Talk:Pingry School

Important alumni and old (for US) school Victuallers 18:48, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

why is pingry listed in an online encyclopedia?

Chertoff went to Pingry! I'm so proud. - Loweeel 15:24, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The SAT scores
um those SAT scores have a huge gap (610-720) for the middle 50%. Furthermore, does this mean that those of us at pingry who are above average intelligence for a Pingry Student all get 720-800s??? just a thought..Jigsaw Jimmy 18:04, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Dan Kahn
Dan... you haven't graduated yet... Maybe in June...

Pingry and Wikipedia
I know that Mr. Hata has already begun something like what I'm going to describe, but wouldn't it be lovely if somehow updating Wikipedia articles of all types could be worked into some classroom assignments? It would be a lovely way to let lots of the research that we all do and then throw out not go to waste. - Rizachar '08

More Pingry and Wikipedia
I've been looking around at other schools' wikipedia articles, and I think that we could do better with this one. I think that in any case student government should have the position of school Historian, whose primary role would be regular interview of the older faculty and recording of storytelling, as well as some research into past files, perhaps by rummaging though the old files in the archives. In any case. this guy might occasionally update this article with alumni, stats, etc. Just an idea. - Rizachar '08

Notable alumni
Lots and lots of Pingry alumni are in prominent positions, but I've tried to keep this list to those who would meet the Wikipedia criteria detailed here. Bruxism 01:18, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

The current list is too filled with vaguely accomplished figures along with very accomplished figures like Chertoff or Andrew McCarthy; just because someone is a musician in a band, fenced for the US, or wrote a book does not and should not mean they should be included on this list. For the sake of creating a clean and legible page the current list should be trimmed to reflect actually notable alumni. Crogle94 16:48, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Pingree
I added disambiguation between this and Pingree. Anyone have a problem with that? Sound okay? --Sempersoph 22:32, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Do schools articles fall under different criteria?
Sometime ago I put up a "neutrality" flag that was promptly removed, without any edit of the actual page. Do schools get different treatment than other articles on Wikipedia? Form the beginning, statements like, "Pingry has stood for excellence in education," etc. permeate the article. I doubt there are any schools that would claim they "stand for mediocrity in education." Again, I think this article is not neutral, not encyclopedic, and self-serving. (If individuals are discouraged from writing about themselves, why are staff and students of an institution not discouraged in the same way? ChrisStansfield 22:53, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree that this article is somewhat biased. After I saw your flag, I pruned some of the excessively flattering statements away, and took down the flag. Someone soon reverted my edits, but failed to replace the flag. Atungare 00:10, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, this seems to be a problem with most of the schools entries, and I'm wondering what general board or section I should bring this issue up in. Again, if I can't write a self-serving autobiography here, I can't see why school administrations should be extended that opportunity. ChrisStansfield 09:04, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't want to be or sound naïve, so I will just say that I don't know to what extent school administrators have written this article, but I find it somewhat hard to believe that they wrote any great part. But who knows, maybe they wrote the whole thing. What I do know is that many students of Pingry have contributed to this article, and let's just say that many of those contributions contain varying levels of flattery. Some student editors here, however, were very committed to remaining completely encyclopedic. Sean MD80 talk 12:02, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

NPOV
As a prep school graduate, I enjoy trolling the Wikipedia articles on various schools, and I'm often quite taken aback by how non-neutral and self-congratulatory they are. But this one is really aggressively nauseating. I'm slashing and burning things like how wonderful and nationally recognized Pingry is (I hadn't heard of it until I clicked through from another page.) It sounds like a great place, but really now, an entire section on the honor code? This is not notable, as most prep schools and many colleges have some sort of honor code. Let's see what we can do to ake this better. Mjl0509 02:09, 2 June 2007 (UTC) Also: to answer the question posed by the header of the previous talk topic, there's no reason for schools to fall under different topics; alums and students are just instinctually protective of their almae matrae.Mjl0509 02:14, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
 * The point is is that the Honor Code at this school operates in a somewhat different fashion, in the level of trust between the faculty and the students Lego6245 (talk) 22:29, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

School Motto
The latin translation of the school's motto is actually, "The greatest respect is due to the boys," but the school did become Co-educational in 1976.Captain Gamma (talk) 21:27, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Dead Links
Some links on the page are now dead due to the reorganization of the Pingry homepage. Any help on getting updated linkage would be great Lego6245 (talk) 19:35, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Notables = refs needed
I've tagged the Notable alumni section for having no references, and below is the list of all notables who were on the list that don't have Wikipedia pages. If they went to Pingry and there can be references added to support each of them with their connection to the school, then they may be re-inserted. Otherwise they must remain out.


