Talk:Corpus Christi College, Oxford

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Substantial expansion of all parts of article
Corpus Christi College, Oxford, is a college of the University of Oxford, founded in 1517. I would like to merge the changes I have to made User:EdwardH/Corpus Christi College, Oxford. My conflict of interest is that I am currently studying at Corpus and am the Computing & Website Officer for the JCR. The role is uncompensated, as is proposing these edits.

Summary of changes:


 * More abbreviations
 * Change of citation style to Harvard referencing and 's.
 * Updated student numbers
 * Foundation section expanded with bio of Foxe, the other benefactors, his intentions and the statutes.
 * Also added college grace and notes on it.
 * Very brief notes on notable Corpus divines ("Tudor period and religious ferment")
 * Reformatted very long heraldic blazon.
 * Added section on Buildings and Pelican Sundial.
 * More images
 * Updated the link to the MCR website

Things I am not opposed to:


 * Removing anything with or  – however most of these can be easily fixed when I re-read the books mentioned in comments
 * Similarly, anything without a citation I have added
 * Removing footnotes d and e.
 * Relegating some comments in the main body of the text to footnotes.
 * Cutting down the amount of architecture/sundial terminology in the Buidings/Pelican Sundial sections – but I think the Latin terms in the Foundation section should not be removed because Charles-Edwards & Reid make a point of using them to avoid conflation with modern meanings of "scholar" and "fellow".
 * Deleting some of the comments.
 * Deleting the quoteboxes in "Tudor period and religious ferment" and the Pelican Sundial's "History and copies" sections.

Things you may be concerned about:


 * Reliability: Both histories of the college were written by college employees, but this is unavoidable for a niche subject, especially when that subject employs historians. It should be noted on all third-party sources cite earlier histories of the college written by college members with approval. This is also the case between histories: though Fowler's book is over 100 years old, Charles-Edwards & Reid cite it with approval and make only smallish corrections to it.
 * Verifiability: Almost all works cited are publicly available, except for Pattenden's Bulletin of the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors, Inc., however I think that is acceptable because you can still buy access to the Bulletin and it should be available in deposit libraries. Notwithstanding that, it is worth using because it contains a lot more information/corrections than Pattenden's 1979 book.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by EdwardH (talk • contribs) 21:11, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Reply 07-MAY-2018
Some thoughts on this:
 * 1) 68% of the references in the draft version are sourced by two references only, the Fowler and Pattenden sources. That is not an improvement over the current standing version of the article where they make up 54% of the references. The information included from these two is exhaustive. As you said, WP:V is known with these two, but merely being verifiable does not automatically make something suitable for inclusion, whereas articles should not just become a complete exposition of all possible details, but rather, a  of accepted knowledge regarding their subjects. I don't know that the editor who posted 11 years ago saying the article needed more info on buildings and history was necessarily correct. I would recommend omitting those very same elements. Particular examples of what to leave out might include descriptions of building interiors like the library, particularly its details of alignments of bookshelves and the brief compendium of stucco work done on window soffits; a listing of the first 60 people to live there featuring details of their trades and living conditions, including the placement of their beds for each room; information on the religious ferment of the Tudor period; a detailed accounting of buildings on the campus including renovations; as well as the full quotation of the benediction given at mealtimes (in Latin, no less). Information such as this is inordinately detailed.
 * 2) I don't know what a "Computing and website officer of the JCR" means, but some may wonder whether a true COI relationship exists here. You are a student of the college in question, ostensibly paying them for an education. If they are providing you with a service, then you are, in effect, their customer. To use an example, if you had lunch at Simpson's-in-the-Strand and later decide to edit their Wikipedia page to add information, would that edit be a COI simply because you were a customer of theirs? Granted, there may be a time difference which makes this a separate circumstance, but we have customer editors who edit the businesses they frequently use all the time.
 * 3) Changing the reference style is something which would need to come out of consensus.
 * 4) This should also probably be run past the editors at the Oxford WikiProject as well, to garner their input on it.  .    spintendo ⋅ ⋅ )  14:30, 7 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your comments. In response to each:
 * I think the paragraph on the statutes, while quite fine in detail, would be of interest to the general reader since I think people would be interested in what Corpus was like 500 years ago and for the first 150-ish years thereafter. I believe that that information is a summary - that paragraph compresses what Fowler took to say in 6 pages. I agree the Buildings section is lengthy. It's not unusually so (for Oxford): cf. the featured articles Oriel College, Oxford or the Buildings of Jesus College, Oxford. The Pelican Sundial section in particular is quite long, but its weight is not undue – the sundial is the college's most notable feature. I will see if I can merge things to better emphasise why certain features are notable. I can't strongly defend including the college grace without invoking WP:OTHERCONTENT, but I do note that the presence of graces on almost every article about Oxbridge colleges (including the featured Oriel College, Oxford and the good Jesus College, Oxford), suggests a not too small interest in them.
 * That's true. I raised the COI edit request because I'm involved in running the undergraduate body and that has its business in making the college look good. (See also WP:PRESTIGE.)
 * The current article's "style" is a mix of bare refs and simple 's, so I don't think there's much to oppose.
 * Good idea. I'll add a note on the Oxford WikiProject Talk Page now.  (talk) 16:48, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Just checking in with you to see if anyone has responded from the Oxford WikiProject? Please advise. .   spintendo ⋅ ⋅ )  19:08, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
 * No one from the Oxford WikiProject has replied to my notice. Sorry, by the way, for not yet implementing your suggestions – a lot of work has suddenly appeared... I'll try to get a new version to you in a week.  (talk) 22:05, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
 * No one from the Oxford WikiProject has replied to my notice. Sorry, by the way, for not yet implementing your suggestions – a lot of work has suddenly appeared... I'll try to get a new version to you in a week.  (talk) 22:05, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

