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Regarding the statement "Yale is a prestigious university", there are two questions:
Should this statement exist at all in the article?
If so, should this statement be in the lede?
No further explanation needed here. See above section titled "Prestige statement" for discussions. Also, refer to the edit summaries of our edits.
William2001(talk)(Please ping when replying)14:37, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
For clarity, the options in this RfC are:
Option A, no mention of the prestige of Yale in the article.
Option B, mention the prestige of Yale somewhere in the body of the article but not in the lead.
Option C, mention the prestige of Yale in the lead, using the wording in this diff, making the third sentence of the article It is among the most prestigious universities in the nation.[1]
Very, very new to Wikipedia editing here, but I'd like to throw in my two cents. I'd have to side with Chess on this one — the main reason for my doing so being that, in our discussion of whether a prestige statement violates WP:WIKIVOICE, no one has noted yet that Harvard University has an essentially identical statement in its lead, backed by similar citation. To me, therefore, including a statement in one lede but not the other is definitely not a "neutral point of view" for the purposes of Wikipedia. I suppose this doesn't necessarily mean that a prestige statement is needed here as there are also no prestige statements in the ledes of some similar institutions' articles (see Stanford University and Princeton University), but in that case, at the very least, Harvard's needs to go. Please let me know how we can move forward with this. 130.132.173.140 (talk) 05:56, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@William2001: You actually do need to provide further explanation as to the specific wording you want to describe Yale's prestige. WP:Diffs are helpful. Nobody is going to want to do the background research. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply)14:43, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Chess: Thanks for your input. I'm a little confused about what you mean by I need to provide further explanation. The Britannica source clearly mentions the word "prestige" and explicitly says Yale is one of the universities with the most social prestige in the nation. Furthermore, as I said in the talk page discussion above, according to Oxford, "high-ranking" and "prestigious" are synonyms. Hence, I have also provided a source that confirms Yale as a top ranked university by a reputable source, WSJ. I feel like I have done the research and presented them well, but clearly, others disagree... Please let me know what you think at your convenience. Thanks. William2001(talk)(Please ping when replying)19:21, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@William2001: I meant that RfCs generally come with multiple options that people (sort of) vote on. If you don't clearly provide an Option A/B/C people won't be able to make a clear decision. See WP:RFCBRIEF. You should provide the two questions you outlined below at the top of the RfC to make it easier for people to comment with a clear position. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply)20:14, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
(1) Should this statement exist at all in the article?
(2) If so, should this statement be in the lede?
My argument is that yes, this statement belongs in the lede. I think we can all agree (unless you are not familiar with US universities) that Yale's prestige is a big part of its identity. I go back to my Mozart example I used above: Mozart being a famous and reputable composer is something that is integral to the topic and deserves to be in the lede. Same logic here. One of the first things that come to people's mind when they hear the word "Yale" is, indeed, its prestige. (Anyone disagree?) Again, other great schools Harvard and Stanford have similar statements in the lede (which I think is completely okay). I'm not saying one university is better than the other; rather, I'm pointing out the inconsistency. Am I wrong to say that Yale is a prestigious university in the same way that Harvard and Stanford are prestigious? I don't think I'm wrong, but I'd be willing to have a discussion regarding this. Thanks for your comment. William2001(talk)(Please ping when replying)19:29, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Personally I find the word confusing, What does it actually mean? Is there some point in, say, the Times Higher Education World University Rankings which makes a university prestigous? Probably not, There's probably a sliding scale, some are more prestigous than others, rather than being prestigous in an absolute sense. I'd prefer something like University of Tokyo which has a section "University of Tokyo#Academic rankings and reputation" which lets the reader understand why "UTokyo is considered to be the most selective and prestigious university in Japan and is counted as one of the best universities in the world." Neither the University of Oxford or University of Cambridge articles call them "prestigious" so the fact that some US university articles do, doesn't convince me of its merit of including the word without significant explanation, even if we can find sources calling them "prestigious" in some nebulous sense. Nigej (talk) 21:38, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
1) I agree with you that is it difficult to determine a cutoff for which universities count as prestigious and which does not. However, whether you like it or not, the consensus on WP:HIGHEREDREP says that we are able to include such statements in the lede as long as there are reputable sources, which I have added.
