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Discussion about how to resolve the "degrees" sub-section seems to have stalled out as the discussion pivoted to talk of an editor's off-WP recruitment into a conspiracy being masterminded by the alumni club and the deposed heir to the duchy of Alsace-Lorraine or something.
To get back on track, I'm wondering if we can get a quick, non-RfC sentiment check to see where we netted out on this?

Should content between "At the postgraduate..." and "... Gender Studies" be ...

• A: ... deleted and replaced with "At the postgraduate level, the department offers nine master's programmes and four PhD programmes".
• B: Left as is
• C: Something else

Chetsford (talk) 01:57, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I love quiche. @Chetsford: What do you think and why? I am leaning toward A but I am going to ping @PARAKANYAA: so I can steal their opinion and present it as my own. Polygnotus (talk) 03:52, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, so this was why that redirect got nominated for deletion... after reading the page and the very interesting talk page history, I'm inclined towards A. It would depend on if this is typically included information in similar articles of an equal or higher quality, which from my search it does not seem to be. Given it's entirely sourced to the pages of the respective programs and not any secondary source, it makes me lean towards A, as that's very catalog-type and not encyclopedic information. I don't think this reads particularly promotionally though, more an issue of due weight. PARAKANYAA (talk) 04:05, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging @Cordless Larry and Helmut.groetzi-genf: who may or may not have an opinion about these things. Polygnotus (talk) 05:13, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The first option sounds best to me. Cordless Larry (talk) 12:58, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Chetsford: To me, it looks like we have enough of a consensus here. Would you do the honours? Polygnotus (talk) 01:09, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 Done Chetsford (talk) 02:44, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Polygnotus (talk) 03:08, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The next item that was discussed, but the discussion diverted, is resolution of the table. Here are some options that have been discussed. Apologies if I missed anything.

• A: Replace the table with the pre-table version in which they're presented as a bullet-point list (see: [1]).
• B: Delete the table and move all its references to the sentence "Ten specialised centres are housed within the department".
• C: Keep the table.
• D: Do something else.

Chetsford (talk) 03:04, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

B or C. I added the table [2] in the first place merely as a preferred way of presenting the information that was originally in a bullet-point list per MOS:DLIST which suggests tables are preferred "when more than 2 pieces of information are of interest to each list item". At the time, I didn't have an opinion either way as to its inclusion or non-inclusion. That said, this information may be qualitatively different than the list of degrees since, from my cursory online search, it appears the centres produce research under their own names and this table may be useful to our readers seeking to understand the relationship between, for instance, the Centre for Geopolitics and the Cambridge Department of Politics (indeed, it may be helpful to turn the name of each centre itself into a redirect). Two of the ten centres may be marginal WP:N and so, IMO, we risk getting into an eventual position in which we only name two centres and leave the other eight a mystery, or we acknowledge in some way that all ten exist. Chetsford (talk) 03:04, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging User:Polygnotus, User:Cordless Larry, User:Helmut.groetzi-genf, User:PARAKANYAA, User:Dm980cam, User:Daronandon. Sorry if I missed anyone. Chetsford (talk) 03:07, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Chetsford: Which 2 may have marginal notability? The table takes up a lot of space because the, in my view, unnecessary additions of fluff like the logos and the names of the directors. I expect that our readers don't have to be told that the focus of the Centre of African Studies is African studies and the focus of the Centre of Development Studies is Development studies. Graphic design is very difficult and most of these logos look horrible, especially in dark mode. (sorry not sorry). So I would keep the table (option C) but also remove the fluff (option D). A simple table containing only the names of the centres should be fine imo. I am also fine with adding a second column for the URLs if people feel strongly that these should be included. A sentence with 10 references like option B feels like WP:OR to me, you'd need a source that says there are 10 centres. I am also not opposed to option A. Polygnotus (talk) 03:19, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'd agree that, if we remove all information other than the centre names, we should go back to A, or preferably D (a list in narrative, versus bullet-point, form). There's no point in having a table with only one piece of information in each row, tables should only be used if presenting multiple pieces of information across each unit. A bulleted list with ten bullets exceeds good taste, which is why my preference would be a narrative form list if we go that route. Chetsford (talk) 03:40, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Polygnotus (talk) 03:44, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Having a table there looks odd and much of the detail is irrelevant (unless the aim is to demonstrate that Cambridge has been unsuccessful in establishing a unified visual identity). I would think it would be better to give just the names of the centres and possibly their focus (where this isn't obvious from the name) as a narrative list. Robminchin (talk) 04:28, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The focus of these centres is already a subset of their names, there are no cases where it isn't obvious. Assuming people understand that the Cambridge Centre for Political Thought focuses on Political theory. Polygnotus (talk) 04:34, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Overall, I don't want to get involved in this conversation. I want to focus on accuracy rather than form. As long as it mentions 10 centres rather than 7 or 12 then I'm good.

