Please comment on this proposed policy guideline. I hope it's helpful.
Thesmothete
05:25, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Vegaswikian, I don't think I agree that "we already have that covered". As far as I know, there is no current guideline or policy to address the situation where a person does not have their own article, but is listed as a "notable alumnus". Also, I agree that being an alumnus is not a reason to have one's own article, and the proposed guideline does not suggest that. This guideline is only about who should be put in a list of "notable alumni", it is not meant to affect who does and does not get their own article. Thesmothete 16:43, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
I think that if the policy were strengthened, it would be clearly useful, because it isn't covered anywhere else: A listing of notable alumni for a school 'cannot include anyone who does not already have a wikipedia article about that person. In other words, redlinks would not be allowed, nor would non-wikilinked names.
If the policy isn't strengthened, then I'd vote against having it at all, because, as noted above, there are likely to be a lot of discussions about whether a person is notable even if he/she doesn't have an article YET. Those are time-wasting. And if the policy isn't changed and a non-wikilinked person's name is deleted, with the policy cited, the next action is likely to be someone putting the name back with a redlink, then possibly making things up when the redlink is removed - in short, way too much time being spent on a single line in an article. John Broughton | Talk 16:19, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
The same would apply for famous citizens - players on football teams. Personally I think the policies already are in place to police such list and this guideline is only needed if it goes beyond what is already policy. Agathoclea 17:31, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
I oppose this altogether, but at very most it should be a suggestion, not even a guideline, let alone a policy. If we insist that everyone who is added already have an article here we are just reifying ourselves, and using circular reasoning. There are obviously many people who are notable but do not have wikipedia articles - it is ridiculous to say otherwise. Ideally, sure, we should have articles about all notable people but that's not realistic. I do think, of course, that someone's friend should be removed - it's very easy, really, to determine if someone is "worthy" of being listed as a notable alum of a school, by the usual methods. Wanting to include someone on a page doesn't mean one also wants to set up a page for that person. Sure, I try to go for a minimum of red links on these listings, and a minimum of black, but I also recognize that the level of information one gathers about a school might vary based on the nature of the school. So, for example, a school of mathematics might include someone who would be notable in that universe but may or may not have a page on wikipedia. But that person should certainly be included. We need to get over the idea that we already know everything in the world that there is to be known, and if we don't have it, it isn't worthy. That's juvenile thinking., Tvoz 20:21, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
1. Doesn't this policy as written now essentially say that "notable people should be notable"? Isn't that kind of obvious?
2. We need an overall policy for "notable" lists in general, not just alumni. Articles include redlinks to names and provide no sources suggesting these people are notable. I would personally prefer a policy which simply prohibits redlinks in such cases where a person's name is given with no context. Fagstein 06:56, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
It sounds like there are three emerging camps of views on this question (leaving aside for a moment the broadening issue to non-school articles):
Have I fairly summarized all the positions? Thesmothete 08:10, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
A user edited out some alumni from the
State University of New York at Stony Brook article because the user didn't feel their professions were worthy enough to be mentioned. (see
here and
here). I figured it was that user's bias against certain occupations or levels of notability. I and another user disagreed with that user, citing
WP:BIO and
WP:N. The deletions were reverted by me, anyway. This proposed guideline would be helpful to formally determine who should be in an alumni list, and maybe to prevent someone from imposing bias on the list. I'm neutral as to if it should be stated explicitly as a guideline when the same interpretation could be deduced through other guidelines or an essay, though.
Tinlinkin
08:22, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree with this point, but don't think it should be in the nutshell. Also, if we expand this guideline to "famous residents" it would be inapplicable. Thesmothete 15:54, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
If individuals receiving honorary degrees are included, they should be identified as such - perhaps on a separate list.
Tvoz 20:00, 26 December 2006 (UTC
By the way, no I don't think Harvard should list Bill Clinton as a graduate. If it were deemed appropriate - and I'm not weighing in here on whether I think it is or is not because I'm not editing that page right now - then he should be listed as the recipient of an honorary degree, not as a graduate. And it doesn't have to be with an asterisk at all - there's plenty of room for a few words about each alum as it is, so there's no problem with saying "honorary". And I'd favor a sub-list or section anyway - if honoraries are included on any given page. We should not and cannot try to figure out all possibilities - it's impossible to do so.
By the way, many schools here include "notable former students" - folks who attended but did not graduate. That is also totally acceptable, in my view, as long as they are identified as such. Again we do not need a guideline for this either.
At this time I'm still opposed to this being a guideline but I'm leaning toward thinking an essay on the subject would be acceptable and helpful. Tvoz 20:55, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
This is a very good proposal. I've seen plenty of cases where ip users or users with almost no contributions will add an entirely non-notable name to a list of alumni. I generally get the impression that this is spam from people who don't quite grasp what wikipedia is about. It will be good to have a short but definitive policy to point to. GabrielF 19:01, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Tvoz, I'm wondering about your concern that we shouldn't have a guideline about this, but should leave it to the individual editors. But, leaving it to the discretion of individual editors seems consistent with the description of "guideline" in WP:POL.
