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Draft:Pi Lambda Sigma (sorority)

Could someone please review and let me know if there is any problem moving to mainspace? Still trying to decide if Pi Lambda Sigma should be moved and a dab page created.Naraht (talk) 04:53, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Naraht, I'll give it a full review and accept/decline as appropriate. Primefac (talk) 14:24, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Borderline rejection

The Draft was rejected as a separate article by Primefac (talk · contribs) however Primefac feels it is a borderline case. Could others take a look at it and give opinions as to whether it should be a separate article or the information merged into Theta Phi Alpha?Naraht (talk) 20:15, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Naraht, I think you meant, "merge it into Beta Phi Mu." Thus the need for a disambiguity page. We're talking about the library science honorary here, not Theta Phi Alpha sorority. I vote to reject. My view is that the Beta Phi Mu page already notes Pi Lambda Sigma as of the date of that particular local chapter's merger into the national sorority. The author of the draft may want to include some information about this merger, and a webpage link, as a reference on the Beta Phi Mu page, but I think nothing more is needed. Certainly not a full WP page. There are probably 100,000 individual local organizations that over the past 150 years have joined a national fraternity or sorority. I don't think each of them would require a page. Consider a reference, too, if someone were to create a List of Chapters of Beta Phi Mu page. The Beta Phi Mu page itself needs an infoblock. Jax MN (talk) 20:29, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
No, Jax MN, we're talking about the Draft page (linked above) about the sorority that was merged into Theta Phi Alpha. The question is whether said sorority should have its own page. Primefac (talk) 20:33, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
Hi - There were (unfortunately) two links above. I agree that the Pi Lambda Sigma that was a multi-chapter Catholic sorority, and which merged into Theta Phi Alpha, DOES deserve its own WP page. It appears to have been rejected, and I'm not going to make a deal about it. You reached it by clicking the link in the header. Note though, that in Naraht's body text, the other Pi Lambda Sigma was listed, and this is a single, old chapter that merged into the younger but larger Beta Phi Mu. That is the page that I think is unnecessary. Jax MN (talk) 20:45, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
Fair enough, Jax MN. Incidentally, I've proposed that the pages be merged (saves an AfD). Primefac (talk) 20:57, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Other comments? I think we've reached the balancing point. Please check to see if you think that Draft:Pi Lambda Sigma (sorority) should be moved to article space.Naraht (talk) 14:23, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

I favor keeping the page. I agree with Primefac that there ain't much there, and would like to see a few more sentences of historical substance to flesh it out. But the group did have eight chapters, which is enough to make it significant from my POV.Jax MN (talk) 14:45, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
I also agree with keeping the page. The page has enough information such as national conventions, symbols, founders etc that should separate it from Theta Phi Alpha. There are a significant number of sources discussing Pi Lambda Sigma to show its significance. While it is a short article, it has a similar content when compared to honor fraternities as can be seen through Beta Phi Mu and others referenced above. Msnicolem (talk) 20:11, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
Hmm, seems there is a consensus to keep. In order to avoid moving the page a half-dozen times, I'll shift the existing Pi Lambda Sigma article per the proposed merger, and then move the draft into its place. It should take about a week. I've marked the draft as "under review" until that time, but feel free to continue editing it. Primefac (talk) 07:36, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
The funny thing is if we can sort out the four contradictory pieces of information on the number of founders and maybe get the incomplete lists of presidents and conventions straightened out, I think we can add refs on the primary pieces of information like founding as being from the Templar yearbooks as well, we may have a chance of getting it to Good Article.Naraht (talk) 15:17, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Lists being created of members of Sororities

Please see Category:Members of National Panhellenic Conference sororities . I beleive there was a *large* AFD discussion many years ago that being a member of a GLO was *not* a defining characteristic and so they were all deleted. But I don't want to comment on this unless I can find the AFD. HELP!Naraht (talk) 14:25, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

There have been a number of discussions on this topic (and I stopped listing because three seemed like a good number), and all of them agree that such lists generally constitute WP:OVERCAT. Thus, I would suggest bringing it to WP:CFD. Primefac (talk) 14:45, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Aw, that kind of makes me sad. I think it would be a useful category. It's a category I'd enjoy surfing anyway. :-( Bali88 (talk) 15:39, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm sort of split, I too would enjoy surfing it, but I think upgrading the List of members of MMM would be better (and just as surfable). In that regard, I will only add people to a category on a GLO if they were a founder of the GLO (and in some cases that's their only notable characteristic) or served as a National level officer. But I do agree that reading the definitions on "Defining Characteristics" don't leave a lot of wriggle room.Naraht (talk) 15:51, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
Sorry, what does MMM stand for? Bali88 (talk) 21:10, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Seeking this WikiProject's involvement on 2 threads

Please take a look at the threads I started at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2015 September 19 and more recently Talk:Lambda Lambda Lambda. (The latter concerns Local Chapter Letters.) Any and all help to resolve these matters will be greatly appreciated! The Mysterious El Willstro (talk) 03:39, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Proper naming discussion.

I'd like a formal discussion of the naming convention for Fraternity and Sorority (and related Greek Letter Organizations). As far as I can tell, it is the following for the article name (Redirects can be fairly loose)

  1. Presuming only one organization with that name, only the Greek Letters should be used. So if there is only one Alpha Mu Beta organization, then that is the name of the article, Alpha Mu Beta Sorority, Alpha Mu Beta Society or Alpha Mu Order can redirect, but Alpha Mu Beta should be the name of the article
  2. If there is more than one with that name, then any suffix that would differentiate should be in lower case in parentheses. So it should *not* be Alpha Mu Beta Fraternity and Alpha Mu Beta Sorority, but rather Alpha Mu Beta (fraternity) and Alpha Mu Beta (sorority).
  3. Differentiation in order of preference
    1. country if appropriate (United States)/(Philippines)
    2. in the event of a fraternity and a sorority should be (fraternity) and (sorority).
    3. "type" should be (social), (service), (honor society), (professional), (recognition).
    4. founding year, so Alpha Mu Beta (founded 1920), Alpha Mu Beta (founded 1935)
  4. Somewhat problematic current situations (to the point where, even if everyone agrees, I'd still want a formal RFM: Phi Beta Kappa Society (should just be Phi Beta Kappa as the main article) and Kappa Alpha Society vs. Kappa Alpha Order.Naraht (talk) 16:38, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
  • It would appear that "The Phi Beta Kappa Society" is the official name of the group, so you're basically asking us to pit COMMONNAME against OFFICIALNAME. I do agree with your disambiguation suggestion, but I am hesitant to immediately say "yes" to a carte blanche rename of all the letter organizations. Primefac (talk) 16:47, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
    • While I've been proposing renames (some which have been renamed) based on point one. (See Phi Kappa Pi, for example), I'm entirely happy with this moving at a slow speed. Even if everyone agrees to this, I'd be fine with a list of articles with names that would need to be changed being created within a month.Naraht (talk) 17:03, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

EL & bare chapter websites in refs

In regards to trying to make sure that none of the Category:Lists of chapters of United States student societies by society have issues with the External Links guidelines, I've dealt with not only suggestions that the chapter websites be moved to the ref, but some that have already done so. As an illustration: (and most of these are in tables, but I'm showing in a list


  • [http://www.someuniversity.edu/GLO/EEE Alpha Chapter] (Founded 1929, inactive 1940-1944)
  • Beta Chapter<ref>[http://www.otheruniversity.edu/EEE Beta Chapter]</ref> (Founded 1930, inactive 1952-1990)
  • Gamma Chapter (Founded 1931, inactive 1932-2008)
  • Delta
  • ...Many others...
  • Nu Chi

For most of these there is a central EEE website that contains the information and given that there a lot of active chapters this can be hundreds of external links. Changing them to the way that Beta does them doesn't seem appropriate, given that on most chapter websites, the information on dates is often not on the main page (if it does exist). All putting them into refs does is have a site which goes "yes there is a chapter here, but a second primary reference just doesn't seem worth it. (Note, this in some ways is a best case scenario, often the chapter links are facebook)Naraht (talk) 16:26, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Um.... is there a question in this? Chapter websites are unnecessary, in my opinion, as they're not particularly relevant to a "list of" page (it's not a "reference" per se) and potentially border on promo/advert. Primefac (talk) 03:24, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
The question is whether simply removing them as in Alpha is appropriate, or whether a check should be done to see if the primary information in the list is verified there. And also, how to handle situation with dozens that are like Beta. (Normally you have them like Alpha or Beta, but not both in a list of. I agree with you, I'm just doing this to get other editor's opinions on the interaction between List of chapters of EEE and WP:EL.Naraht (talk) 16:39, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
@Jax MN: (Sorry, meant to include this editor from the beginning.Naraht (talk) 16:40, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
I don't think there's much primary information on a chapter's personal page that wouldn't already be on the national website. This comment gives some other fairly compelling reasons for not including them. Primefac (talk) 17:18, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Completing the Professional Fraternity Association.

