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University of Oklahoma

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The is the 3rd PR for this article (first, second). It's been awhile since the previous PR but I was going to try to get this FA if it is ready and would appreciate any and all feedback.--NMajdan•talk 16:27, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Anybody?--NMajdan•talk 14:48, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
My nomination (3 above on Baby Gender Mentor) is not getting any takers either. I'll look at yours if you'll look at mine?  :-) Seriously, I'll take a look for you but I won't have time until later in the week. Best, Johntex\talk 18:25, 8 January 2007 (UTC) PS I'd love your feedback on the 2005 Longhorns peer review.[reply]

Johntex

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OK, I took the very briefest of looks. Obviously, it is a very well written article. I will try to find anything that might merit improvement.

  • In my first glance-over, my eye happened to fall on the Tragedies section. The first sentence is "Recently, there have been several tragedies on the OU campus." I think there are several problems with that. First is "recently" - which could be confusing since it may mean different things to different people. The second is that any good-sized campus is going to have tragedies - what is notable about these two? The third is that "several" to me implies three or more, yet only two are discussed. I would suggest changing the sentence to "Since 2004, two tragic events have had an impact on the campus." Or, "Since 2000 there have been two tragic events that garnered wide-spread media attention." Finally, this section falls in line with the history sections, but it is really focused on a topic (tragedies) rather than a specific time period. That seems a little non-paralel to me. Johntex\talk 18:34, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • More on the above thought - both tragedies occured under the presidency of David Boren, and his precedency already has a heading, so maybe just remove the heading for tragedies? Also, the paragraph on the bombing links (via redirect) to 2005 University of Oklahoma bombing. So, in a sense it is sourced already, but I think it would be worthwhile to bring over one reference from the bombing article. Particularly one that supports the assertion that conspiracry theories related to Islamic extremism were bandied about. Johntex\talk 18:42, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, you're right. I may completely remove the fraternity death as I don't know if its significant enough to be in an encyclopedic article. But I'll work on that section.--NMajdan•talk 18:48, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I made some changes. Let me know what you think.--NMajdan•talk 19:02, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I am going back to try to finish my review right now. Johntex\talk 03:31, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

These are some more thoughts. Don't feel you have to change each one if there is a good reason behind the current text. These are just ideas.

  • Lead
    • Consider specifying approximately how many students at the main campus, instead of saying "the vast majority".
    • Consider saying "is the sponsor of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature" instead of "is the home of" - I think the former would be more clear.
    • "The school is very well-recognized nationwide as a result of the success of its athletic teams." - What does this mean? Does it mean that OU has name-recognition because of the sports programs, or does it mean the sports teams have received recognition. I think you mean the first. You might consider rewording this. I don't know if anyone will claim it needs a source or not.
    • Perhpas change the BCS link to say BCS National Championship Game? And perhaps specify it applies to college football? Also, someone may think the last seven years is an arbitrary period. How about saying, "since the inception of the BCS National Championship Game in 1998" - that also avoids the problem of the text being automatically outdated as the calendar year changes.
    • Wikilink Division IA and Associated Press Poll
    • Wikilink acre and kilometer
  • History
    • wikilink Stillwater?
    • December of 1890 --> December 1890 I think is preferred by the MoS
    • "A new building began construction" - can a building begin construction, or does construction begin on a building?
    • I don't understand how the North Oval was a response to the fire. What is the link there? Can a map or picture show how the two ovals are related and demonstrate their prominence?
      • I would love to be able to create a map for the campus. But I don't know if I'm able to create an svg of it. I may go to the Graphics Lab but it would be a daunting request.-NMajdan•talk
  • Statehood
    • "The Presbyterians and Baptists got along but the Southern Methodists were a different story." - that sentence strikes me as odd for an encyclopedia. Maybe something like "The Presbyterians and Baptists got along but some of the Methodists conflicted with the administration."
    • 167 acres (68 ha) - wikilink hectare - also I see from our hectare article that the term is somewhat obsolete in the SI system, though it doesn't say if there is a replacemnt term.
    • Wikilink Interstate 35 I think
    • How was Mount Norman used as a torpedo target? Is it surrounded by water?
      • Hmmm... I may need to remove this if I can't find my original source.--NMajdan•talk
  • Boren's Presidency
    • Looks good - nothing to recommend
  • Acadmic profile
    • Seems just a little short. Maybe see FA University of Michigan for some ideas.
    • Norman campus
      • 2000 national championship in what?
      • What is a freshman? I don't think the term is used outside of the US.
      • I don't know if the term "major" is US-centric or not. Maybe define it the first time?
  • Campus
    • Norman Campus
      • "mentioned earlier" - might be considered a self-reference, probably not needed.
      • Wikilink fraternity/sorority?
      • Some sports names here might be worth wikilinking, as they don't seem to be linked in the Athletics section
      • Heisman is linked in the Athletics section, but it is first used here.
      • "The Oklahoma administration also prides itself on the aesthetic appeal of the campus. All three campuses (Norman, Oklahoma City, and Tulsa) have beautifully landscaped gardens." - this may need sourcing.
      • South of student housing is Timberdell Road, the unofficial southern boundary of the university. - what makes this "unofficial"? Perhaps "approximate" would be better?
  • Student Life
    • "Located in between Adams and Walker Centers is the Adams/Walker Mall, a field roughly the size of a football field with a basketball court." - is the basketball court part of the size measurement or is there literally a basketball court?
  • Greek life
    • Title may be confusing to those not familiar with the US fraternity/sorority system
      • I removed this section and moved it under the "Student orgs, etc" section.-NMajdan•talk
    • Big 12 Championship Game, and bowl game could be wikilinked
  • Student government
    • "The main governing arm at the school" - really? Above the administration?
  • Athletics
    • seven national championships in football (football championships are not awarded by the NCAA). - perhaps link to Mythical national championship or Division IA football championship.
    • The gymnastics, baseball, and softball teams have also won recent national championships, - the word "recent" is not preferred since it is vague and goes out of date. I suggest "Since 19__"... or "Since 20__"...
    • Wikilink Big 8 Conference
  • Museums and libraries
    • What is ALA?
  • General
    • I notice the U of Michigan article has a link to their Fight Song - does Wikipedia have an article on traditions of OU? School song, fight song, colors,... These may all be linked from the Sooners article, I'm not sure.
    • The University of Michigan article has a "See Also" section. I'm not sure if one would be needed here. I believe the MoS prefers working the links directly into the article wherever possible.
    • I ran the semi-automated peer review script and I pasted its suggestions onto the article's talk page.
    • I think it is an excellent article. Very well done! I think it stands an excellent chance of passing FA. I could certainly support it after the above points are given consideration.