In light of these descriptions, can you clarify what you are concerned about? Thesmothete 20:34, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Excuse me - I just made a suggestion on the article page with a summary that said "see talk" . This edit was reverted with "no deal" as the summary - I think the appropriate thing to do would be to accommodate another editor's idea rather than just reverting in that manner. FOr example, I didn't go and blank the page even though I personally don't think we need the guideline - I am trying to work with it and make it better. Reverting completely without acknowledging the point raised is not at all helpful and is out of line. Tvoz 19:27, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm all in favor of a policy which says that lists of alumni ought to only include those who are subjects of Wikipedia articles on their own. I also think that policy should be generalized to extend to all lists of notable people. There is room for some exceptions: certain lists would be lists of people who are notable enough for a Wikipedia article, by definition, even if nobody's yet written that article. For example, we may not have an article on every Emperor of Japan, or every Pharaoh of Egypt, but a page listing those should include every one. But lists like the list with which I am most familiar, the List of civil engineers, should be very strictly limited to bluelinks - if someone can't take the trouble to create a biographical stub, they shouldn't be on the list. Otherwise, the list will end up full of non-notable people promoting themselves. Argyriou (talk) 17:04, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
I've added a paragraph about notable alumni to WP:BIO. That may address your concerns? >Radiant< 17:27, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Hi, folks. On the talk page of the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle article, we've been evolving our own Notable Alumni policy. One issue we had was, how do we fulfill the Wikipedia:Verifiability policy with respect to the claim that a given person attended a given school? Surely we should insist that Wikipedia somewhere cite some source that says person P attended school S in year Y. We experimented with hanging citations off the entries for that person in our Notable Alumni list. Then we moved to requiring that the person a) have an article already existing, and b) the article mention attendance at the school and cite it. I like that standard. Note that it puts us in the fairly hard-core "blue-links" only school of Notable Alumni inclusion. What are your thoughts on verifiability of school attendance? -- Jdlh | Talk 20:39, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I take it that the consensus of the discussion here last month was that we don't need the text at Wikipedia:Notable alumni, and instead the text at WP:BIO#Lists_of_people is sufficient. However, I don't think that the disclaimer at the top of Notable alumni is clear enough. I propose changing it to make the point more clearly.
What do people think? -- Jdlh | Talk 21:26, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
Implemented, here and in talk page of WP:BIO. -- Jdlh | Talk 05:24, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Please comment on this proposed policy guideline. I hope it's helpful.
Thesmothete
05:25, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Vegaswikian, I don't think I agree that "we already have that covered". As far as I know, there is no current guideline or policy to address the situation where a person does not have their own article, but is listed as a "notable alumnus". Also, I agree that being an alumnus is not a reason to have one's own article, and the proposed guideline does not suggest that. This guideline is only about who should be put in a list of "notable alumni", it is not meant to affect who does and does not get their own article. Thesmothete 16:43, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
I think that if the policy were strengthened, it would be clearly useful, because it isn't covered anywhere else: A listing of notable alumni for a school 'cannot include anyone who does not already have a wikipedia article about that person. In other words, redlinks would not be allowed, nor would non-wikilinked names.
If the policy isn't strengthened, then I'd vote against having it at all, because, as noted above, there are likely to be a lot of discussions about whether a person is notable even if he/she doesn't have an article YET. Those are time-wasting. And if the policy isn't changed and a non-wikilinked person's name is deleted, with the policy cited, the next action is likely to be someone putting the name back with a redlink, then possibly making things up when the redlink is removed - in short, way too much time being spent on a single line in an article. John Broughton | Talk 16:19, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
The same would apply for famous citizens - players on football teams. Personally I think the policies already are in place to police such list and this guideline is only needed if it goes beyond what is already policy. Agathoclea 17:31, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
I oppose this altogether, but at very most it should be a suggestion, not even a guideline, let alone a policy. If we insist that everyone who is added already have an article here we are just reifying ourselves, and using circular reasoning. There are obviously many people who are notable but do not have wikipedia articles - it is ridiculous to say otherwise. Ideally, sure, we should have articles about all notable people but that's not realistic. I do think, of course, that someone's friend should be removed - it's very easy, really, to determine if someone is "worthy" of being listed as a notable alum of a school, by the usual methods. Wanting to include someone on a page doesn't mean one also wants to set up a page for that person. Sure, I try to go for a minimum of red links on these listings, and a minimum of black, but I also recognize that the level of information one gathers about a school might vary based on the nature of the school. So, for example, a school of mathematics might include someone who would be notable in that universe but may or may not have a page on wikipedia. But that person should certainly be included. We need to get over the idea that we already know everything in the world that there is to be known, and if we don't have it, it isn't worthy. That's juvenile thinking., Tvoz 20:21, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
1. Doesn't this policy as written now essentially say that "notable people should be notable"? Isn't that kind of obvious?