Right now the following members of the Professional Fraternity Association do not have articles:

Would appreciate comments and help creating/expanding(once created) those articles.Naraht (talk) 18:29, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Expansion of Professional Fraternity Association more or less finished.

I've done some recent expansion and checking on Professional Fraternity Association. I'd appreciate comments.Naraht (talk) 20:10, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Template:North-American Interfraternity Conference quesiton...

Looking for suggestions on Template:North-American Interfraternity Conference . How should former members of the NIC be handled? Should we have multiple lists current and former, like in Template:Professional Fraternities?Naraht (talk) 00:18, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

My immediate thought is "how large is the list of former members?", which would influence my decision on whether or not to include them. The former PFA list is relatively small, which is fine, but if it gets too large then the template becomes bloated. Primefac (talk) 02:11, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
There are a maximum of half a dozen that count as former, the ones that split off to form the FLA (who have mostly come back) and a few that have split off in the last year or more. So that's probably doable, though the entire question as to whether continuing to use the Greek Letters is another question...
In addition, The Professional Fraternities template, is probably also going to have to be reconsidered, as there are probably 30 or 40 that I've found that were in the predecessor organizations to the PFA (PIC/PPA) at one time or another.Naraht (talk) 15:15, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Having a 20-30 name list gets a bit daunting, and thus I can appreciate the brevity of using the Greek letters. However, I can also see how it might be an accessibility issue; not everyone knows the Greek alphabet, and finding "Gamma Rho Theta" is easier than finding "ΓΡΦ".
On the subject of "former members," though, I see little reason to include them. If this were a rock band or the coaching staff of a highly-decorated sports team, I could see it. But listing the former members doesn't seem useful (I'm mostly thinking NAVBOX rules and navigating from one article to another). Primefac (talk) 23:21, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Sorry, missed your response. :( For NIC, I think former members is worth it. Separating off "former members" into two categories,
  • Those that either merged with another NIC group or went under (so they'd be in defunct) and
  • Those that have left (all in the last 10 years) over the direction of the NIC
and including only those in the second group should work.
As for former members of the PFA, the larger that group gets, the more of a headache that navbox could be. First I have to check to see if the groups even still exist.Naraht (talk) 14:38, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
(whoops @Primefac:)Naraht (talk) 14:39, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Delta Sigma Theta Professional.

Do people think that http://www.e-yearbook.com/yearbooks/SUNY_Downstate_Medical_Center_Iatros_Yearbook/1929/Page_276.html , http://www.mocavo.com/Columbia-University-College-of-Pharmacy-the-Apothekan-1934-Volume-1934/405828/98 and what I can get from the actual text from https://books.google.com/books?id=8u1KAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22delta+sigma+theta%22+pharmacy+baird&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22mortar+and+pestle+club%22 (I own a current copy of Baird's) is enough for a stub article?Naraht (talk) 22:42, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Category:Delta Sigma Theta members

Wasn't it decided somewhere that Sorority membership was not a defining characteristic and thus these categories should not exist?Naraht (talk) 20:40, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

It was fraternity membership, but one could easily make the logical leap to include sorority membership in that "should not exist" category. Primefac (talk) 06:19, 22 February 2016(UTC)
Where was the discussion on that?Naraht (talk) 06:26, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
I was slightly mistaken; the discussion (started by you, incidentally) was about inclusion in these categories, and can be summarized by "if they weren't important in the fraternity, they probably shouldn't be in a category for it." There was no talk about these categories not existing entirely, just the inclusion of people in it. Primefac (talk) 06:42, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Crests

I have updated and translated some greek societies in the deWP. The crests currently are just for fair use. Take Triple delta, Chi Omega and others. Could you please be so kind try to have the current crests being allowed for Commons? Compare File:Wappen_des_Corps_Hubertia_Freiburg.jpg - it has been done from our side. Polentarion Talk 01:49, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Two questions, Polentarion. First, are the images currently being used on these pages incorrect? Second, could you provide links to the deWP versions? If they're fair use they shouldn't be uploaded to commons, but can still be used on enWP. Primefac (talk) 04:58, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
Thnx for your answer. First, fair use pictures are not allowed in the deWP. So we have no current crests overthere. The deWP blazonry would use age (anything elder than 100 years) or simplicity to put it under commons. I would prefer to have the crests under commons anyway. de:Delta Delta Delta, de:National Panhellenic Conference, de:Chi Omega, de:Kappa Kappa Gamma are elder stubs. de:Chi Omega is a full article and written along the de:Portal:Studentenverbindungen template and guidelines. I would like to present Chi Omega at the german DYK at the main page and ask to have the crest available. Polentarion Talk 07:28, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
Ah, I see what you're asking. Polentarion, Wikipedia doesn't make the copyright rules, it just follows them. If you're wanting an image to be available for uploading to commons, you have to contact the fraternity itself so that they can donate the crest to Wikipedia. We have no control over what companies/people/organisations have created and copyrighted. Sorry. Primefac (talk) 14:30, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
Point is, the elder crests are not being protected by copyright. So fair use is overprotection. I would be happy, if you ask directly for a general release. Polentarion Talk 18:39, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
If they're not protected by copyright then they can be uploaded to Commons. Primefac (talk) 19:44, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
So why do you have fraternity crests as fair use, given the fact that they have ages of a century and elder? Polentarion Talk 18:02, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Single campus groups with articles that fall under WP:FRAT?

In working with someone trying to create an article for a single campus GLO that was founded in the last 10 years, I'm looking for examples of GLOs (or similar) that exist on a single campus that have a wikipedia page, so far I've come up with (in order of finding)

Any others that people can come up with?Naraht (talk) 14:54, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Alumni rules

Chi Omega e.g. has expelled members for a facebook picture. Point is, German Studentenverbindungen would rule that for members (students and alumni) via an internal or external honor court. You don't go for fencing duels for personal conflicts any more, at least not officially. I would like to see some info and sourcing how US sor- and fraternities formally deal with misbehaviour of alumni. Polentarion Talk 18:02, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure of what you want and where you want it to be added.Naraht (talk) 14:09, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Alpha Kappa Omicron

I'm not sure Alpha Kappa Omicron falls under this WikiProject's purview, but it has been nominated for deletion and is being discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alpha Kappa Omicron. I looked for a delsort tag for this particular project, but could not find one. Anyway, if anyone from WP:FRAT can help shed some light on the how WP:ORG applies to fraternities and sorrorities, then please comment. Thanks in advance. -- Marchjuly (talk) 09:28, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Notice of change of protocol

A TFD was recently closed regarding {{FratMember}} and related templates. The decision was to delete them and replace with {{mem}} and related subtemplates. This means our descriptions of creating member lists will have to change. I'll try to get on this, but if I don't and someone has time, feel free. Primefac (talk) 18:26, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Website that collects rituals

There is a website in the Netherlands that collects rituals from various fraternities and sororities. I'd like to start a discussion as to whether the rituals on that website represent acceptable references and if so, is there anything that a fraternity/sorority can do if their ritual ends up there. It doesn't seem like the methods of BLP would apply there.Naraht (talk) 18:12, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

As to the second part of your question - we have nothing to do with that site, so even if we decided they shouldn't do it, we can't really stop them. As for the first part... the intricacies of a fraternity's ritual would fall under "trivia," never mind the fact that I don't know of any fraternities that would allow Wikipedia to host the specifics online (mine had a big battle to get it redacted a few years ago).
To answer the question that will probably asked next: I don't think we should provide an elink to the site either, mostly because of the reasons above but also... who's to say their information is even correct? Primefac (talk) 20:04, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Notability Essay.

