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

The article was archived by Sarastro1 via FACBot (talk) 21:02, 18 March 2017 [1].

Oxford College of Emory University

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Nominator(s): haha169 (talk) 10:18, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Dear fellow Wikipedians, I am nominating Oxford College of Emory University for consideration as a featured article. It has gone through FAC once before several years ago and failed. Since then, the article has been significantly improved, and has undergone a comprehensive copyedit by User:Twofingered_Typist (thank you again for volunteering your time and skills!) of the copyediting guild as well as additional improvements by myself and others. This article is about one of the academic divisions of Emory University, and I hope y'all find it interesting and well-written! I look forward to reading your comments and suggestions! haha169 (talk) 10:18, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments - Not the most in-depth review at the moment but a few cursory comments as I go along...
  • Why no metric conversions?
  • Per Wikipedia:Image use policy#Displayed image size, don't force image size. Your 170px width is well below the 220px default size and makes the illustrations appear quite small.
  • Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Commas, you need a second comma after the state in the "City, State" format.
  • It wasn't immediately clear to me what was being followed in Following this...
  • Students at Oxford automatically continue their studies in Atlanta after completing its curriculum. - What, specifically, does "Atlanta" refer to here?
  • "University of Oxford", not "Oxford University"
  • Does "generous" suggest magnanimity or abundance? Either way, probably not needed...
  • During those years - During which years?
  • It seems like the "thirty-eight U.S. states plus Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico, and twenty-seven foreign countries" figures are meant to be remarkable, but we're not given any indication of how that ranks against other institutions. It would be nice to have a source other than the college itself to consider whether the student body is, in fact, notably diverse.
  • This may be a stupid question but I'm genuinely having trouble: the school was "founded as Emory College", but "was named after the late John Emory [...] and Oxford University." When did Oxford enter the name? Also, I think the intro should make it more explicitly clear that the campus in question continued to be used after the college "moved its operations."
  • The campus and the surrounding areas were planned and built - "Surrounding areas" quite vague
  • On December 23, 1839, the state legislature incorporated the land around the school into a new city called Oxford. - This is the first time we hear the name "Oxford" in the history of the college, but according to our article on Oxford, Georgia, the town was named after the school.
  • Over the years - More specific time frame needed.
  • sixty-five acres of land six miles from the city's downtown - The History of Emory University article lists the land as 75 acres, so I just wanted to verify which is accurate.
  • Our Ignatius Alphonso Few article says Asa Candler was Few's cousin. Was this known at the time?
  • as a functioning farm that operates its own community-supported agriculture and sells its produce at local farmers' markets. - Everything after "functioning farm" is unnecessary detail IMO.
  • I'd like to know precisely how many structures the campus contributes to the NRHP historic district.
  • Today, much of the college is organized around a pedestrian-only quadrangle ... The majority of the school's facilities are situated around the rectangular quadrangle. Seems repetitive.
  • two buildings that existed before the school was established - I thought Phi Gamma Hall was built well after Emery College was founded?
  • a library containing 97,836 volumes. - Seems unnecessarily precise and likely to change from day to day. I'd round it off to "nearly 100,000."
  • Is Nitya Jacob the only faculty member who has won an award?
  • Tiffany Stern needs a link or a description, as I have no idea who she is.
  • Make sure all your dashes are MoS-compliant, as in "2016-17 academic year."
  • Oxford College enrolled over 900 students; twenty-eight percent are Asian American, eight percent are African American, and nine percent are Latino. - That only adds up to 45%. If you're going to start an ethnic breakdown, you should do it in full. The source lists the Asian group as 28.8%, which rounds to 29%, not 28%. While I'm not certain, I would think that "Asian" and "black" are more inclusive and accurate than "Asian-American" and "African-American." Finally, where do you get the 900 enrolled students figure? I can't find it in the source.
  • If Oxford graduates continue to Emery as a matter of course, what's the difference between selecting Oxford or both Oxford and Emery when applying?
  • two hundred and forty-two students - Per WP:MOSNUM, values that can't be expressed in two words or less should use numerals.
  • Elizer and Murdy, a student residence hall which opened in 2008, is certified LEED Gold. - This image caption needs a source since the info isn't presented anywhere else in the article.
  • The zebra was nicknamed "Barcode", and a stuffed zebra overlooks the quad in Seney Hall as a memorial to the event. - Unsourced and of questionable necessity I think.
  • students began bringing larger four-legged farm animals - I'd probably remove "four-legged" since most farm animals are quadrupeds, and it doesn't really add anything to the reader's understanding.

