Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Rajshahi University

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 review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 20:59, 20 March 2007.

[edit] Rajshahi University

Stable. Right size, not too long, suitably referenced. --ppm 20:42, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment it needs a bit of a copyedit. I had a go at one section, and made changes such as:

• Programs in Theater, Music and Folklore studies have been recent additions to the faculty
• In 1964 the library has been was shifted to Motihar Green

You should take a decision on capitalisation as well; for example, should it be [the Department of] 'Life and earth sciences', or 'Life and Earth Sciences'? I would suggest the latter, and while this may be a matter of style, it would be better to be consistent throughout. — BillC ^talk 22:27, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

• No-one has responded to this, or edited the article, so: oppose. — BillC ^talk 19:21, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Tried to fix these. Pls take a look--ppm 20:15, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

• Copyediting has been started. Please check back after a while (I mean one or two days!). Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 15:01, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

It has improved. However, referencing is thin on the ground in a few places. For example:

• "Allegedly, the current system puts more of a burden on students". We should be told who is alleging this.
• Main campus has two references for four paragraphs. Faculties has just one. — BillC ^talk 00:16, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

A lot of commendable improvements. I'll change my vote if there's a bit more commitment to citations. — BillC ^talk 19:19, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Clearly a lot of work has gone into responding to comments. I'm happy to support now. — BillC ^talk 18:48, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment use Commonwealth English, i.e. organized -> organised. Rama's arrow 15:49, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

• Support looks good now. A comprehensive article - a few stylistic and copyediting issues remain though. Rama's arrow 17:34, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
• Support - The article has the content to be featured, other issues can be worked out.Bakaman 23:53, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

• Support good work if not spectacular. I think all this article is good enough to be featured--Agεθ020 (ΔT • ФC) 01:05, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

• Support. Good work. Some more copyedit may be useful. I have tagged one piece of information (repeated twice) that may require some citation. Aditya Kabir 03:30, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I've removed that claim, since I can only find somewhat weak references for it. In any case, I think Mymensingh is larger, but Chittagong smaller.--ppm 04:32, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

• Object for now. Fails 1a: "compelling even brilliant prose." Here's some issues from the lede.
  • It was the second largest university when it was established or now? This is confusing because of the reference to what was East Pakistan.
  • the "Rajshahi University act 1973" act not-captilised? not "Act of 1973"? Is this so important that it's the second sentence of the article, and if so, why is there no link to such an important act?
  • 2nd paragraph: first sentence should begin with the full proper noun, not second (sounds very awkward).
  • Faculty should wikilink for us North American-ites who have no idea what that means the first time we read it.
  • "With 25,000 students and close to 1000 faculty members, it is also one of the largest universities of Bangladesh in terms of student population." Since the 1000 faculty members don't contribute to the student population, it's quite confusing for them to be included in the opening prepositional phrase. Also, what place is it exactly in terms of student population? First? Third?
  • "In spite of political unrest, the university has steadily grown in recent years." Reads like an advertisement. Probably don't need the first phrase, and what does it mean it's grown? What about it exactly has grown?
  • Anything that a reader might want to fact-check should be cited. Just scanning through, my eyes falls on:
    • "The women's dorms also have time limits on how long the female students can stay outside, depending on the season, students have to enter the dorm by 7 or 8 pm."
    • "During the 1980s the university became among the most dysfunctional of public universities."
  • The Alumni section reads mostly "this person was an alumnus. This person was an alumnus." It would probably help to combine most of those sentences, and get rid of all the "also's". The word "also" is almost always superfluous for well-written articles.
  • "session-jam" undefined, unlinked term.
  • Also, please provide a stub for all redlinks. MarkBuckles (talk) 08:48, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

• Tried to address these problems. --ppm 20:16, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

• • "Allegedly, the current system puts more of a burden on students, as they have to pay high admission fees for each department they might be interested in." Who alleges? And what constitutes a "high" admission fee? Article also mentions "low" tuition fees later. These seem subjective without context. MarkBuckles (talk) 23:51, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment: A few more observations:

1. Either the history section or the controversy section could have (and probably would have) used some info on the students unrests that saw quite a few students murdered, as well as recent murder and harassment of teachers. That would be great NPOV.
2. The alumni section still reads bad. Can we turn it into a list instead. It is a list after all, hardly counts as prose.
3. Can we weed out the few weasel words that still are there (one of the largest, numerous etc.).

Another copyedit drive, along with some added info to make it great NPOV would do the trick, very much. Aditya Kabir 22:30, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that including too much detail on the political conflict might push it towards more POV, not less. In what way is the presentation POV now?--128.36.231.13 00:19, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

For discussion on the not-so-positive material see below. Aditya Kabir 09:06, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

• Withdraw my objection. Fantastic improvements!
  • Some other minor comments: "Recently" in the contraversy section - maybe we should just have a date (since 2007 or whatever) since this changes quickly.
  • This is probably my non-King's English speak again, but I have no idea what "session backlogs" are. Wikilink to something?
  • What about reducing the size of that faculty box and placing it on the right of the text as a visual aid?
  • " The establishment of two more institutes is under way" looks like a good place for an [[As of 2007]] tag.
  • "The Rajshahi University library system is the second largest in the nation" cite needed.
  • "these halls have been said to be sub-standard." awkward passive voice and weasel word sounding, even though cited. Reword?
  • "they are less inclined to live in a private mess for security reasons" cite needed. might need to reword since it's almost never a fact to say what people are inclined to do.
  • "The faculty has programs in fishery, genetic engineering and biotechnology, agronomy and agricultural extension and animal husbandry and veterinary science." can we cut a few of the and's in this sentence?
  • "music and folklore studies have been recent additions to the faculty." again, should probably date it, rather than just saying recently.
  • "As a public university, Rajshahi University's tuition fees are quite low" cite, seems subjective.
  • Keep up the good work! MarkBuckles (talk) 06:53, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Some discussion has been moved to Talk:Rajshahi University#Unrest and POV Aditya Kabir 13:20, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose - Several issues still exist. Please run the semi-automatic javascript program from AndyZ:

1.) Per WP:MOS, avoid using words/phrases that indicate time periods relative to the current day. For example, recently and last year might be terms that should be replaced with specific dates/times. There are 10 places where "recent" is used.

2.) Per WP:MOSNUM, there should be a non-breaking space -   between a number and the unit of measurement. For example, instead of 18acres, use 18 acres, which when you are editing the page, should look like: 18 acres.

3.) Include conversion of acres and other measurements to km^2 or respective measurement in parenthesis.

4.) Include publication dates on references.

5.) Publication sources such as newspapers should be italicized.

6.) Refs 4, 12, 26 are dead links.

7.) 18 of the 31 sources are from just 3 sources. I don't know if this is a reason to oppose and it may be a function of the lack of information about the institution, but having a wider breadth of sources would be nice.

8.) In the external links, what is the unofficial website mean? Why is it included?

9.) Please alphabetize the categories.

10.) Vague terms of size often are unnecessary and redundant - "some", "a variety/number/majority of", "several", "a few", "many", "any", and "all".

11.) Temporal terms like "currently" often are too vague to be useful.

12.) I don't think 31 sources is enough and I would like to see some more added. The last paragraph of the history section is in need of sources as well as the Campus section, which only has 3.

13.) It'd be nice to see some variation in the placement of the images as they are all right-aligned. I guess this is just an opinion and aesthetic concern, but see current FAs for ideas. I can't find a single article with more than 3 images where all the images are all right-aligned.

14.) Some errant commas. For example, "Students are assigned to a major when they enter the university, and cannot change it later." Please copyedit the entire article.

Overall, the article is pretty good. Address my concerns and I'll at least remove my objection, but I think a fair amount of work is still required for this to pass. -Bluedog423^Talk 02:55, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I've given it a copyedit. Saravask 15:16, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Tried some more to fix these concerns--ppm 16:41, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Objection withdrawn, although please still address "unofficial website" link. -Bluedog423^Talk 18:22, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

• Support. Featured-quality material. Disagree with Bluedog423 about "I don't think 31 sources is enough" and "wider breadth of sources"—for a narrow topic like this, it's enough. Also, it kept me interested the whole way through, something which most FAs don't do. BTW, congrats for your great (lousy) victory yesterday; here's hoping that you win (get thrashed) by Bermuda. ;-) Saravask 15:16, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

he he--ppm 16:43, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

• • Comment. I have found no dead links (4, 12 and 16 are working fine), and I have edited out all "recent"s and one but all "current"s. Someone else has taken care of the "18 acres" stuff. About the "official site", I think, an article on an "official institution" that "official site" created and maintained by the authority of the institution only enhances the value of the article. Well, images can be rearranged (I have not done it myself, though), and number of citations could definitely be increased (should we lend a hand to that?). I guess, Bluedog can reconsider his/her position now. And, oh, some more application of Commonwealth English may be required (to make it near perfect, right?). Cheers. Aditya Kabir 19:17, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

• • • The links were dead, I fixed them :). Thanks to both of you. I am adding some references to the main campus section, but it is mainly straightforward info taken from the map and info provided in the "profile" publication by the university. Lot of information about the university is of this nature, explaining the lower reference and source count. --ppm 19:46, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

That is fine. At least this proves that someone can attribute the information to somewhere. — BillC ^talk 19:52, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

You misread my comment about the "official site." Obviously, it is important to include a link to an official website for the university - nobody would argue that should be deleted. I, however, questioned the inclusion of the "unofficial website." I'm just not sure what that means, and it is probably not significant enough to be included or should at least be renamed to signify its importance. Thanks for addressing many of my concerns. Reference 28 is now messed up. Issues 4, 5, 9, and 13 that I presented above still persist. -Bluedog423^Talk 20:13, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for misreading. One question - why is alphabetizing categories important? Aditya Kabir 21:02, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

It's not that big of a deal, but I thought it was set in a wikipedia guideline. I can't find it in the official manual of style, so maybe it's not official policy. However, it is evident in Suggestions for FAs and is the case in previous FAs. Takes two seconds to fix, anyways, I guess I could just do it rather than pointing it out...-Bluedog423^Talk 22:45, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

• Support Was bit hesitant in the beginning. But the article has improved notably during the FAC, thanks to the efforts of several editors. Meets criteria. One comment: in "Alumni and notable staff", ...Md. Habibur Rahman, the former Chief Justice and head of the caretaker government.... Which caretaker government? Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 04:29, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

1996, added that info--ppm 16:42, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

• Support meets all criteria, has improved a lot. --Ragib 18:52, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
• Comment In September 2006, two professors of the university were murdered... But the reference cited tells of only one killing.--Dwaipayan (talk) 18:58, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

The news itself is abt another killing, but it mentions the two Rajshahi killings--ppm 02:32, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.