Just for information, Polygnotus mentions the need for 'a source that says there are 10 centres'. It's on the department website. I've had mixed messages about whether the POLIS website is referenceable, but there is a page that includes more information about all the centres. If we say 10 centres without the full list then we could link it to that: https://www.polis.cam.ac.uk/about-us/centres-and-institutes Dm980cam (talk) 10:16, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure what mixed messages you've received, but of course the POLIS website is referenceable. See WP:ABOUTSELF. And that source would be fine for the claim that there are 10 Centres and Institutes. Polygnotus (talk) 17:49, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The current table doesn't serve readers well. Importantly, it also violates Wikipedia guidelines and practices. The external links clearly violate WP:EL and WP:NOTDIR. The directors are overly detailed and fail WP:DUE, in my opinion. And the logos don't seem necessary or helpful. If this information is important enough to include in this (or any other) article, you should be able to write a few lines about each of the items in the table to provide readers with the necessary context. So I recommend scrapping the table and developing prose. A bulleted list where each centre gets a brief entry with a few lines of prose would serve readers well. ElKevbo (talk) 04:50, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with this approach. Chetsford (talk) 05:08, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'd favour B (perhaps with one or two of the more notabe centres mentioned by name as examples) first. Failing that, A. Cordless Larry (talk) 18:40, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The "notable people" section has the irrelevant examples template. How should this be resolved?

• A: Delete the entire section
• B: Delete the notability descriptions associated with each name
• C: Delete any persons included without a reference
• D: Delete the alumni
• E: Delete the faculty
• F: Keep as-is
• G: Something else
• H through Z∞: Selectively delete the following individuals: _____, _____, _____, etc.

