Talk:Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Archive02

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

DO NOT EDIT OR POST REPLIES TO THIS PAGE. THIS PAGE IS AN ARCHIVE.

This archive page covers approximately the dates between November 2004 and early December 2005. Post replies to the main talk page, copying or summarizing the section you are replying to if necessary. Please add new archivals to Talk:Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Archive03. (See Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page.) Thank you. Anville 18:16, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 Propaganda? 2 Vanity again 3 Who are "MIT's rivals? 4 Objectionable quote? 5 Should "the beaver shits on you..." be removed? 6 History of MIT's radio station 7 Strange Claims 8 Merger? 9 Location shooting 10 Deaths and suicides 11 OK, then, which are the "weed-out classes" 12 MIT History 13 Article Needs Fixing 14 MIT Stories 15 Just more academic grandstanding 16 POV 17 New photo of Simmons 18 Rankings 19 Technology Review on newstands. Big deal. 20 If people based their college choices on Wikipedia articles... 21 Washington Monthly again 22 Jerome Wiesner 23 Jagatai 24 Redirect from MIT 25 Achievements / Awards / Honors / Etc 26 Removed picture of Lobby 7 27 Dormitories 28 Thoughts on Removal of Educational Studies Program and Experimental Studies Group

Propaganda?

I have added the NPOV tag to this article to motivate frequent contributors and also editors unfamiliar with the topic to get this article in shape. The current article reads very strongly like an advertisement or a propagandistic MIT written piece. The first paragraph About MIT is worst, it should be a general piece about MIT, an extended introduction if you like. Now the article reads like promotional material, not an encyclopedic article. I advise starting a seperate section on statistics where all the statistical comparisons with other universities and organisations can be put, they do have a place, but not in the first sections. One other thing, not related, the article is very heavy on external links (see m:When should I link externally), this makes the article less readable that it could be, some links can be turned into internals, some could possible be removed. -- [[User:Solitude|Solitude\^talk]] 14:49, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)

• Oh, good. I've thought so for some time, but the reactions of others were starting to make me wonder whether there was something wrong with me... [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 15:34, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Comment An editor removed the NPOV tag from this article without discussing it here (and with a edit comment that did not mention that the tag had been removed). This tag should not be removed until the matter has been discussed here and consensus reached. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 23:39, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I was said editor. Sorry about that -- since the NPOV tag was inserted, there have been numerous MAJOR edits to the article to bring it "in line" so to speak, followed by no discussion here, so I figured the NPOV issue was dealt with. I move that we remove the NPOV tag. -- MITalum 09:48, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

You have obviouslly not read what I wrote above, I added the POV tag and added a message here to explain this action. The fact that there is no discussion about it means that either people do not care about having a POV tag on the article they are editing, which would be a shame. Or people totally agree with Dpbsmith and me, and do not feel the need to discuss the issue here but would rather work on fixing the article. As I can see from even just skimming the article that my concerns have not been addressed, the POV tag will stay. I hope I will find the time to work on this article myself, but I still feel someone more connected (but un-BIASED) the subject would do a better job. In a few weeks from now I will have time to work on the article if it has still not improved by then. I would also like to point out that it is ok to be proud of your education (even taking it so far as choosing "MITalum" as a nickname), but it does make it hard for people to view your edits as coming from anything but a strong POV. -- [[User:Solitude|Solitude\^talk]] 13:59, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)

I did read what you wrote above; the sections you had problems with have been thoroughly revised, primarily by myself. I guess I should just call peoples' attention to that -- sorry, I'm relatively new to Wikipedia and unfamiliar with the protocol. The reason my username is what it is is because I've spent quite a bit of time building this article but I also want to be clear on what my POV is. I hope I can help build an objective article, but people should have some idea on who's writing it (unlike most school's articles, whose alumni contributors protect their contributions through anonymity). I'm happy to go through and flag the other school's sites with a similar POV tag, but is that really the right way to do this? -- MITalum 00:16, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

• My $0.02:

With regard to the discussion, I honestly don't think I'd interpret the lack of discussion as meaning much either way. I don't think people care that much. I tried to stir up concern about this in a Request for Comment a while ago and was met with yawns.

With regard to neutrality I think the article is better than it was a month or so ago.

Solitude, could you give us an example of a university article that you think is a good model for being rich, meaningful, interesting, really saying something about the universtiy, yet neutral?

I personally have a problem with the two paragraphs beginning "Today, MIT is ranked..." and "Invention and entrepreneurship are core Institute values..." They just go on and on and on and on and on and on, and at some point start to sound like bragging to me. They were probably well-intended efforts to document MIT's standing in an objective way but there is just too much. If all of these facts really need to be in there, I'd like to see them in a section near the end entitled "MIT's standing" or something like that. Or, the visible portion should be trimmed down to a statement and one simple buttressing fact, like "Invention and entrepreneurship are core Institute values. MIT leads all independent US universities in patents granted every year" and the remaining details placed here in Talk, in HTML comments, or perhaps in References as an external link with a brief explanation.

[[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 14:19, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

P. S. I just posted another RFC in hopes of getting wider participation in this discussion. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]]

• I added those sections, and I've now pared them down considerably. Let me know what you think. MITalum 00:22, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think they're much better now. I'd like to hear some opinions from others. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 00:55, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I've worked on the introductory section, I think it's sufficiently toned down as it is now, feel free to change the exact wording. Other sections could still use some work, but I feel the NPOV warning could be removed as the article stands now. -- [[User:Solitude|Solitude\^talk]] 15:22, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)

I'd certainly support removing the NPOV tag now. I think the article is now OK as it stands. If I were going to fine-tune it myself, which I don't think I'll do, I might tweak it back in the direction of immodesty by replacing "consistently ranks high in nationwide reports" with "consistently ranks among the highest." In the entrepreneurship sentence (which is particularly important because this is particularly characteristic of MIT), I might put in an emphatic phrase: "Entrepreneurship is valued at MIT; in fact, an illustrative 1997 report showed that the aggregated revenues etc." But really, it's not needed, as I think the message of MIT's excellence comes across loud and clear without cheerleading.

I think it's TOO modest now. Replacing a distinctive fact (#1 ranking in selectivity in the nation according to Atlantic Monthly) with "very selective admission policy" when other schools' entries refer to them being "among the most selective in the nation" -- buttressed by a lower selectivity ranking! -- seems almost inaccurate. Similarly, "ranks high in nationwide reports on quality of faculty and effectiveness of teaching" should at least be replaced with "ranks among the highest" in order to be accurate, given the #1 ranking from the included stats. It's tough because MIT alumni have a bias toward modesty, but I think each of these articles should be held to the same standard. See Harvard University, Yale University, and Princeton University for examples of how the MIT article of the past wasn't out of line with other Wikipedia articles on these topics. -- MITalum 05:45, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I guess it's still OK by me; Solitude might have overcorrected. But I don't want to see the article constantly moving in that direction indefinitely. I hope that the three of us at least have achieved some kind of metastable state.

As for Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, I'd say, well, yeah, a lot of university articles do have POV problems. It doesn't bother me so much when I see it there because I always figured Harvard, Yale, and Princeton for a bunch of stuck-up elitists whose admissions departments take "lineage" seriously. Many years ago a magazine ran a profile of Harvard University and quoted one twerp as saying that "Harvard is the only place where nobody is impressed that you go to Harvard." The next month the letters column was overflowing with letters from students at Princeton, Barnard, Wellesley, etc. saying (with variations) "I'm not impressed that you go to Harvard."

Maybe we should try putting an NPOV tag on the articles that have the most nauseating claims and see what happens. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 13:23, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It is definitely important to have the buttressing facts recorded somewhere, so I've put them in the section above. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 16:44, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'm going to remove the tag now and see what happens. MITalum has not commented on [[User:Solitude|Solitude\^talk]]'s revisions, but they presumably leave the article acceptable to Solitude and they leave it in a state that's OK by me. Anyone who disagrees, reinsert the tag and discuss here. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 23:30, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Vanity again

This paragraph:

Today, it stands as one the world's best science and engineering school. While MIT offers only 23 disciplines of doctoral study (as opposed to its rivals, which offer more than 43), it is ranked number one in the world in almost all of them. MIT's long-held tradition show that, whatever it has started, it has always been the best in the world.

This would be inappropriate even if a source were cited (and none is).

The reason why it is non-neutral is that it is an example of making a factual statement that is susceptible of many interpretations ("MIT offers only 23 disciplines of doctoral study (as opposed to its rivals, which offer more than 43")) and and then following it with "spin" that promotes its interpretation according to a particular point of view ("...and here are the reasons why this proves that MIT is the best.")

Suppose that MIT offered a larger number of disciplines of doctoral study than its rivals (which rivals? where do these counts come from?) this author would let that statement stand, unqualified, and adduce it as evidence as MIT's superiority?

If there's no serious discussion in a while I'll remove both the paragraph and the NPOV tag. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 20:20, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Why wait? The paragraph is clearly inappropriate. Nuke it. Noel (talk) 21:37, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

You talked me into it. Zap. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 00:15, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

P. S. If people think it's germane or an important fact about the school and if someone cites a source, I certainly wouldn't have any objection to the sentence "MIT offers 23 disciplines of doctoral study" (without the explanation of why that makes MIT better than "its rivals.")

Who are "MIT's rivals?

