User talk:Bearbrasser
'Why did you remove the section of the admission scandal I added? It was carefully worded summary of the published news paper article that was referenced.'
fair question. I don't doubt your research, and didn't suggest it wasn't referenced. In fact it was a good paragraph, properly referenced ( that rare thing!). But there are of course, hundreds of newspaper articles about every college over hundreds of years, all of them by definition newsworthy in their day, and we don't include them all. I was simply following the topical news rule that a lot of wiki editors apply (I'm an historian of education, so I update a lot of educational sites). Basically if you're going to have a peice of news in an article about an institution, eventually it should be replaced by something more topical. In march, the newspaper article you wrote about will be a decade old. the recent addition of entire new quadrangle is pretty big news in Oxford, permanently affects the college, and therefore worthy of inclusion in the wiki format. My judgement was that the news story, after almost ten years, had had an excellent run, but wasn't really telling the reader something vital or interesting about that which they had looked up.
Now had if the scandal had permamently changed the college, had a death occurred or the fraud been carried out, or the Master been sacked and gone to the courts, maybe you would keep it in for twenty years or more, not as news, but as an historic explanation of why the college has become the place it has, and it would still be a point of interest for readers seeking a wiki summary of the college.
Of course, it's a shared site, so if you really feel strongly you may return it ( sometimes alumni feel they have a special insight and you may fit this category). But the test I ask myself is, is it historic? Is it topical news? If its neither (or neither anymore), it's probably not ideal for the wiki format. Does that seem reasonable to you?
Reply:
So the question is: Did Pembroke admissions scandal have historic importance to Pembroke College?
I very much hope so. This scandal demonstrated a serious failure in the in the admission system at the college which resulted in a permanent change to the code of practice for admissions at Oxford University: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=168068§ioncode=26 . I also hope the scandal changed the culture of admission decisions at Pembroke in a permanent historic way. In the same article the current Dean Giles Henderson is quoted "As the new master of Pembroke, I wish to emphasise in the strongest possible terms my commitment, and that of the college, to the selection of students being made solely on the basis of academic merit and potential." My point is; what better way to demonstrate this commitment by remembering this failure on the college wikipedia page and let it act as a deterrent to possible future misbehavior.
If the you feel like this is not vital or interesting or someone who would like it know about the college, this was actually my motivation for adding this section in the first place. An america friend who studied for one full year at Pembroke, did not know about the scandal but was very interested to learn about it and was shocked it was not common knowledge.
Of course scandals such as this have the potential to damage the reputation of the college so when should things be forgotten. Perhaps after 10 years or 20 years. I would argue if the college really taken to heart the failures the scandal exposed then in the spirit of Giles Henderson's response, the college should be happy to admit this episode indefinitely and talk openly about how they improved because of it. I would not be opposed if you or anyone else includes a response to scandal from the college in the wikipedia article such as the quote above.
In term of whether this is relevant to wikipedia I would argue that two lines are small in comparison to other admission scandal around the same time. The Laura Spencer scandal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Spence_Affair) and the Bristol admissions scandal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_admissions_controversy) each have there own lengthy article pages. The Oxford 'cash to places' scandal at Pembroke is equally worthy of an similar article.
I am not a alumni, nor have I ever applied to Oxford. I just left this was being brushed under the carpet and I want it to be common knowledge so it does happen again. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Apemantom (talk • contribs) 09:42, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
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