Chetsford (talk) 03:29, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• C or B Lists of notable alumni are so common across the encyclopedia, both at the university and departmental levels, that it's nearly an unwritten MOS maxim. The excessive examples template relates to our guideline MOS:LONGSEQ which does not suggest we remove WP:N persons from a list-in-article because we don't subjectively think they're "N-enough", but because "material within a list should relate to the article topic without going into unnecessary detail". The list has all but the bare minimum of detail already: a list of names and brief notability descriptions. The only way, therefore, that this could be truncated per LONGSEQ is to either remove the names of the people or remove the brief notability descriptions and removing their names would be nonsensical. One possible other option would be to spin this off into a standalone list, though it's not an option I'd support as the list is so short already that we'd just be creating a target for nomination to merge back here. Chetsford (talk) 03:29, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Pinging User:Polygnotus, User:Cordless Larry, User:Helmut.groetzi-genf, User:PARAKANYAA, User:Dm980cam, User:Daronandon. Sorry if I missed anyone. Chetsford (talk) 03:35, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Should we interpret *F: Keep as-is as: "Every notable person can be mentioned, no matter how irrelevant"? Polygnotus (talk) 04:25, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think we need to write for our readers. People are allowed to post WP:FANCRUFT to their personal webpages, but it has no place on Wikipedia. The University of Cambridge has existed since before dinosaurs invented barbecue sauce. The amount of notable people who attended is in the hundreds or thousands. Looking at Wikipedia:Good_article_criteria#The_six_good_article_criteria it says: it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style). The level of detail is clearly WP:UNDUE. A section like Notable alumni is basically useless to 99% of readers. Because its a sea of blue links you can't even click a specific link on mobile. While the uni may or may not have had a large influence on the individual, the individual often had little to no influence on a uni that has existed for 816 years (usually they became notable after leaving the uni, for a different reason, and only spent a small portion of their life there). It is clearly excessive to list every single person who has ever been there as a student or a teacher or a janitor. I am fine with keeping people who have made a deep lasting impact on the uni. I am also not opposed to saying x presidents x prime ministers x Nobel laureates and x heads of state et cetera (if a source can be found). Polygnotus (talk) 03:42, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"The University of Cambridge has existed since before dinosaurs invented barbecue sauce. The amount of notable people who attended is in the hundreds or thousands." I'd generally disagree with the notion that some sections that are appropriate for Florida Polytechnic University are inappropriate for Cambridge which is the route we're going down by uniquely proscribing this very common section in our univ articles (described extensively in our widely used essay WP:UNIGUIDE) for this specific university. Moreover, this specific department -- insofar as I can tell -- has only existed for 15 years so it's not like we're pulling in 800 years of people. Chetsford (talk) 03:51, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Chetsford:I'd generally disagree with the notion that some sections that are appropriate for Florida Polytechnic University are inappropriate for Cambridge But that is the essence of WP:SPLIT. We can't treat all topics the same because not all topic fit the same mold. Not being flexible is not an option because there is such a wide range of encyclopedic topics. Thanks for linking to WP:UNIGUIDE, I wasn't aware of that, and it says Individual notable alumni should be mentioned only in extraordinary cases; typically, statistics such as "X Nobel laureates" are preferred which is excellent advice and precisely what I've been trying to say. Polygnotus (talk) 03:55, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The part of UNIGUIDE you cited refers to the lead of the article, not the body. Further down, it suggests we include a section titled "Noted People": "This section should give a sense of the extent to which persons with well-known deeds or highly significant accomplishments are or have been associated with the school (as by attendance there or by being on staff or faculty). For most schools this might take the form of a list of people meeting Wikipedia's notability standards (each with perhaps a very brief descriptive phrase), where such a list would not be excessively long." The current list is compliant with UNIGUIDE. The suggestion to remove it is to override our long-standing and widespread precedent and apply a unique requirement on this university, and only this, university. Chetsford (talk) 04:01, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Chetsford: See Wikipedia:College_and_university_article_advice#Other_sections_and_material. No, the idea that articles should not have excessive focus on irrelevant details/fancruft is not a new suggestion, and I am not sure why you try to frame it as such. And UNIGUIDE says limiting the explicit list to very well-known persons (heads of state, historical figures, etc.) and adding a narrative summary of statistics on such things as Nobel Prizes, other prestigious awards, and so on.. But you've read that already, right? Polygnotus (talk) 04:06, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That relates to "very old" institutions where the list would be excessively long. This department is 15 years old and the list here has like 30 people on it. Chetsford (talk) 04:23, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The department is not the institution, obviously, and the institution is over 800 years old. Polygnotus (talk) 04:24, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This institution - the Department of Politics at the University of Cambridge - is not the University of Cambridge. It is a child institution housed within its parent. There is zero concern here we are going to have to include hundreds of alumni dating back to 1387 if the department has only been around since 2009. Chetsford (talk) 04:26, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Please respond below, I created a new subheader. Polygnotus (talk) 04:29, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is correct – the 'institution' in the UNIGUIDE clearly refers to the subject of the article. Robminchin (talk) 15:27, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The relevant part of UNIGUIDE is For very old, very large, or very prestigious schools it may be more appropriate to use categories ("Alumni of", "Faculty of", etc. note that "Alumni" categories are only for former students, including graduates; current students are not considered alumni) instead, limiting the explicit list to very well-known persons (heads of state, historical figures, etc.) and adding a narrative summary of statistics on such things as Nobel Prizes, other prestigious awards, and so on. so it is unclear what you are referring to. Polygnotus (talk) 18:18, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The guideline about individual notable alumni is for the lead, not the body, so isn't relevant here. What is relevant is the section on noted people, which says "For most schools this might take the form of a list of people meeting Wikipedia's notability standards (each with perhaps a very brief descriptive phrase), where such a list would not be excessively long. For very old, very large, or very prestigious schools it may be more appropriate to use categories ("Alumni of", "Faculty of", etc." There doesn't seem to be any reason not do to this here, as there isn't sufficient material to split off a list article. Robminchin (talk) 04:08, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That is incorrect. See Wikipedia:College_and_university_article_advice#Other_sections_and_material. And it was already explained over at Talk:University_of_Oxford#Notable_alumni. I will build my Evil Genius lair at the Arecibo Observatory. Polygnotus (talk) 04:09, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:College_and_university_article_advice#Other_sections_and_material appears to just be you complaining to Robminchin and TSventon about the list of alumni at the University of Oxford article. Is there a consensus there that you're referring to that I'm missing? Chetsford (talk) 04:41, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think you posted the wrong link, and yes you are missing something. Polygnotus (talk) 04:44, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You're right, sorry. Correct link: Talk:University_of_Oxford#Notable_alumni. But it still just seems to be you yelling at Robminchin and TSventon?Chetsford (talk) 05:03, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What is incorrect? That you quoted from the section on the lead of the article is incontrovertible and my quote was directly from the section on noted people.

