Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/Walter Byers Scholarship/archive1

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

The list was not promoted 15:42, 14 February 2008.

[edit] List of Walter Byers Scholars

I am nominating this list because it is complete and encyclopedic. FLC is a good place for feedback for this list since peer review does not accept lists. My biggest concern is whether I should attempt to further link the names. The first half dozen names I was able to link were quite notable. I have begun to try to link more and the notability has been marginal. Feedback here would help I am sure.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 18:27, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I did a quick read, and my comments are pretty random... Your essay on notability and celebrity (and/or lack thereof) left a bad taste in my mouth. The content about g-test results definitely does not belong. However, I wondered why the intro or table did not provide information on the Byers Scholars who later received Rhodes scholarships (including the red-linked Brad Henderson). --Orlady (talk) 20:51, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Henderson was under construction when you saw the redlink. It now exists. I took out the g-test controversy. Is the notability section still in bad taste? I added some commentary about other major awards.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 21:34, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I have concerns about criteria 1a1, which is sometimes excuseable if it meets 1a3, but I'm not entirely sure if a list of winners of a scholarship is a "significant topic of study". As well, since there is no "Walter Byers Scholar" article, the list should be moved there. Even if it is mainly a list, the article is predominantly about the scholarship. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 21:41, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

The list was originally at "Walter Byers Scholar," but I felt it was more of a list. The fact that it has a solid list does not really make it an article. I am fairly certain if I took it to WP:PR they would say it is a list. I feel it passes 1(a), but am not sure what your point is on what constitutes a topic of study. It is as much a topic of study as may episode lists or chapter lists that have passed 1a3, IMO.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 22:33, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Scorpion is right. If there's no article about the program (apparently correctly titled Walter Byers Postgraduate Scholarship Program, according to this link), then there's no purpose in a separate list of recipients. Rename the article. --Orlady (talk) 22:42, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Redirects exist so an admin will have to do the move.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 22:48, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Oppose. Not really a list. (Meanwhile, I have proposed the article for retitling.) --Orlady (talk) 16:30, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

• Comment I personally think forking a list out of this would be wrong because persons who want to know about the scholarship will generally want to know about its past winners and people who want to know about past winners want to know about the scholarship, IMO. However, a fork would be easy to do.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 19:47, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
• Comment I think this is a case where a well developed lead for a list is causing it to be thought of differently than a stubby lead.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 23:11, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I have to disagree. This is an article that includes an embedded list. Because the article is fairly short, there is no reason to split the list off as a separate article. This is a good thing; it is an informative article that does not need to be split due to length constraints. Isn't the the creation of useful content (not the accumulation of Wikipedia "trophies") main purpose of contributing to Wikipedia? --Orlady (talk) 03:35, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
    • This is not a debate about trophies. I am just stating that the only reason I can see for the article to be rejected as a featured list is that there may be a problem with the fact that only half of the the two most important columns have linkable articles. I think debating whether it is an article or a list with a thorough lead is a bunch of malarkey. I have seen lists that were only partly linkable make it and I have seen lists with leads this long make it. For example, a list I created List of recordings preserved in the United States National Recording Registry has a lot of unlinked content and an equally long lead.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 06:10, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Allow me to illustrate the foolishness of calling this an article by comparing it to the my successfull WP:FLC noms in terms of text before the main table:

Since this format is meaningful to you, I've taken the liberty of adding two more columns to your table (identifiable by different background in the header row) that I think highlight some of the key differences between the Walter Byers article and your earlier successful FL nominations. My issue is not the length of the introduction but topical focus. This Walter Byers article is a topical article that appropriately includes an embedded list. Those other lists were extensive sidebars branched off from parent articles into which the lists could not reasonably be embedded (with the possible exception of List of recordings preserved in the United States National Recording Registry, which I think could be merged into National Recording Registry). --Orlady (talk) 14:34, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

You stumped me for a second because I had not noticed the National Collegiate Athletic Association#Awards section. However, I do not follow the logic of your argument after further review.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 17:50, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

For the record, under "Parent article", for the Walter Byers Award you changed my table entry of "none" to NCAA. I stand by my initial assertion. Note that all the other non-red links for awards programs in National Collegiate Athletic Association#Awards point to articles about the award (not lists of recipients). Most of those articles have embedded lists (specifically, NCAA Award of Valor, NCAA Gerald R. Ford Award, NCAA Woman of the Year Award, The Flying Wedge Award, and Theodore Roosevelt Award (NCAA)) and Silver Anniversary Awards (NCAA) and Today's Top VIII Award point to separate lists (in my opinion, both of those lists could be embedded in the main articles, but that's for another discussion). --Orlady (talk) 18:07, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I think the first five of the articles you point to above are lists that are not good enough to be featured because they have not been put in tables, but lists nonetheless.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 16:23, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I have to disagree. Those are articles. If they are to achieve featured-like status, it would be as Good Articles, not as Featured Lists. --Orlady (talk) 17:31, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

You are free to disagree.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 20:05, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

• Comment - the list of 'other awards' needs cleaning up, it's poor form to just list last names like that I think, and it implies that these are the only people to be on both lists - make that explicit if true. --Golbez (talk) 03:44, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Is this better?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 18:20, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
• Support I tried to puzzle out a way to add the year they won they Byers scholarship to the list of multiple winners, but that doesn't seem possible. Circeus (talk) 15:30, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose I'm struggling with the whole "significant topic of study" yet despite winning this award, these people are (generally) utterly non-notable and have, by and large, gone on to non-sporting careers. Some of the linked names are just two-line stubs that look destined for AfD. OK, it is a national award, but college scholarships aren't exactly uncommon. BTW: peer review does look at lists. Colin°^Talk 13:15, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose, a lot of concerns above but should they (somehow!) be addressed, the list doesn't work for me as follows:
  • Six paragraphs in the lead?!
  • Most of the people in the table are non-notable - I'm not sure what WP:FLC criteria this is attempting to meet. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:04, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.