Talk:Pomona College/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: HAL333 (talk · contribs) 01:09, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

I'll be taking this one on. ~ HAL333 01:09, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks so much for picking this up! As you're aware from your work at FAR, WP:HED's quality content has been trending in a pretty dire direction, so I hope this will help build it back up. I look forward to hearing your comments and addressing your concerns! Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 01:51, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Lead

• Assuming it's sourced in the body, could you removed some of the redundent sources per WP:LEADCITE.

  I've removed some of the redundant sources from the infobox. The remaining ones are for information either not repeated in the body (e.g. pronunciation of "Pomona") or controversial enough that I think I'd get into trouble if I removed them. Let me know if there are any specific references still in the lead you think should go. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 02:07, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

• Fine by me. ~ HAL333 02:25, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

• Is there a semantic difference between "athletics teams" and "athletic teams"? Not sure myself.

  According to Collins, the difference seems to be that "athletics" is a noun, whereas "athletic" is an adjective. So either could be used, but "athletics" would probably be better, and it's what Pomona seems to use. I've changed the mentions in the article to be consistent. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 03:14, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

• Can references be placed anywhere in a sentence, regardless of whether immediately after punctuation?

  WP:CITEFOOT seems to address this. I like to place citations directly after information they support to help make it clearer that they support that specific piece of information. There is a bit of a readability tradeoff, though, so if you think they ought to be changed, that could work too. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 03:14, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

• In the end, it's your work. As long as it's supported by policy, I'm cool with it. ~ HAL333 03:31, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

• Rest of the lead is good to go. ~ HAL333 02:30, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

History

• This section is just a tad too crowded with images. Could the 1943 image be ditched?

  I removed File:Pearsons Hall and college gates circa 1915, Pomona College.jpg instead, as I think the 1943 image is a little more historically unique. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:10, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

• regional group of Congregationalists What is meant by regional? Southern Californian?

  Yep, specifically the "Education Committee of the Association of Congregational Churches in Southern California". Since Southern California is mentioned in the previous sentence, I hope "regional" implies "Southern Californian", but there might be a way to make it clearer without getting repetitive. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:10, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

  You're right. "Regional" flows better. ~ HAL333 00:12, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

• oriented --> "reoriented" as it is changing from it's prior academic orientation. Nitpicky.

  Done. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:10, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

• (today's Sumner Hall) Doesn't really have much meaning to the reader, assuming they didn't attend Pomona. I would probably remove it and save it for later or the eventual history subarticle.

  Pomona renamed the hotel Sumner Hall pretty soon after acquiring it (1893), so it's been Sumner Hall for basically its entire history. For readers unfamiliar with Pomona, they can see an image of the hall in the first photo, but by that time it was already renamed, so it won't be possible for them to make the connection unless it's also specified in the text. I've changed the parenthetical to read (which it later renamed Sumner Hall); is that better? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:10, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

  👍 ~ HAL333 00:12, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

• several buildings Could you provide an exact number? If the sourcing is scarce no worries.

  The exact date when Pomona emerged from its financial crisis and the definition of which structures count as a new building are both subjective, so it's difficult to be specific here without having to add qualifications and definitions that would impede the flow of the text. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:10, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

• the college acquired a 64-acre parcel of land Was it purchased/willed/donated?

  It was purchased for the college by a trustee, per here. I'm not sure from who, though, as at that time most of the Inland Empire was totally undeveloped wilderness. Do you think purchased would be a better word that acquired? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:10, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

  I guess keep "acquired". ~ HAL333 00:12, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

• This would allow Pomona to retain its small Maybe reword/rewrite to avoid using "would".

  Done. I also removed the quote, which isn't strictly necessary. This was one of the few bits left over from before I revamped the article, so thanks for prompting me to fix it up. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:10, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

• construction of several new residence halls and science facilities Remove "new". I would assume they weren't constructing any old buildings.

  Haha done! {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:10, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

• Minor sea of blue with historically black Fisk University

  Yeah, there's a tradeoff here between a minor MOS:SEAOFBLUE and minor wordiness, as the only way I can think to rewrite it is ...and establishing an exchange program with Fisk University, a historically black university in Tennessee, in 1952, which repeats "university" twice. I don't have a preference as to which flaw is more tolerable, so I've switched to that. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:10, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

• He also ended the gender segregation Remove "also".

