Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Fraternities and Sororities

Scope of the Project, Notability Rules (clarification), and Syntax for the Watchlist are linked here: Watchlist Talk Page. A discussion on the types of chapter status is here: F&S Project talk page, Archive #7.

The main list of infobox issues can be found at Category:Fraternity articles with infobox fraternity issues and the Weekly Cleanup List

1. needs color boxes (Helpful link, has colors, flags, and addresses of Baltic, Scandinavian, German, and Polish fraternities)

• Alpha Phi Epsilon and the related honor society listing
• Beta Pi Theta and the related honor society listing
• Theta Chi Delta and related honor society listing
• Burschenschaft Hannovera
• List of student corporations in Latvia - in process Jax MN (talk) 23:17, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

2. Notability or No Source Tags

• Kappa Delta Kappa (only sources are from the college; nothing found in newspapers.com)

Delete: is already included in List of social sororities and women's fraternities

• K.D.St.V. Teutonia (only source is its website)
• Zeta Phi Beta (fraternity) ( multi-location PR, the only source is its dead website)

Comment: Here's a source from El Mundo 1957 when it was founded: https://gpa.eastview.com/crl/elmundo/?a=d&d=mndo19571224-01.1.8&srpos=1&e=------195-en-25--1--img-txIN-%22Zeta+Phi+Beta%22----1957-----

Rublamb (talk) 00:56, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

What do you think? RSStockdale added a sticky header for the column heads on List of Kappa Alpha Order chapters. I hadn't known this was available here, though I regularly use a similar command on Excel. This may be a useful addition to all our lists. Jax MN (talk) 19:57, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

On a scale from 0-10, I give this a 23, WOW! While we have some tables whose width may approach the width of the screen, I don't think we have enough to use the sticky rows. I'd be perfectly willing to try to set up AWB to do this everywhere on pages that are the List of Mu Pi Mu chapters, I'm not sure it is generally worth it on the notable members lists, though there may be a few. I'd like to propose 25 rows in the table to make sticky header worthwhile. I'm not sure we've got any tables with two rows in the header to be kept, but something to keep an eye out.Naraht (talk) 20:30, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Though I haven't used it, you can make a left-most column sticky as well. "Template:Sticky table start" describes how to do this. Don't know if any of the Frat or Sorority pages could use that or not. RSStockdale (talk) 20:49, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

In general, no, we've generally avoided tables that go that large, may be one or two.Naraht (talk) 20:52, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

If the row is set up with header cells, they automatically stay at the top (sticky header) when using the sort arrows. I removed the sticky header code from List of Kappa Alpha Order chapters as a test, and found no difference. Are you seeing something that I am missing? Rublamb (talk) 20:36, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

If you remove the *two* changes, then no sticky header row. Once change is the additional header, the other to the class.Naraht (talk) 20:49, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Sorting isn't part of this, this is the row that has "Charter Date and Range" staying at the top of the screen no matter how much you scroll down..Naraht (talk) 20:51, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Got it. Rublamb (talk) 21:00, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Note, RSStockdale does not appear to have changed it in the ideal way. there should be three changes as far as I can tell, (Sticky table end) should be placed at the end as well.Naraht (talk) 21:06, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Apologies to RSStockdale it appears that the use of Sticky table begin and Sticky table end are used if what is desired is more complicated than just the one header line being sticky. Looking at AWB...Naraht (talk) 09:17, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

For Omicron Delta Gamma (Order of Artus), we use the description of Order of Artus at a certain point in the ODG article. However, I'd like to see if we can come to some policy on the use of that particular site since I could see things like non-open mottos for groups being referenced from the rituals there.Naraht (talk) 14:11, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

Although I am the one who used it, I am still not 100% on its use. Since they are also publishing books, the issue goes beyond this website. It comes down to credibility. If a credible source includes encyclopedic info, we shouldn't be worried about the GLOs thoughts of the matter when writing for Wikipedia. For example, we regularly cover misconduct. In reality, many of these rituals and details were published by the organizations in their books, can be found within their websites, or are available in university archives.

Although I did not use Stitching Argus as a source regarding rituals, the Omicron Delta Gamma ritual that it provides is also published in part in the successor's magazine. That info came from somewhere; Stitching Argus is simply providing it as a secondary source. Whether Stitching Argus is TBD. If any WP members belong to an organization that included in this website, can you take a look and see what you think of its coverage? Rublamb (talk) 16:22, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

Honestly, for most of the GLOs, what they show on the internet is the ritual. (https://www.stichti ngargus.nl/vrijmetselarij/frame_en.html) For my fraternity, the ritual is listed as being from 1997, this is the *only* place I've ever seen a brotherhood ritual for my fraternity on the internet (and it has been on that site for at least 15 years) and I guarantee it hasn't been in the fraternity magazine of my fraternity. (for various other things I've done, I've actually been through every issue of my fraternity magazine since the 1940s (most recent missing issue from the online repository) looking for notable alumni.

Where did you see ODGs in the ODE magazine? (American Economist, I believe) Also, in general Honor Societies tend to be less private about their rituals, the French language honor society that my wife became a member of allowed parents to watch.Naraht (talk) 17:42, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

Yes, American Economist. ODG was a "honor" fraternity, rather than an honor society. However, it was defunct at the time that its was described in American Economist, so maybe being defunct makes a difference. I guess the question to consider is: is the information about your fraternity accurate? You don't have to answer to me, but use your answer to consider whether or not the source is reliable. Rublamb (talk) 18:06, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

I'd say the equivalent is the Latter Day Saint endowment ceremony. Although there are those who have published it, it doesn't appear that the endowment ceremony contents are used as a reference by anyone. Not sure in terms of the Masons. I don't know what the rule is on using private things like that.Naraht (talk) 14:46, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

So, do we want to remove this as a possible source or not? I don't have strong feelings either way. @Jax MN, can you take a look? Rublamb (talk) 17:12, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

In general, I've seen that the infobox should summarize what is in the article. However I've noticed that while we have the address for the national HQ in the infobox, but not often in the article (see Lambda Sigma Upsilon for an exception to this).Naraht (talk) 15:01, 15 December 2025 (UTC)

I've always thought that a few items, like addresses, website and the details of current chapter and colony count only need to be noted once, that is, in the infobox. To duplicate this information seems overkill - pedantic - and here, the standard rule can be ignored so that the article is more readable.

I think the guidance here is that because infobox points do not typically provide an adjacent citation, they tend to summarize a deeper dive in the body text, which IS cited, and thus supported by reference. Readers that want to check further can go to the citations in the body text. But, infoboxes aren't always a summary, and may indeed provide the detail that is covered more briefly in the body text. Like, for example, a website is not shown in the body text. At least that is how I understand standard practice around here. And I think consistency is important too, within the articles we support. Jax MN (talk) 21:23, 15 December 2025 (UTC)

For that reason, I have been adding the location of the national headquarters and a source in the article. Usually just the city; sometimes the address and city. Or, if its a single location group, I will include the address of the chapter house. In terms of where this info goes, if there is a governance section, the national headquarters fits nicely there. The chapter house can be included in a section about the building. If neither of those work, I will put the national headquarters as the last item in the history section or, for the chapter house, in the paragraph describing the move into the building. Rublamb (talk) 21:23, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

I was asking about use of transl vs. lang|grc-latin when Trappist the monk pointed out that the idea of greek words followed by their transliteration fallowed by the english is something that is integrated into langx. (Using Phi Beta Kappa as example as usual

{{langx|grc|Φιλοσοφία Βίου Κυβερνήτης|Philosophia Biou Kybernētēs|Love of learning is the guide of life}}

returns

Ancient Greek: Φιλοσοφία Βίου Κυβερνήτης, romanized: Philosophia Biou Kybernētēs, lit. 'Love of learning is the guide of life'

This seems very useful for the *text*, what I don't know is whether

{{langx|grc|Φιλοσοφία Βίου Κυβερνήτης|Philosophia Biou Kybernētēs|Love of learning is the guide of life|label=none}}

Φιλοσοφία Βίου Κυβερνήτης, Philosophia Biou Kybernētēs, 'Love of learning is the guide of life'

would be better and whether it makes sense to do this inside the infobox where we genereally use linefeeds to separate the greek from the transliteration from the english.Naraht (talk) 15:30, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

I need to think about it as this, as it will make the infobox entry longer (with the language labels) and more difficult for new editors who tend to use VE. I also don't get why literal translation is abbreviated instead of saying English, but that may be fixable within the template. Oddly enough, I ran into langx being used today for the Croation version of the name of a college. Had not really thought about that template before. Rublamb (talk) 21:30, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

I like this template, as long as (to Naraht's point) that the three clauses are clearly separated (Ancient, Romanized, literal) Might Anglicized be an improvement? Perhaps not, if we abbreviate. Lit is better than Ang. Jax MN (talk) 22:26, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

Let's start looking to change to this in the case that we have all three.Naraht (talk) 21:57, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

Using "lit." instead of "English" seems scholarly rather than something general readers will know, but it is an allowable abbreviation per MOS:MISCSHORT. I am leaning toward the "label=none" version for the infobox because of space and "with labels" in the text of the article for clarity. Thoughts?

Also, what do you think about using langx for the translation of foreign organization names in the lead, rather than manually adding the language in front of a lang template?

Since I just finished lang templates and cleaning up all articles with a motto, I want to make sure we identify everything related lang and langx when we go through these articles a second time. Pretty sure this will need to be a manual project. Rublamb (talk) 00:44, 24 December 2025 (UTC)

Example: I just replaced lang with langx for Phi Kappa Phi. Please take a look at both the symbols section and the infobox. Things to note: the addition of the language description to the symbols section and the running together of the variations in the infobox. Thoughts? Rublamb (talk) 04:08, 28 December 2025 (UTC)

I've run into this in both Law and Nursing, so I figure I'll use Plumbing as the example. :) For a plumbing Honorary, it would not be unreasonable for the institution listed for the organization shown for where the school is at to be the Plumbing college. Let's say there is a chapter at Pipe University which has a Plumbing college. Depending on whether the Plumbing college has a page or not, it might be listed as Pipe University college of plumbing or Pipe University college of plumbing. But what if the College of Plumbing at Pipe University has a page at Mario College of Plumbing (either Mario gave a lot of gold, *or* he started the college and then it merged into Pipe U.) Should the entry in the chapter table be

• Pipe University Mario College of Plumbing
• Pipe University Mario College of Plumbing
• Mario College of Plumbing
• Something else?

Naraht (talk) 19:14, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

We've run into this before. My answer is going to be: it depends. If the chapter at Pipe University went inactive in 1923 but the Mario College of Plumbing was not established at Pipe University until 1956, the chapter would have never existed at Mario College of Plumbing. Since we have agreed to "fix" the institutional name at what it was when the chapter closed (with efn or aka notes being optional), we would leave the entry in my example as Pipe University. Another situation to consider: does the source mention "College of Plumbing" or "Mario College of Plumbing" or does it just say "Pipe University"?