Good luck! Please let me know if there is anything I can help with. Johntex\talk 04:44, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

ExplorerCDT

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This article has given me a few ideas on how to improve the Rutgers University article, and I thank the contributors for writing a pretty good article...one that with minor tweaking will definitely be a solid FA candidate. Great photos (rather quite professional), solid writing. Though, with the images, beacuse of the way they arranged in the article, they leave large swaths of white space because of stacking issues. Also, I would remove the size/pixel parameters on the thumbnail images (there are still a few bound by these) to accomodate user preference settings. Last word about the images...I would tweak up the captions for the photos, because they are rather bland. For instance, the Fred Jones Museum photo...what architectural style? architect? why does stand out from the homogenous collegiate gothic look of the campus? Who cast the "Dreamer" statue? Also, what I did notice is there are a lot of statements that remain unreferenced. A lot of the citations, namely websites, lack access dates and for the magazines, I would include ISSN numbers. (while "optional" on WP:CITE, I would demand them for an FA). So far, though, it looks good, the writing is excellent, and this article is definitely something I'd support for FA after the above minor alterations. —ExplorerCDT 20:48, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

May I ask what resolution monitor you have? I've reviewed the article on a 1024x768 and a 1680x1050 and don't see any major whitespace issues. I'll work on the image captions and I'll review my ref tags as well. Thanks for the advice. I may come back to you with further questions as I start these changes. Thanks again.--NMajdan•talk 20:55, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Brand new monitor, but I'm most comfortable myself with 1028x768 and 300px thumbnails. But when I review articles, I circle around 10 different resolution settings across a few browser programs to see how they'd look in older formats or resolution settings, and in conjunction with various user preferences (like setting thumbnails for 120, 150, 180, and 300px...default without a preference is 180px). (in total about 25 combinations) For 4 of them (mostly smaller resolutions like 800x600, and higher user preferences for thumbnail sizes), it cause stacking issues. Though with a 1028x768 resolution and 300px thumbnail preference setting, the white space is worse than at smaller resolutions or smaller sizes. Feel free to ask as many questions as you need. After all, that's what I'm around for. —ExplorerCDT 21:03, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
How do I find ISSN numbers? Most of my sources are digital and I don't have the hard copy.--NMajdan•talk 14:39, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • If the magazine itself doesn't display it, the Library of Congress usually has catalogue entries for all magazines, in hard copy and digital. If you can't find an ISSN for a magazine (or all of them), I'll take 20 minutes or so to look. —ExplorerCDT 19:52, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I noticed you struck the Fred Jones Museum of Art caption comment without addressing the issue of improving the caption. I was looking for something that summarizes the sentence about how the architecture was chosen as a divorce from the campus's Collegiate Gothic style because of the nature of the collection, as discussed in the section. A caption needs to succinctly state why the image was included, what makes it notable enough to be included. Otherwise, the image doesn't stand out as anything more than a superfluous exercise in "we had a picture and we stuck it in." —ExplorerCDT 19:57, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I typically like to keep captions very brief and I guess I felt having that information in the caption of the Museum of Art image would make it too long. I added information to the actual section.--NMajdan•talk 19:59, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I wasn't able to find an ISSN id for Sooner Magazine on the LoC website, but I did find an LCCN id which I added to the first instance of the ref tag. Would that suffice? If so, I'll add that LCCN id to all refs from Sooner Magazine.--NMajdan•talk 20:10, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • LCCN numbers will lead to an LSSN number if issued. I'll take a peek. —ExplorerCDT 20:13, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • It appears the LOC only issued the Control Number 46043016. There is also a similar publication bearing an LCCN for sv 93021485, I don't know if that's related. If you contacted the magazine's offices, they'd also be able to provide you with an ISSN if issued. It is possible because it is a private publication with a limited circulation that it did not apply or did not get issued an ISSN. —ExplorerCDT 20:22, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

