Talk:Lyon College/Archive 1

Archive 1

Untitled

Too many weasel words about what a good school this and how "innovative" its residential system is with no further mention or encyclopedic reference. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.247.246.44 (talk) 21:08, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Adding new recognitions section

I would like to add the following section about Lyon College's notable recognitions below the "Becoming Lyon College" section

Recognitions

• Named on of "America's Top Colleges" by Forbes.com
• Named a "Best National Liberal Arts College" by U.S. News and World Report for seven consecutive years
• Recognized 10 consecutive years by the Princeton Review as a "Best College in the Southeast"
• 30th on Washington Monthly's list of Best Liberal Arts Colleges

Please confirmed and add.

Hekell (talk) 15:42, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Copyvio

Much of the text in the history section was copy-pasted from this Encyclopedia of Arkansas entry; this is not free content (unfortunately), and cannot be pasted into Wikipedia directly. I also removed a paragraph that I think was largely copied from a college press release. I will cite the Encyclopedia of Arkansas page in the article, as it's a good reference, and start over from scratch with the history section. -- phoebe / (talk to me) 17:01, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Improved Lyon College article

Hi, I’m Keli, a Lyon College employee who came to work here several months ago. I noticed this article had missing info I felt was relevant, and I also saw the notice regarding the need for additional citations. I've been working on a new draft to improve the page and add the necessary citations.

In my draft, the "History," "Student life," and "Athletics" sections only include information fully supported through sourcing and with updates to key facts and figures. I've also created a new section for "Academics and rankings" to discuss programs and notable recognition. The greatest difference between my draft and the current article is the addition of secondary sourcing to support all of the article text.

Please note there are some parameters in the infobox that I've "hidden" in my draft: the information is included in the current article, but I've not been able to find citations. Should these details be kept? If so, is it appropriate to use the school website as a citation for them?

Can anyone with an interest in this article or the topic of US colleges please take a look at my draft here and offer any feedback, or if you agree that it significantly improves the article, copy my version over?

Since I am employed by the college and here in an official capacity, I will only post on designated talk pages and avoid direct edits of the Lyon College article or related articles where a conflict of interest might exist. Please do not hesitate to leave me a message if you have questions or feedback. Thanks! LyonCollegeKeli (talk) 18:46, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

@LyonCollegeKeli: Hi, I came to this via the WP universities talk page. Thank you for agreeing to request edits rather than editing the college article directly. You have obviously done some research on Wikipedia: I would recommend reading the guidance in Wikipedia:Conflict of interest and Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure if you have not already done so.

I have read your draft and have some suggestions and questions. Note: I am not familiar with the detail of the US education system.

• Infobox: I think the college website is fine as a source for the college's motto and colours and the size of the campus as "the material is neither unduly self-serving nor an exceptional claim". (see WP:SELFSOURCE).
• Pictures: Could you keep the existing pictures or add some new ones? The guidance is at Wikipedia:Uploading images. It is also possible to upload images to Wikimedia Commons which can then be used on other language wikipedias.
• History History: link "a state college" in the second paragraph to Arkansas State University.
• Academics and rankings: I suggest adding years to this information. Is "Best Liberal Arts Colleges - Bachelor's (National)" from 2000-2005 still relevant?
• Student life: I would leave out "The Lyon Education Adventure Program" as it doesn't sound unusual. I suggest moving the paragraph about the dining hall to a campus section.
• Campus and facilities: I would suggest that you add a section about the campus, which could summarise and be referenced to the information in the history section of the college website.
• Athletics: I suggest replacing offers with a more neutral word such as supports or has. Link to the Sooner Athletic Conference article.

The process for requesting edits is at Wikipedia:Edit requests. I would suggest dividing your request into sections (History, etc), which you can justify individually. Then the editor who responds to the request may be able to ask for more work on some sections and accept others. TSventon (talk) 16:12, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Hi, User:TSventon, thank you for your thorough response and useful feedback. I've made several updates to my draft based on your review, which you can see here. This new draft reflects the following changes:

• Unhid the infobox facts: motto, colors, and campus size and sourced with the university's website and brand book
• Added the original article's photos (I plan to add a logo in the future and hopefully more images)
• Linked "a state college" in the second paragraph to Arkansas State University
• Trimmed the "Academics and rankings" section to be a bit more neutral and relevant
• Removed "The Lyon Education Adventure Program"
• Added a new section for "Campus" that summarizes material from the university website
• Replaced "offers" in the "Athletics" section with "has" for neutrality

Again, I really appreciate your helpful and constructive feedback. Please let me know if you have any other questions or comments about my updated draft. Thanks! LyonCollegeKeli (talk) 23:02, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

@LyonCollegeKeli: Hi, I checked your draft but it does not seem to have been updated since December, could you check it again? I do have a few more suggestions:

