Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Fraternities and Sororities/Archive 1

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[edit] Chapter Naming Conventions

Looking for ideas on standardization for pages for individual chapters of National Fraternities. So far I've seen (haven't worked my way through everything) Alpha Epsilon Pi Gamma Deuteron (which is Gamma Deuteron of AEPi Fraternity). Mu Alpha (which is Mu Alpha chapter of Alpha Phi Omega) and Delta (Chapter) (which is Delta chapter of Alpha Phi Omega). My idea is for Mu chapter of Zeta Zeta Zeta Fraternity should be Zeta Zeta Zeta, Mu Chapter .

Naraht 14:44, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I would suggest the form Delta (Alpha Phi Omega). Rmhermen 15:43, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)
I suggest Delta of Alpha Phi Omega, or Delta Chapter of Alpha Phi Omega. It is important to standardize this. -Lommer | talk 19:42, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I like the second, it seems most clear.

Naraht 02:40, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I concur with Delta Chapter of Alpha Phi Omega. Very clear and formal. Pat 08:30, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
Using the national name first followed by the local name makes the most since when it comes to a hierchy of information.

TomTomTomTomTommy 05:40, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Individual chapters of National Fraternities

It is generally not a good idea to have individual chapters of national fraternities to have their own articles. It's not necessary and not encylopedic. In fact individual chapters who managed to have an article on wiki are currently being voted for deletion or merge to the national fraternity article. An article of a national fraternity with a list of the chapters is enough. We don't need individual chapters that are not really notable except by the individuals of that chapter. --Dysepsion 21:04, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

I disagree. Some chapters are over 100 years old and have thousands of graduated members to whom the chapter is very important. They are often a major force in campus politics, athletics, and local charity events, and are usually very well known to other members of the greek community at that college. Some chapters own a house that is among the oldest buildings on campus. When I look at some of the blogs and websites that have articles in wikipedia, I find it difficult to believe that someone can designate them as more deserving of a wiki article than an individual chapter. Now, I know I've come across fairly strongly here, and I don't mean to say that we shouldn't hold articles on chapters to the same standards of NPOV and content (i.e. meaningful history) that we hold other articles, but IMO deleting chapter-specific articles across the board by tarring them with the broad brush of "not notable" is going too far. Further, detailed histories of each chapter would overly clutter the national organization pages, so I think that small, well written and NPOV articles are totally appropriate. -Lommer | talk 22:36, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
Pretty much all well known fraternities have 100+ yr old chapters with thousands of alumni. No one is denying their notability on campus or even local events. The point is who would be interested in reading about specific chapter articles except members of that specific fraternity? I agree, wiki does have many articles about some of the most miniscule subject matters such as blogs and websites. What I'm concerned about is which chapters of a fraternity are considered notable? Is there a certain criteria? The problem is in dealing with this issue, it's inherently subjective. What one person may consider a "notable" chapter another person may not. Refer to current Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Chi Delta. I'm still open to the possibility of having individual chapter articles but not entirely convinced. What's to say that a chapter of any club can have an article? Further detailed histories of chapters can be accomplished via link to that chapter website or maybe a seperate article listing notable chapters of that fraternity and their specific history and noteriety. I just don't see the point of having a "seperate" article. I'm especially concerned about articles such as Beta Rho chapter of Alpha Phi Omega and Mu Alpha chapter of Alpha Phi Omega which, I believe, borders on vanity and candidates for VfD. Just my two cents. --Dysepsion 04:50, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
The other problem with having complete chapter listings is the 32K limit. A complete listing of the Alpha Phi Omega chapters including chapter name and School is beyond that limit.
I think there is a broad audience for these articles including parents, friends, relatives of members, students rushing different fraternities at a given university, or anyone generally interested in the history of secret societies, college/academic culture, or the general history of a given college. Also, I would say that even this argument as a whole is something of a red herring, because (for example) who would be interested in reading about slashdot except the thousands (ok maybe millions) of people who read and post on that site? That doesn't mean it isn't worth writing about.
As for which chapters are notable, I would answer that the easy criterion is those chapters that have decent articles written about them. This also brings me to the articles you pointed out. I was actually kind of disappointed to see these, as you're right about their generally low quality. I would say that an extensive list of past and current executives is not appropriate, without which most of those articles would be stubs. IMO, a decent chapter article would be:
Chapter X of Y fraternity was founded in YYYY with help from chapter Z. It built its house at address A in YYYY, and moved to a different house at address B in YYYY. This chapter has been a dominant force in (athletics, academics, etc) at the university, winning the following championships/awards in these years (...). Chapter X is notable within the (inter)national fraternity because (won awards, was first chapter ever, first international chapter, etc). Chapter X has also had a tradional rivalry with chapter P of Q fraternity at the local campus.
Sure, some of these things might not be appropriate for all articles, but that just means that they have to be individually tailored as most good wikipedia articles are. I'm sure there are lots of chapters whose pages wouldn't have much beyond some names, and in that case I would agree that they are fancruft/vanity and should be deleted. -Lommer | talk 23:09, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