Since a recent edit (see above) mentions "MIT's rivals," should there be a section somewhere that names them? "MIT's rivals are considered to be..." CalTech? The Technion? RPI? Stevens? Georgia Tech? l'Ecole Polytechnique? University of Nottingham? Oxford? [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 20:25, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I think the closest rivals would be any of the Ivies, Stanford and Caltech. On the Brass Rat it is a popular habit to have the Beaver sitting on a bed of 7 ivy leaves. And this past year Caltech decided to begin a hacking war with us to see who could be the most innovative. http://www.caltechvsmit.com/ Then as for Stanford...well, we actually tell kids to just go there during Campus Preview Weekend...the weather is much nicer ;-) 162.66.50.5 1 July 2005 17:26 (UTC) MIT 07'

Objectionable quote?

Simson Garfinkel quoted Professor Jerome Y. Lettvin as saying "You might regard it as the womb of the Institute. It is kind of messy, but by God it is procreative!"

• I copied the complete sentence here that User:69.170.211.104 had cut off in this edit. I myself am neutral on this quote. But since User:69.170.211.104 removed the quotation, I thought that the remaining sentence fragment--"Simson Garfinkel quoted Professor Jerome Y. Lettvin"--should be removed also for further discussion here. :) ---Rednblu | Talk 02:53, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I personally feel that something needs to be said about Building 20, which AFAIK is remembered with fondness by everyone who knew it—something that captures that milieu in a nutshell. There was a palpable sense of excitement in that building, a feeling that things were happening. I feel that Lettvin's quotation is both well-known and definitive. It is from an important and well-known professor who worked in Building 20. I can't imagine why someone would remove it other than in an attempt to... well... sterilize the article. The version of the quotation I used is probably already a tidied-up version. As mentioned above, another source has him saying "[Building 20] is sort of what you might call the vagina of the institute. It doesn't smell very good, it is kind of messy, but by god it is procreative..."

Since I put the quotation in, I probably shouldn't be the one to restore it, but I really think it should be restored. The anon who snipped it gave no reason in the edit history for removing it. There are those who might feel IHTFP or "Tech is hell" are offensive, but they are a central part of Institute culture. The same is true of Lettvin's description of Building 20. Dpbsmith (talk) 03:41, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Should "the beaver shits on you..." be removed?

129.215.16.39 edited the sentence

Traditionally, the ring is worn with the beaver facing inwards until graduation, then turned the other way; or, as the unofficial folklore puts it, "While you're an undergrad, the beaver shits on you; after you graduate, the beaver shits on the world"

to read merely

Traditionally, the ring is worn with the beaver facing inwards until graduation, then turned the other way.

That sentence has been in the article since at least 11 Nov 2004. I wasn't the one who put it in. (I think it was User:Gzuckier, but the history comparison feature is so slow I can't take the time to be absolutely sure....)

I can't personally vouch for any part of the sentence, either the tradition or the explanation. But for the time being, I reverted to the previous version.

Is the full sentence accurate? Was the "unofficial folklore" clause deleted for a good reason, or merely out of a feeling that Wikipedia ought to gloss over the less dignified aspects of MIT student culture?

("The MIT mascot is the beaver, because the beaver is the engineer among animals, and the MIT graduate is the animal among engineers...") ("In medieval legend the beaver was said to evade capture by biting off its balls and throwing them at the pursuer. So now you know what the Institvte expects of you as an undergraduate...") Dpbsmith (talk) 04:03, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The quote seems accurate (two slightly-different matches at [1]). --SPUI 14:45, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I've heard the quotation before, generally when people first get class rings and are actually paying attention to them. For the majority of the time, the most common tradition I've observed involving the rings has been the opening of beer bottles.

The phrase is not a common one, but it is an extant part of the student culture, and as such it should be reported. Anyone who feels offended because the sentence harms their image of college students as clean-minded creatures has more problems with the Universe than the slightly colourful quotations on this page.

Anville 20:02, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Twas I who put it in alright. If the consensus was to change the wording to excrete or defecate or some such, I would not feel the need to object. The point of its inclusion is to shed a bit more light on the MIT student's complex emotional relationship with the place, which is not as precisely clear in just 'Traditionally, the ring is worn with the beaver facing inwards until graduation, then turned the other way'. Gzuckier 17:23, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

At this point, I think there's clear consensus that it should be kept. I'm the one that reverted the anon's change. I started this discussion for two reasons. Generally, when I revert, I try to get a discussion going before a revert war can start. Second, the anon didn't bother to say why he or she removed it, and I can't personally testify to the accuracy of the information, so I thought that should at least be raised. In the year 2005, I don't think there's any need to be coy about the word "shit." And I don't think there's any need at all to bowdlerize or distort things that shed light on MIT culture and student life at MIT. Dpbsmith (talk) 20:40, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

FYI, the sentence seems to have been removed again (can't check when or by whom). -- Felix Wiemann 20:36, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

History of MIT's radio station

Moved the following paragraphs, which are interesting but not relevant to an encyclopedic article on MIT, to the discussion page:

The first MIT student broadcasting station, WMIT, first signed on on November 25, 1946. It was a "carrier-current" AM transmitter located in the Ware dormitory and broadcasting over power lines at 800, and later 640 kilocycles ("kilocycles" being the proper period term for the unit of frequency now called the "kilohertz"). Audible only within a few hundred feet of the dorms, under then-current FCC regulations it could and did broadcast commercials and was self-supporting.

In the mid-1950s, the possibility of an FM license was explored and it was discovered that the call letters WMIT were in use by a North Carolina station. WTBS (for "Technology Broadcasting Service") was chosen as the best alternative. New facilities were constructed in the basement of Walker Memorial, including a switching and mixing console designed by A. R. Kent and Barry Blesser, believed to be one of the very first all-transistorized consoles ever built. On April 10, 1961 WTBS-FM signed on with 14 watts of effective radiated power at 88.1 megacycles FM.

WTBS continued to operate the carrier-current system to the dormitories, with an identical program, except for commercial breaks, during which the noncommercial FM station filled time with public service announcements, and, later, parody "ads" for products such as "Apple Gunkies" and firms such as "Nocturnal Aviation." The all-request "Nite Owl" was a popular weekend feature, and a "Waveform of the Week" was broadcast for the enjoyment of MIT students watching the program on oscilloscopes.

In the late 1970s, Ted Turner, then operator of WTCG in Atlanta, wanted to use the call letters WTBS. Although call letters are not technically for sale, Turner and WTBS worked out a loophole whereby Turner gave a $25,000 donation to WTBS with an agreement that WTBS would apply for new call letters, with a second donation of $25,000 promised if the FCC were to subsequently grant the letters to Turner. All went as planned, WTBS used the donation for new transmitter equipment, and on November 10, 1979 the station signed on as WMBR with 200 watts of power. (Wags nostalgic for the old letters complained that WTBS had sold its birthright for a mess of wattage).

--MITalum 14:59, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Strange Claims

In the article on the book The Hidden Curriculum, the end of the article states, "Burke observes that modern architecture often indicates that those who erect buildings believe, even in the face of rapid-fire technological change, that their civilization will last as long as Imperial Rome. MIT provides the perfect example: it is officially dedicated to making the future better than the past, yet its campus is dressed up to look like the Roman Forum." See the talk section for that article for an explanation of why I think that's a bit off.

Merger?

The Harvard article says that a proposed Harvard-MIT merger was "cancelled by the Massachusetts courts"; this page says that protests from alumni stopped it. Which is correct? jdb ❋ (talk) 02:28, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Location shooting

Sure about this?

However, MIT does not normally grant permission for location shooting on its campus, and most of the scenes set at MIT were actually filmed at substitute locations.

I've seen camera crews around MIT.

Roadrunner 17:45, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• My sentence. I probably should retract the phrase "MIT does not normally grant permission for location shooting," as it falls in the "I'm sure I heard this somewhere" category. I'm sure MIT allows news crews; I know it allowed documentary shooting ("How To Be First," "Bridge to Tomorrow") in the 1960s. But feature films I'm not sure of. What I am sure of is that neither "Good Will Hunting" nor "A Beautiful Mind" were shot there, apart from establishing exterior shots. The "MIT" scenes in "Good WIlling Hunting" were shot at Central Technical High School in Toronto, Canada; although there was a good deal of location shooting in Boston and publicists liked to give the impression that most of it was, most of it was shot in Toronto. Dpbsmith (talk) 23:02, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC) Can't seem to find where the MIT scenes in "A Beautiful Mind" were filmed, but it was not MIT. Dpbsmith (talk) 23:09, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure Good Will Hunting and A Beutiful Mind were not shot on campus. The only actual shot of the campus in Good Will Hunting is a generic shot of Killian Court from afar. The only instance where I do know of actual on-site filming was Blown Away back in 1993, and I already placed the link to The Tech article about it a while back. I'm not sure if MIT actually has a policy on filming, but I don't think I've ever seen professional camera crews around MIT. The only ones I've seen were those for student productions. --Umofomia 23:33, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Some of Goodwill Hunting may have been filmed at Central Tech, but a good chunk of it (classroom scenes, Robin Williams' character's office) were definitely filmed at the University of Toronto. I'm convinced they didn't erase some of the equations on the chalkboard after one of my classes. :) moink 00:51, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Deaths and suicides

What's with the recent additions of the death and suicides at MIT to the article? I can understand if these deaths were events that really impacted or redefined MIT (such as the 1997 death of Scott Krueger, which curiously is not one of those mentioned), but the deaths added are not particularly significant nor are they particularly encyclopedic. I don't see the point of listing these. --Umofomia 06:52, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Looks like the user that added them has also been adding similar such stories to the articles of other top-tier schools (see 4.228.102.139 contributions). --Umofomia 07:01, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It appears that the section was added due to a misunderstanding by User:4.228.102.139 of the NPOV policy (he/she saw some irrelevant deaths added to the Yale University article and started adding deaths at other universities to their respective articles in order to be "fair"). In any case, I've removed this section but added more information about the death of Scott Krueger in the Culture and student life section since his death was particularly significant. I also mentioned Elizabeth Shin in that section since her death also played a role in how MIT handles its students. --Umofomia 10:06, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Added from User talk page of User:4.228.102.139:

I noticed you added similar contributions to the MIT article (see my comments here), and judging from the comments you made on Harro5's talk page, I think you misunderstand the NPOV policy. The NPOV policy doesn't mean that just because a particular type of comment is made on one article it must therefore be applied to all other articles. Rather, judgment should be made on that particular comment to see whether it's relevant to the article at hand.

