Talk:Aquila Legis/Archive 1

Untitled
I fail to see how my changes as of April 29 could be construed as "malicious".

The revised language conforms to NPOV; the names have been edited for readability and relevance (i.e. you don't have ALL Aquila Legis alumni in politics in there, in unformatted hard-to-read text); and mention of the Lenny Villa case is retained, which is definitely significant in terms of the media coverage it received at the time, and the lasting consequences the case had due to the anti-hazing law that inspired it.

I'd like to reassure Brandoray that my edits are NOT motivated by malice, but motivated ONLY by a desire to see Wikipedia content that is less biased towards a single institution and better reflects the public record. Thanks. Micketymoc (talk) 08:36, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Suggestions for improvement
Hey Brandoray - if you seriously want to see this article improve, I suggest you add more content about Aquila Legis' history - i.e. more details on its founding, key events in its history, etc. Less about the names of people that barely matter (I mean, Cebu provincial board member? Seriously?) and more about a historical timeline.

I imagine you might have a problem with the Lenny Villa content because it seems to overshadow everything else in the public record. But the Lenny Villa story belongs there for exactly that reason: for good or ill, the Villa case is INCREDIBLY historically relevant, and belongs in this Wikipedia entry. Micketymoc (talk) 22:44, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Reply to Micketymoc
From the way you are talking its as if you have a long history of contributions here in Wikipedia! Maybe you have to revisit your contribution history to refresh you memory - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Micketymoc

"[L]ess biased towards a single institution"? Maybe you haven't noticed that the Wikipedia article which you vandalized is about that "institution" you are referring to and not with regard to the class which that "institution" belongs. You may also haven't noticed that the description of the said "institution" was taken from its citations.

A problem with Lenny Villa incident? Maybe you also haven't noticed that I was the one who drafted the content you reinserted. If you really believe that the incident is worth placing in this article then just do it but do not altogether delete sections in this article.

If you have a problem with the format of the section "Prominent Members", then edit the format but not drastically delete portions of it. `You mentioned that "you don't have ALL Aquila Legis alumni in politics in there", do you have any proof or citation that say so? Perhaps, if you are a member of the said institution then I can defer to your acts of drastically changing this section.

Also, if you have a problem with the position of provincial board member, then why did you retain the position of city mayor in the changes which you have made or why did you not just delete the said prominent member?!

Well if these are really your reasons for editing this page then let's see you edit the Wikipedia articles of other influential law based fraternities here in the Philippines. I can't wait to find your username in the list of contributors in the said articles.

By the way, my username consists my first and second name, and you can easily identify me from my previous contributions here in Wikipedia. Now, if the changes you had made were not really malicious then surely you would have no worries in properly identifying yourself. Brandoray (talk) 00:53, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Rejoinder to Micketymoc's Comment
First, as regards the word “premier”, if you only checked the citations you would have known that the subject word was taken from, and is supported by, a reliable source. Moreover, if you will Google the phrase, you’ll find that there are several online articles which have exactly the same description of the “institution” - http://www.google.com.ph/search?hl=tl&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=%22aquila+legis+is+the+premier%22&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=

If someone feels differently about the subject description, then that someone has the burden to show the contrary and to cite reliable source to support the same.

Besides, even the Wikipedia article of the fraternity which you emulated has a similar description in favor of the said fraternity (“Alpha Delta Phi ranked first among all of the university's fraternities”). If your changes to this article are not really malicious, go edit that as well. Also, another influential law based fraternity in UP is using a similar description, let us see you edit that.

Anent the list of prominent frat members, according to you, you retained in the list those that have some degree of national notability, but why did you delete the following: Supreme Court Justice Leo Medialdea, Former Department of Budget and Management Secretary Nonoy Andaya, Former Department of Labor and Employment Secretary Bienvenido Laguesma, Former Department of Justice Secretary, Solicitor General and Cabinet Secretary Silvestre Bello III, Former Solicitor General and Ambassador Raul I. Goco, Former Bureau of Internal Revenue Commissioner Sixto Esquivas, La Union Governor Victor F. Ortega, Quezon Governor Wilfredo Enverga, Tagbilaran City Mayor Dan Lim, and Chief State Prosecutor Claro A. Arellano. Aren’t they similarly situated with the ones which you retained?!

My “approach”?! Mind you, that was already the format way before. I just added names therein. In any event, if you have a problem with the format of the section "Prominent Members", then edit the format but not drastically delete portions of it.

Ok, you compared the list to a US fraternity's article which you said “has a short list of truly notable alumni”. Obviously you have failed to notice that because of their long list of “Notable Alumni” (much longer than the subject institution’s list and includes those which would not pass your standards) they had to create another article for that. If your changes were really done in good faith, then you should have also emulated that – that is create another article for the rest of the prominent members and provide a link thereto!

BTW, the abovementioned UP fraternity also included some persons which under your definition, are not notable. Let us again see you edit that as well.

Anent, the list of bar topnotchers, maybe you have failed to notice that the “institution” is a LAW BASED fraternity. In the legal profession (and even the general public), everyone knows the contributions a law based fraternity makes, or the large part the same plays, in its member’s feat of landing in the top ten. (See Philippine Bar Examination) Thus, the list of bar topnotchers a law based fraternity has produced, is without question, relevant to the subject article. In a similar fashion, the names of these topnotchers are worthy of note.

