Talk:Shawnee State University/Archive 1

Archive 1

wikiad

This sounds more like an advertisement for the university than a Wikipedia entry.

Maybe take the opportunity to change it? KimvdLinde 19:28, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Good point. However, I don't know a lot about the university, which would make the research more difficult. 4 April 2006

I concur it sounds like an advert. I will tag it. Benjaminstewart05 09:52, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

background

Here's a bit of background from a former student: The Shawnee State University facilities were orignally a regional branch of Ohio University (Athens, Ohio) known as Ohio University Portsmouth Branch (OUPB). OUPB merged with Scioto Technical College (Lucasville, Ohio) in 1986 to form the current incarnation. The former campus of Scioto Technical College is now occupied by Scioto County Joint Vocational School. During the transitional phase of the merger (1985), the school newspaper was called "The Gemini." School mascot is a bear. [3 June 2006] [Correction 9 June 2006]

Added History

Thanks in part to local sources which included the newspaper and memory in my mind, I've added some background history to the project. It has come a long way. The university was once comprise of two colleges and Ohio University once had a branch before moving it to Ironton after the creation of Shawnee State college.-user:Spongefan

Cleaned Up the Article

Hope I didn't change a whole lot around the newspaper and foreign study are grouped the academics subject since they show similiarities. The article is less of an advertisement now, but still, I need some pictures. I'm going to add an recomendation to that. Spongefan, 00:47 July 29 2006 (UTC)

Who Changed

who changed "Fantanime" to "the Japanese anime club"??? it is Fantanime! Thats its name, not japanese anime club felinoel 05:03, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Ssu seal.gif

Image:Ssu seal.gif is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 07:51, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Sports

Article needs material added to the sports section. Anyone willing? Vbofficial 20:54, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Reduce marketing content

The article needs more editing to reduce marketing content, such as lengthy explanation of all aspects of Mediaglobe system. That's for Konica or article on Mediaglobe, not here. Look at other university articles for comparison.Parkwells (talk) 16:32, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Removing Referenced Material

Please do not remove properly referenced material.  Thank you

--146.85.198.53 (talk) 22:25, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

I've opened up more specific sections below to discuss the issues at hand. I recommend you review WP:OWN and WP:NOT; you do not unilaterally control this article nor is this article an indiscriminate collection of information, even if that information is sourced. ElKevbo (talk) 22:44, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Again, someone seems to be removing referenced material. Please stop. --146.85.198.25 (talk) 22:48, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

You're welcome to participate in the discussions below. You're not welcome to edit war to impose your ownership of this article. If you continue, you'll likely be blocked. ElKevbo (talk) 00:34, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

@146.85.198.25:, to reiterate ElKevbo, please see the below discussions. It's unhelpful to have "see discussion" in an edit summary without engaging in the discussions. POLITANVM ^talk 02:42, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

"All-American City"

The same unregistered editor that is insisting on this article including inaccurate information about the relative cost of attending this university is also insisting that this article include a note that Portsmouth, Ohio, was "named an 'All-American City' in 2020." First, this information is unnecessary and misplaced; this article is about Shawnee State University, not the city in which it is located (which also has its own dedicated article). Second, the statement is woefully incomplete as it doesn't even tell readers who made this determination. This is just advertising that doesn't belong in this article. ElKevbo (talk) 22:42, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. This piece of trivia was already added to the article for Portsmouth, Ohio. POLITANVM ^talk 23:25, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

References

"Second-least expensive" in lede

An unregistered editor is insisting that this article include the following sentence in the lede: "It is the second least expensive of Ohio's 13 state universities.

This is not essential information that should be included in the lede. It's not even mentioned in the body of the article and the lede should be a summary of what's in the body of the article. Moreover, information about cost is very volatile so it's often something we avoid putting into articles. College costs and finances are also very complex topics that are difficult to accurately summarize. For example, the statement that is being discussed is not an accurate summary of the cited article that only focuses on in-state tuition and (the institutions' estimated) room-and-board; the article explicitly notes other limitations such as not taking into account "whether or not the school requires living on campus for a certain amount of time, how much financial aid the college makes available and how many students commute to the college." ElKevbo (talk) 22:37, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

To echo concerns around volatility, the tuition and fees in that article are already out of date, based on Shawnee's current tuition rates. I would be open to including tuition and fees with an "as of the incoming class of ____" explanation, which is more similar to how articles about other universities mention tuition. This would also be within the article (perhaps renaming "Financial Aid" to something broader) rather than the lede. POLITANVM ^talk 02:39, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

References

Dispute about inclusion of recent lawsuit

The school agreed to pay a fortune ($400,000) to a professor in a settlement concerning addressing a student with the right or wrong pronoun. Is this noteworthy? 164.47.179.32 (talk) 23:15, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

We try to only include information if there is lasting, meaningful impact on the university. We don't include information only because it has recently been in the news. ElKevbo (talk) 23:22, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

I originally included it due to the multiple news sources reporting on it and that some articles had included it to discuss the universities past policy changes and other secondary and primary education wiki articles had included court cases in either history/controversy sections. I understand it might not have reported lasting changes for the history, I still do feel that its was slightly notable due to the scale of reporting.Leaky.Solar (talk) 16:17, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

@Leaky.Solar: Why are you edit warring to add this information without participating in this discussion? How is this of lasting importance? ElKevbo (talk) 11:50, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

@ElKevbo The fact that you jumped almost immediately to edit warring after I reverted your removal of my inclusion in the history section one time, is slightly concerning. I added the material as it had been reported by national and local news sources for at least two days, you removed it and I re-added it with the inclusion of the note that it had been reported on for multiple days and by multiple news sources. I was not aware of the discussion and had not viewed the talk page for this page as I reverted the removal and continued on, which I will admit was an oversight on my part, but do find the finger pointing to edit warring after one revert over necessary.Leaky.Solar (talk) 16:17, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