I have no idea under what circumstances the additions to the Yale University article were made, but that's up to contributors of the Yale University article to decide. If the comments are useful for giving readers a further understanding of the school, then they should stay; if not, then they should be taken out, but that's for the people who have an understanding of the circumstances surrounding Yale to figure out. If you were concerned about the listing of deaths in the Yale article, rather than going around to all the other schools and listing their deaths, you should have posted a comment on Talk:Yale University and started a dialogue about whether such a listing is relevant and encyclopedic.

In the MIT article, I don't think any of the deaths you listed are particularly relevant for an understanding of what MIT is. I'm not against listing tragedies surrounding MIT, but they should have relevance. For instance, I would be in support of a contribution that spoke about the death of Scott Krueger in 1997, which had a real impact on life at MIT, leading to many changes in the way undergraduates were treated in subsequent years. Of all the deaths at MIT you did list, this one was curiously absent.

BTW, when you make a comment on a talk page, please sign it by typing four tildes (~~~~) after your comment so that people can see who made the comment and at what time it was made. --Umofomia 08:28, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[Umofomia wrote:] I have no idea under what circumstances the additions to the Yale University article were made, but that's up to contributors of the Yale University article to decide.

I disagree, especially if the contributors' additions violate NPOV.

[Umofomia wrote:] Rather, judgment should be made on that particular comment to see whether it's relevant to the article at hand.

I disagree; I think you are missing the meaning of NPOV, in particular the statement on the NPOV page by Jimbo Wales which states:

[Jimbo Wales:]A general purpose encyclopedia is a collection of synthesized knowledge presented from a neutral point of view. To whatever extent possible, encyclopedic writing should steer clear of taking any particular stance other than the stance of the neutral point of view.

The word collection is not limited to NPOV phrases within articles, but also to the choice of topics among the articles. After all, they are elements of the collection. Surely a collection can consist of a collection of collections, or a collection of collection of collections, etc., ad nauseum. Thus the Wikipedia is a collection of articles, which is a collection of topics, which is a collection of sentences, which is a collection of phrases (or comments), which is a collection of words. To the extent possible every collection should reflect NPOV, from the atomic level of the Wikipedia to its entirety.

[Umofomia wrote:]In the MIT article, I don't think any of the deaths you listed are particularly relevant for an understanding of what MIT is

Perhaps not in your opinion. You have a particular "understanding" of what MIT "is" appropriate to you. Obviously Phillip Gale's understanding of MIT is not the same as yours. The equations describing dynamics of falling bodies had a different meaning for Phillip Gale than those equations have for you or me. In my interpretation of the situtation, Gale took an abstract, impersonal, equation and made it into a personal statement and personal message. To me, his formula on the chalkboard was a message. Why did he choose to do it at MIT? Why did he choose to do it from a tall building? Why did he completely disregard the innocent bystanders walking around below?

All of the deaths I included are multidimensional and can have many interpretations.

However, I tried to make sure that the types of deaths on any one Wiki page has a "counterpart" death on the other Wiki pages, whether they address the issue of the safety of the surrounding neighborhood or the idea that students, after having attended a "refined cultured university", are still capable of performing horrific deaths upon themselves or others.

Many of the press are interested in these deaths because one assumes that the universities are screening the "best of the best", the "top members of society", the "cream of the crop", or providing the "safest environment" for paying students. When these expectations are not met, the press is ready to pounce. Indeed, if MIT students' IQ's are "better than" the rest of the population, then why is their suicide rate not "better than" the suicide rate of the rest of the population? Interesting discussion, but should Wikipedia articles be the forum to present such issues? Is it appropriate to discuss this on the individual college pages? I think not.

Scott Krueger's death was not included because, in my opinion only, it does not fall under the scope of a "unique" deaths. If you want to include it, go ahead, but to me, death by drinking binges is very common (unfortunately). The battle over alcohol between fraternities versus university administrations is a tired cliche; just look at the movie Animal House, which glorifies college-age substance abuse (how ironic that its star, John Belushi died of substance abuse) , or consider the fact that is many states, the legal drinking age is 21. The issue has been discussed forever in state legislatures across the country, legislation has been passed, and college students all across the country break this particular law.

By contrast, jumping out of a window to your death after earning a million dollars is not as common as death by alcohol. Neither is setting yourself on fire, or getting stabbed 45 times by your roommate while you are sleeping, or getting sandwiched between two cars just outside your dormitory.

My real concern is whether not Wikipedia is really the forum to show this information at all. Personally, I truly believe that the information is inappropriate and all of the lists should be eliminated equally from all of the articles.

[Umofomia wrote: ]If you were concerned about the listing of deaths in the Yale article, rather than going around to all the other schools and listing their deaths, you should have posted a comment on Talk:Yale University and started a dialogue about whether such a listing is relevant and encyclopedic.

I don't want to be the sole defender of my opinion, especially when some love to argue just for argument's sake, or others are nasty about the revert process. I hope that others who share my opinion on the larger issue will agree with me, but those people might not ever read the Yale discussion page. The issue is bigger than a particular comment added to the Yale page, and other people need to get interested in the big picture.

As my IP address is assigned randomly, it will probably not be good for me to continue the discussion on this page. The next time I log in, I will be assigned a different IP address. I am going to bed. Good bye and good night.

4.228.102.139 11:04, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[You wrote:] I disagree, especially if the contributor's additions violate NPOV.

Note that I said contributors, not contributor. This is why you should bring up that contributor's additions to the respective talk page so that all the rest of the contributors will be aware of it and judge accordingly. If the contributor's addition violate NPOV, why are you then making the same NPOV violations on other university pages?

As for your comments on the importance of mentioning the other deaths, I will leave that up to others to comment on what they think about them. You already know my view on it. So if anyone has any views on this matter, feel free to comment below. --Umofomia 11:17, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[Umofomia wrote:] If the contributor's addition violate NPOV, why are you then making the same NPOV violations on other university pages?

I did not make NPOV violations to other university pages. The fact that only one Ivy Plus university page had this kind of information was in itself a violation of the NPOV. In this particular instance, User: Gzuckier's addition per se did not violate the NPOV; the fact that he didn't apply it equally to other similar Wiki articles was the problem. My additions attempted to restore NPOV; if the contributor had done it himself, I wouldn't have bothered. Please contact User: Harro5; he seemed to understand what I was getting at, and perhaps he can explain it better than I can. (Now I'm really going to bed!)

11:52, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I noticed you just changed "contributor's" to "contributors'" in your comment after I pointed it out in my reply above [2]. But in fact, only one contributor, Gzuckier, made the additions that you have a problem with [3]. Even if it were the case that multiple contributors made those additions, that doesn't automatically imply that all the other contributors are in support of it. This is why I continue to reiterate that you bring it up on the Yale talk page if you want some resolution out of this. I do not particularly follow the logic of your interpretation of NPOV, since two wrongs don't make a right. You even stated that you'd rather have none of the articles mention such deaths, so why disrupt the other articles when what you really want to do is remove it from the Yale article? In addition, since you haven't even brought it up on the Yale talk page, Gzuckier and the rest of the Yale contributors have no idea that a dispute is happening, so how can they get the "big picture?" In any case, I'll ask Harro5 if he would like to chime in here with his view. --Umofomia 12:24, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• • • • I agree with Umofomia's link to the "Don't disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point" page. These articles about Ivy League universities are just that - articles about the schools themselves. I feel that if someone wants to write about strange deaths and happenings on campus - and there strange things happen on EVERY college campus - then there should be separate articles started on the people involved if it is really necessary, which it isn't. These university pages should focus on the history, achievements, academics and alumni of the schools themselves, and not turn into water-cooler discussions about "that guy who got beaten up behind the science lab last week." If anyone disagrees with mine or Umofomia's stance on this issue, please add your comments and justify why writing about deaths is needed in a university article. Harro5 21:44, Apr 24, 2005 (UTC)

OK, then, which are the "weed-out classes"

User:Anville removed the comment "Classes, even notoriously difficult ones, are not intended to be 'weed-out' classes, and have high pass rates, which also contributes to group solidarity in the classes," with the comment: "nix statement about lack of "weed-out" classes (professors have told me otherwise))." I didn't write that comment, and I'm not really challenging this, but I am curious as to which classes are thought of as being "weed-out" classes.