Please take a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Fraternities and Sororities/Notability and comment on the talk page on anything you think needs changing!

Bump. Please take a look...Naraht (talk) 05:56, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Beta Xi chapter of Sigma Chi

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Beta Xi chapter of Sigma Chi. Marchjuly (talk) 01:52, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Delsort page

It might be a good idea for this WikiProject to have a delsort page to make it easier to add notifications for AfDs of articles that fall within its scope. Perhaps someone at WT:DELSORT can help out and provide advice on how to best do that, but basically just following the instructions in WT:DELSORT#Creating new list for Malta should do the trick. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:57, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Sounds like a decent idea. Primefac (talk) 02:57, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
Hi all. I was pinged on my talk page about this, and I went ahead and created the requested delsort page. It has also been listed in Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Flat. I wasn't sure where to categorize it in Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Compact, so anyone here should feel free to add it wherever they feel is best. Gabe Iglesia (talk) 02:34, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for taking care of that GabeIglesia. -- Marchjuly (talk) 04:07, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Personal rules of Thumb...

I know that we work under general notability guidelines, but my *personal* rule of thumb is that if the sum of the number of years active for each of the GLO's chapters sums to 50 years, I'll give it a try to see whether or not an article for the group would work. I'm not saying I've vote for deletion in an AFD if they only add to 49, but at 50, I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt.Yes, this means that in some cases Social Fraternities which merged in the 1920s into Social Fraternities which later merged into Zeta Beta Tau may be appropriate for articles. Also, any group that got at least half a page in any edition of Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities, I'll support a page about them.Naraht (talk) 17:35, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Useful tool.

The following query on the Article Title Grep will give all articles whose names consist of more than one greek letters.https://tools.wmflabs.org/grep/index.php?lang=en&project=wikipedia&namespace=0&pattern=%5E%28%28Alpha%7CBeta%7CGamma%7CDelta%7CEpsilon%7CZeta%7CEta%7CTheta%7CIota%7CKappa%7CLambda%7CMu%7CNu%7CXi%7COmicron%7CPi%7CRho%7CSigma%7CTau%7CUpsilon%7CPhi%7CChi%7CPsi%7COmega%29+%7B0%2C1%7D%29%7B2%2C%7D%24 Naraht (talk) 16:23, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Interested in helping out?

I'm not greek, but I am interested in Greek culture. Would it be appropriate for me to join this WikiProject? Don't help me, help the bear. 17:13, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

HelpTheBear, I assume you mean "Greek" as in "things from Greece", which isn't really what this project is about. It's about social organizations. Primefac (talk) 17:16, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
Primefac, no, I understand what it's about. My apologies for not being clear with that. I am not a member of a fraternity, but I would like to help out. Is that ok? Don't help me, help the bear. 17:20, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
Ah, gotcha. Sure, welcome! Primefac (talk) 17:21, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
And I tend to think of this project as also covering other Greek Letter Organizations like Phi Beta Kappa, Kappa Kappa Psi and Alpha Phi OmegaNaraht (talk) 02:27, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Disambiguation vs Part of Name.

IMO, Fraternity, Sorority and Society (much less the Inc/Incorporated) do not belong in the name of any student organization unless it is part of an uncapitalized disambiguation term or the organization does not have a shorter name.

Should change


Maybe should change


Naraht (talk) 19:21, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Some of those seem to fall under "natural disambiguation", specifically ΓΦΔ (which I agree should be using disambiguators rather than put it in the title), but for something like ΦΒΚ that is their full name (much like Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia). An interesting discussion, though; interested to see which other pages pop up. Primefac (talk) 19:25, 5 September 2017 (UTC)
Yes, Phi Beta Kappa Society *is* their full name, I think WP:COMMONNAME applies. On Phi Beta Kappa's own website main page, "Phi Beta Kappa" is used seven times, and only once is it part of "Phi Beta Kappa Society" and that is down in the copyright. For Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia its main page is more confusing. While "Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia" only occurs once, *both* "Sinfonia" *and* "Phi Mu Alpha" are used as short forms.Naraht (talk) 19:42, 5 September 2017 (UTC)
Agree with proposed move. Makes sense to double check before the move, though. --Enos733 (talk) 17:31, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
Double check with what? Do a formal RFM for the Phi Beta Kappa move?Naraht (talk) 21:24, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Delta Kappa Gamma

Delta Kappa Gamma (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Would someone mind taking a look at this article and assess it? It's newly created and sparcely sourced. It looks (at least at first glance) as if its notability might be based upon its founder and members per WP:INHERITED as a opposed to the sorority actually being Wikipedia notable in its own right. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:21, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

I've redirected to the founder's article, as I can't see anything other than generic announcements regarding member activities. Maybe this is enough to merit a full article (lord knows in-depth coverage of Greek orgs is hard enough to find), but for the moment it's not article-ready. Primefac (talk) 12:57, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

National Collegiate Players/Pi Epsilon Delta article name.

I'm looking for Opinions on what the name should be for the article for the National Collegiate Players/Pi Epsilon Delta. Please take a look at Google Books and google to see if you think the article should be called National Collegiate Players, National Collegiate Players/Pi Epsilon Delta or something else.Naraht (talk) 15:43, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

I went with National Collegiate Players with Pi Epsilon Delta as a redirect to it as well as ΠΕΔ as a redirect.Naraht (talk) 23:59, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Controversies

Is there a link somewhere that describes what controversies are acceptable for a Controversies section in an organization's article? I've seen a few articles listing local chapters being caught with alcohol in which only a local or campus paper is cited as a reference. I can see having controversies if they are listed in national publications but is it really noteworthy when it is only listed in a local paper? If that is the case I can see where in a few years these sections could take up considerable amounts of an article.Gooseneck41 (talk) 15:53, 06 June 2017 (UTC)

I think WP:UNDUE could certainly be applied to trim down those sorts of sections, and we have {{local}} as a cleanup template, so I would say that if it's a small-scale incident that only received local coverage, it can safely be removed. Primefac (talk) 15:58, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
My question is whether it would apply to events which are described as Hazing. i.e. Omicron Nu Omicron at State University has a chapter which according to the chapter newspaper forced its pledges to drink an entire bottle of vodka in 5 minutes. Pledge Paul ends up in the emergency room but survives and the following morning both ONO national pulls the charter and State University removes recognition. If it gets no other significant coverage, does it get included on the Omicron Nu Omicron page (and does it get included on the State University page???). If the local city newspaper covers it, does it get included? (and there the question is does coverage of the Washington Post for a Fraternity at George Washington University count the same as the Ames Tribune covering a Fraternity at Iowa State).Naraht (talk) 16:48, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
In that particular hypothetical example, I think the list of chapters of ONO would show "expelled" or similar, and that would be it. Unless it gets major press like that frat that trashed the hotel last winter in Michigan(?), one particular incident doesn't merit a paragraph on either the fraternity or the school's page.
Functionally, it is *very* difficult to tell whether a chapter would count as expelled without additional information from the school indicating that it would not be back allowed. I'm not convinced that any status other than Inactive would apply.Naraht (talk) 17:24, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
Not really. I know I can only speak for my own org, but List of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia chapters lists both "inactive" and "expelled". I assume it's done for other groups, but when ΦMA expels a chapter there is some form of notification about it. Primefac (talk) 17:27, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
Not for my own org List of Alpha Phi Omega chapters (chronological), and I haven't seen it that often. Does the difference have a meaning in restarting a chapter? For example, Zeta Nu is inactive, Zeta Xi is Expelled, how would national treat differently students who wanted to restart the chapters?Naraht (talk) 17:38, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
In the grand scheme of things I don't think it matters much. Some chapters will opt to start with a new designation rather than take over the old chapter name if it was a particularly egregious expulsion, but a lot of them simply take back the original name. I think we're getting a bit off-topic, though... Primefac (talk) 17:43, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
Agreed. Moved thread to your talk page.Naraht (talk) 20:11, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
A caveat to that, of course, would be if ONO had multiple chapters that had been expelled for hazing, and there was a ==Hazing== section already. In that case, the chapter would get a one- or two-sentence mention as "in 200X the Y chapter was expelled because...". Primefac (talk) 16:52, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
For almost any national Social Fraternity that has been around for more than 30 years, you would get more than one.Naraht (talk) 17:24, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
I apologize for not following up on this sooner. I didn't get a notification of the discussion, I guess I should have clicked follow page. Thank you both for your information. From what I understand then is that if a chapter of ONO is closed for alcohol/hazing violations and it gets nothing more than local coverage then it shouldn't be covered in the main organization's article but perhaps on "list of chapters" page that most national organizations have. Is that correct?Gooseneck41 (talk) 20:05, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
More or less, yes. Primefac (talk) 14:46, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
Thank you. Gooseneck41 (talk) 16:19, 16 November 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.204.248.85 (talk)

