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Endorsement

Given the Law School's current constant re-editing, I would like to endorse the current page, and request that it be locked, to be re-examined ONLY when new rankings, cost, and employment data are made generally available.

Please sign if you endorse:

Latenightpizza (talk) 17:16, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Inappropriate editing

I disagree with the way this page is being edited. Completely relevant and unbiased statistics, many of which are cited directly to the school webpage, are being removed without justification. I am requesting that the edits made by Averniking be discussed here. If no one is willing to discuss, then I will seek an editor's third opinion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Neslgrad09 (talk • contribs) 21:11, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome to get a third opinion, but I'd first like you to cite specifically what "completely relevant and unbiased statistics, many of which are cited directly to the school webpage, are being removed without justification." That way we can collaborate instead of make empty accusations ;-). As far as I can tell, I've done some research using the website to support claims that weren't cited, but removed a lot of uncited and booster/advert information, as well adding the seal, logo, and an infobox. It should all be in line with UNI, but let me know if I've slipped up somewhere along the line! King of the Arverni (talk) 21:19, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Well I guess I will list each of my grievances one by one.

1) For starters, you removed the ranking section altogether and instead placed NESL's fourth-tier USNWR ranking in the academic section. I believe this is an error. The USNWR rankings take into account much more than the school's academic program, and associating the school's ranking with "academics" is misleading. Take a look for yourself: http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-law-schools/2009/04/22/law-school-rankings-methodology.html. The rankings consider twelve different areas of quality, including peer assessment scores, lawyer/judge assessment scores, LSAT scores, undergraduate GPAs, acceptance rates, employment rates, bar passage rate, expenditures per student, student/faculty ratio, and library resources. The ranking category should be a stand-alone category, representing how the school is ranked based on a variety of criteria, not merely its academic program.

2) You also removed any reference to the fact that "New England School of Law" became "New England Law, Boston" in 2008, the school's 100th anniversary.

3) This is misleading because a majority of people, including the school itself, still refer to the school as New England School of Law. In fact, the Misplaced Pages entry is listed under the school's former name. While acceptable to refer to the school under its new identity, there should be some reference as to why and when the school underwent the name change.

4) You also removed the section which listed the school's cost of attendance. I am not sure why you thought this was necessary, as the figure was properly credited directly to the school's financial aid office, and is extremely relevant to the school's overall description.

5) You also removed any reference to the school's student body and admission statistics. Again, I question how this is not a properly cited source.

6) You also removed any reference to the school's bar exam and career statistics directly pulled from the school's website. Again, I question why this was removed.

7) You also removed both sections describing the location of the school, its resources, and its faculty. Again, I question why this edit was made.

These seem like extremely relevant pieces of information that establish the identity of the school. I will be more than happy to discuss these changes with you on a case-by-case basis, or alternatively with a second editor, but I do find it extremely alarming that you would unilaterally remove many relevant and properly credited pieces of information about the school with little justification at all, effectively stripping down the school's Misplaced Pages page and providing a misrepresentative picture of the school.Neslgrad09 (talk) 12:09, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the individual comments. I'll try address each one and use a list to help organize it. I hope that doesn't make it more confusing. I'll go back and organize your concerns to match if that's alright; just let me know if that bothers you and I'll change it back. Here we go:

1) The rankings section was moved to academics per WP:UNIGUIDE.

2a) The name change still needs to meet WP:V. There were no sources for the alleged change. You're right; there should be a reference to that, if it's true, but there needs to be a verifiable source, too.

2b) Just to demonstrate that I'm not on crack, I did check the Carnegie Foundation, which still lists New England School of Law.

2c) I looked at the website, which only seemed to say "New England Law" a lot, without implying anything other than a marketing move; something that could easily be a nickname for "New England School of Law".

2d) The New England School of Law is still http://www.nesl.edu, which is not an acronym for "New England Law Boston" but "New England School of Law".

2e) That a school would call itself "New England Law Boston" seemed pretty ridiculous to me on its face. It doesn't specify a college, a book, a citizens' group, or anything although it does imply a certain monopoly New England law. Considering how little sense it made to me that a school would ever seriously choose such a name, I didn't exactly go on a hunt to justify it.

