Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Duke University rankings

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was merge to Duke University. WP:NOT is pretty good to stick to in this instance. Rankings are important in some way, but a list is not. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 01:05, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

List of Duke University rankings

Indiscriminate collection of statistics in addition to a host of verifiability problems. Madcoverboy (talk) 16:07, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of North Carolina-related deletion discussions. -- Madcoverboy (talk) 16:07, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. -- Madcoverboy (talk) 16:08, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Education-related deletion discussions. -- Madcoverboy (talk) 16:08, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Schools-related deletion discussions. -- Madcoverboy (talk) 16:08, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. -- Madcoverboy (talk) 16:09, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment The article also conveniently omits rankings in which programs are not ranked in the Top X. Madcoverboy (talk) 16:13, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep As creator of this page I disagree. I will respond to each of the individual responses below. I have modified some of my responses to make it more readable. To see what I said previously, please view the history. Hopefully this works without changing the content of my previous statements.Tinlash (talk) 00:57, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Notability: This list seems to meet the general notability guidelines. Rankings of a university are extremely useful pieces of information. In fact, when I apply to business school, grad school, or any program, I would like to see all of the rankings of that university aggregated in one page. Wikipedia, as a source of so much information, is a great location for that.Tinlash (talk) 17:02, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a webhost. Nor is the criteria for encyclopedic notability "useful source when I apply to school". If you want lists of historical rankings there are far more authoritative sources like Duke itself and Chronicle of Higher Education. Madcoverboy (talk) 19:21, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Notability: I think that if this article is called in to questions, then articles such as List of Institute Professors and List of Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty may also be questioned for many of the same reasons under WP:IINFO. Madcoverboy, I chose these because you started this discussion and I know you worked on these articles. It is simply to prove a point. I know that this discussion is not to question those articles. In fact, I feel that they are legitimate and notable articles that should stay on Wikipedia, just like this article. Though I may disagree with Madcoverboy on this article, I thank you for questioning it and creating a discussion. Users like you make this site as good as it is.Tinlash (talk) 00:57, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think the nomination of this list can be extended to impugn the notability or appropriateness of every list associated with colleges and universities. The two lists you mentioned convey encyclopedic information about the notable relationships among notable component topics: each member of the list has his/her own Wikipedia article, but to the extent that they have common and notable relationships (being awarded a title, being a member of an organization), these relationships can be effectively represented as a list. However, the members of the information/content that constitutes this list are not notable on their own - they're just statistics published by an organization - and the only relationship they have in common is that they apply to Duke University. This isn't to say that statistical information has no place on Wikipedia; clearly they have a role in articles about demographics, economics, etc. Rather, I would argue that such purely statistical information never has a standalone list. Of course, one might demonstrate that this view is wrong in practice, but I think that it should nevertheless be the general case. Madcoverboy (talk) 04:50, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

