Talk:Ohio Wesleyan University/Archive 3

NPOV?
"The accolades and lavish praise really belongs in a sub-section of its own towards the bottom of the listing."

You are raising good points. They are in a separate section now anyway. Everything is NPOV. All articles mention rankings and some kind of numbers about the colleges. Check out Oberlin College, Kenyon College, Wesleyan University. Nothing is against Wiki's policy. Unfortunately, unless there is some kind of policy in Wiki that says that references to publications can not be here, they can stay. I suggest we expand the section about academic departments. You seem to know a lot about the college. Would you like to contribute in the section about academic departments? Thanks.

rananim 02:22, 3 jan 2005 (UTC)

I do not believe the article is written from a neutral point of view. It's style and content are designed to advertise, rather than inform. The worst error is the style, using complex organization and sentence structures and off-topic factoids in the style of brochures.

Bad organization :


 * General facts about students, like how many there are, where they come from, and so on are scattered throughout the article. This leads to such absurdities as the number of current home states and countries of students appearing in the History section.
 * "Wesleyan's reputation of being one of the liberal arts colleges with highest percentage of international students among liberal arts colleges in the United States" or something similar is mentioned in full detail in two different places.

Bad style :


 * a considerable percent of international students from all over the world. International students, are, by common assumptions, from all over the world.
 * is among the oldest of the numerous Methodist universities in the U.S. and abroad. This can easily be shortened to the much better "is one of the oldest Methodist universities".
 * The Leon A. Beeghly Library houses a central collection of more than 480,000 items, including rare books, manuscripts, art, microfilm, and federal government publications. Its Audio Visual Center includes a learning laboratory, multimedia classrooms, and individual viewing/listening rooms. Listing items found in most university libraries is not informative.
 * Wesleyan's acceptance rate is 68%, but the application pool is undoubtedly stronger than many schools with lower rates as shown in Princeton Review's analysis of peer schools, defined by the number of students applying to similar institutions. According to the 2005 edition of Princeton Review,many of these students applying to Ohio Wesleyan University are also applying to schools like Harvard, Cornell, Vassar and Kenyon. This can easily be simplified.

Unsupported assertions :


 * An extraordinary percentage of students participate in volunteer initiatives on and off campus. What percentage according to who ?
 * A general sense of community service and activism permeates the campus. The school has passed resolutions or adopted formal policies committing themselves not to invest in World Bank bonds" according to the Center for Economic Justice in Washington, DC. How exactly does avoiding one investment support the first sentence ?

These aren't the only instances, they indicate the general problems with the article. The article needs to be reorganized so that related ideas aren't flung throughout and it needs succinct writing. It doesn't have to be against the college or even uninteresting, but its first goal is to impartially inform. It can never be verbose, factoid-tossing advertising copy, as it is now.

68.112.220.182 19:54, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Dear user:68.112.220.182 I don't know who you are, but I love you for making the above observations. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

If you will read back through the correspondence that I have had with user:rananim (and his various IP address Identities) his intent has been not facts, but what he thinks the article should be; in some cases he has eliminated facts because he thinks it reads better his way. Frankly, I don't care who overhauls this, but I will help anyone who is interested in making this fact based instead of having it written to "impress".

In wikiworld, is this considered Avoid peacock terms?

Votes for Deletion Ohio Wesleyan Building Entries
Hi all, this is just a heads-up that I've listed all the stubs of the OWU buildings (Bigelow-Rice Hall, Wesleyan, Edgar Hall, Wesleyan, Sturges Hall, Wesleyan, University Hall, Wesleyan, Elliott Hall, Wesleyan, Slocum Hall, Wesleyan, Conrades•Wetherell Science Center, Wesleyan, Phillips Hall, Wesleyan) at Votes for deletion/Ohio Wesleyan buildings. You should feel free to make your voices heard there if you care one way or the other. &mdash; Asbestos | Talk 18:48, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Asbestos- Thanks for addressing these listings.  I'm voting for their deletion.  [[user: stude62 talk:stude62]] 19:05, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The result of the VfD was to merge. The articles have been placed on this page, and, now, here, they can be edited as would any other part of the article (e.g. further merged into a single section, or have not-as-important buildings removed). The original articles have been deleted and turned into redirects. &mdash; Asbestos | Talk 22:16, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Votes for deletion: Template:Wesleyan
I have listed Template:Wesleyan for deletion. It was used incorrectly in the article and serves no real purpose considering that it has been suggested that the building articles that this references are in VFD.

