Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Dartmouth College

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 17:40, 30 September 2007.

[edit] Dartmouth College

• Previous FAC

A renomination. The FAC listed above was, for some reason, closed after only two comments. The only unaddressed suggestion was citing the sections more thoroughly, which I have done. I've also expanded the "Campus" section and improved the writing. I definitely think this is a great article, and deserves to be promoted.

However, I'm sure there is room for improvement, so feel free to suggest things. A note to admins -- please don't close this discussion prematurely, as was done last time. I intend to address all objections until it is promotion-worthy. Dylan 00:11, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

• Comment Though s/he didn't list them here, User:SandyGeorgia brought up a number of style issues through edit summaries, including WP:MOSBOLD, WP:ITALICS, WP:HYPHEN, a danging <ref> tag, {{cite}} tags lacking "publisher" fields, and style in section headings. I've addressed them all. Regarding the reliability of Jonathan Good's pamphlet as a source, I submit that as a professor of history who has written professionally on this very subject (see the other cited pieces from the Dartmouth College Library Bulletin), a pamphlet by him (which one can clearly see from the scans was published and distributed) can be considered reliable. If anyone has objections to this, let's discuss it. Dylan 02:22, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

• Goodness, I didn't even raise objections; that'll teach me to just edit. Anyway, the issue about Jonathan Good was that there were two different last names I didn't understand. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:41, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

• No, I know what you mean, but I figured you had gotten to the page through this FAC, so I kind of interpreted them as necessary steps for the FAC. Sorry -- I didn't mean to put words in your mouth. Dylan 02:43, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

• Well, I didn't want to register a comment here and then have to followup when the fixes were easy; it looks good, and I certainly like the new TOC better. Does Core Values need to be capitalized per WP:MSH (proper noun)? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:48, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

• I initially thought Dartmouth capitalizes the term, but it turns out they don't: [1]. I'll change it in the article. Dylan 03:28, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support This is a fantastic improvement to a GA-class article. All the gaps have been tightened and it's been reinforced with a load of new sources. I had a qualm before about the Athletics section, but I see it has been addressed. I've made many contributions to this article, but nowhere near the number Dylan has made. In my opinion, it qualifies for FA status; nice job. - DMCer 04:09, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose - a lot of work to be done. Here is a non-exhaustive list of issues:

• 1.) Infobox - Campus, it states: "Rural town, 269 acres (1.1 km²) — almost 50,000 acres (200 km²) total." What does this mean? As I reader, I shouldn't have to decipher a meaning. Is the campus 269 acres in Hanover, but 50,000 acres somewhere else?

• Addressed: [2]. Dylan 10:41, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

• 2.) Infobox - NCAA Division I-AA? I-AA doesn't exist anymore - it's the FCS or Football Championship Series. I shouldn't be catching things like this at this stage.

• Addressed by DMCer: [3]. Dylan 03:04, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

• 3.) Lead - If you had only 7 sentences to describe the most important things about Dartmouth, would one of them include a quote of what Booz Allen Hamilton thinks of Dartmouth? If you answer "yes" to this, clearly the focus of the article is out of whack. Even if you do believe this (which would be kinda crazy, in my opinion), the lead is supposed to summarize the article (i.e. eveything in the lead should be included somewhere else in the article). The lead is not supposed to add any new information.

• Comment I think that is an important lead-in to the history section. It puts Dartmouth's past in perspective and that's part of how the college defines itself today.-DMCer 06:44, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
• Comment: I agree with DMCer -- it's a good, general setup that establishes both Dartmouth's importance as a whole and the tone of its history. Its inclusion where it is may not follow the letter of the law, but I believe that in this context it is best for the article. Dylan 13:28, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• Comment (something else occurred to me) -- also, the thrust of that sentence is the challenges in Dartmouth's history and the devotion of the alumni, which are discussed later on. I think that introducing a particular fact that illustrates that point is/should be acceptable, even if the fact itself is not repeated later. Dylan 15:42, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
• I still strongly disagree with you guys. You suggest it is an "important lead-in" and "general setup" - well, that is not the point of the lead. A lead is supposed to summarize an article. See WP:LEAD. At the very least, it should be moved to the history section if want want to mention Booz Allen that badly. -Bluedog423^Talk 00:10, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

• Reply: It might fit better under "Academic reputation." I think I'll move it there. Dylan 10:21, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

