# Talk:Washington University in St. Louis

I've changed references from "Washington University" to "WashU" in accordance with today's announcement of a rebrand. More work on name references and logos will need to be done once there is more clarity on what can still be used and what is now considered defunct (particularly concerning university seals). WUSTLWikiWarrior (talk) 16:44, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Also, work will be needed on the pages of individual WashU schools, as well as other pages related to the school. WUSTLWikiWarrior (talk) 16:46, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
I’m going to undo this per WP:COMMONNAME. McYeee (talk) 17:15, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
Note https://marcomm.washu.edu/our-name/. Specifically says that "Washington University" should no longer be used in reference to WashU. WUSTLWikiWarrior (talk) 17:28, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
@McYeee, you are right that we should keep that as the name for now throughout the article–however, certain official names have changed, which should be reflected in the article. WUSTLWikiWarrior (talk) 17:35, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
There are three issues here. First, this is an internal guideline for marketing, and Wikipedia goes by what a consensus of reliable sources use, not by internal guidelines. Second, the guideline doesn't even say that "Washington University" is incorrect, just that it should not be used, which in this context means should not be used by university PR people. Finally, do you have any sources that say that certain official names have actually changed? McYeee (talk) 17:36, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
Fair points–however, I would expect colloquial name usage to change (including in news articles) to WashU in the coming months as a result of this, at which point we can make the necessary updates.
As for your third point, official school websites have made the switches to their new informal (not formal) names; this includes "WUSM" to "WashU Medicine."
One thing that will have to be changed on Wiki sooner rather than later is the logo. I am not sure about the official seal, but the logo at the bottom of the infobox is now outdated. WUSTLWikiWarrior (talk) 18:00, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
I've asked WikiData to change the Official URL. The page is Semi-protected there. I agree that the logo has to be changed. I don't know about the seal either. McYeee (talk) 18:36, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
Yes, I was looking into doing that earlier but did not want to change it manually from the official URL as is used in the template. Thank you. WUSTLWikiWarrior (talk) 18:53, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Hi @It is a wonderful world,
Thank you for taking the time to review the article and providing such detailed and constructive feedback. At times, this article has been tricky so I've been trying to follow other universities which have been rating as a GA or a FA.
Since your comments, I’ve gone through and addressed the specific examples you highlighted to the best of my ability—adding proper citations or revising content where needed. A few of them sent me deeper into archive rabbit holes than I’d care to admit.
Of course, there’s still more work to be done across the article, and I plan to continue reviewing each section with an eye toward verifiability.
I would 100% welcome any additional feedback or help you're able and willing to offer to bring this up to GA status.
Thanks again for your time and guidance! 
Wozal (talk) 20:48, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Hi @Wozal, thank you for doing that so quick! I'm willing to help you with bringing this to GA, though do be aware that bringing such a large article like this to your first GA is a massive task. It can definitely be done, but it will take a lot of work.
The biggest task is probably ensuring source-text integrity. GA requires pretty much everything in the article to be fully supported by the sources, and the citations to be placed straight after the content they support. It's clear from the quick probe I did in the review that nothing can be taken for granted in the sourcing of this article. I checked three sources, and all three had significant issues. This means the only way to ensure source-text integrity is literally to check every bit of content in the article is supported by the source directly after it.
If you plan to go ahead and do this, I'll help you by doing one or two sections myself and checking the first section you do to ensure it's up to standard. IAWW (talk) 00:09, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
Hope your week’s going well!
Thanks again for the detailed follow-up and your generous offer to help—your support is incredibly appreciated, especially with a project of this size.
I’ve now reworked several sections with a strong focus on source-text integrity. Everything that was previously missing a citation should now be directly supported by a reliable source. While I haven’t completed a full audit yet, I’ve verified and corrected sources as I went—especially when reusing them across nearby content. Roughly 60% of the citations have been checked so far.
One odd thing I noticed: when copying citations to reuse, the reference numbers sometimes changed unexpectedly (e.g., I’d paste a citation for source 152 and end up with source 10). I’m wondering if this might have tripped up previous editors as well and contributed to some of the sourcing issues.
I’d also love your input on the alumni section. I’m torn between converting it into a table (like the faculty section I added) or reorganizing it by field and listing representative names. As it stands, it’s a pretty dense and hard-to-read list. I'm also trying to figure out what to do about the current photos; some of which just seemed to be placed without any real context or placed way too early or too late within the article.
Whenever you have time, I’d really value your thoughts on the changes so far—especially whether the revised sections are approaching GA quality.
Thanks again!
Wozal (talk) 19:59, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
This is looking really good. Scrolling through the article, nothing jumps out at me as obviously missing a citation which is a massive improvement on before. It's great that you have checked 60%. I'm curious, roughly how often did the source not entirely support the content?
Regarding the source numbers, it is probably because you are moving the sources to earlier in the article? This causes the numbers to be changed so they are numbered in the order they appear. If it's not because you are doing this, it is probably a bug with the visual editor. I get similar bugs with the reference numbers in the visual editor and they are very annoying. Though I have noticed that they are getting a lot less common recently which is nice.
I really like the idea of converting the alumni section to a table (I have seen this sort of idea before), and it looks very nice as demonstrated by your faculty section. That is just my personal preference though, organising it by field would also be acceptable.
With the photos, you should just remove any that are not directly relevant, or move them to a part of the article where they are. I'm also pretty sure I read somewhere in policy that sandwiching text with two photos is bad practice, so try to stop this happening.