2f) Even if I could find the sources, it's not my job to do so; the editor who wants to change the name bears the burden of proof per WP:V.

3) Misplaced Pages articles, per WP:MOS, bear the most commonly used title anyway, and university articles per WP:UNIGUIDE are no exception.

4) No university articles rightfully list a cost of attendance. Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia, and does not list prices, tuition not excepted.

5) Since admissions stats are easily used to boost prestige and they were from the school's own website, they didn't seem to meet WP:RS. They weren't actually about the student body per se, but admissions. I was sad that they didn't comment on male-to-female ratio or any sort of demographic representation, which is what should be included in a "Student life" section.

6) The career and bar sections were also advert-like and didn't meet WP:RS.

7) The location section was all advert-information, not location information, and justified the {{Advert}} tag that was in place before cleanup. I moved what was salvageable to the campus section per WP:UNIGUIDE. The faculty section was entirely unreferenced and used peacock terms.

I can see why all of the information I removed during cleanup would seem relevant to someone who is clearly an '09 graduate of NESL, but I'd encourage you to read policy guidelines more closely and not let your POV take hold too strongly. As for the unilateral comment, while I was bold, I also edited along the UNI policy guidelines, built on the manual of style, and per WP:V, WP:NPOV, and WP:OR, as far as I can tell. All that said, I would also like to say how very, very, very happy I am that your first priority is to appropriately discuss edits. That already puts you light-years beyond some less-introspective editors. King of the Arverni (talk)

03:04, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for organizing the list. I've included my substantive responses in list form below. While I agree that I may carry some point of view regarding the school, I want to reiterate that my intention is not to place the school in either a positive or negative light, but rather to present an objective picture of the school, which clearly was not present before I began making edits to the page. I will try and construct my arguments to the guidelines set forth in WP:UNIGUIDE.

1) The Academics section guidelines in WP:UNIGUIDE provides that "many articles describe their academic rankings here, which may be listed in a template or in paragraph form." While it is true that many schools may list their ranking in their respective academics section, I believe this page should have its own ranking section for two reasons. First, the guidelines clearly are not mandatory. There is nothing in the guidelines that requires a ranking reference to appear only in the academics section. Likewise, there is nothing that requires a school to have a ranking section at all. However, given the importance of the USNWR rankings of law school, they should be referenced on the page. Second, as noted above, the ranking system takes into account much, much, more than strict academics. The guidelines refer to "academic rankings." However, the USNWR rankings take into account much more than that. Forty percent of a school's score is based on peer assessments, twenty-five percent is based on selectivity, twenty percent is based on career placement, and fifteen percent is based on faculty resources. Arguably, given these weights, the ranking section would be just as appropriate in the employment, admissions or faculty section as it would in the academics section. As such, I reiterate the need to include a rankings section as a stand-alone section on the page.

2a-2f; 3) Here is a news article regarding the school's name change: http://www.boston.com/business/ticker/2008/09/new_england_sch.html.

4) The Academics section of the WP:UNIGUIDE states in part, "try to include information about the institution's accreditation, tuition, number of degrees/programs offered, and number of degrees awarded annually." Given the fact that the guidelines specifically authorize listing a school's tuition int he academic section, I think it is appropriate that the school's tuition be listed in that section.

5) Would the student life section be permissible if it did include such statistics?

6) Why is the Internet Legal Research Group not considered a reliable source?

7) I agree that the faculty and location sections read completely as an advertisement, and have no objection to their removal.Neslgrad09 (talk) 12:28, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your responses.

1) I know how the rankings work at USNews, and you're right that UNIGUIDE is not mandatory, but there's no reason to assume that the community didn't understand how USNews works, either, when it was written. That is, UNIGUIDE was written with these things in mind, and by community consensus. There's no reason to ignore the helpful guidelines based on the argument that, if you'll forgive the gross oversimplification, "rankings are really important and factor in a lot of things". That said, you're welcome to leave a new message over at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Universities.

