Talk:Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford

Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford was nominated as a Social sciences and society good article, but it did not meet the good article criteria at the time (May 11, 2023, reviewed version). There are suggestions on the review page for improving the article. If you can improve it, please do; it may then be renominated.

This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

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An impartial editor has reviewed the proposed edit(s) and asked the editor with a conflict of interest to go ahead and make the suggested changes.

I've created a new draft for this article at User:MartinPoulter/Mathematical Institute. Lots of facts and figures are updated, including the Head of Department and the number of postgraduates. I've put in more historical information, as well as sections about the main things the institute does; research, teaching and outreach. I've put in more information about assessment of the institute by external agencies. I've added historical context to the Professorships/chairs that are mentioned. The holders are likely out of date and up-to-date holders of these chairs are not listed on the institute web site. The institute has more professors than these named posts, so it doesn't make sense to highlight some named professors and not others. The current version of the article puts postnominal letters after people's names and this contradicts the Manual of Style which says that post-nominals should only be used in the lead sentence of an article about the person. ORES says this new version is potentially GA quality.

I've done this writing while working as a consultant for the Institute, so could someone else please look at my draft and copy it into this article, or give me permission to do so? Thanks in advance for any help, MartinPoulter (talk) 12:48, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging @Jpbowen: who is a major past contributor to this article. MartinPoulter (talk) 12:50, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging @Pigsonthewing: who has promoted one of my past drafts. MartinPoulter (talk) 09:24, 24 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

LGTM, neutrally-written and well sourced. AFAIAC, you can copy your work over. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:02, 24 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This review is transcluded from Talk:Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: SyntheticSystems (talk · contribs) 21:07, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Criteria

Review

1. Well-written:

Criteria	Notes	Result
(a) (prose)	Prose is good but lead could be bigger.	On hold
(b) (MoS)	No MoS violations.	Pass

2. Verifiable with no original research:

Criteria	Notes	Result
(a) (references)	References match up what is in the article.	Pass
(b) (citations to reliable sources)	All statements are sourced.	Pass
(c) (original research)	No original research.	Pass
(d) (copyvio and plagiarism)	No plagiarism.	Pass

3. Broad in its coverage:

Criteria	Notes	Result
(a) (major aspects)	All major aspects are covered.	Pass
(b) (focused)	In-depth coverage.	Pass

4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.

Notes	Result
Neutral.	Pass

5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.

Notes	Result
No edit wars.	Pass

6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:

Criteria	Notes	Result
(a) (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales)	Images need alt text.	On hold
(b) (appropriate use with suitable captions)	Image placement is good.	On hold

Result

Result	Notes
On hold	Needs more improvements but is workable.

@SyntheticSystems: To me, this review looks extremely superficial. For instance, how thoroughly did you check the sourcing? There are many footnotes to sources from the University of Oxford; did you check that editorial opinions like "one of the largest mathematics departments" are not backed up by such primary sources, but come from reliable secondary sourcing? What makes you think that ukwhoswho.com should pass as a reliable source? Did you check that the prose even makes sense? For instance, "Sir Michael Atiyah was a member between 1961 and 1990": member of what, and how does this relate to being an alum? Why do you think that changing the timing of exam length in 2017 meets the requirement that the article "stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail"? What I expect to see in a review is a detailed textual summary of how well the article stands up to each criterion, and a detailed analysis of what can be improved (on the order of a paragraph's worth of suggestions per section of the article, at least), not merely checking some boxes and calling it done. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:21, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It looks to me like a number of claims are not verified by suitable independent sources, including "one of the largest mathematics departments", and "the largest grant ever for a mathematics department in the UK". I also noticed that "The earliest ‘mathematical institute’ in Oxford may have been the School of Geometry and Arithmetic" in the source (from the University of Oxford) cited has become a much more definitive "The earliest forerunner of the Mathematical Institute was the School of Geometry and Arithmetic" in the article. The article also only cites the Guardian league table for mathematics, where Oxford comes top, ignoring (in a pretty clear case of cherry-picking) the Complete and Times/Sunday Times tables where Cambridge beats Oxford. Overall, there's a distinct lack of independent references, to the point where I wonder about the notability of the institute (I think it almost certainly is notable, but the references currently cited don't really show this). It's clear there's a lot of work needed to bring the references up the GA standard and this is closer to an insta-fail than a pass. Robminchin (talk) 19:45, 15 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Status query

SyntheticSystems, MartinPoulter, where does this nomination stand? I don't see any sign that any edits have been made to address the issues raised by David Eppstein or Robminchin, nor any response by the reviewer to same. If the inaction continues for at least another seven days, perhaps the review can be taken over by David Eppstein or Robminchin and concluded; given the maintenance tags that have been on the article for eight weeks, it clearly can't pass GA in its current form. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:35, 11 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@BlueMoonset: Apologies, everyone. I withdraw the nomination which I now see was premature. Robminchin and David Eppstein make a very good case that the article has problems which need a longer-term fix.Thanks for your time! MartinPoulter (talk) 10:06, 11 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The article appears to cherry-pick the only one of the three national rankings that Oxford comes top in for mathematics, presenting a non-neutral picture of the institution. Robminchin (talk) 20:16, 15 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]