In~the discussion you link you say that "While the uni may or may not have had a large influence on the individual, the individual often had little to no influence on a uni that has existed for 928 years" and that you are "fine with keeping people who have made a deep lasting impact on the un", but there is nothing in WP:UNIGUIDE to support this view and you received no support for it in that discussion. Instead, the guide says: "This section should give a sense of the extent to which persons with well-known deeds or highly significant accomplishments are or have been associated with the school (as by attendance there or by being on staff or faculty)." Robminchin (talk) 15:23, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What is incorrect? You wrote: The guideline about individual notable alumni is for the lead, not the body, so isn't relevant here. But if you look at Wikipedia:College_and_university_article_advice#Other_sections_and_material you see that it is not about the lead at all, but about the Noted people section (aka Notable alumni/Notable people). And WP:UNIGUIDE is not a guideline but an advice page. See WP:CONLEVEL and all that. my quote was directly from the section on noted people Exactly, the section on Noted people and not the lead, so why do you claim that UNIGUIDE is only for the lead? This is such a weird discussion. Polygnotus (talk) 17:58, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Should we interpret *F: Keep as-is as: "Every notable person can be mentioned, no matter how irrelevant"? I don't know what "irrelevant" means in this context. You've previously indicated that you believe Nadine Chahine is "irrelevant". I guess you don't like her or something? Not sure. I think if there are specific people you really don't like and want removed, then you'd opine for H through Z and demand we exile Nadine Chahine to the Phantom Zone. I'd assume we should interpret F as '"compliance with the advice of WP:UNIGUIDE": every notable person should be kept until the list is too long and needs to be spun-off into a standalone article. Chetsford (talk) 04:48, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You clearly misinterpret UNIGUIDE, which aligns with my views. Have you read it? I posted a link to it. And I asked you to explain why you believe that, below. And no, I don't know who these people are, which is the point I am making obviously. No one knows who those people are, which means that their inclusion in that list is not helpful to anyone. Polygnotus (talk) 04:51, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"No one knows who those people are, which means that their inclusion in that list is not helpful to anyone." Uhhhh ... okay. Chetsford (talk) 05:01, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

They should, by definition, be notable people to have a Wikipedia article. If you believe nobody knows who they are, then that's something to be discussed on those articles. Robminchin (talk) 15:15, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Notable is not the same as well-known/famous. These people meet the requirements in WP:NOTABLE. But so do I. A list of names of people who meet the requirements of GNG or one of our SNGs is unhelpful to the readers because in most cases the reader has no clue who those people are. There are an insane amount of WP:BLPs on Wikipedia. It may be of interest to a reader that someone very famous went to the same uni/school. But how does it help people to known that someone they don't know who barely met GNG or one of the SNGs went to that school? Polygnotus (talk) 18:07, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Can you explain why you believe we need to tell the average reader that Nadine Chahine went to this department? Or Rohan Sajdeh? How does that information help them? Polygnotus (talk) 04:28, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Robminchin: Since Chetsford keeps dodging this question, can you answer it? How does the information that some barely notable unknowns attended help the casual reader of an article about a department of a uni? If you can't answer this question then there is no added value, right? Polygnotus (talk) 18:21, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Probably because it's already been answered: "This section should give a sense of the extent to which persons with well-known deeds or highly significant accomplishments are or have been associated with the school (as by attendance there or by being on staff or faculty). For most schools this might take the form of a list of people meeting Wikipedia's notability standards (each with perhaps a very brief descriptive phrase), where such a list would not be excessively long."

