Talk:Georgetown University

Billionaire alumni and other counted attributes

I see in the edit history we are running into another issue with alumni. I'm not of the mind that editors tallying things like number of billionaire alumni or number of heads of state constitutes a violation of WP:NOR but the lack of clear listing of these alumni as billionaires anywhere else, either centrally in a single source where they are identified as alumni, or in the excellent and very good List of Georgetown University alumni, means that we will continue to run into an issue of citing the claims as they are currently structured (the same problem exists for most other countable attributes such as Rhodes/Marshall/MacArthur/Pulitzer and other awards that we summarize in the current version of the alumni section and notable alumni information in the lead). Even the comprehensive and exhaustive list makes it difficult to account for these tallies, as their entry in the list will often only include some of the attributes which we may be interested in documenting and counting for summary in this article, so you can't even CTRL + F to count names of, e.g. billionaires (currently returns 3, one of which is just a title in a cited article, the other two listed as billionaires are Gracias and Eric Hotung, who is deceased and therefore not a "living billionaire" per the lead).

Additionally, I have to say that the pattern of reversions being justified by complete mischaracterizations of Wikipedia editorial guidelines does not bode well. As an example, the reversion removing Antonio Gracias from the tally and characterizing this as an issue of Conflict-of-interest editing on Wikipedia is completely detached from WP:COI. Antonio Gracias either is or is not citable as a billionaire (he is), and either is or is not already accounted for in the count of 9 that was in the status quo of the article. None of this has anything to do with whether that editor has a conflict of interest regarding Gracias or anyone else, so please, if you are going to cite WP guidelines and essays, do ensure that they actually pertain to the editorial issue you are correcting.

This count is unfortunately poorly sourced as it stands, for reasons that I have outlined above and in the other alumni topic on this talk page. This article's alumni section is nearly alone among higher education articles in its approach, and even after several back and forth edits aimed to improve it, contains redundancies, questionable inclusions, glaring omissions, and information that is outside of the scope of recommendations made in WP:UNIGUIDE.

Later this week I will make another pass at fixing some of these issues. Ihpkt (talk) 19:21, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

One other issue I would raise as it pertains to the longer term is that lists (as opposed to the data cited in articles, which is a different matter) generally do not include inline citations, although this is of course welcomed and seems to be common among FA alumni sections.

However, the reason that lists do not typically use inline citations, especially individuals, is that the appropriate place for documentation of the claim is on the main article of the page that is hyperlinked. An editor who wishes to challenge the verifiability of a person on a list need only click the hyperlink to their main article to see that their education and accomplishments are extensively documented there, efforts which do not need to be repeated in lists. If the challenging editor is still adamant about the issue of verifiability and believes the material requires a source, the official recommendation is to attempt to add a citation (which should be easy enough given that the citation will usually be quite clear on the target page. Insisting on inline citations, perhaps even multiple, for each individual when not specifically required by editorial guidelines reduces the readability of the section.

I invite editors interested in this matter to read the following and add their perspective as it pertains to the state and future of the Georgetown main article:

WP:OVERKILL - Excessive citations can hinder readability and are not necessary for information that is not likely to be contested, especially when it is well documented elsewhere.

WP:WHEN - Not every instance of a claim requires a citation. Inline citations are required in specific circumstances that will only apply to certain alumni (while we should have respect for adding contentious material about living people, WP:BLP, reference to alumni status when said status is documented on that person's main article cannot possibly be construed as "contentious") this has been used as a pretext for removal of content that is actually well sourced and does not require an inline citation. Information, especially in lists, does not require a direct inline citation to be considered verifiable.

In any case, guidelines are pretty clear that outside of the instances where an inline citation is required, editors feeling that a source is required should attempt to verify the information before removing it. I don't think any editor of this article can credibly claim that alumni status is not easily verifiable, so using this as a pretext for removal of content that violates your personal preferences for what should be contained in the article is difficult to defend as a good faith edit.

Finally, since it has come up, I want to reiterate that puffery and boosterism pertain to the language used by editors to describe a subject, not the mere inclusion of verifiable information about an organization or a subject. It's not boosterism to say that an alumnus won a Nobel Prize, to use an example that unfortunately does not apply to this article. Here is the specific example of puffery used in the essay:

Words such as these are often used without attribution to promote the subject of an article, while neither imparting nor plainly summarizing verifiable information. They are known as "peacock terms" by Wikipedia contributors. Instead of making subjective proclamations about a subject's importance, use facts and attribution to demonstrate it.

