Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Plan II Honors

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete, with one redirect having already been created editorially. However, consensus is to delete the histories behind said redirect, so that is what I'll do. Feel free to turn the rest into redirects as you please. Daniel→♦ 10:29, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

PS: If someone desperately wants to merge these into one article and try their luck with that, I will undelete and userfy for such purpose. However, it must be noted that there's no clear consensus that merging would be effective here, so this AfD can't be considered a mandate for a merged article if it ever goes up on AfD. Daniel→♦ 10:36, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Plan II Honors

Plan II Honors (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Plan II Honors is a major at U. of Texas - Austin. Majors (and similar programs) do not meet Wikipedia's Notability guidelines. I tagged it with {notability}, and the only response was that it was mentioned in the student newspaper, the Daily Texan. If that's sufficient, then we should include every major, professor, student body leader, campus protest, etc. at every school, all of which are mentioned multiple times in the student newspapers. Guanxi 16:53, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

  • Also nominating these other U. Texas majors and programs:
Dean's Scholars (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
Turing Scholars (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
Emerging Scholars Program (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
  • Delete per my nomination. Guanxi
  • Question: Do I somehow list the 'bundled' nominations in the deletion log? If so, how (I don't think the template will work)? Guanxi 17:09, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Merge As a UT student, I agree that these should not have its own page, but I'll be glad to merge them all into Honors Programs at the University of Texas Corpx 17:48, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Hmmm ... I don't think Honors Programs at the University of Texas meets Wikipedia:Notability standards either. Can you cite significant coverage in independent, reliable sources? For example, if they were a widely cited innovation in academia, then they would be notable. Guanxi 18:05, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
      • Found one article about the honors programs in general. Corpx 20:41, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
      • oooh, found some more and one more Corpx 20:52, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
      • One more Corpx 20:53, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
        • The first two (at dallasnews.com) open to blank pages, the 3rd is about a grant to U. of Tennessee honors students, the last is about a "Reception to launch UT endowment campaign". Guanxi 22:38, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
          • Not sure why you cant open the first two (they work fine for me), but they're titled "UT hopes to open new doors - Honors program needs cash infusion" and the second is "THE HIGH COST OF LEARNING Texas honors programs compete with the Ivy League" and the fourth link is about fund raising for the Liberal Arts Honors Program, which I would say counts as "significant coverage" for the Liberal Arts Honors program Corpx 22:55, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
            • These articles are about fund-raising, not the honors program itself. What do we learn about the honors program from them, besides that it needs more funding? I think they justify an article on the endowment more than one on the program. But it raises another issue -- what is the scope of Wikipedia?. Something notable in one small town is not notable to the English-speaking world; does that count? Guanxi 23:49, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
              • I'm sure the articles give significant coverage to the honors programs, but I'm not 100% because these are pay to view type links. From the first link, "Plan II, an elite universitywide honors program, has been around since 1935 and has a stable of supporters around the state and beyond." and it cuts off there. The 2nd link is comparing UT's honors programs to those of the ivy leagues - that's "significant coverage". The last article is about the creation of the Liberal Arts Honors Program through endowments. Wouldnt that also count as "significant coverage" ? Turing Scholars program also has coverage from this report done by the State of Texas Corpx 00:54, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. This information should be covered on Wikipedia. I think the easiest organization is to keep them as separate pages. My second choice would be to merge them into one page. That would make sourcing very simple.
Our notability guideline states primarily that "The topic of an article should be notable, or "worthy of notice". This concept is distinct from "fame", "importance", or "popularity". Programs such as Plan II Honors and Dean's Scholars are notable.