• Reply: I still think that being named among the "world's ten most enduring institutions" is notable enough to be in the introduction. Other FA university articles have the US News ranking numbers in their intros and that's only a US POV. I think many other sections also speak to Dartmouth's adherence to its founding principles, so I view that sentence as a helpful summation.-DMCer 23:41, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

• I didn't realize until looking at the source, that this is a list for institutions in general, and not just academic institutions. Being one of only two academic institutions in the list, is, indeed, more notable. -Bluedog423^Talk 14:37, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

• 4.) Lead is too short for an article of this length and the focus is odd. There are 7 content oriented sections. Only three (history, academics, alumni) are mentioned in the lead.
• 5.) History - has only one sub-section. What are you dividing if there's only one sub-section? Either should include 2 or more, or none.

• Addressed: [4]. Dylan 17:14, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• 6.) History - lists are bad. Convert list of presidents to prose or eliminate all together.

• Addressed: [5]. Dylan 17:14, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• 7.) Academics - Avoid academic boosterism. Phrases like "[it] is one of the most selective educational institutions in the world" tells us absolutely nothing. You could say, "Princeton Review ranked Dartmouth as the Xth most selective school in the nation in 2007" or "Darthmouth's 15.3% acceptance rate was the Xth lowest in the country." Stick to facts and let people interpret it themselves.

• Addressed: [6][7]. Dylan 12:23, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• Much better. However, I still think the second sentence in the Academic reputation section contributes next to nothing - it's just somebody's opinion and 11th is pretty damn good anyways. I'd eliminate the Academic reputation sub-heading and just move the two remaining sentences to the intro portion of Academics. -Bluedog423^Talk 00:10, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

• Addressed: [8]. Now that you mention it, you're absolutely right -- "Academic reputation" is a pretty unnecessary categorization. I've rolled it into "Academics" and rephrased the sentence in question. Dylan 02:35, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

• 8.) Academics - give exact numbers. Don't give vague values when you should be able to get more precise figures. e.g. "little over 1,000 places" (I'm sure admissions says they target a certain small range), "within the low 700s," "about 90%."

• Reply: I've done this when possible, but all the vague numbers you cite are direct reflections of the sources: [9][10] The SAT scores are given as the range of the median 50%. I removed "about" from 90%, but I gather from the site that it is not an exact 90.00% we're talking about. As for the class size, it varies every year due to the yield on the ~2,000 accepted students, anywhere from 1,050 - 1,100; there is no hard-and-fast slot count, so it's impossible to be more precise than it is already. Dylan 12:23, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• 9.) Don't start sentences with numbers (e.g. "30%" should be "Thirty percent"). Follow other standard writing rules.

• Addressed: [11]. Dylan 13:19, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• 10.) Errant commas - "30% of the members of the Class of 2011 graduated as valedictorian, and 10% as salutatorian." Why a comma? This suggests the entire article needs to by copyedited.

• Addressed: [12]. After rewriting the necessary sections (per your suggestions), I'll follow through with an intensive copyedit of the entire article. (I did so before nominating it, too, but I guess a few things slipped by). Dylan 13:18, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• 11.) Other incorrect punctuation - "Integral to the undergraduate college are three graduate schools, Dartmouth Medical School..." Comma the proper punctuation mark? Again, suggests this entire article needs to by copyedited.

• Addressed: [13]. Dylan 13:18, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• 12.) More grammar problems - You need to take a close look at every sentence before nominating. "In 2007, Dartmouth was ranked eleventh among undergraduate programs at national universities by U.S. News and World Report" At?

• Reply: Doesn't seem like a grammatical problem to me. Yes, "undergraduate programs at national universities." They're "at" the university -- they're a type of college located at a larger institution. Dylan 13:18, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• I guess I misinterpreted "national universities" in the sentence. Sorry! I was thinking it should be "among undergraduate programs classified as national universities," but that doesn't make much sense in hindsight. My mistake. -Bluedog423^Talk 00:10, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

• 13.) Image:Dartmouth College campus 2007-06-23 Sherman Fairchild Physical Sciences Center.JPG is not appearing on my monitor, for some reason after continually refreshing it. A problem with my computer? Probably. Maybe a problem with the size of my monitor. It's not large enough and the unnecessary quote box in the next sentence makes it so it doesn't appear? I could be wrong about this, though, as to the reason it isn't rendering properly. But the quote box is unnecessary.