Phi Delta Kappa

Can I tag someone else in for Phi Delta Kappa. My guess is editor works for the Organization.Naraht (talk) 16:58, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

Always happy to kill off copyright violations. Primefac (talk) 17:07, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
Primefac I'm also keeping an eye on Pi Lambda Theta, it is part of the same corporate structure. (which probably needs to be added to the Pi Lambda Theta article when I get a secondary ref)22:50, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
Primefac And the comment to https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Phi_Delta_Kappa&type=revision&diff=816649064&oldid=816639838 is evidence enough for a forced username change, if you agree, I'll report it.Naraht (talk) 22:58, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
I don't know if it's enough for a mandatory username change, but it's clearly a paid/COI issue. I'll ask around. Primefac (talk) 23:07, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
Primefac Seems very close to the example at WP:ISU which says 'Usernames that are names of posts within organizations, such as "Secretary of the XY Foundation", are not permitted, as such a post may be held by different persons at different times.'Naraht (talk) 23:09, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
Meh. You're welcome to report them, but if you look at the histories of the various related pages you'll see a half-dozen very-clearly-shared accounts that are all now inactive. I think that they start as a "role" account and then everyone forgets it exists. Primefac (talk) 23:16, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, I see the user:pdkintl dw, not sure that many more. Love to know relationship between Future Teachers of America, Future Educators of America and Educators Rising. Also, now that we know it is the magazine editor, really tempted to call and talk to them on Tuesday.Naraht (talk) 23:32, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

Phi Delta Kappa & Baird's

Note, Phi Delta Kappa was a relatively normal member of the PIC until the 1968 Baird's but by the 1976 Baird's completely disappears other than a mention in the history of Professionals.Naraht (talk) 14:00, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

True, but that's Phi Delta Kappa (fraternity). Primefac (talk) 20:23, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

Template Problem with Lists of Chapters

I noticed that there is a problem with the template for lists of Fraternity/Sorority chapters and I'm not sure how to fix it, but I believe the FratChapterStart template needs to be redone. Also the FratMemberStart with notable members is outdated and not even used in the example. I fixed the Gerald Ford example to mirror List of Alpha Phi Alpha brothers since the image placement was messed up. Jmnbqb (talk) 17:02, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Um... those templates got deprecated and deleted about two years ago. Could you provide some examples where this is happening? Primefac (talk) 17:23, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
Oh if they're not even in use anymore, shouldn't they be removed from this project's homepage? This page is the only place I've seen that template. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jmnbqb (talk • contribs) 17:53, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
Ah, yes, thanks. I'm surprised that was never updated. Primefac (talk) 18:28, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

CFD Alert.

See *most of* Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2018_January_14. General effort to delete fraternity based categories, apparently as a WP:MAKINGAPOINT about Phi Beta Kappa.confused to involvedNaraht (talk) 17:24, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

FLC nomination

Hello,

One of the lists that I have concentrated on editing, List of Tau Kappa Epsilon brothers, is currently listed as a featured list candidate, and it could use additional people to review and support the nomination.

Thanks, Jmnbqb (talk) 02:28, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Started page move discussion on Phi Beta Kappa Society

Started a discussion on Talk:Phi Beta Kappa Society for moving the page to Phi Beta Kappa.Naraht (talk) 16:51, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Dartmouth locals

I see that a *lot* of the locals at Dartmouth being used as possibilities that cause fraternity names to be disambiguation pages. Which of the Dartmouth Fraternities *really* qualify for that and which should simply be ignored when it comes to that?Naraht (talk) 19:50, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

disambiguation followup

Made a lot of the changes that I proposed earlier...

Remaining possibilities include

  • Delphic Fraternity -> Delphic (fraternity)
  • Triangle Fraternity -> Triangle (fraternity)
  • Rainbow Fraternity -> Rainbow (fraternity)
  • Kappa Alpha Society -> Kappa Alpha (society)
  • Kappa Alpha Order -> Kappa Alpha (order)

as well as the following

  • Adelante Fraternity
  • Phi Beta Rho Confraternity
  • UP Sigma Rho Fraternity
  • Verbum Dei Missionary Fraternity
  • Lambda Iota Society
  • Phi Alpha Literary Society
  • Phi Chi Society
Cool, thanks for doing that. Primefac (talk) 17:28, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Renewing offer to create!

If a greek letter organization (social, professional, honorary or other) has had more than 10 chapters and is mentioned in any edition of Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities, I will be quite happy to try to make a Wikipedia page about it. Just let me know which!Naraht (talk) 15:57, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Current Fraternity/Sorority articles in Draftspace

This is the current list of Fraternity/Sorority articles in the Draft space right now. (Generated by getting all of the Draftspace articles starting with a greek letter and then removing those that aren't) Needless to say the quality of them varies greatly, but some of them might be salvagable.

Naraht (talk) 19:18, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Quality review?

Hi! I'd like to submit Alpha Gamma Delta for a quality review. The {{peacock}} issue no longer applies and most sections have been expanded and sourced. Thanks. originalmesshow u doin that busta rhyme? 23:02, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Help requested at Tau Gamma Phi

Dealing with a new user dimply deleting the referenced information on Hazing Deaths, have reached out to user without response.Naraht (talk) 10:42, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Page watched, semiprotected for a week. Looks like there might be some meatpuppetry as well. Primefac (talk) 12:43, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Crest vs. Coat of Arms in Infobox Fraternity.

Please look at and comment on the Crest vs. Coat of Arms at Template_talk:Infobox_fraternity.Naraht (talk) 14:45, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Changed the default to Coat of Arms. Crest is kept as an alternate, but infobox should now say Coat of Arms.Naraht (talk) 18:39, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject collaboration notice from the Portals WikiProject

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AFD

Project members may be interested in the AFD for List of Kappa Alpha Order chapters. The discussion involves whether any of the 119 pages in the [[Category:Lists of chapters of United States student societies by society]] should be included in further deletion processes. -- Dolotta (talk) 18:54, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

For the record, the AFD in question is regarding one page, not 119. Primefac (talk) 21:14, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Greek Letter Organizations which only admit *after* out in the workforce.

Currently working on Delta Kappa Gamma, which is for educators and doesn't admit members until they are out in the teaching workforce as far as I can tell. I also created Draft:Alpha Chi Pi Omega which is similar for Beauticians and barbers. What other articles do we have for greek letter organizations which are definitely post-collegiate. Note I'm not looking for post-bachelors in school like Legal or Medical groups.Naraht (talk) 02:31, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Notable Members

Could we make articles on notable members and organizational presidents on Wikipedia? //nepaxt 03:12, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

The guide here is WP:NOTABILITY. If they are notable beyond the fraternity/sorority that is fine, but in general, being (Inter)national president of a fraternity or sorority does not in itself give notability. For example, the current president of AKA is notable enough to have an article because of the fact that she is President of Tennessee State University, but her predecessor would not be unless she was notable for something else. Barbara McKinzie is notable, but because of all of the events involving her departure.Naraht (talk) 11:45, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

List of Zeta Phi Beta Grand Boules

Here are two Grand Boules to include for Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated. I think their Boules are every two years. //nepaxt 00:43, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Nepaxt Could you please add to Talk:List of Zeta Phi Beta grand boules what you want added? Also, it looks like from the page that ZPhiB was having Boules on odd years, do those links include information on a shift to allow for a 100th?Naraht (talk) 13:34, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
I did Naraht. Thank you. //nepaxt 00:56, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

Capitalize GLO names for Conventions in titles?