One thing you might consider, for references where there is no listed author, include a parenethetical of (no further authorship information available). —ExplorerCDT 20:23, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

ElKevbo

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I'm making edits as I go through the article but I'll make notes here as I go along.

  • The capitalization of North, South, and Main Campus is inconsistent throughout the article. Are these proper nouns and should they be capitalized throughout the entire article? Or is their usage inconsistent at the institution itself?
    • Hmm... I'd say lower case. I made those changes.--NMajdan•talk
  • "Elm Avenue is primarily the boundary of the academic portion of OU, with a few exceptions." I don't know enough about the campus to fix this sentence. Is the primary purpose of this road really to "bound the academic portion" or is mainly used as a route of transportation? On which side does it bound the academic portion of the campus? I kind of understand what the sentence is saying but it's poorly written.
    • I don't exactly consider myself fully capable of "brilliant prose." Basically, west of Elm is about 5 university-related buildings but the rest are east of it. It is a standard road, with moderate traffic. How best to say this?--NMajdan•talk
  • In the "Main Campus" section, there is a sentence mentioning the "new memorial statue on the north side of Oklahoma Memorial Stadium honoring OU students, faculty, and staff that have died in war." Does this memorial honor just those who died in war or those that died in combat (i.e. does it also include those killed in the Korean War, Vietnam, Somalia, and other police actions and non-war conflicts)?
  • I intensely dislike the sentence in the "Main Campus" section that begins "The Oklahoma administration also prides itself on the aesthetic appeal of the campus." I would be appeased if there were references to substantiate this claim.
    • I added a couple sources. If you can suggest a rewording, I'd be happy to comply to fall in line with WP:PRESTIGE.--NMajdan•talk
  • Related to the above statement, the mention (supported by a citation) of the amount of money budgeted for the "Landscaping and Grounds Maintenance department" seems to be very out of place and smacks of original research. Unless it can be "proven" (i.e. cited) that this number is well out of proportion or otherwise very high, it's simply a number without context. For all we know, that could be the going rate for upkeep of a space that size in that climate.
    • Removed that sentence as I have no source as to the average expenditure for universities of this size.--NMajdan•talk
  • In the "North Campus" subsection, several things are stated to "be moved to the new National Weather Center during the summer and fall of 2006." Did this occur? In any event, it needs to be updated.
  • The "Residential life" subsection is completely unreferenced.
  • The term "quad" is used in the "Residential life" subsection but it's no a commonplace, well-known term.
  • Does the student union have a name?
  • The "Student organizations, activities, and media" subsection is almost entirely unreferenced with multiple factual claims and no supporting evidence. I've tagged some of them but almost all of the content is devoid of references.
    • Got most of it. Will continue to look or I'll delete the other part.--NMajdan•talk

--ElKevbo 16:54, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've made all the changes you recommended. Thank you very much for your thorough copyedit and your review. Please review the article and let me know if there is still anything that is unclear.--NMajdan•talk 16:34, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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