If we decide to merge the honors programs together, then I think the Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory would be outside of that merge. As far as I know it is not an honors program but a program of study under the classics department. Merging to University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal Arts would not be possible until that article is created. Johntex\talk 19:00, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep: The primary notability criterion is met: multiple, independent reliable sources. I maintain that two separately-authored articles in the Daily Texan, which like other public university newspapers is generally editorially-independent of the institution, is both multiple and independent for WP:N purposes, and the paper is a reliable source in matters pertaining to the basics of the university (as opposed to, say, the cutting edge of particle physics or what is happening in the Middle East today). I'd be OK with a "merge" result, but "delete" is out of the question. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 19:20, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Clarification: There's a logic problem I have with the nomination's wording; is uses a slippery slope fallacy to suggest that under a "keep" rationale that if a student paper simply mentions something a few times, such as a professor or student body leader, that this would confer notability. That is not what is actually being suggested here. Coverage with depth, on the one hand, and bare mentioning, on the other, are not the same thing; WT:N has gone over this again and again, and I'm pretty sure that WP:N makes the difference very clear unless someone changed it yesterday while I wasn't looking. As for majors, most majors at most universities are almost totally equivalent; I wouldn't have any problem at all with there being an article about, say, anthropology or fine arts as majors, what the typical requirements are sourced from various universities, the employment statistics of aggregate numbers of people who graduate with a degree in that major, etc. Those would probably be quite valuable articles. Which further suggests that unique/innovate degree programs at major universities are probably also valid articles, if they are non-trivial and reliably sourced. I have to note in this regard that there are numerous majors that have evolved out of general computer science degrees in the post-Internet age, many of them multidisciplinary (mixtures of c.s. and business, c.s. and communications, etc.) that could easily support separate articles about them, again given that they are not silly and can be reliably sourced. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:50, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree that mentions was the wrong word, but the conclusion is unchanged: The student newspaper likely publishes in-depth articles on all the subjects I listed -- student leaders, professors, academic programs, but I don't think the student body president of any university, for example, belongs in Wikipedia (unless notable for another reason). My local community paper, circulation 2,000, might publish multiple articles about the corner grocery, but it doesn't belong in Wikipedia. No matter how much we discuss it, Notability requires objective evidence, that meets the standards: significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. The Daily Texan does not suffice, nor do resumes or our personal beliefs about the notability of the subject. Either we need to find objective evidence that meets the standards or we should delete the nominated articles. Guanxi 21:09, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete I'm sorry, but the Daily Texan isn't a sufficiently third-party source to indicate to me that these programs are sufficiently notable on their own. While the paper may be editorially independent, there's still no doubt to me that its coverage is focused on the university. Sorry, but if this needs to be covered anywhere, mention it briefly in the section of the university's article describing the programs it offers, and link to whatever location they have on their webspace. FrozenPurpleCube 19:36, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment: That's a merge rationale, not a delete one, and your main thrust seems to be "merge", so I wonder at the "delete" !vote. Regardless, I have to quibble with your reasoning. Of course the university itself is the principal area of coverage of the university paper; that doesn't lead logically to a conclusion that the research isn't independent of the university. That's like saying that Billiards Digest is not an independent reliable source about billiards because it focuses so exclusively on billiards, or that the Oxford English Dictionary is unreliable as a source about words because it is too tied to the topic of words. Also, I can't find anything about any Wikipedia criteria for a "sufficiently third-party" (emphasis added) source. Either it is or it isn't. The Daily Texan satisfies WP:RS: "Reliable sources are authors or publications regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand. Reliable publications are those with an established structure for fact-checking and editorial oversight"; I can't think of anything that could possibly qualify for that description, in this very narrow context, better than the editorially-independent paper in question. University newspapers take verification and editorial review at least as seriously as commercial newspapers (perhaps more so, because they write all of their own stories, rather than relying upon AP and other newswires, and assuming that the newswires have the story right). Because of the often student union-tied investigative nature of a lot of university paper reportage on the internal goings on at the university in question, most university papers are far more reliable about that subject matter than the local commercial newspaper would be. It is unwise to confuse a public university paper with a high school paper, which is typically a rigidly institution-controlled house organ (per US Supreme Court decisions that have, for better or worse, drawn a sharp line between the two). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:22, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I see nothing especially needful in the way of merging. I don't even see a need for a redirect. Sorry. As for what makes an independent source, I suggest you consider that Wikipedia is not a collection of rules. Using a wikilink that describes something for you isn't a substitute for actual reasoning. Sometimes I think the tendency of people to use Wikilinks detracts from that, but that's another problem. In this case, the claimed independent sources are the school paper. Not what I'd call an independent, third-party source. For all we know, the people writing the articles (And I can't read them, the links are broken on the page itself) were in this program and assigned to write about it. I don't know, it's hard to tell for something written over 50 years ago that I can't even read today. However, it's nowhere near say, having coverage in say, a national journal or even a gov't survey. That might mean something, but even then, I'm doubtful of the value of an article. FrozenPurpleCube 22:44, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Reply comment: Re: "in this program and assigned to write about it" - That's simply not how public university newspapers work. I'm sorry you think that it is, but it's just not. This is pretty much precisely the distinction between such papers and those at high schools, where teachers and school administrators have total control over content and scope. Re: "I don't even see a need for a redirect" - Well, if there were no merge, there would pretty much necessarily be no redir. :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:20, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I'd like to see evidence of it being otherwise, because you've only asserted your position on the subject, which is fine, but doesn't mean anything since my experience is quite different. BTW, you do know we're talking about something written in the 1930s? You may be confident that the papers are truly independent, I'd say, no, they're not, because they're still going to write about things related to the school far more than anything else. Really, that's part of their existence. Maybe there's something valid there, but without being able to access it, all I can do is trust my gut and say, this ain't good enough. FrozenPurpleCube 02:16, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Reply comment You don't seem to be reading what I'm actually writing; I've already addressed this. Saying that the u. paper is unreliable because its writes about the u. a lot is like saying that Newsweek is unreliable because it writes about the news a lot. Topic focus isn't relevant to reliability. I'm tiring of this debate and am unwatchlisting this, BTW. I've said what I felt needed saying, others and doing likewise, and an overall consensus will emerge. Next. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 02:40, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I don't know where on earth you got the idea that I thought it was a question of reliability. It's not. The question is not of that nature, but rather the question of independent demonstration of notability. Accuracy is one thing, and I honestly don't see it as a problem here. What I see is the problem of a general lack of wider significance. The school paper probably writes about a lot of things related to the university. Most of them do not merit articles. Your example of Newsweek is highly inaccurate, the problem is not writing about News (which is a broad, highly-inclusive subject), but the nature of the publication. If the Daily Texan was as widely sold as Newsweek, it'd probably be a much better demonstration of notability to cite it. But I do not believe that to be the case. FrozenPurpleCube 06:28, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • BTW, I note that every last source on these pages is a utexas.edu domain. That doesn't indicate independent coverage to me. FrozenPurpleCube 19:38, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment: That's confusing the medium with the message, not unlike saying that nothing published by the Oxford University Press, one of the most respected publishers in the world, can be used as a source for something about Oxford University. Domain names do not speak to editorial independence; the actual nature of the author and the editorial entity have to be considered. The university newspaper is not akin to the university registrar's office. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:25, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