Right now, the articles List of Alpha Kappa Alpha Boulés and List of Zeta Phi Beta grand boulés both exist as do List of Alpha Phi Alpha national conventions and List of Theta Phi Alpha National Conventions as well as List of Phi Kappa Psi Grand Arch Councils. Any ideas on consistency on capitalization?Naraht (talk) 16:49, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

"Boulé" and "national convention" are not Proper Names, so they should not be capitalized. If the proper name of the Phi Kappa Psi council is the "Grand Arch Council" then it should be capitalized, though. We should probably create a subpage (or subsection on the main page) with the preferred spellings/capitalizations. Primefac (talk) 17:03, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
I'm thinking that Boulé may be counted a proper name, since it appears to be derived by a few of the black GLOs from Boule (ancient Greece) and I can't find many other uses. the question is "how to figure out what is a Proper Name?"Naraht (talk) 17:31, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
Well, the best way would be to kick it to the level of a formal RFC, since the two of us are really the only to "active" members (at least, from what I've seen from the discussions here). The MOS people would love if we did that (and I do mean that legitimately). Primefac (talk) 19:58, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
Have fun. :)Naraht (talk) 20:05, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

I think an RFC is a great choice. However, I think the naming convention should be standard. //nepaxt 01:49, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Mississippi Health Project

I am finished researching this article and have a draft in my sandbox if anyone wants to look at it. Thank you. //nepaxt 20:22, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Materials from Organizations

Do you think we can request organizational materials, such as books or eBooks of the specific sorority's/fraternity's history or have a representative of the organization help us in order to fix certain articles? I have asked HistoricDST for help with Delta Sigma Theta, but I guess she is inactive. //nepaxt 20:49, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Professional Fraternity Association

Could people take a look and let me know if they think that the predecessors of the PFA, the Professional Panhellenic Association (PPA) and the Professional Interfraternity Conference (PIC) should be split out into separate articles?Naraht (talk) 17:28, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

The references need to be in template form (i.e. includes access dates). //nepaxt 20:50, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

A new newsletter directory is out!

A new Newsletter directory has been created to replace the old, out-of-date one. If your WikiProject and its taskforces have newsletters (even inactive ones), or if you know of a missing newsletter (including from sister projects like WikiSpecies), please include it in the directory! The template can be a bit tricky, so if you need help, just post the newsletter on the template's talk page and someone will add it for you.

– Sent on behalf of Headbomb. 03:11, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

AFD for Alpha Kappa Gamma

I know that getting references for the Philippine GLOs can be difficult, but I just hit a brick wall on Alpha Kappa Gamma. I have created an AFD for it.Naraht (talk) 13:52, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Mergers and separate pages...

Right now the groups that merged into Zeta Beta Tau (Such as Phi Alpha (fraternity) have their own pages. I've expanded Kappa Omicron Nu which was from a 1990 merger of equals of Kappa Omicron Phi and Omicron Nu. I was wondering if anyone had any ideas on whether KOPhi and ON should have their own pages?Naraht (talk) 13:31, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

If there's enough content to merit a page on each one specifically, I'd say go for it. Primefac (talk) 18:56, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
Let me know what you think about the Kappa Omicron Nu page. The 1991 Baird's has the combined chapter lists under Kappa Omicron Nu (My guess is the research was being done while the Merger was under discussion. I'll look at rearranging things, if I make things larger.Naraht (talk) 17:47, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Alumni lists

Any opinions on whether to keep using tables/that "fraternity alumni" template or just make bulleted lists (as long as they're sourced)? My view of it - lists are much easier to maintain and edit, especially from the visual editor or a phone; however, this makes them easier to vandalize. However, it's usually easy to revert them and the vandals (at least for NPC sororities) don't come back. Tables/templates emphasize sourcing/describing and can be sorted by chapter, but this can lead to overly long descriptions and I'm not sure how often people sort the alumni by chapter anyway. For the sake of time/usability, I'm leaning towards lists (at least for NPC chapters) but would like some input! originalmesshow u doin that busta rhyme? 06:31, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Bulleted lists are much easier to maintain. Here and elsewhere. There really should also be a more general decision at MOS to not use tables for purposes like this. DGG ( talk ) 00:27, 31 August 2019 (UTC)
For some of the smaller ones, I agree with bulleted lists, but OTOH, List of Alpha Phi Alpha brothers would seem to be much closer to a wall of text as bulleted lists. I completely disagree that the structure of an article should be changed that much simply to made it editable from the mobile editors. Making the lists that are tables to be unsorted seems reasonable though.Naraht (talk) 04:17, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

One left...

Only one former member of the NIC is left to do: Phi Pi Phi. I'll try to get to that one in the next few days. Actually should be easier, since it officially merged into Alpha Sigma Phi, they have info.Naraht (talk) 05:16, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

And made even easier when Alpha Sigma Phi has copies of some of the Phi Pi Phi quarterlies available!Naraht (talk) 14:48, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool

Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.

We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:24, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Delta Pi

There is an AfD discussion ongoing about a Canadian sorority, Delta Pi, here at this discussion page. You may be interested in this. (A couple of additional lines relating to my opinion on the discussion have been cut from this paragraph.) Jax MN (talk) 23:37, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Jax MN, please see WP:CANVASS, in particular the section on "Inappropriate notification" - this is that. It's fine to notify us of the AFD, but the rest can be actually used against you if it's determined that it drew a crowd of people specifically intending to !vote keep. I would highly encourage you to remove all but the most essential bits of your original post (i.e. the notification itself). Primefac (talk) 00:03, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
Interesting! I'd not known that was a policy. Will do. (Subsequent readers, I have removed all but the notification.) Jax MN (talk) 00:11, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
Thanks! This was genuinely to make sure you didn't have any issues with the nomination. Primefac (talk) 00:21, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Founders...

Another question that I've been wondering for years...

Mu Mu Mu Fraternity My favorite fake example) is clearly notable, it is a member of the NIC and been active since 1899 with 150 active chapters. It has 15 founders (A,B,C,D...O) with A , B & C being the primary founders. If A is otherwise not notable (went on to run his father Floral shop in Camden New Jersey and died at 40) is A notable? Similarly question for L?Naraht (talk) 14:39, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

No. If the only thing they're known for is founding the organisation, it's a failure of WP:BIO1E. Primefac (talk) 16:26, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

List of repeated deletions?

I'm not sure what to call this, but I've seen several things in fraternity articles that have been repeatedly deleted, presumably by members that keeping track of might be useful.

  1. The Greek Letters in the Phi Gamma Delta page.
  2. Any relationship between Kappa Sigma and Kirjath Sepher (across both the Kappa Sigma and Kirjath Sepher
  3. Private Motto (referenced to the secret life of sororities) on Alpha Phi
  4. Similarly, repeated unwanted posting of private mottos and ritual explanations, among other vandalism, to the Gamma Phi Beta and Delta Zeta articles.
  5. I'd written an article for Delta Pi (see notes here), a Canadian sorority with four chapters, deleted on specious "notability" grounds.

Any others? (not sure where is best to keep such a list) and what to do about it. Phi Gamma Delta has an edit note, should the others qualify?Naraht (talk) 20:21, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Might as well keep track here. I'll add points 4 and 5, adding them to the list Naraht started above. Can't restart at #4 without complex HTML coding, per MOS:NUMLIST. Jax MN (talk) 21:24, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
Reasonable list of things to keep track of. #1 and 3 are silly issues that should definitely be reverted on sight. Primefac (talk) 16:32, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

Quick question - Watchlist

Would someone brief me on the Watchlist function of this project? What triggers an alert, for a change to a page, or addition of an item to the Watchlist?

I've seen the note that Redlinks on the Watchlist page can serve as reminders of articles to complete. This has prompted me to begin a review of all articles against the index in Baird's 20th, noting Wiki articles that haven't yet been added to the watchlist, and with a secondary list of articles that could be written that are in Baird's but not yet on Wiki. This is a low bar of notability, but a reasonable one.