Peacock example:

Bob Dylan is the defining figure of the 1960s counterculture and a brilliant songwriter.

Just the facts:

Dylan was included in Time's 100: The Most Important People of the Century, in which he was called "master poet, caustic social critic and intrepid, guiding spirit of the counterculture generation".^[1] By the mid-1970s, his songs had been covered by hundreds of other artists.^[2]

An article suffering from such language should be rewritten to correct the problem or, if an editor is unsure how best to make a correction, the article may be tagged with an appropriate template, such as {{Peacock term}}.

Puffery is an example of positively loaded language; negatively loaded language should be avoided just as much. People responsible for "public spending" (the neutral term) can be loaded both ways, as 'tax-and-spend politicians borrowing off the backs of our grandchildren" or "public servants ensuring crucial investment in our essential infrastructure for the public good'. Ihpkt (talk) 20:10, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

As it pertains to this article being within accepted norms for articles of this category, (other stuff existing is not a good argument) I will leave you with this excerpt:

While consistency with other pages is not a good argument by itself, comparisons between pages are often made in order to illustrate a more substantial argument; as such, comparative statements should not be dismissed out of hand unless they lack any deeper reasoning. While relying on comparisons to other articles is generally unconvincing, articles that have been through some form of quality review—such as featured articles, good articles, or articles that have achieved a WikiProject A-class rating—are often the way they are for good reasons informed by site policy. If such articles have remained current with policy since their promotion, they are often more compelling examples to illustrate arguments.

At a certain point, we really must look at the very significant discrepancies between the state of this article and established principles and examples of quality such as WP:UNIGUIDE and featured articles in this category, which is not the same argument as "other stuff existing." Ihpkt (talk) 20:16, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

I have done an initial check to attempt to correct our issue with billionaire alumni.

The following are confirmed living billionaires that are graduates of Georgetown (have degrees):

Henri Beaufour, Antonio Gracias, Frank McCourt (executive), Ted Leonsis, Chris Sacca, Marcus Wallenberg, Jules Kroll, and David G. Bradley (the sources for Bradley are not high quality, but the sales of his investments over time support the conclusion that he is a billionaire) (total: 8)

Ömer Koç is a billionaire and studied at Georgetown, but transferred. I list this separately, but typically such former students are not excluded in alumni lists on Wikipedia. This would bring the total to 9.

August François von Finck (another graduate) is presumably the heir to the $8.8bn fortune his father left at the time of his death, I just can't find a specific high quality source confirming him individually as a billionaire currently, but it seems highly likely. This would bring the total to 10 if confirmed.

Eric Hotung and Charles Cawley are both graduates described as having been billionaires, but they are deceased. For some reason, the statistic is typically worded as "living" billionaires, and perhaps this convention should be interrogated in order to give a more holistic historical perspective. We do not count only living Rhodes Scholars, for instance.

Jim Kimsey is also described as a billionaire, but is in the category of being both deceased and having only spent a single term at Georgetown before transferring to West Point. Depending on consensus here, he may or may not be included.

Finally, Ralph V. Whitworth may or may not have been a billionaire. He is deceased. Honorable mention to Thomas E. Leavey, whose philanthropy would indicate that he probably was a billionaire, although of course also deceased.

So the tally depends on what is an alumnus, and whether someone doesn't count because they died. My view is that this is not a horse race and the alumni section would be better served by identifying individual alumni and summarizing their accomplishments. Whether the tally is 8, 10, or 15 depends on a consensus not yet established. Ihpkt (talk) 23:23, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

As a side note, I noticed that the alumnus in question in this ongoing edit war would only redirect to DOGE, and decided that he had sufficient individual notability to justify a main article. So anyone with an interest or aware of citable information to add regarding him, please help me contribute to Antonio Gracias. Thank you. Ihpkt (talk) 23:26, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

For Marshall Scholarships, the article gives the count at 46. The Marshall website contains a record of undergraduate institutions, the report "US Institutions that have received Marshall Scholarships 1954-2025" which indicates that Georgetown has 41 undergraduate winners of the scholarship. Can we identify what I imagine are the 5 graduate alumni who account for the discrepancy? Ihpkt (talk) 20:40, 10 April 2025 (UTC)