Talk:List of Durham University people

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the List of Durham University people article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

This article must adhere to the biographies of living persons (BLP) policy, even if it is not a biography, because it contains material about living persons. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted, or if you have other concerns, please report the issue to this noticeboard.

If you are a subject of this article, or acting on behalf of one, and you need help, please see this help page.

Higher education

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Higher education, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of higher education, universities, and colleges on Wikipedia. Please visit the project page to join the discussion, and see the project's article guideline for useful advice.Higher educationWikipedia:WikiProject Higher educationTemplate:WikiProject Higher educationHigher education articles

Biography: Science and Academia

	Biography portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles
	This article is supported by the science and academia work group.

North East England

	North East England portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject North East England, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of North East England on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.North East EnglandWikipedia:WikiProject North East EnglandTemplate:WikiProject North East EnglandNorth East England articles
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

Lists Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Lists, an attempt to structure and organize all list pages on Wikipedia. If you wish to help, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.ListsWikipedia:WikiProject ListsTemplate:WikiProject ListsList articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Untitled[edit]

It would be good to have a uniform style in referring to the colleges. Some entries have 'Castle', 'Mary's', etc., while others have the more formal 'St Mary's'. I believe this should be standardised on the more formal names, although it may be less confusing if an exception were made for University College. What do others think?

On a related point, should 'Ustinov' replace 'GradSoc' for students who studied there under the old name?

Robminchin 18:22, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure; many of them were 'Grad Soc' on the original page, but I replace with Ustinov. To be fair though, if we're calling Newcastle 'Armstrong' then Ustinov could be Grad Soc. As for the names; we could have the first, linked name, formally and then have the others as they are now Robdurbar 18:45, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Archbishop Drexel Gomez[edit]

Should the Archbishop Drexel Gomez not be on this page. Thought I would ask before going ahead and doing it.

Yep - if anyone's missing its through pure ignorance, not any lack of quality in the person!Robdurbar 11:16, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Charles Thorp[edit]

I was very suprised that Charles Thorp is missing (indeed there was no article at all), given his crucial role in both the foundation of the university and Castle's early days. Still, I have created an article although it's not up to a great standard. Information is sadly lacking around the Internet. I came to know him through his connections with my hometown of Ryton first before I was aware of his role at the university, so I suppose his exclusion is understanble. I may be back soon to add more to the article, once I have read a few local history books. Just want to draw everyone's attention to it, in case anyone else has anything to add to it.hedpeguyuk 20:52, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

References[edit]

This page has one reference to one obituary, can people provide references for any or all of these names? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.157.23.43 (talk) 22:53, 17 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Is it not enough that they are referenced on the individual colleg pages or should all of the hundreds of references be copied?

I'm willing to start going through all the college pages and finding references, I will move a list of people deleted due to lack of references here to be discussed when I've finished. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SPACKlick (talk • contribs) 03:12, 17 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, so I got distracted from tracing references, I will begin again. SPACKlick (talk) 16:03, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Redlinks[edit]

As this page could be very large if every individual were included is it worth including people not notable enough to have their own pages? I have deleted all redlinked entries and left this section for discussion. SPACKlick (talk) 10:02, 3 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Columns[edit]

@Robminchin and Bogle: Can we possibly remove the columns, it makes the page very hard to read on a small screen, especially when there are images in the column. Wonder what your thoughts are? Aloneinthewild (talk) 19:20, 10 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm no fan of columns and would be happy to see them go. Particularly in the current configuration where they make editing sub-sections difficult. Robminchin (talk) 23:38, 10 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Happy to remove--bogle (talk) 16:49, 11 June 2017 (UTC)Bogle[reply]

Ed Gamble[edit]

This Palatinate article indicates that Ed Gamble's college was Hatfield, not Cuth's: https://www.palatinate.org.uk/ed-gamble-from-hatfield-to-hammersmith-apollo/. The article even includes quotes from Gamble himself on the college. Paulbuckingham (talk) 02:47, 13 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Well noticed, could you update that and the college pages? It seems it is not sourced at the moment. Aloneinthewild (talk) 18:18, 13 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Done, thanks. Paulbuckingham (talk) 03:22, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion[edit]

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion:

Thom Brooks.jpg

You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 22:22, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of references[edit]

It appears that almost all the references have been removed from this article. This seems most peculiar, as it is a standard part of Wikipedia to provide references and that unreferenced information can be deleted. Please do not delete the references. Robminchin (talk) 04:56, 14 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Fellows of the Royal Society[edit]

Is there any particular reason why we have a seperate section for Fellows of the Royal Society? I understand membership of this body is prestigious but don't see why entries who are fellows should be split off into their own section. Anyway, I don't want to remove it if other editors feel there is a good reason for keeping. Perhaps a compromise would be to assign entries in this section to other appropriate parts of the list but keep the FRS postnom after the name of each entry? --Leonstojka (talk) 09:08, 10 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Associated with Durham University"[edit]

The list includes not just alumni but former staff members as well, but I would argue that because we do not have a strong definition of what being associated with Durham University means, there are a lot of entries with a tenuous connection at best, e.g. people who worked at Durham for 2/3 years at the start of their careers without doing anything noteworthy at the time (Graham Savage is a good example). Should we be a bit more strict with non-alumni entries from now on?

I won't change anything without input from other editors and would be particularly interested in hearing from those who have contributed to this page and other durham related articles before (like @Robminchin: and @Aloneinthewild: and so on) --Leonstojka (talk) 20:20, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Savage's connection certainly seems pretty tenuous (although the complete lack of references on his article makes it rather hard to tell). But an academic who spends three years as a postdoc at the university would have spent as long there as most undergraduates (actually longer, as they would be there all summer) and at a highly formative stage of their career. Even if there is nothing 'noteworthy' accomplished during that time, the building blocks for future notability may be being laid (most alumni could hardly be said to have done much that was noteworthy during their time as students for that matter). It's going to be hard to come up with objective criteria that define at what stage someone is considered to be 'associated'. Robminchin (talk) 00:56, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]