In preparation I've done some formatting and organization of the Watchlist page. But aside from manual entry, is there an automated way that articles get listed? And the counts of pages, they seemed accurate, but appear to be manually-derived lists. Is there a BOT that manages this for projects?

I assume that these pages are flagged for alert to project participants either because they have a Wikilink now on the Watchlist page OR because they've had the project template tag inserted in its Talk page. Are one of these inferences correct? Jax MN (talk) 00:28, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

RM for infobox

For those interested, there is a move request at Infobox fraternity's talk page to rename the template. Your input is appreciated. Primefac (talk) 01:40, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Capitalization question

Was wondering whether WP:FRAT has any guidance or preference when it comes to the capitalization of the words "fraternity" or "sorority" inline when they are specifically used to refer to the subject of the article. The particular example I'm refering to is Delta Beta Phi (relevant discussion can be found at User talk:Marchjuly#Capitalization error). It seems that in some articles such as Delta Sigma Phi and some other examples found in Category:Student societies in the United States, the convention is to use the lower case when when using the word inline and apply regular capitalization rules. Perhaps it's an MOS:ENGVAR matter to be decided on a case-by-case basis, but it seems as if it should be treated similarly to other words like "company", "organization", etc. which use lower case, even when they refer to the specifically subject of the article. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:17, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

I believe in most instances it will be lowercase, e.g. Members of the fraternity are initiated..., but I also do not believe we have any specific MOS on the matter. I agree that there might be some instances where a capital F/S would be appropriate, but I can't think of any offhand. Primefac (talk) 02:08, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
The grammar rule I learned that applies here (40 years ago, so I'm re-constructing...) is that in some cases, where a particular entity has been defined, the word then becomes akin to a proper pronoun. Thus, the following examples would be correct, in an article about a ficticious "Gamma Gamma Gamma" fraternity:
  • Gamma Gamma Gamma Fraternity, Inc., was founded on May 1, 1877 by three Hobart sophomores, named ....
  • In that era, fraternity men met on a sub rosa basis, without even tacit approval by the administration.
  • The Fraternity's mascot, a bulldog named Oscar, was actually enrolled in an introductory Composition class for two weeks before...
  • Hobart's main quad was fenced on the west side, where at 6PM on bid day, nervous freshmen would gather to learn what fraternities would offer them a bid...
  • Edgar Olsen, the Fraternity's first initiate, was the son of famous Boston surgeon ...
Hence, where used as a common noun, the generic form of "fraternity" remains uncapitalized. But when declarative of a specific fraternity, called out either in the legal name, OR later, in the form of a pronoun, representative of that specific fraternity, the word is capitalized. Legal writing refers to this treatment as a defined "Term of Art", likewise using capitalization to signal that it is a specific fraternity.
I think it is correct to extend this usage to words like "company." It allows us to be clear on what company we are talking about.
As I try to construct situations where this rule would not apply, I can think of several: Talking about an author, I wouldn't capitalize a statement later in a paragraph that refers to "the Author," unless this was an allusion to the Diety. Nor when writing about Moby Dick, would I later write, "But the Book has its flaws..." --Not that Melville's book has any flaws, but that capitalizing "book" here would look awkward. Maybe I have written or reviewed too many contracts over my career, and the pattern of using Terms of Art within corporate law has seared this rule into place regarding legal entities. I'm certain of this rule, and of its provenance and applicability here. Jax MN (talk) 14:54, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
I can get behind this logic. Primefac (talk) 14:58, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
I'm familiar with the capitalization guidance that Jax MN describes but in my experience it's seldom applied anymore (in general; there may be some specialized fields that still use it). For Wikipedia. it seems like MOS:INSTITUTIONS should apply. The parallel example there is The University of Delhi offers and The university offers while The University offers is incorrect. Schazjmd (talk) 15:49, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
I too understand the point that Jax MN is trying to make, and that would be fine if this wasn't Wikipedia but some other website; however, most articles about organizations do seem to be following MOS:INSTITUTIONS and I think there really needs to be a good reason if it's going to be ignored, even for just one article. The whole point of a community-wide guideline like INSTITUTIONS is to try and ensure some consistency project-wide, right? Even though there are some guidelines I don't fully agree with, I defer to them since that's what the community consensus is. Making an exception for this one article seems unwarranted to me and changing MOS:INSTITUTIONS to take into account the concept of "Term of Art" isn't really something that can be done here per WP:CONLEVEL. Such a change would most likely need a WP:RFC to implement and such an RFC would need to take place at WT:MOSCAPS. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:44, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

This is exactly why we have MOS:INSTITUTIONS, and no, this is not a magical exception. See the 2nd main bullet there: "Generic words for institutions, organizations, companies, etc., and rough descriptions of them (university, college, hospital, church, high school) do not take capitals". It is not a MOS:ENGVAR matter at all; this has nothing to do with US vs. British vs. Australian vs. [whatever] English dialects, which is the only thing covered by ENGVAR (which is about "color" vs. "colour", etc.). Proper names should take capitals: "the Gamma Delta Iota Fraternity", if it's actually named something with "Fraternity" as part of the name. If it's not, then "the Gamma Delta Iota fraternity". It's the same as "the XYZ Company" if the name of the company actually contains "Company" (e.g. "XYZ Company Ltd" or "XYZ Company SA" or "XYZ Company Inc."), but "the XYZ company" if we're simply using that as a descriptive identifier. Don't capitalize the word when not part of a name: "Johnson joined the fraternity in 1989", "The fraternity's headquarters moved to Bupkus, Arkansas, in 2005." The entire reason this material exists at MOS:INSTITUTIONS is to curtail the pretentious habit of writing things like "Johnson was a member of the Fraternity when he was at The University, before his career at the Foundation and later at the Ministry". Just, no.

Jax MN's reasoning (which is WP:OR, even if Primefac likes it :-) for why they want to ignore MoS on this, and reminiscences about what they learned in school 4 decades ago (probably about the same time I did) is immaterial. English does not have a centralized rules authority, and many, many styles exist; every single style book and English teacher contradicts every other style book and English teacher on one point or another, more like hundreds of points. But this site, like most major publishers, does have its own style guide, so please follow it. "Style X exists in the real world" is not any kind of reason to use X on Wikipedia when our own style guide prescribes Y. The main reasons we have (or anyone else has) a style guide in the first place are to present consistent and non-confusing text to readers, and to avoid repetitive internal disputes about style trivia (like this thread). MOS:CAPS in general (first rule: if the capitalization is optional, use lower-case) and MOS:INSTTITUTIONS in particular have us use lower-case here because this kind of capitalization-for-signification is confusing to readers and is an over-emphasizing (WP:UNDUE) feature of marketing/business/PR writing, not encyclopedic writing. See also MOS:SIGCAPS and MOS:DOCTCAPS, which tell us not to capitalize terms of art, a particular bad habit of contract and other legal writing, and of bureaucratese and institutional writing in general, which WP does not emulate (cf. legal/legislative, military, religion/philosophy, and arts/humanities topics, in which we use only a fraction of the capitalization found in typical matter written by people and organizations within those subjects). The specialized-style fallacy may also be in play here. The fact that insiders to a particular institution like to capitalize the "institution word", such as fraternity, in reference to it is irrelevant; they do not dictate how to write about this topic on Wikipedia. In short, MoS is saying "Don't overcapitalize. And avoid over-capitalizing. Also, over-capitalization is a bad idea. By the way, this means to not over-use capitalization." Section after section, it is reinforcing the same message about the same kinds of cases, because people will look for any excuse to get capitalization they want, especially for organizational things they feel connected to, or that they feel are Big Important Things, or because "that's how we do it in my field". Just stop. There is no secret escape hatch. Heh.