No problem. Go ahead and open a new request when you're ready. Thank you!  .  spinten do    23:08, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Revised substantial expansion of article
Corpus Christi College, Oxford, is a college of the University of Oxford, founded in 1517. I would like to merge the changes I have to made User:EdwardH/Corpus Christi College, Oxford. These changes are a revised version of those discussed two months ago. My conflict of interest is that I am currently studying at Corpus and am the Computing & Website Officer for the JCR. (It was disputed before whether this is in fact a conflict of interest.) The role is uncompensated, as is proposing these edits.

Changes from my last version:
 * Updated endowment figures.
 * Renamed subsections of the History section and added a few empty section templates.
 * Removed biographical details about the fellows Jewel, Rainolds and Hooker.
 * Moved the grace into the Traditions section.
 * Removed lots of disjointed details about the college buildings.
 * Shortened the description of the Pelican Sundial to one paragraph.
 * Removed a few disjointed details about the Pelican Sundial.

There are still lots of things missing from my draft (e.g. almost all of the History section), but I think it is a considerable improvement over the current article.

(talk) 14:25, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Reply 15-JUL-2018

 * 1) This article is about one of the 38 constituent colleges operating at Oxford. However, this proposed version of the college's Wikipedia article would total 43kB in size, or roughly $1/3$ the size of the entire Wikipedia article on Oxford itself. That size would be reached due in part to the large amount of appurtenant details added by this proposal.
 * 2) The length of the proposed draft needs to be reduced, keeping in mind the requirement that all articles fit Wikipedia's summary style. This style ensures that an article does not merely become a complete exposition of all possible details, but rather, that it remains as a  of accepted knowledge regarding its subject.
 *  spintendo   01:09, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for looking at this. I've removed 5 kB of the more trivial stuff and I think I've fixed the new paragraphs not conforming to summary style. (Also, should "appurtenant" be "impertinent"?)  (talk) 09:37, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you but no, the information you seek to add is clearly not impertinent. The information is appurtenant in that it does belong to a history of the college, but in this case, it is the size of that appurtenant information which is at issue, which I indicated in my response: "That size would be reached due in part to the large amount of appurtenant details added by this proposal." It would be naive to suggest that the information you have carefully collected and presented here is somehow 'impertinent'. The main concern here is to align that information with Wikipedia's requirement for WP:SS, a herculean task better suited to those with experience in the subject, which is why I suggested asking for assistance at the Oxford WikiProject. It's disappointing that no one there bothered to respond to your request. Alas, I will review and advise.  spintendo   19:48, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Many of us at the Oxford WikiProject are also conflicted (I'm a former student and former research fellow of Corpus) and so keeping out of this. But I really don't understand the complaint about length here.  The University of Oxford article is short precisely because so much of it is spun off into sub-articles.  If you want to see what a complete article on an Oxford College looks like then look at Oriel College, Oxford which is a featured article or Jesus College, Oxford which is a good article forming part of the Featured topics/Jesus College, Oxford series, including Buildings of Jesus College, Oxford which is a featured article. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 07:07, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

I'm placing my reply under an extended section because it's long and I don't want to distract more than I have already from the COI editor's request.

