Talk:List of Kappa Sigma chapters

Inactive Dates

I do not think that placing unknown dates a chapter is or becomes inactive is helpful to readers. We should utilize reliable sources for information, and not add unknowns just to standardize a list. - Enos733 (talk) 07:23, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

This system for indicating unknown dates is the standard practice of both Baird's/Almanac and the Fraternity WP. If you disagree with this practice, take it to the WP talk page. I plan on looking for actual dates later, but the placeholders indicate that the chapter has closed, which is helpful and a reminder to editors to look for dates. I am going to restore my work for the reasons stated above. Rublamb (talk) 08:11, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

The standard we should be using is the WP Manual of Style. I ask you to please revert your edits until the community can agree on a consensus. - Enos733 (talk) 16:12, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Hi Enos. While many of us here follow the MOS respectfully as we've become veteran editors, I fully agree with Rublamb on this, and hope to explain. The MOS is a guideline. Editors who have chosen to work collaboratively within the F&S Project have for years been careful to follow the MOS, yet by definition any small rulebook like this cannot elaborate on every conceivable situation. Where the MOS doesn't have firm or definitive rules on a topic we have to do the best we can to weigh MOS intent with other baseline guidance: "Wikipedia is a work in progress." "Don't bite the newbies." "Wikipedia is collaborative." --stuff you assuredly know.

As Rublamb mentioned, even our standard reference, Baird's Manual in all its editions along with the online Archive, all of these leave hints here or there that a year is unknown, by showing an x for a missing digit. Like "186x" or even "18xx" when the year is even murkier. But these incomplete dates DO provide a partial date, and offer readers something to work from. Importantly, this practice also pokes others to supply references unknown to us, and thus improve Wikipedia further. It's one of the ways William Raimond Baird ensured that he would get comprehensive and timely updates from the many corresponding secretaries of these societies. (Not all have as stable as Kappa Sig.) So, it's not that we want to publicize an incomplete fact, but that we want to highlight a point that somebody out there should know, and subtly encourage them to fill in the blanks. And in so doing, we may achieve another valued editor to the group. I take the approach that these situations are teachable moments. I absolutely intend no snark nor do I have any desire to be patronizing. I just want to teach promising newer editors, and improve this set of articles, important to me. Jax MN (talk) 19:51, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

I appreciate the response, but I just do not agree. We generally do not redlink potential notable subjects, for and individuals birthdate we put a year if the month and day are unknown, and I probably could find other areas where we only include known information (even if we know, like in these cases, that a bit of information is missing). I remember with discussions about redlinks, while they could encourage new editors to join our project, that happens with less regularity than we hope for. I believe we must write for viewers, include only verifiable information, and be consistent, as we can across the project in terms of style.

Also as a note, most viewers are not familiar with Baird and the stylization that he used (in a printed, non-searchable format). This is why we should rely on our own MOS, not an external style guide. - Enos733 (talk) 20:37, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Good evening, Enos. I just got home to see your response. Coincidently, tonight I received a notification of a page I follow, where an Anon editor offered exactly the kind of clarification I suggested happens: See here - it's a change notification from WP. As I have worked on virtually all articles regarding GLOs, I get notifications that many others may miss. Let me stress that I see these all the time. Maybe a couple per day, where either a named editor or Anon will update a date, or fill in a reference. These pages are rapidly improving, thanks to the work of several tireless editors and many small contributions like this. You and I may disagree on methods, perhaps, but surely we agree that Wikipedia is a work in progress, and has far to go. The issue you raised about incomplete or missing dates ("186x" or even "XXXX") is not the end point we want to see, for these articles, and neither do I. But the prevalence of these is rapidly decreasing, and among the other editors I sense a strong consensus to continue as we are doing. Jax MN (talk) 05:28, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

@Enos733 Yes, MOS is the general guideline, but it does not cover everything. That is where Wikipedia Projects (WP) come into play. Many WP create their own templates and guidelines that are specific to their specialty. The best example I can think of the sports group because they use abbreviated versions of institutional names in infoboxes to correspond with what teams are called by television and newspapers; North Carolina instead of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, for example. I like this example because it goes against MOS but does match the norm in college sports. The biography group has guidelines about using specific birthdates for living people who are only semi-famous. The city group doesn't allow notable people who don't have Wikipedia articles. Many of the "rules" are only formalized in WP discussions and certainly are not in MOS.

I am fairly new to this WP myself, but the group has worked really hard to create data and format standards. While our readers don't need to know about Baird's, it is pretty much impossible to create a correctly sourced list of chapters without Baird's. Fortunately, this WP doesn't strictly adhere to Wikipedia guidelines for sourcing or content. We tolerate, rather than delete, content sourced from the fraternity's website and allow content that is a bit fluffy for an encyclopedic article. It was an adjustment for me that primary sources were allowed and that content that was clearly provided by insiders was embraced, rather than flagged or deleted. I was confident in restoring my date formats because that is the group's standard, previously tested and applied to most articles. My reference to Baird's is not to override MOS, but to note that we actually have an WP and Greek industry standard, not unlike the sports teams. BTW, incomplete dates are also used in history articles, specifically ones covering topics older than Medieval Ages. Also, Wikipedia is set up to read and sort 201x as a date.

Having said that, I did update some of my xxxx's within 24 hours. With a long list like this, it is too much to convert dates to the template (needed so that the table will sort correctly) and check a reference at the same time, so I split a project like this into steps. The use of 201x ? or xxxx ? reminds all editors to seek the data. It also lets readers know that we didn't leave out the date--but that we don't know the complete date at this time. Hope this explains things better-and we do appreciate your work on this article. Rublamb (talk) 07:54, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Inaccuracies

Many of the chapters actual status does not match the listed status. I'm a brother and can find a complete list of every chapter and status, but it doesn't have dates of activity/inactivity, it'll take me a while to find sources for all the dates, but I'll start soon and hopefully fix all the erroneous statuses. Frankthemagicpotato (talk) 20:26, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

FranktheMagicpotato Are the sources for the statuses or dates public to non-brothers? (And yes it is entirely likely this is out of date). I look forward to your work on updating this. (Also as a note as of this moment, my malware detector goes off at kappasigma.org, which is wierd.Naraht (talk) 20:37, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

The source for statuses should be public, as there's a searchable list on the kappasigma.org site. I have also had it flagged on my computer, no clue why.

As for the dates, I'd have to go through our magazine, and the website archive only goes back to 2009. I'll update as many chapters as I can with founding dates from there, but I'll have to do a little more digging to find inactivity years/older info. I'll make sure to only use publicly available sources/info of course. Frankthemagicpotato (talk) 21:18, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

FranktheMagicpotatoDo the dates of chartering match the online copy of the Bononia Docet at https://mydigimag.rrd.com/bononia-docet?m=45658&i=821079&p=97&ver=html5 ? It looks like the large swath of chartering dates were added in this edit back in 2012. https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=List_of_Kappa_Sigma_chapters&diff=475665369&oldid=475075784

Inactivity dates can be painful to get, you may want to drop by Wikipedia:WikiProject Fraternities and Sororities and it's talk page, we'd love to give advice/take a look. Also, it looks like Kappa Sigma is consistent in using hyphens between the letters of chapter names, so Xi-Nu rather than Xi Nu, correct?Naraht (talk) 08:15, 13 May 2024 (UTC)