Talk:Marquette University

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).

This article is part of WikiProject Wisconsin, a WikiProject related to the U.S. state of Wisconsin.

Contents

[edit] Original work?

Is this original work? It reads like it was copied from a brochure. Kent Wang 12:39, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

Not sure what this is about, but I just wrote a new article. Since my knowledge is somewhat limited, it would be great if somebody can expand. Especially regarding History, Faculty, and noted Alumni. I couldn't find the endowment $$$ either. Yardcock 18:32, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Mascot

I just added "The Marquette Gold" as the mascot. I'm not sure what they will call the actual mascot, but it seemed to me that it needed to be listed. ("To be decided" gave the impression that they still hadn't decided on a nickname at all.)

As can be seen in this and other articles, the mascot has not yet been decided on. "Students, alumni and staff will be asked for their input on developing a mascot, which is expected to be announced at the start of the new school year this fall." --BaronLarf 02:40, May 6, 2005 (UTC)

A better solution. Thanks.

[edit] Scott Walker is an alumnus?

Would Scott Walker (Milwaukee County Executive, candidate for Governor, Republican) truly be considred an alumnus? The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that he attended, but did not graduate.

Re: http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/mar02/30928.asp

(He got the "essence of a Marquette education" in his 3 1/2 years there, Walker says.)

I agree...and removed him from the list. If anyone wants him back on, let's have that discussion.--PaddyM 22:16, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
It makes sense to put him on the list, while including the caveat that he did not graduate. It's not as if he went there for a term and left. --BaronLarf 01:10, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

scott walker is not an alumn. he may have attended marquette but he is not technically an alumnus.

Then why list Dwyane Wade so prominently?

At Marquette University, any student who has completed 24 hours of coursework is credited with 'alumni' status. A student does not have to graduate to be an alum of Marquette University. I verified this with the Marquette office of advancement this afternoon (2/27/07). With that in mind the citations next to Walker, Wade, Rondell Sheridan, and I think Tom Snyder (not a graduate either) are out of place. All of these folks are alumni in the eyes of the institution.

Word lesson of the day: alumnus is singular, alumni is plural. — Walloon 21:02, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Issues with calling it a "Roman Catholic" university

There is a difference between a straight Catholic university and a Jesuit university. Yes, Jesuit universities are Catholic ones, but they are different (squares are rectangles but rectangles aren't squares). At least at Saint Louis U they stressed this. --Negative3 12:47, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] We've Gotta Do Something About the External Links

I think we need to make some sort of decisions about what external links should be listed in the article, instead of just adding and removing them back and forth every few days. I think we can all agree that the official university sites should be listed, including the official student newspaper. For reference, the Alexa rankings:

  • Official Site - 49,021
  • Athletics Site - 4,132,254
  • Marquette University Television - 40,876
  • Marquette Radio - 40,876
  • Marquette Tribune - 1,318,922
  • Cracked Sidewalks, A Marquette Basketball Blog - 4,791,237
  • Marquette Warrior Blog - 455,268
  • The Warrior, Marquette's Independent News Source - 1,217,247
  • GOP3.COM:The Triumvirate, Three Marquette University Students reflect on campus issues - 1,448,494
  • Campus Tavern - No Data


Here is the Blogshares data on the "worth" of the blogs listed above.
The Marquette Warrior B$19,666.28
GOP3.COM B$30,946.76
Campus Tavern (no data)
Cracked Sidewalks B$21,984.58
Not a perfect index, but probably better than Alexa. But it looks to me like the Site Meter accounts of traffic show that all the blogs now listed get good traffic -- several hundred visitors per day. -- John McAdams (The Marquette Warrior)
Note some silly things here. MU radio and MU TV have higher ratings than the Tribune, but the Tribune gets a lot more traffic. It's simply that MU.EDU gets a lot of traffic, and MARQUETTETRIBUNE.ORG gets less. Must most of the traffic for MU.EDU doesn't go to the radio or TV pages, but Alexia doesn't know or reflect that.
I really don't see how the Alexa ranking is particularly worthwhile. Better would be the "value" of the blog according to Blogshares or Technorati. Admittedly, the numbers are nonsense (in terms of any of us actually getting that much money for our blog), but the rankings are consistent across blogs.
How about a simple editorial judgment? My blog is the only faculty blog at the university (with the partial exception of The Conglomerate, which seldom deals with campus issues). My blog also gets a good amount of traffic and has broken some important campus stories.
GOP3.COM and Campus Tavern are clearly the two top student blogs, and pay a lot of attention to campus issues. Both are run by teams of bloggers (one liberal and other conservative) and show frequent updates.
As for Cracked Sidewalks, how can one not include a good basketball blog in the Marquette University listing?-- John McAdams (The Marquette Warrior)