If the source says Pipe University, how do we know that Mario College of Plumbing is actually correct in that situation? In a list if recently worked on, some entries included the "college of" while others did not. I know of at least one professional group that has chapters at both undergraduate and graduate schools, meaning that both Pipe University and Mario College of Plumbing would be or could be in that list. In that situation, changing Pipe University to one of the other options would actually make the entry incorrect. Seems like we are less likely to make an error if we follow the source. If the source mentions an active chapter at a school of nursing, medicine, or law--and Wikipedia has an article for that school--making the change is fine. However, if we don't have proof that the chapter is exclusively at the nursing, law, or medical school vs. being for any student at the university, than I say stick with the general university article. For example, sometimes membership is open to anyone interested in the topic or to a wide range of majors that go beyond nursing, law or medicine. Rublamb (talk) 21:23, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

For Law or Nursing (moving back from the example) honoraries would be viewed as either being Law or Pre-Law (and Nursing similarly, I think). If it is Law, then only those specifically enrolled in the Grad school would be eligible. (and the honorary would be unable to exist if the Law (Graduate) school were closed even if the larger University remained active, so by definition it would be tied to that grad school.Naraht (talk) 21:28, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

That's exactly the opposite of what I have found with some organizations, so you really cannot assume. Also, some institutions combine undergraduate and graduate in the "schools" while others use the term "school" for graduate programs only. So, for example, an undergraduate GLO may or may not reside at the "school". There really is no one structure to rely on. Since this issue relates to both professional and honor societies, anything is possible within the mix. Rublamb (talk) 21:49, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

Could I get an extra set of eyes or two on the query https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&limit=500&offset=0&ns0=1&search=insource%3A%2Fnfobox+%28%5BFf%5Draternity%7C%5BSs%5Dorority%29%2F+-insource%3A%2FCategory%3AStudent+organizations+established+in%2F

I *think* everything in there is ok with not having a "Student organizations established in" category, but I'm not sure.Naraht (talk) 19:48, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

Question: what if it was established as a student group, but later expanded to also have community-based chapters? Rublamb (talk) 21:08, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

IMO, treated exactly as if it had never had community-based chapters. For Alpha Phi Alpha, it would be treated the same there as if they had never added alumni chapters that could make full brothers. (I'd *really* not have Alumni Initiation (NPC term) affect these.Naraht (talk) 21:32, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

Okay. This then applies to most of the African confraternities. Rublamb (talk) 21:40, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

I created template Bairds20. Template:Bairds20 I used a version of the reference (with cite book) that I've seen quite a but (> 30 pages) , got the appropriate ISBN number hyphenation, linked Jack Anson and then used the structure of Template:Encyclopedia of North American Railroads which gives the following available parameters: page, pages, nopp (for surpressing the p or pp for things like front cover) and ref to generate anchors (haven't quite figured out an example on how to use that). I've got an example with no parameters, page, pages and nopp at User:Naraht/Z. Let me know what you think, tweeks are welcome, and I figure we work backwards in time. (some like the 2nd, we may really have to give thought on how the ref should look like.

• Should we link to the google books page for those that don't allow full viewing (anything after the 1930)
• I'll create redirects based on years so this one can be used as either Bairds20 or Bairds1991. Done Some editions will probably get multiple year redirects. I think I've seen the 19th as either 1976 or 1977 and the 12th as either 1929 or 1930.Naraht (talk) 20:41, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

(an example using pp looks like

Anson, Jack L.; Marchenasi, Robert F., eds. (1991) [1879]. Baird's Manual of American Fraternities (20th ed.). Indianapolis, IN: Baird's Manual Foundation, Inc. pp. 26–67. ISBN 978-0-9637159-0-6.

Naraht (talk) 20:49, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

I am not going to track it down, but I recall a guideline not to link to something like Google unless it is a readable version. I would remove the 1879 date. That is for when the book is the same, just different pressings. Since this is a different addition, it was not originally published in 1879. However with the 12th, for example, it could be the 1930 pub date with the 1929 original pub date. Rublamb (talk) 21:04, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

I asked over Help talk:Citation Style 1 which is the talk page for cite book. Neither the OED, the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) or Encyclopedia Britanica use orig-year. I'm pulling it. As for the 1929/1930, I'm going to look at my copy to see which year is used in which place.Naraht (talk) 16:50, 24 December 2025 (UTC)

Naraht, did you look at Template:Reference page when creating the Bairds20 template? Prior to your work on this, I'd been using that template {{rp|p=xx}} immediately following the main Baird's 20th reference I'd used. However, these were separate templates. Did your work on the new Bairds20 template knowingly include this code, thus making a planned consolidation and improvement? Or did your work spring from an unrelated process? If the latter, I don't want you to have missed anything from "rp". It has been helpful, though I only use it sporadically, like on the List of Minnesota fraternities. Jax MN (talk) 22:24, 27 December 2025 (UTC)

I'm familiar with rp. In a few places (like List of Minesota Fraternities), it definitely was useful. More or less if there were more than one ref that went to the 20th, I used the template bare and used rp afterwards. Didn't run into my nightmare scenario where there were 6 references to I-6 and 7 to V-135 where going to one of the more complicated methods of reference would have been useful.Naraht (talk) 13:25, 28 December 2025 (UTC)

The page number of Baird's 20th do create nightmarish rp entries. The format of the page number are also troublesome. Several formats exist. For example

1) pp. V-12–V-15

2) pp. V-12–15

3) pp. V12–V15

4) pp. V.12–V.15

What do you decide to go with? Rublamb (talk) 21:20, 28 December 2025 (UTC)

This was going to be section one of the after action report...

All of the page numbers used with Bairds20 are those that where there before (added the template, deleted everything except the page numbers in the format they were and became either part of the template or part of rp with either page= or pages= based on whether there were multiple.

And I think you missed about 3 or 4 more other versions. *sigh*

I did ask on Help talk:Citation Style 1 and the suggestion was to use the "at" parameter rather than page or pages, so for this it would be "at=Part V, pp. 12–15". I'm not *really a fan of that since at is for

at: For sources where a page number is inappropriate or insufficient. Overridden by |page= or |pages=. Use only one of |page=, |pages=, or |at=.
Examples: page (p.) or pages (pp.); section (sec.), column (col.), paragraph (para.); track; hours, minutes and seconds; act, scene, canto, book, part, folio, stanza, back cover, liner notes, indicia, colophon, dust jacket, verse.

.

Once we decided on something I can use AWB to put them into our preferred format (yes, some fancy regex, but not too bad.)

My *personal* preference would be "V 12-15" but it really isn't that strong. My only real preference is that if we go with V-12–V-15 that the middle one be a dash longer than the other two. (a short or long dash if the outer two are hyphens, a long dash if the outer two are short dashes).

Also, in some cases, the existing page= or pages= parameters that were left along as the bairds20 template replaced cite book are of incorrect plurality (pages=V-24 or page=VI-26-29 or something similar). I've got some ideas on how to find those using regex. (if page, it should have a maximum of one hyphen, etc.)Naraht (talk) 23:29, 28 December 2025 (UTC)

The other option is to treat the Part as a chapter instead and split this into a chapter and pages within the chapter.Naraht (talk) 05:01, 29 December 2025 (UTC)

Interesting idea (part as a chapter). However, how would that work with the template? I am starting to like the V2-3 format as it takes the least amount of space for rp. It is how newspaper pages are done. Rublamb (talk) 14:02, 29 December 2025 (UTC)

Implementation more or less complete. There are now 292 uses of the template in mainspace, I've left about a dozen alone that either use sfn or actually use chapter, so pages is left alone, for now until we work out our discussions.

how to use chapter, Vincennes University uses "|chapter=III NIC Member Fraternities|pages=133–134".

I'm going to start some of my checks, making sure I've got the ones without pages noted, and that page vs. pages is done correctly.Naraht (talk) 19:19, 29 December 2025 (UTC)

I'm going to start using the template. I've got a search for every mainspace page containing "Marchenasi", I'm guessing that is about a 90% match for the pages needing the template.Naraht (talk) 17:53, 24 December 2025 (UTC)

Rublamb, Jax MN Worked my way through the ones starting with Alpha (just to give myself an order), and then decided to work on the tougher ones where the reference is not already in cite book format. I worked on University of Kentucky student life which was by far the ugliest. I combined all of the uses of the 20th edition using ref name, used the rp to keep the pages separate. I also put registration needed on some of the wierder ones. Could I get another set of eyes on that to make sure and to give advice on whether links that require Microsoftonline are even usable or whether they should be trashed.Naraht (talk) 22:35, 24 December 2025 (UTC) Naraht (talk) 01:25, 25 December 2025 (UTC)

About 100 done, about 130 remaining, I think.Naraht (talk) 05:17, 25 December 2025 (UTC)

@Naraht: Back from holidays and trying to understand what you are working on. Looks like the Baird's citation templates are now functional. Have you set up the citation templates to be accessible in VE? If so, what are the template names? (Otherwise, I will not be able to use them).

I agree with correcting the typo in the citation, fixing incomplete citations, and condensing multiple uses by added ref pages. However, I am not sure of the value of replacing citations that are complete and correct, just to change them to the template, especially since MOS doesn't specify which format of citation needs to be used. Just my opinion--you are free to work on this if you see a benefit. Rublamb (talk) 17:39, 27 December 2025 (UTC)

Just Baird20. That seemed the one with the most use and least complexity. I'll have an "after action" when I'm done. Honestly, with more than *half* being misspelled and other oddities, I think going to the template it its entirety is worth it. I do intend to eventually put that in for a parameter report, I'll explain in my after action. Give me until the first of the year on this one. As for VE, I did create the doc, is that what is required? Can you test and if it doesn't work, give an encyclopedic template that does? (I presume EB1911 does since it is across more articles than we'll ever *have* in this wikiproject.Naraht (talk) 13:30, 28 December 2025 (UTC)

It seems like both the infobox type parameter = umbrella (like Presidium Convent) which is a link to List of Greek letter umbrella organizations and the contents of List of Greek letter umbrella organizations have expanded to include the European umbrella groups which include no or little "Greek Letter" concept. I'd like to either see the article moved to a more open name (which I'm not even sure what it would be) *or* both Umbrella and the Greek Letter umbrella organizations restricted to groups where at least half of the members use Greek Letters (no intention of removing the NIC due to Farmhouse or Acacia.Naraht (talk) 03:11, 24 December 2025 (UTC)

Oh, yeah. We were going to figure out another non-Greek name for this article after I merged the defunct and active lists into a single article. It should be something like "Umbrella organizations for fraternities and sororities", then its sections could be organized geographically, etc.

Here are some options (I am dropping "list of" which we can discuss once the other wording is determined):

• Umbrella organizations for fraternities and sororities
• Umbrella associations for fraternities and sororities
• Associations for fraternities and sororities
• Trade associations for fraternities and sororities
• Organizations of/for fraternities and sororities Rublamb (talk) 17:46, 27 December 2025 (UTC)

@Naraht and@Jax MN: suggestions needed. Rublamb (talk) 17:01, 7 January 2026 (UTC)

I *guess* the first, but, I don't have any term that I'm in love with.Naraht (talk) 18:04, 7 January 2026 (UTC)

"Trade associations" appears to be to be the correct generic name, but I'm leaning toward "umbrella" because it is more descriptive. Of course, it is a colloquialism. There are trade-offs each way. These all have some merit. I trust your judgement. Jax MN (talk) 20:54, 7 January 2026 (UTC)

Yes, the organization template would give thema type of trade association. The reasons I think we can get away with using Umbrella is:

1) there is an article Umbrella organization in Wikipedia

2) the rule of using the common name for article titles Rublamb (talk) 20:57, 7 January 2026 (UTC)

I'd like to keep a list, perhaps here but made so it won't archive of the additional source templates. (Please correct any entries I have described vaguely, I am on my phone.) Also please add...