Lastly, with regard to the Lenny Villa Incident, AGAIN, if you really believe that the incident is worth placing in this article then just do it but do not altogether delete sections in this article. Brandoray (talk) 02:00, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Indiscriminate Inclusion and Peacock Terms
If you look at the revisions I've just done, I've followed your advice and spun off the long, long list of alumni into its own article. Now let me address some of your most salient concerns (I'll continue to ignore your accusation of lack of good faith on my part):

Inclusion of names lists/bar topnotchers: Look, I totally understand your defensiveness with regard to deletion of names. When I was a junior copywriter myself, I was extremely allergic to clients deleting parts of my copy, and any writer has an instinctive distaste for cutting down even unnecessary text in their work.

That being said, I bring to your attention Wikipedia's policy against indiscriminate inclusion of material: the way I see it, if you REALLY feel like including all the names you brought up, then let's spin it off into a side article (like you rightfully point out that the US fraternity I linked to does) and link it to the chapter on prominent alumni. I've done exactly that (on your suggestion) if you look at the new revisions I've made to the page.

Use of the word "premier": Wikipedia is rightly suspicious of peacock terms like "premier"; you mention that other places on the Internet use the same word to describe the frat, but what came first, the chicken or the egg? These other sources actually quote the previous version of the Wikipedia article, they haven't come to use the same word independently!

Look, I'll concede your point on "premier" if you can substantiate it in an unbiased, factual manner. (See what Wikipedia has to say about substantiation.)

Try to put yourself in the shoes of a Utopia frat member; he'll certainly object to Aquila Legis being called the school's "premier" fraternity, but he won't have a problem with factual statements like "ALF was the first fraternity founded by Ateneo Law School students, and the first fraternity in the country using Latin nomenclature, preceding a number of Philippine law-based fraternities with names derived from Latin."

Thank you for retaining some of the changes I've made - I'd like to reiterate that the changes are still based largely on YOUR previous work, which I've just polished and reframed to give it the appropriate weight. Micketymoc (talk) 04:16, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

External links modified
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Concrete, objective criticism (walang personalan)
Let's keep the eye on the ball, shall we? The subject is the article, not the number of contributions either of us have made elsewhere on Wikipedia. I'd like us to discuss the merits of our respective contributions and edits on THIS article.

Now let me tell you WHY I edited what I edited, and I'd like you to show me why my reasons are wrong or off the mark:

1) Preserving Neutral point of view - for example, "premier" fraternity is hardly what one might call "neutral"; after all, someone from Utopia might feel differently and ask you to justify what "premier" means. Is it referring to the age of the frat relative to others in the school? Number of prominent alumni?

"Premier" is a weasel word I've come across far too often in my advertising career, a superlative that upon closer inspection means less than nothing. That's why I removed it, for starters.

2) "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate source of information":  Long, long lists of prominent frat members does NOT make the article any more valuable; in fact it lessens the readability, thus the usability, of the entry on the fraternity. The names I retained in the list have some degree of national notability (as well as Wikipedia entries on themselves; thus the inclusion of the mayor in my revised list).

Let's compare your approach to notable names (plenty, long, lacking in context) to this US fraternity's simple approach which I attempted to emulate. The article has a short list of truly notable alumni, including chief justices, U.S. senators, and a state governor.

In contrast, look at your list of alumni and bar topnotchers; are these names all notable? Why the need for this list? Is the presence of this list justified? I think not. The bar topnotcher list, for one, provides no real information about the fraternity, just a list of names, years, and numbers without real context. And the list of alumni - wow. A sea of names, without any line breaks, is very difficult to read and is counterproductive to the usability of the article.

3) Lack of info on Lenny Villa - I finally call attention to your version's lack of ANY mention of the Lenny Villa case, which hogged the news during the 90s and was responsible for the passage of the Anti-Hazing Law. Try searching Google News Archive for "aquila legis", and tell me how many articles come up that DO NOT reference the Lenny Villa case. http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=aquila+legis&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&btnG=Search+Archives You say you wrote the original entry that I incorporated in my edit; that's great, I never claimed to write it myself. I'm curious why you felt it was not important enough to be included in present versions.

If you have a conflict of interest on the matter - say, if you yourself are a member of Aquila Legis - then I suggest you declare it immediately. Remember, we as editors shouldn't be here to promote our pet causes, it goes entirely against what Wikipedia is about. (Wikipedia is not a soapbox or means of promotion)

On a personal note, I really do wish you'd assumed good faith at the outset - I am not a member of any fraternity and I do not have any malicious intentions in editing the entry. That being said, I'm a long-time user of Wikipedia and a professional writer (just google my username and you can find me elsewhere on the web), and I can humbly claim SOME experience in knowing what makes a readable yet informative Wikipedia entry. Micketymoc (talk) 02:53, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

History of Aquila Legis
I've added a category at the outset about Aquila Legis' history, and moved some info from the intro to this category. This is one of the positive changes I'm suggesting for this article: there's very little historical info on the frat, and a useful entry should fill this in at least.

I figure the "history" category should answer the following questions:


 * WHO founded the frat?
 * WHEN was it founded, and WHERE?
 * WHAT were its stated goals?
 * WHAT activities do/did the frat provide for its members?
 * WHAT activities do/did the frat provide for non-members, or society in general?

Ignacio Bunye's speech provides just the barest whisper of answers for the questions above. If I had time, I'd go to Rizal Library in Ateneo (Katipunan) to look for more substantial facts. Micketymoc (talk) 09:11, 1 May 2011 (UTC)