There's more to read through, but I think I can say with some confidence that the article needs more work. The above bullets are just some examples of things that tripped me up or need correction. The prose remains rough in places, but it's not terrible, and the whole page needs a check for MoS adherence. My bigger concern is that the article isn't very approachable for those of us not already familiar with the history of the institution. The intro has some strange ways of explaining things, and left me feeling more than a little confused. Parts of the article do have slight promotional overtones, which I'm not thrilled about, and once you get past the "History" section it's sourced almost entirely to the school itself. I recognize that for a relatively small college, there might not be many independent sources that discuss the campus or student culture, but I still wonder. I don't think the article is all that close to FA quality, but I won't oppose for now in case I'm way off-base or improvements are quick to arrive. Still, nice work, and I admire your dedication to improving the article. – Juliancolton | Talk 22:30, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your review! I've taken some time to tackle some of the simpler concerns, but I will work through the rest of them as I have time. Some notes:
  • How do you create metric conversions?
  • The town is named after the University of Oxford, not Oxford College (the article on Oxford, Georgia says this, and I clarified that in both the lead and in history
  • Transcription mistake, it is indeed seventy-five acres
  • You're right about the two buildings; the source also says that none of the buildings from before the 1850s exist anymore, so I'm not sure where that came from
  • I will look into finding more faculty awards
  • The difference between choosing Oxford or Emory is the campus where one starts their studies. I've made this clearer in the "Admissions" section and the lead
  • While the historic district listing does list all the contributing buildings, it doesn't list specifically which ones are Oxford campus buildings, and which ones are off-campus. If I were to count and identify them myself, that would be original research
  • I have fixed most of the other smaller issues that you mentioned; however, your concern about most of the sources after history coming from the University is something that I'm not sure I can fix. I agree with you on that, but I have had to rely mostly on Emory's sources because little exists otherwise, although there are some sources from local newspapers and other places. I will work to improve the article further based on your very insightful and helpful suggestions! --haha169 (talk) 01:51, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for the quick response! The NRHP thing isn't a huge issue. For metric conversions, see {{convert}}. {{convert|38|mi|km}} produces 38 miles (61 km), and {{convert|75|acre|hectare}} yields 75 acres (30 hectares), etc. When you've done what you can with the above list, please ping me and I'll take another look as soon as I can. – Juliancolton | Talk 03:03, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Juliancolton I've gone through your list and fixed what you listed, and then combed the article again in order to make certain elements more clear to someone who isn't as familiar with the topic, particularly the unique relationship between Oxford College and Emory University. Please let me know if those changes are sufficient! Additionally, I've given the article several more look-throughs, correcting errors and rewording sentences, as well as conducting some more research for third-party sources (of which I was only very mildly successful). Thank you again for your very in-depth and helpful review! --haha169 (talk) 05:13, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • What kind of license for the monument? I've been researching Commons' list of copyright tags and other similar images, but I can't figure out what to put there.
  • Would the city plan fall under Template:PD-US-unpublished? There is no record of the plans ever being published and is available to the public now only due to the Emory University Archives here. The listing itself has no copyright information, and only fell into their possession due to a "gift". The only thing that is certain is that the blueprint was drawn and completed in 1837.

Comments by Syek88

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I'm afraid I must concur with Juliancolton that despite the article's obvious merit, depth and comprehensiveness, it looks in other respects to be a bit too far off Featured Article standard. I share Juliancolton's evident doubts whether it can be brought to that standard during the course of this review. I selected three short sections as a sampling exercise—Residence life, social clubs and student organisations—and have the following comments about them:

  • "All students are required to live on campus for the duration of their time at Oxford." This statement doesn't seem come with a supporting reference.
  • "occupancy size" - "size" seems to be tautologous.
  • "The newer residential halls, Elizer, Murdy, and Fleming Halls are all LEED-certified, with the former two attaining a "Gold" certification." - the sentence is missing a comma.
  • "Some of the food served at these two locations are sourced from the organic farm on campus." - "food" should be joined by the singular "is".
  • "In terms of recreation, Williams Gymnasium houses an indoor hybrid basketball, volleyball, and badminton court, an indoor track, indoor pool, weight room, and aerobic studio." - the way this list is cast, every noun should have the indefinite article following the first two items in the list.
  • This source does not support the statement that the Fleming Woods hiking trails are "commonly used by Oxford students".
  • "instead of pledging, students "tap in" to these clubs" - the "tap in" reference means nothing without an explanation.
  • In footnote b, "co-ed" should be spelt out in full.
  • "In order to counter this trend, the Leadership Oxford and ExCEL programs were designed in 1988 to help students enhance their leadership skills" - designed by whom? Students or the university?
  • "Student involvement in community service is encouraged" - I think this is an example of what Juliancolton refers to as promotional overtones, particularly in the absence of a source independent of the university.
  • How do we know from this source that the survey figures for community service relate to the 2012 year? The source might date to 2012, but all we know is that the survey was "recent", which could mean anything. Also, it appears that the relevant year was not a calendar year (as the term "year" implies) but an academic year.

At this stage I'm afraid I'm moved to oppose for the reason that if my comments in relation to those three short sections were extrapolated to the remainder of the article, it would be unavoidable to conclude that the article would best be brought closer to Featured Article standard outside the review process. Regards Syek88 (talk) 04:37, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your well thought-out comments! Oxford College recently redesigned their website, so I spent a little time looking up archives and finding new sources. I also fixed up all of your suggestions above. I appreciate your honesty, and if you truly believe that this article cannot reach FA status through the nomination process, then I suppose there isn't much else I can do to satisfy your concerns. Thank you again for taking the time to review! --haha169 (talk) 03:09, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Closing comment: This has been open over two weeks now and we have a well-reasoned oppose from Syek and comments from Juliancolton that, while not explicitly opposing, suggest that this is still some way short of FA standard. This suggests that the article was not quite ready and I would recommend working with the reviewers away from FAC to polish it and bringing it back in at least two weeks. Sarastro1 (talk) 21:02, 18 March 2017 (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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