You can place your vote at Templates for deletion

[[user: stude62 talk:stude62]] 01:55, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Look whose back!
Apparently our friend Rananim, Ranamim, etc. is back trying to return this article to a subjective format.[[user: stude62 talk:stude62]] 02:33, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Re: Look who is back
I am not sure what the right grammar of "Look whose back" but that says a lot about you. Check the IP before you make strange accusations.

208.131.191.117 21:39, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Facts
Recent reverts were made with the intent to bring this artcile toward NPOV. Facts should be current and relevent to the article. A previous contributor, acting as the articles guardian has tried to move this article away from fact and more towards their expirience and personal feelings regarding to the school. Wikipedia is not a place were personal biases should govern factual content. Factual content must be kept as current as possible. The logical progression of the article must make sense. Once someone begins to fabricate what they "feel" is the truth, (even when it is in conflict with 150+ years of documented history) the integrity of the article is no longer trustworthy.

To the user who has appeared under various I.P. Addresses and user names, I invite you to settle on one user name (instead of identity shifting as have been documented as doing) and post your personal feelings about OWU there, where they can live on without causing a conflict with facts. user: stude62 talk:stude62 18:03, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

User Stude62
Your accusations about username Rananim is very impolite and insulting. I will start a page with request for comments about user Stude62 because your allegations in all of your posts have never been proven. You have deleted a lot of information which is not about feelings but factual information from PR and various other sources. They have been most recently added back by various users which can be seen in the history.

I will start a page about user Stude62 to ensure that his behavior is not systematic with other pages that he vandalizes.

Patnaik 22:40, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * My, Patnaik, you've had a good first day of edits. You went straight to Ohio Wesleyan University and immediately "defended" Rananim (here's your edit history in case you wanted to see yourself). Congratulations!
 * Seriously though, Ranamim, I've stayed out of your arguments since our scuffle ended up getting you unnecessarily blocked, but, what is this, your fourth pseudonym? Ranamim, John69, Rananim, Patnaik... Grow up a little. The username Ranamim was only blocked for 24 hours, so there was never any need to create new users.   &mdash; Asbestos | Talk 23:37, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

____


 * Patnaik- I also find it interesting that not only did you just begin your "Wikipedia" user name January 20, 2004, but that the only things that you have interacted on is the OWU article (8 times) and two edits against me, personally. You also do seem to defend Rananim, and you also write, edit and attack others as he does, how odd. I'm amused by you finding my conversations with and comments on Rananim, (in which I call him/her on the carpet for shape shifting and subjective trivial edits) "insulting"; if anyone has a right a right to take umbridge with me, its Rananim, not you!  This is exactly why I feel that you (and the I.P. addresses that show up just to restore Rananim's handy-work in this) is all a charade.  I suspect sock puppet tactics; and the FACT pattern that Rananim (et.al.) creates, points exactly in that direction.