• Read the Wikipedia:College and university article guideline (linked to Wikipedia:WikiProject Universities), especially the article structure section. I had not found it when I made my suggestions, but hopefully it agrees with most of them. WP Universities also has a list of "good articles" which should be good examples, for example Lafayette College.
• I had a look at a few of the references. I suspect that "sunherald2016" may be based on a college press release and the Wikipedia:Reliable sources guideline says "Press releases from the organizations or journals are often used by newspapers with minimal change; such sources are churnalism and should not be treated differently than the underlying press release." In "Academics and rankings" the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges Ranking websites would be better sources.
• In "Student life" I would delete "where it won international honors". The article doesn't specify which honours, I couldn't find the information in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reference (which I can't revisit without registering) and 2005 is about 15 years ago. TSventon (talk) 12:59, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

References

Hi, User:TSventon, thanks again for your helpful feedback. I think the draft should be updated now. In this version, I also took into account your latest feedback and removed the sourcing from "Sun Herald". I added other sources to support those sentences that should be more reliable and read less like a press release. I've also removed the detail about the pipe band receiving honors abroad.

Thank you again for your constructive feedback and let me know if I can answer any more questions. Thanks! LyonCollegeKeli (talk) 18:01, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

@LyonCollegeKeli: I thoroughly reviewed your proposed changes to the infobox and implemented most of them (to the infobox only, so far), with some additions, including color boxes. I changed a couple citations to the college style guide so that that include page numbers, and since the style guide includes both the Latin and English versions of the motto, only one citation is needed for the motto. One question for you: Can you point me to an accurate number for current number of faculty? I don't want to remove that item from the infobox if possible, as your proposed version does. I found College Factual giving a number (61) and cited that. If the college website or another source gives a current number, that would be helpful. I'll try to make time to review your other changes. -- DanielKlotz (talk · contribs) 19:50, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

 Done I took time to review User:LyonCollegeKeli's proposed draft. I implemented it with some modifications, which included:

• Removed the descriptor "residential" college, since Lyon College doesn't match the meaning of the term as expounded at Residential_college, even in Residential_college#United_States.
• Removed some overlinking, like to Board of directors on "board of trustees" and to Chairperson on "chairman".
• Moved the photos around slightly.
• Changed a number of dates in citations from DMY to MDY, for consistency. I may have missed some. Added {{Use mdy dates}} to top of article to help preserve this.
• Added a sentence, with citation, about intramurals, so that wouldn't be lost from the current version.
• Added a sentence, with citations, about the disc golf course, so that wouldn't be lost from the current version, and especially since the article is categorized under Category:Disc golf courses in the United States.

There had been a {{Refimprove}} warning on this article for ten years — a long time. User:LyonCollegeKeli's was a significant improvement, and I believe what's there now is neutral and fair. No doubt there are improvements still to be made, including:

• Two sections from the WikiProject Universities article structure guidelines are relevant to Lyon College but missing from this article: "Organization and administration" and "Notable people." Perhaps Category:Lyon College alumni will be a useful place to start for the latter.
• At least two links for citations in the History section are to URLs where a login is required, and others are to print sources not found online, and so I could not confirm them. (I did attempt to find a version not behind a login but could not.) Those sources could be confirmed by a neutral editor or found online.
• The number of faculty members in the infobox could use a better source than what I have cited for now.
• In the Academics section, some of the rankings mentioned are old by now and probably should be updated or removed.
• All the usual expanding and improving that can be done on any college article.

-- DanielKlotz (talk · contribs) 22:45, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Updating the infobox

Hi User:Danielklotz, thank you so much for taking the time to review my suggestions and make improvements to the article. As for your question regarding number of faculty, the true number is a little less than 61 but there's no good current source, so I'm comfortable with leaving that per College Factual for now. The number of students does need a little clarification: the national statistics are a year behind, so National Center for Education Statistics listing of 655 is actually for Fall 2018 headcount. If it's better to use NCES, can the 655 be updated to note this is for "Fall 2018"?" Thanks again.LyonCollegeKeli (talk) 19:46, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Hi, my name is Madeline and I am the new employee representative for Lyon College on Wikipedia. Keli, who made requests here previously is no longer an employee at Lyon. Since I am employed by the college and here in an official capacity, I will only post on designated talk pages and avoid direct edits of the Lyon College article or related articles where a conflict of interest might exist.

I see that Keli had left a message for User:Danielklotz regarding the correct date associated with the number of students in the infobox. Data for 2019 has not yet been released, so the 655 figure is for 2018. Will you please take a look at this when you have time? Your help is very much appreciated. Please do not hesitate to leave me a message if you have questions or feedback.Madeline at LC (talk) 15:43, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

@Madeline at LC: Hi and welcome to Wikipedia. I have corrected the year for the student numbers as requested and moved Keli's message into this section for clarity. TSventon (talk) 16:16, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Hi User:TSventon, thank you!  Done Madeline at LC (talk) 21:49, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

@Madeline at LC: I have added a paid user declaration at the top of the page on your behalf. I suggest that you read the fairly short guidance on Wikipedia:Edit requests when you next want to make an edit and add {{request edit}} to the request. That automatically adds the relevant page to a category which is regularly checked. As Keli found, waitinging for people to read an article talk page can take a very long time! TSventon (talk) 22:38, 25 February 2020 (UTC)