Let me know what the section you think is closest to GA is, and I'll review it. I'm also happy to help check references if you would like – just let me know a section or range of references to check. It's such a huge amount to check alone. IAWW (talk) 21:13, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I strongly disagree with the recommendation to write the alumni (or faculty) section as a table. I think those kinds of section do not serve readers well. We can leave long tables and lists of notable alumni (and others) to the relevant list article(s) and categories - this article should have discussion to give readers context and understanding. ElKevbo (talk) 22:10, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
Fair point I never considered. It's also the case that there are probably hoards of alumni that haven't been added to the article yet. We could start List of alumni of Washington University in St. Louis, and then spin off most of the listing to there. Then, that will make space for including discussion and context. This approach is done very well in King's College London#Notable people (alumni). What do you think @Wozal? I would be more than happy to help with this. IAWW (talk) 22:21, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
Would love to have your help. Taking another look at the King's College London, I see that it would also be kept up with a bit easier than the current list since I think names keep getting added on to as years go by. From what I can see, we have the following pages which can be linked back to on the original article:: List of Washington University alumni, List of Nobel laureates affiliated with Washington University in St. Louis as alumni or faculty, List of Washington University faculty and staff, Category:Washington University in St. Louis alumni, and Category:Washington University in St. Louis faculty. From there, it's just a matter of which names are the most notable which have reliable sources. When I was looking at sources, the articles would not always mention class year, school of attendance or whether it was an undergraduate or graduate degree. Wozal (talk) 23:58, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
I just realized I somehow missed the links already present in this article when making the above suggestion. Yes, it appears the bulk of the work is already done, and the prose just needs to be reorganised as is done in the King's College article. IAWW (talk) 06:18, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
@ElKevbo -  Always happy to hear your thoughts. Would you recommend lowering the current lists on the main page or doing a different format entirely to present context and understanding? There are so many ways that this section seems to be approached when looking at other universities. Wozal (talk) 22:27, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
I personally prefer and recommend the approach that's taken at King's College London#Notable people as IAWW presented as an option. I acknowledge that most articles seem to just have lists of notable alumni (and sometimes faculty) but I think this is one area where those articles can be significantly improved - and we need more good examples of how that can be done! ElKevbo (talk) 22:30, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
I think there were around 12-15 sources that I've checked so far that were close but didn't quite support the full claim it was making. There were around 3 times that the unsourced material seems to have originated from a Wikipedia mirror site.
Thank you! The visual editor is likely the culprit. It seemed to occur most when I switched between visual and source to double the visuals after moving something else.
Will work on the photos to make sure they aren't sandwiched.
I think the section that is closest to being GA-ready is the Founding and Early Years/Growth and Expansion (Previously this was 19th century) but some of it overlapped into the 1900s. I think the 20th century section, schools, and reputation are currently the weakest.
Wozal (talk) 22:24, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
Taking a look at the sourcing of the founding section (source numbers based on this version):
[15], [19], [21], [22] and [23] are all self-published. Per WP:ABOUTSELF, self-published sources can be used to verify details about themselves, but the article should not be based primarily on such sources. Additionally, much better (more comprehensive, academic, reliable) sourcing is available:
Morrow, Ralph E. (1996). Washington University in St. Louis. Missouri Historical Society Press.
O'Connor, Candice (2003). Beginning a great work: Washington University in St. Louis, 1853-2003. Washington University in St. Louis.
History of Washington University, 1853–1953 by Alexander S. Langsdorf (though this source seems to be very hard to find, and I can't find who published it)
The history section should be primarily based on academic sources such as these, rather than websites – especially if they are self-published.

IAWW (talk) 07:31, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
I found O'Connor's book through the Open Library and made a few changes using it as the primary source. I tried finding digital copies of the other two books through the Open Library but was unable to locate them. Based on the search function, I think there are additional sources which can be replaced by the book. Please let me know your thoughts. Wozal (talk) 19:26, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
It would be great if you could replace most the web sources (especially the self-published ones) with book sources. This would massively upgrade the source quality of the article. I managed to access the Morrow source, which is probably the best one as it looks as though it is not affiliated with WashU in any way. Would you like me to send it to you by email? Also, just in case you haven't heard, there is The Wikipedia Library which is amazing. IAWW (talk) 20:16, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
Please feel free to send it my way (I just changed my settings to allow other users to email me from Wikipedia!)  and I'll get to replacing it with the Morrow source. From what I was able to search in the O'Connor book, it didn't mention the year in which "in St. Louis" was added to the name which feels to me that it would have been an important part of its history.
Thanks for the reminder on The Wikipedia Library! I think it's been over a year since I last combed through the resources there! Wozal (talk) 21:47, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
Hi Wozal I will send the source shortly via a google drive link, as it was too large to attach directly. Note the best approach when integrating sourcing is to comprehensively read the most reliable sources and let them control what information goes into the article – as oppose to writing the article and then trying to find reliable sources to support it. The former approach would be needed comprehensiveness and well-researched criteria of a featured article. However, to reach the broadness requirement for a good article, it should be fine to just skim through the books to add any really important info that is currently missing and support any information that currently has weak sourcing. IAWW (talk) 07:10, 23 April 2025 (UTC)
Hi @It is a wonderful world,
Thanks for sending that over. I've made some edits and have also moved some information over into sub-articles when I realized some parts didn't quite seem to pack the same weight at other portions. Happy to hear your thoughts on those revisions! Do you feel that the history portion is more comprehensive now? Wozal (talk) 04:37, 28 April 2025 (UTC)
Hi @Wozal, I'm really impressed by the improvements, and I think this article is almost ready to be renominated. Well done on fleshing out the history section so well.
Before nominating for GA again, ensure that there are no text-source integrity issues (if there are any references you haven't checked), and then rewrite the lead so that it better summarises the article.
When you do nominate for GA, feel free to ping me and I'll review it when I next have the time – provided no one beats me to the punch! IAWW (talk) 08:15, 28 April 2025 (UTC)