• Reply: Regarding the image, see my response to #19 -- I think that's a Wikipedia issue. As for the quote box, why is it unnecessary? The sentence inside it is the mission statement, and since that's the title of the section, I would think it should be set off and given its own little part of the page. It seems like if it were to be embedded or something that both its impact would be lost and the flow would be disrupted. (How would one introduce that in prose? "Dartmouth's mission statment is:" ?). Dylan 17:19, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• That particular image is still is not appearing on my screen several days later. Is it on yours? I'm thinking it's more than a wikipedia server issue and might have something to do with the layout, but I'm not sure. Speaking of the layout, it'd be nice to rotate the placement of the images more often. Most are right-aligned. Regarding the quote box, I was just going off that I was expecting some amazing statement, and instead it's just a generic statement that every other university in the entire world also has something similar to, in my opinion. "Dartmouth College educates the most promising students and prepares them for a lifetime of learning and of responsible leadership, through a faculty dedicated to teaching and the creation of knowledge." Wow.....This doesn't set it apart from other universities. Why mention it? -Bluedog423^Talk 00:10, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

• The images are working for me now. I don't think anyone changed the layout, but I might have missed it. Working for you? Dylan 01:42, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

• Yep, finally working for me now. Thanks. -Bluedog423^Talk 05:02, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

• 14.) Mission statement and core values and Honor Code sections should be combined and shortened. Don't have bulleted lists! Is it really necessary to mention every single Dartmouth core value? Most schools have codes like this, so I don't find it particularly interesting.

• Reply: I'm sure you know as well as I do that whether something is "interesting" has no bearing on its inclusion on Wikipedia. We're talking about the guiding, fundamental principles of the institution at hand; how could this not be materially important to understanding the school? The fact that other schools also have mission statements and core values doesn't seem relevant to me. Other schools also have campuses and alumni and presidents, but we discuss them all anyway. Dylan 12:29, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
• Reply: Also, the core values as an original document is a bulleted list ([14]). It doesn't seem wise or helpful to convert it to prose. Dylan 13:12, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
• Reply: I don't have a particularly strong opinion on this, but I lean towards its removal as well - not because it's "uninteresting", but because the article should be what's important to Dartmouth and about Dartmouth. Does the mission statement, and particularly the core values, actually affect Dartmouth? My response would be "no". It's true - every school has a mission statement and core values, and they all say pretty much the same things (so it's not a unique thing at Dartmouth). They're just part of the propaganda machine. Yes, propaganda can be important to report, but perhaps the question is whether that propaganda has actually affected anyone either outside of Dartmouth or anything major that Dartmouth has done (and wouldn't have been done without those guiding ideas). --_└ ^Smith120bh/_TALK ^┐ 16:30, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

• I still think they should be shortened because, as Smith120bh states, these things are not unique to Dartmouth. But, I guess, people could have differing opinions on this matter. -Bluedog423^Talk 00:10, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

• 15.) Board of Trustees - "Dartmouth is governed by a Board of Trustees. The board includes the College president" -> "Dartmouth is governed by a Board of Trustees that includes the..." Topic sentences like that don't give me confidence in the professional standard of the prose.

• Addressed: [15]. Dylan 17:07, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• 16.) Campus and landholdings - waaay too many short stubby sections. Do we really need an entire section about the Dickey Center for International Understanding? Scientific research facilities is only 3 sentences long.

• Addressed: [16]. You're right, this was sort of a mish-mash of only certain campus facilities (and the Dickey Center isn't even a physical building, it's an institution). I've revised this into a review of all of Dartmouth's physical spaces, which makes it both more comprehensive and more accurate. Dylan 04:51, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

• Much better, but, to be honest, still not my favorite section. I guess I am just not a fan of having 7 consecutive sections with one or two short paragraphs (except athletic facilities which has 3). But combining just to combine is not wise either...-Bluedog423^Talk 00:10, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

• I can appreciate your concerns. Is it that the coverage is too thin, or is it the way it's divided? If you think it would help, I'm sure I can add a few sentences to each section and flesh them out a little more. Dylan 01:41, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

