Talk:List of University of Oxford people

Can we provide links to the various colleges? -- Zoe

Do you mean internal links to their articles or external links to their official webpages or both? Whichever way, I think that's a great idea. Please go ahead -- they're all in the University of Oxford article, so you can open it for editing and copy them from there. (Having had the pleasure of gathering them all onto that page, I leave the fun of copying them here to someone else.) -- isis 07:33 Jan 26, 2003 (UTC)

I was hoping somebody who actually knows the colleges and what their Wikipedia names are could handle that. :-) -- Zoe

How about we find someone who wants to run their edit-count up and let them do it one link at a time? -- isis 07:52 Jan 26, 2003 (UTC)

Are the colleges in brackets only supposed to be those where they were students? I saw that some people were listed with more than one college, and clicked on one at random -

I'd rather it be only where they were students, but I'm not absolutely sure a "fellow" isn't a graduate student of sorts (in the U.S., fellows are people on fellowships, and they ARE students), but I'd just as soon take it out, because this is only a list, and once you go to her link you get the other info anyhow. (I do question whether she's all that "notable", however, since I've never heard of her, but that's a different issue.) But the main purpose of the list is for people who are strongly associated with Oxford in history but weren't students there all that long (or seriously), like Lord Alfred Douglas, and if you try changing the name of the list, you'll run into the same problem with having Richard Burton on it that made Deb take it out of the Oxford University article, altho she did not take the corresponding list out of the Cambridge University article. -- isis 08:35 Jan 26, 2003 (UTC)

I know that at Cambridge, once you've matriculated, you are a member of the university for life, even if you drop out. I don't know if that's the same for Oxford, but I would have thought so, and so people who dropped out would probably still be "Oxonians". But I agree, it keeps things simpler to just restrict it to students. By the way, in UK universities, a Fellow is a member of the academic staff, so they wouldn't be students. -- Oliver PEREIRA 09:05 Jan 26, 2003 (UTC)

In the U.S. (at least back when I was in grad school), most fellowships required either research or teaching (and carried a salary or "stipend" for it), and teaching fellows were academic staff (but perhaps not faculty), but then much/most teaching of undergraduates was done by graduate students instead of professors. I think you're right that in the U.K. fellows are faculty who hold appointments rather like a "chair" (or professorship) in the U.S., which is for a professor instead of a grad student, so we should probably stay clear of the issue for this list. -- isis 08:26 Jan 29, 2003 (UTC)

Recently added to "Novelists, Poets and Playwrights". Any source for this? No mention of any Oxford connection either on Wikipedia (Scott Shaw), or on his website. Flapdragon 14:30, 21 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Have removed entry. --Simon D M (talk) 16:05, 31 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Scott Shaw's article on Wikipedia,

talk) 11:32, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply

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If you scroll to the bottom of both pages, you'll see that they are just mirrors of the Wikipedia article about Shaw and so not actual valid sources at all.

Bencherlite^Talk 11:53, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply

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I'm not sure what the technical meaning is of a mirror. I thought a mirror was an exact duplicate of a page provided by another means, whereas the ebay page, at least, claims only to be based on Wikipedia, and is clearly not a precise replica of it.

So where did the idea come from that he has any connection with Oxford? Do you think the information is inaccurate or merely not backed up by evidence? Has somebody created that huge list of universities he attended just as a joke?

I don't see that his inclusion or otherwise makes much difference, so best to leave him out for the time being.--

talk) 19:33, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply

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Maybe "mirror" wasn't the right technical term (

Bencherlite^Talk 20:07, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply

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To justify my actions, note that I didn't hesitate to remove

talk) 20:28, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply

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You don't have to justify anything to me, Oxonian2006 - I know you're on the side of the angels!

Bencherlite^Talk 22:19, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply

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Can any one provide me with information about Christian Baileys (Lincoln Group) time at Oxford, when he was there, when he graduated, contacts that might be willing to speak about him? Email me at [email protected] —The preceding

Pages like this are a magnet for jokers or vanity edits, and of the various red links some look non-notable to me. Can I suggest that if you must add a red link you should add a very brief summary of why the person is notable? But far better is to create at least a a stub article for the link to go to. Flapdragon 15:21, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Any room for 12th century alumni? 70.20.216.43 05:23, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Stubs with rudimentary biographical detail on Oxford notables are unnecessary when they can be incorporated into this list more succinctly. Netkinetic/T/C/@ 06:08, 12 January 2007 (UTC)tyrese is going here[reply]

Busia was the Prime Minister of Ghana from 1969-1972. He obtained a BA (Hons) at Oxford University in Politics, Philosophy & Economics; MA. Ph.D.Social Anthropology. Please amend your list of notable Oxonians to reflect this fact. Busia was the Prime Minister at the time that Edward Akuffo Addo was the ceremonial President of Ghana. 161.73.47.120 14:28, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Writing as the person who started the practice of adding notable details about people on this list in italics, I am suggesting that these are replaced with small text. This can be done by replacing '' at the beginning and end of the text with <small> at the beginning and </small> at the end. This looks neater and it will allow us to get more information onto each line without the danger of breaking onto the next line.--

Oxford University is a great University and many notable individuals have studied or worked on the faculty of Oxford. I think this list should be divided into several lists. This list is very long. RS2007 04:37, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, it needs to be broken down into sub-sections on separate pages. It is currently the third longest page on Wikipedia and will only get longer as more table formatting and, more importantly, references are added. The current table of contents is this (top levels of headings only):