PS: The closest thing MoS has to anything like Jax MN's reasoning is something we apply to individuals (only): When "president" or "queen" or something like that is used as stand-in for the name of a specific human (not just the role and whoever might be filling it at any given time), then it is capitalized: "Biden is scheduled to meet with Elizabeth II in June 2021; the Queen has invited the President to stay at Buckingham place for a weekend while they discuss renewing closer UK–US relations." We do not do this with organizations, of any kind. In this case: "The Smallville City Council voted to slash funding for the Library of Smallville after the library's executive director criticized two council members in the press", we should not capitalize any part of "library's executive director" or "council members" (see also MOS:JOBTITLES). Same goes for writing about, say, the Beatles: "The band ..." [not Band] "... broke up in April 1970."
PPS: "sub rosa" in one of those examples should be marked up (in actual encyclopedia text) as {{lang|la|sub rosa}}, or at least ''sub rosa''; it's not a Latinism entirely integrated into English like "versus" is. :-)
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:22, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

SMcCandlish, in your example, the Term of Art usage I advocate, were it to be used on a page about a named fraternity and not Johnson himself, would have this sentence written as "Johnson was a member of the Fraternity when he was at the university, before his career at the foundation and later at the ministry", and NOT as "Johnson was a member of the Fraternity when he was at The University, before his career at the Foundation and later at the Ministry". That latter example certainly does go to excess. I know this is an example, and a sentence like this would likely not survive the editing process. Moreover, in the UK, writers would omit the "the" in front of the word "university", too. The capitalization usage I've advocated here, where the object or a proper pronoun for it remains capitalized, should be applied so as to clarify, and thus are preferred in legal and technical writing. Oddly, my desk reference didn't have a specific discussion of this anywhere. But it is neither an out-of-favor usage nor archaic. Jax MN (talk) 21:44, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
I think the points made by SMcCandlish are consistent with MOS:INSTITUTIONS, where as what you're advocating isn't at all. Wikipedia articles aren't really intended to be written as a you might write a legal document or a technical document as eplained in WP:EPSTYLE; moreover, while there's some room for a little individual preferences, etc., I think the reason things like MOS:MOS were established was to try and ensure some kind of general consistency project wide in article content. It might be better to seek further input regarding this via an WP:RFC where the question about "Terms of Art" capitalization might reach a consensus since it doesn't appear like we're going to find one here amongst ourselves. An RFC might also be a good idea since MOS:INSTITUTIONS is a project-wide guideline and any tweaking of it will impact more articles than the one that started this discussion. The RFC could be a simple question in which two options are presented: One that preserves the status quo of MOS:INSTITUTIONS or one which incorporates "Terms of Art" usage into MOS:INSTITUTIONS. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:31, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
And "[if] were it to be used on a page about a named fraternity and not Johnson himself, would have this sentence written as "Johnson was a member of the Fraternity when he was at the university" is just something Jax MN made up out of nowhere. There is no rule to do this on WP, it would not make sense to have one (it would confuse both readers and editors alike, both as to inconsistent use between pages and even inconsistent institutional-entity capitalization inside that single clause, and would require frequent pointless rewriting in response to page-name changes). Nor does it agree with usage advice found in any style guide in the world. It's just something Jax MN made up out of nowhere. And I don't think there's any such thing as a fraternity that doesn't have a name, so "a named fraternity" is tautological. Frankly, one who capitalizes "term[s] of art" as if that phrase is a proper name isn't someone who's in a position to give style advice; it is certainly not capitalize in field that frequently use that phrase, such as law and legislation. That's someone's personal capitalization for signification (MOS:SIGCAPS), an especially bad habit to bring to an encyclopedia (where everything is significance-laden, or we wouldn't have an article on it in the first place per WP:N). People need to leave their idiolect habits at the door when they edit here. There is not a single editor among our many thousands whose own personal, off-site writing style is 100% conformant with MoS; switching into MoS mode when editing at WP is an adjustment all of us have to make here. "I would capitalize this in my own blog or letter because I like it that way, or it somehow makes better sense to me, or it suits my notions of tradition, or my employer does it, or those who are not independent of this subject do it in their marketing materials, or some other publisher I write for insists on it in their own house style" isn't a rationale to capitalize something on WP.

Regarding Marchjuly's "[an RfC] might reach a consensus since it doesn't appear like we're going to find one here amongst ourselves": A consensus already exists, and it is MOS:CAPS. A wikiproject cannot override a site-wide guideline just because it wants to, per WP:CONLEVEL policy. A failure to come to a consensus on this page simply means the current guideline continues to apply (it takes a very strong consensus-has-changed showing to overturn an extant site-wide guideline, and a new discussion not coming to a consensus to do so is a failure to enact a change, not evidence that a change should happen). If there is somehow a feeling that some kind of special exception should be made for a case like this, then the proper venue for an RfC on that would be WT:MOSCAPS, and advertised at WP:VPPOL as a proposal for a substantive change to a guideline. However, the outcome of that is predictable with near 100% certainty. The point of centralized style guidelines on such matters is to thwart, not enable, topic-specific style inconsistencies. We would only permit one if the usage, for that specific case, in independent reliable sources was almost uniformly consistent. E.g., The Hague conventionally takes a capitalized "The" and is not written "the Hague" or just "Hague" by virtually any reputable publisher. Such cases are rare, and MoS already codifies most of them. The fact that this kind of narrowly topical "I want to capitalize X because I'm used to it" over-capitalization proposal is very common but always ends the same way is why MoS already covers this question again and again, at MOS:INSTITUTIONS, MOS:DOCTCAPS, MOS:JOBTITLES, MOS:THECAPS, MOS:THEMUSIC, MOS:LIFE, etc. And this is really a general life principle. Analogy: There's a law against stealing. Some people think it ought to be legal to steal food if you have too many children to afford to feed them all well. Those people failing to convince everyone with lots of kids that such theft is a good idea, much less actually getting an exception written into the law, doesn't magically mean the law is invalid, that food-stealing is now fair game, or that the law really should change. It's rather the opposite: it's a failed proposal, that was never even a proposal at the right venue (e.g. the legislature/parliament).
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:03, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

I apologize if my last comment about an RFC was confusing. I didn't intend to make it seem that an RFC on this would need to take place here. As I posted above on 27 December 2020, any attempt to change or clarify MOS:INSTITUTIONS shouldn't be done here, but would need to be done at WT:MOSCAPS. Moreover, it seems that MOS:INSTITUTIONS is quite clear on this type of capitalization; so, I would suggest that the captialization at Delta Beta Phi be brought inline with MOS:INSTITUTIONS. If any discussion on this at WT:MOSCAPS, leads to a new consensus on MOS:INSTITUTIONS as it applies to "Terms of Art"，then the capitalization of not only the "Delta Beta Phi" articles but other articles could be fixed to correct that. Putting the cart before the horse, however, isn't really a good way to try and resolve this. Ideally, it would be best for JaxMN to self-revert and then see what happens with a RFC at WT:MOSCAPS, but if another editor wants to (I've already been reverted once at the article) then that's works just as well. What needs to be avoided here is edit warring where someone reverts to MOS:INSTITUTIONS capitalization and then someone else reverts back. That won't resolve anything, and will only lead to somebody getting blocked. Just for reference, the article has undergone some major changes since this discussion was started, and it has even survived an AFD. Currently, it appears that the only cases where "Fraternity" is being used in the article are two sentences in Delta Beta Phi#Symbols and publications and in the "main infobox" (which is not really necessary). The only other potential capitaliztion issue (e.g. WP:JOBTITLES) might be the word "Founders" in the beginning sentence of Delta Beta Phi#History. These are things which should be cleaned up per MOS:CAPS. -- Marchjuly (talk) 07:33, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Capping fraternity is such context is in no way necessary, as far as I can see; so per the broad consensus on the prime rule of WP style (Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization), there is no question. Dicklyon (talk) 19:42, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Also, if you search existing usage in WP articles on fraternities, it's uniformly lowercase. Leave it so. Dicklyon (talk) 21:47, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Notable members

If you create a section or sub-page to list notable members of a fraternity, "Vanity listings" can be a recurring problem.

Avoid them by creating standard rules for inclusion on the society's Talk page, and placing a note above each section of the Notable members table, directing prospective editors to review the rules first. Some even title the page "Vanity listings".

Template text:
[[Fraternity name]] has many high achievers. You may be one of them. There may be valid reasons to add your own name here, but please ensure that a fair and impartial reader would also count your achievements - which surely are many - as worthy of being listed on this page.

You see, Wikipedia has rules regarding Notability, which preclude everyone from posting their bio and accomplishments. It's an encyclopedia, too, so the information here is meant to be a summary of OUTSIDE SOURCES of original research. NOT as a place to make a first announcement of a fact. The editors that manage this, largely not members of the fraternity, are very assertive about their role, and for newbies, it can be disheartening to have painstaking edits to a page dismissed and your entry deleted. It happened to most of us, the first few times. Believe me, it's not personal.

