Talk:Southwestern Law School/Archive 1

Archive 1

Photos

Southwestern’s official website has many photos that are provided to the media. Does this mean the photos are open source and they can be posted on the Wikipedia site? -- 24.153.196.197 22:23, 1 December 2006

• No that does not make them "open source," but I think there would be a strong fair use argument if we use them to illustrate something we are describing. In the meantime, you can STOP TRYING TO REMOVE THE INFORMATION ABOUT RANKINGS FROM THE ARTICLE. -- Josh Kagan 03:52, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
• I am not familiar with Wikipedia’s policies re: photos. The usefulness of this page might increase if it is possible to add a section which describes various locations on the campus and provides a photos to add context. -- 70.122.38.179 04:49, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

• Then do it. It would be nice to see you contribute something to the article instead of removing facts you don't like. -Josh Kagan 06:55, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

• Someone really needs to add better photos of the school! See http://www.swlaw.edu/campus/overview

Ranking Information

Look... why would you want to support someone that says the following: 1. "revised very POV and misleading boastings" 2. "absolutely loathes Wikipedians who use articles to brag about the minor insignificant achievements of themselves, their schools, organizations, or localities" These statements clearly indicate an agenda that cannot be trusted. There are several of us that have come to the same conclusion. -- 70.122.38.179 04:32, 2 December 2006

• I don't care about anyone's "agenda." It's accurate, sourced information that, like it or not, belongs in the article. It seems more like you have an agenda to censor Wikipedia. -Josh Kagan 06:55, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
• How is adding ranking info an "agenda"? How can you have a section entitled "Academics and reputation" but not have ranking info, when U.S. News rankings are the most influential indicator of that? Notice that other law school articles have ranking info, regardless of the ranking. I'm not trying to crap on Southwestern, I've added ranking info to schools that outrank my alma mater as well. Ranking info is fact, and not POV. -- Taco325i 20:32, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Rankings

I made a single edit to this page. Instead of saying that the school has been able to "recruit much more qualified students", I changed it to say "highly qualified students". I believe that the former version might be insulting to prior graduates of SWLAW, many of whom are successful and well respected in the legal community. -- User talk:MannazEsq. 19:10, 7 April 2006.

• I don’t know who has added insulting language to the Academics and Reputation section, but knock it off. If you want to write an article criticizing Southwestern, make your own page. -- 69.33.42.246 20:03, 5 May 2006.

Revert War over Rankings

70.122.38.179 needs to be blocked. How do we go about that? --Josh Kagan 20:09, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

• [[I]] [[am]] [[not]] [[sure]]. [[I]] [[will]] [[look]] [[into]] [[it]]. -- 70.122.38.179 04:54, 6 December 2006

• I'm not sure that wikilinks like that are helpful, whoever you were. --Hjal 05:49, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Improving the Southwestern University School of Law article

While this article is under page protection, it might be a good time to think about things that can be done to help improve this article. Below, I'm just going to list some of my ideas, but I hope that other editors will modify and expand my ideas. ^BlankVerse 11:02, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Photos

• the Westmoreland Building
• the dining room that used to be the tea room for the Bullocks Wilshire

My personal opinion of the photo that is currently in the article of the long expanse of lawn (between buildings?), is that it is uninformative and boring and should be removed from the article. -BV

Notable alumni

Quite frankly, the list is rather long, with too many red-links. The rule of thumb that many Wikipedia editors use when pruning such lists is "if they aren't important enough to have their own article, delete them". I would suggest creating articles for those who are truly notable enough to warrant their own article on the Wikipedia, and deleting any remaining red-links from the article. -BV

Current professors

For any professor who doesn't get an article written on them, I'd suggest removing the red-linked wikilinks for their names. -BV

Bullocks Wilshire

Somewhere, but preferably in the Bullocks Wilshire article, it would be nice to see a description of the restoration work that the university did after they purchased the building.

Article details

• If SUSL is the 2nd oldest law school in LA, which is the first? Can someone find a reference for this?
• current (and historical?) enrollment figures
• diversity statistics
• since the university hosts conferences, does it have conference facilities on site?

Filming

• Was the Ghostbusters filming done after the store closed, but before the university purchased it? That might be an interesting additional detail. -BV

Academic reputation/ratings/rankings

Are there other ratings of law schools that could be added? Aren't there lists that show the percentage of graduates who pass the bar exam? -BV

Anything else?