• I wouldn't add unimportant sentences just for the sake of filling out sections. The sections should just be consolidated. In my opinion, the subsections under Academic facilities should be eliminated entirely. Just have 1 paragraph for each subsection, so 3 paragraphs total. A new paragraph serves as enough separation - the reader doesn't need a heading for each paragraph they are going to read. Topic sentences are sufficient. However, you may need to add some better transitional phrases, but this is not too difficult and would improve the organization of the article. Combine Housing facilities and Student areas and dining facilities too. Could rename to "Housing and student life facilities" or something like that. Also, I noticed that in housing facilities a sentence begins with "3,300 students." I said to correct this above. Please check throughout the article to see if everything has been addressed. To be perfectly honest, I haven't even read the vast majority of the sentences in the article. The majority of my comments are organizational items and noticed on a cursory look at the article. -Bluedog423^Talk 05:02, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

• Addressed: [17]. Good points. I also condensed some other sections in a similar manner. How is that looking? Dylan 13:12, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

• Wow, the organization of this article looks 110% better than it did at the beginning of its FA candidacy. -Bluedog423^Talk 13:22, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

• 17.) Athletic facilities - too many details and again a bulleted list! Convert to prose.

• Addressed: [18]. Dylan 01:55, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

• 18.) Athletics - don't wikilink common words (e.g tennis). See Only make links that are relevant to the context. Nickname, symbol, and mascot needs more citations.

• Addressed: [19]. Dylan 23:21, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• 19.) Image:Dartmouth College campus 2007-06-23 Robinson Hall.JPG doesn't appear on my computer again. Now I'm thinking there's something wrong with my computer or the server or something. When I click the link it does open it up, though.

• Reply: Yeah, I think it's a server thing. Wikipedia was running a banner a few days ago about how some images aren't showing up. "Robinson Hall" has been spotty for me as well, as with "Flag icon of the United States." It's not particular to this article. Dylan 12:32, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• 20.) Traditions - bulleted list again.

• Addressed: [20]. Dylan 03:00, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

• 21.) Alumni - This is nowhere near an FA-quality section. Short list of alumni. Please expand majorly. See current FAs for how to do it.

• Addressed: [21]. Dylan 01:30, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

• Great improvements! -Bluedog423^Talk 00:10, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

• 22.) Seal - waaay too many details. Quotes? Unnecessary.

• Addressed: [22]. I've felt similarly for a long time -- this was merged in as the decision from an AfD of Dartmouth College Seal. I've deleted it entirely as not having any bearing on the subject -- preserved at User:Kane5187/Dartmouth College. Dylan 16:58, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• Reply: I don't think it should be removed entirely. I agree, and have felt for a long time, that it should be cut down significantly, but I think it is important enough to have something about it in there. Also, perhaps a small section on this would be the place to mention the debate over the translation of "vox clamantis in deserto", and some things like that. Anyways, I think it's an important part of the Dartmouth propaganda, and does have a lot of history attached to it - certainly, it's at least as important as the mission statement and core values. --_└ ^Smith120bh/_TALK ^┐ 16:30, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

• Reply: Agreed; it had some important historical facts in it. I think parts of the seal section should be included, or perhaps summarize it and give the seal its own separate article (which might not be necessary, this one sure isn't [23]).-DMCer 23:25, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

• Reply: I still feel like it was given very undue weight. How about creating a section about the symbol, the seal, the mascot, the nickname, the alma mater? I can't think of a good title, but I think all those things are tied together by the same element -- official and unofficial representations of the College. Dylan 10:20, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

• Reply: Dylan - yep, that's basically what I was trying to suggest. I wish there were something good we could do with all the information in that Dartmouth Seal section - it's really well-written, well-cited, and great research - but it is just too much detail to really do much with a lot of it. DMCer - the section was a result of AfD on the standalone article that it used to be - I don't think it can be made into its own article again. But yes, I think summarize it down, and make a section for perhaps "Insignia and other representations" or "Hallmarks of Dartmouth" or something like that. I can't think of a good title either... --_└ ^Smith120bh/_TALK^┐ 22:08, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

• Reply: Here's a first draft: [24]. I basically just assembled it from other already-existing sections. Dylan 02:35, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