• remainder of baird's though some like 2nd may not even be currently used.
  • what do we do with the links to individual pages in the pre-1935 in google

Created Baird18 and Baird19 with their year redirects to justify a category, Category:Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities templates. I've put the templates and the redirects in that category, but it appears that with the categories generated from their docs that changes/additions of templates to articles move slowly. Not quite sure how to force with a purge.Naraht (talk) 04:02, 31 December 2025 (UTC)

Bairds14 created and substituted in all *three* places it is needed.Naraht (talk) 14:59, 31 December 2025 (UTC)

Bairds13-Bairds20 now complete. (That's all of them still under copyright, decision needed on how to link before I do the ones that are not in copyright any more).Naraht (talk) 21:50, 1 January 2026 (UTC)

Creating Bairds01 through Bairds12 the same as Bairds13 in structure. Do *NOT* change what is in mainspace for them yet, I'll need to work with an experienced template editor to allow for the proper links to hathitrust/wikisource/archive.org/gbooks. (In *that* order of preference). Additional redirects will be made from I'll make Bairds# a redirect to Bairds0#, so Bairds9 can be used in addition to Bairds09.Naraht (talk) 18:12, 9 January 2026 (UTC)

Worked back through Bairds06, will do Bairds01-Bairds05 tomorrowNaraht (talk) 05:43, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

• Ida Shaw Martin's sorority book
  • {{cite book|author=Ida Shaw Martin|title=The Sorority Handbook|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e1MLAQAAIAAJ|year=1909|publisher=Roxburgh Press|pages=67–68}}
• the Butterfields's book on College Fraternity Heraldry
  • Butterfield, Emily Helen. College Fraternity Heraldry. Menasha, Wisconsin: George Banta Publishing Company, 1931. pp. 11-12. via Hathi Trust.
• Banta magazines?
• Nuwer's book, Wrongs of Passage. (Oddly "Broken Pledges" is only used as a ref *once*)
• " Black Greek-letter Organizations in the Twenty-First Century" by Parks.
• Sanua, Marianne Rachel (1994). 'Going Greek': A social history of Jewish college fraternities in the United States

Naraht (talk) 15:12, 27 December 2025 (UTC)

• Ida Shaw Martin, like Baird's, has various editions. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Fraternities and Sororities/Library for a list of all editions found online. Here is what I use for the 11th edition: Shaw, Ida Martin (1931). The Sorority Handbook (11th edition). Boston: Ida Shaw Martin Publisher. pp. 49-50. via Hathi Trust.
• I would not try to do Banta's since volume, edition, and article name has to be added to each citation, unless there is a way to make that work with the fixed template.
• Butterfield looks fine.
• Parks, Gregory S., ed. (2008). Black Greek-letter Organizations in the Twenty-First Century: Our Fight Has Just Begun. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 978-0813124919 . However, each chapter should be citated independently with that author. As in: Bradley, Stefan. "The First and Finest: The Founders of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity" in Black Greek-letter Organizations in the Twenty-First Century: Our Fight Has Just Begun. Gregory S. Parks, editor. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2008. ISBN 978-0813124919.
• Sanau: the one you list is her PhD dissertation. For the book, see below. For the dissertation: Sanau, Marianne Rachel (1994). "Going Greek": A Social History of Jewish College Fraternities in the United States, 1895-1945. [Doctoral dissertation, Columbia University]. ResearchGate/where you got it from.
• Here's ones I use frequently

Torbenson, Craig L. and Parks, Gregory S., eds. (2009). Brothers and Sisters: Diversity in College Fraternities and Sororities. Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. ISBN 978-1611474022. (technically, this had named chapters with different authors too).

Sanau, Marianne Rachel (2003). Going Greek: Jewish College Fraternities in the United States, 1895-1945. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. ISBN 978-0814328576

Rublamb (talk) 18:35, 27 December 2025 (UTC)

Thanx a lot.

• I'd forgotten that Ida Shaw Martin has multiple editions, we'll have to see if any single one is heavily used.
• I was thinking of leaving Banta's to the end of the list, but leaving it off doesn't stress me.
• Butterfield is going to be one of the easier ones.
• Parks - Didn't know that each chapter was done by a specific author, that may make the number of usages small enough that a template doesn't make sense.
• Sanau, we may want to see whether we can standardize the reference to either her dissertation or her book. When we get to that one, I'll see if I can generate numbers based on the titles which are slightly different
• Torbenson, didn't realize we had used it so much. (46 hits in mainspace).Naraht (talk) 13:20, 28 December 2025 (UTC)

I got a cheap used copy of Torbenson and have been using it to add secondary sources to articles. I also have an ebook of the following and have used it for GLO and founder articles:

• Ross Jr., Lawrence C. (2019). The Divine Nine: The History of African American Fraternities and Sororities. New York: Dafina Books. ISBN 978-1496728883

You probably will find many entries for the above as well. Rublamb (talk) 21:28, 28 December 2025 (UTC)

Sanua's two compared...

"Going Greek: Jewish College Fraternities" (the book) has 20 hits in mainspace, her dissertation including the phrase "A Social History of Jewish College Fraternities" appears to have no hits in mainspace.Naraht (talk) 04:47, 4 January 2026 (UTC)

At this point, the following article pages have {{Bairds20}}</ref> with no rp template immediately following which means someone (probably me) will have to check the book for appropriate reference pages. Presumably this means they didn't have a page before the transformation. (Ideally all entries should either have {{Bairds20|page=ZZZ}}</ref>, {{Bairds20|pages=ZZZ-ZZZ}}</ref> or {{Bairds20}}</ref>{{rp=ZZZ}}

• Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities
  • I think this is going to boil down to finding the pages that show that Anson was a member of Phi Kappa Tau and Robert F. Marchesani Jr. was a member of of Phi Kappa Psi, which I guess is going to be somewhere in the Famous Greeks.Naraht (talk) 16:14, 30 December 2025 (UTC)
  • Half done, found for Anson being in Phi Kappa Tau.Naraht (talk) 16:19, 30 December 2025 (UTC)
• List of African-American fraternities and sororities - Done Jax MN (talk) 21:46, 29 December 2025 (UTC)
• Delta Upsilon - Done Jax MN (talk) 21:46, 29 December 2025 (UTC)
• List of Jewish fraternities and sororities - Done (check) Jax MN (talk) 21:46, 29 December 2025 (UTC)
• Kappa Delta Rho - Done Jax MN (talk) 21:46, 29 December 2025 (UTC)
• List of Phi Delta Theta chapters - Done Jax MN (talk) 21:46, 29 December 2025 (UTC)
• Alpha Mu Sigma - Done Jax MN (talk) 21:46, 29 December 2025 (UTC)

Naraht (talk) 19:29, 29 December 2025 (UTC)

The following have been suggested by experienced users in Help talk:Citation Style 1 (This is copied from there)

{{cite book |editor-last=Shepardson |editor-first=Francis W |date=1930 |section=Beta Kappa |section-url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.32106009366557&seq=96 |title=[[Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities]] |location=Menasha, Wisconsin |publisher=The Collegiate Press |edition=12th |page=64}}

Shepardson, Francis W, ed. (1930). "Beta Kappa". Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities (12th ed.). Menasha, Wisconsin: The Collegiate Press. p. 64.

You get a link to the source and a link to our article about the source...

If a desirable chapter/section name wasn't available, would there be a problem with linking to the source via the page number as outlined in § Adding a URL for the page or location of the {{sfn}} documentation? In other words:

{{cite book |editor-last=Shepardson |editor-first=Francis W |date=1930 |title=[[Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities]] |location=Menasha, Wisconsin |publisher=The Collegiate Press |edition=12th |page=[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.32106009366557&seq=96 64]}}

Shepardson, Francis W, ed. (1930). Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities (12th ed.). Menasha, Wisconsin: The Collegiate Press. p. 64.

I prefer the first, in about 90% of our use of Baird's, the reference is to the pages for a specific Greek Letter Organization, so the section would be appropriate as above. What I asked about is whether there is a preference for Hathitrust over books google which is a separate question.Naraht (talk) 22:01, 1 January 2026 (UTC)

I prefer Hathi Trust because you can generate a permanent link to the exact page cited, rather than a generic link to the book. Both are reliable and safe sources to use. Rublamb (talk) 01:13, 2 January 2026 (UTC)

OK, we use hathitrust. Now do we want the link on the named section (first example) or on the page number (second example). I prefer the first.Naraht (talk) 05:14, 2 January 2026 (UTC)

I agree. Rublamb (talk) 15:15, 2 January 2026 (UTC)

FYI : that is how VE creates citations Rublamb (talk) 15:16, 2 January 2026 (UTC)

I noticed for the 17th edition, one of the existing cites using it directs to archive.org, which not only has slices available, but does allow for checkout if you have a free account. I'm not sure if we want to link there for those, worth investigating? Naraht (talk) 22:03, 2 January 2026 (UTC) (John Robson (1963). "Origins and Evolution of the College Fraternity". Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities (17th ed.). The George Banta Company, Inc. pp. 12–14, The Chapter House.)

I had not followed the status of the case against Internet Archive; I guess some materials have now returned as circulating content which is good news. The 1949 edition is there too (which is more exciting to me since I have a physical copy of the 1963 edition). Since an Internet Archive account is free or you can check out materials through a Google account, checkout is available to anyone. However, when I checked out the 17th, it still had limited access. When I checked out the 1949 edition, seems to be there fully. Linking to it makes sense; although I suspect it is rarely used. I have used the 17th a lot. Rublamb (talk) 13:17, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

Case? Someone was suing for internet archive having a copy of a book up on the net? Unfortunately, internet archive is of the few websites my company won't let me access through our network. I need to use my personal machine or my phone. The question is whether it should be *the* link for the 1935 Bairds and later.

We definitely on wikipedia use some editions more than others. 17/1963 seems to go to for the chapter lists, 20/1991 is used widely since it is the largest and latest and 11/1923 and more recently 12/1930 since we can view them in the entirety online. OTOH, I think I've used any of the 2nd-5th editions *once* (the *entire* discussion of Kirjath Sepher)

I don't know if "we" use the 17th more, but I do since that is the most current edition I have access to (unless I get Jax MN to send me photos of pages from the last edition). I have used it to create many articles and to add needed secondary sources to existing articles. I suppose this illustrates how easily one editor can introduce source bias. Now that the 1940s edition is available for circulation from the Internet Archive, I am really interested to see how it will fill in missing details on groups that merged between 1929 and 1963. Rublamb (talk) 16:40, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

Which groups did you have in mind, I own all of the 20th century ones except 1935. And I shudder what it would be like on this project without Baird's.Naraht (talk) 17:01, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

In several pages, we have the following situation: FactA.ref from Baird's 1963 page 150. FactB.ref from Bairds 1963 page 199

Which should be used?

