User:Philtweir/Knox College, Otago Proposal

Proposal for updating of Knox College, Otago article, referred to on the relevant talk page!

(clarification for any readers more familiar with dorms: the use of 'College' in this particular article does not indicate a dorm-like building as referred to in List of bad article ideas (though it is also an historic building), but a separate, privately-run institution affiliated to the University with its own internal student and staff structures entirely distinct from those of the University. For more information, see Collegiate university - Knox fulfills most, but not all, of these criteria)

Dear other Wikipedia editors & users,

As keen computer sort and avid user of Wikipedia (as anyone in my maths dept office will affirm), I've been keen to do some editing in an area that I am confident I know about (even if I may occasionally be mistaken!), could do with some expansion and, hopefully, won't lead to stepping on any toes before I get the hang of it!

Knox is something I know a bit about, as I have lived there for over a year and, in fact, am the Senior Tutor for the College. However, considering WP:COI, this could be considered to render me an "officer" of the organisation and, in keeping with advice posted there, I am declaring my status, requesting the green light for some changes to this article.

I have aimed to avoid any additions which would be advertising or partisan writing (WP:NPOV), though this is subject to the judgment of others and feedback would be appreciated. To enable constructive criticism and to allow other editors to see what I am intending to do, I have prepared draft amendments under my user-page User:Philtweir/Knox_College,_Otago.

A few important points:
 * In order to reduce the relevance of WP:COI, rewriting has been kept to a minimum, except for issues of factual accuracy, and little or no text has been removed. Some text has been moved, however, to fit changing context. In any case of ambiguity of factual accuracy or relevance, I've left everything as it is and expanded around it as concisely as possible.
 * The draft has, in accordance with WP:Userpage, been stripped of all categories. Two new templates are included, one for the list of alumni (based on Template:Alum) and one for 'Colleges of Otago'. While the AfD discussion referred to in this talk-page indicates notability was hard enough to establish for even two colleges, this may help the Selwyn clean-up and fits smoothly with other, similar (though subtly and necessarily non-identical), templates for other (semi-)collegiate universities. (User:Philtweir/Selwyn College, Otago and User:Philtweir/St Margaret's College, Otago show the templates applied to the current Selwyn and St Margaret's articles respectively)
 * The informative and extensive text on the history of the buildings has been dusted with images and split into smaller sections; these headings are largely arbitrary and if, as I hope, the principle gains the blessing of the original contributor, an alteration on their behalf to more appropriate subheadings would be appreciated.
 * Some tidying of citations and inclusion of some more notable alumni (including early, influential politicians) are still to come. As mentioned above, I have left the original list unaltered, only adding to it, not removing, so any tidying up for notability would be appreciated, preferably once the changes have been posted (see below)
 * The new College history has been cited in a few locations and, I hope, for facts or referenced opinion distinctly. It has an ISBN which I'll include when I dig it out.

I've also amended the section contrasting Knox's teaching schedule with a standard Oxford or Cambridge one. They are very different in average class size, tutor experience and volume of papers, but I'm not sure whether it is quite as marked in quantity for those receiving it. The commenter above would be the more experienced source and, I imagine, directly involved in College teaching, but I think this may differ between Oxford and Cambridge. (As an example, Health Science students at Knox would receive double the weekly College teaching that I did as an undergraduate at my old College, Corpus). In any case, that's why I haven't dwelt on the differences too much but simply explained what happens at Knox. Since this is a more general point, I've discussed this at little more length on my talk page and would (separately) be keen for any feedback there!

One key point, I'd be keen that non-trivial edits to the draft (i.e., other than sp, gr or factual) are left for the moment, being discussed below if relevant to WP:COI, and, if the principle and general gist of the proposed alterations are acceptable, that it's posted on the mainspace page then adjusted as soon as possible there [emphasis to catch skim-readers!] rather than ending up with a separately maintained blob on my userpage. Particularly, a few citations would be useful; I don't want to overuse the new College history, particularly as it's not viewable online but will endeavour to find alternative resources.

Finally, I'll address notability, as it may be felt that such an extension of an article marked for deletion as borderline irrelevant would be inappropriate and, given my position in the College, it is only fair that I am expected to justify these additions before they are considered. One important point is that, while the article may appear longer, only a couple of paragraphs have been added - most new length is from resectioning, new templates and dotted images. The other is that these extensions are hoped to better demonstrate notability (though beyond the introductory paragraph) and that, as sufficient notability has been established through the AfD discussion for a separate article of some kind, they are required to fill in a number of gaps with which any description would be incomplete. Also, I hope it makes the article a little easier to browse, but this is entirely subjective!

Post-finally, a couple of housekeeping points. I am receiving a scholarship from Knox, as well as one from the University; I am not being paid to edit Wikipedia, or advocate for the College in any arena, for that matter; I have not discussed the detail of any editing with College staff, or even that I am hoping to do any; I have no means of direct financial gain from editing this article, just a warm sense of satisfaction that when somebody looks up a topic I'm interested in, that there would be a few nice pictures and some more of their questions would be answered than otherwise, in as WP:NPOV a way as possible.

With best wishes and thanks for your patience!

PS The diff here may be of use, but as it doesn't always match identical sections it may be misleading. All the edits have Edit Summaries to provide additional justification.

Philtweir (talk) 06:34, 1 April 2010 (UTC)