Talk:University of Pittsburgh

Accurate to call University of Pittsburgh public state-reheated?

The University of Pressure isn't exactly a public or private university. It's hybrid. It's a state-related higher education institution of Pennsylvania so it's privately run with designated state support. Murielgh (talk) 09:16, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Lol on my own typos. Autocorrect on mobile Murielgh (talk) 09:17, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

You are, of course, 100% correct. It is inaccurate for the article to describe the University of Pittsburgh as a public university, because it is not a public university and it never has been. It is a state-related university, and that is the actual legal status of the institution. Unfortunately, that doesn't fit neatly into the binary world of some editors, thus they have forced the article to contain misleading information. CrazyPaco (talk) 18:50, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

That description conforms with sources such as the U.S. Department of Education and the American Council on Education. You're welcome to try to convince those scholars and experts to change their minds and their published documents and we'll then follow suit. ElKevbo (talk) 18:58, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

State-related is the actual legal designation. Period. That is not changed by the US Department of Education or anyone else that has only binary buckets to place universities into their database. Those entities also are not wikipedia editors so it is not anyone's responsibility to convince them of anything. It continues to be unfortunate that you prefer unnecessary standardization over accuracy. CrazyPaco (talk) 19:26, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Lists of GLOs

@User:Jax MN: lists of Greek institutions are better placed on list pages, since their content relevance for an encyclopedia is marginal. Also, there is not enough reliable documentation about them. Most Wikipedia editors agree that rote listings of Greek institutions are not helpful if there is no sourcing from outside the college's or university's homepage or the fraternity's own circle. If you can prove that one or more of the Greek houses is significant, then pls do so, but for the most part, individual houses fall under WP:UNDUE. That is, they are not significant enough for an encyclopdia. Here is an example of the lists, which are more appropriate. -- Melchior2006 (talk) 20:06, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Hello Melchior. I agree that separate list pages or articles with lists are preferable. Those of us on the F&S Project simply have not yet gotten to them all. Our practice therefore has been to list the organizations that are present without significant other editorial content on the college or university article. Certainly, with perhaps 30% of collegians and alumni regularly participating in them for 100+ years, they merit a brief mention -- at least to the degree we mention the college radio station, or a set of buildings that are LEEDS-certified, or a subsection noting controversaries or protests. I believe this meets the requirement of BALANCE. To your comment on specific significant buildings, yes, we sometimes note these but they are an offshoot. Relatively few are on the historic register of their states or on the national list. The bigger picture here is that all these chapters are normally listed in solid secondary sources, including the Baird's Manual, Banta's Greek Exchange, and/or numerous published histories. I agree that it is preferable to hatnote a main article or list of the institution's fraternity system (including honor and professional organizations), as is often done for a college's athletic program. Jax MN (talk) 20:46, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

There is no rush to post information, so pls wait before publishing sub-par content. The problem with laundry lists of GLOs is that often the individual contents are inaccurate, badly-sourced, and don't stand up to closer examination. Also, the mere existence of a GLO on campus certainly does not make it notable. We have discussed these issues before and there is widespread consensus among editors about deleting laundry lists of frats and sororities. You will not find them on other university pages, but you will find good list articles which give all the information a reader could desire. -- Melchior2006 (talk) 09:35, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

I asked for a third opinion WP:3O since the discussion has come to a standstill. --Melchior2006 (talk) 06:56, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

@Melchior2006: I wanted to respond to your suggestion that a list article is the best place for GLO content. Most of those list articles are old and do not reflect current thought within Wikipedia. Around half of these articles have already been deleted after an AfD because the majority of the secondary sources do not provide extensive coverage of Greek life on that specific campus and, therefore, do not prove the notability of the data set. As a similar example, the current provost might be mentioned in a university article, but the individual may not meet notability for a stand-alone article; nor does this mean that a list of former provosts meets notability for a list article. Think of it this way--if the content has no value as part of the university's details, it is unlikely to meet notability as a stand-alone child article. If it has value as a child article, it would also have value (in some form) to the parent university article. Even if there is a stand-alone list article about campus fraternities and sororities, MOS specifies an introductory section about the topic to go along with the main article link. Meaning, there would still need to be a summary of the imporatnce of Greek life on campus in the university (parent) article. (I sometimes get my hand-slapped for creating alumni list articles without providing a paragraph or two to go with the main article link, so can assure you this is the WP:UNI standard). Hope this helps in your future edits. Rublamb (talk) 20:26, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I am providing a requested third opinion. A few observations:

• The contested information was restored without adding sourcing, which should not have been done per WP:PROVEIT, which is policy.
• WP:UNDUE has been cited in the discussion above, but without sourcing or discussion of sourcing it is unclear how the weight of viewpoints ...in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources has been assessed.
• The above two bullet points refer to policy/guideline issues. Moving to stylistic assessment, the table looks blocky to me and strikes me as too much coverage for this aspect. I see that many other university articles, when they mention Greek orgs at all, do so my stating the number of organizations on campus rather than listing out every one. That seems like a better approach here as well, and is what I suggest. VQuakr (talk) 17:14, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

An excellent point. I have added three references to support the claim that these groups are present and have been present for, in some cases, 150+ years. I also added a short introductory paragraph in the style common for other school articles, noting the number of chapters, the pioneers on the campus, and a call out noting a similar tenure for the professional, service and honor societies. A later editor or one of us on the F&S Project will certainly use these references and the campus portal listings to develop a subordinate page that may be hatlinked. At that time, our practice would be to remove the table from the main article. Jax MN (talk) 19:20, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Thx to VQuakr. Since the two bullet points are clear, I will soon remove the table with unsourced names, it should never have been restored in the first place. Also, I find it strange that Jax MN is not responding to the most important argument: "strikes me as too much coverage for this aspect." Why open the comment with "excellent point" when you ignore the main point? Seems disingenuous somehow. There seems to be consensus among editors on this, since almost no university pages on Wikipedia list GLOs in detail. And even if Jax MN did note the founding dates of very few of the GLOs, does that really make them significant? We need references from outside the GLO bubble in order to ascertain Wiki-relevance here. -- Melchior2006 (talk) 07:04, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Mel, I'm catching up on some notifications as real life intrudes. I indeed responded to your argument that there is too much coverage for GLOs, by explaining in the intro paragraph to the table the many decades of campus participation in these groups, some of which have existed for 150 years. Each of the chapters in the table are listed on the references provided. (And we haven't yet gotten to listing the various professional, honor and service chapters.) At various points, a review of yearbooks will show that Pitt (that's the nickname of the university here in the US) often had over 50% of students participating, either in the general (~social) organizations or in the honor, service or professional chapters. These groups, Greek Letter Organizations (GLOs), are far more common and popular here than you give them credit for, and I fully oppose your statement that there is consensus among editors about this.

Further, you added a paragraph about a couple of hazing incidents. While those events happened, our practice is to cite these against the specific chapter name on the list of chapters, or when notorious, to promote the item, and note it in a "Local misconduct" section of the article about the national fraternity or sorority. Candidly, I think you have a distorted view about these, as an outsider to American colleges. In fairness, these two hazing incidents are a couple of transitory events that are outliers to the experiences of some 150,000 students over the many years. Say there was a paragraph about the campus bus service, and in 2017 a student was hit by a drunk bus driver. --Would that incident merit a paragraph? Or, given the truth that thousands of students ride the busses each day, wouldn't that incident fairly be described as an outlier, and not merit inclusion in the summary? To do so would show unfair balance, and may indicate the writer is attempting to harm the general good impression of the campus bus service. This is a hypothetical, but I sense your efforts to remove the table and promote these adjudicated hazing incidents shows a bias. Your valued efforts to remove puffery is unwarranted in this case. Greeks, as we call them in our shorthand in this country, are broadly popular, and generate an enormous amount of media notification, even without seeking it. Finally, I remind you that I added several references from searchable archive sites which you may review, along with the citation of a blue-chip reference book on the subject. Every one of these chapters in the table is listed in those references. Deletion of the table is reverted. I captured one of the two hazing citations you found, and have appended it against the chapter name in the table, giving it proper weight in the article. The other was 30 years old, and is no longer current enough for this summary article. Jax MN (talk) 19:35, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