We were explicitly told as freshman in, oh, well, the sixties, that in "the old days" they would bring freshmen into the auditorium and tell them "Look to your right. Now look to your left. A year from now, one of the three of you will not be here." But, we were told, that was no longer true and that the admissions criteria were intended to admit only students who were capable of graduating. I have no idea whether that was true then, but it was what we were told. Nevertheless, there was a sense that the the 'Tute was trying to, in the words of the Doormat Singers, "screw you to the wall" (see—or hear The Institute Screw for confirmation).

(5.02 darn near weeded me out. The professor said "Upperclassmen may have told you that this is a memory course, but not any more. We emphasize principles and understanding." For the first six weeks or so I tried to understand principles and nearly flunked the midterm. From that point on I made no attempt to understand anything but just memorized, and ended up with a B...)

On the other hand, there was never any sense that it was a zero-sum game, i.e. that you could improve your own chances by sabotaging others. In contrast, I was to find that pre-med students at another university did believe this was true and literally did sabotage other pre-meds. For example, pre-meds would move the labels in lab practicals so that subsequent students would misidentify organs and get the answers wrong; teaching assistants had to be on sharp lookout to prevent this. Dpbsmith (talk) 21:47, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Junior Lab, particularly the first semester, is the "weed-out" class for physics majors. Although it is difficult enough on its own merits, the curriculum layout forces most students to take it during the same term as 8.05, the first real quantum mechanics class. On the first day, my 8.05 professor told us, "Junior year is a war between Junior Lab and the rest of your life." The physics faculty really do take the view that the 8.05/8.13 combination separates "the boys from the men" (to use flamboyantly gender-biased language). The second semester (8.06 and 8.14) is not so rough, partly because they focus on doing fewer experiments in more depth.

One of my current housemates graduated course 6 a few years back (he now works for a stock market analysis firm, though not quite as hardcore as the guy in π). He tells me that some of the course-6 labs serve the same purpose, though not to as great an extent. Furthermore, 6.001 (introduction to Scheme, basically), is "supposed to make you hate yourself so much you don't become course 6".

During my freshman orientation, Dean of Admissions Marilee Jones told us, essentially, to look around and pick out every fifth person, which would be how many of us got reported to the Committee on Academic Performance our first year. (I forget the exact statistic, but it was in the 20% range.) Not the most cheerful message. "Getting CAPed" is not as bad as failing out, of course, particularly when it happens because you didn't meet some humanities requirement. (Oh, God, let's not get started there. See [4] and [5] for a sampling of student attitudes.)

Classes in course 8 never seemed zero-sum in any serious way, and I can't recall any instances of real sabotage. (We faced different injustices: obscure and incomprehensible problem sets, professors with variable grasps on the English language, maniacal teaching assistants and homework graders. . . jolly times!) I believe the same holds true (warning: anecdotal evidence ahead!) for courses, 2, 3, 6 and 18, at least—judging from my friends' reports. Naturally, I expect the management students over in course 15 territory are trained to sabotage one another, as a warmup for their future workplaces.

Anville 15:30, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

MIT History

This section is dangerously negligent, myopic, or just inaccurate.

• MIT's contributions to twentieth century science and technology include the Whirlwind computer, which introduced magnetic core memory; the Lisp programming language; the Multics operating system; the X Window System; and many cultural contributions to the development of personal computing.

I think MIT has a few other contributions than just the Whirlwind computer.

You mean, like the Bush Differential analyzer? 'Pears to me they did some things with radar, too, even if it was the British that came up with the cavity magnetron... Dpbsmith (talk) 19:33, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I have edited the section describing post-war defense research to reflect the fact that many significant projects were finished and precedents were established before the launch of sputnik

It would take some careful work to research present this from a neutral point of view, but MIT was, or at least MIT people were, influential in the creation of the National Science Foundation. In fact you could say that what Eisenhower called the "military-industrial complex" was actually a "military-industrial-university" complex and MIT had a role in creating that... Dpbsmith (talk) 19:32, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC) Yikes! Wikipedia's article on the NSF says "The NSF is generally considered by historians of science to be an inept compromise between too many clashing visions of the purpose and scope of the federal government." No specific historians of science named. Pretty POV, I'd say... Dpbsmith (talk) 19:32, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

"Myopic" is definitely right! Do people in computer science know that physics, chemistry, mathematics, engineering, biology, etc., exist? Michael Hardy 4 July 2005 02:26 (UTC)

Article Needs Fixing

A lot of junk in here needs fixing. There is also a lot of pointless stuff that is related to MIT but doesn't have to continue a sentence on, which makes the whole focus of this article lose my interest. If you're going to link someone's name, leave the whole information to that link, don't add it to this article. Wikipedia was build to be that way. Other than that "The term "hacker" and much of hacker culture originated at MIT," Originated? Hmm.....right... I think the person who invented the wheel was a hacker. Maybe Tesla was a hacker. I think MacGyver was a hacker.. I wouldn't give the credit to MIT.

Something that makes me humoured is the fact that MIT doesn't like the idea of social status within society but tuition and living is $50k+ a semester or so.. pathetic. That's why I'm becoming a M.D. I guess you could say that 72% or so recieves financial aid, like that matters. Why's the price so high fellows? I don't have to be an idiot to know that it contradicts what MIT is for. From my understanding some professors don't like the tuition idea. This is a joke, but so is America.

--Cyberman 10:20, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

MIT Stories

Traditionally, the appearance of a new issue of Voo Doo, the MIT humor magazine, was accompanied by some sort of hack by the staff, the most memorable of which was probably the landing of a helicopter within the Great Court, from which emerged a person in a gorilla suit who ran into Building 10, grabbed a copy of the new issue, and ran back out to the helicopter which then left. The FAA expressed its displeasure over the failure to file a correct flight plan within a heavily trafficed area with heavy fines. The John F. Kennedy assassination occurred on a Voo Doo-release Friday. Many students discounted early word-of-mouth news of the event, suspecting it of being a Voo Doo stunt; Voo Doo's taste, discretion, and political leanings in 1963 made this at least conceivable.

MIT's particular strain of anti-authoritarianism has manifested itself in other forms. In 1977, two female students, juniors Susan Gilbert and Roxanne Ritchie, were disciplined for publishing an article on April 28 of that year in the "alternative" MIT campus weekly thursday. Entitled “Consumer Guide to MIT Men,” the article was a sex survey of 36 men the two claimed to have slept with, and the men were rated according to their sexual performance: no star (“a turkey”), one star (“recommended in emergencies only”), two stars (“mediocre but worth trying”), three stars (“a good lay”), and four stars (“a must fuck”).

Gilbert and Ritchie had intended to turn the tables on the rating systems and facebooks men use for women and act as the aggressors, but their article led not only to disciplinary action taken against them, but to a protest petition signed by 200 students, as well as condemnation by President Jerome B. Wiesner, who published a fierce criticism of the article. The weekly’s Feature Editor and Editor-in-Chief were also disciplined for running the piece.[6]

In 1970, the then-Dean of Institute Relations, Benson R. Snyder, published The Hidden Curriculum, in which he argues that a mass of unstated assumptions and requirements dominates MIT students' lives and inhibits their ability to function creatively. Snyder contends that these unwritten regulations often outweigh the "formal curriculum"'s effect, and that the situation is not unique to MIT.

The case of Scott Krueger is often cited as indicative of a recent trend among U.S. colleges and universities of having greater parental responsibilities. The aftermath of this event led to a formal apology by president Charles Vest, a $6 million settlement with the Krueger family, and the restructuring of the undergraduate housing and advisory system [7]. The Krueger case marked the increasing influence of the doctrine of in loco parentis on college campuses across the country, making them accountable for alcohol-related deaths of their students. The suicide death of Elizabeth Shin in 2000 also played a role in this trend and led to further restructuring in how MIT and other institutions deal with the mental health issues of their student populations [8].

In November 2001, the "Mental Health Task Force" released a report describing the psychological condition of the student population. The Task Force report relates a survey, conducted in the spring of 2001, whose results they found troubling:

Of the students who responded to the survey (half undergraduate and half graduate), 74% reported having had an emotional problem that interfered with their daily functioning while at MIT, while only 28% had used the MIT Mental Health Service. Even more worrisome, 35% of students reported a wait of 10 or more days for their initial appointment with the service, and 80% of the students were not aware of the daily afternoon walk-in hours. While nearly two-thirds of students rated their experience with the MIT Mental Health Service as satisfactory to excellent, only half would recommend the service to a friend, and overall, students saw the service as having a mediocre reputation.

Interestingly, in the early 1960s only about 10% of the student body sought out the Mental Health services during their time at MIT (see Snyder's The Hidden Curriculum, 1970). As of 2004, MIT Mental Health is proverbial among students for sending depressed patients to McLean Hospital, and for occasionally refusing to let them return after McLean's staff believes they are healthy. This habit has drawn both commentary [9] and derision [10].

HBO's television miniseries From the Earth to the Moon contains segments set at MIT, most notably in the episode covering Apollo 14. The series portrays the Institute's denizens as very slightly eccentric engineers who do their part to keep the Apollo program running successfully.