This article is good, I'm not saying it's not, but it has a long way to go to be FA quality. You have to ask yourself, if I had only 2,000 words to describe everything there is to know about Dartmouth, what would I say? If something is slightly unnecessary, delete it. Too many details about random things. Organizational problems, in general. The TOC looks very messy and there are many short stubby sections, particularly under Campus and landholdings. This was a review without really reading the article and its prose. I'm sure there are many prose issues and other content issues. These problems are just noted from a cursory glance at the article. Good luck! -Bluedog423^Talk 02:17, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Holy cow! That's a lot of work to be done. Thanks for the suggestions, I will begin addressing them. Dylan 10:38, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Addendum:

• 1.) History - "founded the nearby Noyes Academy 1835" - please copyedit the whole article

• Addressed: [25]. DMCer 01:39, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

• 2.) In Popular Culture - "alma mater for a number of fictional characters, including [...] two leading characters of the 2007 film Superbad." Can you consider a school somebody's alma mater if they haven't even attended it yet? They're high school seniors in the movie. Minor quibble, but was just curious.

• Addressed: [26]. DMCer 07:20, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

• 3.) It would be nice to create a Template: Dartmouth College for all the Dartmouth-associated articles.

• Addressed: Template:Dartmouth College. Dylan 20:06, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

• 4.) Dead links. Go through all the references and make sure they're all active links. 25 is a dead link and I have only clicked 3 of the links. -Bluedog423^Talk

• That's... gonna be a problem. The Dartmouth is a heavily-used source in this and other Dartmouth-related articles, but when they redid their website this year, they quit providing an archive beyond 2006. Wayback Machine doesn't have anything on it. ...what can be done about that? Dylan 18:58, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

• Probably the only thing that can be done is just kill the links. It's great if we can find some replacement, still active online sources for some of the things, but those that we can't, then we can just cite them like books - there are physical archives in the library, and the article already cites some of the Dartmouth College history books that I'm sure aren't very available outside of the Dartmouth libraries. --_└ ^Smith120bh/_TALK ^┐ 22:15, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

• Oh, good -- I was afraid they would somehow become inadmissible as references. Great. I did what you suggested ([27]), maintaining the old URLs in the markup (invisible to the reader) on the off-chance that The Dartmouth puts them back online. Dylan 02:57, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

• Another thing to do that I've noticed -- the intro to "Student life" really ought to be a proper overview, rather than a a few random facts about rankings. Dylan 01:47, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

• Yep, Smith's suggested method is perfectly acceptable. Please still check all the links. -Bluedog423^Talk 05:02, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

• Addressed -- they're all good. Dylan 20:06, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support I've been watching and doing mostly organizational edits of all the Dartmouth College-related articles for a couple years now, and have seen this article improve dramatically to what I believe to be a first-rate article. Now that the suggestions by BlueDog423 have been [mostly] addressed, I see no more real specific things that need addressing. My biggest problem is more on the general level (and I know I'm being a bit of a hypocrite here by writing this here and not just editing the article myself - I apologize) - the comprehensiveness of the article. I think we need to take a step back from the article now, thinking about what is really important to Dartmouth and what is not. Especially, what things are not included in here that really should be (or are only briefly mentioned and should be elaborated)? A lot of information has been merged in to this article over time (especially from small AfD'ed articles), but not many major additions have been made focusing on this main Dartmouth College article itself. As an example of what I'm referring to as problematic -

The only reference to Dartmouth being a liberal arts college is in one sentence in the second intro paragraph. Why is this kind of thing not even mentioned in, say, the "Academics" section? The academics section seems disproportionately short and very not comprehensive to me - perhaps it should include some information on, for example, how many departments Dartmouth has, how many classes are offered, what specific departments may be known for major accomplishments, how much faculty publish and in what kinds of journals, etc. Also, the D-Plan - it's only mentioned briefly in the "History" section, and it's one of the defining things about Dartmouth's academic system! Surely it's more important than the Honor Principle and Mission Statement? --_└ ^Smith120bh/_TALK ^┐ 05:24, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

• Addendum One minor thing - since the list of presidents of Dartmouth were deleted from the article, I think we do still need some reference to them in there somehow. Ideally, that might be to a devoted "History of Dartmouth College" article (which I think would be valuable in the long-run, especially given the huge history of this place, but it's not holding back from any FA status), but it should be maybe a link to a list, or at least mentioning some of the more important ones in the main history prose. --_└ ^Smith120bh/_TALK ^┐ 05:28, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