As noted below, inclusion of such lists is standard in articles with GA status, as being consistent with the GA requirements for staying on-topic without giving unnecessary detail. There is little doubt that there is community consensus to include such lists. Robminchin (talk) 18:39, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

But you've yet to answer it. The question is How does the information that some barely notable unknowns attended help the casual reader of an article about a department of a uni? How can I tell the extent to which persons with well-known deeds or highly significant accomplishments are or have been associated with the school based on the information that some barely notable unknowns attended? If I don't know who someone is, and their BLP shows they only barely are notable, how does listing their name help me determine the extent to which persons with well-known deeds or highly significant accomplishments are or have been associated with the school? And if that is the goal, we should just use summary style as recommended by UNIGUIDE and list only those who are very very famous. Polygnotus (talk) 18:46, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Can you explain why you believe we need to tell the average reader that Nadine Chahine went to this department? How does that information help them? Polygnotus (talk) 04:28, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Since our project-wide modus operandi is to either include lists of notable alumni, or spin them off into a new article, (see: WP:UNIGUIDE) that's not the right question to ask. The right question is: can you explain why you believe we need to hide the fact that Nadine Chahine went to this department? How does concealing this information from readers assist in their comprehension of this topic? Chetsford (talk) 04:41, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Chetsford: No, we are writing an encyclopedia with the goal to inform people, not an indiscriminate collection of information. So please don't dodge the question but try to answer it. How does the information that some barely notable unknowns attended help the casual reader of an article about a department of a uni? If you can't answer this question then there is no added value, right? See WP:ONUS. Polygnotus (talk) 04:43, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not "dodging" the question, it's just not the right forum for it. The discussion to deviate from our longstanding precedent of including notable alumni in institutional articles needs to be a holistic one, not limited to to this article unless you can enunciate a clear reason why we need to apply unique criteria to this one, specific article that we don't apply elsewhere. Which you haven't done. You're welcome to take it up at the Higher Education WikiProject, though, and I'll be happy to answer it there. Chetsford (talk) 04:59, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Chetsford: Please answer the question where it was asked. And, like I stated before, the idea that articles should not have excessive focus on irrelevant details/fancruft is not a new suggestion, and I am not sure why you try to frame it as such. If you can't answer why these people need to be included, then why are you here arguing for their inclusion? Polygnotus (talk) 05:01, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Nawww, I think you kinda jumped the shark with this: "No one knows who those people are, which means that their inclusion in that list is not helpful to anyone." Thanks for the interesting discussion, though! Chetsford (talk) 05:05, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You used this trick already. Boring. Polygnotus (talk) 05:08, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I am of the strong opinion that the common practice in college and university articles of including lengthy, indiscriminate lists of notable people serve our readers very poorly. We should leave the lists to list articles and in focus on crafting informative prose with helpful examples in this and other articles. ElKevbo (talk) 04:46, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, advocating for absolutely unconditional inclusion, without any exceptions, is likely not a widely held opinion. Polygnotus (talk) 04:49, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"absolutely unconditional inclusion, without any exceptions, is likely not a widely held opinion" Agreed. Fortunately WP:UNIGUIDE establishes a standard of conditional inclusion, namely: "people meeting Wikipedia's notability standards". Chetsford (talk) 05:11, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You clearly misinterpret UNIGUIDE, which aligns with my views. And that is not the standard of inclusion according to UNIGUIDE. Polygnotus (talk) 05:13, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have a horse in this race; I just want to point out that, regardless of what WP:UNIGUIDE says, there are vastly different precedents for alumni and faculty lists. The two universities I tend to use as direct comparators are Oxford and Harvard. Oxford Politics only lists a dozen alumni and no faculty and the Harvard Kennedy School lists about 150 alumni and 75 faculty. So, the fact that POLIS is somewhere in between might be about right.

Fun Fact: Florida Polytechnic University, which Chetsford mentioned earlier, lists neither alumni nor faculty. Dm980cam (talk) 11:14, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I will just note that it would be better to look at GA or FA articles. The Harvard article is clearly way over the top and should be summarised in this instance. The Oxford list is much shorter, but most of the people they lost for not actually attend the department the article is about (which was founded in 2000), so that's not exactly great as a guide either. At 33 alumni, this article has a much shorter list than Harvard but it is long enough that presenting it as a narrative list would be better than the current bulleted list. Robminchin (talk) 15:38, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at FA and GA-class articles for sub-university entities is a good idea. It does seem there is a wide degree of variance: those who include notable people in a bullet list (Oxford College of Emory University and Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science), those who list only a selection of alumni in a bullet list with "main article" links to a holistic list (University of Missouri School of Music), those who use narrative form (Marriott_School_of_Business#Alumni). (The only thing I can't find are articles in which editors vote on which notable persons are in the "No one knows who those people are"" class and should be concealed from readers.) Chetsford (talk) 16:19, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Let's look at the criteria for FA:

It stays focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail and uses summary style where appropriate.