  I intend for the "also" there to connote that ending the gender segregation was a further example of a progressive civil rights decision Lyon made. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:10, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

• I'm a little confused by However, he wavered when it came to some of the more radical student protests against the Vietnam War, and permitted Air Force recruiters to come to campus in 1967. Is that synthesis? Were the students specifically voicing their opposition to recruiters on campus?

  Yes, students were specifically voicing their objection to Air Force recruiters seeking enlistees for Vietnam. In fact, students ended up blocking the recruiters. I found the LA Times coverage and added it as a reference. It's an interesting read—Lyon justified the invitation by saying the college was neutral about who it invited to recruit, so students replied with "okay, so let's invite the communist party to recruit then", Lyon was like "hell no", and the students thereby won the argument. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:10, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

  Just read a few LATimes articles on him. Interesting man. Coincidentally went to the University of Mississippi. ~ HAL333 00:12, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

• A controversial 2013 rebranding initiative sought to emphasize students' passion and drive. Somehat vague.

  I've added to the sentence a bit, explaining why the rebranding was controversial. I don't want to expand it too much as it wouldn't be WP:DUE, but I hope the added bit helps. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:10, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

• In July 2017 The month doesn't really matter.

  Removed. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:10, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

• Rest looks good. ~ HAL333 14:54, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
• One more (sorry): As you do it in similar sentences, I would add a comma after "In the 2000s".

  Done; good catch! {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 01:03, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Campus

• This is kind of a side note, but if Sumner Hall is the most prominent building at Pomona, it may be worth making its article. Beyond the scope of a GAN, but just a thought.

  Sumner Hall has a bunch of historic significance, but not as much architectural significance as some of the other buildings I created pages for. I might create a page for it at some point, though. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 01:28, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

• Pomona has undertaken various initiatives --> "Pomona has undertaken initiatives"

  Done. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 01:28, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

• Alt text is good
• Clark Halls (I, III, and V I might be missing something, but where are Clark Halls II and IV?

  Very good question; the answer is that Clark II is Frary Dining Hall and Clark IV was never built. We could add an explanatory efn footnote if you think readers are likely to be confused, or we could leave it out as undue trivia; I'd be fine with either. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 01:28, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

  I think an efn footnote would work. ~ HAL333 01:32, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

  Done! Now that I've written it out, I think it works quite well. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 01:43, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

• (16 ha)[88] Standardize whether the references are placed inside or outside the parantheses.

  I use references inside parentheses to denote that they're supporting only the information inside the parenthetical, whereas references outside the parentheses support surrounding text as well. Does that work? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 01:28, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

  Ah, okay. ~ HAL333 01:32, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

• Always loved Prometheus. Didn't realize it was at Pomona. This section is otherwise good to go. ~ HAL333 00:50, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Organization and administration

A quick note to start off here—I'm aware of the lingering {{cn}} tag about the financial tensions between the colleges. It falls into that extremely annoying original research category of information that I know to be true and know to be encyclopedically relevant but can't find stated anywhere in a reliable source. I reached out to Pomona's archivist a little while back to try to find a source for it, but if he can't come up with anything, I might have to comment it out. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 01:51, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

It is really irritating how spotty sourcing is for universities in general. Hopefully the archivist can find something. ~ HAL333 02:40, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

• What is meant by 7Cs and 5Cs?

  They stand for "seven colleges" and "five colleges". I tweaked the parenthetical to note that. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 03:27, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

• was scheduled to undergo reevaluation in May 2021 Did it happen?

  I believe it did but that the results haven't been released yet; the WSCUC website doesn't have any updates. I have a {{Update after}} tag set to appear next month to remind me to check. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 03:27, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

• Everything else is good. ~ HAL333 02:54, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Academics and programs

• Do you have a source for note e?
• Same for f and others.

  Yep, the sources for those footnotes are the ones at the end of the sentences in which they appear. I think there was some discussion somewhere about whether footnotes go before or after references; I might tweak that if it'd help to make clearer which references are supporting which information. I could also just add instances of the references to the footnotes themselves. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:45, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

  Gotcha. ~ HAL333 19:50, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

• Students and professors often form close relationships Is this unique to Pomona though?

  I wouldn't say it's unique to Pomona, but the extent of student-faculty interactions at Pomona and similar small liberal arts colleges with low student-faculty ratios is certainly a defining characteristic. The potential boosterism concern with that line did occur to me, but I think it's safe enough given that it has secondary sourcing. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 00:00, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

• The college ranks among the top producers of recipients Could you provide some of the specific numbers of recipients?

