Wikipedia:Featured article review/Georgetown University/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was delisted by Nikkimaria via FACBot (talk) 3:04, 19 March 2022 (UTC) [1].

Georgetown University[edit]

Notified: Ergo Sum, Patrickneil, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Higher education, talk page notification 2021-06-30

Review section[edit]

This is a very important FA: It's for a level-5 vital article, it's one of only 4 remaining FAs for an extant higher/further education institution (12 others having been delisted since September 2020), it's the only one of those for a major U.S. research institution, and it's used as one of the two U.S. showcase articles for WikiProject Higher education to model the project's best practices.

HAL333 raised issues with this FA last June, and there was interest from several editors in addressing them, but now several months later, that work has not happened, and a follow-up by me in November went unanswered. We cannot postpone indefinitely, so I am opening this FAR. Going through HAL's concerns, sandwiching is immediately obvious in the Post-Civil War expansion section. I found insufficiently sourced content (e.g. Healy's education in France) when I examined that same paragraph. The students count is one example of dated content, being from 2017 (or 2013 in the infobox undergraduates field footnote). The notable speakers paragraph, which contains qualitative statements (e.g. Many prominent alumni are known to frequent the main campus) sourced to a university page, is an example of overreliance on primary sourcing (that reference is also one of many where the university's name is inappropriately italicized).

Overall, these issues point to a need for a top-to-bottom review and update. I'll make further comments below as I examine the article further, and I hope many others will join in to get this back in sparkling shape. Resources that may be helpful include WP:UNIGUIDE and the example of Pomona College, a U.S. college FA that was promoted this past December. Best, {{u|Sdkb}} talk 22:00, 6 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Sdkb[edit]

Okay, so going beyond the comments above, here are some other things I'm noticing (some bigger than others):

Lead[edit]
  • On a hill above the Potomac River, the school's main campus is identifiable by its flagship Healy Hall I'd rephrase to The school's main campus, on a hill above the Potomac River, is identifiable by its flagship Healy Hall so that readers begin the sentence knowing what we're talking about. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 19:57, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Georgetown is home to the country's largest student-run business, largest student-run credit union, oldest continuously running student theatre troupe and one of the oldest debating societies in the United States. "The country's" and "in the United States" creates redundancy. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 19:57, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm a little wary of how much room athletics take up in the lead. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 19:57, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • For footnotes a and b, there shouldn't be external links, as these are subject to link rot etc. Just use normal references. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 19:57, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • At Pomona, I made the call to use just {{Start date}} rather than {{Start date and age}}, as the age didn't seem so important as to be worth going onto a second line. What are your thoughts on this? It might be something worthwhile to bring up at WT:HED again. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 19:57, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Per the {{Infobox university}} documentation, we've decided that only orgs that provide essential definition of the institution qualify for the academic affiliations field. None of the entries here would be appropriate in the lead body, so I don't think they're due for the infobox either, and I'd suggest removing this entirely and instead putting it in the body. NAICU is particularly unwarranted, but also AJCU and ACCU are largely redundant to the religious affiliations line. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 19:57, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm seeing a lot of citations in the lead, which raises WP:CITELEAD concerns. I'll need to read the body to know which things are cited because they're not in the body (which could raise WP:DUE issues), but if they are in the body and aren't controversial qualitative information, they should be removed. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 19:57, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is the provost an important enough position to warrant mentioning in the infobox? I looked to see if the body says anything about it, and it doesn't, but that might be reflecting a separate issue of no organization and administration section. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 19:57, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • For the academic staff, is it due to provide the full-time vs. part-time breakdown in the infobox? We could shorten it to just one line if we saved it for the body. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 19:57, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Administrative staff is not precisely defined, so per the updated {{Infobox university}} documentation, please update it to |total_staff= instead. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 19:57, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • For location, Washington, District of Columbia has two links to the same place. I'd just use Washington, D.C., as that's the most recognizable form anyways. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 19:57, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • The campus parameter needs to be split, per updated guidance at {{Infobox university}}. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 19:57, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is Large City some sort of formal designation? I question the capitalization. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 19:57, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • A free label is used for the newspaper (unlinked, oddly). Per this discussion, I don't think this is appropriate unless the newspaper has official status with the university, which I don't believe The Hoya does. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 19:57, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • For sporting affiliations, I question MAISA and EARC the same as above. Could those more minor affiliations be moved to a footnote or kept for the body? {{u|Sdkb}} talk 19:57, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Infobox is missing the annual budget. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 19:57, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'll pause there for now to let these things be addressed before continuing. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} talk 19:57, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Sdkb, thanks for the notes. I'll look into these tomorrow. Generally though, I'm concerned I don't have the time to keep this article at FA quality on my own, I keep hoping new students/alumni will see this and want to contribute.-- Patrick Neil, oѺ∞/Talk 23:20, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Very understandable; it's always easiest with a team. @Ergo Sum, do you plan to participate here? I know you're still in the middle of the Georgetown presidents featured topic, but this might be very well worth the detour, since as the pageview data makes clear, the main university article is extremely important for readers and serves as a gateway to the others. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 17:57, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Sdkb: Yes, I'm going to participate as much as I can. I'll give this all a look as soon as I can. Ergo Sum 00:20, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This level of detail could go on talk. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:22, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm happy for the coordinators to move my comments to talk if they start becoming long enough they clutter the FAR page. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 17:58, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Easier on them (and all) is if you remove them to talk yourself as/if they are resolved. Adding the (premature) level 4 subheading resolved the problems this section break is causing in the FAR TOC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:11, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't appear this article is receiving sustained attention; shall we Move to FARC? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:48, 27 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • Move to FARC - a little lead work on February 13, but there hasn't been any sustained work here. Hog Farm Talk 14:28, 2 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

FARC section[edit]

Issues raised in the review section include currency, structure and sourcing. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:13, 5 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist, sadly, there just hasn't been any sustained work over the last three weeks. Hog Farm Talk 14:23, 16 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist I checked 2 refs in the alumni section and both had failed verification issues. (t · c) buidhe 15:25, 16 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist, sourcing and datedness, and last significant edits were my minor adjustments on 27 February. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:12, 16 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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