer review and after seeing your extensive credentials for featured articles and good article nominations you're probably the person to ask for peer review etiquette. Bhockey10 (talk) 03:38, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

You can write "Done" against points which you believe you have addressed. Brianboulton (talk) 18:57, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

The above should be fixed. Brianboulton (talk) 13:17, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the help, that toolbox is a wonder! Everything on that list is has now been fixed. Bhockey10 (talk) 22:55, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

General review comments: I have not carried out a prose check, as I believe there are some basic issues with the article that need addressing first:-

References

Around two-thirds of the 90-odd citations in the article are to primary sources - sources directly connected in one way or another to Lindenwood itself. I appreciate that you have made an effort to cite local newspapers and other sources, and that some references to the college's own material is inevitable, but a two-thirds ratio is high, and leads to questions about the article's neutral POV.

Reply from Bhockey10: As I've been working on this article getting it closer to GA status I've been following the format of WP:UNI and the university related GA. It seems like most GA university articles have lots of references from the university. While those references don't establish notablity (particularly with stubs) it just depends on what the ref is, promotional info is not good but most in this article and other university GA cites info that is relevant and needs citations. This also seems to be a trend for medium, large, and small universities for example, See: East Carolina University, Syracuse University Saint Anselm College.

Also I did a quick rough count and counted 48 refs to non-university sources, 44 for university related sources so not sure where your "two-thirds" came from. That ratio should decrease when the notable alumni section is properly sourced adding more outside references. Bhockey10 (talk) 23:43, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I count 51 citations to the university's website and another 14 to related sites, mainly The Legacy. Brianboulton (talk) 19:16, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not too worried about it as long as the information is written in neutral form, and like I pointed out a few examples of the many university related GAs that have similar ratios, some even more. As far as newspapers, there's been various discussions about student newspapers being used as sources. At least for American colleges, student newspapers are independent of the university. Most if not all are run by students and not directly connected to the university- i.e. freedom of press to publish whatever news they see fit, not forced to publish stories about the school. Essentially they are like small town papers- with a reach of populations about 10-50,000 (depending on school size). Many have a disclaimer on their webpages and in print that read something like, "Opinions and comments in this paper does not reflect ______ university." Bhockey10 (talk) 20:05, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Lead

• The lead needs to be expanded so that it is a concise summary of the whole article, rather than a brief introduction to Lindenwood.
  • You have expanded. Now you need to organise the material a little more tidily. Six very short paragraphs is contrary to WP:LEAD. You should try to merge these into, say, three paragraphs. Brianboulton (talk) 19:16, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
• Specific information like the Doctor of Education program should be in the body of the article rather than the lead.
• Information cited in the main article does not need to be cited in the lead.

Done

History

• The "Early history" subsection is inadequate. There is virtually no information given after 1827 before we are in modern times. If this is "the second oldest higher-education institution west of the Mississippi River and the fastest growing university in the Midwest since 1990", one would expect there to be some account of what happened in its firat 150 years. An article in the alumni publication cannot be the only available source of information on the college's history.

Done

• Comments such as "By 1989, Lindenwood College was in trouble" are journalistic rather than encyclopedic, as is " the school was nearly broke." In fact the style of the whole "Recent history" subsection, with its very short paragraphs, reads like journalism. Also, statements such as those in the third paragraph require citations.
• Done: reworded journalisic sounding sections, removed short third paragraph couldn't find any news on it so either trivial or possible vandalism.
  • We still have "By 1989, Lindenwood College was in trouble" and "nearly broke". Also, this section is again in a style using multiple very short paragraphs that could be merged to improve the flow.Brianboulton (talk) 19:16, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I did find sources on that sentense, But the lightbulb just came on, that does sound journalistic because "broke" is up for interpretation, your idea of broke might be different from mine. So I think I'll just reword it to something like "By 1989, Lindenwood College was low on monetary resources, had low enrollement, and in danger of closing." Bhockey10 (talk) 20:05, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Levels of detail

In some of the sections that follow, the level of detail is more akin to what one would expect in a brochure. For example, "The university maintains a strict policy for visitation in residence halls. In addition the university prohibits alcoholic beverages on campus" is Brochure information. Other times we have what I would describe as trivia. For example, I doubt if http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/stcharles/article_4adb7cfd-bc42-504c-a465-ed3c108d69f2.html should be treated as a reliable encyclopedic source, or whether the "haunting" story is worth including.

Done: I just removed the trivial/"brochure"-type sentence. I cleaned up the wording and moved the info on alcohol to the main campus section. Personally I feel that is notable info to include rather than trivial because it is unique to Lindenwood as most mid-large American universities allow alcohol consumption on campus.

Reply from Bhockey10: In regards to the haunting, it might seem trivial to you, myself, and some others. However to Wikipedia users that have an interest in paranormal activity parts of the campus are highly active with haunting. And from skimming through the topic, one of the most haunted places in the state.

Lists

The article gets increasingly listy as we go on. In general, lists within the text are not a good idea, and sometimes the information is unnecessary - do we really need to know the individual names of the 19 halls of residence? As a general rule, short lists should be converted to prose, long lists either included in tables or included at the end of the article.

Done: turned into prose.

Student life section

• A number of statements, including whole paragraphs, are uncited.
• The use of boldface for emphasis ic contrary to WP:MOS

Done: doublechecked paragraphs/cited. removed boldface/listy section turned into prose.

Notable alumni

What criteria were used to decide if someone is "notable"? Apart from the first-nmaed I see no citations; is this your own list? If so it might be considered original research. If you have based it on reference books or someone else's listing, there should be citations to these sources.

Done: The alumni list is from WP:UNI guidelines, "Individuals who do not meet Wikipedia's notability guideline should not be included only."

External links

Cited sources, e.g. the university's website, should not be listed as External link

Done: There was too many links, and those were removed, however, the main website is perfectly fine to include in external links.

The article is, in my view, somewhat short of being a GA at the moment, but there is no reason why it should not get there. Please contact me via my talkpage when you are ready for me to take another look. Brianboulton (talk) 18:57, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks again for the peer review, it seems like many of your comments are fairly picky which is good because they're more minor format changes (such as turning lists into prose) and other wording fixes. It's good there's not anything drastically wrong. If you have anymore comments they are welcomed, it probably the closest article I've worked on getting to GA status and I'm hopeful with some more work and TLC it will get there. Bhockey10 (talk) 23:43, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

General note: There are big improvements over what I saw a few days back; in particular I was pleased to see what you had done with the History section and with the reduction of lists. Please note the few comments I have made, above, which I ecommend you act on. I a somewhat out of date in my knowledge as to what constitutes a GA these days, but I can fairly say I've seen many worse than this sporting the GA logo. Brianboulton (talk) 19:16, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

• Thank you for all your help and hardwork! I agree there's worse GAs, for example many of those listy sections are still in other university GAs, something I will look for, and fix on those articles in the future. Bhockey10 (talk) 20:05, 29 January 2011 (UTC)