For example, one fraternity project editor removed the following listing from a Sports Section when he could find no independent link citing its importance. Now, the brother is probably a great fellow, and the accomplishment may be real, but according to Wikipedia's own rules, his listing had to go:

Name Original chapter Notability References
Albus Dumbledingus Alpha (Massachusetts) Worldwide four square champion.

His can be revived if someone can provide a bona fide outside reference, and if the sport of four square is notable in the consensus of admins and experienced editors.

If you are unsure, I wish to suggest the following examples whereby we can self-administer a list of consistent criteria. If we want to change the criteria, that can be done by consensus, but we need to hash it out here on this "Talk" page, and not on the published web page itself.

  • Government: Any elected governor or Congressional or national official. Also, Cabinet secretaries, ambassadors, NGO heads.
  • Science and Research: Major patent holders, astronauts, inventors of significance.
  • Business and Industry: CEOs, presidents, founders of significant public companies, of private companies employing more than 500 people or with annual revenue in excess of $100M. Leaders of nationally-known civic events, celebrations, or projects, VPs, SVPs or EVPs of notability.
  • Religion: Presidents of seminaries, well-known chaplains.
  • Entertainment and broadcasting: Members of SAG, AFTRA, AEA, ASCAP or independently cited actors and artists, heads of related national associations.
  • Civic Leadership: Heads of significant national or state civic organizations.
  • Military: General officers or higher, recipients of national honors (Congressional Medal of Honor, etc.)
  • Journalism and Literature: Publishers and editors of notable magazines and newspapers, published authors (via commercial publishing houses, not self-published)
  • Sports: Professional athletes and coaches, winners of collegiate honors, Olympic medalists and coaches, nationally ranked athletes.
  • Education: Presidents or chancellors of accredited institutions, heads of educational associations, educators or administrators who've had collegiate buildings named in their honor.
  • Also, anyone who already has a Wikilink may be reasonably considered notable.

If you wish to add a name, and it is in keeping with these guidelines, be sure to follow the syntax. Include the man's Wikilink article where possible (often a good indicator that they are "notable"), include the chapter name and class year, a concise summary of the accomplishment, and at least one reference.

Should a reader have questions, please leave a comment here or by clicking the name of a Wikipedia volunteer editor.

End of template.
-- Jax MN (talk) 21:19, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

  • The basic rule is very simple and applies to all lists of this sort everywhere: if they have a WP article or would be likely to have one. -- and if membership can be documented. There's no need to be more specific. If anyone reasonably challenges a names "likely to have an article:, it gets removed until one gets written. If the purpose of this is to make a secondary qualification, of "not notable enough for a WP article, but important to us anyway," it's a poor idea. (based on my experience removing these names from university articles--I admit I do not work in this area) DGG ( talk ) 09:36, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
  • I'm still a little hesitant on this. If a fraternity has all eight presidents of East Wyoming State University as Alumni, and articles have only been written on the 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th, removing the other four based on a challenge just seems silly.Naraht (talk) 12:49, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

Specific censorship examples?

While periodically, just about every GLO has an effort to wipe from the wikipedia article hazing occurances(and similar), I can only think of two that are efforts to delete information about the group specifically.

Any others that spring to mind?Naraht (talk) 18:07, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

Mere honor societies must be removed from this WikiProject

Despite misleadingly having Greek letter names (which they honestly should be banned from using), purely academic honor societies are not Greek Letter Organizations (GLOs), because they lack a pledge process. Alpha Phi Omega, despite being coed and non-IFC-affiliated, is a GLO since it does have a pledge process. The same is true of major-specific professional fraternities, as they (unlike pure honor societies) have pledging.

Phi Beta Kappa formerly had pledging, before it later evolved into an honor society. Even before that, we trace our inspiration to secret societies in Ancient Greece, all of which had a probationary membership period similar to modern pledging.

Therefore, honor societies need their own WikiProject and their very own Infobox. Placing "Honor society" as a special type under Infobox Fraternity implies, falsely, that they have pledging.

Look. I didn't used to understand, either. Pledging changes a person for the better. In 2014 when I finally pledged as a graduate student, it brought a level of self-improvement that I hadn't experienced since RCIA, 4 years earlier.

Anyway, let's split the purely academic, unpledged honor societies into their very own WikiProject instead. The Mysterious El Willstro (talk) 07:16, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

We can start by separating pure honor societies from professional fraternities (the latter of which have pledging), as I recently did on the Butler University Article. The Mysterious El Willstro (talk) 05:01, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
With respect, I disagree on the necessity of this step. There is enough cross-over to merit project participants minding both types of groups. Were we to split them, many F&S Project participants would include both projects in their work, leading to unnecessary duplication. The issue of "pledging" is an ancillary point, where otherwise there are many points of similarity and mutuality. Jax MN (talk) 14:36, 9 June 2021 (UTC)
The Mysterious El Willstro, I agree with Jax MN. For starters there are organizations which have belonged at different times to both the Association of College Honor Societies and the Professional Fraternity Association (or its predecessors). A pledging process isn't a distinguishing feature either, as Delta Upsilon no longer has a pledging process and yet by far is closer to Alpha Tau Omega than to Phi Beta Kappa in concept. And Alpha Phi Omega is a member of the PFA which of course really confuses Baird's concepts of Social, Professional, Honor and Recognition. And I also disagree with the title of section in general. Phi Beta Kappa isn't a "mere" group compared to say Beta Upsilon Chi (rolled a die and picked an entry in a category).Naraht (talk) 01:16, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
Fine, maybe the way I framed it was extreme. Perhaps I wouldn't see it that way, had not my reference point for "honor societies" been Beta Beta Beta. I was inducted to that organization in Spring 2010, and sadly, it turned out to be an academic award that barely even exists as a chapter of any kind. (Yes, I'm aware that it became that way over time, and that it wasn't what I just described, when it was founded.)
More often than not, pledging makes you a better person than you had been before. As unusual as it is to pledge in graduate school, I nevertheless pledged Alpha Phi Omega as a graduate student at IUP. It made me a far better man, and I have never regretted it. The entire Greek Movement, whether Coed Service, Professional, or Social, gets a bad rap from people who mistakenly believe a pledge process free of hazing to be impossible. That frustrates me, and I'm planning to publish an open letter defending Greek Life, but I digress.
All that being said, you are probably right about Wikipedia practicalities, especially considering that even some honor societies formerly had pledge processes when they were founded. The Mysterious El Willstro (talk) 02:06, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Pi Sigma Gamma

Pulled Pi Sigma Gamma out of the Defunct Sorority page that it was on and made a real page rather than a redirect. Still needs an infobox, but I think otherwise OK. Last of the former NPC groups to get its own page.Naraht (talk) 21:44, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Great. I placed a to-do list on the Talk page, not that you need it, but for reference by others. It has a good reference to the online Baird's archive, which has a bit more info. I can make a chapter list table, including what Baird's notes about predecessor locals. Jax MN (talk) 02:53, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Pins on the Organization page.

As a general rule, is it desired to have a photo of the Organizations "Brotherhood"/"Sisterhood" pin and Pledge pin on the page? I'm on a pin collectors facebook group and was thinking I might ask them to upload some of their photos.Naraht (talk) 21:45, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

I wouldn't think so; pretty much everyone has one, so unless they have some sort of unusual design or really special significance (i.e. something that would be written about in independent sources) it's just a picture of a pin, supported by (hopefully) a primary source. Primefac (talk) 22:46, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
Wouldn't that argument equally apply to the Coat of Arms?Naraht (talk) 02:14, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
I've used pin images in the infoboxes when I cannot find a good crest or coat of arms. The authors who originally developed the Infobox template we use made allowances for several images: crest, flag, pin, pledge pin, etc. I too know some pin collectors, and they tell me that while the major groups are easy to collect, the thrill for them is to find (and confirm) the really rare ones. Many of these they don't have images of, and thus I keep their needs in mind when I work on our project's watchlist. Jax MN (talk) 02:57, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
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