I think this will be an issue that won't be resolved any time soon. This is like the current controversy of having high schools with their own wiki pages and determining notability isn't an exact science. I agree that there are many articles on here that not many people would be interested in and so I guess "interest" is really a moot point.

Alpha Phi Omega is a good example of the 32K limit and the inability to have a full chapter listing, but I would like to point out Lambda Chi Alpha which has 200+ chapters in which people have linked chapter websites to the article. My main concern is that wiki turns into a community forum and a pseudo blog for individual chapters.

Perhaps I should not have been so hasty in calling for all individual chapter websites to be erased. Certainly there are others such as Beta-Psi Chapter of Kappa Sigma and Dartmouth College Greek organizations that I believe are informative even for non members. It's the articles that I mentioned before that concern me. --Dysepsion 00:12, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Ah, on those notes I would wholeheartedly agree with you. So is there consensus that bad chapter articles should be deleted, but good chapter articles (of which there are exceedingly few) can stay? -Lommer | talk 01:29, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
If they are done properly I don't see why not. --Dysepsion 02:05, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
Can someone point to a *good* chapter article so that I can see an example? As the maintainer of Alpha Phi Omega, I was very aware of how good or bad the articles were. My feeling is that if the Mu Alpha chapter one had been viewed on its own rather than as a sweep with the others it would have survived. Naraht 15:03, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
  • After seeing what Dartmouth has I'd like to see many schools with large and historical greek systems do the same. I know Cornell certainly has potential for this, do any other schools come to mind? --Edw28 08:52, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fraternity articles

First, the people at categories for deletion refuse to rename Category:United States student societies to anything to do with fraternities because "fraternity means different things" even if the word student is there or sorority. Bunch of idiots, anyway. So I decided to remove the fraternities that have chapters in Canada as they are international. I am putting them in the equal-level, Category:International student societies.

Also of importance is your use of the fraternity template in the article. This is not proper proceedure. A wikiproject cannot do this. A wikiproject may, if it chooses, use a template on the talk page of the article in question. It is also quite strange for a wikiproject template to have a category attached too. I have removed the template in one instance because the category conflicted with the new International student societies.

--metta, The Sunborn 8 July 2005 16:57 (UTC)

[edit] NPC Sororities

I have to add my own input regarding my own little 'section' after stumbling onto this wikiproject. The NPC articles seem to be moving along quite well, I fix what I can (besides Alpha Epsilon Phi and Delta Phi Epsilon) and the pages seem to have a nice flow. Most of the pages have the same look/feel (infobox) and I personally feel, for the most part, they are complete (excluding the ones previously mentioned). I have taken the whole section under my wing; adding missing info boxes, reverting vandalism, and adding information/pictures where I can. I know Dysepsion, Lanoitarus, and a few others regularly contribute (long before I came to that particular section) but I feel besides some of the missing info, and horribly long pages filled with chapter's links (which I abhore), they are pretty much taken care of. Not that they can't be improved upon, but just stating my opinion here, and starting to ramble as well. --ImmortalGoddezz 04:38, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Please continue to do so. We also need to remain cognizant that this Project is for Fraternities *and* Sororities Naraht 12:25, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A fresh start: What belongs and what doesn't belong

We can use this page to brainstorm before we set stuff down in stone on the project page.