2. We need an overall policy for "notable" lists in general, not just alumni. Articles include redlinks to names and provide no sources suggesting these people are notable. I would personally prefer a policy which simply prohibits redlinks in such cases where a person's name is given with no context. Fagstein 06:56, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
It sounds like there are three emerging camps of views on this question (leaving aside for a moment the broadening issue to non-school articles):
Have I fairly summarized all the positions? Thesmothete 08:10, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
A user edited out some alumni from the
State University of New York at Stony Brook article because the user didn't feel their professions were worthy enough to be mentioned. (see
here and
here). I figured it was that user's bias against certain occupations or levels of notability. I and another user disagreed with that user, citing
WP:BIO and
WP:N. The deletions were reverted by me, anyway. This proposed guideline would be helpful to formally determine who should be in an alumni list, and maybe to prevent someone from imposing bias on the list. I'm neutral as to if it should be stated explicitly as a guideline when the same interpretation could be deduced through other guidelines or an essay, though.
Tinlinkin
08:22, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree with this point, but don't think it should be in the nutshell. Also, if we expand this guideline to "famous residents" it would be inapplicable. Thesmothete 15:54, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
If individuals receiving honorary degrees are included, they should be identified as such - perhaps on a separate list.
Tvoz 20:00, 26 December 2006 (UTC
By the way, no I don't think Harvard should list Bill Clinton as a graduate. If it were deemed appropriate - and I'm not weighing in here on whether I think it is or is not because I'm not editing that page right now - then he should be listed as the recipient of an honorary degree, not as a graduate. And it doesn't have to be with an asterisk at all - there's plenty of room for a few words about each alum as it is, so there's no problem with saying "honorary". And I'd favor a sub-list or section anyway - if honoraries are included on any given page. We should not and cannot try to figure out all possibilities - it's impossible to do so.
By the way, many schools here include "notable former students" - folks who attended but did not graduate. That is also totally acceptable, in my view, as long as they are identified as such. Again we do not need a guideline for this either.
At this time I'm still opposed to this being a guideline but I'm leaning toward thinking an essay on the subject would be acceptable and helpful. Tvoz 20:55, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
This is a very good proposal. I've seen plenty of cases where ip users or users with almost no contributions will add an entirely non-notable name to a list of alumni. I generally get the impression that this is spam from people who don't quite grasp what wikipedia is about. It will be good to have a short but definitive policy to point to. GabrielF 19:01, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Tvoz, I'm wondering about your concern that we shouldn't have a guideline about this, but should leave it to the individual editors. But, leaving it to the discretion of individual editors seems consistent with the description of "guideline" in WP:POL.
In light of these descriptions, can you clarify what you are concerned about? Thesmothete 20:34, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Excuse me - I just made a suggestion on the article page with a summary that said "see talk" . This edit was reverted with "no deal" as the summary - I think the appropriate thing to do would be to accommodate another editor's idea rather than just reverting in that manner. FOr example, I didn't go and blank the page even though I personally don't think we need the guideline - I am trying to work with it and make it better. Reverting completely without acknowledging the point raised is not at all helpful and is out of line. Tvoz 19:27, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm all in favor of a policy which says that lists of alumni ought to only include those who are subjects of Wikipedia articles on their own. I also think that policy should be generalized to extend to all lists of notable people. There is room for some exceptions: certain lists would be lists of people who are notable enough for a Wikipedia article, by definition, even if nobody's yet written that article. For example, we may not have an article on every Emperor of Japan, or every Pharaoh of Egypt, but a page listing those should include every one. But lists like the list with which I am most familiar, the List of civil engineers, should be very strictly limited to bluelinks - if someone can't take the trouble to create a biographical stub, they shouldn't be on the list. Otherwise, the list will end up full of non-notable people promoting themselves. Argyriou (talk) 17:04, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
I've added a paragraph about notable alumni to WP:BIO. That may address your concerns? >Radiant< 17:27, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Hi, folks. On the talk page of the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle article, we've been evolving our own Notable Alumni policy. One issue we had was, how do we fulfill the Wikipedia:Verifiability policy with respect to the claim that a given person attended a given school? Surely we should insist that Wikipedia somewhere cite some source that says person P attended school S in year Y. We experimented with hanging citations off the entries for that person in our Notable Alumni list. Then we moved to requiring that the person a) have an article already existing, and b) the article mention attendance at the school and cite it. I like that standard. Note that it puts us in the fairly hard-core "blue-links" only school of Notable Alumni inclusion. What are your thoughts on verifiability of school attendance? -- Jdlh | Talk 20:39, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I take it that the consensus of the discussion here last month was that we don't need the text at Wikipedia:Notable alumni, and instead the text at WP:BIO#Lists_of_people is sufficient. However, I don't think that the disclaimer at the top of Notable alumni is clear enough. I propose changing it to make the point more clearly.
What do people think? -- Jdlh | Talk 21:26, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
Implemented, here and in talk page of WP:BIO. -- Jdlh | Talk 05:24, 2 February 2007 (UTC)