I'm not sure if we should set a minimum ranking, or look more at content, or what. If anyone knows what precidents at other similar pages may exist, that may help. Personally, I'd definitely get rid of Cracked Sidewalks and Campus Tavern, but I'm open to discussion on the others. If we can set some sort of standard or rule, then we won't have to go back and forth, which I think we can agree is not the best way to decide. Thanx! --Maxamegalon2000 14:48, 23 January 2006 (UTC) Why single out Cracked Sidewalks and Campus Tavern? That's rather discriminatory, and follows no logical cause. Perhaps create an "official external links" category and then create a "fan sites" category or perhaps a "community links" category. That would offer the differentiation you crave without being whimsical.

The reason I single it out is because of its abysmal Alexa ranking, which can be accessed from here. Compared to the other "community links," Cracked Sidewalks practically nonexistent. I'm not familiar enough with Alexa's methods to judge a "No Data" reading, but I'd guess that it does not mean that the site is as popular as the other sites with rankings. I don't necessarily feel a need to distinguish between official and community sites, but I do feel that it is important to be able to confirm that a given site is considered to be a "community site" by the community itself, and not just a few individuals or supporters of the site. I hope this seems logical. I feel that the Alexa rankings are a valid measure, especially in this situation, of what sites the community considers "link-worthy". I do not seek differentiation, although I'm not opposed to the idea either. I hope this addresses your concerns regarding my motives. Thanx! --Maxamegalon2000 14:41, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, if you don't know much about Alexa's ratings methods why is that the litmus test for appearing on Wikipedia? Only sites that have registered with Alexa benefit from their ratings. Without registering, Alexa only shows Blogger.com affiliations for Cracked Sidewalks rather than any true read on where readers come and go from the site (which also brings the ranking into question). Cracked Sidewalks had not been registered there until this morning, though it takes weeks to fully integrate into their system. Regardless, a bit of investigation reveals that Cracked Sidewalks attracted more than 82,000 visitors in the last year, http://www.sitemeter.com/?a=stats&s=sm9warriors&r=36 Given the specific/niche nature of the content on the site, its reasonable assume most of those visiting the site are part of the MU community. And traffic at this site is trending in the right direction -- readership is growing quickly. Apologies for the poor formating, I am not yet sure how to build the appropriate hotlink. As for Campus Tavern, the blogger there recently migrated his site from a different URL, which would eliminiate any historical reference and unfairly skew affiliative ratings. FWIW, Notre Dame has a 'fan site' category. But I like the notion of 'community links' if for no other reason than ensuring that official links are easily recognized