2) is a dead link, sorry. I was going to say that you could go ahead and be WP:BOLD since you'd also meet WP:V with it's addition (the lesson being that you shouldn't be bold at the expense of adding unverifiable information), but now I'm glad that we both know the link doesn't direct to the desired content.

3) See above.

4) Ah, UNIGUIDE says that? Indeed it does! Good eye! Well, we'll have to start a discussion at WikiProject Universities for sure then. UNIGUIDE is supposed to be based of the MOS and other Misplaced Pages guidelines (like the WP:NOT link I used earlier). In all my editing university articles, the community has eschewed tuition figures, so I'll have to re-examine that bit. My apologies for not looking closely enough, but since there seems to be a conflict between UNI and NOT, we really should take the matter to UNI for discussion before re-adding it. Thanks for catching that! In fact, if the decision is that tuition really should be included in articles, I'll probably go about adding that information to a few myself, but I'm still concerned that it violates WP:NOPRICES.

5) A Student life should be just that: student life. You've obviously done a great job reading UNIGUIDE, so you can probably judge for yourself to some extent on that one. I've read some sources, for example, that talk about the number of married students, or the age demographic, while most will focus on male-to-female, geographic representation, et cetera. My biggest concern, like I said, was that seemed to be all admissions stats, not about the student body per se.

6) I just ran a find within several versions of the article, old and new, and can't find any reference to "Legal Research Group". While there may have been a link to it, it might be fair to say that it wasn't properly titled, which makes verification all the more difficult. I'm sorry; can you help me with more specifics on that one? I don't recall where it would've been without poring over the article diffs.

7) Excellent. Like I said, you're already light-years ahead here.

So to recap: a) I still don't think USNews needs it own section but you can try discussing it at UNI, b) the link you provided is unfortunately dead, c) I'm surprised by the tuition bit and glad you caught that because it seems to violate WP:NOPRICES and we really should talk over at UNI, d) Student life has some solid guidlines at UNIGUIDE, e) I can't find "Legal Research Group", and f) I'm enjoying our discussion very much. :-) King of the Arverni (talk) 15:26, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

1) So then your argument is basically that the term "academic rankings" which is set forth in the guidelines not only esposues the idea that predominately non-academic rankings should be included under that term, but also that such an idea was contemplated when the guidelines were made. I don't really buy that at all. As you probably already know, there is absolutely no consistency among the different law school Wiki pages regarding where the rankings should be placed. For example, you have listed the ranking at New England School of Law in the academics section, the California Western School of Law page has the ranking listed in both the infobox and the lead, and Brooklyn Law School has its own stand-alone ranking section. I don't have time to go through all 180+/- ABA approved law school pages to find some sort of consensus about where the ranking should be located, but respectfully, since there is no real consensus, I think the New England School of Law page should have the rankings page reinstated until there is some bright-line rule established for the placemet of such rankings. You removed the rankings section based on some arbitrary idea that the ranking should be part of the academics section, based on vague language in the guidelines which, as far as I can tell, is not controlling as it concerns other law school pages.

2) I typed the link wrong. Is this one dead: http://www.boston.com/business/ticker/2008/09/new_england_sch.html.

3) See above.

4) Since the guidelines currently allow tuition information, I would like the tuition link to be restored until new guidelines are issued, if at all.

5) I will see what I can do about a student life section that falls within the guidelines.

6) Before I start dredging through all the edits to determine whether the source is supported, is it permissible to list employment statistics and bar passage rates on a school's Wiki page? The guidelines and a quick look at other law school pages seem to say yes, but I really don't want to spend the time composing a proposed edit if you're just going to remove it again on a whim.Neslgrad09 (talk) 22:25, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

1) You seem to have misunderstood me. UNIGUIDE is meant as the guideline. It doesn't matter if Brooklyn Law or whatever does it in the way you desire. I'm not accountable to Brooklyn Law, only the guidelines. One poorly crafted article, even those that manage to pass the FA process (which Brooklyn Law School certainly hasn't, as it's only start-class), doesn't make poor craftsmanship "okay". Try to think of this less as a common-law court and more as a mixed-system; precedent doesn't mean everything here.

a) You might not have time (neither do I or many other editors, really), but editing articles other than those that are NESL-related would certainly demonstrate good faith. As it stands now, it would be easy for other editors to assume a conflict of interest because of your account name. I don't, obviously, but others might raise concerns.