• Reply I'm really glad you've brought this up, because I never would have noticed it (having my eyes so close to this article for so long now). We don't have anything on degrees granted, academic departments, requirements for graduation, popular majors, etc. -- really, the fundamentals of any college. I'm working on adding this stuff in now. Thanks for mentioning it!
• I've been thinking about History of Dartmouth College, too, and I'd like to see it emerge at some point -- the material is definitely there. As far as the presidents go, their names are noticably absent from the History section. The Office of the President website gives a good overview of what each president did during his time in office, so hopefully that can be used both to expand the History section and incorporate their names. Dylan 05:46, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Current tasks Just consolidating the remaining tasks so it's easier to follow:

• Revise lead, turn into a more even summary
• Deal with Honor Principle / Mission Statement sections as discussed above
• Template:Dartmouth College
• Verify that all external links are live -- they are, now. Dylan 13:17, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
• Incorporate presidents into History section
• Improve organization of Campus and landholdings section

Dylan 05:49, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

• Looks good to me. I'd add "improve organization of Campus and landholdings section." I'd also like someone who hasn't looked at the article so frequently (always good to have fresh eyes!) to perform a thorough copyedit, if possible. Rather than just tell you to find somebody else (which many people do), I'll try to do it (hopefully) tomorrow. If there are some issues I cannot address, I will post them here. -Bluedog423^Talk 05:08, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
• Comment - More issues to resolve just from the lead and history section. I have copyedited the lead and (most of the) history section. Although I'd still like the lead to be expanded by a few setences - I just didn't want to be responsible for those chosen. I'll try to get to the rest of the article later today...But we'll see. I have made some comments within the article using <!-- --> so you can see those comments if you click edit, but I have also outlined them here:

• 1.) Seventh-wealthiest in terms of funds per student? Neither of the two references provided support this claim (or the ninth-oldest college claim, but I’ve heard that other places). According to a wikipedia article, List_of_U.S._colleges_and_universities_by_endowment#List_of_university_endowment_amount_per_student, Dartmouth is 15th in that category. Try to find a source for this. The Chronicle of Higher Education would be good (http://chronicle.com/weekly/almanac/2007/nation/0103301.htm), but I don't personally have a subscription.

• Addressed (omitted): [28]. I don't know where the 7th figure came from, although someone possibly got it from here: [29], which states that Dartmouth's endowment is increasing at the seventh-highest rate. At any rate, it's probably best to remove this statement, cited or otherwise. The calculation depends entirely on who you include in the list; the Chronicle of Higher Education includes institutions and conservatories with relatively small endowments but student enrollment only in the hundreds, which spikes their calculation. Depending on criteria, Dartmouth could be anywhere from tenth to thirtieth, so why bother? Dylan 18:43, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

• 2.) So, did Eleazar Wheelock establish Dartmouth on his own (as stated in the lead) or with major help from John Wentworth (as stated in History)? Please be consistent.

• After reading the cited article, I have since discovered that Wentworth actually established the royal charter (not King George III). Wheelock approached him for it. So, what was written in the History section was factually inaccurate. I have majorly revamped the History section, which had many misleading statements and contained several factual errors (at least, errors according to the History lesson article you had cited).

• Reply I haven't extensively compared your revisions to the original version, but I think there's some level of nuance here in language that isn't necessarily misleading or factually inaccurate. Wheelock is considered the out-and-out "founder" of the College[30] (as originally stated in the lead), but I hardly think that precludes the participation of others in its establishment. The original ([31]) never said he did it alone. The original version also stated that King George III "granted" the charter, which is indeed true, even though it was signed by Wentworth -- Wentworth executed the charter on the King's authority, as royal governor (and as was normal practice for the time). I'm pretty sure that in normal parlance, decisions made by or documents signed on the authority of a reigning monarch do not need to be specified as having been executed by an intermediary.
• Also, a couple of your revisions and rephrasings have led to factually incorrect statements. For example, I worded the sentence thusly: "During the 1990s, the College saw a major academic overhaul under President James O. Freedman and a controversial 1999 initiative to abolish single-sex Greek houses" because Freedman only presided over the academic overhaul, not the Greek initiative. Dylan 19:01, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

• Oops, sorry about that. I wasn't aware that was the case, and I'm not immune to errors obviously. Please feel free to improve my prose in the history section as well and check for grammatical errors. -Bluedog423^Talk 21:22, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

• No problem -- it's obviously something you wouldn't have known without checking the sources, and if it read that way to begin with, it should be rephrased anyway. Dylan 22:47, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

• 3.) If Nathaniel Whitaker and Samson Occom both raise funds for its establishment, why is Whitaker ommitted in the lead? Also, when doing quotes please use brackets if anything is changed, even capitalization (e.g. "[Y]outh of Indian").

