Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/McGill University/1

McGill University

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: Delist Verifiability issues still remain. Aircorn (talk) 22:11, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

As I stated on the talk page, "Lead does not meet MOS:LEAD, article has a lot of unsourced information and cleanup tags." Information needs to be verifiable according to the GA criteria. (t · c) buidhe 08:31, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

• To the extent that there are issues with this page, they look very fixable to me, especially since it looks like basically every piece of information that's not sourced to featured standard has been tagged as such. If this were an FA there'd be cause for serious concern, but I've seen many GAs that are a lot worse. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:59, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
• Delist, plenty of unsourced areas (2c), many tiny paragraphs and sections (1b), quite a few tags scattered about. Issues have remained for a few months. CMD (talk) 18:50, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
• I navigated to this page for reading, but my preferences indicated this was a GA undergoing GAR. I will not make a comment on whether to keep or delist personally; however, it should be noted that the above comment from December which said that "there's worse GAs" is irrelevant. If there are worse and they do indeed have lots of problems, as this review insinuates, they should too be addressed and discussed or even reviewed like this article. dannymusiceditor ^oops 03:59, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
• For reference, here's a permalink to the article around the time of the GAR nom: Special:Permalink/986087104 (diff with current version at time of writing - god bless those editors who save us from the horror of unhyphenated "accessdate" parameters, rendering diffs unreadable :/). A lot of the cleanup tags have been removed, though a lot of that is because the October version had cleanup tags duplicated for the same facts in the intro and the "Notable people" section. The verifiability issues in the "Notable people" section are mostly venial sins, and it's a small portion of a large article, so it seems a shame to delist for that alone. (I'm not too troubled by the issues raised on the talk page about the lead, since a lot of them are about violations of WP:UNIGUIDE, which is just an essay.) But still, the verifiability issues are WP:GACR failures, and they haven't been remedied in the ~half-year this GAR has been open, so I don't see any choice but to delist. Colin M (talk) 18:25, 28 May 2021 (UTC)
  • That said, I randomly checked a few other GA articles for major universities, and it is very common to have unsourced claims like "alumni/faculty include X recipients of award Y". e.g. University_of_Toronto#Notable_people: Twelve Nobel laureates studied or taught at the University of Toronto.; University_of_California,_Santa_Cruz#Notable_alumni_and_faculty: and several Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists; New York University is especially bad about this. Take that for what you will. Colin M (talk) 18:38, 28 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Actually, I'm updating my !vote to don't delist. It only took me about 30 minutes to mostly clean up the verifiability issues with the notable alumni accounting. In my view, it is not original research to say something like "McGill alumni include 15 justices of the Supreme Court" and support that with en efn that lists those 15 people with wikilinks. If someone really wants to challenge whether one of those people is indeed a Supreme Court justice or a McGill alum, then those facts can be supported with an RS citation, but it's such a basic piece of information that it would seem unlikely to be challenged. That said, I'm just basing this on my impression that the issues raised in the nom have been resolved. It's a very long article, and I have not tried to carefully review it in its entirety for adherence to GACR. Colin M (talk) 19:32, 28 May 2021 (UTC)
• Let's try pinging the McGill alums on Wikipedia, most of whom probably aren't active, but this article only really needs one editor to step up and save it from delisting.

{{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 18:45, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

• Delist
• The previous GA Review is something that is totally woeful. It is not comprehensive and basically amounts to an opinion. Nothing in the article is substantiated in that particular review. Nothing.
• The (Reassessment) (let's say this was an informal reassessment) done one day later to the above review indicates outstanding matters. Suggesting the review should never have been passed.
• Why is the reassessment on the talk page twice? This edit has no business being on the page. It duplicates the earlier assessment by User:buidhe ... I don't know what this editor's issue is creating a so-called (→‎GA Reassessment: new section) but it should be rolled back and removed.
• The Lead is woeful. Simple as that. User:buidhe is right, the Lead needs to adhere to the guidance in MOS:LEAD
• I don't like the copyright on the second image. It says, Possible Copyright Status: NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT ... ... ...
• I see that the Second University Company Image = This image might not be in the public domain outside of the United States;
• This article has far too many images than what is warranted for a University article. University in the snow. I needed to see that. Five times.
• Comparing with 8 university GA's (selected at random) I find headings are, inter-alia, (McGill is in red)

• History * * * * * * * * *
• Campuses * * * * * * *
• (Organisation and Administration) * * *
• (Colleges and Schools)
• (Research)
• Ideology)
• (Extracurricular activities)
• Academics and rankings * * * * * * *
• Athletics * * *
• Student life * * * * * *
• (Songs)
• (Insignias and Representations)
• Notable Alumni * * * * * * *
• (See also) *
• (Notes) *
• References * * * * * * * *
• External links * * * * * * *

(Trump University had a very erratic listing)

• So we can conclude the article is structured with eight major sections as per broad coverage with the addition of (See also) and (Notes).
• 6,058 edits by 2,058 editors. Page creator has not participated since 2009.
• 90 day page views = 120,417 views with a daily average of 1,323 views.
• No citation for para 2
• The McGill College section has very short paragraphs
• Campus extensions has 4 paragraphs with no citations
• McGill in the Great War needs more references - even though there is a validated stained glass window.
• Quotas on Jewish students today might best be regarded as racism if not outright anti semitism. I would drop this particlar facet of history.
• Campus sections might best be reduced to a single paragraph and link to the main article for the relevant campus.
• Lot of links in this article. I would use a bot to ensure compliance with MOS:REPEATLINK
• Prima facie, delist. --Whiteguru (talk) 05:32, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

---

• @Whiteguru: I'm confused by a few of these points. e.g. Why does it matter that the article creator hasn't participated since 2009? This point is especially hard to square: Quotas on Jewish students today might best be regarded as racism if not outright anti semitism. I would drop this particlar facet of history. Are you suggesting we should omit some historical facts because they reflect poorly on the article's subject? That seems totally contrary to WP:NPOV. Colin M (talk) 15:38, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

• When a reassessment is completed, involved editors are notified; this gives some the opportunity to repair or improve the article as suggested.
• The other issue (antisemitism) ... goes something like this: time rolls on and humanity looks back at its misdemeanours and with hindsight, realises things could have been done better. --Whiteguru (talk) 01:05, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

• Delist also issues with dated material such as an old student residency statistic, an old figure for classes count offered, and a reference to something being "in recent years" with a source from 1999. Does not meet the criteria. Hog Farm _Talk 18:57, 17 June 2021 (UTC)