2) That one's good. You can really just add it yourself, though. Let me know if you need help with ref tags or citation templates. I'd be happy to help. Keep in mind, though, what the article says -- it's a new nickname, and the official name is staying the same -- that means the current lead is good; we just need a sourced statement in the history, as you said earlier.

4) Sure, go for it. It's under discussion right now, in fact. We can remove it later if we decide to change UNIGUIDE.

5) Nice.

6) Bar passage might be good as long as you can find WP:RS, but I'd take issue with employment stats (I doubt many graduates have trouble finding employment; that's usually just a marketing ploy). --King of the Arverni (talk) 01:54, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

1) If what you say is correct and UNIGUIDE is only the guideline, then I see no reason why the USNWR ranking should not be given some type of importance taking into account all the diverse factors that are used to formulate the ranking. It is not a purely academic ranking. I'm going to look through the school example pages on the UNIGUIDE page to see what the best way of doing this would be.

a) Thanks for the advice.

6) Are you really saying that the employment placement rate of a law school is not relevant? You are either being very cynical or very naive. The ability for a law school to place graduates in the profession is one of the most relevant criteria used to evaluate an academic institution. While schools certainly may use their numbers to bolster their reputation, to say that the statistics are irrelevant misses the big picture in my view.Neslgrad09 (talk) 14:54, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

1) Good idea. Just keep in mind, as I may have mentioned before, that just because another article (even a featured article) does something doesn't mean it's an excuse to do it elsewhere. Does that make sense? Perhaps one could explain it in terms of the old "Johnny's mom lets him...." Just because some editors have overlooked problems or let them slide doesn't make it okay. Really, I'm just following the guidelines laid out for us by the WikiProject Universities community (you're welcome to join if you've an interest in broadening your article focus!). UNIGUIDE technically isn't the only set of guidelines; it's the best and most relevant in this situation. It's based on more general and far-reaching Misplaced Pages guidelines like the WP:MOS, WP:NOT, WP:V, WP:NPOV, and WP:OR, &c.

a) Any time! Hey, I'm still learning myself, of course.

6) I probably am being cynical to some extent. UNIGUIDE doesn't comment on job placement rates, so that might be another discussion worth starting. Like I said, in my experience, placement rates are always high (when do you ever see a school that only says they have a 50% placement rate?), but that's not the central issue so perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned it. More importantly, using the schools own website may not meet WP:RS. If you can find a reliable third-party source that comments on the NESL placement rate, that'd be ideal. And I'm still not sure the placement material is encyclopedic enough, especially without a reliable third-party source, for all the reasons listed at WP:NOT. For example, Misplaced Pages isn't a guidebook to colleges. That's where I'm coming from on this one. Let me know if I've made any other stilly, tangential points. :-) --King of the Arverni (talk) 16:09, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

It looks like, of all the featured articles that actually cover institutions (there are 14-15 of them out of 21 or so) listed as UNIGUIDES' example articles, not a single one lists tuition figures or placement rates. I also checked Dartmouth Medical School and Appalachian School of Law because those two GAs caught my eye. There are a couple FAs that cite news sources as being the top 10 most expensive, or that the U.S. military covers the tuition costs for those attending the academy, but that's about it. Please double check for me, though; I wouldn't want you to take my word for it if I happened to be wrong. I just ran quick finds within each for the words "tuition" and "placement". --King of the Arverni (talk) 16:29, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

6) Bar passage might be good as long as you can find WP:RS, but I'd take issue with employment stats (I doubt many graduates have trouble finding employment; that's usually just a marketing ploy). --King of the Arverni (talk) 01:54, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Sorry King of Averni, but you have just betrayed that you do not understand what you are talking about. The creme de la creme of law school data is data provided to the Law School Admission Council by the American Bar Association. That data is ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL in determining whether to apply to a law school.