• FactA.<ref name=Something>{{Bairds17}}</ref>{{rp|page=150}} FactB.<ref name=Something/>{{rp|page=199}}
• or
• FactA.<ref name=Something>{{Bairds17|page=150}}</ref> FactB.<ref name=Something_else/>{{Bairds17|page=199}}

Not sure which way I'm leaning. The second is easier, but seems somewhat duplicative.Naraht (talk) 03:49, 5 January 2026 (UTC)

From WP:IBID, When an article cites many different pages from the same source, to avoid the redundancy of many big, nearly identical full citations, most Wikipedia editors use one of these options.... I lean more in that direction generally, but then again I dislike when a reference section has fifteen versions of the same citation because the pages are different. Primefac (talk) 23:20, 5 January 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, a number of options, sfn/short cites doesn't seem right here because this would often be the only sfn/short cite which looks odd, as opposed to something like George Washington where most of the duplications are a dozen times or more and most of the references are the ones with duplications. I think we've got a *few* that are even beyond this (three different page locations and two of them are done multiple times, but I'd be fine with that causing an sfn or similar.Naraht (talk) 02:31, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

The same citation with ref page {rp} is the way to go. In VE, you create the citation and then add the rp template. Since I have not used the Bairds17 template or its friends yet, I cannot tell you what that would look like. Does the Bairds template included a ref name? That is, isn't Bairds17 the citation's name? Rublamb (talk) 16:41, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

I *think* that is what the ref parameter is for (not sure, I just copied). Template:Bairds17 is the template, and you use it just like Template:Cite Book, but with most of the parameters (like editor) pre-set.Naraht (talk) 16:53, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

This appears to be the reason op cit and ibid were developed, long before the internet, when paper was at a premium. Jax MN (talk) 21:18, 7 January 2026 (UTC)

That, and you had to manually type the citation over and over again. No copy and paste or citation generators in the old days. Rublamb (talk) 00:49, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

I think it would be good to creat a sidebar to use with the generic and overview articles related to fraternities, sororities, and similar organizations. Here are some of the possibilities:

• College fraternities and sororities
• College literary societies
• Collegiate secret societies in North America
• Christian fraternities
• Christian sororities
• Cultural interest fraternities and sororities
• Fraternities and sororities in Canada
• History of North American fraternities and sororities
• High school fraternities and sororities
• Honor society
• List of African-American fraternities and sororities
• List of Asian American fraternities and sororities
• List of college literary societies
• List of confraternities in Nigeria
• List of fraternities and sororities in Estonia
• List of fraternities and sororities in France
• List of fraternities and sororities in Puerto Rico
• List of fraternities and sororities in the Philippines
• List of friendly and benefit societies
• List of general fraternities
• List of Greek letter umbrella organizations
• List of Jewish fraternities and sororities
• List of Latino fraternities and sororities
• List of LGBTQ and LGBTQ-friendly fraternities and sororities
• List of North American fraternal orders
• List of North American ethnic and religious fraternal orders
• List of senior societies
• List of social fraternities
• List of social sororities and women's fraternities
• List of student corporations in Latvia
• List of Swiss student societies
• North American fraternity and sorority housing
• Racism in United States college fraternities and sororities
• Service fraternities and sororities
• Student society

Rublamb (talk) 16:33, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

Feels like just a subset of the big bottom template we have. Also, due to WP:BIDIR it would be more or less restricted to the articles which are in the template, so it would not be able to be on Phi Gamma Delta or Alpha Chi Alpha for example.Naraht (talk) 18:45, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

Right. These are all general or introductory articles that link to specific or detailed articles such as Phi Gamma Delta, etc. I am suggesting pulling most of these introductory articles from the bottom templates and placing them all in a more visible location. Since most, if not all, of these articles do not have an infobox, the sidebar would have greater visibility and provide a connective thread on "a series of articles about fraternities and sororities" or "fraternal organizations" or whatever we decide to call it. Rublamb (talk) 19:59, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

My inspiration is something like the Oddfellows sidebar, found in Ladies of the Orient, for example. Rublamb (talk) 20:09, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

I took a look at the inspiration template, and that reminds me more of the scouting horizontal template or the template for Kappa Alpha Psi (or some of the NPHC groups) that aren't as fuzzy. Might be better off just to allow the big bottom template to be started in some sort of collapsed form that didn't show the individual groups.Naraht (talk) 04:22, 7 January 2026 (UTC)

I think this sidebar is a great idea, to be used for the ancillary Project articles and probably not for the named fraternity articles. Jax MN (talk) 21:20, 7 January 2026 (UTC)

The template master hasn't reached out to me, so the early ones don't have the full links, but here are all of the current entries with a dummy page. Comments (and additional ISBN, OCLC, etc.) welcome!

• Baird, Wm. Raimond, ed. (1879). "Title Page". American College Fraternities (1st ed.). Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. p. 101 – via HathiTrust.
• Baird, Wm. Raimond, ed. (1880). American College Fraternities (2nd ed.). p. 102.
• Baird, Wm. Raimond, ed. (1883). "Title Page". American College Fraternities (2nd revised [known as the 3rd] ed.). New York: Frank Williams. p. 103 – via HathiTrust.
• Baird, Wm. Raimond, ed. (1890). "Title Page". American College Fraternities (4th ed.). New York: James P. Downs. p. 104 – via HathiTrust.
• Baird, Wm. Raimond, ed. (1898). "Title Page". American College Fraternities (5th ed.). New York: Wm. Raimond Baird. p. 105 – via HathiTrust.
• Baird, Wm. Raimond, ed. (1905). "Title Page". Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities (6th ed.). New York: The Alcolm Company. p. 106 – via HathiTrust.
• Baird, Wm. Raimond, ed. (1912). "Title Page". Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities (7th ed.). New York: The College Fraternity Publishing Co. p. 107 – via HathiTrust.
• Baird, Wm. Raimond, ed. (1915). "Title Page". Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities (8th ed.). New York: The College Fraternity Publishing Co. p. 108 – via HathiTrust.
• Brown, James T., ed. (1920). "Title Page". Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities (9th ed.). New York: James T. Brown Publisher. p. 109. OCLC 17350924 – via HathiTrust.
• Brown, James T., ed. (1923). "Title Page". Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities (10th ed.). New York: James T. Brown Publisher. p. 110 – via HathiTrust.
• Shepardson, Francis Wayland, ed. (1927). "Title Page". Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities (11th ed.). Menasha, Wisconsin: The Collegiate Press/George Banta Publishing Company. p. 111 – via HathiTrust.
• Shepardson, Francis Wayland, ed. (1930). "Title Page". Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities (12th ed.). Menasha, Wisconsin: The Collegiate Press/George Banta Publishing Company. p. 112 – via HathiTrust.
• Shepardson, Francis Wayland, ed. (1935). Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities (13th ed.). Menasha, Wisconsin: The Collegiate Press/George Banta Publishing Company. p. 113.
• Duerr, Alvan, ed. (1940). Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities (14th ed.). Menasha, Wisconsin: The Collegiate Press/George Banta Publishing Company. p. 114. OCLC 3908306.
• Baily, Harold J., ed. (1949). Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities (15th ed.). Menasha, Wisconsin: George Banta Publishing Company. p. 115. OCLC 15433638.
• Lasher, George Starr, ed. (1957). Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities (16th ed.). Menasha, Wisconsin: George Banta Co. p. 116. OCLC 19297015.
• Robson, John, ed. (1963). Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities (17th ed.). Menasha, Wisconsin: George Banta Co. p. 117. OCLC 1819883.
• Robson, John, ed. (1968). Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities (18th ed.). Menasha, Wisconsin: George Banta Co. p. 118. OCLC 794514.
• Robson, John, ed. (1977). Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities (19th ed.). Menasha, Wisconsin: Baird's Manual Foundation, Inc. p. 119. OCLC 3551247.
• Anson, Jack L.; Marchesani Jr., Robert F., eds. (1991). Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities (20th ed.). Indianapolis, IN: Baird's Manual Foundation, Inc. p. VII-117. ISBN 978-0-9637159-0-6. OCLC 25278937.

Naraht (talk) 05:37, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

I've created Draft:Alpha Phi Epsilon from the page plus entry in the 1930 Bairds. While the number of chapters (> 25) with locations are at the level that I'd expect to have an article, but having a bit of trouble finding other sources. Would appreciate help.Naraht (talk) 19:12, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

There are thousands of hits in Newspapers.com. I need to dig deeper but a 1929 article says it had hundreds of chapters. It could best be described as an honor society for members of literary societies. Rublamb (talk) 20:42, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

No idea why two sources said hundreds of chapters. My best guess is that it represented 100s of literary societies since each chapter could cover all literary societies on campus. Anyway, 100s is not included in the article. Rublamb (talk) 13:19, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

Ready to publish except for the Baird's 12th citation. I can change it until the template is ready, if need be. Rublamb (talk) 22:23, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

Published. However, couldn't get the template for Baird's 15th to work in VE Rublamb (talk) 01:45, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

Took care of them. As a test, can you use Template:Encyclopedia of North American Railroads? That's the one that I copied structure from.Naraht (talk) 14:03, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

I will take a look. I had hoped all I had to do was insert the template and add pages, but that is not the case. I tried going into source and adding the ref front and end code but that didn't seem to work either. (I was able to fix your use of the Baird's template by adding the end ref code, so I thought I had it figured out.). The good news is that the template are available through VE, so I will be able to use them once I figure out the issue. I probably need to look at the code carefully to see what is missing. Probably something to do with naming the source. Rublamb (talk) 13:26, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

@Naraht: You probabally have noticed that I can now use the Bairds template in VE, as long as I go in and add the front and end code for a citation. Not totally in VE, but still quicker than before and will solve your concerns about my dumping the entire citation in the general field. My only observation is that it places the refname at the end of the data: Functionally, it works but it is a bit atypical. Rublamb (talk) 17:00, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

Glad you were able to find something, I noticed that you had used one of the Baird's templates in the Phi Alpha Theta chapter draft. Still wish we can fix. Did you try the Encyclopedia of North American Railroads?Naraht (talk) 17:04, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

Not yet. Will do that now. Rublamb (talk) 17:09, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

in working on Beta Pi Theta and Pi Delta Phi, I was wondering, which is preferred for an honorary's periodical in the 1950s (in copyright) a google books link with the search slices accessible or a jstor link which someone would have to go through the wikipedia library (or other source) to access?Naraht (talk) 16:03, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

Google Books doesn't always show the same slice and isn't really a link to the content, so linking to it in this case goes against MOS. JSTOR is free to anyone (100 articles a month), so if someone really wants to see the source, it is available. Also, by using the JSTOR template in a citation, there is a permalink to the source. Check out the essay WP:GBWP for more info on why Google Books should only be used if Hathi Trust or Internet Archive are not an option. Rublamb (talk) 04:52, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

