Talk:The Virginia Informer

Untitled
Apologies for sounding pissy - I'm just used to trolls. Ok - how about this, I think that neither the flat hat nor the informer are notable enough to be included in wikipedia. It is the burden of the page to establish notability (not us to establish non-notability), so, lets discuss whether or not the informer is notable enough for inclusion in wikipedia. The main ding against it is that Wikipedia policy considers a topic notable if:

"it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject."

Has it? Thanks for your thoughts. --Gurami (talk) 00:19, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

All of the self-references have been eliminated from this site. Also, why are you only fighting the Informer page and not the Flat Hat or any other campus publication page? The Informer is frequently quoted or referenced in other media and not just on one issue. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TheBlueSquare (talk • contribs) 00:01, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your above comment. The Flat Hat's page does fall prey to some of the same problems with this page -- but one thing at a time. I deemed the informer to
 * 1) have more egregious violations of the rules of citations and
 * 2) have less notability than the Flat Hat.

It is an outstanding question for me whether or not the flat hat is notable enough to remain in Wikipedia, but it is unquestionably more notable than the Informer is, simply because of its longevity. The other publications on campus do not have Wikipedia pages. '''I still hold that this article is not notable and should be removed. Again, I will propose deletion in 1 month from now, if I do not hear a logical argument about the notability of this subject'''. Gurami (talk) 17:14, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

The Flat Hat does in fact have a wikipedia page and in the past three years the Informer has certainly had much more of an impact on campus than the Flat Hat. TheBlueSquare

—Preceding unsigned comment added by TheBlueSquare (talk • contribs) 22:02, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

If you read my post above, I say "The Flat Hat's page does fall prey to some of the same problems with this page". Either you didn't read my post, or you misread it. When I say "The other publications on campus do not have wikipedia pages" I thought it obvious that I wasn't referring to the Flat Hat in that grouping, since I *just* said that the flat hat's page is similarly inadequate.

And on what do you base your claim that the Virginia Informer has had more impact than the Flat Hat? Readership? Distribution? Loudness? Please cite verifiable statistics for your claim. And note, even if you prove this claim, I am not convinced that the flat hat is notable enough for inclusion on wikipedia. If you read my above post, I say exactly this. Please give me the respect of reading and responding to my arguments, not just repeating your own.

Again, please establish notoriety of this organization. Gurami (talk) 23:34, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I suppose I misunderstood you, no need to get snippy. Although, I do find it odd that if you have qualms with both of the pages, you only choose to go after the Informer. To the best of my knowledge, there haven't been any surveys done for readership so measuring statistics would be impossible. But if you look at how The Flat Hat and other local papers have followed the Informer's lead on stories such as the Wren Cross and Feiss assuming co-Presidential duties, it's very hard to argue that the Informer has not a more important impact on campus. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.161.248.162 (talk) 01:36, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I am removing the unsubstantiated claim that the Virginia Informer was first to break the news about Provost Feiss taking over operations at the college. The citation does nothing to back up this claim, it merely describes the story. This claim needs to be backed up in a published source, as Wikipedia has a policy against original research appearing in an article. '''Finally, I haven't heard any disagreement about the below claims of NPOV and Non-notability. If I do not hear any objections in one month, I am going to nominate this page for deletion.''' Gurami 01:39, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

This page isn't NPOV and doesn't cite its sources. In addition, it isn't written in an encyclopedic tone. Examples: "...and President Gene Nichol's lackluster record at the University of Colorado and University of North Carolina law school." Not only is this editorialization ("lackluster") but the citation sources the Virginia Informer itself. All non-trivial claims need to be from established sources that are neutral -- the VA informer cannot be a source for its own article. Who says his performance is lackluster?

Finally, don't revert edits without justification. And don't revert edits as an anonymous user, its cowardly and suspicious. Gurami (talk) 05:07, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

For the record, there are several edits by a user "JoeLE11", the editor-in-cheif of this publication, and a user "VAInformer". Both of these users should not be editing this page, as there is a conflict of interest. Also the majority of these edits are from anonymous IPs in the 128.239 range, which is owned by the college of William and Mary. This is suspect of a conflict of interest. SIGN IN! Gurami (talk) 05:07, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

If you think there is a problem with the page, this is Wikipedia, you're free to edit it rather than complaining. Certainly the Informer has achieved a high level of notoreity on campus and in the region as other media constantly cite Informer articles and the Tim Sullivan letter was released to the Informer as well as the Flat Hat and the Virginia Gazette. As for anonymous users coming from W&M, it's a campus newspaper, of course people interested in editing the page would come from the school. TheBlueSquare (talk) 01:41, 26 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I did edit the page, kind sir, but someone reverted it. So, the place to have a reasoned discussion as to WHY an edit belongs on a page is in the page's discussion page.  Furthermore, I wasn't complaining - but justifying my edits.  I may be able to buy that the informer has a high level of notoreity on campus and in the region - but just because it is referenced by local papers does not make it notable.  The point I was making wasn't that people from WM shouldn't be editing the page - they should be logging in and doing so NON-anonymously.  You have to admit that anonymous edits from the WM IP range represents a possible conflict of interest, and that that conflict is easier to detect if people create accounts and log in. Gurami (talk) 00:27, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Notability?
So, I'm reading the notability guidelines, and I'm not sure this article belongs on Wikipedia. They say that, "A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." Furthermore, "A short burst of present news coverage about a topic does not necessarily constitute objective evidence of long-term notability." I don't think the Informer gets much notice outside of the College community, outside of some quotations from general newspapers covering the fight over the Wren Chapel cross. When I search Google for "Virginia Informer" and omit pages from the Informer itself or the College's Web site, I don't get much of substance—just a few blog posts or links from Wren cross partisans.

I don't think most college newspapers are notable in this sense, including The Flat Hat and the DoG Street Journal. What do you think?

WWC (talk) 01:03, 29 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Agreed. If the article stays, however, the POV-laden statements need to go, and details should be added regarding the paper's funding-sources, most of which are conservative advocacy groups.  The Informer's instigated a number of political battles aimed at The College, and has caused a considerable amount of controversy as a result (again, largely due to their obligations to their financeers which they have often been reluctant to disclose.).  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Orang55 (talk • contribs) 12:30, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not an advocate of the VA Informer myself (I actually dislike them as a group), but I'm wondering what POV-laden statements are in it? Someone (I think it was 66.229.110.62) went in and cleaned up all of those types of statements. Mentions of controversial positions are actually referenced with a non-VA Informer source. -Jrcla2 (talk) 18:34, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Staff size of 64?
This frankly does not sound even close to realistic. Even most college dailies don't have a staff this big, and this paper publishes, what, once every four weeks? I think there should really be some basis for this astounding claim. 69.255.216.47 (talk) 03:27, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Now it's up to 70? That's crazy, for all the above reasons. Until it can be properly cited, maybe the staff size should be removed. - 25 July 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.218.76.198 (talk) 23:28, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on The Virginia Informer. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20070818235908/http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com:80/post/?q=ZmU0NzlhMTQzNzRmNWZlMzRjMWRiNGI5MGRlY2M4MzU= to http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZmU0NzlhMTQzNzRmNWZlMzRjMWRiNGI5MGRlY2M4MzU=

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