Talk:Carleton College/Archive 1

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

Games & Sports

The changes i reverted are two in number, both plausible.

The fall of GOP from leadership, if real, can certainly be described on this talk page, and its reign (especially if only recently ended) may still deserve mention as in "GOP long prominent but broke up" or "GOP at least temporarily eclipsed".

The Ambition mention has some history of being tuned into acceptability in this article, so unless we've been suckered completely, there's some consensus that it's sufficiently notable, and counter-arguments for its non-notability are in order. --Jerzy(t) 16:52, 2004 Apr 15 (UTC)


Since GOP has no national or regional prominence and has won no national awards, I would consider them irrelevant to a discussion of Carleton. Even their own web page has not been updated since 1999. Considering they were created in 1995 according to their website, they have little to do with the history or current status of Carleton College.
Syzygy, with a history of national tournament competition going back to 1988, including winning the national championship 2000, is a much better example of the competitive varsity and club sports Carleton has to offer.
As for the Ambition thing, I just have to say, "hunh?" If Mike Church wants to reference Carleton from his entry concerning his game, fine. But I see no relevance to the definition of Carleton College. For example, the basketball page notes its history as invented in Springfield, Massachusetts. But the page doesn't need to list that it was the birthplace of basketball.
--208.42.115.205 16:34, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Fine work, and i only dispute one point: if you'd ever driven thru Springfield on I-91, i think you'd agree with me that Springfield, Massachusetts should mention being the birthplace of basketball, in conjunction with the Basketball Hall of Fame: they deserve some explanation of the extenuating circumstances re their hosting it [grin]. Carleton probably is not so deeply involved in Ambition, unless we start hearing from others who continue an interest beyond the tourney. (BTW, speaking of games, do you know of Rotblatt and Glom?)

You may have noted that we're often casual abt documentation, but your diligent response suggests either excessive courtesy or your understanding why i asked for it in this case.

IMO, you should consider getting a user name here at WP (pseudonymous, like mine, if you prefer); i expect you'd earn a good reputation within WP, if your editing interests go further. (Your anon edits can definitely be transferred to the username if that's an IP-address private to you, and perhaps anyway.) You don't even have to give an EMail address, and if you do, it is still private against people whose EMail you don't respond to.

I would think there might be a place for some defunct teams in the discussion of Frisbee as an extended tradition, but in the absence of further evidence, i agree with you that GOP is not one of them. Nor, i'm guessing, is Hot Karls, unless they are a lot hotter than stated. With that in mind, i'm for reverting both myself and User:Mike Church in favor of your last edit.

I presume you know the Twain quote about the honor of being ridden out of town on a rail, and am guessing you'd forgo the honor of putting back your edit, even if you've already picked up on how to revert.

Tnx for your cooperation. [smile] --Jerzy(t) 21:05, 2004 Apr 16 (UTC)

GOP and Hot Karls are debatable; they are real Carleton organizations (pass Google test) but a list of Carleton extracurriculars (external link) may be more in order for that. I'm sure Carleton has one on their site.

Ambition should stay, but be kept to a mere mention. The game seems to have a pretty serious following and the fact that the first tournament occured there is important, but only deserving a mention (like the Schiller tradition) and not a full exposition. Similarly, I'd object to any mention of Church on the page, since he (unlike his game) is decidely nonfamous, at least at this point.

Rotblatt is a drunken baseball game in honor of Marvin Rotblatt, who was apparently a not very good baseball player. It used to be a semi-serious baseball game, where the senior class played the 5 year alums, but over time it degenerated into a bunch of people drinking on a baseball field. I believe Rotblatt was once covered by ESPN.

Sports & Games mixed with Alums (etc.)

By the way, didn't one of the guys associated with Lord of the Rings go to Carleton. Where is that? 68.117.68.223 03:50, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Page edited in accord with 68. I know Rotblatt was covered either by ESPN or Sports Illustrated (and heavily criticized), or maybe both, but I couldn't substantiate either claim and I'm not sure of which, so I did not include the fact. Mike Church 20:01, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

(Jerzy(t) 05:37, 2004 Apr 22 (UTC) notes that Mike, in addition to moving some 'graphs, added Rotblatt, restored a version of Ambition, and added Hilleman, Osborne, and Veblen just before the time indicated.)

Garrick Utley and Peter Tork could be added to the list of noted Alumni. On the sports side, the only NCAA sanctioned Metric football game occured between Carleton and St. Olaf at some point. --209.98.116.228 03:36, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Alums (etc.)

Also add Melvin R. Laird, and perhaps the Laird family's relation to the college (Laird Hall, Laird Stadium, & Laird Field). And IIRC, a world-class long distance runner who later edited Runner's World or its second-string competitor. --Jerzy(t) 05:44, 2004 Apr 19 (UTC)

The link to William Carleton in the body paragraph links to the Irish writer, but he is not the William Carleton the school is named after, unless the linked article is also wrong and fails to mention his donation or moving to Charlestown, MA.

P Wellstone

"Left-leaning" is vague enuf to include most Dems.

I think liberal Dems are actually in the minority of the party. Then again, I'm a lefty who things everyone's far right due to perspective...