2) If the Oxford/Cambridge articles don't say that they are prestigious, then I think that is a problem of those articles rather than that of the Yale article. William2001(talk)(Please ping when replying)01:58, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I see that "prestigous" is one of the words in the WP:PEACOCK category. I'd prefer the "Just the facts:" type of content noted there, not the "Peacock example:" style. People use the word but, to me, it doesn't convey any encyclopedic meaning. Another issue here is the bias in usage. Who's going to say that a particular university is "not prestigious"? So I'm still opposed, lets use words that have some clear meaning. Nigej (talk) 08:35, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
When something being prestigious or famous or renowned is such an important part of its identity, I think it is encyclopedic to say so. In fact, I think the article should say it. When someone learns about Mozart, don't you think it is perhaps important to note that he is regarded as one of the best and most famous in history? I get what you're trying to say, but I think words like "prestigious" are in fact appropriate in limited circumstances. William2001(talk)(Please ping when replying)21:12, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment (Summoned by bot) This is very similar to the examples of a bad question at WP:RFCBRIEF. I recommend that the RfC is closed and rewritten so as not to put the onus of information-finding entirely on the commenter. At the very least, there should be a direct question. Wrackingtalk!22:38, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Bad RfC In addition to the good commentary and advice offered above by others, it's also very disheartening that this RfC (a) follows only a brief discussion among three editors with no apparent attempt to invite discussion from others before jumping directly to a project-wide RfC and (b) makes no mention of a previous RfC that is directly relevant. ElKevbo (talk) 22:47, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@ElKevbo: Thanks for your comments. Yes, I did not explicitly mention WP:HIGHEREDREP in the RfC, but I did ask users to refer to the section just right above literally on the same page, which explicitly mentions WP:HIGHEREDREP. Nonetheless, I think this is perhaps not the best RfC; I'll let the more experienced users guide me through this. Thanks. William2001(talk)(Please ping when replying)02:12, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Option D: Abide by the existing consensus about this specific subject I again strongly recommend that editors review that previous RfC that specifically addressed this narrow topic. The consensus documented in that RfC doesn't forbid editors from adding language like this to the lede of an article but it does insist that it be very well-supported and the single source provided for this article is not sufficient. This is an old and very established university and the history and reputations of U.S. colleges and universities is a very well-studied area so there is no shortage of good sources that could be cited - but they have to be cited or we open up the floodgates for alumni, staff, and fans of every college and university to make poorly-sourced claims of being super awesome in thousands of articles. ElKevbo (talk) 02:42, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with you that statements like this should be well-supported. To be honest, I still think having Britannica supporting the statement is enough. However, for insurance, there are now three sources. William2001(talk)(Please ping when replying)21:22, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies Thanks everyone for comments. In my defense, I thought the discussion was pretty clear from reading the discussions in the section just right above. I thought it did not make sense to just copy and paste what I said in the section above to here. It is true that I made the users find information on their own. However, in this case, all the information you need is literally on the same page, just half a second of scrolling upwards. I thought I wasn't asking too much when I asked users to scroll up. Also, I did in fact direct users to see the section above, which does in fact mention WP:HIGEREDREP. Nonetheless, perhaps, I am not experienced/knowledgeable enough to open a good RfC. I'm a human, and I'm not perfect. Indeed, this is my first time opening an RfC, and it seems that the consensus is that this isn't probably the best RfC. I sincerely apologize for that, but I hope you'll understand and not bite the RfC newbie per WP:BITE. To be clear, I'm NOT saying anyone did in fact bite me, but I'm just begging for understanding. Needless to say, ElKevbo and I are obviously not agreeing with each other, and it seemed like we were never going to agree, so I naturally turned to RfCs. I think I'm going to step back and let the more experienced editors take over and find an alternative conflict resolution. However, perhaps most importantly, I would like to say that I maintain my position that the prestige statement belongs in the lede for the numerous reasons I have mentioned. William2001(talk)(Please ping when replying)01:50, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@William2001: No worries. I think a long time ago I was publicly roasted for starting a bad RfC. You are vastly underrating your competence level and are overthinking the reaction of people to this. Saying this is a bad RfC isn't a personal statement on you in particular and happens very frequently. That being said, I think an RfC is a good idea. This has been an ongoing slow motion conflict not just involving you for a long time prior to this discussion. The main reason why in my view this RfC is bad is because there aren't any clear options, so I'm just going to add some. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply)02:03, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Chess: Thank you for your kind words and for adding the options. Interesting to hear that you had a similar experience. Despite having had an account for more than a decade now, I am still inexperienced in areas like opening an RfC. I hope I can use this as a learning experience and mature as a Wikipedian. William2001(talk)(Please ping when replying)02:17, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think directly stating that the school is prestigious is not aligned with WP:WIKIVOICE, specifically "Prefer nonjudgmental language. A neutral point of view neither sympathizes with nor disparages its subject". Best to stick to stating facts (e.g. endowment, alumni, ranking, acceptance rate, accolades, etc.). The article may describe other's perception of the prestige of the school with WP:DUE weight. eyal (talk) 21:59, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Eyal3400: Thank you for your input. I understand what you are trying to say. However, the consensus of the original RfC was that statements like these should be allowed as long as they are well supported by sources. If we are going to override the original RfC and remove the prestige statement in Yale, then we must be consistent and remove it from Harvard and Stanford also. Personally, for the reasons I mentioned above, I think having prestige statements can be encyclopedic in limited, clear circumstances. William2001(talk)(Please ping when replying)22:37, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Can you please link to this previous RfC?
I want to emphasize that my suggestion is just to remove statements in wikivoice directly relating Yale to prestige. One way to do this is to convert the statement "It is among the most prestigious universities in the nation" to "It is considered to be among the most prestigious universities in the nation" with the same references. The new wording more accurately summarizes the relevant takeaway from these references, and I believe is more encyclopedic according to the Wikipedia's WP:PG.
Discussions about other university articles is out of scope for this talk page, though I agree that this idea should be applied in all relevant articles. eyal (talk) 01:47, 19 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The RfC has already been linked several times in this discussion.
"It is considered to be among the most prestigious universities in the nation" is just bad writing. "It is considered" and "prestigious" are redundant as prestige is a characterization of how people consider one thing relative to other things. ElKevbo (talk) 22:51, 19 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No, this interpretation is missing nuance. The statement is meant precisely as written: (a) A source XYZ says "Yale is prestigious". (b) Therefore, the implication "Yale is considered to be prestigious [by source XYZ]" is correct.
I think the crux of the issue is that when a source says "Yale is prestigious", it is essentially making a claim that a certain opinion about Yale is significant.
Fortunately, WP:WIKIVOICE gives explicit instructions on what to do in this case: "Avoid stating opinions as facts. Usually, articles will contain information about the significant opinions that have been expressed about their subjects. However, these opinions should not be stated in Wikipedia's voice. Rather, they should be attributed in the text to particular sources, or where justified, described as widespread views, etc."
So in this article, the options are either:
(1) Include the opinion about Yale along with the source of the opinion:
- Opinion: Not clear. Like you said, if we consider "prestigious" to mean "regarded higher than others in its category", then the opinion might be "Yale is better than most universities".
- Source of opinion: Not clear either. The current citations in the lede don't mention who holds the belief that "Yale is better than most universities".
(2) Present the opinion as a widespread view: As far as I have seen, none of the sources explicitly make this claim or expound into how many people hold the opinion in question. Therefore, I don't think it's safe to make such a claim in the article with the current sources.
Together, the above indicates that the current sources don't provide a proper foundation to make strong claims about prestige in the article, and especially not in the lede. eyal (talk) 08:37, 24 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@William2001: Hi. As with other discussions, it's taken me longer than reply than expected, sorry. Besides WP:WIKIVOICE, I remember a guideline or essay that cited a specific example for leads or wikivoice, but I can't find it. It gave as an example Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones of something similar. The point was among the lines of "show and not tell", and focus on why Yale is prestigious, rather than outright saying it. The current lead fortunately does a good work at this: it says it is part of the Ivy League, and its last paragraph focuses on all of its notable alumni, including Nobel laureates, award recipients, public officials and academics, among others.