 * Five people on the 2006 Forbes 400 list graduated from the Pingry School
 * Chris Bender, producer of the American Pie series of movies
 * Judge John D. Bates, United States District Judge, District of Columbia
 * David Bugliari, CAA talent agent and husband of Alyssa Milano
 * Miller Bugliari, Pingry faculty member and winningest boys' soccer coach in the U.S.; in 2006, was elected to the NSCAA Hall of Fame
 * Jeffrey N. Edwards, CFO and senior vice-president of Merrill Lynch
 * Sivert Glarum, TV comedy writer
 * Halley Wegryn Gross, TV and Broadway actress named one of the College Vanguard fifteen undergraduates
 * Andrew Horowitz, songwriter and keyboardist in the band Tally Hall
 * James E. Hughes, Jr., author
 * Steven Johnson, senior analyst at Microsoft and leading developer of Internet Explorer 5
 * Adam Kalkin, innovative architect
 * Daniel Kellner, top U.S. foil fencer, 2004 Greece Olympian
 * Gideon Lewis-Kraus, literary critic and journalist
 * Chris Lear, successful runner and author of two books, including Running with the Buffaloes
 * Therese Lizardo, Miss District of Columbia 2004
 * Douglas Macrae, writer of Ms. Pac-man and the interactive TV listings menu that originated on satellite TV
 * Mary Moan, female golfer, 1993 HS all-American, 1997 college all-American, winner of 16 collegiate tournaments at Princeton, and former golf coach at Yale
 * Stephan Newhouse, former president of Morgan Stanley
 * Ryohei Richard Okamoto, keyboardist and vocalist in the band Houston Calls
 * Charles A. Potter, III, engineer who worked on designing the Nautilus submarine
 * David Randall J. Riskin, well-known Washington, D.C. lawyer
 * Jon Sarkin, artist and stroke survivor, whose life story is to be portrayed in a movie by Tom Cruise
 * Robert A. Schriesheim, Noted corporate executive and public company director - Chief Financial Officer/EVP of Lawson Software
 * C. Lee Shelley, U.S. top épée fencer, 2-time Olympian in 1984 Los Angeles and 1988 Seoul
 * Liz Simmons, Dean, educator, physicist, Michigan State University
 * Park B. Smith, philanthropist and textile magnate
 * Bruce Tunkel, singer, songwriter, and former lead of the group The Red House
 * Carl Van Duyne, Ph. D., junior member of the Council of Economic Advisors, commissioned naval officer, economics professor at United States Naval Academy, 1968 Olympian in sailing
 * Kenneth Wachter, demographer, chair of the demographics department at Cal Berkeley
 * Edward A. Weeks, Jr., former editor of The Atlantic Monthly magazine
 * Lyric Wallwork Winik, Parade magazine columnist
 * Jack Youngelson, documentary filmmaker

Jrcla2 (talk) 15:05, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Building Site
Actually, the school was originally at Dr. Pingry's house on Pingry Place until his death in 1893, after which the school moved to another location in Elizabeth at Parker Road, which in 1953 Pingry vacated for the campus in Hillside. Captain Gamma (talk) 21:41, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Unjustified mass removal of sourced content with baseless claims of COI and Promotion
GuardianH has repeatedly (see here and elsewhere) deleted massive portions of articles with the claim that extensive portions of sourced content based on the claims that what was being removed were "minor championships, WP:COI additions, WP:PROMOTION".

It's not clear why winning a state championship at the highest level of competition would be a "minor championship". Nor is it clear why the presence of multiple championships across multiple sports justifies the deletion of the near entirety of the section. Nor is it clear why the editor in question has repeatedly failed to observe the fundamental WP:PRSERVE policy and retained content where possible or justified.