And GA:

it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).

Polygnotus (talk) 18:11, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So including such lists, as is done in those GA articles, is clearly consistent with staying focused on the topic and is not considered unnecessary detail. I also note that two of these have been relatively recently considered as FA candidates and the inclusion of the list was not picked up as an issue in either case. Robminchin (talk) 18:36, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Robminchin: So you disagree with this other guy who happens to also use the name Robminchin? See Talk:University_of_Oxford#Notable_alumni. I agree that GA/FA reviews leave much to be desired if that is your point. Polygnotus (talk) 18:39, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That was discussing an article for a large university (60,000 students) that's almost 200 years old, clearly falling into the "very old, very large, or very prestigious schools" category, and where there was a split-off article already covering alumni in detail (which is four times larger than this entire article). This is an article about a department less than 2% of that size and less than 10% of that age, which is why we are looking at GAs on similar sized sub-university entities. Robminchin (talk) 18:50, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

But I am obviously not just talking about this article. And the idea that it makes little sense to list a bunch of names of barely notable people applies to both large and small schools/unis/departments/whatever. Rohan Sajdeh is probably a lovely person but it does not help the readers of this article in any way to tell them that he attended this department on this article. Polygnotus (talk) 18:53, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is the discussion page for this article, and discussion here should be about this article. If you want to discuss this more generally you need to take it to a different venue. Robminchin (talk) 18:56, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That is not how Wikipedia works, many discussions start somewhere and then later get moved or referenced in a more suitable location. And I agree with what appears to be the consensus. Polygnotus (talk) 18:58, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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A recent, informal discussion produced a lot of opinions but no clear consensus.

Should the "notable people" section in this article be:

• A: Deleted
• B: Kept as a bulleted list of notable people
• C: Converted to prose description / narrative list of notable people
• D: Converted to prose description / narrative list and limited to the following people: ______, ______, _______, etc.
• E: Something else

(I included the above options as those that appear to have been supported by at least one person in the informal discussion. My apologies if I missed or misrepresented something.) Chetsford (talk) 20:11, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• B or C without prejudice to revisiting if the list were to grow to 40+ names in the future. A "noted/notable people" section is a customary fixture for university articles and is widely incorporated even in our sub-institutional FA/GA articles (see: [3], [4], [5], [6], etc.). WP:UNIGUIDE provides guidance as to how to address these sections: "For most schools this might take the form of a list of people meeting Wikipedia's notability standards". An alternate approach is provided by UNIGUIDE for lists that would be excessively long, but that doesn't really apply here as we only have about 30 names. Arbitrarily selecting a subset of notable people based on our subjective opinion of who is "famous" is neither a best practices approach nor one we use anywhere else and should not be uniquely applied to this specific article without a clear and compelling reason. Chetsford (talk) 20:11, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• This is clearly another attempt to sidestep the discussion and existing consensus while misrepresenting my POV. Unfortunately we don't have a great way to deal with RFCs that are not WP:RFCNEUTRAL so it is easy to game the system. Polygnotus (talk) 20:33, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Now you are doing it again. Another WP:POINTY RFC. Facepalm And again its not WP:RFCNEUTRAL. And the option I am arguing in favor of is not even listed. Polygnotus (talk) 20:15, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry you feel that way. Please feel free to add your preferred option. Chetsford (talk) 20:17, 2 December 2024 (UTC); edited 20:40, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I very much doubt that. Polygnotus (talk) 20:18, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Chetsford: you added Please feel free to add your preferred option. but that would require rewriting the question so that it actually deals with what the discussion was about. An RFC is in the question-answers format so I cannot add my preferred answer without rewriting the question. So if you genuinely want to have a fair RFC where both sides get the chance to present their point of view, then delete this entire RFC. You have my permission to remove this entire section including my comments. Then we can work together to make a new RFC. Polygnotus (talk) 20:43, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I think it's fine as is. Chetsford (talk) 20:46, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Chetsford: How incredibly unsurprising. It is only a problem if you want to fairly represent both sides of a discussion. Polygnotus (talk) 20:47, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]