Talk:University of Chicago Law School/Archive 1

Top 14
I've edited the intro to remove the "legal excellence" parenthetical. I think it could stay - I think it's almost certainly sourceable and could have used a "citation needed" tag for the time being. But in re-reading, I don't think it styllistically adds much, so have cut it. (If you think it does, feel free to put it back in). The "Top 14" I've left in, because I think it adds context (particularly to those with experience with law schools). But I'm open to thoughts on that, too - I'm not sure if it adds more than it takes away in terms of the flow of the paragraph. Any thoughts? --TheOtherBob 05:03, 17 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Where in either of the two relevant sources cited is a "top 14" notation made? All I see is #5 in one and #6 in the other. Where did the "top 14" come from? Fourteen is a pretty nonstandard number for a selective cutoff, and I think it's probably just more suitable to say that it's #5 by the one source's criteria and #6 by the other, not to mention more accurate and to the point. I think the "legal excellence" statement can be inferred from both the article and the sources, and again I feel it's probably more encyclopedic to simply state where the school ranks and let the reader make the necessary inferences. What do you think?--S0uj1r0 08:26, 17 November 2006 (UTC)


 * "Top 14" (and top 6 and top 3) is a fairly standard appellation for the top tier of law schools. THF 12:38, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I realize I dropped the thread of this discussion some time ago, despite S0uj1r0's request that I weigh back in. I agree with THF as a matter of personal experience.  The only problem is that it's purely personal experience - I've heard the term "top 14" many times, but I can't say that I know where to find a reliable source for it.  If there is one, I can see including it (though I don't feel strongly about it either way.) --TheOtherBob 16:55, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

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Mass reverting of edits
Moved below discussion from my user talk page. Lorstaking (talk) 08:14, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Lorstaking, I am troubled by your mass reverting of edits on the University of Chicago Law School article. You say that the edits are 'promotion'. I disagree. There are several problems with your reverting of edits en masse.

First: the edits do not amount to promotion. Most of the edits are objective facts. True, in some instances, the article uses evaluative language. For example, when describing notable alumni in the introduction, the article uses the word 'distinguished'. But this is justified when you look at the alumni that follow, such as the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, judges on federal appeals courts, the Prime Minister of a country, etc. You will see that other law school articles use the same language: see Harvard Law School, University of Pennsylvania Law School and Columbia Law School. The same goes for the description of some faculty members as 'leading' in their field. The article on Douglas Baird describes him as a leading scholar in certain areas, so there is no issue with describing him as 'leading' on the law school article.

Second: many of the edits in the last couple of months bring the article to currency. Before the edits, the article had referred to data on admissions, employment and rankings that dated back to 2015 and, in some cases, 2008! Some wiki users, myself included, have gone to the effort of updating this information to reflect data from 2017–2018, where available. Again, the data has been presented in an objective manner. The description of the rankings in the introduction, for example, does not contain any evaluative language: it simply sets out rankings from different sources. The same goes for admissions and employment.

Third: the edits fill in important gaps. The history section is a perfect example. Before the edits, the history section was very light on information. Independent authors have written about the history of the University of Chicago and the law school. These writings are reflected in books and peer-reviewed articles, which I have cited in the history section. Another example is alumni and faculty. The law school has alumni and current and former faculty members who were not initially in the article. My edits, and the edits of other users, have ensured that these alumni and faculty have not been left out. The article has been substantially improved as a result of these edits.

If you are so concerned with promotion, please look carefully at the article as it is now, identify any issues, and edit them one-by-one where you feel the need, or at least voice your concerns on the talk page on the article. To revert edits en masse, without any real justification, is to undermine the efforts of all those who have brought the page to currency and who have sought to improve the article by expanding its various sections with objective, accurate and timely information.