To me is seems like there is consensus that the in-prose table listing a bunch of GLOs is not warranted in this article, the subject of which is a University and not these GLOs. I suggest either removing the table or holding a RfC to get broader input. As a reminder re Each of the chapters in the table are listed on the references provided., verifiability is an insufficient standard to guarantee inclusion of given content per WP:VNOT. Regardless, @Jax MN: the table should not have been restored without consensus to do so, which you currently clearly lack. VQuakr (talk) 20:25, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

VQuakr, the table was deleted without any real consensus. I reverted. Lists of Greek chapters are prevalent features of US collegiate Wikipedia articles. These organizations are notable, broadly-popular campus features with decade-long or even century-long histories. I provided the necessary citations and an intro paragraph, responding to Melchior's concern. Removing them, without similarly removing vast troves of other content is arbitrary and shows bias. Jax MN (talk) 21:27, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Has this kind of content ever been the subject of an explicit RfC or other large discussion among a diverse group of editors? ElKevbo (talk) 21:56, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

I know of no previous RfC, but I would certainly welcome one. Jax MN is edit warring (again) and has been disingenuous in several discussions. The table should be deleted. Since he devotes a lot of time to writing about GLOs, he knows very well that they are not listed on most Wiki pages about major universities. Go ahead and make a list, that would cover all bases. The news coverage of students killed during hazing is certainly of perennial significance for this article, it should certainly not be deleted without first attaining consensus on talk. -- Melchior2006 (talk) 17:51, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Good afternoon, Melchior. We will have to disagree on your characterizations. I am a serious editor and do not participate in edit warring. Nor have I been disingenuous. You have, on the occasions where we have crossed paths, offered ad hoc edits regarding these GLOs, without process or consistency. You have your areas of interest, and I would leave them to your capable hands. I have mine, and am very experienced with both GLOs and with American colleges and universities. As a Project participant, I follow our guidelines to ensure consistency. Contrary to your opinion, many summary collegiate articles note the presence of GLOs, and list them. Some of these use a hatnote linking to an article with more information. GLOs (social, honor, professional, or service) are typically popular with a plurality or even a majority of the student body, and are worthy of inclusion; far more than some transitory or niche subjects listed in some of these articles. Jax MN (talk) 21:46, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

There appears to be consensus to omit the table that lists dozens of GLOs by name. The subject of this article is the University, not GLOs. While I'm sure there are some other university articles that sport a similar table, there are by no means ubiquitous or a standard. You don't get special dispensation to ignore other editors because you're a "Project participant". VQuakr (talk) 22:32, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

We're probably at the stage where we need an RfC on this. Project participants have added and policed numerous such lists as sections of student life subheadings. I don't agree at all that there is consensus to omit these. Jax MN (talk) 00:47, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

But you've been asked to produce any result of centralized discussion that might indicate that this project's alleged "policing" (yikes!) has consensus and have provided none. So what these project participants have done isn't relevant to our discussion. I don't agree at all that there is consensus to omit these. Your agreement isn't necessary for a consensus to exist: it does. Feel free to start a RfC if you want to see if the present consensus changes with more participation; the onus is on you to do so. VQuakr (talk) 01:43, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

@ElKevbo: I think that is the real issue here. Can we start a discussion on WP:Uni's TalkPage? Lacking WP Uni guidelines, we have one editor who regularly deletes GLO content and others who have added it, believing that to be the norm. It appears all parties are making good faith edits but could use better guidance.

I have often seen a long list of GLO reduced to "This college has fraternities and sororities". To all involved: there is a middle ground. For example, US News & World Report's review of colleges cites the number of students who belong to a GLO, which is great content for the article and can also inform the level of detail that is appropriate for the specific article. Not all universities are the same. Some have zero GLOs and some have a really high percentage of students who belong to a GLO. I once came across a college where 90% of its students belonged to a fratarnity or sorority. If national and international fraternities and sororities were established at the college or university, that too is relevant information. This infomation is reliably found in secondary sources and, often, in the university's online archives. With regards to presentation, MOS would suggest that text is better than a table or list. Meaning, a great solution for this article is curreted content in text format (with sources). Again, there is something in between these two extremes. Rublamb (talk) 17:41, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Agreed that percent of student body membership in Greek orgs would be a good thing to include. A prose list of dozens of orgs has the same issue as a table: it doesn't convey meaningful information about the subject. VQuakr (talk) 17:49, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I think Rublamb's middle ground is a great idea. Intelligent writing about GLOs which are relevant to the school in some authentic way is completely in order. The only problem is researching and writing it. I find that few editors want to do so; they prefer to use laundry lists with no sourcing or only internal sourcing. But let's not forget: GLOs should also be covered when they make bad headlines, that often reflects larger issues. My only question is: since your "middle ground" approach really does require rare levels of engagement, what do we do with the tables and boring prose lists? The reasonable thing it to delete them. -- Melchior2006 (talk) 17:52, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

