This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
What do people think about the recently added photo gallery to the "people" section, showing pictures of two dozen alumni? This was a good-faith addition by User:Phys Ed, and I see they did the same thing at University of Michigan.
Here's some background: Since 2015 we have not listed ANY alumni by name, pointing instead to the article List of Stanford University people. This was the result of a consensus at this 2015 discussion, which was preceded by this 2013 discussion complaining that the section consisted of a bloated and haphazard listing of names with no clear criteria. (BTW since Stanford always gets compared to Harvard and Yale: as of 2015 Harvard listed no names, just referrals to daughter articles, but in recent years Harvard has added a photo gallery of several dozen alums and faculty. Yale has a large multi-paragraph section with hundreds of names and some photos.)
Personally I am inclined to think of this kind of gallery as clutter, impossible to keep within reasonable bounds. Who decides who gets a photo and who doesn't? Why are there so many business people and so few scientists (only one Nobel Prize winner our of more than 50)? Why Tiger Woods but not Sally Ride? Why only current senators - is Josh Hawley more notable than Carl Hayden, who served 28 years, or Scoop Jackson, who serve 30? Why only two non-Americans? You see what I mean. There are no apparent criteria, which can only result in a bias toward recentism and America-centrism, or else an overwhelming surge to include more and more people. I would like to remove the gallery and go back to no-names, numbers-only with a referral to the daughter articles. But I am just one person and I solicit other people's opinions. -- MelanieN ( talk) 18:40, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
If pictures of people is clutter, should we also remove pictures of buildings? Attic Salt ( talk) 03:40, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
OK, I see a number of people who do want to have pictures of alumni. We do work by consensus here. So I would like to hear their suggestions for how we restrict the list to "a few representative people". Would we create the list by consensus here, with additions also requiring consensus, and automatically remove any additions that do not have consensus? I could go along with such a system, and I think we could agree on such a list here at talk. What I don't want to see is what we had a few months ago, where we started out with three people (Herbert Hoover, Sandra Day O'Connor, and for some reason Peter Thiel), but people started adding half a dozen sports figures or a dozen movie actors and directors, and the list quickly exploded out of control. And I equally don't want to see edit warring at the article, where Person A removes someone who "doesn't belong" and Person B restores them and we're off to the races. -- MelanieN ( talk) 15:18, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
How about an approach like this: We want the list to be "representative" and balanced, so let's choose several (three or four) alumni for each of the following classes: Government and Law, Science and Medicine, Business, Sports, and Entertainment. Does that cover it? Do we need any other categories, say Academics or Miscellaneous? We could do that here. Shall I set that up as a poll? (BTW I would not sort them into categories in the article, but list them alphabetically. The category suggestion is just to keep it representative rather than slanted toward a single area.) -- MelanieN ( talk) 16:40, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
@ Erp and ElKevbo: Care to add to this discussion? -- MelanieN ( talk) 15:01, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
@ Erp: Thanks for doing all this work. I see you are doing them in chronological order, that makes sense to me. I can fill in some of the missing information (from a Reliable Source behind a registration wall): Sandra Day O'Connor has two Stanford degrees, an AB in 1950 and an LLB in 1952. Sally Ride has three degrees: BS 1973, MS 1975, PhD 1978. Sergey Brin has two: MS 1995, PhD 1998. Larry Page has one: MS 1998. Tiger Woods left Stanford in 1996 after two years [5] John McEnroe left Stanford in 1978 after one year [6] -- MelanieN ( talk) 04:46, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
@ Attic Salt: The bot says we also can’t use Stegner or Terman pictures on a talk page. I would suggest you just create a holding slot without a picture for now, for them and for Hewlett and Packard. As I understand it, you will be able to use those pictures in the article, just not here.-- MelanieN ( talk) 19:35, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
Things have gone quiet here for the last few days. How do people feel about putting the above galleries into the article? Attic Salt ( talk) 14:40, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
I don't think we should have a plan, which is fine; I was just suggesting that it's OK to have a plan for the reasons given in WP:SOURCELIST. Anyway, I still had this page on my watchlist (I'm going to remove it now) after posting my first comment and saw Erp's question; since it seemed to be specifically related to keeping the galleries from exploding, that's what I was responding to. I probably should've addressed my response to Erp directly and used level-2 indentation instead. So, my apologies to you and Erp for any confusion or redundancy.FWIW, like what ElKevbo posted above, I've got no specific familiarity with the school; so, whatever the local consensus turns out to be is fine. Working off the list article was also just another suggestion, mainly because it contains some photos that are probably OK to use here in this article since non-free photos cannot really be used in list articles per WP:NFCCP. As long as the gallery or this talk page doesn't display any non-free images, you shouldn't have any problems with WP:BOTs or non-free content reviewers removing or otherwise challenging the use of any files.Finally, just for future reference, a template like {{ u}} will only WP:PING as intended when the syntax is correct and the post is signed in the same saved edit; it doesn't work if you go back and "fix" the syntax in a separate edit without re-signing the post. If you already were aware of this, then once again my apologies. -- [[User:Marchjuly|@ Attic Salt:]] ( talk) 23:02, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