However, perhaps "left-leaning" was poor wording, because it is somewhat vague.

I said "highly-respected" because the man had a reputation for being respected on both sides of the proverbial aisle, and pretty much universally. I don't think it's POV, but I won't reintroduce it. Mike Church 04:00, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Re "Left", i don't think we're in disagreement, & my main concern is that "left" be said relative to some explicit standard. (E.g., it might be worth looking at whether ADA ratings establish a continuum or (as i fear)a very few clusters, each of people indistinguishable scores: intuitively i expect there to be a continuum of philosophies, but that gauging legislative votes work to hide those differences due to party discipline, and/or due to "voting for the test" just as teachers may "teach for the test". E.g., i'm convinced my state rep is better on repro. freedom than each of the sequence of challengers, yet NARAL won't ever endorse bcz they both manage to get perfect scores!)
As to respect, i think it can be worded w/o PoV, but that it's hard to do with the space that he deserves on this page: that point is better made, once, in detail, on the Paul Wellstone article where it can be given all the space that requires, than shoehorned into each article that mentions him; that's what all these links are for. (In fact, my biggest misgiving about "left" actually is that my "Senate spectrum" wording has so many words; i welcome other ideas.)
If anyone has ideas for working around some of the problems raised, discussing the tricky points (or trying out something new for reactions, by editing the article) is better than someone getting their wording in bcz everyone else gives up.

Thorstein Veblen

Hmm, i added Thorstein Veblen's class as 1880, based on a Carleton source. But there are other versions; see Talk:Thorstein Veblen --Jerzy(t) 21:28, 2004 Jul 28 (UTC)

Pranks

In the text

painted the night before his commencement speech, and repainted very early the following morning

the wording "and repainted" is confusing; it probably means someone returned it to plain vanilla very early, but as it stands what it says is that the portrait was painted twice in the same night. Not hard to fix, if my surmise about the facts is correct.

(Speaking of clarity, is there "Freshman Rhetoric"?) --Jerzy(t) 05:37, 2004 Apr 22 (UTC)

Carleton's campus life shows no lack of traditions

In the traditions section, we had

One of the unique features of Carleton's campus life is its focus on traditions.

It may be a distinguishing feature (tho i'm not suggesting a simple substitution), but "unique" means only one of the "universe" under discussion has it. That claim could be verifiable (as WP expects) if said "focus", and the extent of the category of "traditions" being considered, and the universe (American 4-year higher education?) were clearly specified, but that seems far-fetched. I've substituted a lame sentence, just to smooth the transition:

Carleton's campus life shows no lack of traditions.

Consider that a straw man: knock it down. --Jerzy(t) 06:58, 2004 Apr 22 (UTC)

The Original Comment by Fehler

I fail to see the relevance of the dvdfest.org paragraph. The author needs to do a better job explaining why it uniquely defines Carleton College, or how Carleton's student film festival is deserving of special mention. The scant description and links don't make it out to be much more important than any other small college film festival. Otherwise, it looks like a personal plug.

I'd like to see some of Carleton's more unique traditions featured, such as Dacie Moses' House, or even the Pep Banned. The Cave could be mentioned as a rare in-dorm nightclub (isn't Evans the only dorm with a liquor license?). I also have yet to see anything on Carleton's new wind turbine. That must be somewhat unique. --Fehler 19:59, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

U.S. News

I removed the section:

(It should be noted that these rankings are considered suspect by many, but these rankings are still respected by many students and academics.)

Here's why: Every ranking system, unless it is based upon some objective fact (e.g. there's no debate as to what the tallest skyscraper is, or who is the heaviest man at any given time, because these are mathematical facts,) is doubted by many, and for good reasons. Collapsing something multi-dimensional like educational quality into a totally-ordered ranking system is going to mean overlooking enormous amounts of information.

I totally agree that the U.S. News rankings are dubious, and I tend to think America's colleges would be a lot better off if those rankings (which can typecast a college's image as one of being "inferior" to "top schools" over minor differences) didn't exist. I guess that's the price we pay for free speech. (I just wish people would use their freedom to be a bit more skeptical about those rankings, that's all.)

To say, therefore, that this particular ranking system is considered supsect by some, but accepted by others, is then essentially a non-statement. It's like saying "some people liked the movie, and some people didn't". There's place for that debate on the college rankings page, but I'm not sure it's appropriate here. Mike Church 09:23, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

ambition and other ephemera

I have removed the gaming material from the article. The inclusion of references to the "Ambition" card game have been discussed at considerable length. The consensus has been that the card game does not belong in the article. Unless there is new evidence about Ambition's popularity, the reference to Ambition should not be re-added.

Overall, this article suffers from an excess of ephemeral student life material. Such material is not particularly informative, since nearly all postsecondary schools exhibit similar traits. Most suffer streakers to some degree, for example. And such material dates quickly, since such traditions end up being changed around every 5-10 years as students graduate and are replaced by freshmen. While we needn't create a stuffy college-administration-and-admissions-POV article, we could do with more facts, more history, and less ephemera.

UninvitedCompany 16:49, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)