Kind regards, Nicomachian — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nicomachian (talk • contribs)
 * Read WP:INDEPENDENT. You need independent sources for any further expansion. Also read WP:BRD. Lorstaking (talk) 10:54, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Your only two book sources comes from "Books LLC"(a Wikipedia mirror book) and "University of Chicago Press". None of them are independent sources. Read WP:SELFPUB. Lorstaking (talk) 09:28, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
 * University of Chicago Press is a major academic publishing house that is editorially independent of the university. It is not self-publishing.
 * More generally, it seems to me that the edits may well need toning down, but mass removal of material that has been added over a few months was uncalled for and certainly was itself a 'bold' edit for the purposes of WP:BRD that should have been discussed after its first reversion. Robminchin (talk) 17:09, 24 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Do you really believe that University of Chicago Press would be critical about this university?- This university and Chicago Press both belongs to University of Chicago thus anything published by them in this context is self-published. They will brag about this university. We can't wholly rely on it and the content in question is trivia. As for WP:BRD, Nimachian has been focused into edit warring and adding promotional content into this page since his first edit ever. The article was protected for stopping him from edit warring in 9 May and by 5 June he resumed his edit warring again. Unless he had consensus for his edits then only "B" would apply on me. His lack of participation on talk page and poor sourcing shows he is not editing neutrally. Lorstaking (talk) 07:34, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
 * For the record, further sources include Oxford University Press (book) and Thomson Reuters (article). Also, as Robminchin pointed out, the University of Chicago Press is editorially independent of the university. Lorstaking, if we had it your way, a book published by Oxford University Press could not be cited in any article about the University of Oxford. It is also important to recognize that the books published by the University of Chicago Press are cited in the history section of the article – you will not find a historical narrative of the law school published by any other independent source.
 * I accept that my initial edits from several months ago (when I created my account) were not appropriate, and I was happy to comply with your mass reverting of edits at the time. However, the article is completely different now. It is current, improved and contains appropriate references. I ask that you please scrutinize the article on its merits, based on how it looks now, rather than inquire into motives and simply revert edits en masse because of some faulty editing several months ago that has now been removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nicomachian (talk • contribs)
 * Yes we don't use organization's own publication for expanding trivia. Read WP:NOT and WP:BROCHURE. Your edits are mostly trivia and they are undue. This is why I have been reverting because you are trying to write a brochure about this subject than writing anything encyclopedic. Given you have added enough information not supported by the source, I am concerned with your connection with this subject. Lorstaking (talk) 11:59, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
 * As already discussed, the Press is editorially independent of the law school. I respectfully disagree with your view that the edits are mostly trivia and undue. Look at the history section of articles in comparable graduate schools, such as Harvard Law School and Columbia Law School. The edits to the University of Chicago Law School article pale in comparison to the information contained in those articles. The law school is 116 years old, has a rich history and remains an important part of the educational culture of Illinois – not to mention the contribution of its alumni and faculty to the law and other fields. This certainly justifies more than two short paragraphs for the history section. As mentioned earlier, please make specific edits if you are unhappy with the content, rather than reverting edits en masse and rewinding the article back to 2015. I really would like to move past this disagreement. Nicomachian
 * It is independent of school but it is not a neutrally reliable source on this subject since it is impossible that they would be any critical about this subject or at least neutral. Read WP:IRS. But more bigger problem is not with your sources but what you are writing. You are violating WP:Gallery, WP:NPOV, WP:NOT. Your above explanation exactly confirms my above statement that your "edits are mostly trivia and they are undue". You are writing a WP:BROCHURE by singing praises of this post-secondary school because your aim is more about showing this "has a rich history and remains an important part of the educational culture" than adhering WP:NPOV. Lorstaking (talk) 16:51, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
 * The article certainly needed updating but what has been added is an absolute load of filler and guff. Most of the paras can be reduced to a sentence Lyndaship (talk) 17:29, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Agree. The present version also needs some clean up. Accesscrawl (talk) 09:00, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Clean up should not equal mass-reversions of 15k good-faith and generally high-quality edits. I would suggest that the editors who came here to support Lorstaking should actually review the article as it stands and remove only things that are explicitly promotional, keeping in mind that the University of Chicago Press is definitely a reliable source Simonm223 (talk) 12:00, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
 * "Present version needs some clean up", he was trying to say the version to which he had reverted is not perfect either. Unless you are alleging others of having comprehension issues, I don't see any other reason why you are disputing this. They are not "high quality edits" but "an absolute load of filler and guff" that have no consensus. We are not here to polish the school as the best one but present the content neutrally. Anyone edit warring by providing false edit summaries is surely not acting in "good-faith". Lorstaking (talk) 12:33, 28 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Below is an extract from a message that I wrote in response to a report made against me several hours ago:


 * "Most of the information in the (revised) history section was obtained primarily from the book on the subject published by the University of Chicago Press. Now there is a live dispute about whether such a source, which is editorially independent from the subject, may be cited in an article about the subject. (I say this is fine because in truth it is independent and there are many reputable university publishers like this one who publish material on the university of the same name; Lorstaking disagrees.) Putting that dispute to one side, the reason why some of the text in the history does not contain references is because I have not gone to the effort of inserting the same reference for every sentence; rather, the applicable source is the final reference that appears after a few sentences of text. In most cases, the applicable source is the University of Chicago Press book. This takes us back to the issue that has Lorstaking so hot under the collar: can such a source be cited at all, given the subject of the article?


