Talk:List of University of British Columbia alumni

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Vancouver Portal
This article is part of WikiProject Vancouver, an attempt to better organize information in articles related to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and the surrounding metropolitan area. To participate, edit the article attached to this page or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
List This article has been rated as List-Class on the quality scale.
Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the importance scale.
If you have rated this article please consider adding assessment comments.

[edit] Sorted?

This list seems to be sorted by name but also loosely sorted by each person's notable characteristic (profession, etc.), such as "Canadian Prime Minister". Are we going with name, profession or arbitrary sorting? Andrewjuren(talk) 00:27, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] References

Is there any reason what this list needs to cite its sources? I don't see what needs verifying. This is a list to articles about alumni from UBC and each article contains its own references. Andrewjuren(talk) 02:03, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

References are required to prove they went to UBC, not that they're notable necessarily, though not everyone on the list has an article. It's part of the policy of verifiability. Every featured list that we have, all CITES references in the list. J 02:19, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
I offer an apology. I didn't see your message on the talk page when I did my edit summary. J 02:21, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
The purpose, to answer your question, is to encourage people to add citations for the existing list, and to add citations for new additions. Perhaps someone or a bot will go through and add citations where they already exist. J 03:03, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

GreenJoe (J), can you cite a Wikipedia policy which says that each entry in a list must cite a source even if the article for that entry cites verifiable sources which justify its inclusion on the list? I ask because I've been through the issue of verifiability of "alumni lists" for a city and a secondary school. I've not been able to find such a policy, and I've had other editors push back on demands for redundant citations. The only discussion of this issue which I've found ended with everyone except me skeptical that it's worth having an explicit policy on verifying alumni status. So, J, I would be happy if you could point to a policy statement that represents a consensus of editors. I'd like to apply it. But if you don't, then perhaps what you're insisting on for this article is your personal judgement, not a Wikipedia policy or even rough consensus. --Jdlh | Talk 21:28, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

The policy I hold out for on other pages is this. I also propose it for this list. I think it's less strict than what GreenJoe (J) is requesting. --Jdlh | Talk 21:28, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

  • Proposal 1: follow WP policy on Wikipedia:Notability (people)#Lists of people. This says that "the list should be limited to notable people: those that already have a Wikipedia article or could plausibly have one, per this guideline." This may call for deleting some people on the list that aren't notable. --Jdlh | Talk 21:28, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Proposal 2: where a person on the list does not have an article already (i.e. has a red link), check to see if the person used to have an article, which was deleted because they weren't notable. In that case, delete the person from the list. Otherwise, they may stay on the list but, in the spirit of the WP policy on attribution to reliable sources, there should be a footnote attached to their name with a citation showing their local connection. If there's no footnote, it's appropriate to put on a "fact" tag saying a citation is needed. --Jdlh | Talk 21:28, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Proposal 3: where a person on the list does have an article, but the article does not mention the local connection, then the editor adding the notable citizen to the list should add a statement to the person's article, documenting their local connection, with attribution to a reliable source. If there's no such statement in the person's article, it's appropriate to put a "fact" tag on the person's entry in the list to show the article is missing evidence for a local connection, and perhaps the person doesn't belong on the list. If it seems likely that there is no local connection, delete the name from the list. --Jdlh | Talk 21:28, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Proposal 4: where a person on the list has an article, and the article mentions a local connection, but there's no attribution to a reliable source, then it's appropriate to put a "fact" tag against that unsupported mention of a local connection. In this case there's no tag on the name in the list. --Jdlh | Talk 21:28, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not feeling great today, so I'm simply going to skip ahead to the RFC. J 22:10, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request for Comment

The discussion is: A few people affiliated with UBC doubt that this list needs to cite sources. J 22:18, 23 October 2007 (UTC)