MIT is also a recurring motif in the works of Kurt Vonnegut., much like the planet Tralfamadore or the Vietnam War. In part, this recurrence may stem from Vonnegut family history: both his grandfather Bernard and his father Kurt, Sr. studied at MIT and received bachelor's degrees in architecture. His younger brother, another Bernard, earned a bachelor's and a Ph.D. in chemistry, also at MIT. Since so many of Vonnegut's stories are ambivalent or outright pessimistic with regard to technology's impact on humankind, it is hardly surprising that his references to the Institute express a mixed attitude. In Hocus Pocus (1990), the Vietnam-veteran narrator Eugene Debs Hartke applies for graduate study in MIT's physics program, but his plans go awry when he tangles with a hippie at a Harvard Square Chinese restaurant. Hartke observes that men in uniform had become a ridiculous sight around colleges, even though both Harvard and MIT obtained much of their income from weapons R&D. ("I would have been dead if it weren't for that great gift to civilization from the Chemistry Department of Harvard, which was napalm, or sticky jellied gasoline.") Jailbird notes drily that MIT's eighth president was one of the three-man committee who upheld the Sacco and Vanzetti ruling, condemning the two men to death. As reported in the 7 June 1927 Tech:

President Samuel W. Stratton has recently been appointed a member of a committee which will advise Governor Alvan T. Fuller in his course of action in the Sacco-Vanzetti case, it was announced a few days ago by the metropolitan press. The President is one of a committee of three appointed, the others being President A. Lawrence Lowell of Harvard and Judge Robert Grant. It was stated at Dr. Stratton's office that this appointment was very reluctantly accepted, for not only has the President not had experience with criminal law procedure, but he has not been following the case at all in the newspapers. It is thought by some that this very fact may result in an entirely unbiased review of the case, which might not be possible had he followed the case closely [11].

Palm Sunday (1981) a loose collage of essays and other material, contains a markedly skeptical and humanist commencement address Vonnegut gave to Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York. Speaking of the role religion plays in modern society, Vonnegut notes

We no longer believe that God causes earthquakes and crop failures and plagues when He gets mad at us. We no longer imagine that He can be cooled off by sacrifices and festivals and gifts. I am so glad we don't have to think up presents for Him anymore. What's the perfect gift for someone who has everything?

The perfect gift for somebody who has everything, of course, is nothing. Any gifts we have should be given to creatures right on the surface of the planet, it seems to me. If God gets angry about that, we can call in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There's a very good chance they can calm Him down.

Kurt Vonnegut was friends with fellow humanist and writer Isaac Asimov, who resided for many years in Newton, Massachusetts. During much of this time, Asimov chose the date for the MIT Science Fiction Society's annual picnic, citing a superstition that he always picked a day with good weather. In his copious autobiographical writings, Asimov reveals a mild predilection for the Institute's architecture, and an awareness of its aesthetic possibilities. For example, In Joy Still Felt (1980) describes a 1957 meeting with Catherine de Camp, who was checking out colleges for her teenage son. Asimov recalls

I hadn't seen her for five years and she was forty-nine now, and I felt I would be distressed at seeing her beauty fade.

How wrong I was! I saw her coming down the long corridor at MIT and she looked almost as though it were still 1941, when I had first met her.

Asimov's work, too, trades on MIT's reputation for narrative effect, even touching upon the anti-intellectualism theme. In "The Dead Past" (1956), the scientist-hero Foster must overcome the attitudes his Institute physics training has entrenched in his mind, before he can make his critical breakthrough.

The Infocom game The Lurking Horror is set on the campus of the George Underwood Edwards Institute of Technology, which strongly resembles MIT. Its fictional culture also parodies the MIT culture. For instance, G.U.E. Tech's class ring is known as the brass hyrax.

Frequently one sees tourists photographing each other with Building 10, site of the Great Dome, in the background.

Some cinematic references to MIT betray a mild anti-intellectualism, or at least a lack of respect for "book learning". For example, Space Cowboys (2000) features the seasoned hero (Clint Eastwood) trying to explain a piece of antiquated spacecraft technology to a rather whippersnapping youngster. When the young astronaut fails to comprehend Eastwood's explanation, he snaps that "I have two master's degrees from MIT", to which Eastwood replies, "Maybe you should get your money back." Similarly, Gus van Sant's introduction to the published Good Will Hunting screenplay suggests that the lead character's animosity towards official MIT academia reflects a class struggle with ethnic undertones, in particular Will Hunting's Irish background versus the "English aristocracy" of the MIT faculty.

Noted physicist and raconteur Richard Feynman built up a collection of anecdotes about his MIT undergraduate years, several of which are retold in his loose memoir Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! Some of this material was incorporated into Matthew Broderick's film Infinity (1996), in addition to Feynman stories from Far Rockaway, Princeton and Los Alamos.

All right, so some of this material was overblown, and that's my fault as much as anybody else's. Maybe more so. However, for the record, I'd like to state my opinion that the removal of several items here swung the article towards an uncritical, pro-MIT POV. Specifically:

• The "anti-intellectualism" which several movies exhibit should be mentioned; it's part of American culture.

• Looks like this has been added back to the article. I don't think this is bad material, but it's not great either. When one considers the huge number of movies that mention MIT in the first way, I don't think the Space Cowboys examples represents anti-intellectualism directed at MIT, I think it represents anti-intellectualism in general. And many more universities -- or even going to college in general -- are used as that instrument in movies than MIT is. MIT's use in pop culture has always meant traditional things, and I disagree that this is one of them. -- MITalum 15:54, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

• The Scott Krueger material and the discussion of MIT's mental health issues is highly germane. This information forms part of the MIT student culture: the administration's paternalism determines where and how students live, such as the recent "freshmen on campus" drive. Omitting this material distorts the image projected of MIT, and in my view, makes the article far too rosy.

Anville 23:03, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

• The stories and anecdotes moved here are most definitely interesting and should be preserved here on the Talk page, but they don't belong in the main article. Even as some of these stories may be famous to students at MIT, most of them are not relevant or interesting to an external audience reading an encyclopedia article about MIT. - MITalum 23:37, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Is representing MIT's student culture beyond the scope of this article? What about giving references to the few books which have been written about it? Girls writing about guys who are "must fucks" sounds far more interesting than a list of competitive college rankings.  ::: Anyway, I think that if we have worthwhile content that's up to WP standards, it belongs in the main namespace. To keep it nicely organized, how about Works which reference MIT? Anville 15:06, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

I think much of this material could well go into the main article. It could be de-emphasized by positioning it near the end and giving it some kind of suitable heading, but I don't see why it needs to be banished to the Talk page. Dpbsmith (talk) 01:20, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

The "Consumer Guide" is in the current version of the article but I have removed a number of unnecessary details. I agree with above comment by MITalum - I question whether there is a point in leaving that in since it doesn't say much about the Institute, and certainly, I don't believe most current students have ever heard of this incident. Google search finds Wikipedia and a Tech link only. Janet13 07:01, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Just more academic grandstanding

Yes we all know MIT is a great school. There are many others. Your language suggests this article was written by their PR department, as an advertisement primarily.

Yes, academic boosterism is a perennial problem in Wikipedia. This article reminds me of an MIT graduate displaying their class ring while picking their nose. Dpbsmith (talk) 16:37, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Hey, it was just one time, how was I to know that there was a photographer who would post it all over the internet? (just kidding) Gzuckier 21:44, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

I guess it might seem to spin MIT in a grandiose kind of way... that is until one looks at other university articles on Wikipedia, especially Harvard University. With an in-depth monologue on Harvard's prestige (plus a list of quotations relating to it!) that article is really out of control. If there's a POV on this one, there should definitely be a POV on that one. -- MITalum 20:48, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

The obsessive documenting of Harvard's "prestige" is the consequence of an individual or group of individuals who insisted the original language (something to the effect that Harvard was "one of the most prestigious universities in the world") be supported by facts. The result is the citation-laden monstrosity you read. I suppose the moral is to be careful what you wish for. jdb ❋ (talk) 02:22, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Amen. The slippery-slope brothers, who essentially asserted that stating that Harvard and Yale were prestigious on their pages would inevitably lead to the assertion on the Hamfat Institute of Garbage Collection that it was prestigious, demanding that therefore such an assertion be linked to hard quantitative evidence. Gzuckier 21:47, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

POV

Doesnt this article need a {{POV}} tag in it? it does seem to have a lot. -Pedro 15:57, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

There are many schools which produce engineers and scientists just as talented, and have accomplished as much, as those from MIT. (Submitted by 12.75.245.174)

May I suggest a more appropriate tag? Template:AcademicBoosterism jdb ❋ (talk) 20:27, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

I like this tag; nicely done, sir. This is one reason why I object to the removal of the MIT Stories material. While it may be a trifle overbearing to drop a metric buttload of Asimov and Vonnegut on the gentle reader, like I did, one should consider two points:

1. Wikipedia is not paper. Trite, trite, yes, I've heard it before too.
2. One way to balance the intolerable POV of "MIT is such a great school and everybody ranks it so highly and some damn fool even thinks the Stata Center isn't ugly" is to include material which reflects both the school's student culture and the external world's view of the Institute. There is a reason why screenwriters put in lines like "Two degrees from MIT? Maybe you should get your money back." Furthermore, there are good, solid reasons why so many students down through the years have said, "I Hate This Fucking Place".

It might be illustrative to compare this article—in length, girth, and staying power, as we said during my undergraduacy—with that on Wellesley College.