 * Next, as I said on my talk page, I am an admirer of the subject. Everything I have written is uncontroversial and in the public domain. I have no inside information about the subject. What struck me when I first came across the article several months ago was how much little had been written on it compared to cognate subjects (such as Columbia Law School and Harvard Law School, to name only a few). This prompted me to expand the history section as well as the admissions and employment sections and more generally to bring the article to currency. It took some time and effort. Lorstaking implies that I want to hold on desperately to my edits because I put so much time and effort into them. Yes, I would like the edits retained, but I am not blindly defending my edits because I put a lot of time and effort into researching and writing them; I am defending them because I believe that they are justified (for all the reasons I have given on the subject’s talk page).


 * Now opinions seem to vary on whether the edits need to be toned down. [Note: A couple of hours ago I reconsidered some edits and deleted those that might be perceived as promotional.] I accept that some of the non-textual edits (such as the gallery in the alumni section and the new images in the body of the article) are not strictly necessary. I also accept that the article in some parts (but not without citation or justification in reality) uses normative or evaluative language. But this is not unusual for cognate subjects (refer to the ones above and also University of Pennsylvania Law School and the University of Virginia School of Law by way of example). If the powers that be decide that these aspects of the article should be omitted, then so be it. But, as I see it, this does not justify reverting edits en masse. My problem with the approach adopted by Lorstaking is that he has indiscriminately and systematically set out to revert edits en masse on an unfounded speculation that I am biased and that my edits amount to promotional material. In my view, the revised version of the article, with my and other user’s edits incorporated, should be the starting point from now. Its information is accurate, timely and (in my view, but subject to someone resolving the above dispute) supported by independent sources. There is no issue with making changes and tinkering with the article from that point; every Wikipedia user is entitled to make changes as they see fit. However, I do not think it is reasonable or fair to revert edits en masse without regard to the merits of those edits ..." Nicomachian 12:27, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Why you are copy pasting discussion from WP:ANEW to here? Above is not really justification for your edits. Lorstaking (talk) 12:43, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
 * apology there was an edit conflict between Lorstaking and I that led to some duplicated text. In my attempt to remove that duplication I rolled back to the wrong version. I have tried to correct it here and just wanted to put out an apology for the mistake. Simonm223 (talk) 13:42, 28 August 2018 (UTC)


 * I agree too that some updates could be made on this page, but the disputed content is useless and gives the appearance of promoting the subject because of the unfavorable nature of content. For example, the already-added listings about the school were complete enough, but to add every possible research published by the school itself doesn't improve the article and actully makes it worse. --1990&#39;sguy (talk) 00:37, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * CyberBot linked to an archive of a 404 page, but the source is no longer in use in the article. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 14:43, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

A reminder
WP:PUFFERY: "Words to watch: legendary, best, great, acclaimed, iconic, visionary, outstanding, leading, celebrated, award-winning, landmark, cutting-edge, innovative, extraordinary, brilliant, hit, famous, renowned, remarkable, prestigious, world-class, respected, notable, virtuoso, honorable, awesome, unique, pioneering"-Vmavanti (talk) 12:59, 29 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Could you please provide some examples of puffery in this article which you would like to see revised? Simonm223 (talk) 13:47, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
 * He is right that the version contains a lot of puffery. "Leading" alone shows 7 results. Accesscrawl (talk) 14:26, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I just did. Do any of these words appear in the article? What about "distinguished"? Delete that. Say "Alumni include..." and let the reader decide whether those people are worthy of admiration. It isn't Wikipedia's purpose to decide for readers which alumni are distinguished. It isn't Wikipedia's purpose to tell readers what law schools are great and what law schools are terrible. That's what US News and World Report does. Wikipedia's purpose is to say "It's a law school in Chicago". Let's not play games. Anyone connected with the University of Chicago knows what impartiality is. Wikipedia editors see advocacy and promotion every day, and when someone is called out on it, the person insists they are innocent and ignorant. I don't know anything about law schools, but if this school is  "renowned", then it ought to be easy to find sources for objective facts, sources other than the University of Chicago Press which obviously can't be impartial.Vmavanti (talk) 17:14, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I must say this is post is troubling. If what you are saying is right, then a lot of articles on similar subjects will need to be reviewed carefully and edited. See: University of Virginia School of Law, University of Pennsylvania Law School (especially alumni section), Yale Law School, Harvard Law School, New York University School of Law, Stanford Law School, Columbia Law School, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, University of Michigan Law School, Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge, Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, Sciences Po, Melbourne Law School and National University of Singapore Faculty of Law, to name some. Provided that the descriptions do not descend into hyperbole (and in this article, given the subject, I don’t think they do) I think that some leeway needs to be given in this area, given the pervasive influence of law schools and law school alumni on politics, government, business and society more generally. Nicomachian (talk) 23:49, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Read WP:OSE. Those articles have less issues than this one and if you believe those articles have issues then you must fix them in place of following them like they are some standard. As for your last sentence, read WP:NPOV. Lorstaking (talk) 02:26, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Judging by the kinds of edits that you have identified as problematic in this article, it stands to reason that you should also identify analogous content (such as references to "prestige" and the like) as problematic in other articles. Yet you remain fixated on this article, leaving the problematic aspects of other articles intact. To avoid the WP:OSE problem, why don't we form a WikiProject team, focusing on improving the quality of articles on graduate schools, and install Lorstaking as leader? Nicomachian (talk) 09:49, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Above concern is with the wikipuffery used in the article as well as the impartiality among the sources. If you have no other justification than pointing issues on other articles then you really need to fix issues of those articles. I don't have the necessary time but I will have a look into each of them in future. Lorstaking (talk) 10:51, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Bot linked to archive successfully, but link needs to be updated to point to more current information. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 14:47, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

