Talk:MIT Media Lab

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I am opening up a discussion page, since this page frequently seems to get vandalized by some dude putting in references to "all icing an no cake" or "humourously described as the marketing dept. of MIT." This sort of colloquial critisism is inappropriate in an encyclopedic entry. I would suggest that someone revert to the page of 6-July-2005. I think having critism of the quality of some of the research at the Media Lab is fine, and, indeed, necessary to represent the lab accurately.

Nevertheless, it needs to be based on facts, and ideally, by citing others criticizing the lab, rather than by stating opinions in the article. Statements like "the Media lab's contribution to substantive scientific research is all but non-existent" are blatently false -- for instance, the quantum computing group had several firsts in fairly fundamental physics, and currently has a quantum computer capable of factoring 15. It has some of the top researchers worldwide in the field. Also, there are people there doing very important scientific work in several other domains. In addition, not all of the research of the Media Lab is focused on science, and, therefore, should be evaluated not for its scientific quality, but rather by the methods in relevant fields, such as art and design.

There is a second set of edits, also bordering on vandalism, from members of the Media Lab (nslookup the IPs which made those edits --- and to the people making them, moving from 18.* to your home connections is exactly the type of deceitful sleaziness people complain about), which, as far as I can make out, are to remove anything significantly negative stated about the Media Lab, without any given reason. If you are within the Media Lab, be aware that there is a conflict of interest in you editing this page. As a result, please state reasons for the edits on the talkback page. If you simply remove criticism you don't like, without explaining why it is incorrect, I will revert the page. If there are factual mistakes, by all means fix them, and make a note that there was a factual mistake. If there is a stylistic problem (for instance, you view something as too negative), fix the style BUT LEAVE THE CRITISISM. Don't just clip out anything you don't like.

Oh yeah. If you are at the Media Lab, please, please, please write the accomplishments section. I think this is probably THE major hole in the article. If you are genuine about helping make this a good article, do the work, instead of vandalizing anything in it that you do not like.

I'm currently working at the lab but editing from home. In terms of the 18.x's, please keep in mind that the people adding the criticism are in most cases also at MIT from "competing" labs.

In any case, I cleaned up the criticism section a bit and the last revision in particular which introduced some stylistic issues. I've reworked the style in much of the whole section and removed or moved a couple sentances that were redundant or out of place. I did not (IMHO) remove any criticism.

I would like to remove the paragraph on Nicholas Negroponte from the section because it's not clear why the fact that he has been involved in Wired "criticism" of the lab. This should be either explained or removed. As it is, it's confusing and is not particularly effective criticism.

-- mako 17:20, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

It's been nearly a month without reply to this so I'm going to remove the NN criticism. Please add it to Nicholas' article if you think it belongs in Wikipedia at all. -- mako 20:33, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 Achievements? 2 vandalism of MIT Media Lab page 3 theft of credit 4 intelligent design 5 Added Research Groups 6 MIT Media Lab Physics and Media 7 spinoffs: 8 "Institute Professor" nominated for deletion 9 First Picture

[edit] Achievements?

What tangible new technologies or inventions have been developed at MIT media lab? It's not quite clear to me.

eInk and Lego Mindstorms are probabliy the two of mostly widely known recent technologies that have been developed in the lab and then widely deployed but there are many such projects. I do not know if the lab itself has a complete list. -- mako 19:08, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] vandalism of MIT Media Lab page

yes I agree the criticism is a bit harsh. and then there are a lot of 18xxx commentators from inside...

Both the vandalism and the silencing of critics seems based in the MIT community. Much of this inter-lab animosity has a long and well established history. But it doesn't belong in Wikipedia. -- mako 17:12, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] theft of credit

"Historically, the Media Lab has had a problem with theft of credit for work."

Is this hearsay or are there some pointers to data that support this assertion? I'm curious as to how the Media Lab compares to other academic entities in this regard.

