Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of presidents of Washington & Jefferson College/archive1

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

The list was promoted by The Rambling Man 15:49, 6 July 2010 [1].

List of presidents of Washington & Jefferson College[edit]

List of presidents of Washington & Jefferson College (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): GrapedApe (talk) 17:21, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured list because...it seems ready. This is a unique list, since there do not appear to be any lists of presidents of colleges that have achieved FL status, so I had to create the format from scratch. Please see the peer review for background on how the current format came to be. GrapedApe (talk) 17:21, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from Jujutacular T · C 17:46, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comments Jujutacular T · C 18:36, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • "established by three Presbyterian missionaries to the American frontier in the 1780s" - strange wording: shouldn't 'to' be 'on', or 'in'?
    • I see your point, but I think that language is correct. It's like saying "missionary to India."--GrapedApe (talk) 01:22, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Oh! I see now. I was reading the sentence differently - I took it too mean "three log cabins...established...to the American frontier" which wouldn't make sense. I would say reword it, but this was probably my own misreading and not a problem. Jujutacular T · C 04:05, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • "No one may be excluded from holding the presidency "account of the..."" - do you mean 'on account'? --Yep. Fixed
  • "James Dunlap was a student of McMillan in his early years of teaching" - not immediately clear what this sentence means (pronoun usage - 'his'). Reword.--Reworded, as "one of McMillan's early students"
  • In the 'Founding' section, the first sentence is nearly identical to one in the lead. Reword one of them to keep the reader interested.--mixed it up
  • "...teaching mathematics and the classics" - what are the classics (wikilink it)? - linked
  • A few dates in the Notes columns are separated by hyphens - should all be dashes. --done
  • "A "–" indicates that the individual served as President pro tempore." Reword this sentence so the dash doesn't appear that near the beginning. A tad confusing as is. Also, move this point down to just above the first list section.
    • Since that is acting like a key for the list, it seems to me that the symbol that is being identified is fine at the beginning of the sentence. Like, if you're reading the list and wondering what the hyphen means, you'd expect it to be on the left. As far as its placement below the lead, that seems right to me as well, since the "Founding and early leadership" section is part of the list, albeit in prose form. Let me know what you think about all of this.--GrapedApe (talk) 01:22, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Yea, later when I was reading through the lists I saw the dashes and thought, 'what do these dashes mean?', and immediately looked up and saw the dash at the front of that bullet point. It did seem odd to me however when I first got to it after reading the lead. What would you think of converting it to a note (cited to the notes section below)? Jujutacular T · C 04:05, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • I think that placing that information in the Notes section would bury important information down towards the bottom of the page. I agree that its current location might not be odd, but I can't think of a better place for it.--GrapedApe (talk) 04:41, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • I'd like to hear another reviewers opinion. If no one else thinks of better options I will support. Jujutacular T · C 06:13, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The current president: it says under "Term end" - "Present". Technically this would mean she is currently ending her presidency. Solution?
    • Set to "Incumbent" to match List of Presidents of the United States.--GrapedApe (talk) 01:22, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Still a little strange, since I've only ever heard incumbent used to describe political candidates, not presidents of universities. How about putting a dash in that column and writing "Current president" in the notes column? Jujutacular T · C 04:12, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • To be honest, I still think that just "present" works better. It seems intuitive. I don't think anyone would be confused by it.--GrapedApe (talk) 04:43, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • Ditto as above. I'd like to hear additional opinion. Jujutacular T · C 06:13, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not really a big deal actually. Jujutacular T · C 17:46, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support—everything looking good, no problems. Ucucha 17:16, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved comments from The Rambling Man (talk) 06:19, 2 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comments
  • "a historic building" in English I would normally see that as "an historic building" but perhaps USEng doesn't do that? Done
  • Is the President a male-only post (as you use "he" a bit)? I suppose more pertinently, are women prohibited from the post? Aha, got to the end of the lead and found a woman. So does "provided he shall demean himself " still stand?
    • That's apparently still language in the charter, but is apparently not used to exclude women from holding the office. I guess that's what you get when you operate under a charter written in the 1860s.--GrapedApe (talk)
  • "A "–" indicates that the individual served as President pro tempore." would be better at the top of the table rather than at the end of the lead. Done
  • Is it President pro tempore or president pro tempore?
    • All instances of "president" or "president pro tempore" have been changed to lowercase, except for proper names like "Office of the President" and "President's House."--GrapedApe (talk) 20:58, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Any reason why to not make the tables sortable?
    • It doesn't seem likely to me that someone would want to view the list in any way other than chronological. --GrapedApe (talk) 20:54, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ref 15 and 18 look identical to me. Done
  • Ref 37 needs an en-dash. Done

The Rambling Man (talk) 19:09, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from Wizardman Operation Big Bear 04:24, 3 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
*Comment:
    • "Washington & Jefferson College originates from three log cabin colleges established by John McMillan, Thaddeus Dod, and Joseph Smith," They're linked in the lead, so they probably don't need to be again here.--done
    • "In 1806, Matthew Brown began his term that would end in 1806" 'would end that same year' sounds better to me, less repetitive.--done

Wizardman Operation Big Bear 03:57, 3 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Ought to have stopped by earlier, as a lot of my nitpicks were dealt with during the peer review. Only two minor points remaining, I think: (a) I'm still not entirely certain what the President does, if anything (e.g. is it a ceremonial, or an executive, position?); (b) is Wikisource a reliable source? BencherliteTalk 10:53, 5 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(a): should be clarified in paragraph 3. (b): The wikisource text came from the Coleman book. I changed the references to go straight to the Coleman book instead.--GrapedApe (talk) 15:44, 5 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You missed one more instance of ref 7, but you could add a sisterlink template to the charter somewhere so the link isn't lost. Anyway, support. Nice work. BencherliteTalk 17:46, 5 July 2010 (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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