I know that at least a few of the chapter tables have had the references header replaced with {{refh}} which shortens it to ref, but has references as a tooltip. I'm pretty sure I should be able to do this across the chapter tables using AWB. Any issues with doing this?Naraht (talk) 15:50, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

No. I discovered the Abbr template on a non-WP project and thought it was a great solution to spacing needs. I have only used it where space is an issue in WP:FRAT tables, but don't have an issue with it being our norm. Rublamb (talk) 22:29, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

OK, doing this with AWB and realizing that one advantage of this is that we had a large number of these tables where the header was Reference and a large number of these tables where the header was References (plural). About 500 pages.Naraht (talk) 03:11, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

 Done with the chapter lists and found some of the notable member lists as well.Naraht (talk) 17:18, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

See http://axomtm.squarespace.com/virtual-directory/;jsessionid=87963363E05244159A99492E0FCEE73E.v5-web002 . Not sure if these belong in a separate table at List of Alpha Chi Omega chapters or not. Interesting concept.Naraht (talk) 04:50, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

Does anyone have strong feelings on the reference column of tables on this wikiproject being marked as unsortable? I have seen it in a couple of articles and am not sure that I see a preference either way. (As in I don't care enough to remove it or add it in an article which is the other way). Feelings? Naraht (talk) 14:14, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

Granted, it is not really needed. But since I prefer to create the table in VE, going back in and making that one column unsortable is an added step that I am not inclined to take. This feels like something that is not doing any harm, so can be left as is. Rublamb (talk) 19:18, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable. I've also seen notability set to unsortable in the member lists, seems like a similar situation, but unlike the ref table, clicking on the sort will rearrange the rows. For that one, if someone wanted to go through, I'd wish them luck, but not a project I'm particularly interested in doing. Honestly, unless we are willing to stop breaking up members by field (Politicians vs. Athletes vs. Academia for example), I'm not that sure *any* of the sorts in the member lists make sense.Naraht (talk) 04:07, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

I immediately reached the same conclusion the minute you mentioned members lists. Unless there are heavily populated date or chapter columns, there is no value to having sortable tables for notables. There might be a few older notable lists that have the sort template in the name field; these drive nuts because you cannot clink through to the linked article when in VE (something I do when looking for needed sources). Also, adding the sort template to the name field seem redundant to an already alphabetized list. Rublamb (talk) 04:22, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

Honestly, having the sort template on the name field seems most useful when you are trying to undo a sort on the chapter (that the notable joined at) which can be done by setting the sort on that field to null.Naraht (talk) 05:10, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

Given the tools that I used on Phi Alpha Theta, As long as the pdf on jstor is reading the columns horizontally, I should be able to drop it into excel, which is most of the battle. I had to add the square brackets using excel before I copied it, and then the visual editor added nowikis assuming it was not a real wiki link. I then took the source edit text, dropped it into a text editor, removed the nowiki and slash nowiki and copied it back. Let me know if there are any other insane ones we can copy.Naraht (talk) 20:33, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the offer. Rublamb (talk) 16:53, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

I would appreciate other editors' review of the article, Quaternion Senior Order, which has been challenged for notability (see talk page). I created this article after finding info about this group misplaced in the secret society article. Since the student section for Furman University had been blanked, that did not seem like a great option (I did add some content to that section). Rublamb (talk) 05:33, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

It does lead to the question of whether the university is a secondary source. Though I figure notability on this article can hang on the older male-only group.Naraht (talk) 15:43, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

The university is usually not considered independent for notability, but is a reliable source. Yes, I believe notability is reasonably met through the predecessor (and that a single article for all three makes the most sense topically). I was surprized on how much I found of the women's group as well. If you agree that it is reasonably close to meeting notability, please share that on the article's talk page. ;) Rublamb (talk) 16:51, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

A user changed the founding date for one of the chapters of Alpha Sigma Phi (Alpha Tau chapter) to the chartering date that Alpha Kappa Pi had before the merger (merger in 1946, chartered as one of the chapters of Alpha Kappa Pi in 1946. I went back to the Alpha Kappa Pi article and found that I was the one who added the *dates* (in addition to years) but hadn't put a reference. I think I was pulling it from the PDFs in Alpha Sigma Phi's "Our story" which appears to be available online split by the first letter of the greek name, so, the PDF in question is https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/f462eca5-24f6-4531-81f7-6819824ee6a1/Chapter%20Histories%20-%20Alpha.pdf . The chartering dates of the Alpha Sigma are in the header and for Alpha Tau that is June 24, 1926, the chartering date with Alpha Kappa Pi, not in 1946 at the merger. So the user's change *does* reflect the way that Alpha Sigma Phi does things (at least in this document). Right now the Alpha Sigma Phi chapter table has the 1926 date in the efn, but if Alpha Sigma Phi considers the chapter to have chartered in 1926. (Yes, I brought this up a month or so ago, but this is about as clean as example as I've seen). (I'll go back and add sources the next time I have a chance)Naraht (talk) 22:10, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Though https://www.alphasigmaphiarchives.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/1934_Mar.pdf is probably a good source for a number of others.Naraht (talk) 22:13, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

WIthout going back to look, isn't this the one where Baird's and the fraternity do not agree. Rublamb (talk) 00:36, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

In this case, I think they do agree at least on AKPi. I'm looking at the 18th edition (page 255) and even though Alpha Kappa Pi (with quite a few chapters) merged into Alpha Sigma Phi in 1946, there are *zero* charters listed as having chartered in 1946. Alpha Sigma Phi's Alpha Tau chapter at Stevens is listed as 1926 (which is when Stevens as Gamma chapter chartered into Alpha Kappa Pi, Similarly, Alpha Sigma Phi's Alpha Upsilon at Brooklyn Poly is listed as 1926 (which is when Stevens as Delta chapter chartered into Alpha Kappa Pi. Gamma Rho through Gamma Phi, the five chapters which came in from Alpha Gamma Upsilon are specially listed with a footnote saying "Year given is when chapter of Alpha Gamma Upsilon was originally installed." OTOH, the five chapters absorbed from Phi Pi Phi (Baldwin-Wallace, Westminster, Illinois Tech and Purdue (Alpha Lambda through Alpha Tau) are all listed as 1939. I don't know why the Phi Pi Phi didn't have the same thing happen. So at least for the AKPi and AGU chapters using the date of the merger is in appropriate, so at this point, I think using the "Our Story" entries for what ASPhi is doing is probably best.

(Chronologically in Baird's the Alpha chapters go Alpha Rho, Alpha Alpha, Alpha Beta, Alpha Gamma, Alpha Delta, Alpha Epsilon, Alpha Zeta, Alpha Sigma, Alpha Tau, Alpha Upsilon, Alpha Phi, Alpha Eta, Alpha Chi, Alpha Psi, Alpha Theta, (Some Betas), Alpha Iota, (Beta Zeta), Alpha Kappa, another large group of Betas, (1939) Alpha Lambda, Alpha Mu, Alpha Nu, Alpha Xi, Alpha Pi, (end of Betas, start of Gammas) and (1945) Alpha Omicron. Doesn't look like they use chapters ending on Omega at all.

So chapters that originally chartered as Alpha Sigma Phi went through Alpha Kappa in 1931, then merge with Phi Pi Phi in 1939, give those chapters Alpha Lambda through Alpha Pi (minus Alpha Omicron (not sure why)) with dates of 1939 , then Alpha Omicron at Missouri Valley and then all of the merges in 1946 from Alpha Kappa Pi that were assigned the letters Alpha Rho @ Newark through Gamma Gamma at Connecticut with their Alpha Kappa Pi chartering dates and then continue on with Gamma Delta in 1949. Only thing that doesn't make sense is why the Phi Pi Phi chapters don't keep their chartering dates in this.Naraht (talk) 04:58, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

(as a note, the more general discussion on the topic was *just* archived, as I write this.)Naraht (talk) 15:55, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

And Rublamb and I discussed *some* of this about 6 months ago at Talk:List of Alpha Sigma Phi chapters, but i think that was before everything above was put together and I'll add the "our story" pdfs that I can find to that talk page as a reference.Naraht (talk) 16:12, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Since I will be working on Phi Alpha Theta for the next week or so, I am fine with you taking the lead on this. The only non-org sources I would have used would have been Baird's 17th or 20th or the Almanac. I am guessing we can explain the situation in the lead, as it sounds like the added chapters had a different naming sequence. Rublamb (talk) 00:38, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

I've got the 18th closest to my desk at this minute, at this minute, but if you think the 17th or 20th are superior in that regard let me know. Note, Alpha Sigma Phi has an official video on the mergers (about a minute and largely intended for an internal audience, but possibly referencable. https://www.youtube.com/@alphasigs/search?query=mergers) They didn't have a difference naming sequence. The Naming sequence was in the order that they became Alpha Sigma Phi chapters, it just looks out of sequence since they use the AKPi and AGU chartering dates. Naraht (talk) 13:44, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

I don't think they are better. Just know that they are the only possible sources I could have used when I worked on the list. I honestly don't remember why I made the choices I made. Rublamb (talk) 17:20, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

I was bored last night and reached out in Facebook talk to the official account. I did get some response, they know things are messed up and are trying to straighten them out (the designation of the original Gamma as Omega Gamma Omega is a start). I'm not sure one way or another if they know *how* messed up. Part of the issue for them, I think, is the the founder, Professor Opp, ran the organization almost single handedly for years, and I think a number of the deliberate duplications are his, so unscrambling this is in some regard saying what the founded did is wrong.Naraht (talk) 18:00, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

Lacking dates, I opted to treat these double-named chapters as as "reestablished" since we already have agreed to that terminology. This way, both former and current names for the chapter were listed, with the "see..." note in the chapter name field. However, if the organization randomly changed a chapter's name without the chapter going inactive, we don't have a system in place for that issue. And, of course, we still lack dates for order the list properly. Rublamb (talk) 23:44, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

@Jax MN: if we do end up having a bunch of chapters that were renamed while active, any thoughts on how to handle the status for the old name? Rublamb (talk) 20:48, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

@Rublamb, since this is quite uncommon, I think we need both a direct (clear) new status type, and a unique term, thus differentiated from those already existing. Maybe your "Renamed" fits the bill. The dialog on the associated Talk page ought to explain why, perhaps mentioning the organization's period of disorganization. Jax MN (talk) 21:03, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

I just updated the template and article for the National Multicultural Greek Council. The template was a couple of years out of date. I posted on the template talk page, but in case that gets buried in WP:FRAT's feed, should this template include sections for active and inactive members? Do we want a consistent format between all umbrella templates? I have not compared the various templates, but know this one only includes active members. Rublamb (talk) 23:39, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

I've got a busy tomorrow, but I will try to do soon... Naraht (talk) 02:21, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

Rublamb Done, I think. Basically copied and hollowed out and filled in the one for the NPC which seemed closest to what you suggested. A few that I could see worthy of discussion. I added Fraternity to names for Delphic and MALIK, but did not include the disambiguation for Phi Sigma Chi, the extended name of the article is only because the others with the same name exist, which I don't think should affect the template.Naraht (talk) 03:32, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. I think MALIK (fraternity) should be moved to MALIK Fraternity, as that appears to be the organizational name. Will look at it later. Rublamb (talk) 03:38, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

Leaning support. No rush.Naraht (talk) 05:28, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

I fixed the template. It had both new and old active list, creating a two templates in one. To fix MALIK, we'll have to get rid of a redirect with the desired name. Sometimes, nothing is simple. Rublamb (talk) 20:46, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanx. I've dealt with far worse. We start a discussion on the talk page, both of us say yes and if nobody else chimes in, we attempt to move. If it fails, we drop it into WP:RFD.Naraht (talk) 21:16, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

Or if an adm deleates MALIK Fraternity (the redirect), we can just move the existing article to that name based on MOS. Rublamb (talk) 02:53, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Putting this out as an assumed WP policy for its article,

• Other than the colorboxes in the colors field of the infobox, no elements in the article should be colored to reflect the colors of the organization. This is not limited to simply headers in chapter or member tables.