  There was originally a much larger paragraph here with numbers for a lot of different fellowships, but I trimmed out most of it for a few reasons. The first was that it seemed boosterish to give it too much weight, as about 15% of graduates end up doing fellowships. The second was that it's difficult to present consistently and without recentism, as some major fellowship programs have kept track of recipients-by-institution data for their entire history, whereas others only have it for recent years, and still others don't have it at all (meaning the most we could offer is the count for a single year). The third was that it requires constant updating as the numbers change every year, which is a negative if we interpret broadly MOS:CURRENT's advice to avoid "statements likely to become outdated". Together, I think those factors outweigh the possible benefits of greater specificity. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 00:00, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

• Nothing else to note. ~ HAL333 19:59, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Admissions and financial aid

• Looks good. ~ HAL333 19:59, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

People

• Should kabuki be capitalized? I'm guessing no but I'm not sure.

  Good question. Kabuki is slightly inconsistent but generally uses lowercase, so I think we should follow that lead. There's inconsistency off-wiki, too: Merriam-Webster says it's capitalized but Dictionary.com disagrees. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 07:20, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

• I forgot about Marianne Williamson. lol

  Yep; she is suspiciously absent from the college's PR communications haha. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 07:20, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

• Everything else looks good.

Student life

• The program dates back to 1927 for women, and was expanded in 1950 to include men. Comma not needed.
• The college's alcohol policies are aimed at encouraging responsible consumption, and include a strict ban of hard liquor on South Campus. Same.
• Looking back, you can ignore those if you really want to. I tend be a minimalist when it comes to commas.

  I don't have a strong preference. I took out the comma for the sponsor program sentence but left it in for the alcohol sentence since I think it makes it slightly clearer. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 07:20, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

• The Pomona Advocates support survivors of sexual violence and work If it's a formal organization, should it be singular?

  While looking into this I realized the name of the organization has changed to "Campus Advocates", so I updated it and the reference. Regarding plurality, the question is whether "Campus Advocates" refers to a singular organization or a collective group of people. The Campus Advocates support survivors or Campus Advocates supports survivors both sound okay to me, but The Campus Advocates supports survivors sounds off. What would you suggest? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 07:20, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

  It's iffy... Do primary/secondary sources use the plural or singular? I'll leave it up to you. ~ HAL333 18:51, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

  The organization itself uses plural; see "provide" (plural) rather than "provides" (singular) on their Facebook page. I'll defer to that. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:06, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

• That's all I got.

References

• Spotcheck came out clean.
• Tad heavy on primary sources but that is hard to avoid.

  Yeah, I tried sourcing secondary where I could, but in some instances it just wasn't available and in a few others it was so transparently lifted directly from the college that it seemed less reliable. For primary-sourced info, I tried to information allowed by WP:ABOUTSELF; if I slipped on that anywhere please let me know.

  I know one source I relied on a fair amount for the history section was the timeline. It appears to be largely derived from Lyon's account, which editors at RSN seemed to consider reliable. The timeline gets a lot less reliable for recent years, though, as it's hard to have historical perspective for the recent past; I just added a reference so that nothing in the 21st century is leaning on the timeline alone.

  For some more qualitative stuff, I found the Fiske Guide to Colleges very useful; it's not perfect but seems to be the best available source for that type of information on U.S. colleges. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:28, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Missed details

• Two instances of generally considered to be the most prestigious liberal arts college --> "generally considered the most prestigious liberal arts college"

  Changed. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 07:20, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Final thoughts

Although I can't say that I've actually seen a college FA which is actually feature-worthy, I think with just a little more polishing you can get it up their next. To offer a proto-peer review, the main area I would look at is history. Summary style with a subarticle would improve flow/cohseiveness and citations of The History of Pomona College, 1887–1969. could be integrated.

As long as you put the financial tension bit in a hidden note until you can find a source, this GA is good to go. Cheers. ~ HAL333 15:43, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Done; the archivist got back to me and unfortunately came back empty on that line. He did find some info on Pomona's secularization, which I'll add to the history section as I improve it. Thanks for the super thorough review! Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:55, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

Passed. ~ HAL333 00:58, 12 July 2021 (UTC)