Talk:James F. Jones (educator)

NPOV issues and Original Research
I tried to improve the page by keeping out large, very poorly negative sections of the article which could be considered BLP violations in favor of a "criticism" section. If you disagree that this isn't the way to go please tell me why. Thanks! Winner 42 Talk to me!  01:36, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
 * But much of the rest of it is criticism too. It seems to me that the article in its present form is highly unbalanced and verging on an attack page. It needs going through in detail by someone with knowledge of the American college system who can weigh up the value of the references and represent the contrasting views. Edit warring should not continue Noyster  (talk),  19:19, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
 * It seems a number of editors are editing in an attempt to bias the article against Jones. Winner 42 Talk to me!  20:37, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

This is the not place to list grievances against Jones. While a controversy section is perfectly valid, controversies need to be source from reliable sources, not editors own research. The current state of the article could be libelous. Listing before and after rankings around his tenure at Trinity in an attempt to imply Jones' responsibility for the fall is also potentially libelous. Paraphrasing a media report (and referencing that report) concerning the drop in ranking is more appropriate. --RadioFan (talk) 04:02, 5 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Has the POV issue(s) been resolved? If so, the tag can be removed. If not, the items still needing to be addressed need to be mentioned here so that they can be cleaned up. Softlavender (talk) 00:16, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

I attempted to fix the POV issues with a more balanced view of Jones' entire career while at the same time maintaining the criticisms levied against him, including substantive sections on Kalamazoo College and his Academic biography, and including verified sources on Jones' accomplishments in addition to his criticisms. The introductory section was also revised to better reflect other university presidents, e.g., Peter Salovey. The work was thoroughly cited and I took great care to do so. Then the very next day a user undid all changes and returned the site to the negative attack format and I was accused by that user of whitewashing and revisionist history. It's hard to fix the POV issues when folks keep insisting on maintaining the page as an attack page. --Bimdieke (talk) 18:08, 27 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Your edits removed huge amounts of cited material. Many of your additions were self-cited, POV and/or WP:PEACOCK. -- Softlavender (talk) 02:00, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Softlavendar, you can't simply remove independently cited material and claim POV. If you have specific concerns with the edits you have to make them clear and justify them. Based on your past behavior it appears you are affirmatively trying to ensure this remains an attack post. What is your bias here? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bimdieke (talk • contribs) 06:34, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

Overall it looks like James Jones’ page is slightly more balanced with at least some of his history noted. I do find the paragraphs about Sweet Briar continue to be biased since there is no follow through admitting that most of the statistics which were “alleged” during the spring of 2015 were ultimately proven to be wrong after President Stone took office. And the amount of the endowment, debt, etc. turned out to be just what Jones and the Board were claiming. Today Sweet Briar College is dying a slow death where enrollment targets have not been met, fundraising targets have not been met, faculty and staff are being laid off and the curriculum watered down. It would be nice to mention that Jones and the Board are being proven right by multiple articles and information coming directly from the school. Unbiased Editting (talk) 17:34, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Conflict of interest
At least one major contributor to this article appears to have a close personal or professional connection to the topic, and thus to have a conflict of interest. Conflict-of-interest editors are strongly discouraged from editing the article directly, but are always welcome to propose changes on the talk page (i.e., here). You can attract the attention of other editors by putting request edit (exactly so, with the curly parentheses) at the beginning of your request, or by clicking the link on the lowest yellow notice above. Requests that are not supported by independent reliable sources are unlikely to be accepted.

Please also note that our Terms of Use state that "you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation." An editor who contributes as part of his or her paid employment is required to disclose that fact. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 12:25, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

50 years of missing information
Where is the information about Jones’s education. His schools and degrees? And the information about his career before Trinity College? All of this information is in the public domain yet does not appear here. And information about his books and publications?

As this entry is written it just appears to be a place where people unhappy with a few of the policies he was charged with carrying out can come to Bitch and Moan. (NOTE:Presidents do not make policy, Boards do.) And, as with so much on the internet it is all done anonymously. I would expect better from a vehicle claiming to have an anti-harassment policy! Unbiased Editting (talk) 13:25, 7 January 2018 (UTC)


 * In the reliable secondary sources discussing Jones that I'm aware of, his education is hardly discussed. I couldn't find anything about his career before Trinity College either. You're welcome to present sources (which won't be in the "public domain", but that's not necessary) if you know of them. It's unsurprising that controversial actions get more media coverage than uncontroversial ones. Huon (talk) 14:37, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

I am truly saddened that this continues to be a place for those unhappy with just 3 of the polices Jones was charged with carrying out at two of his positions can simply attack and harass him. I have followed his entire career. What a sad day it is that those small people who cannot get past minor disappointments in life continue to remove information about 50 years of his life and career. Why are you so afraid of the whole truth about this man? He was an outstanding teacher and scholar with a stunning career! Unbiased Editting (talk) 16:38, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't know anything about Jones or these incidents,, but I felt that I had to revert your edits because they did not appear to be based on reliable, published sources that readers could check verify the material. References such as "Woodward Academy Records" are not sufficient. Are these records published? How would a reader check them? Please see PUBLISHED and Verifiability for guidance on this. Cordless Larry (talk) 17:08, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Now I am truly puzzled. Go to the entry for Eileen Wilson-Oyelaran and the first foot note is “Kalamazoo College”. School records are not private. And in most of the cases for my husband, if the college website lists all previous presidents, he would be listed. Certainly archives from his years in administration would have him listed on a school’s website. Unbiased Editting (talk) 23:35, 8 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Unbiased Editting, are you saying that James F. Jones is your husband? Softlavender (talk) 23:46, 8 January 2018 (UTC)