There is some evidence that it isn't just a recent news event, since there is some coverage in CNN from March 2021. In terms of the edit warring notice, there shouldn't an issue now that everyone is engaging on Talk, but the content in dispute is a bit more sensitive because of WP:ARBGENDER. Politanvm ^talk 16:46, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

That article doesn't convince me that this isn't just a recent news event as it's about the same court case. This article is about a complex organization that is over three decades old; we have to be selective about what we include in it. Yes, reporters are writing about this now. Will they be writing about it a year from now? Five years from now? Will this event have a significant, lasting impact on the subject? ElKevbo (talk) 22:27, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

I'm confused, by your scope for inclusion in the article. You put the timeline for reporters to be writing about the topic in respect to the University, but I don't think its the best means to measure worthiness, as some points already included, only get brought up during arguments/think pieces or for super specific articles/history pieces. I feel that a majority of people, could find the inclusion helpful to show a multi-sided view of the university not just about the academics and campus. Many pages about large organizations, important people and Universities/Colleges include court cases and/or controversies, so why not this page as well?Leaky.Solar (talk) 15:22, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

There are many, many court cases and controversies that include colleges and universities; they're complex organizations that impact many people. We do not - we cannot - include every one that makes the news. We must keep a focus on what is meaningful and significant in the long term, not just what has caught the eye of some reporters or is being churned up by a group of people with a particular cultural or political axe to grind who have no real interest in the institution, no significant knowledge of the institution or the broader higher education world, and whose attention will rapidly flit to the next outrage d'jour. ElKevbo (talk) 16:18, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

I understand the WP:MINORASPECT concern, but is there a threshold you'd consider as a lasting impact? This has been in national news since 2018 (over 3 years). It's been referenced by The Washington Post as part of a broader trend, suggesting it has some lasting importance. It does seem we've passed a point where this lawsuit is one of the the most nationally notable events in Shawnee State University's history. Politanvm ^talk 15:54, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

The threshold typically is something like: Is this event going to have a meaningful, lasting impact? ElKevbo (talk) 16:18, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

Right, I get that, but I guess what I'm asking is how we judge that without having a crystal ball? Is it based on whether it has already demonstrated staying power? I'd say it has, given the broad coverage in numerous reliable national news sources over several years. Is it based on whether it's one of the main things Shawnee is known for? Even filtering to before 2022, a plurality of the news about Shawnee is about this lawsuit. Is it based on what information readers are likely looking for? This article has had enormous spikes in views when this lawsuit has been in the news.

So I'm having trouble understanding what events would ever be mentioned in an article, if none of those criteria are sufficient to demonstrate whether a single paragraph would be due. Politanvm ^talk 17:56, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

Typically we'd want to know what significant, lasting changes occurred as a result of this event. What substantive policies were changed in meaningful ways? Were personnel significantly impacted e.g., president was fired, trustees resigned, new positions created and filled? How was the campus changed e.g., buildings demolished or built, new land purchased or land sold? ElKevbo (talk) 23:11, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

This seems significant, not just from the press coverage, but by the fact that it deals with a ruling from a federal appeals court about the professor’s assertion of his free speech rights; issues of boundaries and limits of free speech on campus and in the classroom are certainly important for universities. CUA 27 (talk) 21:51, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

To add a bit, (and I'm not suggesting we do this, but) this lawsuit would probably meet the criteria for WP:EVENTS on its own. It's been covered by national and local media for years. This case is a reference for other similar events relating to gender pronouns in schools, noted by both The New York Times in 2020 and The Washington Post in 2021. It will likely continue to be referenced in future news about the rights of trans students. The criteria that the university must have had some structural change, either physically, in personnel, or in policies, seems arbitrary, unless there is a particular Wikipedia guideline or policy that comes from. Including a paragraph about one of the most notable events in the university's history (which had been ongoing for 10% of its existence) in the History section sounds like a no brainer. I hope this isn't coming off rudely, but it just sounds like an impossible standard that isn't backed by WP:MINORASPECT or even WP:EVENTS. Politanvm ^talk 15:38, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

This is a very common cycle of events: Something occurs that briefly flares into news stories, especially if it can be used by political partisans or ideologues. Editors rush to add this to relevant articles without any attempt to incorporate it into the larger history and culture of the subject; they rarely even bother to incorporate it into the existing text, just adding it as a new section or chunk of text without any connection to what is already in the article. The issue quickly dies off as another event catches the attention of reporters and editors who rush off to chase that new shiny thing. A few years later, someone reads this article and wonders why this one weird, one-off event is given such prominence in the article as it doesn't seem to have had any lasting impact or be related to anything else. So they remove the material and we're back where we started with time and energy lost for no reason.

We avoid rushing to put news into articles because we often can't answer the critical questions that I've raised about lasting impact. We are not in a rush to add information to articles, especially when we're unsure if it's meaningful and of lasting importance. It's completely okay for us to admit that we don't know those things and hold off on adding information to an article until the dust settles. Unlike news reporters, we're not driven by a need to attract eyeballs or continually stir up outrage to keep readers interested. We should be better than that. ElKevbo (talk) 19:17, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

It’s been over three years. It would have been premature to add in 2018, but it’s been covered regularly, every year. It’s impacted the discourse for other related events. If that’s doesn’t meet the threshold, then when will it? Politanvm ^talk 20:52, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

I concur with @ElKevbo that this doesn't rise to the level of historical significance with regard to the institution itself to warrant mention. That said, it should absolutely be in the professor's article if they have one. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 16:12, 25 April 2022 (UTC)