Facts, clean up, etc

There are two sentences in the school's Academic reputation section. As the second sentence now appears, it reads as the opinion of a Wikipedia editor, which Wikipedia does not permit. The second sentence needs a footnote. Also, the article needs the template {{Infobox Law School}}. An apparent cause of the dispute is that the article does not follow the Wikipedia school article structure established by Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools. Additionally, the entries in the article are not footnoted, and thus they all appear to be opinion, which makes it appear to be reasonable to delete them. However, as with much of Wikipedia, they also are unfootnoted true facts, which means it appears to be reasonable to leave the information in the article. Those involved are acting reasonably with opposite results apparently because the information in the article is not footnoted. A best way to move forward is to footnote the information in the article. See Wikipedia:Citing sources. You easily can find reputable sources for the information via a Google search or, if you are a law student, you may have accesses to news databases that may be used to footnote the article.-- Jreferee 14:21, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Page protection

Although most of the publicity over page protection on the Wikipedia involves controversial articles such as George Bush and pedophilia, it can also involve more obscure pages such as this one, where there has been a low-key, but regular revert war where both sides seemed intractable and the revert war seemed unlikely to end soon. That is the reason the article was protected—to give the revert war participants a time-out from editing the article.

In the second to the last set of edits by 70.122.38.179 (talk · contribs), the editor did what I consider a workable compromise—leave in the section on the school's Academic reputation (instead of deleting it), but move it near the bottom of the article. Is this something everyone considers acceptable? ^BlankVerse 11:02, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

As I've indicated previously, I'm totally open to alternate presentations of the ranking information (perhaps a presentation of the information that would be easier to understand in the context of 70.122.38.179 (talk · contribs)'s contributions), so this is fine. I would only object to the removal of the relevant information. And, as BlankVerse has repeatedly pointed out, there may be better ways of gauging the school's reputation; I too would like to see that information included in the article. But, to answer BV's question more directly: yes, this is a completely acceptable compromise. // JoshKagan ^{Jrkagan | talk} 10:50, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

A comment: Does anyone have a suggestion for a better section heading than "Academic reputation". ^BlankVerse 09:55, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Many law schools' articles seem to present that information in the introduction section. See Dickinson School of Law for example. But a separate "Rankings" section is fine too. Also "Ranking and Reputation" would be fine. I think the most important thing is that we cite wherever the information comes from. // JoshKagan ^{Jrkagan | talk} 10:50, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I have no problem with the current setup of the Southwestern page. The problems I had with it are now solved. Although, there is still a lot of work to complete (i.e. create articles for the various dead links). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.122.38.179 (talk • contribs)

http://www.swlaw.edu/

Is the school's website http://www.swlaw.edu/ active anymore? I've been trying to access it consistently for the past week with no success.Snowboarder2713 02:16, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

No problems for me. Look for a website that does traceroutes and check what results that you get. Although the internet is supposed to be transparent and universal, sometimes you just can't get there from here. It could be problems with internet peering, DNS, etc. ^BlankVerse 07:39, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Edits likely made by the school's public information office

FYI everyone, I think Southwestern's Public Information Office has recently taken to editing the article. First look at this diff from my talk page: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AJrkagan&diff=95587741&oldid=95574410 , then look at this diff from the article: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Southwestern_University_School_of_Law&diff=98016715&oldid=97946467. The edits are probably being made by or under the direction of Leslie Steinberg, the Director of Public Information. I don't necessarily object to this, except when the edits are like this one http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Southwestern_University_School_of_Law&diff=98016715&oldid=98015730, clearly using the Wikipedia page as an extension of the school's website, which it is not. On the other hand, the Office has also added some useful information to the page, including a passage on the current dean. (Actually the useful information was added by someone else; the edits made by the Office were all about...well...the office.) // JoshKagan ^{Jrkagan | talk} 22:39, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

That edit apparently traces back to the Austin Texas area, like so many of the other anonymous edits for this article. ^BlankVerse 06:16, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I was just thinking the same thing? Anyone knowledgeable willing to prune? I came here for a basic description of the school, and the boosterism seems inappropriate. (Sorry, I do not have an account to sign with...)— Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.254.186.139 (talk • contribs)

Organization

First of all, this definitely needs to be merged with the "Southwestern Law School" article because the school is unlikely to drop "university" from their name anytime soon. Secondly, in my opinion, the article should include at least the following sections:

1. History
2. Campus
3. Academics and Reputation
   1. Rankings
4. Notable Alumni
5. References
6. External Links

I added these sections and wrote some text including a pretty solid introduction and history section, creating a "skeleton" article that I hope others will expand on. // JoshKagan ^{Jrkagan | talk} 06:01, 23 October 2005

Larry H. Parker

The ambulance chaser Larry H. Parker is an embarrassment, not a "notable alum." Why would you add someone like him to the list?--69.234.180.28 01:34, 28 November 2005

• If he is well-known enough for you to consider him "an embarrassment" then it seems you've answered your own question. Our goal should be to include those persons who are notable--both good and bad. Also, it seems he is the uncle of the user named Sundevil4life[1], who contributed to an older version of this article; that could explain how Parker came to be included in the first place. -- Jrkagan 21:35, 28 November 2005

Henry Reynolds?

I've never heard of Henry Reynolds, so the link added by 76.167.169.119 looks an awful like like linkspam. Thoughts? // JoshKagan ^{Jrkagan | talk} 03:42, 18 February 2007 (UTC)