 * The footnote on the Eileen Wilson-Oyelaran doesn't just say the name of a college, it has a link to a webpage, where presumably (when that footnote was added), it had information on the subject. It doesn't at this point, but that's because that page now has information on the current president... but with the web address attached, someone could easily pull up the past version of the web page (from a web archive source) to verify the claim. (Were someone to maintain that article, they would add a link directly to the archived version.) If the college websites list Jones, then the URL (web address) of the specific page that does so would make an excellent reference. --Nat Gertler (talk) 23:52, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

To clarify a point, Jones was a colleague of mine for many years. I hope he would consider me a friend but more than that I have followed his career and respect his knowledge and know he is an honorable man. My husband was also a college president. Sorry for any confusion. As with most academics I have rarely looked at Wikipedia because it does not have the same standards for documenting information as scholarly writings would require. When a large part of documentation is done through secondary sources such as articles appearing in newspapers and websites there is no assurance that these articles themselves are stating facts accurately and in a non biased way. When I first read the page for Jones it appeared that he had simply sprung from his mother’s womb in 2004 to arrive at Trinity College to be attacked by a Prof. Gunderson and pro-fraternity people, and then gone to Sweet Briar College for more attacks. Having followed his career through decades I was stupefied that Wikipedia would support this kind of harrassment and abuse to anyone on any topic. I sincerely apologize for trying to add information which I know is “out in the public realm” and for adding any information where one would have to go beyond the internet to verify. I could not believe there was no mention of his various degrees and honors, his books and multitude of articles, his employment and accomplishments before Trinity College. And, what about his tenure at Trinity College? Where is the mention of the Long Walk restoration, founding of the Quest program, success of the squash program and several fund raising campaigns during his presidency. If one goes to the footnotes for the Trinity section and reads them carefully, as I have now done, one is not available without a subscription (allowable?) and the others show that the Davis endowment issues date to decades before Jones ever even arrived at Trinity. It would appear from these articles that he was actually trying to bring the college into legal compliance. (One also has to wonder why Prof Gunderson was so set that excess funds not be used to support scholars in Economics, but that is another issue.) To the fraternity issues and the issues from his year at Sweet Briar College I will make only two comments at this time: PRESIDENTS DO NOT SET POLICY for schools, Boards do, and the supporting source materials do not support much of the wording in these sections. I find the Sweet Briar section particularly interesting with where it ends. I have followed this issue very closely as an academic and read many articles since 2015, including statements sent out by the college. Since new leadership took over, the school has not even come close to the enrollment goals they set themselves and have based 2/3 of the annual budgets on fund raising. There have been multiple articles recently about the fact that the school is now laying off professors as well as staff and that all the problems which caused the previous Board to vote for an orderly closure still exist. As soon as I fully retire I will work on adding these facts with documentation. Unbiased Editting (talk) 17:06, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
 * To address a specific question included: yes, subscription-based sources, or sources that are behind some other sort of "paywall", are indeed acceptable. If there are multiple sources for the same information, we do prefer the free over the at-cost, and the online rather than the offline, but all are acceptable options. (As for the different sourcing goals here as opposed to scholarly work, that arises because the goals are quite different. In broad strokes, scholarly work tries to be the creation of knowledge, encyclopedia work the summation of knowledge.) --Nat Gertler (talk) 17:22, 9 January 2018 (UTC)


 * , to emphasise a point made by Nat, offline sources are pefectly acceptable, so "adding any information where one would have to go beyond the internet to verify" is fine. We even have a page explaining this: Offline sources. The point is that sources have to be published in some form or rather, which rules out private university records. Cordless Larry (talk) 17:34, 9 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Unbiased Editting, your editing is extremely biased, you have an admitted conflict of interest, and you are what we call a single-purpose account. In addition, you have admitted that your intention here is to "Right Great Wrongs". Therefore, because of your biases I would not personally recommend posting information that cannot be verified via the internet (either currently or via an internet archive). Also, because of your conflict of interest, you should not edit the article directly, but should instead post edit requests (via the instructions at Template:Request edit) here on this talkpage and allow experienced and disinterested editors to assess (and if appropriate, they will make the edit requested). For the past four years this article has been beset with seven (so far) COI editors removing large swathes of cited information and adding uncited information, so you are part of a pattern. In addition, in terms of "Since new leadership took over, [Sweet Briar College] has not even come close to the enrollment goals they set themselves and have based 2/3 of the annual budgets on fund raising. ... I will work on adding these facts with documentation", that information would not belong in this article, as it is not about Jones. If anything, it would belong in the article on Sweet Briar College. -- Softlavender (talk) 22:15, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Reverting the COI SPA
Hi, in order to revert the massive changes made by the COI SPA, I've WP:BOLDLY reverted the article to the state it was before that user came on the scene. Obviously good-faith edits were made in the interim; I hope experienced editors will not mind redoing their policy-based edits. Thanks, Softlavender (talk) 19:28, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
 * It's a complicated one, this - we've had COI SPA edits and edits by others trying to address genuine BLP concerns. The former need to be dealt with, but let's take care not to undo the work to make the article BLP compliant. Cordless Larry (talk) 22:36, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I think it has been resolved now. Collect reverted my wholesale mass revert and replaced it with a less POV version; I then corrected some facts and added one or two points. Softlavender (talk) 22:41, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
 * There is still some overlap between the content of the career and criticism sections, which I think could be merged into a single career section. Cordless Larry (talk) 23:05, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Done. Softlavender (talk) 00:25, 9 January 2018 (UTC)