Naraht (talk) 15:23, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

I agree with this for practicial and anti-promotional reasons. Unfortunately, some of the colors don't contrast well with text. Since we can't fairly say this color but not that color, no colors is the fairest policy. Colors also lean into branding the article, which touches on Wikipedia's non-promotional policies. Note that no-colors would also apply to those few tables that use colors to indicate active vs. inactive chapters (although, I think I have already corrected those). There is one article about defunct sororities that has color blocks within the text because it lacks infoboxes for each organization. I am fine with it remaining as is.

What do you want to do about bottom and side templates? Color's don't bother me as much there. I think MOS addresses the use of colors with these templates. Rublamb (talk) 20:20, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Something that *when* implimented in enwiki (probaly in 2026), we are likely to have heavy use of: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes/Sub-referencing . It is probably *still* worth having the Bairds templates and similar because we use them that often, but it might be useful for references that only make sense for a single organization like Mu Pi Mu Centennial history book on Mu Pi Mu.Naraht (talk) 18:58, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

I think I will like this option. Certainly would look better in the text than ref pages "V159-60". I will need to experiment with how it is created vs. using the refpage template. Several of my GA articles heavily use the refpage template, so I could experiment with converting over to sub-referencesto to figure out how to do this and what it looks like. Or, I could fix one of our high priority articles that only has in-house sources. Rublamb (talk) 20:28, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

After waiting for the Template guru for a while, I had a few hours tonight to work on Bairds12 (the 1929/1930 edition) which is the most recent with source. What I have come up with is the following (more examples at User:Naraht/foo5). Page and pages params are being left alone. No links from there. Instead, I am using the section and section-url parameters in cite book, but what is actually in *our* template is a little bit different.

• {{Bairds12|page=301|section=Delta Zeta|url-page=333}}

gives

• Shepardson, Francis Wayland, ed. (1930). "Delta Zeta". Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities (12th ed.). Menasha, Wisconsin: The Collegiate Press/George Banta Publishing Company. p. 301 – via HathiTrust.

where the url-page 333 represents the value at the end of the https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.32106009366557&seq=333 , which is the sequence value.section defaults to Title page, and if the url-page is missing then the &seq=### piece is dropped. ( If we use handles, it is the part at the end of https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.32106009366557?urlappend=%3Bseq=333 ) I'd like to understand the advantages/disadvantages of have the URL have the hdl.handle.net over that of directly into hathitrust. I don't right now.

While I'd like comments now, I fully intend to change over to handles for anything that has them, which for Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities is everything except the elusive 2nd edition, which we don't have any link for right now.

Rublamb, Jax MN I do want opinions here before I start transforming them, especially those that have hdl. This is *not* take it or leave it. Naraht (talk) 04:07, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

Naraht, for the public domain edition, that template for the Baird's reference provides a wonderful resolution. Very, very nice. Jax MN (talk) 10:21, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

Thank You.Naraht (talk) 15:39, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

Let's say that in the appropriate issue of Baird's that a fraternity's entry starts on page 200 and ends on page 201. The founding location in on page 200, the colors are red, green and blue, but the red and green are on page 200 and the blue is on page 201 and the fact that the Patron Saint is Agatha of Sicily (along with the chapter list) is on page 201. Should the article

1. specifically have the pages listed that exactly, giving one ref (either a separate ref, an rp or eventually a subref) with page 200, one with pages 200-201 and one with page 201

• or

2. Is it ok to just make a single repeated reference with pages=200-201 ?

Naraht (talk) 05:02, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

I much prefer option #2, and do not see much value in parsing these out for the specific page. Thus, my opinion is that the page range is fine. These Baird's articles, even including chapter lists do not exceed six consecutive pages. Two pages is more common. Now, this is my opinion as a writer and design editor, not from the perspective of strict reference styles used by academia. But then again I bravely start the occasional sentence with "And...", and will use the Oxford Comma whenever I can, convinced that punctuation saves lives. Even if its use has dropped into disfavor. Jax MN (talk) 10:28, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

I use 2. For most citations, the exact page would be required for GA status. However, Baird's entries are usually organized in a way that makes it easy to find the content. Note that my article on St. Anthony Hall was approved for GA status with the Baird's citations like 2. Rublamb (talk) 13:18, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

Thanx to both of you. Jax MN, I have found a few slightly longer than that. Either the 1905 version when they went into an insane amount of detail for some of the larger/older social glos or the 1991 for groups like Alpha Phi Omega that had chapter lists that in "standard" ordering went to three letters.Naraht (talk) 15:31, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

I was thinking about article length as well. I have not run into a long article in older editions of Baird's, but in the newer editions, the trailing pages are the chapter lists which we usually document with a single citation at the top of the chapter list. That means, we could/should use a more limited page range when citing content from the Baird's text section. (Not saying the lazy side of me actually does this, but it would be pretty easy if the Baird's template and the new sub-references strategy work well together.) Because the chapter list is usually going to be in a seperate list article for long entries in Baird's, we probably would not need two citations for the main article. Another thought: the older editions of Baird's include fraternity history in the intro sections as well as in the entry section. Or smaller or defunct fraternities might only be included under the colleges. So we might run into articles where we want to cite Baird's, but not the main entry for the GLO or a set of continuous page. Rublamb (talk) 15:46, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, that's standard. In regards to the first, if in Bairds20, the entry for Alpha Phi Omega goes from 600-halfway through 601, and then the chapter list from 601-609, I figure that everything for a list spun off article could be 600-601 and the list article could have 601-609. Comma is perfectly fine as far as I can tell (pages = 600-601, 755). When an article gets put up for FA, we'll get answers from editors who care about that sort of thing. :)Naraht (talk) 15:56, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

I noticed for various examples that there are two different scans of the 12th that are on HathiTrust and for most of the book they are the same. Both have handles: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b3119647 and https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.32106009366557 . The first one has pages 8 & 9 scanned twice but the second has a few extra blank pages at the beginning. I don't see any advantage to the uc1.b3119647, and as such I'm staying with the uc1.32106009366557 version as I standardize to the template. If someone has a reason to prefer the uc1.b3119647, please comment here. I'd be surprised if HathiTrust gets rid of either, but in some ways good to have a backup with minimal issues. While the uc1.32106009366557 doesn't have all of the pins in color, the uc1.b3119647 has fewer. Naraht (talk) 15:45, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

Looks like you made a thoughtful decision. Rublamb (talk) 15:50, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

A while back, an editor who was new to WP:FRAT suggested that we create instructions for articles. I am finally circling back to that project. If this makes sense, I am going to base it on WP:UNIGUIDE since that is a realted WikiProject and already has thoughtfully linked to variety of MOS pages. The biggest decision will be where to place the chapter list within the article; that is, finally deciding on the best order of sections. Rublamb (talk) 15:55, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

As for name, WP:FRATGUIDE as a redirect to Wikipedia:Fraternity, Sorority and Honor Society article advice.

As for order - quick proposal just to get something on the table. Working from Alpha Sigma Phi

• Lede
• History
• Symbols
• Awards - Not sure this is major enough to make the list
• Chapters (either a list or a direct to a list)
• Alumni
• Local chapter or member misconduct
• See Also
• References
• External List
• Templates, etc.

Naraht (talk) 20:18, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

Other sections that are commonly included:

• Chapter house (rare)
• Membership (info about joining, not a member's list)
• Activities (this includes awards)
• Philanthropy (can be included in activities; can include foundations)
• Governance (organizational structure, officers, annual meetings, headquarters)
• In popular culture (rare)

I think this is everything. Rublamb (talk) 21:45, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

OK, for this discussion, I think dropping everything specifically listed in WP:ORDER at the end (and Lede is specific to a newspaper, it should be Lead.) For the fraternity related things, my personal feeling is

• Lead
• History
• Symbols
• Governance
• Philanthropy
• Chapter House
• Activities/Awards
• Chapters
• Alumni
• Local or member misconduct.
• In popular culture

But I agree all of the italicized are less commonNaraht (talk) 02:54, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

I prefer to have philanthropy and governance after activities. Philanthropy is essentially a subsection of activities and governance is similar and really not very important. The chapter house/tomb section fits nicely after symbols because it is part of the org's traditions (in those rare examples where it is worth including). Also, I am adding in membership and placing it fairly high up because, for the honor societies where this section is standard, it is also a key aspect of the group. However, I am not stuck on this suggested order.

• Lead
• History (existing founders sections should be moved here)
• Symbols/Traditions
• Chapter House
• Membership
• Activities/Awards
• Philanthropy
• Governance
• Chapters
• Alumni
• Local or member misconduct.
• In popular culture

I have noticed that in some of the older articles, the chapter list is often higher up, after symbols. This seems to be the case when the list is shorter. This may have occurred because the article started as lead, history, chapters--with other content coming later. Although, there is some logic behind including it closer to the history section which refers to chapters. Also, numerous articles have mission, creed, etc. sections--my preference is to discourage this and incorporate that into either the history or symbols section. Rublamb (talk) 15:35, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

I generally agree with this discussion and where you have taken it. I prefer to place the chapter list or link higher, like you say, just after history and symbols. The chapter list is probably the number one reason that readers search out these societies and peruse these articles. So when considering the order of sections, like this example, I look to frontload the most common search topics. (Also, I didn't know that about the distinction on the word "lede" as compared to "lead". Thanks!) Jax MN (talk) 22:28, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

There are now more articles in mainspace that have in their source at least one of the Baird's templates in them (534) than have the string "Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities" (281). Naraht (talk) 05:43, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

@Naraht: I have noticed a couple of ref cleanups following your updates. Don't know if this is from the template or the manual part of the upadted. See Maryland Medical College for an example Rublamb (talk) 01:57, 9 February 2026 (UTC)

Rublamb I'm manually updating the changes into the templates. My fault.Naraht (talk) 02:04, 9 February 2026 (UTC)