Sorry for just joining the conversation now, I’ve been out of town. Let’s evaluate the basic question: is there consensus to include a section like this, or not? Starting from the beginning of the discussion, we have:
So the bottom line is, we do not have a clear local consensus to include or not to include. There does not seem to be any particular Wikipedia policy one way or another, it's a matter of local preference. In general (but not firm policy), material which has been challenged and removed from the article, as the photo gallery was twice, requires consensus before it can be restored. Should we launch an RfC to try to obtain more opinions? That’s one way to solve a talk page impasse. -- MelanieN ( talk) 17:40, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for all the additions, Attic Salt. I have moved a few around. In particular I took the pictures out of the "people" area, since there was opposition to having pictures there. I removed Steinbeck, whose connection to the university is tenuous. I couldn't find a good place to put Sally Ride. I restored the Hoover Tower picture to the landmark gallery since it is the best known landmark at Stanford. All open for discussion, of course. -- MelanieN ( talk) 19:38, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
Hi there! I see an unsigned IP comment above on this talk page asking about including Jennifer Connelly and Reese Witherspoon in the People section as Academy Award winners. Currently, the section includes only academic laureates and prize winners. Would it be unreasonable to expand it to include major awards in the arts? (Eg. Academy Awards, Tony Awards, Grammy Awards, and Emmy Award)
The problem I see with expanding this section is that inclusion criteria are murky. For example, do we also include MacArthur Fellowships, Pulitzer Prizes, Thiel Fellowships, Laurence Olivier Awards, Michelin Stars, James Beard Foundation Awards, Purple Hearts..? I could easily see well-intentioned editors adding Forbes 30 Under 30 and we'd just have an entirely unmanageable section on our hands.
What does everyone here think would be best?
Best, Liam M ( talk) 17:24, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
I note that the articles on several of the university's schools are up for deletion. Including
(law, medicine, and GSB have fairly safe articles). People interested in the discussion should check them out. I note in the case of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences that the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability will replace it soon. Erp ( talk) 06:22, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
What do people think about the recently added photo gallery to the "people" section, showing pictures of two dozen alumni? This was a good-faith addition by User:Phys Ed, and I see they did the same thing at University of Michigan.
Here's some background: Since 2015 we have not listed ANY alumni by name, pointing instead to the article List of Stanford University people. This was the result of a consensus at this 2015 discussion, which was preceded by this 2013 discussion complaining that the section consisted of a bloated and haphazard listing of names with no clear criteria. (BTW since Stanford always gets compared to Harvard and Yale: as of 2015 Harvard listed no names, just referrals to daughter articles, but in recent years Harvard has added a photo gallery of several dozen alums and faculty. Yale has a large multi-paragraph section with hundreds of names and some photos.)
Personally I am inclined to think of this kind of gallery as clutter, impossible to keep within reasonable bounds. Who decides who gets a photo and who doesn't? Why are there so many business people and so few scientists (only one Nobel Prize winner our of more than 50)? Why Tiger Woods but not Sally Ride? Why only current senators - is Josh Hawley more notable than Carl Hayden, who served 28 years, or Scoop Jackson, who serve 30? Why only two non-Americans? You see what I mean. There are no apparent criteria, which can only result in a bias toward recentism and America-centrism, or else an overwhelming surge to include more and more people. I would like to remove the gallery and go back to no-names, numbers-only with a referral to the daughter articles. But I am just one person and I solicit other people's opinions. -- MelanieN ( talk) 18:40, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
If pictures of people is clutter, should we also remove pictures of buildings? Attic Salt ( talk) 03:40, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
OK, I see a number of people who do want to have pictures of alumni. We do work by consensus here. So I would like to hear their suggestions for how we restrict the list to "a few representative people". Would we create the list by consensus here, with additions also requiring consensus, and automatically remove any additions that do not have consensus? I could go along with such a system, and I think we could agree on such a list here at talk. What I don't want to see is what we had a few months ago, where we started out with three people (Herbert Hoover, Sandra Day O'Connor, and for some reason Peter Thiel), but people started adding half a dozen sports figures or a dozen movie actors and directors, and the list quickly exploded out of control. And I equally don't want to see edit warring at the article, where Person A removes someone who "doesn't belong" and Person B restores them and we're off to the races. -- MelanieN ( talk) 15:18, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