This is an WP:INVOLVED request. In infobox, please change:

to:

-- Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 14:54, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
 * bit confused. If you are involved then why did you protect the article? However this request seems uncontroversial and has attracted no opposition for nearly a week. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:45, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
 * fair question, see WP:AN (assuming it hasn't been archived by the time you get this). Summarizing: I was not involved at the time that I protected the article due to a report at AN3, but none of the editors involved started talking by about the second day following protection so I started a discussion myself, which makes me involved in my opinion (or I'm erring on the side of caution). I also revdeleted a large number of recent diffs when a copyvio was pointed out, because it was uncontroversial and I assumed any neutral admin would agree with purging a copyvio (and it ended up being complicated), but otherwise I think it's better if I propose changes like everyone else rather than editing through protection. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 16:15, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Perfectly reasonable explanation and having read the linked discussion I can see why you are being cautious. ✅ &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:20, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Untitled
The school has been in trouble for social discrimination before, specifically with women and the disabled. Should this be mentioned?


 * Sure, if you have sources. Depends if it is something unsual or something that was endemic to a period. Most law schools prior to the 1960's were generally pretty discriminatory.

Protected edit request on 5 September 2018
Existing: The law school is renowned for its interdisciplinary approach towards legal education.[12]

Change to: Delete sentence Reasoning: WP:PRIMARY source does not support this statement as written, source is an academic paper written for a conference and implies a specific point of view but does not specifically state "is renowned for its interdisciplinary approach". Also per WP:PUFFERY. Randomeditor1000 (talk) 15:29, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done for now: No doubt you are correct, but we generally need a consensus before changes can be made to a protected article. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 06:45, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I disagree. First, if the article specifically stated "is renowned for its interdisciplinary approach", then we would run into copyright violation issues. Second, there are several references to the interdisciplinary approach of the subject. Third, the reference to an interdisciplinary approach is further supported by the fact that there exists a Chicago school of economics and a Chicago school approach to antitrust law – the law school is connected to both of these topics and both are referred to in the rest of that paragraph in the lede. Fourth, I mistakenly included the original paper delivered by the author to a conference in Sydney, Australia. The authorized version is published by Thomson Reuters in the Australian Law Journal, which I understand to be a reputable source. The citation should be updated with the volume and edition of the Thomson Reuters version. Nicomachian (talk) 10:41, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
 * How about just, "takes an interdisciplinary approach" It gets around any concern about copyvio, and isn't puffery, and reflects the source. Simonm223 (talk) 12:19, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

GA criteria
, thanks for your work on the article—it's definitely an improvement—but unfortunately, the verifiability and citations are still an issue. A statement like "leading scholar on bankruptcy law and contracts" even if it is WP:NPOV (which it probably isn't) certainly needs a secondary source that describes the subject in this way. I also feel like the faculty section is just a lot of name-dropping in general, I would consider drastically cutting down and/or splitting to a separate list. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  07:53, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
 * All statements must be sourced where they appear. With lists, it is not acceptable to link another Wikipedia article with the assumption that it supports the claim. Right now this article meets GA quick-fail criteria. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  09:49, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Agreed, citations or references for content, as required by the verifiability policy and good article criteria are missing in the Faculty and alumni sections. This is simply name-dropping and the alumni list can probably be dropped completely with a link to the main list of alumni. A strong precis of the Faculty section is encouraged. --Whiteguru (talk) 22:25, 26 January 2021 (UTC)