Talk:Brigham Young University

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	Brigham Young University has been listed as one of the Social sciences and society good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.
January 27, 2008 Good article nominee Listed

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To-do list for Brigham Young University:	edit · history · watch · refresh
Here are some tasks you can do: Copyedit: Needs to be done Cleanup: Fix references using {{citeweb}} template Expand: We need a section regarding the priesthood ban protests from the 70s

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Archive 1 Archive 2

Contents 1 External links 2 De facto Flagship? 3 Frank Abagnale Reference 4 Big article 5 Financial Endowment 6 Flagship issue at BYU

[edit] External links

Are all of the external links needed on this article? Some are redundant to the new template listed below the External links section—others seem tangential to the article. Are there any editors would really like to remain? --Eustress (talk) 00:25, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Due to silence, I have removed several superfluous or redundant links from the section. --Eustress (talk) 15:47, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] De facto Flagship?

How about if we use the phrase "de facto flagship" in the intro? Maybe in the second sentence? Something like "BYU is the de facto flagship university of the Mormon church"? JackWilliams (talk) 00:03, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but I think that's a bit too much. There was a whole discussion on the topic of "flagship" earlier, and I think we should steer clear of the word since a consensus cannot be reached regarding it. However, I made one change in the intro to differentiate BYU from its "sister schools", saying it is the "the oldest existing institution in its (LDS Church's) Church Educational System." This is a fact and elaborates on the CES template at the bottom of the article. Hope this helps. --Eustress (talk) 00:30, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

What if we used some references to support the de facto flagship idea? Also, maybe we could use soft wording and say something like "BYU is regarded by many to be the de facto flagship university in the Mormon church." JackWilliams (talk) 01:26, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Frank Abagnale Reference

What is the Frank Abagnale reference on this page? It seems tangential to the purpose of the page and included as an after thought. I think this reference should be removed. Daw44 (talk) 18:23, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. I'll remove. --Eustress (talk) 15:47, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Big article

The article is getting pretty big and I would like input on how to cut it down. I think it could be beneficial to either cut down or outsource much of the Student housing section. It would also probably be good to outsource much of the BYU Salt Lake Center section to its own article. Also, could the Religious activity and Culture sections be merged or outsourced somehow? Furthermore, the Honor Code section seems a bit overbearing considering the topic already has its own article.

Anyway, just opening the dialogue. Thanks. --Eustress (talk) 02:12, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Let's start by making a Brigham Young University campus article and moving info there. Wrad (talk) 02:18, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Good idea. I created List of Brigham Young University buildings per FA Dartmouth College. Any help appreciated. Once we get most of the buildings nailed down, we can start to condense this section significantly, especially since a lot of the buildings also have their own articles. --Eustress (talk) 03:35, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I also think the Controversy section should be cut and moved to the history article. Wrad (talk) 19:43, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

The honor code section looks great. I agree that the controversy stuff seems like a better fit for the main History article, but some references to notable controversies should probably still be left in the main article under the History section to ensure NPOV. --Eustress (talk) 20:16, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Lets make a Student life at Brigham Young University to cover the protests, culture, and religious stuff so we can shrink this article down a bit more. Wrad (talk) 21:12, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I made one but haven't started slimming things down quite yet. Wrad (talk) 21:43, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok, slimming done. I really think we should cut the whole Controversy section though. The argument for keeping it was originally that if we had the bit about Dick Cheney, we had to have all these other little protests, but Dick ain't around anymore, and the section is looking more and more insignificant the more we cut. Wrad (talk) 00:44, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Other than that, I think we've got it. FAs Dartmouth and Duke are sitting at 98,000 kb, a good 15,000 more than what we have now. Wrad (talk) 00:56, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. I'd still like to rewrite the Campus section for flow, but I'll propose any possible changes here first. Also, do you think the LDS atmosphere and Culture sections should stand alone instead of being merged? The two seem intertwined—the Culture section even talking about LDS norms a little bit. Just a thought. --Eustress (talk) 01:41, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd have to see what you have in mind with the merge. I left a note with our friends at the University project to get some outside perspective on our slimdown. Wrad (talk) 01:59, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Student housing section could still be trimmed quite a bit if not moved entirely to the other article. I don't think student housing is as important as some of the other buildings. If we are going to feature buildings it should probably be the SWKT (one of tallest in Provo), Library, or other notable buildings. Daw44 (talk) 11:07, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

That section already has been trimmed quite a bit... More than half... Wrad (talk) 11:24, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Financial Endowment

There seems to be some confusion about the size of BYU's financial endowment. The report cited it over ten years old and the actual figure in the report is 289,647,000 not 2.89 billion. I did a little looking around the internet for confirmation or a newer figure and found varying figures. Also, after making a few calls to offices around campus, nobody could give me a straight answer. Can anyone find a sure answer to this problem?

Bill Lava (talk) 21:09, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your inquiry. Give us some time to investigate a little bit. Thanks. --Eustress (talk) 21:59, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Flagship issue at BYU

We've discussed this a million different ways and there's just no way to put it in that would satisfy a consensus of editors. Keep it out. Wrad (talk) 01:14, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

We never came to a consensus. I'm willing to tone it down by saying "Mormon leaders have described BYU as the flaghip" instead of saying "BYU is the flagship." I think this is a compromise.JackWilliams (talk) 01:30, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. Flagship means something totally different in every other instance it is used, and only some Mormon leaders (one, two?) have said this, while others have said otherwise. It's misleading and it just isn't going to work. Wrad (talk) 01:32, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Wrad. Even though I did not have a problem referring to it as the flagship of the Church Educational System, it was discussed heavily and decided to just not mention it at all. It is up to the reader to make the assumption that because BYU is the oldest and by far the largest of the schools in CES that it is some sort of de facto flagship. In addition, there is no need to refer to BYU as "BYU in Provo" especially in the BYU article itself. It is redundant, especially the way it was done in the opening paragraph. The existence of BYU-Idaho and BYU-Hawaii do not necessitate additional mention of Provo in regards to BYU as neither school (BYUI or BYUH) is ever referred to simply as BYU. --JonRidinger (talk) 01:37, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

l]The last time we had this debate I came up with quotes from Bateman, Kimball, Maeser, and I think Oaks and Romney that BYU is the flagship. Where are the quotes that BYU-P is equal to BYU-I, BYU-H, and LDSBC? I'm fine with saying "It" instead of "BYU in Provo" and "de facto flagship of CES" (Although I think mentioning CES in the opening is a little complicating; the fact that BYU is part of CES is sort of a minor technicality). JackWilliams (talk) 01:42, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

All of those people spoke before either before there was a BYU Idaho or Hawaii or they are BYU Alumni themselves. Those are pretty lousy sources. You never actually provided direct quotes for these supposed sources either except for Kimball. Bateman doesn't call it a "flagship". He describes it differently. Thus, you only have one source from 26 33 years ago saying this! Why should we provide sources on the other end? If there's a lack of good sources for the statement, it shouldn't be in the article. You don't have to back up something you don't say in the article. That's just silly. Wrad (talk) 02:00, 10 June 2008 (UTC)