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Revision as of 08:04, 15 January 2006

Old and/or moribund discussions moved to Talk:Reed_College/archive

General

NPOV Debate (General)

This page is the subject of periodic spasms of change (and sometimes vandalism) from first-timers (either to Misplaced Pages or to the Reed page) who think the page is too positive about Reed. The "Drug Use" section (see talk below) is a frequent target, though several other sections get hit as well. The general comment is that the page is POV in being too positive. I have just done a brief survey of about 20 other small college pages, including Swarthmore, Haverford, Grinnell, and many others, and Reed's page is in no way unusual, certainly not in being overly positive. If someone wants to make a serious contribution about, e.g. the curriculum (too conservative?), to politics (too liberal?), or something else that can be based in some sort of objective fact, please feel free to do so. But consistent vandalism in the form of spurious negative commentary does not belong here. NPOV doesn't mean mindlessly adding negative comments until the page seems "balanced". Add facts, not opinions. -- Gnetwerker 06:40, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

There are many (the most recent of whom needed to profess his/her alumni status) who think that NPOV means weasle-wording everthing. I reverted the change from "Reed is one of the most unusual ..." to "Reed is considered by some to be one of the most unusual". This is pointless and useless weasle-wording and diminishes the value of the entry and Misplaced Pages. No real encyclopedia feels the need to be mamby-pamby about everything it says. This would lead to statements such as "Some believe that the Earth is in fact round". If you were to poll 1000 people, of the perhaps 100 of them who have ever "considered" Reed at all, there would be a vast concensus -- not that it is "one of the best" or whatever -- but that it is unusual. It was featured in a book (I don't have the reference) titled "Three distinctive colleges". Whatever else it may or may not be, it is unusual, if only for being an undergraduate-only private liberal-arts college in the Pacific Northwest. Good grief. Not all statements are POV. -- Gnetwerker 18:55, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

• • The claim about the the writer's own alumni status was in response to an attack by another writer that edits were made by someone with no knowledge of Reed. Obviously the writer was trying to show that he/she did have some knowledge of Reed. 24.60.184.196 13:35, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

--- Notes on my changes:

• Golly, saying that it's in a quiet neighborhood doesn't reflect any bias at all. It's a pertinent fact about the place.

"Quiet", though subjective, is also descriptive and not especially troubling. "Nice" is more subjective than descriptive and definitely not NPOV. Naming the neighborhood is good! --DJA

• If you MUST use a carriage return after every line, don't do it in the middle of a link. It breaks the link! (This is what happened with the Middle Ages link.)

I know. Sorry. I try to catch those. I find that lines that force me to scroll to the right to read a complete paragraph are very distracting. (Remember, not everyone uses the same browser you do.) Anyway, thanks for catching it. --DJA

• Right, Reed might not be well-known for producing a lot of Rhodes Scholars, but unless their PR is just wrong, it produces an unusually high proportion of them. --LMS

• • Do you think we should be writing Misplaced Pages articles based on the subject's own PR? In the case of the Reed Rhodes Scholar issue, if it's valid, there should be neutral sources 24.60.184.196 13:31, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

The American Associaton of Rhodes Scholars (http://www.americanrhodes.org/) can verify that since its founding 31 Reed graduates have been selected as Rhodes Scholars. Among self-identified "liberal arts colleges" (see the Consortium of Liberal Arts Colleges - http://www.liberalarts.org/about/members.php), that is the highest ranking. A perusal of the Misplaced Pages page on the Rhodes Scholarship cites a New York Times source that would put Reed's number in the top 20 or so off all U.S. institutions. 32 American students are selected yearly. Don't be a rock-thrower. If you disagree, do your homework. -- Gnetwerker 08:18, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

This article has really undergone significant editing in recent weeks taking on a rather POV tone -- frequent use of Reed as "the most," "the best," etc. Can we try to bring this back to a more neutral POV? Also could people here please sign and date your posts using four tildes so it's easier to track who and, more importantly, when things were written? Thanks. 24.60.184.196 23:00, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

• • "Reed is one of the most unusual..." is extremely POV. According to whom? By what measures? A "real encyclopedia" would never state something like this without some substantiation. The entire Reed article seems to have devolved into a POV commentary based on people's individual experiences of their times at Reed. 24.60.184.196 13:14, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Drug Use

(Left the heading in since this will no doubt come up again)

And how prescient you were. The overall tone of this article can be summed up as: "Hooray for Reed!" Much could be done to ameliorate this, but I've started by adding some relevant drug info. IronDuke 01:45, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

