Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 02:24, 21 January 2006

The entirety of the lengthy and possibly ongoing discussion of the January 2006 edit war between User:gnetwerker and User:IronDuke is here: Talk:Reed_College/Jan06 Edit War. It has not been moved to hide it, but to re-focus this page on the subject matter. -- Gnetwerker 06:39, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

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

Page Protection Status

I (User:gnetwerker) requested this page be temporarily protected from edits because of a running disagreement (edit war) with User:IronDuke. For details of this disagreement, see below. I propose to leave it protected for a week or two, or until the text of contentious paragraphs can be sorted out -- most specifically the Drug Use section of Reputation. Also in need of a decision isI ronDuke's suggestion that my participation on this page is improper. I invite people to use the space immediately below here to propose language for that section, to see if we can bottom out. Also, if you have unrelated edits that you want in the interim, please propose them here and we can ask an administrator to make them in the interim. Also, please take the Poll below to give some direction on the subject in general. -- Gnetwerker 17:55, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

General

Straw Poll -- Peace or 'Color'?

As I have noted below and elsewhere, this page is the frequent target of edit wars. As has just happened, someone -- often a disgruntled alumnus or unhappy current student -- comes onto this page and accuses it of being too positive to Reed, and therefore POV. It is true that the Reed page has historically (if anything about Misplaced Pages can be called "historical") been full of various kinds of "color" absent in other college pages, and most of this information, while perhaps self-evident to a Reedie, is not sourced or inherently unverifiable. While (IMHO) it makes the page more relevatory concerning Reed, it also opens it up to edit wars about Reed's academic reputation, its "distinctiveness" (or lack thereof), and (most of all) its (Reputation for) drug use. So I propose this straw poll:

In comparing this old version of the current site: http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Reed_College&oldid=34921765 which we shall call "Colorful" and the more-or-less current one (http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Reed_College&oldid=35514054 to be sure it doesn't change) which we shall call "Rigorous", which direction do you suggest we go? -- Gnetwerker 07:46, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Please place your votes here, signing your name with three tildes in a row:

• Colorful```

• Rigorous

• Either Way is Fine

• Some Other Solution

• Discussion Goes Here

Sourcing

Since the page has been critized as "unsourced", I've started to pile together the sources I have for parts of the page. Most of these are not online references (though some of them probably could be). Most of this stuff seems too obvious to source (i.e. it is available on the website or in the catalog). The Reed oral History Project (http://web.reed.edu/alumni/oral_hist.html) has some good info. Alas, the ever-useful Reed College Compendium of Information, while a public document, is not provided in an online form.

• History -- Sourced from Reed's website, historical documents available to the public at Reed
  • "well-earned reputation for anti-authoritarian leanings" -- needs sourcing, but few would dispute

• Distinguishing features
  • "Reed is one of the most unusual institutions" -- needs formal sourcing, however see Burton Clark The Distinctive College: Grinnell, Reed, Antioch (1970); also Princeton Review, etc.
  • Hum 100/Thesis/etc -- source: Reed website, catalog
  • Reactor -- source: Reed Website
  • "a haven for intense intellectuals" - Pope quote, need add'l sourcing
  • "dedication to 'the life of the mind'" - Reed published materials
  • "Reed maintains a 10:1 student-to-faculty ratio" - Reed Compendium of Information (public document)
  • Sports -- Reed catalog
    • "Reed's ... teams have defeated teams from ... sports-centric schools" -- need source
  • Honor Principle -- Reed student handbook, other public documents
    • "one of the few colleges operating under an Honor Principle" -- subject of past discussion -- needs better source

• Admissions and student demographics -- Reed Compendium of Information

• Reed's reputation
  • Academic -- mostly already sourced in the text
    • Rhodes Scholars, etc -- see references in Talk pages, otherwise from Reed Compendium (also website)
    • "academic workload" -- see references in archived Talk pages

• • Social/political -- this section is mostly unsourced "color"

• • Drug use -- sourcing of Drug section is beginning (see discussion below) but historical information difficult/impossible to source

• Campus - source: Reed Master Plan (public document), 2005 Reed Historical Buildings Review (public document)

Hope this helps -- Gnetwerker 08:41, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

For the curious, here is the (3-sentence) Reed page in the Columbia Encyclopedia: http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/r/reedc1oll.asp, and here is the Britannica Entry: http://www.britannica.com/ebi/article-9313173 -- Gnetwerker 08:54, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Update: IronDuke has chosen, rather that attempt to contribute to sourcing any of the current article, to simply re-write it in the form he sees fit. This is fine, and may be an improvement (ultimately). However, this makes much of the above-list irrelevant. Nonetheless, additional sourcing is needed, so if you have verifiable sources, please note them here. -- Gnetwerker 07:30, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

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)

Reed Legends

The stuff below does not belong here. It could be part of its own Reed Legends article, if people felt like that was a legit topic for WP.

(Unlike the circumstances of most Reed legends, there are still alumni alive who will vouch for the veracity of the MG story. Specifically, the vehicle's alleged owner claims that while he was abroad playing Capoeira in Europe one summer, several inbrebriated friends thought it might be funny to push his car into the foundation. . . and then could not remove it. Though the story cannot be confirmed, the alumnus still lives in Portland and is still pissed about the whole event.)

The placement of a copper time capsule in Eliot Hall is suggested in the blueprints but has not been confirmed. -- IronDuke 02:47, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Drug Use

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