Talk:University of Oklahoma/GA1

GA Reassessment

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

The following projects and editors have been notified of this GAR: Wikipedia:WikiProject Universities, Wikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places, Wikipedia:WikiProject Oklahoma, Wikipedia:WikiProject University of Oklahoma, Wikipedia:WikiProject Classical League, Nmajdan (talk · contribs), Oldag07 (talk · contribs), ElKevbo (talk · contribs), Ottergoose (talk · contribs), Steventity (talk · contribs), and Doncram (talk · contribs).--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 13:47, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

As part of the GA Sweeps, I have taken a look at this article. Upon review of Wikipedia:Good article criteria, this extremely broad and well-written article has some slight faults that I would like to call attention to in hopes of improving the article. At the current time there are 10 paragraphs that have no citations. This means that either the article needs to be reorganized or specific subjects are without verification. An additional paragraph has a {{fact}} tag. I am going to contact all those who I believe will undertake cleaning this article up to retain its GA status.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 13:27, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

• Comment. Overall a much stronger article than most non-FA universities and boosterism appears to be mostly under control. Madcoverboy (talk) 15:28, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
  • The lead gives a bit too much space to booster-like comments about its rankings and so forth in the second paragraph which WP:UNIGUIDE warns against. I believe this should be cut back by removing the mention of the "best value" and "most wired colleges" since these aren't especially notable distinctions in light of the later omission of more prevalent (no matter how much people who are in the know despise them) US News rankings.
  • The history section wanders a bit from topic to topic giving slightly undue weight to some anecdotes and lacks many necessary citations. I suggest spinning the section out to History of the University of Oklahoma for longer discussion there (so long as it is referenced) and summarizing the current section to hit the major points.
  • Recognition needs to be deprecated and its content merged into Academics.
  • Academic section lacks a lot of important information. Look at Northwestern University#Academics for an example (IMHO): information on OU's Carnegie classifications, accreditation status, graduate & professional programs, details about the academic calendar, undergraduate curriculum, demographics of the student body, financial aid and tuition numbers, enrollment distributions, etc. all need to be included. The academic section appears to preferentially select which rankings to include and excludes some notables ones such as US News, Washington Monthly, Forbes, The Times Higher Education Supplement, etc. I suggest implementing {{Infobox US university ranking}} and taking any mention of rankings out of the body.
  • Campus section is over-sectioned into subsections that are only a paragraph long. Vast tracts of the body here lack any references.
  • The Health Sciences enrollment box needs to be deprecated and moved off the main university article to the health science article only.
  • Museums and libraries is often merged with either Academics or Campus, but this isn't a hard and fast rule given the apparent importance of these particular institutions.
  • The student life section suffers from the bloat and cruft that inevitably accumulate over time. These need to be honed down and summarized to emphasize the notable distinctions and descriptions rather than elaborating on the particular minutae of student government offices, cafeterias, and other dorm amentities.
  • The renewable energy section needs to be deprecated and merged with the Campus section.

• Due to inaction and lack of contrary opinion, I am delisting this article.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 07:00, 16 May 2009 (UTC)