  • A lack of independent third-party sources is evident here. Argue that all you want, I don't consider a school paper to be even as independent as a separate publishing arm might be. Which might not be very much at all, depending on the circumstances. And that's only two sources. The others are quite clearly SPS. They may be true. That's not in question here. The question is really notability. FrozenPurpleCube 22:44, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment: I'm willing to go to bat on this one, because I think that the reach of the precendent that could be set here is wider than at first it seems. There are a great number of university-related articles, about teams, student societies, specific buildings, etc., etc. that could be affected by the outcome here. Also, I think it is remarkably unlikely that neither the academic industry press (i.e. the sorts of magazines that university administrators subscribe to and write editorials for), nor the local Austin newspapers have never signficantly discussed these programs; it would probably only take a visit to the Austin library to find such stuff (or a non-Austin library with a really good periodical collection on microfiche or whatever), if the consensus is that the university press isn't quite good enough for WP:N purposes. As already noted, I don't have a problem with a "merge" result, but the case for "delete" is far too weak. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:36, 4 August 2007 (UTC) PS: A quick Googling shows that numerous professionals, especially attorneys, but also academics and others, mention the Plan II Honors program in their CVs, suggesting that it is a widely-recognized program and at bare minimum notable enough to support a redirect to a merged section at the UT Austin article. I.e., it's should not simply disappear off of Wikipedia, because readers will certainly be trying to find out information about it after encountering mention of it in "the real world". — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:06, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, but what's mention on people's CVs isn't evidence of notability. I can't even understand why you're bringing up the idea. They're very much self-published sources, and nowhere near independent. If people want to know what an entry is on the CV, then I say it's up to the relevant body to describe it, not Wikipedia. FrozenPurpleCube 22:44, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Reply comment: That wasn't the point; it was a hint to people who actually care about this article surviving as-is rather than being merged (or deleted) - I care more about the precential aspect of the issue - to go look and put some additional sources in there. They can't be all that hard to find if the program is recognizable enough that practicing attorneys all over the place are bothering to put it in their bios. I was not at all suggesting that the bios themselves establish notability. :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:16, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I have no belief that what any of these attorney's choose to put in their CV's means anything overall. It's a self-published source, and its usage could be nothing more than kitchen-sink credentializing. FrozenPurpleCube 02:16, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Again, you do not appear to actually be reading what I'm writing at all. The passage was not intended for you. It was intended for anyone who actually wants to work on this article and prove notability better, as a hint that there is probably material out there. The program would not be well-known enough to credentialize over it, if it weren't, well, kind of well-known, which almost automatically means there will be something very third-party about it in the academic industry press, etc., if someone takes the time to look. I don't care enough about the article myself to do so, but whoever wrote it might. I'm moving on now. Bye. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 02:40, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Um, the passage was not intended for me? Um, ok, so I can't reply to what you write or something? It seems like there's a bit of a hostile attitude, and not conducive to a discussion. I'm sorry that it apparently offends you that I don't agree with their being any merit in people's including this program on their CV's. It's just not exactly something I consider a meaningful act. It doesn't mean there's any notability, or even a hint of it. If it were somebody writing a biography of people who had completed the program, that would mean something. FrozenPurpleCube 07:06, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong Delete I';m willing to go up against McCandlish on this one, because of the precedent. This is a individual specialized undergraduate program at a single university. Every college and university has dozens of majors and undergraduate programs, some with names matching those of departments, some not. A school the size of Texas probably has another 50 or so that could be unearthed from its website if the effort were spent. All of them will at one point or another be mentioned in the campus paper, all of them will be listed on cvs. Very few of them will have special notability outside the university. I see no evidence that this is one of them. I would suggest holding the bar very high on these. I certainly support very full coverage of notable academic people and institutions, but I would do so by not including things such as this unless there were major significant outside coverage amounting to clear notability beyond what the significance for people in the school or for its alumni. There isnt the least need for WP to describe these programs, the unv ersities do it well enough by themselves.