Anville 20:42, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Great idea, this tag needs to be added to lots of schools' articles even more, especially Harvard as noted above. Adding now.

1. The MIT article has been edited significantly since this discussion started. I think it's in pretty good shape now. Seeing as how the tag has been removed from Harvard, Dartmouth, Yale and others -- all of which are in far worse shape than MIT's article was ORIGINALLY -- there's no reason to leave it up here. Removing. --

MITalum 15:30, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

The subtle academic "boosterism" (Wikipedia's term for what I call "grandstanding") is still there in droves. "US News and World Report places MIT as the most selective college in the country..." "A world leader in science and technology ..." - these are all subjective statements given without any hard supporting information. Discounting the dubious credibility of the USNWR rankings - an opinion shared by the president of no less than Stanford University for example- a statement playing up selectivity has little quantitative meaning. You (and many others) equate selectivity with quality. Selectivity is merely a measure of the popularity of the school- if a school gets 50 or 100 times as many applications as it has places in its freshman class, then it can obviously be very selective. Playing that card up is simply academic boosterism. BTW, I've worked with some very bright MIT alumni in my career. I've also worked with some (yes, a few) who could not solve practical problems required on the job. I've also worked with brilliant people who attended not so well-known schools. Did every MIT graduate graduate with a 4.0 (or 5.0 on their grading scale)? From what I have read in their catalog, you can graduate with a 2.0 average, which is a C (I suppose that's a 3.0 on their scale) which is typical of most engineering/scientific schools. The implication in this article, and one I gather from some MIT alums, is that just because one has a piece of paper with "MIT" it that makes them a superior whatever to one without. I have not found that to be the case in general. I hire people based on their experience and accomplishments, not only where they went to school. The couple of times I had the pleasure of interviewing an MIT alumnus who said that he/she can do it better "because I went to MIT", the interview usually ended shortly thereafter.

• I'm not sure why you hold such animosity towards MIT, but it's clearly affecting your judgement here. The phrase "one of the most prestigious" appears nowhere in the article. The statement about US News doesn't say anything about quality, it states the fact of a US News ranking and draws no further conclusions beyond what that measure asked for in the survey. And calling MIT a world leader in science and technology is hardly a subjective statement -- there are many universities that are world leaders, of which MIT is objectively one of them. -- MITalum 05:14, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

You are correct, I removed the comment mentioning "prestige". I must have confused this article with a few of the others that are written in the same vein. I don't have animosity againt MIT (BTW, I took the Advanced Communications Systems Engineering course there at what was then the "Institute for Advanced Engineering Study" years ago (I think now it is called "Professional Education Program") when I was a newly minted electrical engineer at my first job in Bell Labs. It was a good course but not better than what I had when I was in school. This comment merely reflects my (subjective) observation that among the MIT'ers I have worked with, their boosting of their school was considerably more evident than others. This is not necessarily a bad thing, that keeps the school's name in circulation and boosts their reputation among the general public (another facet of "academic boosterism"). I boost my alma mater as well when given the opportunity in conversation.

New photo of Simmons

I contributed this photograph of Simmons Hall. Someone might want to think of a way to work it into this article. The current picture of Simmons is very nice geometrically, but doesn't give you any sense of what the building actually looks like. --Mike Lin 21:41, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

• When will Simmons name a building "MIT?" (Rimshot) Dpbsmith (talk) 10:39, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Insert the sound of a wide grin. Anville 20:43, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Rankings

I zapped the bit added to the "History" section about US News calling MIT the "7th best university in the nation". My reasons:

1. It is superfluous. We already know that US News likes MIT. The previous paragraph says so. Why say it again?

1. I presume that US News has some reason to make this claim. Instead of reciting the place they put MIT on their little list, why don't we read the article instead of the sidebar and report the reason they said so? I mean, if I were trying to establish that Lake Wobegon University was the greatest school in the world, I might preen a little and quote some favourable ranking in a random periodical. But it would be much more persuasive to say, "US News ranked Lake Wobegon third among all United States universities, thanks to the four Nobel laureates teaching in its chemistry department, the five in its physics department, and the seven MacArthur Fellows whom Wobegon has teaching freshman English." Now that's a ranking I can stand behind!

1. Dammit, I spent four years there, and no one at MIT cared about its US News rankings. I mean it. Once we got past freshman orientation, we were too busy trying to learn science and technology at their most sophisticated point of human history to give a Las Vegas stripper's used silicone about how some magazine described us.

I have no objection, a priori, to including a ranking of this sort. But if we don't follow the number with a good reason, it is merely a disconnected integer serving no function beyond the most callous and deceptive sophistry. Moreover, if the "source" — be it US News or the College Board or whoever — doesn't include such reasoning behind their figures, well then they're not worth quoting in the first place.

Anville 18:58, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Plus, it's unutterably tacky to mention rankings in which dear old alma mater didn't even finish in the money. 7th best in the nation? Why not just say "MIT is an also-ran" and be done with it?

(Even worse are rankings where the field has been deliberately restricted for the purpose of making the institution rank highly. Hypothetical example: of all the universities that have ever contructed a large letter "M", ranked by height of the letter, thus-and-such university ranks #1 in the world.) Dpbsmith (talk) 20:16, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Ok, I'll bite at the troll: MIT finishing 7th is not bad considering it's a engineering school. I was very surprised MIT/Caltech even made it in the top ten. I'm not sure how the heck you even go about comparing Caltech and Yale, their target demographics are so different. You don't go to MIT if you'd like to do social science or become a trial lawyer. Likewise, you probably don't consider Princeton the best if you want to design airplanes. Maybe the general obsession with all the rankings should be toned down a bit... Birge 23:09, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Today seems to be the day to discuss MIT rankings. Even MIT admins can't decide if they're good or bad: compare [12] with [13]. Yes, the statement about the ranking is factual. I think the question boils down to: does the average Wikipedia reader really gain from the inclusion of the ranking? I've found that the majority of people I encounter, when I mention that I go to MIT, have one of two reactions: 1) Wow, you must be smart (can someone tell me how to respond to that, btw? I've never really figured it out...) 2) What's that? Maybe it's a stretch to assume WP readers fall into the same two camps, but I've yet to meet anyone that has heard of MIT, but does not know of its reputation/prestige. Based on that, I'm going to say that a) most readers are going to already know that MIT is well-respected, regardless of what USNWR says, and b) those who don't will probably be able to infer that from the rest of the article. So, in short - I don't think it's needed. But apparently, an anon does not agree with me, as s/he has added the ranking back in twice...I'm pretty new to Wikipedia, so I'm not sure what the way to proceed with this is to avoid an edit war.

Incidentally, Anville is correct in stating that MIT students (undergrads, at least) don't give a damn what the rankings are. Most don't notice; those that do go "Whatever, OK...hey, have you finished that 6.046 pset yet?" --tiffanicita (talk | contribs) 00:22, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

Howdy. I don't want an edit war either. And my personal POV is that the US News rankings are not very insightful (although the individual portions that make up the ranking can be useful info to convey some stats and some POVs of the "academic community". However I have learned (often the hard way) that outright removal of facts is usually a wiki no-no. Instead, the question is of where the facts belong and what prominence they are given. So I will argue not to remove this factoid outright. I have no problem to it being moved, formatted, and/or caveated however you like.--67.101.68.103 00:38, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Interesting, but surely some consideration must also be given to whether the fact belongs at all - as a tour guide, I could insert a ginormous list of facts about MIT, from the number of Nobel laureates to the thickness of Kresge's roof. All would be actual facts, but many of them wouldn't belong in the article. So where do you draw the line between removing a fact as unnecessary, true as it may be, and modifying it to make it more acceptable? Obviously the latter is preferred, but if a fact just plain doesn't belong...but then, I suppose that's what we're debating. --tiffanicita (talk | contribs) 00:59, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

Actually, there's nothing wrong with a ginormous list of facts. What should be done is to make a daughter article that covers all those things that don't fit in the encyclopedic flow of the main article and don't fit in an infobox (e.g., there's already List_of_Massachusetts_Institute_of_Technology_people). If someone wanted to collect MIT's position in various rankings and make a daughter article of it, then you could simply on the main page add a basic sentence like "MIT has historically been highly placed in many rankings of colleges" and link to the daughter article.--67.101.68.103 03:15, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

When I read the sentence in question, I was surprised that we had dropped to 7 from 2 or 3 a few years ago. Not that this keeps me awake at night, but purely on the basis that it surprised me, I think this fact belongs in the article. --Mike Lin 02:18, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

OK, I can't resist: perhaps it's dropped in part because the administration doesn't treat undergraduates like adults anymore?--67.101.68.103 03:15, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Maybe its dropped because the data used to establish the rankings has a lot of false precision and a great deal of noise... and because if the ranking stayed pretty much the same every year, nobody would bother buying U.S. News and World Report, so they actually have an incentive to use questionable data and suppress anything that would help you estimate its variance. When Consumer Reports rates dishwashers on a point scale, they will usually have a disclaimer that "differences of so many points are not significant." Ditto the political polls. If U. S. News were honest, they would probably say "differences of less than five in rank are not significant." Dpbsmith (talk) 20:01, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

While its prestige score has been the same every year that US News has been published, MIT's overall US News ranking, like that of other schools' fluctuates somewhat from year to year. It is generally ranked from 2nd to 4th, and was ranked 7th in 2005.

