One of the articles I spar over is the article on Wesleyan, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wesleyan_University There are apparently a wide range of interlopers that come through and post this and that, and there are two who are more distinctly obsessive, 69.121.22.66 and Anthropologique. Anthropologique appears to obsess over the sciences and the endowment, 69.121.22.66 has a deep jones for CSS.
But a lot of the posters seem to have the same problem, which is that they yearn to show that Wesleyan is, dammit, simply the best at everything. So, in the article, absolutely everything is described as "elite," "prestigious," "prominent," and "nationally-ranked". These adjectives, (and their cousins), repeat so often that the article reads like crap. And it raises the obvious question, if the place is so good, why do they have to brag about it?
Obviously, the true rule is if you describe it well, people will supply their own adjectives, or to put it another way, show, don't tell. Don't say it's elite, say 1 out of 3,000 applicants gets in, (or whatever the number is). That says more than a bunch of bull adjectives ever can.
I, by the way, wrote mostly all the 'History' section, (so I do do productive things in Wikipedia). And I think that section does have some balance, although it is a warm history, it is true. But it compares well with the rest of the piece, and certainly is better than the seperate 'prominent alumni' section. Among the prominent alumni, someone has listed some schmuck whose achievement is being 'Isaac Azimov's nephew'. Isn't that precious?
The overall effect is to make the Wesleyan article just a little more sanguine than the college catalog. The article is almost an embarassment.
So, I do fight the good fight, trying to tone things down a bit, and after months of ongoing nonsense, I did snap... just a wee little bit. See if you can spot, in the following, which paragraph I added today:
Wesleyan occupies a 360-acre campus, with over 340 buildings including: the five building College Row; the Samuel Wadsworth Russell House, a National Historic Landmark; Alsop House; Olin Memorial Library (having more than one million volumes, with separate specialized Art, Science, and Music libraries plus Special Collections, Archives, and U.S. Government Documents); Harriman Hall (which houses the John E. Andrus Public Affairs center and the College of Social Studies); the Exley Science Center; Shanklin and Hall-Atwater Laboratories; the Van Vleck Observatory; Fayerweather (housing theatrical and dance rehearsal spaces and Beckham Hall--for large lectures), the Foss Hill dormitories; the Butterfield dormitories; the Fauver Field dormitories; and 11-building Center for the Arts complex.
Recent building initiatives include the Freeman Athletic Center (which includes a 50-meter swimming pool, the Spurrier-Snyder Rink for skating, the 1,200-seat Silloway Gymnasium, the 7,500-square-foot Andersen Fitness Center, and the Rosenbaum Squash Center with eight courts), the Center for Film Studies, and a multi-building renovation project creating a 'Humanities District' on the east side of High Street between Fisk Hall and Russell House, which includes facilities for the departments of English, Romance Languages, the College of Letters, Classical Studies, Philosophy, Art & Art History, and Women's Studies.
The Silloway Gymnasium has 156 elite and high-ranking men's urinals, floor-mounted units of the finest Italian porcelain, which are prominent for their nationally competitive flushability, which the U.S. News and World Report rated 3rd overall, stating "These urinals appear finer than Amherst's".
The new Usdan University Center, opened in September 2007 at the center of the campus, has consolidated dining facilities for students and for faculty, and houses seminar and meeting spaces, the Wesleyan Student Association, Student Activities and Leadership Development offices, the post office, and retail space.
Further detail about Wesleyan's campus can be found at the interactive Virtual Wesleyan website.
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