I want to clarify that this does not mean that I oppose saying that Yale is "prestigious" in the article with wikivoice. I'm sure there are plenty of sources that say this with an editorial voice. Rather, I want to point out and suggest that there are alternative ways of saying it. I'll ping @ElKevbo: to learn their thoughts on this. Please let me know if I can help in any other way. Happy editing, --NoonIcarus (talk) 09:13, 19 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know why we'd want to treat this topic any differently than we treat other topics in this encyclopedia. If something is said about a subject by many different, reliable sources and is written about in detail in the body of the article then it's entirely appropriate and helpful for readers for that information to be included in the lede of the article. The primary challenges we've had in Wikipedia with this kind of information is that many editors have tried to add it to articles when both of those things aren't already true or when the sourcing is too weak to support inclusion in the lede. This is especially challenging because there are (a) many unreputable ranking systems and publications that are not reliable sources and (b) some editors who are more interested in promoting their alma mater, employer, or favorite team than in abiding by our policies and practices.
If someone is interested in revisiting the existing consensus then I advise them to do so openly by doing it explicitly and inviting discussion from interested editors (e.g., those who participated in the previous RfC, those who watch WT:UNI and WT:EDU). ElKevbo (talk) 22:58, 19 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@ElKevbo @William2001 Based off of Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources, there is no consensus on the reliability of Britannica and it is not considered a reliable source by editors. Absurd or not, that's the [lack of] consensus that has to be given its due consideration.
As it stands, the statement fails WP:HIGHEREDREP. Unfortunately, like some other articles for top institutions, it is jumping the gun without having the WP:DUE weight in the article necessary to support such a prominent place in the lede. As part of a WP:PRESERVE, the article should go back to its non-WP:BOOSTER version until it has the proper weight and explicit support in the article without WP:SYNTH. GuardianH (talk) 03:25, 24 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
First, WP:BRITANNICA does not say that that encyclopedia is "not considered a reliable source by editors." Second, WP:PRESERVE does not mean "preserve my own preferred version of an article."
There are multiple sections in the article that discuss the university's relative standing using many different measures. I get that you don't think any article should say that the subject is "prestigious" but the reality is that for some subjects that is an accurate statement that not only summarizes a broad number of sources but also provides readers with critical information that belongs in the lede. ElKevbo (talk) 04:10, 24 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This article and subject falls under policies regarding WP:NOR and WP:DUE as outlined by WP:HIGHEREDREP, and the sentence fails those stringent criteria. I want to call attention to OR in particular:
Even with well-sourced material, if you use it out of context, or to reach or imply a conclusion not directly and explicitly supported by the source, you are engaging in original research[.]
In other words, it can't be implicitly inferred. For a lofty statement like ...is among the most prestigious universities in the country, there should be paragraphs expounding upon prestige and the perceptions of the university's prestige in relation to other universities in the United States. There's not any of that in the article at all; in fact, prestige is not mentioned at all besides that one lede sentence. I reiterate that it's failed WP:UNDUE and WP:SYNTH. This has become another textbook case of the WP:BOOSTERISM we've all been fighting against — Yale shouldn't get a pass. GuardianH (talk) 04:28, 24 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I also want to call attention to a failure of Britannica under the quality references defined by WP:HIGHEREDREP, which calls for material being directly supported by high-quality sources (WP:V, WP:RS, WP:SYNTH). Under WP:RSP, Britannica has no consensus for being a reliable source and fails this criterion. It shouldn't be used to support the statement. GuardianH (talk) 04:38, 24 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I know from my own experience that the Britannica article on the Mona Lisa includes a claim made by a prolific sockpuppet here and always rebutted. It was approved by someone who I could never contact. If there are no better sources than the Britannica it shouldn't be used, if there are, they should be used. Note that as a Yale graduate I'm biased, but of course it's prestigious. Doug Wellertalk11:02, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not done: As a Batman fan that was a fun read, but its use of two circumstantial pieces of "evidence" hardly make it a reliable source that Batman was a Yale grad. DrOrinScrivello (talk) 16:01, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
level-4 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
Not done: As a Batman fan that was a fun read, but its use of two circumstantial pieces of "evidence" hardly make it a reliable source that Batman was a Yale grad. DrOrinScrivello (talk) 16:01, 31 October 2024 (UTC)