 * As for the content of the article that you find not to your liking, its much more compliance with university's media relations department and NPOV standards on Wikipedia than Rananim's handiwork. I asked user:Silsor to make an edit on the article in order to have a totally neutral third party get input into the entry.  If Silsor had found value in Rananim's SPOV ramblings, then he would have restored the article to a state it was at the end of Rananim's rambles.  user: stude62 talk:stude62 15:37, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Re: Asbestos, Stude62
What is odd? That people edit the page about OWU? I have not defended anyone. User Stude62 does exactly what he accuses Rananim of doing...vandalizing, deleting and changing the text to his own taste. He has made a lot of meaningful contributions (not to the OWU pages) but a lot of it has been plain vandalizing to the Ohio Wesleyan page. Not to add that he seems to be unrelated to the university, so his knowledge about facts is based on ....hmmmmmmm...what? Yes, is it very strange that there are other students and alumni of Ohio Wesleyan who feel they can have a voice on this article, but do not contribute to other pages? Absurd? Right? 20,000alumni and if anyone of them makes a change to this page that doesn't suit your taste, it is Ranamim, Rananim and whoever else a paranois person suspects to be usernames for the same person?

Asbestos, as for your pseudonyms comment...Just because one makes changes that you don't like (and Stude62), be it from Delaware (and from wherever else the other IPs came from)...yes, it is the same super-user capable of teleporting in various locations to suit your theory..and make changes to a single page on the internet. What will you say if one accused you of the same thing about you, Stude62, RickR and the many users that happen to defend on a particular issue?

My job is done here...

However, I will start a comments page and see what other people have to say about Stude62. Asbestos, feel free to add your positive comment about the username. This is primarily to ensure that Stude62's behavior is not systematic and he does not vandalize which some users on the OWU page feel he has been doing.

user:Patnaik talk:Patnaik 15:37, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Patnaik - I'm humored by your pseudonym comment - no one ever mentioned half of those locations.  What I do know about this monkey business is far more than you give me credit for. You can start a comment page on me, and I will do the same to you and all of your IDs. But no matter what you attempt to do to me, the facts surrounding you looks very strange, and even stranger that someone would just drop out of the sky, into Wikipedia, start making the same types of reverts that Rananim makes and then go for my throat.  You know what else looks odd?  How Rananim, just like, all his other personalities has disapeared, just to be replaced by you. Isn't that queer? Do we see a pattern? Imagine that! user: stude62 talk:stude62 01:17, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * "This is primarily to ensure that Stude62's behavior is not systematic and he does not vandalize which some users on the OWU page feel he has been doing."  Patnaik, can I ask who these other users are, aside from Rananim and you?  user: stude62 talk:stude62 01:40, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Silsor - great edit!
Silsor - Great edit and clean up on the alumni section!user: stude62 user talk:stude62 13:49, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Silsor - bad edits!
Your edits correcting the typos are much appreciated! Your efforts to remove "plagiarism" (since when a word or two in edits like "Asian expert" constitute plagiarism?!?) were rather BAD. For example:

Edit 1: Ezra Vogel: removing "regarded as an expert on Asian issues" and leaving "tenured professor" is rather stupid. Not only that it removes what is widely accepted as a fact in the scholarly community in Asian Studies (I, myself, have happened to read a lot of Vogel's work in my development classes on Asia), but it leaves only the text "tenured professor" which by itself is hardly anything to note anywhere...you might as well include the hundreds of other OWU alumni who happen to be tenured professors elsewhere...

Edit 2: James F. Huhn...removed "a pioneer in the development of plastics and synthetic fibers" and left just his name...how would anyone know what this guy James F. Huhn is notable for?!

Note that pretty much all of your edits removed the part that makes one notable and pretty much left just names. Again, if this isn't obviously odd in a section called Notable Alumni, then...

A general note about the direction of arguments on this page:

I don't wish to waste my time in arguing about issues of this sort...I mean I believe your efforts are perhaps guided by some personal animosity due to the Edinburgh "astronomer" and the so-called journalist or something...well, good for you. I can contribute (and perhaps occasionally do so here) in places where my efforts are not obstructed by people of questionable capabilities on topics that they know nothing about. This applies to Stude62, who somehow claims to be a journalist, yet, every other sentence on this page contains a grammatical error; his edits to the OWU page introduced quite a few typos in the article. Believe me, I very much appreciate well-reasoned criticism offered by smart people, especially on topics where I feel I know something about. Nothing more rewarding about this kind of "challenge". Sadly, most of the people who side with Asbestos on arguments related to this article have no knowledge whatsoever about OWU and therefore this a battle among people of very different cadres. Of course, the long-awaited edits by the Media Relations department at Wesleyan (which was probably supposed to be some kind of threat offered by Stude62 to make me shit in my pants) will never come because there is nothing to correct that was claimed to be a subjective opinion of mine...he can feel comfortable making such edits since he never went to OWU, never worked for OWU or never knew anything about OWU as opposed to me who is related to the university...Therefore, we never heard WHAT SPECIFICALLY was subjective. (I am very curious how they blew him off after hearing his absurd claims). Instead, there was restructuring of the article around topics that fitted Stude62's tastes. That's fine. I wish you could make the same kind of edits on college pages where a lot more "stakeholders" are involved. For instance, notice the super POV language in the very first two paragraphs of Wesleyan (CT). Guess why you won't have the guts to go there?

Finally, Asbestos and Stude62, I haven't disappeared...I posted as Rananim (I didn't know that I could still post with this nick) and that's all..that's why it was amusing for me to see your accusations about other people (really). Some people call this kind of phenomenon paranoia...I am not an expert in this area, so I will not qualify your comments and their psychological significance. I simply refused to get involved in your pointless "discussions". A simple internal cost-benefit analysis prevents me from spending my time in such a way.

Ranamim 06:05, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Sorry, could you repeat that? silsor 06:11, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)

Repeat what? Can't you read? Ranamim 06:15, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * It seems your only objection to my edits is that I removed pieces of text saying what people are notable for. If you want to rewrite them then be my guest, but I don't see how I am obligated to rewrite the text that other people have stolen when I remove it.  Yes, those were instances of plagiarism, because plagiarism is representing other people's work as your own.  If you copied more than three or four words without attribution for a paper in a course for this university you seem to like so much, you would be lucky if your professor only tore it up. silsor 20:17, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)

What?!?
Are you saying that "regarded as an America's top Asian expert" in reference to Vogel is plagiarism just because you found it or found a similarly worded sentence somewhere as someone else's "opinion"? Excuse me, but this is neither original nor a revolutionary idea to qualify for plagiarism at all.

Guess what...would you say "George W. Bush is the current president of the U.S." is plagiarized just because you found it on 100 Internet pages (even though I just came up with this super brilliant idea in less than a second...)?

I can not come up with anything that doesn't say what you found about Vogel simply because he IS regarded as a top expert on Asia...if you are nitty-picky about the definition of plagiarism you should remove anything that paraphrases this into anything similar since it captures the same idea. If that's your definition of plagiarism, I am afraid I should tell you that you will never be able to produce anything original since you will be reinventing the wheel over and over again...and hence lose sight of what it is that you borrow (since it either makes absolutely no sense to reinvent it again or it widely regarded as truth) and what it is that you produce by yourself.

In reference to this, telling me that an alumni list is plagiarised from somewhere is like telling me that someone plagiarized from the phone book!!! When you hear that from someone who is not a programmer or not cognitively challenged, then you can tell me that I sound like a buffoon.

Ranamim 00:17, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * 1) You have no idea what you're talking about
 * 2) Incidentally, searching for "George W. Bush is the current president of the U.S." on Google returns zero results
 * 3) Yes, copying short phrases word-for-word is plagiarism, if you did it in school you'd face academic punishment
 * 4) Just because anybody can edit Wikipedia doesn't mean our standards are low
 * 5) You're using an awful lot of words to avoid saying this one little thing: "Yes, silsor, I did copy and paste those unique phrases from other web sites!"

silsor 00:53, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)


 * Silsor, Ranamim, it seems to me like the way to avoid plagiarism is simply to cite your sources. For example, instead of removing "Originator of lighted night football games.", which was copied from, you could simply add that web site to a new "References" section at the bottom of the article.  Whether some text is copied word-for-word or rephrased, you're still supposed to cite your sources to aviod plagiarism.  dbenbenn | talk 20:33, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Re: Silsor

 * 1) Perhaps
 * 2) Literal-minded people? I love them.
 * 3) Really? If they are names??
 * 4) You surely know a lot about high standards.
 * 5) See my response from last week, "buddy".