It appears that the claims of COI and Promotion have no basis in fact and were just thrown in to give the mass deletion a greater air of false credibility. Who has the conflict of interest? Who is promoting what and how is the school being promoted by including neutral factual information?

Per WP:BRD, I will revert the unjustified changes to the article for Pingry School. I look forward to a presentation of a case to justify the mass deletion and provide some evidence to back up the baseless and unsupported allegations that state championships are "minor" and that there is conflict of interest and promotion. I am particularly interested in hearing details of the claims of who has the conflict of interest and who is promoting anything. Alansohn (talk) 15:40, 1 March 2024 (UTC)


 * I repeat my response at Talk:Immaculate Heart Academy. The athletics section is completely overboard for MOS:TRIVIA, and with soapboxing WP:PROMOTION by essentially making it a timeless outlet for the school's athletics team — WP:HOARD. There's so little of anything resembling substantive material in that section at all besides this verbose list of minor state championships and other minutiae. You only need to go the edit log to see the WP:SPA involvement and other potential WP:COI. The section needs a serious revision and the laundry list removed. Adding neutrality tag. GuardianH (talk) 00:44, 3 March 2024 (UTC)
 * It said nothing meaningful there and says nothing at all here. MOS:TRIVIA is about trivia sections, but there's none here. I'm not sure what "soapboxing WP:PROMOTION" is here with a list of reliably and verifiably sourced details of athletic titles and WP:HOARD is an irrelevant essay. The question is not who's editing the article, the question is what's in the article. The neutrality tag you've added emphasizes that "All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." You've offered no example of any issues with neutral point of view or editorial bias, nor have you demonstrated that there are any missing viewpoints. In the absence of a meaningful response and concrete evidence of neutrality issues, the tag bombing will be reverted. I look forward to the details. Alansohn (talk) 17:04, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Any update on evidence for neutrality issues? Going twice.... Alansohn (talk) 18:55, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I mentioned this also in the Immaculate Heart page, but MOS:TRIVIA applies to lists of miscellaneous information, rather than just simply strictly trivia (hence MOS:MISC). Like I also pointed out on the IHA page, the biggest issue regarding neutrality is not the MOS format, but rather that state championships — that of soccer, cross country, baseball, and other local competitions — are not due for inclusion. By creating a data hoard of decades of state championships, you're providing an essentially timeless outlet for any school teams, often at the expense of any actual substantive description of the team themselves. These local game wins are relevant to the gym teacher, but not due for inclusion here. They lack the prominent coverage in reliable sources usually necessary to establish inclusion and are a minority view pertaining only to a particular team (i.e., the soccer team, hockey team, etc.) GuardianH (talk) 01:50, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
 * You're truly talking nonsense here. MOS:TRIVIA / MOS:MISC says explicitly that it refers to sections "typically given names such as 'Trivia', 'Facts', 'Miscellanea', 'Other information' and 'Notes'", which is not the case here, and the guideline specifically permits "a selectively populated list with a relatively narrow theme". You keep harping on LAUNDRYLIST / WP:HOARD which is an essay that has no relevance of deletion of sourced content. The argument that state championships are "not due for inclusion" because they come "at the expense of any actual substantive description of the team themselves" is completely nonsensical; you're arguing that it would be OK if only we have descriptions of the players, their heights, weights and interests. Are you seriously arguing that winning a state championship is "a minority view pertaining only to a particular team" and that the other teams are somehow being excluded because they didn't win anything? Are you seriously suggesting that sports championships can only be included is every single school team has won the exact same number of titles? Do you seriously question that the references provided are not the "coverage in reliable sources" that you demand? What on Earth are you talking about?As you've offered no evidence after multiple requests, I'll remove the neutrality tag from the article. Alansohn (talk) 03:57, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
 * You've actually completely misread my message, which explains why you find it so incredulous. I never said that they are not due for inclusion because they come at the expense of the teams (that is an additional problem). The reason I laid out in the message for why they are WP:UNDUE is that the series of singular state championships do not satisfy the coverage in reliable sources necessary for inclusion, are a minority view (pertaining only to [x] hockey, basketball, etc. team), and that giving a list of all these myriad of championships is far, far too descriptive — in this case, the quantity of text is the problem. Also, yes, a state championship is representative of only a small part of the school: a state championship for hockey only represents the hockey team.
 * I've already explained the obvious problem of giving undue weight by giving a list of all these state championships. There also is no consensus; re-adding neutrality tag. GuardianH (talk) 16:58, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