Come on, at least try to sound neutral. --Mike Lin 16:52, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Re. edits of today: I think we had come to some sort of consensus on the talk page that including bare facts of prominent rankings is not 'boosterism'.

Not that I'm aware of. Dpbsmith (talk) 01:31, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Dpbsmith, if you read this, I would request that we hash out a different location or daughter page for these items if you don't like where they are... but wikipedia is a repository of facts, so these belong in there somewhere. I argue that to exclude facts on rankings is to take the POV that rankings are either unfair or inherently boosterist. The NPOV thing is to include the facts. Put them wherever (wikipedia is not paper). It's not like the sentence said "MIT is the bestest because so and so said so!"--67.101.68.103 01:17, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

I could tolerate it on a different page. (Personally, I think this talk page would do very well.) But if it must be in the main namespace, at least keep it out of the main article. WIkipedia is not an indiscriminate repository of facts. Something can be 100% true and utterly inappropriate for Wikipedia. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia.

Encyclopedias do NOT go on for paragraphs and paragraphs with admissions-office drool about universities ranking 8th in this ranking or that. As has been discussed above, a) MIT's reputation rests on its being MIT, not on its being almost as good as Stanford; b) the U. S. News rankings are not important to students considering whether to enter MIT or students while they are at MIT.

Nobody would even think of putting this garbage in the MIT article if it weren't out of a feeling that we have to compete with other university articles that are putting similar garbage in their articles. Dpbsmith (talk) 01:31, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, ok, I suppose I was overgeneralizing. But basically, I would classify major rankings as "almanac" material. And I think almanac material is normally encyclopedic. If nothing else, I don't see that as currently an explicit "not" in the "indisriminate facts" list.

I agree with you about eliminating admissions-office drool, but I wouldn't consider rankings to be that.

I can't speak for anyone's motivations but by own re. putting various things in college articles. What I can say for myself is that I think the pendulum is swinging too far if we don't mention rankings that are commonly followed in the academic world. That's not to say that I think these rankings are nearly as insightful as people say they are. But they are "almanac" facts that I think readers would like to know.--67.101.68.103 03:15, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

The question is, when does a ranking tell you something significant about the nature of a school, and when is it just promotion or braggadocio? It is significant that Harvard has the largest endowment in the world, for example. It can be argued that sometimes first/second/third place rankings are interesting. For example, it is appropriate for first, second, and third-oldest colleges in the U.S. to mention that fact. But Rutgers should just be "founded in 1766," not the "eighth oldest" or whatever the heck it is. I'm very leery of the U.S. News rankings because they're taking as measures of overall wonderfulness, but at least U.S. News has some standing as an arbiter. Atlantic Monthly doesn't. And Washington Monthly? WTF? I'm sure that for every college there must be some publication that has called it the very best, but let's not make Wikipedia into a scavenger hunt for small ponds that have declared our alma mater to be a big frog.

(Actually, it is IMHO a significant fact about MIT that its library ranks so low in most ARL rankings, in comparison to other universities that are otherwise roughly comparable).

And, I repeat: other encyclopedias do not cite these rankings. Unless you can find me an example of one that does, in which case of course I'll eat my words.

Thanks for listening. Dpbsmith (talk) 12:03, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Technology Review on newstands. Big deal.

"MIT's alumni magazine, Technology Review, is one of the only alumni magazines in the world to be sold on newstands as a mass market periodical."

The statement is misleading, because what is sold on newstands is not really the alumni magazine--it lacks the class notes, the course notes, and probably the puzzle column. All the alumni stuff, in other words.

Conversely, most of what I receive in the mail is not really an alumni magazine. The 88 pages preceding the "MIT news" section have virtually nothing to do with MIT.

They might as well glue Popular Science together with the real alumni magazine.

Technology Review is sold on newstands as a mass market periodical because it is a mass market periodical. What does it have to do with MIT, other than being sponsored by MIT? Do MIT professors write articles in it? Do you even know where its office is located?

(MIT professors did once write articles in it. I think I remember articles by Theodore Postol criticizing U. S. defense strategy. But I don't think I've seen anything like that since it went mass-market).

And what, exactly, is this supposed to be saying about MIT? The implication of the sentence as written seems to be that MIT alumni are so fascinating that people want to read a magazine about them. Give me a copy of People and a copy of Technology Review.

So, MIT is trying to make money by selling a magazine. Big deal. It's about as significant as the University of Wisconsin selling its own ice cream.

I mean, this is less interesting than the fact that the Green Building is the highest building in Cambridge, not just "on campus." Indeed, this magnificent erection thrusts itself 100 feet higher into the Cambridge skyline than the tower of Harvard's Memorial Hall. (And that's not even counting all the antennas and cruft on top). Dpbsmith (talk) 01:47, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

You're completely right. And does MIT even make money on Technology Review anymore? My impression is it's at the point where it's basically completely published by non-MIT people, and gets to use "MIT's Magazine of Innovation" or whatever on the cover in exchange for dealing with stuffing class notes, and a little alumni office feel-good article, in the alumni versions. So basically, yeah, the magazine doesn't really have much of anything to do with MIT. --67.101.68.103 03:21, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! Dpbsmith (talk) 12:03, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

If people based their college choices on Wikipedia articles...

... see User:Dpbsmith/rank Dpbsmith (talk) 12:39, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Washington Monthly again

How can it be neutral to selectively cite rankings, made on very narrow criteria, by relatively obscure organizations, just because MIT happens to have a rank of #1 on that particular list?

No source is cited, but I assume that it is likely this Web page.

This is obvious boosterism. It may be very appropriate for the MIT News Office to propagate this, as they do in this publicity release, but it is inappropriate for an encyclopedia. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:45, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

P. S. The same article notes that "MIT leaped from near the bottom of the pack three years ago to near the top today." Can anyone at MIT, from personal experience, testify to anything that has changed dramatically enough to explain this? Or does it just suggest flawed and imprecise methodology? Dpbsmith (talk) 19:50, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Um, maybe MIT jumped to the alpha position because they built the Stata Center? (Joke.) Or maybe it was because of the Freshmen On Campus initiative. (Seriously a joke.) Anville 14:50, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

The only thing I can think of, since I'm pretty sure the reference was to the community service aspect, is the work-study community service program. I remember it was pretty new when I did it 3 years ago, and people loved the idea of getting paid to do community service (as opposed to getting paid to stack books at hayden), so I believe it's taken off pretty well since then. tiffanicita (talk | contribs) 17:32, August 27, 2005 (UTC)

I would hypothesize that in addition, they also took into account in some manner, a) that a lot of universities will call activities like research work-study (Harvard) while at MIT, work-study is defined classic community service, and b) that a lot of community service at MIT is student run and entirely volunteering. In the first version, only the number of students on federal work-study was tracked and Harvard was very high (top?) of the list. Work-study options have also become more heavily advertised. Janet13 05:44, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

I really, really don't want to get into a protracted debate over this, particularly since I'm going to take a Wikibreak of indefinite duration once my current FAC is closed (one way or the other). However, I've read this Talk page twice over, and I can't find a consensus to include Washington Monthly ratings — certainly, I don't see a point at which either Dpbsmith or myself got talked out of our positions. ;) On those grounds, I zapped the sentences in question, and I zapped them again when an anon restored them. Really, there are better reasons to love TFP than what some random magazine says; why not write about them? Including ratings, especially from dubious sources like this, reeks of laziness.

I also find the anon's edit summary ("re-add consensus wording") to be disingenuous. Speculation over the Washington Monthly's motivations — and that's all I see here — does not constitute a consensus. Anville 23:50, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

I took it to be consensus because it after haggling months ago, it had stayed intact for a while. I did not intend to be disingenuous. While I personally think it is POV to completely erase almanac-level info (as opposed to moving/explaining it somewhere), I am not going to put this in again. Believe me, as an MIT alum (which shouldn't matter if I am), I don't think any of these mag rankings are insightful. But that doesn't mean they aren't *notable*. They sure show up a lot of places and seem to be something people want to know. Thus, I say that to ignore it is to basically push the POV that they should be surpressed.--67.101.69.123 00:54, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Nobody has answered my original question: how can it be neutral to selectively pick an obscure ranking in an obscure publication just because MIT happens to rank #1? You know, it smacks of insecurity and desperation.

I'm happy to take a shot at this. Any institution's encyclopedic entry should cover what is unique about said institution. If Mount Holyoke College is judged to have one of the best-looking campuses, it is notable and interesting to include that ranking in its entry (as it does). If UCLA does very well in the National Research Council ranking of Ph.D. programs, it should list that (as it does). When I read that entry I think "wow, I didn't know that about UCLA." Those are both specialty rankings which reveal that certain universities excel in certain dimensions. It's an entirely different matter if they claimed to be the #1 overall university in the world based on some obscure ranking in a local newspaper. Here, the inclusion of the Washington Monthly (hardly an obscure publication) ranking of universities by contribution to public service is very interesting indeed. It indicates that in addition to being an outstanding overall university, MIT is a great contributor to public service in a way that other overall outstanding universities might not be. While the current wording is quite clunky, I would still argue strongly for inclusion (with some editing). - BrassRat 05:02, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Why mention a ranking at all? Why not simply document what MIT actually does in the way of public service? The article has never done this, and it still doesn't. If it's so characteristic of MIT, why is it that the article has never said anything about MIT's public service other than to say "Look! We're #1?" Dpbsmith (talk) 02:17, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I *did* put in specific things MIT students do. You reverted it. Now it mentions a specific outreach activity rather than a general statement. Look at my [14] under "External Activities." :P Janet13 21:50, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

The original source of this factoid was [web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2005/rankings-service.html the MIT News Office]. Now, it is just fine for the MIT News Office to call the world's attention to anything that reflects favorably MIT; that's their job. But that is not Wikipedia's job. We're an encyclopedia, not an MIT publicity department.