How about an approach like this: We want the list to be "representative" and balanced, so let's choose several (three or four) alumni for each of the following classes: Government and Law, Science and Medicine, Business, Sports, and Entertainment. Does that cover it? Do we need any other categories, say Academics or Miscellaneous? We could do that here. Shall I set that up as a poll? (BTW I would not sort them into categories in the article, but list them alphabetically. The category suggestion is just to keep it representative rather than slanted toward a single area.) -- MelanieN ( talk) 16:40, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
@ Erp and ElKevbo: Care to add to this discussion? -- MelanieN ( talk) 15:01, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
@ Erp: Thanks for doing all this work. I see you are doing them in chronological order, that makes sense to me. I can fill in some of the missing information (from a Reliable Source behind a registration wall): Sandra Day O'Connor has two Stanford degrees, an AB in 1950 and an LLB in 1952. Sally Ride has three degrees: BS 1973, MS 1975, PhD 1978. Sergey Brin has two: MS 1995, PhD 1998. Larry Page has one: MS 1998. Tiger Woods left Stanford in 1996 after two years [5] John McEnroe left Stanford in 1978 after one year [6] -- MelanieN ( talk) 04:46, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
@ Attic Salt: The bot says we also can’t use Stegner or Terman pictures on a talk page. I would suggest you just create a holding slot without a picture for now, for them and for Hewlett and Packard. As I understand it, you will be able to use those pictures in the article, just not here.-- MelanieN ( talk) 19:35, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
Things have gone quiet here for the last few days. How do people feel about putting the above galleries into the article? Attic Salt ( talk) 14:40, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
I don't think we should have a plan, which is fine; I was just suggesting that it's OK to have a plan for the reasons given in WP:SOURCELIST. Anyway, I still had this page on my watchlist (I'm going to remove it now) after posting my first comment and saw Erp's question; since it seemed to be specifically related to keeping the galleries from exploding, that's what I was responding to. I probably should've addressed my response to Erp directly and used level-2 indentation instead. So, my apologies to you and Erp for any confusion or redundancy.FWIW, like what ElKevbo posted above, I've got no specific familiarity with the school; so, whatever the local consensus turns out to be is fine. Working off the list article was also just another suggestion, mainly because it contains some photos that are probably OK to use here in this article since non-free photos cannot really be used in list articles per WP:NFCCP. As long as the gallery or this talk page doesn't display any non-free images, you shouldn't have any problems with WP:BOTs or non-free content reviewers removing or otherwise challenging the use of any files.Finally, just for future reference, a template like {{ u}} will only WP:PING as intended when the syntax is correct and the post is signed in the same saved edit; it doesn't work if you go back and "fix" the syntax in a separate edit without re-signing the post. If you already were aware of this, then once again my apologies. -- [[User:Marchjuly|@ Attic Salt:]] ( talk) 23:02, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
Sorry for just joining the conversation now, I’ve been out of town. Let’s evaluate the basic question: is there consensus to include a section like this, or not? Starting from the beginning of the discussion, we have:
So the bottom line is, we do not have a clear local consensus to include or not to include. There does not seem to be any particular Wikipedia policy one way or another, it's a matter of local preference. In general (but not firm policy), material which has been challenged and removed from the article, as the photo gallery was twice, requires consensus before it can be restored. Should we launch an RfC to try to obtain more opinions? That’s one way to solve a talk page impasse. -- MelanieN ( talk) 17:40, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for all the additions, Attic Salt. I have moved a few around. In particular I took the pictures out of the "people" area, since there was opposition to having pictures there. I removed Steinbeck, whose connection to the university is tenuous. I couldn't find a good place to put Sally Ride. I restored the Hoover Tower picture to the landmark gallery since it is the best known landmark at Stanford. All open for discussion, of course. -- MelanieN ( talk) 19:38, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
Hi there! I see an unsigned IP comment above on this talk page asking about including Jennifer Connelly and Reese Witherspoon in the People section as Academy Award winners. Currently, the section includes only academic laureates and prize winners. Would it be unreasonable to expand it to include major awards in the arts? (Eg. Academy Awards, Tony Awards, Grammy Awards, and Emmy Award)
The problem I see with expanding this section is that inclusion criteria are murky. For example, do we also include MacArthur Fellowships, Pulitzer Prizes, Thiel Fellowships, Laurence Olivier Awards, Michelin Stars, James Beard Foundation Awards, Purple Hearts..? I could easily see well-intentioned editors adding Forbes 30 Under 30 and we'd just have an entirely unmanageable section on our hands.
What does everyone here think would be best?
Best, Liam M ( talk) 17:24, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
I note that the articles on several of the university's schools are up for deletion. Including
(law, medicine, and GSB have fairly safe articles). People interested in the discussion should check them out. I note in the case of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences that the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability will replace it soon. Erp ( talk) 06:22, 13 August 2022 (UTC)