What belongs in a Fraternity/Sorority article on Wikipedia:

  • History
  • Overview of Symbols (flag, crest, membership badge, pledge pin, other symbols)
  • Active Chapter and Colony list
Active chapters only, some small fraternities can get away with including dormant chapters but big ones like Theta Chi, Tau Kappa Epsilon, Sigma Phi Epsilon, and sororities like Sigma Sigma Sigma will have overly long lists. Dormant chapters are usually not notable, but if they are they are usually mentioned in the history section.
  • List of notable alumni

What doen't belong:

  • Fraternity Creed
  • Fraternity Mission Statement
  • Or other ideals

Why?

These things I feel are on the slippery slope down to NPOV and realistically most fraternities stand for the same things like; the brotherhood of man, value of chivalry and religion, gentlemanly conduct... The trash talking we did in our college days were just a big lie ;). Dspserpico 04:07, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Here's my take on this.
  • The infoboxes are not standardized but I like how some fraternity and sorority articles have pics of the their pin, flag, pledge pin, etc. on the infobox. It prevents these images from being scattered all over the article. I did this with my fraternity (Phi Delta Theta) and began adding this type of arrangement with sororities. I haven't yet did this to fraternity articles and I'm reluctant to because members tend to get territorial. (I'll see what happens because I would like to see a somewhat uniformed look)
  • I also abhore chapter lists because they really don't add anything to the article. They're really only there because members of that particular fraternity/sorority wants to see a mention of their chapter on wiki. Seriously, who finds a long list of schools and chapters interesting? If the list becomes too long, you might want to consider moving it to a seperate list/article. This has been done with Sigma Nu and Phi Delta Theta after some debate.
  • As for the fraternity creed, mission statement, etc. this is a tough one. Stuff like that is what seperates fraternities/sororities from each other, but at the same time I definetly see how it could be misconstrued as POV. I've seen this many many times and you often see "tone" and "pov" tags a lot in fraternity articles. In fact, this is the main reason, why many non-Greeks try to have the article deleted in the first place. --† Ðy§ep§ion † Speak your mind 00:16, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
I think that the similarities of all fraternities to each other ought to be reflected in the structure of the fraternity articles. Since they all have badges and mottos and founders and founding dates and cetera, that information should be presented in a similar way. Presumably, the average wiki-reader browsing through the fraternity pages would be interested in comparing that information, and so it should be as simple to compare as possible. Templates and infoboxes seem like the standard practice to achieve those results.
Fraternity creed etc, seem like they provide less useful information to a reader than, say, founding date and school. However, I feel that it would be more effort than it's worth to try and keep them off of all the greek pages. Again, it seems to me that having a common format for presenting these items in a NPOV way, perhaps towards the end of the articles, is the best way to go for that. I imagine language such as "The Alpha Beta Gamma fraternity adopted the following as a {creed/mission statement/etc} in 1920." I believe it should be at the end to let the fraternity's actions speak louder than its words (so to speak). Cleaning up the copy/paste from fraternity websites, and the associated NNPOV, I think will be far more beneficial to the pages than removing creeds.
In regards to chapter lists, I totally agree with Dysepsion. The number of chapters the organization operates, the geographic region the chapters exist in, and other general information about the chapters should be in the main article. The list itself is dangerously close to vanity. However, a separate chapter list should be maintained for each fraternity. The purpose there is twofold, while it removes the chapter list itself from the main article, it also keeps the information around for readers. I imagine the average wiki-reader saying "is there a chapter of this group at my/my kid's school?" — it would be useful to have that information. Secondarily, keeping the list somewhere means that people won't continually try to add the list to the main pages.
Also, an aside to Dspserpico: I assume you mean the "slippery slope to NNPOV." I agree that it's slippery; however, I don't think it's too bad. A lot of pages about an organization mention what the org. claims about itself. I think that makes sense. What's important is to provide neutral information about what the organization has done, and what other sources have said about them, so that readers aren't forced to use creeds or mottos as their only information. — vijay 04:27, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
For Alpha Phi Omega, I'm completely opposed to a chapter list or even an active chapter list being on Wikipedia. We have 350 or so active and 730 total charters. OTOH, a link to those chapters lists on a fraternity site is fine. Any feeling on how many is too many for an article? Naraht 15:06, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
Not including the mission statement or ideals or other literature is a really bad idea. What is the rush to make all the fraternity articles "appear the same" or "discuss their similarities." Anyone in a fraternity knows they're not all similiar. Additionally, these pages serve to help educate the general public about a certain fraternity. Why then would we strive to make them all appear the same with no mention of the actual founding principles of the fraternity? In many cases, the mission statement, or creed, etc...IS the founding principle of the fraternity. Thus having these things on the pages is very important! Batman2005 15:29, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
When I say "appear the same" I mean a unified look. Every MLB team is different, all MLB team articles (say Oakland Athletics and Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim share a smiliar structure, the content won't be the same but the look will be the same. We're creating our own way of wikifying here. As to creeds and all that we need to find a NPOV way of presenting a fraternity's ideals. I find a listing creeds and preambles to be very POV. Instead of listing the creeds verbatim we should transwiki them to wikisource and have "Fraternity Culture/Values" section like a good Corporation article does (like Google). Like fraternities and sororities corporations have mission statements and all the stuff that defines how the company is like but that stuff is not quoted verbatim in wikipedia because it seems vain. Dspserpico 18:53, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
Explain how a creed or a mission statement is POV? Its not saying "all our members are this" its saying "this is what we strive to be." It's not POV if its true, the mission statements are true in that the fraternities and sororities are founded and operate on those priniciples, that's not POV that's reality. Batman2005 22:43, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't oppose the inclusion of creeds in articles. I don't think including them is NNPOV if they are clearly described as a fraternity's self-proclaimed ideals. Also, when quoted verbatim, they do serve to differentiate these groups, while if merely described, they would not (due to similarity). On the other hand, I've just had (literally, just now) a bit of a change of opinion. While a creed, written verbatim, is better than nothing, a paragraph, with an external link to that creed, would probably be better. I could say