• Reply: Occom is always portrayed as kind of the leader, in the things I've read (particularly [32]). Dartmouth.edu only has one passing mention of Whittaker, whereas Occom is noted numerous times ([33][34][35][36]). I don't have any articulated reasons why Occom was more important, other than the emphasis in the sources used. Dylan 23:24, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

• 4.) Why was Occom dejected and betrayed? Not explained at all...and I don't see it in the linked article.

• Addressed: [37]. I actually don't know, either -- I wasn't the one who composed any of that section, so I didn't know off-hand. As it turns out, Wheelock never really intended to Christianize anybody, and Occom was "dejected and betrayed" by the trajectory of the new school. Dylan 22:47, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

• 5.) "Dartmouth's governance structure and membership in the Board of Trustees has been the subject of significant controversy. " What is the controversy?

• Addressed: [38]. Is that clearer? I want to keep it succinct -- in the 250-year history of the College, this really doesn't merit more than a sentence, so I figure it's not necessary to explain the full history of the conflict. Dylan 20:06, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

• Yep, much better. I agree it's not necessary to explain it in more than a sentence, but stating that is has been controversial without stating what that controversy is would be confusing to the reader. Anyways, thanks for the clarification. -Bluedog423^Talk 21:25, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

-Bluedog423^Talk 17:31, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

• Some responses to your edits:

• According to WP:HYPHEN, the hyphen in things like "five-acre field" is correct as long as "acre" is spelled out.
• I'm pretty sure phrases like "Class of 2010" don't need capitalization. Could just be a style preference, but it strikes me personally as odd and out-of-place.
• I noticed you inserted some "&nbsp;"s in places that already had a keystroke space ( ) present. Is there some reason for that? Does it render differently on some systems? Because on mine, it would render the same. Just curious.

• Dylan 23:09, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

• Oops -- I didn't realize you had already left me a message acknowledging those things. My bad. For the numbers, I'm fine with whatever you prefer. Dylan 23:10, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

• For the sports/clubs thing, that's a good point that 150 additional sports is unlikely. That count might include PE sports (spinning, aerobics, kickboxing, mountain biking), of which there really are a lot, and definitely includes club sports. So 35ish varsity sports plus maybe fifty of the each of the others, I could see it. The other thing is that student organizations come in and out of existence so frequently that the two counts were probably taken at different times. Both are strongly reliable (i.e. official) sources, but even despite that, would you recommend sticking to one number/calculation simply for clarity's sake? It wouldn't hurt the article to simply omit the one or the other. Dylan 23:15, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

• Eh, doesn't really matter about the number that much. I'd just leave it how it is. I, too, didn't think "Class of 2010" etc. was capitalized, but I was just going off of the Dartmouth Admissions site statistics page (http://www.dartmouth.edu/apply/generalinfo/quickfacts/quickfacts-admissions.html), which capitalized it. In regards to the rendering of having a space or a "&nbsp;", it usually wouldn't make a difference, but it depends on your monitor size. If the two words are at the very right end and a "&nbsp;" is used, the two words will appear on the left side on the next line. This is often used with measurements so as to not separate the number from the unit. However, most of the time, there's no difference just because of the low likelihood that it appears on the very edge. -Bluedog423^Talk 23:21, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

• What do you think of the lead now? I've been working on it bit by bit, and I feel it's a bit more even and summary-like. The only thing it excludes in major body sections is "Insignia," because it seems hard to summarize that in a sentence or two (what can you say about the seal, motto, song, mascot, etc. in that short a section? That Dartmouth has them?). Dylan 01:14, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

• Definitely much better and more representative of the entire article. Good job! The article has improved greatly overall, and I'll withdraw my objection and perhaps even support it shortly. ;) I didn't look at the Insignia and other representations and Alumni sections closely, but they look fine to me. It might be nice to add a picture or two (free ones of course) of alumni. -Bluedog423^Talk 02:13, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

• Great! I added two pictures [39]. Dylan 13:26, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support - Ya, I think it's ready. -Bluedog423^Talk 22:09, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

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