Ranamim 19:03, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Edits in Academics

 * In the Academic section, I removed tenured on the listing above - Its immaterial. I also removed "widly used" from Applegate's listing because "widley used" is subjective.  Stating that the book is in its fourth edition speaks to its popularity and its based on fact. user: stude62 user talk:stude62 00:53, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

stude62 and Dyslexia, etc.
stude62, I find it very amusing to see that you are admitting to your dyslexia just right before I was about to make a "comment" about how dyslectic and "anemic" the OWU article became after your involvement. It reads like a draft with random one line sentences all over the place. In fact, the logical order of information is questionable. I don't see one-sentence or two-sentence paragraphs with typos all that often. And if I do, they rarely constitute a good model for writing, even in encyclopedias. I suppose that's some kind of innovative way of writing, which one day will get you a literary award. For the record: I realize there are limitations that you have and I am not making fun of them. We are all imperfect in some ways. However, the way I deal with my own imperfections is by staying out of areas that involve a heavy use of them. (and I certainly don't emphasize how great I am in them because there are a lot of areas that I am quite incompetent). It seems to me that you are doing the opposite. You even claimed that you "improved" the pages. Perhaps you get some short-term pleasant feeling of getting what you want but objectively, the writing is not only horrible but also contains a lot of errors. I will correct them when I find the time. For the time being, you seem to revert edits from me...so I'll let other people find your grammar errors and correct them so that you don't accuse me of "protecting" the page or adding subjective information. In the real world, the market corrects involvements of such types by pricing them at their worth (writers included)...so I am not that worried about the long-term outcome.

Requests: Please don't change my message titles and what I write because I don't do the same with what you write. In fact, it is to my advantage that I leave them the way you write them so people can see them as indicators of your "improvements" wherever and whatever they might be. Also, please address me with the nick that I use to sign my messages since I have never requested or allowed you to address me with other names. In the internet world, there are always good reasons to use nicks and not real names...I noticed you share this opinion on your own profile.

Ranamim 19:23, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Ranamim, I can underdstand posting this on my talk page, but copying your pysch games and posting them here posting them again, here is not only childish, but also immaterial to the article at hand. It reflects worse on you then on me.user: stude62 user talk:stude62 20:47, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Bad writing & Stude62
What?!?

All I am saying is that you introduced LOTS of typos and your contributions added a rather bad style of writing (For instance, I've never seen good writing with one-sentence paragraphs and lack of any logical links between paragraphs, which were added by YOU).

You blame it on some kind of mental disability. All I am saying is: Fine, I am sorry to hear that you have it, but please don't claim that you improve an article by making it obviously worse due your dyslexia which somehow happens to be exhibited in just about every sentence that you edit.

Adding my comment here is perfectly alright. This is what this page is about: OWU, its article and its contributors. My comments concern your additions to this article. I don't really care about a discussion on your profile. It is much more relevant here! And please don't call me childish. I understand why you want to sound like two of the people who I've had arguments with (Jmabel and Asbestos) but my accusations are neither childish not unreasonable. This is a rather serious issue which warrants no accusations of this calibre.

Ranamim 02:17, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

My son has dyslexia. What a horrible thing to say to somebody, and childish! Shame on you! Jrossman 02:35, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)
 * Perhaps I am off. Which part do you find particularly "horrible"? If you mean blunt=childish, then I agree that I am "childish". Or do you think that what I say is true, but insensitive? If that's the case, I have to say that Wikipedia is a place where people come to make improvements and contributions to a page, not to seek help or support for their disabilities. I am nice to the extent possible with everyone who comes with the goals stated above but it will be irrational for me to encourage someone like user:Stude62 to continue editing pages in the same fashion and attack me at the same when he simply makes a page much WORSE for one reason or another after me spending lots of hours editing it.