This isn't even distinctive--it's the name they chose to give their interdisciplinary honors program. It's so generic, apparently, that as the article itself says, it isn't even well known within the very university itself "Plan II Honors is often unfamiliar to those not affiliated with the program" If there were to be articles on interdisciplinary programs, they should be on distinctive subject oriented ones, about which there is something more to say than "the top 5% of the class" The program requires the usual distributional courses, and then it requires a thesis. All honor program require a thesis as the main characteristic. This is very much of a slippery slope, and slippery slope arguments are valid when there is no demarcation line, when the tendency to go downhill is apparent--and in this case actually defended-- and the consequences would be massive. But in any case this would still not be notable--this is all the way at the bottom of the notability slope. I call it a metoo program. DGG (talk) 01:04, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Reply comment: If that's the way consensus goes, I can of course live with that, but I don't think I see a reason to not merge. The article on a university should probably the degrees and majors it offers, I would think. Alternatively, if there is an article on this sort of honors program, then perhaps it simply needs a list of such programs and what universities offer them. I.e., I'm arguing for inclusion of the information, not of the article per se. (Same goes for the co-nominated related deletion targets.) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:16, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Interesting. I think the University of Texas article might mention these majors/programs (but which ones? there must be hundreds or more at a major U.), but not in the depth they're currently addressed. Also, honors programs in general might be notable -- perhaps there are studies on the design, outcomes, history, etc. -- but an Wikipedia article could not list every honors program in the country. As I responded to Corpx above, if one of the UT programs was a widely cited innovation in academia, then they would be notable. Guanxi 21:23, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment: As SMcCandlish points out above, this might set a precedent (if there's not a precedent already?). It was not my intention to set one, but here we are ... When SMcCandlish proposed an article on honors programs in general, I thought I'd double-check that it doesn't exist. My search turned up many articles similar to those nominated for deletion, even some for high schools. No matter what we determine here, we probably need a broader standard for this issue.Guanxi 21:23, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete per DGG. It is against the heart of the notability guidelines to claim that a single university paper constitutes multiple sources independent of the topic. --Haemo 21:48, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete all: I do not see multiple, non-trivial coverage independent of the subject for any of the nominated articles. Also, per DGG above, a precedent for keeping this sort of article around wouldn't be helpful: Wikipedia is not a course directory. — mholland (talk) 22:13, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete. I'm seeing no sign of real-world impact or attention -- and no, the school's own student newspaper is NOT anywhere near sufficient, no matter what handwaving goes on about its independence. --Calton | Talk 01:45, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete. (Copied from Talk:WikiProject Universities) I find it difficult to believe that many schools/colleges/department within universities that currently have their own articles fulfill the notability requirements, to say nothing of majors or programs within a school/college/department - it's simply too fine a level of detail to have any non-original research, NPOV coverage. It's the same issue as the oft-cited example of having individual articles for each Simpsons episode or Pokemon character. Call me a reductionist or exclusionist, but the preponderance of these school/college/department stub articles that say nothing more than "The School of Something is one of n schools at Somewhere University" followed by uncited and unverifiable claims of prestige, exclusivity, or quality and a list of previous administrators is information that could easily be condensed into a single article/list. And were such entries in a list juxtaposed with each other, the laughable nature of their content would all the more readily obvious. I broadly support merging school/college/department-level entities into lists and support the deletion of any academic projects/groups/entities at any finer level of detail. Madcoverboy 06:13, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment: The notability issue is discussed here: Wikipedia:Notability (organizations) Guanxi 23:49, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
School is a special problem. In US usage, it is often synonymous with college, the first level subdivisions of a university: there is found equally X University School of Medicine, and X University College of Medicine. It cases like this, it is usually notable. Almost any such place will be talked about by RSs in a significant way--if long established, there are likely to be even books. But if it is used to mean anything much less than that, it is less likely to be notable--but many still will be. How we can discriminate effectively between a really major university and an ordinary major university is a little difficult. for some reason, some of the best & best known known US universities do not seem to have an organized group of WPedians there writing about the university. Perhaps the people here have better or at least more conventional things to do. (irony). 02:01, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Redirect to University of Texas at Austin. Redirects are cheap. — Rebelguys2 talk 07:31, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Looks like it'll snowball into a delete, with two people (including myself) wanting to redirect or merge. I've went ahead and redirected it -- can't hurt. — Rebelguys2 talk 07:34, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.