==Creed==
We believe in Lambda Chi Alpha…etc.
==Vision==
The vision of Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity is to prepare...etc.
==Mission==
The mission of Lambda Chi Alpha is to offer... etc.
==Basic Membership Expectations==
Lambda Chi maintains that its members should strive to maintain the following thirteen basic membership obligations:
  • I will know and understand...
  • ...
==Twelve Ideals==
The twelve ideals of lambda ...
etc etc etc etc. Even if these were subheadings under a larger heading of "values and ideals", it would be poor writing

or, I could say,

==Values and Ideals==
Lambda Chi expresses its ideals in several ways. ... All members recite the creed during the opening of each chapter meeting[cite source]. ... The fraternity also holds vision and mission statements, thirteen Membership Expectations, as well as a list of twelve ideals. The fraternity's main attempt to instill these values in its members centers on ...

Or some such like the above. The latter provides a lot more information to the reader in a much more concise way. The external links provide all the other information in case someone really needs to know. The information would have to be verifiable and NPOV. I think this is better than quoting mission statements. Fraternities are corporations, after all, and corporations' articles don't present the mission statements. The mission statements, vision statements, and ideals of a group focus on what the group wants to be and not what the group is and has been. The articles need to focus on the latter. Fraternities and Sororities are slightly different, in that they are founded, in part, specifically to foster their ideals in their members. That's why I still believe that a paragraph or two ought to be devoted to describing what a fraternity's values are stated to be. However, I would find it more useful to state that Lambda Chi originally expanded its membership by having an open policy towards first generation college students than to say that Lambda Chi expects its members to "strive for the highest academic achievement possible and [to] practice academic integrity." — vijay (Talk) 04:36, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template: Infobox Fraternity

Perhaps what we need to do is to merge the positive aspects of the HTML boxes into the infobox template. My biggest concern is still ease of editing. My HTML skills are limited and when I'm fixing and expanding the other fraternity articles I will use the infobox for ease of editing.

Can I have anybody's opinion on this? Dspserpico 15:15, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Joining?

Is joining a Wikiproject as simply as adding your name? Sign me up. — vijay 20:41, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

I also would like to assist. I've worked extensively on both Alpha Phi Omega and

Fraternities and sororities in the Philippines. Naraht 13:15, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Please join and also please give you input on some of the above discussions. Dspserpico 21:49, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Sign me up --Edw28 08:47, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I would also like to join. I've done some work on local fraternities in New Orleans, esp. @ Loyola New Orleans --Samwisep86

Count me in.-Robotam 19:59, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

To join: add your userid here: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Fraternities_and_Sororities#Participants ... hope that helps! ++Lar: t/c 20:45, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Our plan of action

For now, I think it is best for us to figure out a consensus of what we need to do by getting the best articles in the scope of our project and trying our best unify in look and content. I think the following articles can be our "prototypes" for what we want to do with this project.