I have no problem with keeping Campus Tavern in the article until it has a ranking. I'm not sure that only sites that have registered with Alexa benefit from their ratings. Alexa rankings are based on the usage patterns of people with the Alexa Toolbar, which I don't believe to be necessarily related to any registration at their site. They have more information here. I'm not familiar at all with www.sitemeter.com; would it be possible to find visitor data for any of the other sites, for comparison? Alexa doesn't give any visit statistics for pages not in the top 100,000. Unless you are arguing that the flaws in the Alexa ratings are significant enough to propel Cracked Sidewalks 3,000,000 places in the ratings (of which I am not convinced), I'm not sure that you have addressed my concerns that the link is less of a valid community acknowledgement and more wishful thinking from fans of the particular site. Of course, the Wikipedia community may disagree with my interpretation, so if you'd like to get some outside opinions, we can certainly flag down the people at the Village Pump.
FYI, in the future, you can sign your comments by using the button above the edit box that looks like a signature, or you can just type two dashes followed by four tildes (~). Thanx! --Maxamegalon2000 16:35, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
I hope we're not determining that Wikipedia content is predicated on the preferences of Alexa tool bar users. The argument is not that registering on Alexa will create a 3M bump in ratings -- it is assuming Alexa is a valid measure at all. Regardless, check out the page views/visits for the last year on McAdam's blog, http://www.sitemeter.com/?a=stats&s=s20mcadams&r=33 . You can compare them to Cracked Sidewalks here http://www.sitemeter.com/?a=stats&s=sm9warriors&r=33 McAdams has more visitors but the difference is hardly enough to conclude that sites which don't match it fall below the Mendoza line. Creating an 'official links' and 'community links' categories sure seems reasonable.
I like keeping CampusTavern, but I do agree we need to control some of the link load on this one. --Nick Catalano (Talk) 06:48, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
I agree with the issue of managing the link load. However, choosing arbitrary measures to do so undermines inclusion. At this point, there are only 10 links on the site -- over time, dozens and dozens more will appear. Categorizing links would help solve this concern while we await a more objective 'measurement' system that assigns appropriate value, thanks!--NYWarrior 15:23, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
I don't understand what is arbitrary about removing a link with an Alexa ranking that is over three times the next lowest community site. Also, even if we separate the links into official and community, I would still oppose the inclusion of Cracked Sidewalks. --Maxamegalon2000 21:27, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
I've gone ahead and requested assistance from the Village Pump. I hope no one minds. --Maxamegalon2000 21:51, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Glad you submitted it to Village Pump. I dont understand how or why Alexa became the ultimate arbiter of relevance here. I suspect it is not. Why not Technorati's rankings of Marquette blogs? http://www.technorati.com/blogs/marquette The folks at Technorati seem to have strong crediblity in this space. Yet, I am not seeking the removal of any links, merely the categorization of links that are built for the Marquette community -- realizing that the online community will only grow. BTW, here's another take on Alexa rankings for the community to consider, http://www.websitemarketingplan.com/Whalen/Alexa.htm Of note from this particular expert, "Alexa gets its rankings data from browsers that have the Alexa toolbar installed. That's a fairly small sampling, as well as a skewed one, as many Web-savvy individuals feel that having the toolbar is akin to having spyware on your system. Because of this, any info you get from Alexa needs to be taken with a grain of salt." These rankings are not credible --NYWarrior 00:54, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
Also, the bias against Cracked Sidewalks remains unexplained. If anything, this site should be accompanied by links to the Marquette basketball communities at Rivals.com and Scout.com, which the basketball blog complements. Categorizing external, community and fan sites seems reasonable. Other categories will emerge over time--NYWarrior 00:59, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
Although I continue to trust Alexa rankings and deny any "bias" against Cracked Sidewalks, lack of a quorum of Wikipedia commmunity opinions and what I consider to be an equally valid counter-argument have convinced me not to pursue the issue further, at least for the time being. I do very much appreciate the discussion, and wish you, NYWarrior, an enjoyable Wikipedia experience. Perhaps you could edit your user page, so that your name does not appear in red. Thanx! --Maxamegalon2000 04:26, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
I would definitely *not* link the "rivals.com" and "scout.com" communities - that's just far too segmented. Compare this article to University of California, Berkeley - which has a nice, spare linklist. Just the facts, ma'am. We're not a Web directory. FCYTravis 04:36, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
Max, I too enjoyed the discussion..lets see where this goes over time. I think this discussion proved how difficult it is to assign value to sites these days -- which ratings are valid, which search engines are most inclusive, which methodologies are the most sound, etal. In due course, we'll all learn more. Besr regards, Maxamegalon --NYWarrior 12:03, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Pere Marquette Lecture series.

Pere Marquette Lecture SeriesPere Marquette Lecture Series I wonder why this lecture series is non-notable. Not only are there major scholars represented, but the series is also published (which is unusual for a university lecture series). If anything, there should be a section of the article documenting this contribution of the university to the larger community. Freder1ck 00:59, 11 January 2007 (UTC)Freder1ck

[edit] Marquette Mafia?

I'm no MU student, but I've never heard this phrase thrown about Milwaukee. Anyone have more examples of the so-called Marquette Mafia than simply Scott Walker, who is not an alumnus anyway? Otherwise, I think it should go as you could say the same for Wisconsin. --PaddyM 17:36, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

I've found several references for the term "Marquette Mafia" referring to influential Marquette alumni in Milwaukee, for instance:
  • "...members of the Marquette Mafia, lawyers and judges who went to Marquette and stayed and prospered here."[1]
  • "The "Marquette Mafia," as alumni working in Milwaukee call themselves..."[2]
--BaronLarf 19:59, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sousa March

Could someone please verify that Marquette was in fact the only school to have a March written in its honor by Sousa. From the stories Dr. Contorno told in Band I seem to recall him saying that the Marquette University March was one of only a few marches Sousa wrote for colleges/universities. I could have heard wrong, but if another source besides the Marquette site can be found that would be more credible. Krocheck 08:03, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../m/a/r/Talk%7EMarquette_University_9960.html"