Law school is ~$USD 150,000, after books, fees and tuition. No student would attend a law school without knowing the employment statistics. Look at the following PDF from the LSAC: The employment data is on the second page.

If you were going to attend one of the 182 accredited law schools, what information would you need to know? Probably, first and foremost, the employment you could expect upon graduation. Failing to disclose this information on Misplaced Pages is akin to failing to disclose on the dolphins page that dolphins live underwater.

You are not providing the people who trust Misplaced Pages with the most fundamental - and reliable I might add - information about the topic.

Please revert all of your edits, as you clearly have no idea what you are talking about. Latenightpizza (talk) 02:22, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Having an LSAC source certainly changes the game, as it better meets WP:RS. That said, personal attacks are not welcome; comment on the content, not the contributor. It's certainly not my problem that we previously didn't have a reliable, third-party source for that information, and I have no need to "revert all of edits." --King of the Arverni (talk) 04:40, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Why is there no need to revert all of your edits? And we _did_ previously have all of the data painstakingly sourced to the LSAC. Look back at the history. Also, I do not understand how it is a personal attack to say that you do not know what you are talking about. How can anyone edit a law school's page without knowing what the LSAC is? How can anyone edit a law school page without knowing the importance of cost, and employment statistics?

To me, that doesn't make any sense at all. Do people go to law school because it's fun? It's my understanding that law school has universally been condemned as UN-fun. Law school is about finding a job. There's a cost benefit analysis involved. Graduate employment and cost are the two most relevant statistics. Right? How is this even slightly controversial?

The fact that it was at one time called "Portia Law School" is meaningless. No one is going to a fourth tier law school because it was once called something different. No one cares how many women went there. No one cares that John O'Brien is the dean. Everyone who wants to go there, wants to get a job, and everyone who wants to go there wants to know how much it will cost. Maybe that other information is interesting filler, to be written subsequent to the cost and employment data. But that's all it is filler.

Ergo, the employment data and the cost should take center stage. If you are editing the page, and you don't realize that - no offense, okay? You don't understand what you are talking about. That's not a personal attack, it's a statement of fact. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Latenightpizza (talk • contribs) 03:23, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the point of these last comments was, but I'll try to address Latenightpizza's concerns.

1) No one, to my knowledge, has professed a lack of knowledge re: LSAC. I certainly know what it is, so you can't be talking to me, Latenightpizza. Perhaps you've missed something.

2) If you want to know more about how to behave, Latenightpizza, read WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA. The bottom line: don't insult an individual's intelligence. It's fine to disagree (it's great IMHO), but as soon as you start talking about a contributor's value instead of the value of the content then you've crossed over into what's ad hominem and totally inappropriate for this encyclopedia project.

3) Latenightpizza, there is no controversy whatsoever here; article information must simply be derived from reliable sources. Try reading Misplaced Pages guidelines before claiming that editors make no sense, and even then you should refrain from commenting on contributor rather than content.

4) The history isn't irrelevant at all. Misplaced Pages is WP:NOT a college guide or platform for institutional promotion, and there is most definitely a place for history per WP:UNIGUIDE.

You're certainly entitled to your opinion. Just try reading some of Misplaced Pages's guidelines first, so that you can establish a common frame of reference with other editors. --King of the Arverni (talk) 17:21, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Third Opinion

I am requesting a third opinion to review the edits being made by Arverniking. Without accusing him of having a personal bias, notwithstanding the fact that he has lodged a similar personal attack in my direction (see above), I dispute his most recent edit to the page removing my inclusion of the neutral USNWR rankings from the law school's infobox and disagree that such an inclusion is not per UNIGUIDE. The guidelines specifically permit that the infobox "provid the basic details about the institution." The neutral rankings fall within this parameter. Furthermore, UNIGUIDE provides a list of "good articles" that presumably fall within the guidelines. At least one of the "good articles" includes the aforementioned rankings in the infobox. As such, I am requesting a third editor to settle this dispute and undo Arverniking's unwarranted revision to the page. Neslgrad09 (talk) 21:17, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

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