More authoritative sources I think by definition for almost every article in an encyclopedia, there are more authoritative sources, whether they be textbooks, original research, etc. One cannot say that an article should not be on Wikipedia because there are "far more authoritative sources".Tinlash (talk) 00:57, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You're correct to point out that clearly Wikipedia does and should cite and emulate authoritative and reliable sources. However, an important caveat: Wikipedia should not be in the business of wholesale replication of existing data, especially statistical data, as this article does. Madcoverboy (talk) 04:50, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Merge: I would have added this list to the main Duke University page, but it would get too lengthy there. This page is incomplete as there are a lot of historical rankings that have not been included, which when filled in will make it even lengthier. Additionally, the rankings are not just for the entire university, but are also for all of the individual schools.Tinlash (talk) 00:57, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I too would caution against attempting to merge this into the Duke University article. It is a FA and also a very fine article (there isn't always perfect correlation between the two!) and it surely would be unduly upset by unceremoniously dumping all this statistical information there. Madcoverboy (talk) 04:50, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Bias: Additionally, I disagree that this article "conveniently omits rankings in which the program are not in the Top X". If you can give me those rankings, I will put them in. The Shanghai rankings are all in the 30s for the university. The Times Higher Education rankings shows Duke as 52. The MBA rankings are comprehensive and include every major ranking. The only Medical Center ranking that I know of is the US News one.Tinlash (talk) 17:02, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's an issue of granularity. You appear to break out the rankings for departments or sub-departmental programs (medical center, graduate programs) but not for other parts of the university (e.g., constitutional law, entrepreneurship, ARWU life sciences, etc.) There are a ton of rankings in any one year and then attempting to compile all these across years quickly becomes unwieldy as well as introducing issues of verifiability. Madcoverboy (talk) 04:50, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Selectivity: I do not think that omitting rankings outside of the top X is a good idea. The article would no longer be neutral as only the better rankings would be shown. That would be doing a disservice to the reader.Tinlash (talk) 00:57, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that omitting rankings outside of the Top X is a canonical violation of NPOV. One can debate the merits and notability of the rankings themselves, but the individual rankings of an institution do not vary in notability given their position. Madcoverboy (talk) 04:50, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I suppose I would say that leaving out those rankings which aren't high eliminates those that aren't notable instead of pushing a POV. If the rankings included are important enough to be listed, those reading should be able to infer that when one is missing, that means it wasn't ranked highly. I do see what you are saying, though. SMSpivey (talk) 05:30, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete others: Perhaps we should wait till this discussion is complete before starting discussion on whether or not we should delete the rankings pages created for other schools. However, by starting that process, it may create more discussion.Tinlash (talk) 00:57, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's a question of over-reaching versus efficiency. Soliciting more input from other editors who are likely to have similar complaints would seem to be most efficient. However, if different editors have different motivations, the conversation could become complex. Perhaps let's just limit it to Duke for now and then use the outcome as a discussion at WT:UNI or some other forum? Madcoverboy (talk) 04:50, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I have no idea yet what position I will take on this, but looking at the article, I cannot help but think that, if this is allowed to stand, that we naturally open the door to having every college in the US or the world creating a similar list. Is this the place to make that decision, and if it is affirmed, should not a standard page design be implemented? Un school 17:24, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Omitting rankings outside the top X might not be a bad idea, that way it could be shrunk. Also there seems to be a lot of duplication which might be avoidable. But perhaps a university with sufficient numbers of very high ratings from notable sources could be granted a page without setting a precedent for every other university and secondary school in the world. Brownsnout spookfish (talk) 18:16, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the problem is, how do you pick the "top x"? I mean, with all these listings, one school can be in the "top X" for some things, but not others, and so you'll have to decide which of the lists themselves are most important. I see chaos on the horizon. Un school 19:25, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Trim and Merge into the Duke University article. Since Wikipedia isn't just an indiscriminate collection of information, there is no reason to include more non-notable rankings (say, those under top-10 or top-15). Trim it down to those rankings which are significant (i.e., the list/rankings system itself is notable and Duke is highly ranked on said list), merge the list over, and put in a few sentences about the other rankings. SMSpivey (talk) 22:14, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Merge into the main article for the university. At least he principle ones are generally considered basic content for the main article. I am not sure about rankings below the top 10,for this might be thought of as mandating a positive POV: If Duke is only 20th in something one would ordinarily think it very important for, it could be considered a negative criticism. DGG (talk) 02:53, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete/merge The information about ranking may be summarized and integrated in the university article, if editors so wish ¨¨ victor falk 06:28, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral - I contributed to this article fairly significantly, so don't really want my effort to be deleted, but I understand why the proposal for deletion is taking place. I said on User_talk:Tinlash a while ago, "I also wouldn't be shocked if this article was nominated for deletion." I think there are arguments for and against it. Certainly, it's nice and convenient to have a collection of all the rankings in one place for people to see, but as far as I understand it, Wikipedia isn't really intended to host such lists. There are other university-specific rankings lists in existence though. If this article is deleted, so should List of University of Texas at Austin rankings, Purdue University academic rankings, Pennsylvania State University rankings among others. Due to these other articles' existence, I thought that perhaps this article also would be deemed appropriate. Also, if this article is seen as an "indiscriminate collection of statistics," it would certainly seem that Law school rankings in the United States and List of United States graduate business school rankings are also under this umbrella. I don't think that argument holds water for this reason. One could instead use WP:N, arguing that university-specific rankings lists are too specific, but country-wide lists are appropriate, I suppose. All I'm saying is one could easily argue that if WP:IINFO is the reason for deleting this article, other broader based random ranking lists on wikipedia should be deleted (which I personally don't think they should be deleted). -Bluedog423^Talk 18:51, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- I would agree with Bluedog that national-level lists would be appropriate and perhaps more notable than per-university lists, so I don't feel the need to address their notability at this juncture. Also a point of order, would it be appropriate to also co-nominate the other lists Bluedog mentioned since similar arguments can be made? Madcoverboy (talk) 19:12, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete/merge - This is just a POV content fork that should be covered in the main Duke article or academics article. Go Duke! 16x9 (talk) 13:14, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per WP:SYN and WP:IINFO. Stifle (talk) 09:18, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - Just a question. How is this anymore an "indiscriminate collection of statistics" than List of countries by forest area, List of countries by GDP sector composition, List of Bionicle toys, List of minimum wages by country, List of commercial games released as freeware, List of cricket batting averages, List of thinkers and authors associated with existentialism, List of companies in Dallas/Ft.Worth, etc? Those seem pretty random to me, although they aren't don't all have "statistics" since they don't have all numbers. I'm not saying these should be deleted. I'm just asking how you know when it makes sense to have a wikipedia article dedicated to a list with a bunch of numbers, facts, words, and when it doesn't make sense. It's somewhat subjective to evaluate when a collection of statistics is "indiscriminate." I could continually expand the companies in Dallas article, existential figures, etc... There's practically an infinite number. I guess some of these examples I chose do make more sense since there's a limited number and perhaps the figures are given by one source. Thanks, -Bluedog423^Talk 21:34, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- I addressed this notability concern under Tinlash's Notability paragraph above. Basically, the constituent entries as well as the relationship among them (which the list describes) must have some evidence of notability. A list of rankings fulfills neither, in my view. Madcoverboy (talk) 01:36, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Merge back as a basic part of the contents for the main university article. Not all the rankings, necessarily, but selected ones as a appropriate for the article.DGG (talk) 04:05, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.