As best as I can tell, at one point, the references for List of Cornell University fraternities and sororities treated *all* of the versions of Bairds as one reference to be split by rp which would specify both edition and page. I probably made it worse, though now realizing the situation when I converted some to the Baird's 20 template, but it wasn't helped when an anonymous user added quite a bit of text (I haven't really evaluated if that new text is an improvement or not.) Would appreciate another set of eyes on it. The last version before I started adding Baird's templates is https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_Cornell_University_fraternities_and_sororities&oldid=1329862984 . Will attempt to fix, but would appreciate an additional pair of eyes. Naraht (talk) 21:39, 6 February 2026 (UTC)

I wrote that article. As I recall, the two major sources were the Baird's Archive, and various editions of the Cornellian yearbook. Occasional references were to specific editions of Baird's in printed form. Yearbook references are straightforward. However, you may have incorrectly assumed all editions of Baird's were treated with the same reference. Remember that page numbers for that volume, the 20th, used Roman numerals for section number, while the page numbers started over at 1 for each section. So, one of the common references from Baird's 20th (the last print edition) is on pages "II–45, 46" - this corresponds with the "Campuses and their Fraternities" section, that is Roman numeral II. All this was done long before your present effort to improve our reference templates. Over the past decade, on many, many other entries I abbreviate each fraternity's citation (perhaps incorrectly) as "III 67-70", which in this case would be the four pages with Kappa Sigma's summary and chapter list. You will note, too, that in that standard Baird's Archive citation I used as my earlier template, TWO links were normally used in that reference: The first pointed to the specific PDF that had the specific information required, (thus, a PDF for the page containing fraternities whose English names began with the correct letter, K for Kappa Sigma), while the latter link was to the main page of the online archive. I figured that last link offered a bread crumb trail that would prompt later editors to help improve the University of Illinois' Archive. Jax MN (talk) 22:14, 6 February 2026 (UTC)

I started editing in the wrong window and so I started from the one that I had started added templates for. I have reverted it. I'll need to have more brain cells to go back to it. I figure the first step is splitting off the ones that aren't 20th edition. I've never seen rp for that before. Cleaning up the Baird's Manual online with the appropriate arguments for a BairdsManualOnline template is work for another day.Naraht (talk) 22:37, 6 February 2026 (UTC)

Changed in a somewhat normal manner. I separated the two types in the 20th, the ones that actually point to the Cornell University list in the University area of the Bairds, for that one I included page numbers. For the ones that don't, I redirect to one that doesn't have page numbers. That way there was exactly one set of page numbers for each.

For the ones that aren't 20th, I turned them into short references of their own, something like "Baird's 8th edition - Beta Sigma Rho". I'll go in no later than Monday and replace them with bairds templates. I need to get to my copy of the 18th, and then look at 6th, 7th and 8th, see above for status on those.Naraht (talk) 05:40, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for working on this. Rublamb (talk) 21:52, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

NP.Naraht (talk) 22:18, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

I've upgraded Bairds10 so that the url-page is calculated if it is missing. In a similar example to above

• {{Bairds10|page=301|section=Delta Zeta}}
• {{Bairds10|page=301|section=Delta Zeta|url-page=329}}
• {{Bairds10|pages=301-303|section=Delta Zeta}}
• {{Bairds10|pages=301,487|section=Delta Zeta}}

all link to the same page

• Brown, James T., ed. (1923). "Delta Zeta". Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities (10th ed.). New York: James T. Brown Publisher. p. 301 – via HathiTrust.
• Brown, James T., ed. (1923). "Delta Zeta". Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities (10th ed.). New York: James T. Brown Publisher. p. 301 – via HathiTrust.
• Brown, James T., ed. (1923). "Delta Zeta". Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities (10th ed.). New York: James T. Brown Publisher. pp. 301–303 – via HathiTrust.
• Brown, James T., ed. (1923). "Delta Zeta". Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities (10th ed.). New York: James T. Brown Publisher. pp. 301, 487 – via HathiTrust.

The difference here is that if url-page doesn't exist and page does, it adds a fixed value (for Bairds10 it is 28) to page to create what would have been in the url page. I'll do the other ones when I have a chance, as I actually have to fill the others in. The following improvements are still tbd for the ones that allow links: checking that the page is an integer before I do this and if neither url-page and page exist, but pages does to slice off the first number prior to a hyphen/dash or comma .Naraht (talk) 03:40, 9 February 2026 (UTC)

Additional improvement. I've added so that it will probably calculate the url-page from a range or a comma delimited list. See the added entries above.

I've started a conversation about the disagreements between versions of Baird's Manual on who the founders of St. Anthony Hall over at Talk:St._Anthony_Hall#Founders_of_St._Anthony_Hall/Delta_Psi. Please comment there.Naraht (talk) 15:37, 13 February 2026 (UTC)

For the Sorority Handbook

• the 6th edition (https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=loc.ark:/13960/t1sf3pr0z&seq=9 ) came out in 1918 (as indicated by the cover)
• the 7th edition (https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=iau.31858021674506&seq=9) came out in 1921 (as indicated by the cover)

However, a number of the articles use 6th edition revised that came out in 1919 which is at https://books.google.com/books?id=xbU4AAAAMAAJ . It *does* differ from the 6th, even if the only difference is the addenda on page 194 New charter grants section which is clearly augmented for the 1919 version.

So it feels like an additional template should be used for that (Template:Cite Sorority HB06R), yes for the moment that is a red link, the only one I have created is for the 11th edition (Template:Cite Sorority HB11) (yes, suggestions for better names are welcome.)Naraht (talk) 18:14, 15 February 2026 (UTC)

Found a Hathitrust link for the the 6th revised (picked a series of schools on the addenda page). https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015022671336 . Will add it to the references page and make the 06R template.Naraht (talk) 15:56, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

I've found two different hathitrust scans of the 2nd edition of the Sorority Handbook:

• https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=loc.ark:/13960/t1kh1hc4z
• https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924030642072

I'd like opinions on which scan is better. The first seems warmer (light tan pages scanned as tan I guess). But I can't tell in which one the image of the sorority and fraternity pins is better. Opinions?Naraht (talk) 19:26, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

Decided to push on, using the first. If there are overwhelming reasons, I can switch back (which will change the url-page, but in a consistent manner).Naraht (talk) 15:55, 18 February 2026 (UTC)

I've created templates for all of the used editions of the Sorority Handbook. That is 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 6 Revised, 7 & 11. 5th and 8th editions are on Hathitrust, but no article uses them. I'll create them when I have a chance. I need to add them to the templates list for our project. List is getting long vertically, we may need to put templates in multiple columns.Naraht (talk) 17:55, 18 February 2026 (UTC)  Done

Great work. Jax MN (talk) 00:30, 19 February 2026 (UTC)

Given that there appear to be over 50 occurrences of the book in references, it appears that the next entry is https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc2.ark:/13960/t5fb58d9k&seq=9 but I don't know if the title should be

• The Cyclopædia of Fraternities
• The Cyclopædia of Fraternities; a compilation of existing authentic information and the results of original investigation as to more than six hundred secret societies in the United States
• or something else.

And, do we keep the æ or do we expand to the ae. For *now*, I'll use the shorter with the æ, but will be prepared to change. Naraht (talk) 19:28, 18 February 2026 (UTC)

I think that so few publications use the term "Cyclopaedia" that you should go with the shorter version. Also, I'd suggest you expand the æ to ae. While it is cool and all that to use archaic letters, and you certainly would be due heaping praise from the pedantic-types out there, still, we are writing for the masses. They (the masses) likely do not know what a ligature is, nor do they know that this particular ligature formerly represented the letter "ash" but later became a Latin diphthong (where one pronounces both vowels but separately). Of course, purists know that it then diverged. Norse languages pronounced it as "a" in "Cat", later morphing it into the ä with the two-dot umlaut mark or diaeresis, and then finally to a simple "a". Ah, but English usage diverged in a different path to pronounce it as "e". As in "encyclopedia..." Er, yeah. Which one of us should hold the Pedant of the Month Club trophy? Jax MN (talk) 00:46, 19 February 2026 (UTC)

You get the trophy. :) Most of the ones that actually use it on wikipedia match theHathitrust document and the book itself which does use both the long form and the æ. I was just about to come here and say that I was changing to the long one. So I'll wait for other comments. (As a note for my competition for the trophy, before I got distracted by this, I was going to go through Wikipedia changing all instances of "Hathi Trust" to "HathiTrust" and may still. :)

BTW, there are two different editions of "The Cyclopædia of Fraternities" 1899 and 1907. Fortunately having different publishers helps.Naraht (talk) 01:34, 19 February 2026 (UTC)

Also Encyclopædia Britannica.Naraht (talk) 02:14, 19 February 2026 (UTC)

What I'd like to do is, for the entries in the references libraries that have had templates created to place (τ) and link that to the template for it. That way someone looking at the library can find the appropriate ref. The lower case Tau is used in other places in wikipedia (especially in category sorts) to indicate a template. (as a note, it is interesting that as I type this, the lower case tau has a tail in the lower right, but in the preview it doesn't, it just looks like a small capital T) Naraht (talk) 16:41, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

That is fine with me. What happend to the Tau when you use a lang tempate? Rublamb (talk) 21:50, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

I'll check, I had forgotten I wanted to do this.Naraht (talk) 22:18, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

For a good example of when/how to use the ref parameter in these templates, see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Uriah_Smith_Stephens&diff=1339495810&oldid=1330101083 . That changes a cite book with a ref field which allows it to have footnotes link to it, to the reference footnote for that cyclopedia with the ref included.Naraht (talk) 21:31, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

From looking at the site at https://www.library.illinois.edu/slc/national-fraternity-collections/fraternity-sorority-almanac/ , it appears that Almanac of Fraternities and Sororities is now standard. Should we change the names of various references to that site to Almana of Fraternities and Sororites. Additionally some of the references have William Raimond Baird as editor 1 and Carroll Lurding as editor 2. I think that Baird should be removed and Carroll Lurding "promoted".Naraht (talk) 22:04, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

I agree per our prior discussion on this subject. Rublamb (talk) 22:09, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

Where is our prior discussion? And Almanac, not Almana. Sorry. We have a lot of links to the inactive groups and those will be fine. The question is whether the file names will remain the same long term for the letters. So is "Fraternity C" or "Sorority Z" going to keep the same name. We may need someone from Illinois to answer that question. I get the feelin g this one will be a gigantic case statement, so one argument of Fraternity and another of P will be needed to calculate the file name.Naraht (talk) 01:28, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Fraternities and Sororities/Archive 8#Bairds vs. Almanac. Rublamb (talk) 01:50, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

Thanx. Oddly, it looks like the filenames change when they update, but the location stays.Naraht (talk) 20:32, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

next ref template from our library will probably be

• Preuss, Arthur. A Dictionary of Secret and Other Societies (1924)

pointing to https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015010794314 , looks like 68 hits on Wikipedia. unfortunately, it has a glitch in the middle with some repeated pages, so I'll need to do the url-page as a separate value rather than calculating it. But hopefully work on the Sigma Gamma Rho alumni first.Naraht (talk) 05:38, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

See {{Call sign disambiguation}}. It would be intended for pages like Alpha Gamma Sigma or Sigma Alpha where all of the articles being disambiguated are Fraternities/Sororities/Honor Societies. It would not be appropriate for Alpha Omega or Delta Sigma Epsilon where some or all of the organizations being disambiguated are not GLOs. Naraht (talk) 01:27, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

