Talk:List of people associated with Balliol College, Oxford

Principles for inclusion
Balliol alumni are often talented and to indulge all the high achievers could crowd this page to the point of hubris. There should be some principles for determining inclusion on this page and suggestions are welcome. I propose that those included should be notable or exceptional in some way. Whilst much can be achieved early in life, the temptation should be resisted to place individuals of the wikipedia generation upon a pedestal until the passage of time provides proof. I suggest that the following taken individually are insufficient grounds for inclusion:


 * a current member of the academic staff
 * a recently published book

JPF 23:49, 25 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Some of the recent entries seem difficult to justify - William Wallace a philosopher?; non-students; red entries; graduates with promising but unproven contributions etc. - a more objective approach needs to be found.. JPF 10:10, 11 December 2006 (UTC)


 * If the individual has been judged worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia, s/he should be worth including in Wikipedia's List of Balliol College people. Sir Paul 16:52, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

The William Waldegrave article claims that he attended Corpus Christi, not Balliol – is his entry here an error, or does it refer to an ancestor? Or is the Waldegrave article wrong? Ronald Collinson 00:05, 26 February 2006 (UTC)


 * It seems the entry here is wrong. I'll delete it. JPF 00:54, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:SeretseKhama.jpg
The image Image:SeretseKhama.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check


 * That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
 * That this article is linked to from the image description page.

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Media copyright questions. --21:30, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Fictional alumni
Shouldn't Lord Peter Wimsey be in this list somewhere? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:09, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I have deleted Humphrey Appleby as his wiki page says he was a fellow of the fictional Baillie College (with a Dean rather than a Master). But I have added Trollope's Rev Arabin who although a fellow of the fictional (and rich) Lazarus College was described as a graduate of Balliol. Thomas Peardew (talk) 13:08, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

More discrimination under Mathematics, Science and Technology
1. I added Atul Gawande (1987) to the list. Balliol recognises his achievements.

2. Would it not be helpful to be a bit more discriminating, rather than lump anyone of repute in mathematics, medicine, science or technology under the same heading? Maybe sub-headings of Medicine, Science, Mathematics, Technology would suffice? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.67.115.253 (talk) 00:28, 4 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, done 13 years after the request. JPF (talk) 10:15, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Classical and Other Scholars
It is odd that there is no mention of scholars such as Cyril Bailey, Edgar Lobel, R.A.B.Mynors, Sir John Beazley, William S. Watt, K.J. Dover, R.G.M.Nisbet, to name but a few, of probably scores, that I can think of off the top of my head, and some among the highest in their field of all time. There must be modern language scholars also. Seadowns (talk) 15:07, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi, feel free to add them under the appropriate subheading as long as they have a Wikipedia article! These lists unfortunately tend to be very incomplete, probably in part due to them somewhat replicating categories. Best, 15 (talk) 15:16, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

I have added some, including Scott of Liddell and Scott. Also Peter May among the unsuccessful applicants, rejected because he was a public schoolboy and good at games, two categories much disliked by the Master, Sandie Lindsay. Seadowns (talk) 12:58, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 4 March 2024

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. Consensus for the proposed alternative naming pattern is clear; the initially proposed naming pattern will also be redirected there. BD2412 T 00:36, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

– Per MOS:GEOCOMMA, a closing comma is missing in all these article names. This naming pattern might appear a bit clunky to some (although including the comma in similar constructs is getting increased usage in [print] media), so there is an alternative, shown below. HandsomeFella (talk) 11:19, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
 * List of Balliol College, Oxford people → List of Balliol College, Oxford, people
 * List of Balliol College, Oxford academics → List of Balliol College, Oxford, academics
 * List of Brasenose College, Oxford people → List of Brasenose College, Oxford, people
 * List of Corpus Christi College, Oxford people → List of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, people
 * List of Lincoln College, Oxford people → List of Lincoln College, Oxford, people
 * List of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford people → List of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, people
 * List of New College, Oxford people → List of New College, Oxford, people
 * List of Nuffield College, Oxford people → List of Nuffield College, Oxford, people
 * List of St Anne's College, Oxford people → List of St Anne's College, Oxford, people
 * List of Trinity College, Oxford people → List of Trinity College, Oxford, people
 * List of Wadham College, Oxford people → List of Wadham College, Oxford, people

Alternative naming pattern
Interestingly, the corresponding list articles for the University of Cambridge follow another pattern: List of alumni of [Foo] College, Cambridge.

So, alternative targets for the proposed moves above would then be:
 * List of people associated with Balliol College, Oxford
 * List of academics associated with Balliol College, Oxford
 * List of people associated with Brasenose College, Oxford
 * List of people associated with Corpus Christi College, Oxford
 * List of people associated with Lincoln College, Oxford
 * List of people associated with Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford
 * List of people associated with New College, Oxford
 * List of people associated with Nuffield College, Oxford
 * List of people associated with St Anne's College, Oxford
 * List of people associated with Trinity College, Oxford
 * List of people associated with Wadham College, Oxford

There are indeed four articles that already follow the proposed naming pattern: If the outcome of the discussion is that the articles should be moved to the alternative naming pattern, these four articles should be moved too.
 * List of Oriel College, Oxford, people
 * List of Pembroke College, Oxford, people
 * List of Somerville College, Oxford, people
 * List of Wolfson College, Oxford, people

For easy dissemination of responses, I have created headings below.

Support
Specify below which of the proposed naming patterns you support.

Support a move to the alternative naming pattern mentioned

 * Support, this is a much less clunky format that flows better. Timrollpickering (talk) 10:35, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Support. We generally try to avoid having to include offsetting commas in titles, because it just looks really awkward. See for example discussions at Talk:Rochester metropolitan area, New York. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 16:53, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Support. Much less awkward. Walrasiad (talk) 18:57, 4 March 2024 (UTC) - switch to either
 * Support this. YorkshireExpat (talk) 20:16, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Support. Much the best construction. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:04, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Support. Much better option. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 12:20, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Support. Less clunky. Switch from "either". HandsomeFella (talk) 18:37, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Support, but the one for academics would be less clunky again if it were List of academics of Balliol College, Oxford. Ham II (talk) 19:58, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * There's List of academics at Queen Mary University of London and List of academics of University of Wales, Lampeter. Should it be "at [Foo] University" or "of [Foo] University"? HandsomeFella (talk) 11:00, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Good question. The categories for those ones are at Category:Academics of Queen Mary University of London and Category:Academics of the University of Wales, Lampeter. That is at least consistent with "alumni of". I reckon "of" for all of them. Ham II (talk) 16:42, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Support a move to either of the two naming patterns mentioned

 * Support (as proposer) a move to either naming pattern mentioned. HandsomeFella (talk) 09:58, 4 March 2024 (UTC) HandsomeFella Switch to the alternative format.
 * Support either per nom. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 18:23, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Support. Much less awkward.   Prefer "people associated with" after I realized not all listed are necessarily graduates. Walrasiad (talk) 18:57, 4 March 2024 (UTC)