Talk:University of Notre Dame/GA4

GA Review
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Reviewer: Daniel Case (talk · contribs) 21:31, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

OK, I'll print this out and take it on because it's waited so long. Let me give it some time to look over it before I make any comments. Daniel Case (talk) 21:31, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Alright. It took about two weeks to review it and do what turned out to be a badly-needed copy edit.

I will say first what is good and commendable about the article:


 * It is comprehensive, covering every aspect of the university an encyclopedic article should cover.
 * It has a lot of facts in that department. My closest contact with Notre Dame has been a brief drive onto campus when I visited South Bend with Mitchazenia in 2013. So there was a lot I could learn, and learn I did (One thing I have been wondering about that I'd like to see the article address if something is known about this and sourceable: are the football team's golden helmets meant to echo the Dome? It sure seems that way to me).

But that's about where the good things end.

As should be obvious from the tags I added and other work I did ...

❌: This shall not pass

I am sorry that after 11 months and two days it has to come to this, but it does. There is simply too much work needed on this article for us to reasonably expect that it will be done within a week. If all the issues here are addressed, it can be renominated.

I had decided to fail it, actually, long before I finished my editing, for two very big reasons:


 * I started the copy edit that I normally do in GA nominations because I don't think it's fair to fail an article just for easily fixable copy issues. Long before I finished it was evident that this had clearly not been done before the article was nominated. This is unacceptable in an article nominated for GA. A serious copy edit would have caught a great deal of potentially outdated information and things like that one fact tag that had not been resolved since 2017. To say nothing of all the places where I had to add them, too.


 * It was also evident that many of the issues in the previous reviews (it looks like #2 is really just a delayed response to the nomination that led to #1) have not been fully addressed or, indeed, addressed at all. This is not the way to impress the reviewer of a subsequent nomination, not least when the last reviewer, FIVE YEARS AGO, also noted that issues from a previous review had been left unresolved.

I will go into more specific sins issues later. Daniel Case (talk) 06:01, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Specifics
OK ...


 * Low-quality writing: It has gotten better since my copy edit, which dealt with a great deal of issues, but it shouldn't have had to come to that. I found a great deal of unnecessary and redundant wording, of relative pronouns used when they didn't have to be, of run-on sentences (including more than one where more than one semicolon had been used ... tsk tsk). I also found a lot of instances where several sentences were added to the end of a paragraph, all beginning with "additionally", "also" and such. One really got the impression that no single person was in charge, or bothered to take charge, of the article's voice, that all sorts of things were added in a "just throw it in" way without bothering to care what was around them. I have had to wonder if it was some initiation thing at Notre Dame to just add a sourced fact somewhere. Because, from the way it was written, it seemed like we could say one thing about the overwhelming majority of contributors: they were merely freshmen. I was able to trim about 3-4K from the article, and given how much fat there was in it it would probably have been a lot more if I hadn't had to bring so many references up to code (and more on that below).


 * Fragmentation and redundant presentation of information: A subissue of the writing problems, so I've listed it this way. Some things could be presented more coherently ... for instance, at the end of the graf on sustainability, there's this tacked-on sentence about Gustavo Gutierrez being on the faculty. Huh? OK, so he helped found liberation theology, but what's the connection? Maybe that really belongs in some other section? And "Rockne's offenses employed the Notre Dame Box and his defenses ran a 7–2–2 scheme" belongs not in the history section but the football section. For that matter, the connection between Rockne, Gipp and Ronald Reagan is mentioned in three separate sections: history, football and popular culture. I can see a brief mention of Rockne and football in the history section (no one would deny it is essential to writing any history of Notre Dame, especially in that era, as it made the university famous nationally) and of course a whole subsection in the football section, and maybe the Reagan connection in popular culture ... but nowhere else. Likewise, the article tells us both in the history and campus sections that the North and South Quad were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. That would really be most relevant just mentioned in the campus section.


 * Almost random age of information: In some ways reading this article was like doing an archeological dig in that edits from different years in the last decade or so were mixed in chaotic patterns; information that really should have been updated and verified again before this nomination, information that was often specific to the stated year, freely mingled. I tried to update it where I could. Most appallingly, the football section still had sentences talking about the 2012 football season and its glories ... without anything about how the school later had to vacate all those wins because it used some ineligible players. I had to add that. I shouldn't have had to be the one who did, just as I should have come upon the sections about the endowment and the incoming freshman class already updated to reflect 2019-20 information.