@Melchior2006: Unless the article is otherwise perfect and well-sourced throughout, I would leave the GLO list but tag it as unsourced (already addressed in this instance) and for a copy edit (with a notation to shorten the list to text). WP UNI editors regularly use tags instead of deleting content, including tagging for academic boosterism or no references. I suspect WP: Fraternities and Sororities (or WP: UNI) would be willing to create and host a work list when editors like you could post the names of articles that need updates to the Greek life sections. First, it would be helpful for WP: UNI to settle on guidelines. Rublamb (talk) 19:35, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm here because of the notice of the discussion posted at WP:UNI.

It seems to me, having read over the comments so far, that there are a couple of separate issues:

1) Is a list of GLOs WP:UNDUE

2) Inclusion of unsourced information

These two overlap because the lists of GLOs included in university articles are often unsourced.

On the first of these, there don't seem to be particularly definitive arguments. The argument for having them in there isn't great, but this is down deep in the body of a large article. For a small article with little other information, including a big list of GLOs is likely to be UNDUE, but this argument is much weaker in an article the size of Pitt's. Rublamb's "middle ground" seems a very good way forward – we want articles that give an encyclopedic overview of the role of GLOs at a university, not just a list of GLOs, where possible. Getting towards this should be the aim.

On the second, the Wikipedia policy on WP:UNSOURCED information is quite clear: "Any material lacking an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the material may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source." If a list of GLOs is not well sourced, then any editor who objects to it may simply remove it. This isn't always the best approach to building the encyclopedia, of course, and there is no obligation to remove it, except in the unlikely circumstance that WP:BLP applies. In most cases, the information is likely to be accurate and it may be better to WP:PRESERVE the information rather than removing it. As Rublamb said, and as is also said in WP:UNSOURCED, the best course is going to depend on the overall state of the article. If it's a well-referenced GA or FA, the tolerance for unsourced information is going to be lower than if it's an article that has unreferenced sections lying around already. Here, the general list of citations given at the top of the list makes it better sourced than the 'housing' section.

In terms of general guidance, I would therefore propose:

• Where possible, and certainly for institutional articles that are GA and FA candidates, lists of GLOs should be replaced by text describing the role and importance of GLOs in student life at the institution. This should include the overall proportion of students in GLOs and historically important GLOs on campus, particularly national or international GLOs that were founded at an institution, but will not normally include a comprehensive list of all GLOs that are present.
• Inclusion of a section on GLOs should be WP:DUE, with regard to the overall size of the article and the importance of GLOs at the institution. This is particularly important if the section is simply a list of GLOs, which can take up a lot of space in a small article, giving undue weight to the importance of GLOs.
• Inclusion of information on GLOs (including lists) should follow standard Wikipedia policy on sourcing. WP:UNSOURCED information may be challenged and removed, but it is often more helpful to WP:PRESERVE the information, either tagging it as unsourced or finding suitable citations and add them.

Robminchin (talk) 16:03, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

1. @Robminchin and @ElKevbo: Somehow I missed this post in July and did not respond. What do we need to do to incorporate this into WP:UNI's guidelines? Should we move Robminchin's text to WP:UNI's talkpage for approval? I think it is good to go but realize this discussion only included a few of us. The only additon that I would make is a link to some examples of best practices. Wish I could remember the one I worked on the last time this became an issue; it was one of the New England privates where many GLOs were formed and it the campus is still very Greek. We could also link to the University of lllinois' Almanac of Fraternities and Sororities, a librarian and scholar-anmaintained secondary source for the major active groups on most campuses. Encouraing awaremess of this resource ecould help solve the unsourced issue. I know I will not be the one fixing the GLO content (my running list of redlinked colleges to write articles for is now around 100) but I would like to help improve it and direct other editors.