See my comment in "NPOV" section on your "Hooray" comment. I reverted your comment "although deaths from heroin overdoses by members of the Reed community were not uncommon in the early to mid 90's." This is completely false. I believe that there may have been one heroin OD at Reed since 1977 - I am checking into it and will post shortly. If you have data otherwise, please post it. Current statistics on drug use show Reed in-line with other colleges. -- Gnetwerker 06:27, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Couple things: please refrain from wholesale reversions of edits when possible. In this case, there were other sentences that I took out, in addition to putting the ones about heroin in. And you took out mention of heroin in the list of drugs. Does that mean there was never heroin at Reed? Extraordinary, if true. And you are in any case quite wrong about the number of heroin deaths among members of the Reed Community. As for "posting my data," if we want to get into that, about 70% of the article is unsourced (and I'm being generous). IronDuke 18:00, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Are you offering the fact that a majority of the article is already unsourced, as justification for adding even more unsourced and dubious information? Matt Gies 19:28, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

No. IronDuke 19:35, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Mr Duke - I am not going to spend my time editing your revertable edits. Of course there has been heroin at Reed. If you would like to add that, go right ahead. The rest of your edit was POV BS. Regarding sourcing, I have the 2003 Reed Drug Use Survey and access to the College's records. What do you have? Something you googled from the Quest to Willy Week? If you have evidence of heroin deaths being "common" -- or even "not uncommon" (what does that mean, exactly?), then please post it here first. -- Gnetwerker 07:08, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry this issue makes you unhappy. I don't consider the deaths of Reedies from heroin overdoses to be "nonsense," and it puzzles me that you do. A few technical matters: I don't see any sourcing for the binge drinking claim, or that "Reed pursues a drug and alcohol policy focused on internal rather than police intervention." I don't really see any source for the 2003 heroin study except here on the talk page, either, but I'm assuming good faith. It interests me that you have access to Reed's records; you could help me improve this article by looking up Michael Babic , Jeremy Weiner, John Rush, and Nick Fisher. (I think I have these spelled right.) BTW, are you on the Board of Trustees at Reed? IronDuke 14:47, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I have googled for the four names you mentioned above, with no results. (This does not particularly mean much, as their claimed noteritiy (herioin OD's at Reed) hardly guarentees they would show up in a google search) But it's a data point. Duke, please state where you got those names (and all your information) from... JesseW, the juggling janitor 06:38, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

To correct you -- information (fact) does not make me unhappy. Repeated vandalism does. You have presented no evidence that heroin deaths at Reed are (or were) "not uncommon", yet you continue to insert that absurd phrase into the page. I have reverted the edit (again). If you persist, I will ask to have the page protected. On Monday I will check into the cases you have listed -- easier if you provide what years they purportedly died. Student confidentiality will prevent me from saying anythign specific about them, but I may be able to find public sources, if you are correct (which I doubt).

While I knnow from personal experience that there have been no drug-related deaths at Reed since 1997, I nonetheless went through virtually every copy of The Quest since 1997, and have seen no references to student heroin deaths. Students have been hospitalized for various substance overdoses, usually unspecified but the most common being alchohol, but no deaths. I have also searched the Oregonian archives going back to 1987, and there are also no references to deaths of current Reed students from drug overdoses. Micheal Babich, who died on January 28, 1989, of an apparent heroin overdoes, was 22 at the time, and had dropped out of Reed several years earlier.

The binge drinking claim (re Reed) is from (currently) internal information. Regarding wider trends: cf Barbarians At the Tailgate? Students Accept Drinking Rules, But the Alumni Strike Back The New York Times; November 19, 2005; Less Diversity, More Booze?: Binge-Drinking Study Looks at College Demographics The Washington Post; Oct 31, 2003; Drinking Lessons: As Alcohol Problems Grow, Colleges Seek New Remedies The Washington Post; Apr 16, 2002; College Towns, School Officials Seek End to Post-Game Rioting; String of Disturbances Part of Growing Trend, Observers Say. Washington Post, 4 April 2001.

However, there is a student (Psych322) Survey that has been done since 1999 (http://academic.reed.edu/psychology/pluralisticignorance/drugsalcohol.html). Regrettably, the 2004 numbers are not posted, but it does abundantly verify one piece of my posting -- students perception of drug use at Reed vastly exceeds the reality. The 2003 survey on substance abuse in general, not heroin specifically) is also a Reed internal document. I will get a full reference for it this coming week.

Regarding the change in policy, a quick perusal of the Reed Drug and Alchohol policy (http://web.reed.edu/academic/gbook/comm_pol/drug_policy.html) confirms this.

My affiliation with Reed (other than that I was a student in the 1970s, and continue to be affiliated with the College today) is none of your business. Judging from your rock-throwing on other pages, you are merely a trouble-maker. If you would like to create a standalone page about your beliefs regarding Reed's history of drug deaths, go right ahead -- see how long it withstands scrutiny. -- Gnetwerker 08:04, 15 January 2006 (UTC)