The articles are are either already good, or has an active memeber of the project as a main contributor or both. This way we can experient with actual article without going into a revert war with a possessive editor. If you have any ideas of more articles to place on the list, plase add to it.

Also, I'll try to have a boilerplate of this project up by mid-afternoon tomorrow, California time. After that, I don't think I'll be able to get anything done because I will watch alot of baseball this weekend and I will boo Barry Bonds, alot. Dspserpico 04:21, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Boilerplate up

Let me know what you think and make edits if you feel like it. Is the "Red Plastic Cup of 'Soda Pop'" too much? Dspserpico 06:39, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

D- I wish we could find a better icon than a plastic cup. Let's skip the paddles, too. I am curious to hear what ideas others come up with. I need to think about it. For now I have added to the Wiki Projects User Boxes, keep up the good work. -- Aaron charles 02:28, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
Let's avoid symbols derived/associated with hazing and drinking. I'd even say that they're NNPOV. The typical symbol of fraternalism seems to be clasped hands: I'd pick something like that. Since this is for frats and sorors, stylized, ungendered hands might be better than a photo, if clasped hands were adopted. I'm sure there are other symbols of fraternity, but nothing comes straight to mind. I'd rather see a fez than a “red cup”. (This is mainly copy pasted from my comment below. Is that bad form? If so, sorry, in advance.) — vijay (Talk) 18:27, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I think a paddle with WP on it would be quite nice. Batman2005 15:35, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I would agree with that even though I've had many a red cup in my day. I'm ok either way with what you all decide.Pat 18:40, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GRRRRRR!!!!

perhaps, if youd followed the instructions and contacted WP:WSS/P to propose your new stub type before just going ahead and making it, you would have been told that there was a perfectly good stub template and category already in existance for fraternities and sororaties. That way youd have saved us all a lot of work. Next time, please do things the proper way! Oh, and please use {{Honor-stub}} and Cat:Honor society stubs, the same as everyone else does! Grrr! BL Lacertae - kiss the lizard 00:35, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

There is a difference between HONOR fraternities and SOCIAL fraternities. I think this separate stub is fine. ACMe 01:56, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
In fact some of the groups with the Honor Society stub need to be changed over (If they are still stubs), Alpha Epsilon Phi was the first one I noticed. Naraht 10:53, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
So are we actually using the red cub stub template on the project page or not? Naraht 12:36, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
I really hope we're not using a red cup. I'm not using a red cup. Fraternities have a hard enough time being taken seriously as useful beyond a party scene. Unless we start having sections discussing notable parties or notable drinking contests, I think it would be best to stick with something a bit more dignified. The most notable thing red cups are associated with are horrible incidents of alchohol poisoning. Even those tend to only be notable when someone dies.
The typical symbol of fraternalism seems to be clasped hands: I'd pick something like that. Since this is for frats and sorors, stylized, ungendered hands might be better than a photo, if clasped hands were adopted. I'm sure there are other symbols of fraternity, but nothing comes straight to mind. I'd rather see a fez than a “red cup”. (Sorry, I think I missed an earlier debate about this.) — vijay (Talk) 18:23, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I'm back

Sorry for the delay, I spent the last few weeks either in a drug induced stupor due to a convalescence from a wisdom teeth exteraction and finishing up school. I'm back so let's address a few things.

[edit] Templates and the "red cup"

Thanks for your input about the red cup. I think the red cup should stay for the userbox template and as joke award among us ("The Wikipeida Red Cup of 'soda pop'" given for outstanding contributions to fraternity and sorority articles; it should be our own barnstar). I think poking fun at fraternity/sorority stereotypes is acceptable when it is only among us. I'm going to replace the red cup with laurels on the serious templates. Are laurels OK?

that seems fine. I think the red cups are still pretty cool tho --Samwisep86 05:13, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
At times I feel like the wikipedia could use a dose of humor, but this is supposed to be a professional quality resource, so no fun allowed, in my opinion. Personally, I'm less inclined to use a userbox with a red cup, but I'm wiki-savvy enough to change it for myself if necessary. I've got no real problem with others using it. The templates are serious, as was said, and I think the laurel wreath is a good choice. Columns, might also be good, now that I think of it--but not particularly better. I think I'm happy the way things stand now. — vijay (Talk) 05:41, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
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