 * Inconsistent reference formatting, and insufficient citations: I did more to help this than I thought I would ... but still. If the many many writers had uncertain, amateurish English, that was at least more than they had in knowledge of how to use our referencing system. While I smiled a little bit at things like last=Dame|first=Marketing Communications, at least the first few times I saw them, it was no fun having to clean up the many situations where an editor's enthusiasm far outpaced their skill or knowledge of Wikipedia citation practices. The Hesburgh era section in particular needs attention—we have some footnotes (62 and 63, but not just those) where the wording clearly suggests an online source but there is no link. We also have cites like 54 where I have no idea what type of source is being cited but I know that whatever it is, more information about it is needed in the footnote.
 * Alas, I see this is still being done in the edits since I failed this article. Not the way for GA5, whenever it happens, to turn out any differently. Daniel Case (talk) 19:52, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Alright, it's geting late and I have to call it a night. More tomorrow/later today. Daniel Case (talk) 06:39, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Back to work now ...


 * Questionable adherence to NPOV, perhaps related to overreliance on the university itself and affiliated authors as a source. The former had jumped off the page during the hard-copy copyedit I did. And while at first I thought it was just a matter of getting the unneeded peacock words off the page (so many "famed" or "renowned" things where those qualities weren't attributed to any source) it became clear as I was copyediting that the article relies perhaps more than it should on sources that are either the university's own website or books by authors who seem to have close connections to UND. The most obvious effect of this, I have either removed—the unsubstantiated superlative that the Bookstore Basketball tournament is "the largest five-on-five outdoor basketball tournament in the world" (Is there an outdoor basketball tournament somewhere that isn't five-on-five? If it is larger than Bookstore, perhaps we should do the research and write an article about it)—or qualified, such as the university's 57.9 percent return on its investments being a single-year record for any American university (Per WP:EXTRAORDINARY, I would be much more comfortable with this if it came from some source other than the university). But there is also, perhaps as an unintended result, a somewhat hagiographic glow given to Notre Dame in this article ... I almost felt as if I were basking in the sunlight reflected off the Golden Dome reading this. In this article, over the 140+ years of its existence, Notre Dame has done very little, if any, wrong, save the labor dispute where the union workers picketed the scabs, the NCAA's discipline over the 2012 football season (which, recall, was not in the article at all until I added it, a year and a half after it actually happened), and maybe promoting Muscular Christianity. I really can't believe the whole story of Notre Dame has been this much sweetness and light. What has the university's relationship with the city of South Bend been like over the years? (OK, I realize it's outside city limits, but there can't not be a relationship given the proximity and the fact that Notre Dame is the first thing everyone else in the country thinks of when they hear "South Bend, Indiana" (sorry, Pete Buttigieg) Or, even more to the point, St. Joseph County? I mean, there was that source (again university-published, and this is something that would be helped if it were more independent) bragging about the university's economic benefit to the county, especially given that it states (and I don't doubt this) that Notre Dame is the county's largest employer. I got the feeling that to some degree that source was responding to something. I would like to know if there is a something, and what that something is. Are there not histories of the city of South Bend that might speak to this?

Again, I have to go to work, so more later. Daniel Case (talk) 21:05, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Resuming ...


 * Excessive detail: I have removed a lot of the exact dates for things that happened over a century ago where the need to include the exact date was not obvious (i.e., most of them). I have also tried to round some of the very exact numbers given. I have even further removed some details of dubious relevance like the university's London center being located in a building that once was a hospital, and that building's exact address. But there are still a lot of numbers here, and the feeling that someone felt it was important to show their work. Future editors should consider whether all of this is necessary before the next GA nom.


 * Bloat, generally: There are separate articles on the athletics, football team, campus, and the school's history. Yet the article seems to have been written as if they don't exist. They would be better places for some of the surfeit of detail noted above.