Rankings? One of MIT's notable distinguishing characteristics relative to other top universities is that its library system is surprisingly weak. (This has been true for decades). Its ranking among university libraries, surveyed by the Association of Research Libraries [15], is 73rd in total number of volumes, and ranged between 43rd and 106th in eighteen different characteristics. Should that go in the article? Or is the rule that the article only should only mention rankings in which MIT happens to rank well? Dpbsmith (talk) 02:20, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

I'd say that yes, since this statistic looks reasonably up-to-date, we have every reason to mention it. I recall reading, probably about a year ago, that the librarians themselves weren't too happy with the situation. All too often, the books that people need are archived off in the "Retrospective Collection", and it's a pain to move them back and forth again (that happened to me once with a Jerry Mander book). If I can dig the article up I'll post a link. Anville 17:18, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Another way to look at MIT's library: in the ALA Library Fact Sheet ranking all libraries in the U.S. by number of volumes, we find: #1, Library of Congress, 29.6 million; #2, Harvard, 15.2 million; #3, Boston Public Library, 14.9 million; #4, Yale, 11.1 million... #17, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 7.2 million ... #55, Cuyahoga County Public Library, 3.5 million... #89, Syracuse University Public Library, 2.9 million... and, before you follow the link and look it up, where do you think MIT ranks?

(Go ahead, someone, tell me that it doesn't matter because MIT students can always go to the Boston Public Library...) Dpbsmith (talk) 01:25, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Does this ranking take digital volumes and resources into account? A lot of research at this level is primary research, e.g. journal articles, and MIT has digital subscriptions to a large number of them. Janet13 21:53, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

1) No, I don't think they count "digital" assets.

2) It's probably irrelevant as other universities probably have them, too. Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Illinois were all original ARPANet nodes, and I think it's unlikely that they are any less "Wired" than MIT. Yet they all have fine libraries three to five times larger than MIT's.

3) The relative deficiency of MIT's libraries relative to those of other institutions of similar caliber has held true for decades and decades; it is a tradition that longer antedates the Internet.

4) Yes, it is perfectly possible to conduct first-class research without access to a first-class university library, and MIT's 2.7 million volumes are nothing to sneeze at. It just seems odd to see MIT ranking lower than the University of Nebraska and the Fairfax County Public Library.

5) If you want to think physical libraries are relics of the days of slide rules, and don't matter, fine; by 2020 Harvard may have dismantled Widener and filled the stacks with disk farms, but as I write this, Harvard and Yale still seem to think their libraries are a meaningful point of pride.

6) Why do people seem to have such difficulty with this? MIT has many strong points. The MIT library isn't one of them. That's at least as factual as any other ranking you can come up with. It is a notable characteristic of MIT. If you like, it is one that it shares with other schools whose names include "Polytechnic" or "Technology." If you want to put a boosterish spin on it, MIT is the only such university to rank in the ALA Top 100 at all. Dpbsmith (talk) 00:24, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Chill. I think this issue got blown up way too much. It's the new version of the old and classic you can make up statistics about everything 80% of the time. :) And actual, Dpbsmith, I care a lot more about getting responses to the ESP/ESG and Splash/generic statements that you reverted. Refer to bottom of this talk at #Thoughts_on_Removal_of_Educational_Studies_Program_and_Experimental_Studies_Program or my comment higher up in this section Janet13 02:44, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Jerome Wiesner

We didn't have an article on Jerome Wiesner (and he wasn't listed in MIT people). I started one. Help would be welcome. Dpbsmith (talk) 14:01, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Jagatai

By the way you had better not to change the MIT redirection to Masacchusetts Instıtute of Technology,there are many organizations called MIT in Wiki,if you wanna come here,come from the disambiguation.

Redirect from MIT

I changed MIT back to being a redirect to Massachusetts Institute of Technology, because:

1) Almost all of the articles which linked to MIT, referred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (they should probably be linked directly

2) Out of the first 100 google hits on MIT, 97 of them referred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1 referred to the Indian Ministry of Information Technology, and two pages didn't seem to have a reference to any MIT in them.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology has a link to the MIT (disambiguation) at the top of the page.

Arun 02:25, 14 September 2005 (UTC) (disclaimer, I'm a Massachusetts Institute of Technology alum.)

Achievements / Awards / Honors / Etc

Should awards and things that MIT clubs, groups, extracurriculars, etc. have won be mentioned somewhere, perhaps in a new section of the page? For instance, MIT has won the National Collegiate Weather Forecasting Competition for the past 5 years. It would be nice to say things like this, and other important achievements. Nationalparks 05:53, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

• If we must have this sort of thing—personally I would prefer not to include bragging about relatively minor awards--apologies if you're one of the winning meteorologists—it is much, much better to collect it all into one separate section, and to relegate it somewhere near the end of the article. Dpbsmith (talk) 10:34, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Removed picture of Lobby 7

A while back, I zapped Image:MITlobby7.jpg from the article, and an anonymous IP put it back. Because I am cruel, heartless and vindictive, I removed it again. It's still available in Category:Massachusetts Institute of Technology (I filed it there); however, I believe an amateur photo of several dark blobs is not a worthwhile illustration for an encyclopedia article. Note that the columns aren't even vertical. This image adds nothing and is simply 25K we don't need. An appropriate illustration for the "Course requirements" section would involve more students pulling out their own hair and much more spilt blood. Anville 10:41, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

It's impressive that this photograph manages to be simultaneously underexposed and overexposed. --Mike Lin 14:17, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

LOL in a library! Anville 14:25, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

I concur. It's too bad, because if you could only make out what was a picture of it would actually be rather evocative. Those pillars in the background, those window mullions (if that's what they are), and the students in the foreground. I've just tried tinkering with it with Photoshop Elements, but the fact is the shadow information just isn't there. But the columns are closer to vertical now, anyway. Dpbsmith (talk) 01:55, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Mike Lin makes an interesting point. I wonder how you would get a good picture of the lobby? Does Polaroid still make XR film? Maybe one could take pictures in very rapid succession at several different exposures and blend them. Or I suppose one could actually, well, light the place... but it wouldn't be easy. Dpbsmith (talk) 01:57, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

I'll be returning to the ol' stomping grounds next week, actually, and I'll see what my camera can do. No promises! Anville 10:39, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Dormitories

Bexley Hall went through AfD a little while ago; the consensus was to keep but merge into a general "dormitories at MIT" page. Following that lead, I went through Category:MIT and merged all the other dormitory articles into List of MIT dormitories. Hopefully no one is too bent out of shape by not going through the whole AfD routine for each one. Anville 16:13, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Thoughts on Removal of Educational Studies Program and Experimental Studies Group

In my edit summary [16], I said "compromise move". I apologize for the confusion. I just meant that someone probably wanted that information in the entry (since they entered it in themselves) but the two groups (one is a freshman alternative learning program, the latter is a community service student group) are not labs/programs/centers in the sense that the Whitehead is. Thus, I removed it from there and moved links to the external links area. I editted the page today a bit, thinking my previous edits hadn't gone through (I had some connectivity issues that day). Since User:Dpbsmith reverted the edit, I will not do further edits on that page until after I get some responses to these issues. Janet13 17:43, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh, and I'd like to replace the mention of Splash! a program specific to only one of the 300 groups on campus with a more generic statement about academic outreach, as I had had in a previous edit. Janet13 17:45, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Yikes! I'm very sorry. I have no idea what happened. What I thought I was doing was reverting the insertion of the "Washington Monthly" by a IP-address-only user, which had the edit comment

14:25, 22 November 2005 67.101.68.76 (→History - re-add consensus wording)

I thought I was reverting to the previous version, hence the comment

"(Consensus? What consensus? Where?)"

I am completely unable to account for the degree of fat-fingering and/or mental fog that would explain what I actually did. I have no problem with the revisions you made, the ones logged as

13:23, 27 November 2005 Janet13.

I've restored them, and Teeeim's minor correction. So I think it's back to where you had it.

I have no opinion on where the Experimental Studies Program and Experimental Studies Group should go.

Again, apologies. Dpbsmith (talk) 03:48, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Would you also care to cease the "misleading" comments? The text that I had restored (which was not written in that form by me) had been there for *months*. See my comments in "Washington Monthly" discussion.--67.101.67.177 15:30, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

You're right. I've withdrawn it (a few lines above). If you wanted to snip this comment and your immediately preceding comment, I'd have no objection. On the other hand, if you want to leave it in, let me note that 61.101.67.177's edit comment used the word "consensus" as shorthand to mean that the wording had been there a long time and therefore presumably reflected consensus. It was a reasonable edit comment and not intended to mislead. Dpbsmith (talk) 17:49, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for thhe clarification. I do sincerely appreciate it.--67.101.67.177 00:49, 6 December 2005 (UTC)