RfC on whether a high school's list of state championships is due for inclusion
This article on the Pingry School has a list of the high school's state championships for its sports teams spanning multiple years. Would a list of a high school's state championships be considered due for inclusion? Relevant policies: WP:DUE (WP:NPOV), WP:V. GuardianH (talk) 02:36, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Include (invited by the bot, BTW, you didn't link that article in the notice) Or more specifically, it should be an editorial decision without quoting WP:Due to support an "exclude" view.    WP:Due is to achieve balance and avoid spin/bias, not to exclude uncontroversial material that is suitable for the article.  BTW it does look a bit lengthy, you might want to thin it out a bit.  North8000 (talk) 16:51, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @North8000 WP:UNDUE specifies that quantity of text is an issue giving undue weight to certain material. I would say that the extensive list here gives undue weight to the school's state championships, hence why it should be condensed. BTW it does look a bit lengthy, you might want to thin it out a bit - Maybe this RfC would be better if it was a question on whether or not to reduce the section? But the thing is, the policy that would justify thinning the section would be WP:UNDUE. GuardianH (talk) 17:10, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I would recommend reducing the size of that section on editorial/article quality grounds. And yes, it would have been better to ask that question. The current RFC can be read or interpreted as whether to (completely) exclude mention of state championships....a more extreme exclusion which I don't think that many folks would/will support. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 00:57, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * In the edit made to the article for Pingry School, GuardianH removed any and all sourced descriptions of athletic championships, with the edit summary "remove this huge WP:LAUNDRYLIST of minor championships, WP:COI additions, WP:PROMOTION". GuardianH has never trimmed or summarized any of these lists; every single one of GuardianH's similar edits (see Immaculate Heart Academy, Millburn High School and Summit High School (New Jersey)) have taken the maximalist position and removed these details in their entirety. Based on this history, the question that GuardianH is asking can only be interpreted to be seeking a complete and total exclusion of any mention of athletic championships. Alansohn (talk) 02:11, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree that the size of the section on athletics is out of balance with the rest of the article. In fact, the article now consists largely of content about athletics and a sexual abuse scandal. That is a disservice to the school. -- Melchior2006 (talk) 20:49, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Include There has been broad consensus that state and national championships are what should be included, with appropriate reliable and verifiable sources, as are found here. Of course, it may well be appropriate to copyedit the material, but to be clear, GuardianH's alternative position is that there should be no details about any sports championships, regardless of level, as shown in editing the articles for Pingry School and Immaculate Heart Academy, among other such mass removals of sourced content. Alansohn (talk) 17:14, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
 * But that's not my position. I have opposed this article's list of championships, but I never said that there should be no details whatsoever about sport championships — I said that there should be something substantive (i.e. the "school has won multiple championships in x, y, z" rather than an entire list of singular championships like there is here. Comment on the championships, but don't list them all. There has been broad consensus – not in any of our previous disagreements have you ever specified where this broad consensus is - there hasn't been a broad consensus to have a huge list of a high school's championship wins. GuardianH (talk) 17:30, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the important point: There is no "broad consensus" about overloading articles with this kind of trivia and repetitive writing. There is way too much detail here, it makes the article unreadable. -- Melchior2006 (talk) 15:40, 17 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Include A list of a school's state championships is a standard feature of pretty much every high school article I've encountered. Most of them look something like this: Klein High School (not holding this up as a perfect example, but rather a typical one). Not every championship necessarily needs commentary, but a concise summary of achievements beyond a state championship, or of multiple consecutive championships, could be warranted based on the sourcing. Looking at this article, it looks like it could use significant trimming and copy-editing, but that doesn't mean that individual state championships should be excluded. Stedil (talk) 19:14, 10 March 2024 (UTC)