The two Featured and one Good Article mentioned by Jonathan achieved those statuses 7, 9 and 11 years ago, and all three have bloated in size since receiving those merits, so it would be more instructive to look at how they were then as opposed to now. In doing so, I have doubts that those same articles would be able to achieve those statuses today if reviewed. Looking at their past versions I see many of the passages are not cited. The Oriel article in particular contains paragraphs of information on the architectural aspects of buildings. Perhaps coming from the US where the focus on colleges is on the instruction rather than the architecture, this seems out of place to me in an article that arguably should be about what goes on inside of a building rather than outside of it.

As far as feeling conflicted about editing the article, I understand where Jonathan is coming from. But there are mitigating factors here. Former students should not feel too conflicted about reviewing an article about a school they no longer attend. Much of the information proposed here concerns events which occurred hundreds of years ago. To feel that there may be a COI with respect to what at most would have been 4 years of an editor's life begs the question: Where would that COI end? If I had been a citizen of the UK for my entire life of 25 years, and I had attended Oxford for 4 of those years, I would have been fairly involved with that school, having used its services and having been made familiar with its content and conventions. But I would wonder about the other 21 years of my life living in the UK. There too, I would have been familiar with the UK's content and conventions, having used their "services", just the same as Oxford. I would have even paid the UK through taxes just as I would have paid Oxford through tuition. Lengthwise, I would wonder whether or not those 21 years of having lived in the UK wouldn't be more of a COI as opposed to just the 4 having lived at Oxford. I would ask myself, would I need to avoid editing all articles having to do with the UK? I don't believe in that case that I should be expected to avoid editing UK topics, and the same ought to apply to former students of the school editing the school's articles (admittedly, in some cases only). Jonathan has said that the Project is "keeping out of this." But the guidance against COI editing has to do with editing an article directly. There should be no problem with the Oxford WikiProject adding as many modifications and input as they feel necessary to the proposal, and then submitting that proposal here for another editor to review and implement. I'm unsure if that has been done here; if it has, no one has mentioned it. I know I would feel much better reviewing a proposal which had the blessing of the Project, than reviewing one that didn't.

At the end of the day I want this article reviewed just as much as the proposing editor does. But I believe that two issues stand in the way: (1) I would be a poor choice as reviewer because of what I see the article's priorities as being. I'm willing to accept the label of being too restrictive in my thinking with regards to what information the article should incorporate. In that respect the article deserves a much better reviewer than myself. However, I'm afraid that (2) if placed as an edit request waiting for another editor, the article runs the risk of sitting here on the queue for what may be more than a few months – due to the fact that the request is (as I warned earlier) very long. Both issues could be solved quicker by taking other routes first (which, to their credit, the COI editor has indeed already tried). But for now let's leave the request here on the queue and see who turns out to be right. I'm hoping it won't be me.

 spintendo   12:52, 18 July 2018 (UTC)


 * If we compare the current version of Buildings of Jesus College, Oxford with the featured article version then the changes are actually pretty modest. Whether this would achieve featured article status now is a different question.  But for what it's worth I think that these are the sort of articles that most members of the project would consider at the very least acceptable.  I also think that your implicit self-assessment is correct, in that you don't really understand the structure and history of the University of Oxford well enough to have a reliable sense of what would make a good article.  Anyway, my own view is that some of the suggested changes are good but others are less so, and since nobody else seems to be interested I will start selectively implementing the changes I think sensible over the next few days.  Once that is done I will resume a discussion with Edward at this page about the remainder. I hope that is acceptable to all concerned. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 17:18, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
 * OK, that was quicker than I expected. Just a rough initial merge, but I doubt I'll make very substantial further changes. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 18:08, 18 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Has this edit request been answered?, I don't regard you as having a COI just because you're a student there. In future, I think you should go ahead and make the edits. SarahSV (talk) 21:22, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I made most of the requested edits and there seems to be no further discussion so I have boldly closed this. Thanks for the reminder, Jonathan A Jones (talk) 06:13, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
 * , thanks for closing the request. SarahSV (talk) 18:42, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

Proposed merge with List of Honorary Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Oxford
It would be better to merge that page with the college page. This page alone is useless. RafaelS1979 (talk) 21:48, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Oppose: list pages are usually split off from articles as a bulleted list of names doesn't really tell the reader very much. Unless you are going to write this list as prose, it will still be a useless list. I believe these lists started after the categories for honorary fellows at Oxford were deleted. Anyway these are honorary positions, I'm not sure how influential they are overall in the history of Corpus Christi Aloneinthewild (talk) 22:33, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Oppose: Aloneinthewild is right. But this could be merged into List of Corpus Christi College, Oxford people if desired. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 06:51, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Merged as suggested by Jonathan Aloneinthewild (talk) 15:39, 1 September 2018 (UTC)