Rublamb (talk) 23:27, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Students killed during fraternity hazing

I added a paragraph about victims of fraternity hazing and Jax MN deleted it, claiming that it was not relevant because it happened in 1996. I suggest that such an extreme event goes into a university's history regardless of long ago it happened. It is an indicator of campus culture in 1991, the excesses of fraternities, administrative prevention-incompetence, and so on. I certainly think the deleted material should be put back in. -- Melchior2006 (talk) 07:27, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

That section is sourced to The Eagle, the student newspaper at American, which is not a great source. For this reason, I don't think it should be included in the article. An argument against it that it was a long time ago was also given, but that is not a good argument per WP:RECENTISM. A short paragraph ending with "soon following in 1918" is plenty of coverage of this aspect of the university; the large table and the additional prose should be excised. VQuakr (talk) 16:02, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree with you about the recentism and necessary deletions. As for the 1996 incident, I now have sourcing from Chronicle of Higher Ed (they say victim "had to be placed on a kidney-dialysis machine last week after he was beaten severely in what city police said was a fraternity hazing incident" -- there is no report of his death). Then we have the incident in a book published (2nd edition) by SUNY Press. This is pretty major coverage. -- Melchior2006 (talk) 17:10, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I think this info is better placed in the articles about the fraternity, Hazing in Greek letter organizations, and Hazing deaths. Links can be provided via the See Also section. As covered in a recent discussion about whether or not to include Gaza protests in university articles, sometimes events that get high-level coverage are not as important with time. As editors, we sometimes have to decide as to value to current readers. I would only consider this 28-year-old incident for this article if it resulted in significant university policy changes, such as the removal of all GLOs from campus OR the end of residential GLOs. Why? Because students (sadly) die on campus every year, hazing is historically common and not unique to Pitt (not to diminish this victim's suffering), and this incidient was not the result of something the university did. Furthermore, if there are only going to be one or two sentences about fraternities and sororities in this aticle, citing this one hazing incident falls under UNDUE. Rublamb (talk) 19:11, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Thx for the good suggestion; I will add the info the hazing articles. -- Melchior2006 (talk) 06:44, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

I looked around and was surprised that there is no list of hazing incidents if they stop short of death. I guess it is hard to prove, to the last degree, what is the difference between hazing injuries and alcohol-induced injuries or just plain old assault. Do you know of any such lists of "incidents" (not deaths)? -- Melchior2006 (talk) 11:08, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Probably the latter, although I see no reason why there isn't a list or section for major hazing incidents (those with national coverage) as part of Hazing in Greek letter organizations. I don't know the history of these articles; Hazing deaths may have been a spin-off that became focused on actual deaths.

If relevant, fraternities/sorority articles have a misconduct/controversies section that details major incidents, such as those with widespread or national coverage and those that resulted in death, changes to college policies, permanent closure of the chapter, and convictions of members. If the chapter was closed (temporarily or permanently), regardless of the severity of the hazing incident, this information is included in the chapter list via an efn. As I understand it, WP: Fraternities and Sororities developed this practice as an attempt to find encyclopedic balance. Hazing incidents often receive significant news coverage (meaning a source for Wikipedia), while there is little coverage of a group's good behavior (meaning no sources). As a fictional example, including a paragraph on a non-lethal hazing incident that happened 30 years ago at one of 125+ chapters of an organization that is more than 75 years old could be UNDUE. However, if it is one of dozens of incidents reported over ten years, it starts to look like systemic culture and could be encyclopedic. In general, single incidents can be interpreted as the bad behavior of lone individuals and not, therefore, a part of the GLO's culture. Although current events might have relevance to the article for a short time. Like a lot of university controversies, we have to look at the relevance of historic events to the overall institutional history. While this tragic event is a blip in the university's story, it looks like this incident should be part of the GLO's article. Rublamb (talk) 14:35, 12 July 2024 (UTC)