   * 1 Government
   * 2 The Law
   * 3 Religions
   * 4 Literature
   * 5 Media
   * 6 The Arts
   * 7 Historians
   * 8 Classicists, Byzantinists, Archaeologists
   * 9 Modern Languages
   * 10 Philosophers
   * 11 Economists
   * 12 Geography
   * 13 Anthropology and ethnography
   * 14 Sociology
   * 15 Politics, political philosophy, and international relations
   * 16 Asian studies
   * 17 Mathematicians and statisticians
   * 18 Scientists
   * 19 Educationalists
   * 20 Sports people
   * 21 Business people
   * 22 Explorers and adventurers
   * 23 Chefs and wine experts
   * 24 Miscellany
   * 25 Fictional Oxonians

Nos 1 to 6 would work on their own with their current titles (e.g.

Bencherlite^Talk 10:31, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply

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• First, we don't want to lose any names from the list. Gathering together all these names in one place has been a big project and is one that should continue. Whatever solution is decided upon it should not involve cutting down the list.
• Secondly, it needs to be easy for people to navigate the separate lists, which is the most likely solution that will be reached. I suggest having one page called "List of University of Oxford people" which will consist of a short list of links to a number of shorter lists. An alternative would be to have a "See also" list of links to the other shorter lists on each shorter list page. This would have the disadvantage that there would be no central hub.
• Thirdly, I don't think a PPE page would be a good idea. It would be open to misunderstanding. It could suggest that the people on that page had read PPE. PPE is an undergraduate course rather than a field of endeavour in the real world. Philosophers, economists, and people working in academic politics, political philosophy, and IR do not actually have all that much in common. Most philosophers probably have more in common with mathematicians, linguists, theologians, and classicists. If there were an argument for having a PPE page then it could equally be argued that there should be a "Psychology, Philosophy, and Physiology" page.
• Fourthly, I don't think we want too many pages. Even cutting the current page in half would be a big improvement. How would the following be for a set of shorter list pages:
  • University of Oxford people in public life, to include Government, everbody in The Law except for legal academics, and everybody in Religions except for theologians.
  • University of Oxford people in creative fields, to include Literature (except for people in the critics, librarians, diarists, etc sub-category who are known best as university-based academics), Media, and The Arts.
  • University of Oxford people in academic disciplines, to inlcude legal academics, theologians, university-based literary scholars, and sections 7-18.  Done
    Bencherlite^Talk 21:23, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • University of Oxford people in education  Done
    Bencherlite^Talk 21:23, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • University of Oxford people in business  Done
    Bencherlite^Talk 21:23, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • University of Oxford people in sport, exploration, and adventuring  Done
    Bencherlite^Talk 21:23, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • University of Oxford people in food and drink
  • Fictional University of Oxford people  Done
    Bencherlite^Talk 21:23, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply
    ]
• Fifthly, I would see if we could somehow get rid of the Miscellany section. I don't mean get rid of the people, but find a way of including them elsewhere.

1 - I entirely agree, and wasn't suggesting otherwise. In fact, the issue of whether to include e.g. Imran Khan once or twice could also be revisited - the element of duplication is lessened if the entries are on two pages, rather than twice on the same page.

2 - I entirely agree, and wasn't suggesting otherwise.

3 - I meant a title like "Philosophy, political studies and economics", rather than "PPE", but I take your point. I was looking for ways of grouping academic disciplines together, short of putting them all on one page (which might get over-long itself, but we'll see on that front!).

4 - I like your groupings, except for two suggestions:

(a) I think "public life" is too big - the government section alone is already 186kb long (out of a current page length of 331kb) and the other two combine at about 70kb, without full table formatting, so you'd be looking at a sub-page of around 250kb before the further tables, information and references are added. The same issue about page length would come up again. I'd suggest three pages: University of Oxford people in public life (or perhaps in politics and public service, or something like that), University of Oxford people in the law and University of Oxford people in religion and theology.

(b) At the other end of the scale, a list for a handful of people in food and drink seems overkill! How about including them in creative fields? Some of those listed are known as cookery writers /broadcasters anyway rather than as restaurant-based chefs, e.g the lovely Nigella.

5 I agree - possibly an "other people in public life" section in the main "public life" page?

Before we start moving names across, I'll just check that there isn't a GFDL issue in doing so. I assume not, as the main page isn't being deleted and that will have the history of contributions, but better safe than sorry...

Bencherlite^Talk 21:32, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply

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Ok, I've done the first:

Bencherlite^Talk 11:32, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply

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More done (as indicated above)

• List of University of Oxford people in sport, exploration, and adventuring,
• List of University of Oxford people in business,
• List of University of Oxford people in academic disciplines
  and
• List of fictional University of Oxford people.

Those changes have removed 41k, leaving about 298k. "Academic disciplines" is about 31k and will probably get too large for ease of use when properly referenced and formatted. I repeat my point about lumping together all of government and the law together: it would just transfer the length problem to a new page, not solve the problem. I would welcome comments.

Bencherlite^Talk 21:23, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply

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How come I don't see any scientists/inventors alumni? Tarikur (talk) 23:52, 19 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How about

Bencherlite^Talk 08:49, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply

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For more information, Google "The Oxonian in" for a list of his books from Open Library, Google, etc. to determine his eligibility as an Oxford alumnus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Webistrator (talk • contribs) 01:06, 28 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]