 * Layout: In several sections (early history, the campus and graduate and professional schools), images on both sides sandwich a narrow column of text between them, in contradiction to the MOS and generally accepted practices of layout. I got rid of a couple of these situations during my edit without taking the images in question out of the article, but as further work in this department may require making choices, I leave that to the editors. At the very least the NRHP infobox could be moved to the campus article, along with the anchor, since that's really where it's more appropriate.


 * Image galleries: Right now there are three—the one on the campus, on football game day activities and the alumni. The relevant policy page says:
 * "A gallery is not a tool to shoehorn images into an article, and a gallery consisting of an indiscriminate collection of images of the article subject should generally either be improved in accordance with the below paragraphs or moved to Wikimedia Commons. Generally, a gallery should not be added so long as there is space for images to be effectively presented adjacent to text. (emphasis mine)"


 * Given that these galleries often come at the end of sections that are already amply illustrated, I very much question the need for any of them. I think I see what whoever placed them was trying to do, but ... that purpose might be better served with a video of campus buildings, all these gameday traditions and still pictures of alumni, in their respective sections (The middle one especially, as it would be great to see and hear the band). It would take up less space in the article, help it load faster and impart the same information.

OK, that's all for tonight. Daniel Case (talk) 06:38, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Quick note: I am pleased to see that at least the Lobund section which I had flagged as copyvio has been removed. Daniel Case (talk) 19:31, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Continuing ...


 * Images, generally: We could do a little better in this department. For one thing, we have two images of the Touchdown Jesus mural. One accompanies the text about the library being the center of campus intellectual life, which doesn't go with any text accompanying it. At the very least it should go; maybe in the actual libraries section we can have a picture of the library's interior. In fact, we should have a picture of the library's interior; every single picture on Commons is of the mural without any of the inside of the building, much less any other part of the building. The pictures of South Quad, Washington Hall and the law school building are also visibly vignetted ... certainly we can find, or take, better ones. Also, is it necessary to have one picture of the Dome in summer and another one from the same angle in winter? (Although that reminds me of something that would be worth looking up and, perhaps, putting in the campus article—back in the '80s, in one of its college football preview issues, Sports Illustrated wrote that for all the justifiable praise heaped on the Notre Dame campus, "the place looks like a penitentiary in winter"? (Brutal, perhaps, but SI also said that Texas Tech (at least at that same time) looks like a penitentiary year round). Similarly, I don't see why the image of the Clarke Fountain is used to illustrate the admissions section ... maybe, again, we can find or take an image of a group of incoming freshmen, or prospective students taking a campus tour, something that would be more relevant? The use of attractive wild art like that more befits a marketing brochure than an encyclopedia article (And frankly, from the issues noted with the writing, maybe we should let the university's much-cited-here Office of Public Affairs write the article. It would be promotional but at least professionally written, so not as much editing and outright rewriting would be required.


 * The "in popular culture" section: I am glad to see it is now fully cited, but alas for whoever rolled up their sleeves and did this, that isn't really the point. I direct editors' attention to WP:IPC in general and the "good and bad examples" section in particular. The latter include as examples of cruft: " unremarkable mentions or appearances". Let's go through this section one example by one with that in mind. Knute Rockne, All American is of course a no-brainer for this section; in fact as I have suggested above this is the one place in the article where the film should be mentioned. Ditto with Rudy, since the legendary status of Notre Dame football is essential to the plot, as the entry states. But the other three are purely tangential references to UND within their works. In fact, if I remember correctly, "Mr. Touchdown" in Full Metal Jacket is killed not long after we meet him. The Something Borrowed reference also is apparently marginal enough to the film's plot that it's not mentioned at all in that article's plot synopsis. Television, likewise, starts off strongly with President Bartlett in The West Wing, especially since he is a main character of the show, a fictional U.S. president and, as noted, Martin Sheen specifically requested that Notre Dame be made Bartlett's alma mater. But all the other references are marginal ones that neither add much to the episodes in question nor significantly involve the university. As for other media, that same fact gets a full graf, with a different cite, in the intro to the athletics section. Frankly I think that a) that latter mention is enough but b) the cite from the IPC section should be used since that takes us to Time's own website with the cover.