To make an analogy, when I realized that I couldn't sing, I stopped going to the choir instead of claiming thaat everyone else in the choir sang badly. Is that horrible as well? Or just Pareto optimal? :)

Thanks. Ranamim 02:29, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * It seems to me that your withdrawal from the choir, in the example above, was self motivated. Your 'Post hoc ergo prompter hoc reasoning' doesn't give you license to mock people with learning disabilities. I maintain that your comments are not meant to be constructive or helpful. Jrossman 13:34, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)

Discussion

 * The example was simply supposed to illustrate that I do not participate in activities in which my capabilities are in doubt. My comments concerned a person who had neither the rights nor the evidence to attack me. In that sense, I can not positively reinforce his contributions. My comments were probably not helpful but they certainly were NOT unhelpful. I was being honest. Even if he didn't attack my edits as being subjective WITHOUT any evidence and he was a complete stranger, I'd still maintain that his contributions to the article were at best mediocre. This is not a forum where the Suzuki method of learning is the norm. On the contrary, it should be a place where everyone specializes in what they are best at. The guy (Stude62) has/had questionable knowledge on the topic (i.e. Wesleyan) and apparently claims that lacks the writing/spelling skills due to another reason. So, what else does one need to question the comparative advantage of his contributions? Your accusations are probably more abstractly targetting my not being a bit nicer, or unnecessarily nice and encouraging to him, but if I were, I'd have to go against what I really thought about his contributions (and that's even worse because it'd be unrealistic and would encourage other dilettantes) and go back home sad that what I learned about efficient allocation of labor and contributions was not true. User:ranamim 21:02, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * I disagree. Your example had nothing to do with user:Stude62. I believe was simply an attempt to validate you behavior towards him. Over the weekend we watched the movie Rebecca'.  If you haven't seen it, you should.  Your advice to Stude62 reminded me a great deal of Mrs. Danvers egging the second Mrs. de Winter to quit, to jump, to end the torment of trying to do something that one could never master.  I think if you care to continue this exchange, we should move it to a user talk page, since it has nothing to do with OWU.  Jrossman 15:31, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)
 * I'll see it. Maybe I'll disagree but I'll check it out. Rananim 20:17, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Protection requested
This article,, has been listed on Requests for page protection by stude62. However, protecting articles is a serious matter, and should not be taken lightly. The protection of an article is when the assumption of good faith has been broken. Before this page is protected, please try to use the dispute resolution process. If there is evidence of further disruptive edits, vandalism, and/or an edit war in progress, this may result in this page being protected. Please keep in mind that the Wikipedia has a three revert rule and may cause you to be blocked if you make more than three revisions within a 24 hour period, not counting revisions due to vandalism. The Wikipedia would like to assume good faith, and ask editors to calmly and rationally approach a resolution before the article is protected. Should this page be protected, please request for its unprotection also at Requests for page protection. -- AllyUnion (talk) 22:34, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Re:
AllyUnion-

Frankly, I don't know what it is about. user: stude62 just posted:

"No revert war, but over the past several weeks we have worked hard to get the article to a NPOV state, and now its been edited to [Rananim]'s liking, not facts. Again, I'm just trying to ensure that entry is factual and correct for everyone, not just one persons feelings. user: stude62 user talk:stude62 00:30, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)" I will be more than happy if he states JUST ONE THING that shows how my edits are to my liking and not factual. All I did was added Ohio Wesleyan's majors. Is that not factual? Or alternatively, what's wrong with posting them? It seems user: stude62 does not like Wesleyan for some reason which he does not wish to disclose and therefore lies. I can't think of anything else. I am not in a fight with anyone. All I want to do is improve Wikipedia and this guy is not letting me do it because he constantly posts lies here and there. I'd be more than happy if you jump in and help. Rananim 03:08, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm not a mediator, nor do I wish to be. If you two have a problem with each other, like, I said, try the dispute resolution process. -- AllyUnion (talk) 01:24, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)