Talk:Eliot House

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Before adding any Ben Folds commentary, etc. could someone please discuss it here? The vandalism is stupid. --jacobolus (t) 02:34, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ben Folds on Eliot

I am a student at Harvard who was at the Ben Folds concert on 4/30/2006. A beachball that had the phrase "Eliot House Sucks" was kicked on stage, prompting Ben Folds to launch into a very long, impromptu song about how much Eliot House sucks (hilarious). The song ended with "Eliot House sucks big donkey dick." Tbosmeny 02:46, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I was there too. But it's not notable, and doesn't belong in Wikipedia --jacobolus (t) 02:47, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
I would agree. Just explaining the flurry of activity. Tbosmeny 02:49, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
I think if it happened, and people are talking about it, there's no reason it shouldn't be on the page. Especially when there's reference to Eliot's appearance in Old School. rgarcia09 02:52:49, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Prod removal

I see that the prod has been removed. Before this goes to AfD, I would like to discuss with the editors of the article on the merits of article that would determine its inclusion. Firstly, student hostels, by themselves, are non-notable (See WP:BAI). The only claim to notability of this article would be the long list of alumni. But I am not impressed. Unless a neutral third-party source mentions how this house significantly helped them attain the fame they got, this article shouldn't belong to the encyclopedia. I was pointed to this AfD for the reasons of removing the AfD, but all I saw there was arguments without any valid reasons for keeping. Here's a look into the "points" raised for "keep" in that AfD, (I am tailoring them for this article):

  1. "To describe it simply as a dormitory is missing some of the point; it is also a basic operating unit of the school." - The article should merit inclusion, not the other way round.
  2. "Notable building at notable university." - The university is notable but building is not. No claim of notability is made in the article.
  3. "wikipedia is not paper" - Again, another argument without any mention of merits.
  4. "I recognize that "dorms" are not appropriate wikipedia subjects, but Harvard Houses are not dorms. They have independent endowments, athletic and artistic facilities, and grant scholarships. Some are hundreds of years old." - These things (apart from being that old) are true for majority of hostels. BTW, the dorm isn't 100 years old.
  5. "it is a notable building at notable university" - Again claiming to be notable without article claiming notability.
  6. "The Harvard Houses are analogous to the individual colleges at Yale, Princeton, Oxford, and Cambridge, although Harvard is the only one of the five that uses the term "house" instead of "college"." - That may be a trivia, but not something notable.
  7. "Each house has its own internal system of tutors and departmetn coordinated tutorials." - This may go to make the system notable, not every member of the system.
  8. "Why are wikipedia editors wasting their time going around nominating pefectly well developed articles for deletion just because the article doesn't matter to THEM." - Articles aren't deleted on basis of whether they are developed or not, but whether they are notable or not. Also, articles are nominated for deletion because WE feel that they don't belong here.

I encourage editors to debate on this article's notability, and request to keep the debate limited to merits only. As others have pointed out in the Pforzheimer AfD, association is not a criteria of notability. Otherwise a lot of pavements, corridors, coffee shops and restrooms of Harvard will end up having Wikipedia articles. — Ambuj Saxena (talk) 19:39, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you intend this discussion to be about; obviously if you reject the rationale for keeping the other article, you will reject the rationale for keeping this one. However, if you don't think this information warrants a separate article, merging it, for instance to Harvard College, might be a good idea. Christopher Parham (talk) 20:05, 14 October 2006 (UTC)