 * References and further reading: The ever-growing plethora of references, 320 when I started, 332 when I finished, and now 385, are almost all used singly. Certainly no one can be accused of insufficient research. But have to wonder if there are any where one reference could support several different facts. It's just unusual. I also note that the long "further reading" section includes some works, like Hesburgh's autobiography and O'Connell's biography of Sorin, that are used as cited sources, often more than once. Perhaps they could be converted to Harvard referencing, with the full cite ahead of the references in a "works cited" subsection? And any other one of those used as a source should be stricken from that subsection as it is not meant for any works also used as sources. In that vein it also seems like some of them should really be cracked open and read for stuff to include, as some seem from their titles, (Yager and Looney and Rice, McInerny and Freddoso, especially) to offer the sort of more critical perspective on some aspects of the university that I above noted are markedly absent from the article.

Daniel Case (talk) 02:56, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Suggestions
I close this review with a list of suggestions, some of which I've already made up above, which could no doubt improve the article:


 * Move the NRHP infobox to Campus of the University of Notre Dame, perhaps a subsection on North and South Quad, since it would be more relevant there, and change any other links as well (i.e. from National Register of Historic Places listings in St. Joseph County, Indiana). I wish there was more to the NRHP nom in terms of history of the buildings and the area, but maybe I'm spoiled by New York's. In any event a map could be drawn of the historic district based on what it says.


 * The article should state early on the history section what it now waits for the "president" section to say: that every president of the institution has been a priest of the CSC order. First, this means that every time the article names a president (or uses his name again after not having mentioned him for a while, I think), it should preface it with "The Rev." (I think we use this for all Christian clergy, per the AP) Second, this made me curious: is this a mere custom or is actually a requirement in the school's charter or something? The article should say so if there is a definite answer.


 * The image galleries, as I said, are ideal candidates for converting to, or replacing with, videos. I think readers/viewers could even better appreciate the beauty of the campus through moving images; it would not be too hard to make this and would create no copyright issues. Making a similar video of the football gameday traditions (there might be time to do it this year) would entail being mindful of any music copyrights (more on this below), but other than that would be just as easy. All these videos could also use a TimedText translatable subtitles layer to explain what we're looking at (voiceovers should really be avoided, unless you're prepared to provide subtitles for them). This would be essential for a video to replace the gallery of alumni images.


 * Under men's basketball, the athletics section mentions the Irish snapping UCLA's record win streak back in the 1970s. I'm a little surprised, then, that there is no mention in the football section of the team's similar accomplishment in 1957: breaking Oklahoma's record winning streak, in a nationally televised game (a very big deal at the time) the Irish won 7–0 in Norman on the state's anniversary, leaving most of the hometown crowd so stunned they all sat there silently in the stands for a long time after both teams had left the field. I realize there that are plenty of more storied aspects of the football program compared to the basketball program, but to me Notre Dame breaking other school's record win streaks in the NCAA's two biggest marquee sports is very significant and unique and thus worthy of mention in this article.


 * Why don't we have a sound sample of the Victory March (either here or at the article about it)? There is enough sourced commentary to justify a 30-second or so .MP3 of it, assuming it's still under copyright (if not, we can include the whole thing).


 * I took the bit about ND not having fraternities and sororities out of the article because the cited source said nothing about it. But, assuming it's true (and nothing in the article contradicts this) a source, preferably one explaining why this is so (university policy? Student disinterest in the face of native institutions (the dorms) similarly conferring identify and inspiring lifelong loyalty? Both?), needs to be found and this added back in. This is really interesting ... a university this large with a culture built in large part around the nation's most legendary college football program having no frats? That's notable.


 * Lastly, it has occurred to me that the "win one for the Gipper" scene in Knute Rockne, All American is, in addition to being parodied in Airplane!, is also ... well, more like paid homage to, with one character even watching the scene in a motel at one point, in The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training (I remember that film well; I think it was the first movie I ever went to see without my parents). It may not be one everybody remembers the way they do with Airplane!, but it's verifiable.

Alright ... that's it, and I hereby close this review which has taken the better part of this month for me. Happy editing to all, now and in the future, who work or will work to improve this article to future GA (or, I suspect, FA) status. Daniel Case (talk) 17:23, 1 November 2019 (UTC)