Talk:Bowdoin College

Men's hockey team missing

Is there reason the men's ice hockey team isn't mentioned at all? Not to It seems odd that a sport which has shown considerable success in the past is left out altogether.AKMAdam (talk) 09:04, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Insistence on including zip code and radio station in infobox

Ciogmmsn, presumably the same editor who previously edited this article without an account or not logged in (e.g., this edit), insists that this article's infobox include the college's zip code and its radio station. No rationale or explanation has been provided.

The documentation for this template indicates that the postal code is optional. In fact, this field is rarely (if ever) used in articles about U.S. colleges and universities. There is an apparent consensus among most editors of these articles that this information is not important enough for readers to merit inclusion in the infobox. This particular article has had this template since at least January 11, 2006 - over 15 years - and unless I'm mistaken the article has never included the zip code in the infobox.

There is no parameter in the infobox for radio station; this has been added using one of the free parameters. That in itself argues against the inclusion of this information in the infobox; at a minimum, we can clearly say that there is no consensus to include it in many articles. I am opposed to including it in this article and nearly all other articles - there may be rare exceptions, I suppose - because the information simply is not among the most important summary information that readers need to immediately know about the college.

Ciogmmsn, I welcome your explanation and discussion! ElKevbo (talk) 23:41, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

Hi ElKevbo,

I get your point about the zip code, but I wonder, then, why is it included in the template in the first place? Many fields are optional- does that mean they are not worth having? If it is so widely agreed that the zip code isn't a relevant piece of knowledge, can we update the template with its removal?

Second, there is no parameter in the infobox for newspapers- does this mean we shouldn't include it? I see a campus radio station as equally crucial as a campus newspaper, so why should one have precedence (and be included)?

I'm adding the radio station back unless there is a wide consensus that it should be removed, at which point I'd recommend a reconsideration of the newspaper's inclusion in the infobox. Ciogmmsn (talk) 18:50, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Your question of "Why is the zip code included in this infobox if we rarely if ever use it?" is a valid one. This would be the best place to ask that question. I would support a suggestion that this parameter be removed from the template altogether.

With regard to the student newspaper, I do think that it's reasonable to believe that the lack of a parameter for that information indicates an implicit consensus against its inclusion. I don't know why it was added to several articles a year or two ago by one editor; you would have to ask that editor. I don't have a particularly strong objection to its inclusion but I do think an explicit discussion about it would have been helpful. But editors are encouraged to be bold in editing articles so they were within their rights to add the information as no one has objected or raised questions.

I have objected to the edit that you have made, however, so the correct response is for you to discuss the edit here in Talk instead of edit warring to add it to the article above my objections. Please revert your edit until we have completed our discussion and reached a consensus. ElKevbo (talk) 02:39, 16 July 2022 (UTC)