As you are our template expert, I trust you opinion on this. The watchlist may be helpful in determining what could be included. Rublamb (talk) 22:10, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

Started. {{Greek letter organization disambiguation}} has been created. I may tweek it to include the name of the article like {{disambiguation}}. Articles that have it added to Category:Greek letter organization disambiguation pages. I added an odd TOC order, we'll see how that goes.Naraht (talk) 01:25, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

Note, {{GLO disambiguation}} is a redirect and I'm going to use that when I actually add it to articles. Leave the actual template under the name that makes more sense to muggles, the shorter is for us. :)Naraht (talk) 01:56, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

 Done. More or less, still not thrilled with phrasing, but may come back. Rule is to use this if every choice would be in our Wikiproject.Naraht (talk) 16:00, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

@Naraht: Shouldn't the "notes" column be removed from the table formed by {FratChapterStart}, {FratChapter}, and {FratChapterEnd} since we not longer use it? When I look at these templates individually, the notes column is no longer listed. Is there an instruction page that also needs to be updated? Rublamb (talk) 23:25, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

Notes is in the code for each, but not the explanation/instruction.Naraht (talk) 01:12, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

With the *wonderful* help and mentoring by Trappist the monk, Template:Cite Almanac FS is in the process of being created. At this point, the links to the single-letter pieces of fraternities, sororities and institutions look like

• {{Cite Almanac_FS|section=men|subsection=s}}
• {{Cite Almanac_FS|section=women|subsection=s}}
• {{Cite Almanac_FS|section=institutions|subsection=s}}

• Carroll Lurding; Fran Becque (eds.). "Men's Organizations (S)" (PDF). Almanac of Fraternities and Sororities. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign – via University Library: Student Life and Culture Archives.
• Carroll Lurding; Fran Becque (eds.). "Women's Organizations (S)" (PDF). Almanac of Fraternities and Sororities. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign – via University Library: Student Life and Culture Archives.
• Carroll Lurding; Fran Becque (eds.). "Institutions (S)" (PDF). Almanac of Fraternities and Sororities. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign – via University Library: Student Life and Culture Archives.

At this point, there appear to be 427 occurances in mainspace found by https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=insource%3A%2Fuofi%5C.app%2F+fraternity&title=Special%3ASearch&profile=advanced&fulltext=1&ns0=1 (there are four places with uofi.app files that don't have fraternity).

I don't think it is *quite* time to implement it, but soon.Naraht (talk) 15:50, 1 March 2026 (UTC)

Will start implementing Fraternity - A as a testbed.Naraht (talk) 23:00, 1 March 2026 (UTC)

Since the underlying module still isn't in a public area, and someone rightly pointed out that means that the template shouldn't be in mainspace, I stopped after 6 sites. Trappist the monk also implemented my suggestion that this includes the entry in the document as a good number of the almanac references do that. So

• Carroll Lurding; Fran Becque (eds.). "Men's Organizations (S)" (PDF). Almanac of Fraternities and Sororities. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign – via University Library: Student Life and Culture Archives.
• Carroll Lurding; Fran Becque (eds.). "Women's Organizations (S)" (PDF). Almanac of Fraternities and Sororities. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign – via University Library: Student Life and Culture Archives.
• Carroll Lurding; Fran Becque (eds.). "Institutions (S)" (PDF). Almanac of Fraternities and Sororities. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign – via University Library: Student Life and Culture Archives.
• Carroll Lurding; Fran Becque (eds.). "Men's Organizations (S): Sigma Alpha Epsilon" (PDF). Almanac of Fraternities and Sororities. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign – via University Library: Student Life and Culture Archives.
• Carroll Lurding; Fran Becque (eds.). "Women's Organizations (S): Sigma Kappa" (PDF). Almanac of Fraternities and Sororities. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign – via University Library: Student Life and Culture Archives.
• Carroll Lurding; Fran Becque (eds.). "Institutions (S): Syracuse University" (PDF). Almanac of Fraternities and Sororities. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign – via University Library: Student Life and Culture Archives.
• Carroll Lurding; Fran Becque (eds.). "Closed Institutions: Sojourner–Douglass College" (PDF). Almanac of Fraternities and Sororities. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign – via University Library: Student Life and Culture Archives.

Naraht (talk) 16:13, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

Good progress. Rublamb (talk) 20:49, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

I'm looking at Wikipedia:Criticism and if that goes from being an essay to being a guideline, does it affect the "lists of hazing incidents" (yes, I know we don't have that as the title) sections?Naraht (talk) 16:06, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

It would from the standpoint of maintaining an editorial neutral tone and not placing undue emphasis on a hazing, etc. section. Currently, we have a general guideline to only include miscount that receives coverage by a major source or to out-of-area coverage. As @Jax MN has stated several times, GLOs get significant coverage for hazing, etc., but little or no coverage for charitable or campus service. Thus, we must be careful to avoid carrying over media coverage bias into our articles by placing too much emphasis on misconduct--which is what I really think is the point of the criticism essay. In short, every hazing/misconduct incident is heinous, but not every hazing incident is notable enough for inclusion in Wikipedia. Rublamb (talk) 20:47, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

Also, the guidance of WP:WEIGHT should be considered which I think clearly established this point. We've uncovered numerous good arguments why these articles should have a much higher percentage of neutral or ~positive commentary regarding these societies. As most of what the surviving groups do IS positive. Note that Chi Tau local and Theta Nu Epsilon are examples of outliers. Jax MN (talk) 23:36, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

Beyond the Chi Tau local and Theta Nu Epsilon is Tau Gamma Phi. That article doesn't even contain information on each hazing death that a lot of other articles do, it is a table with date, school, victim and references (List of Hazing Deaths in the Philippines) actually tends to have more. (I wonder when we end up moving *that* table to a separate article.Naraht (talk) 00:44, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

Talk:Black_Axe_(confraternity)#Infobox Naraht (talk) 17:56, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

And Talk:Supreme Eiye Confraternity#Infobox. Rublamb (talk) 20:38, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

Could others please chime in at Talk:List_of_Alpha_Phi_Omega_members#Inclusion_Criteria. Thanx.Naraht (talk) 14:14, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

As I mentioned there, I will work on creating articles for some of the redlinks. The list itself annoys me as it is in that template format that does not work with VE. Rublamb (talk) 21:47, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

Which template does? And how often do we use it. This article should have the same structure as the social greeks (other than any divisions we choose to make).Naraht (talk) 22:18, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

Its not the visible structure, but the choice to use {Mem/fstart}{Mem/f} rather than basic table code. I think I mentioned previoulsy that tables made with chapter templates, rather than basic table code, don't work well with VE. For example, the insert citation feature does not work, nor can you view or edit existing citions from VE edit mode. Also, you cannot make edits directly into the cells, but instead have to scroll through a list of all data in a tiny pop-up box. There are not very many members lists that use {Mem/fstart}{Mem/f}. Unfortunately the few that do are very long and citation heavy, meaning converting them to the other format is a time-consuming process (Using VE, you can copy and paste everything except efn and citations into a new table for conversion). Unless the chapter list or member's list is citation heavy, conversion has been my usual practice, making editing more accessible to all editors. This has worked well with chapter lists and seems to have reduced errors from inexperienced editors. Fortunately, I don't need to mess with this table to create the articles for the redlinked names--I can leave any other updates to you! Rublamb (talk) 22:54, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

I was at the DC history center (https://dchistory.org/) and actually ran into a physical copy of African American Fraternities and Sororities: The Legacy and the Vision. There do appear to be two editions, but even so, I think each belongs in the template. I guess it doesn't meet the requirements of the library since a version isn't available online, but we can certainly make templates for ones that don't meet that. (As we did for going greek).Naraht (talk) 02:50, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

Appear to be two editions: First: https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&q=isbn:9780813140735 , Second at https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&q=isbn:9780813136622 . I need to track down the years for the first and second edition, One appears to be 2012, not sure on which. And with the dates included in the publishing field (which is very wierd) could *both* have been in 2012 just on different dates?Naraht (talk) 15:03, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

And... apparently a paperback version as well. See https://www.kentuckypress.com/search-results/?keyword=fraternities which has

a "ISBN: 9780813129655 - 09/24/2010 - Paperback". Naraht (talk) 15:20, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

How often is this used as a source? Since it is not available online, I would not think it is a priority. Rublamb (talk) 21:45, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

38 times in mainspace. Definitely clears the minimum. And I tend to go purely by count for these rather than focusing on those that are available online. Otherwise, I would have ignored Baird's 14-20. :) Got a pref for what *should* be the priority? Note, as below currently working on the *large* effort on the Almanac.Naraht (talk) 22:09, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

No preference, other than going by times used. I agree that the Almanac is more importance and probably a bigger mess. Rublamb (talk) 22:33, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

Oh yes. About 450 articles when I started. (Almost any article with the word "Lurding" needs to be done)Naraht (talk) 15:05, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

Based on the information at https://www.library.illinois.edu/slc/national-fraternity-collections/fraternity-sorority-almanac/ (and other information if known) Is it

• Editor 1 = Carroll Lurding

or

• Editor 1 = Carroll Lurding
• Editor 2 = Fran Becque

or even something else.

We finally got everything moved out of local space, so I'm actually making the changes to the template and I see a *lot* that have Fran Becque as one of the editors (I also see ones with Baird as one of the editors, but that's not happening). At the moment (and I've dropped a few, with Lurding in total = 404, Lurding and Becque = 280). So both is used more often. Naraht (talk) 03:27, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

I have been using both editors because this is not a static database that ended with Lurding, and Fran makes monthly updates. Jax MN has noted that Fran is uncomfortable being placed as an equal with Lurding. However, I note that both are listed on the landing page for the Almanac. Rublamb (talk) 21:42, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

I'm *just* fine with that. Jax MN do you know when that was expressed, I can't find it in the archives. And yes, on this type of thing Editor vs. Author can be a good question, but I lean toward editors. Naraht (talk) 22:18, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi - we had corresponded with a batch of edits to that article maybe three or four years ago. In private correspondence I had asked her, as a historian and writer, if the two of them would be comfortable with the phrasing. She seemed self-effacing at the time, and spoke very kindly of Carroll. Second position seemed fine to her, though. They both have had tremendous impact on the Archive, since those files were digitized. Jax MN (talk) 02:45, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

Which article is "that article"? And given your response, I will add Fran to the template. Naraht (talk)

Fran added as the second editor. Naraht (talk) 14:58, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

Good. But "that article" I was referencing the Wikipedia article about Baird's Manual, itself. My attention had been drawn to it when I saw her blog post on the history of the book series. Jax MN (talk) 16:21, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

What ever is in her blog post, I'd love to see in the Wikipedia article.Naraht (talk) 17:26, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

She has a keyword search on her blog, and "Baird's" brings these articles forward. Fran Becque's Baird's articles Jax MN (talk) 17:58, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

Oooh, unfortunately, not going to be today. I need to give concentration listening to a couple of meetings.Naraht (talk) 18:05, 18 March 2026 (UTC)