[edit] intelligent design

OK, I don't get the most recent edit, but I'm going to refrain from removing it at this particular juncture. A) how does ONE faculty members views turn into a criticism of the entire lab's "non rigorous approach"? B) I can't read the New York Times article; you have to pay; its a bad link to put as supporting evidence. C) I can't really find, after a brief internet search, any evidence that supports the idea that the Media Lab is a hotbed of intelligent design proponents; and D) although I don't agree with the theological implications of intelligent design as espoused by the most visible supporters of that theory, I don't see why there can be no challenge to Darwin's theories, no scientific search for a more complicated or different answer. So why does the viewpoint of a scientist who's viewpoint I can't even find become a smear on the whole ML? Maybe it just needs to be reqorded in a more NPOV manner. Ms ArtGeek 16:28, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Please. Remove it. I just read the article and Picard's name is mentioned in passing and in a list of other names. Quick googling didn't turn up much else on the topic except for signing that petition. I know of nobody else in the Media Lab who shares Picard's idea on this. Other more well known Media Lab faculty, like Marvin Minsky, are outspoken critics of religion in all of its forms. This is criticism of Picard and not of the lab and it doesn't belong in this article. I think it should be moved to her page or removed enitrely. There are 500+ scientists who signed that petition and I doubt that every institution that employs any of them needs a similar bit of criticism on its page. —mako 17:06, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Added Research Groups

I added the research groups and their leading professors to give a more fine-grained view of the lab, as well as provide a broad pointer to most faculty. It might be worth moving this to a new page. Any comments? - bwabes 01:25, 8 March 2006 (EST)

It's an awful lot of information and comes almost at the beginning of the article... there's a lot of scrolling before you get to the other headings... Is it overkill to have each Media Lab Group have its own entry (a stub at least to start with)? Then this section could be a list of links that only show the group name and project leader (which itself gives an idea of the scope of projects within the article). I do think it's good info to have somewhow connected to the article- I think it's important to show the kinds of work the Media Lab does, how it's different from many other MIT projects in its intent, and the fact that some of the subjects they have to heavily engage range from electronic engineering to psychology to art. Ms ArtGeek 18:04, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

As per your suggestion, I started a page MIT Media Lab Research Groups that lists links to future stub articles for all the research groups. I'll start moving the group descriptions to their own stubs, but any help would be appreciated.Bwabes 21:11, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I just encountered this effort as I was watching recent changes. Do you really think this is useful? These articles seem very close to making this subarea of Wikipedia into a web directory for the Media Lab, which is something we are not. I really think this information needs to be presented more concisely. Imagine if every university had an article for every research group! To answer Ms ArtGeek, yes, it's overkill. FreplySpang (talk) 21:35, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

The lab is different than other University departments which work around a well defined topic or area of interest. The media has everything from filmmakers to designers to quantum physicists. A list of groups helps demonstrate this fact and the area covered by this broad scope. —mako 00:24, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, I think it would work better in prose - for instance, your phrase "everything from filmmakers to designers to quantum physicists" conveys the idea pretty neatly. Presenting it as a list can be overwhelming to the general reader. But most of all, I would like to avoid having a large set of separate articles unless/until they can be fleshed out. FreplySpang (talk) 00:50, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I'll start trying to modify the information to be more concise.Bwabes 21:41, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. FreplySpang (talk) 21:46, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] MIT Media Lab Physics and Media

I suppose someone more familiar with MIT could confirm whether this new article is redundant or not. --Shuki 21:51, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

It would seem redundant, as the PMG is part of the Media Lab and is already discussed in the Media Lab article. Walter.bender 23:31, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] spinoffs:

Can anyone confirm that Wireless 5th Dimensional Networking is actually an ML spinoff? I'm not finding much about them on the web, and the stub about hybrid search seems totally pointless.

[edit] "Institute Professor" nominated for deletion

The article titled Institute Professor has been nominated for deletion by user:Kane5187, who says not all of the 10-or-12-or-so Institute Professors are notable. This while many MIT professors who are not Institute Professors have Wikipedia articles and are universally considered notable (and so do most of the Institute Professors). Please opine at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Institute Professor. Your input is needed! Michael Hardy 00:58, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] First Picture

Why is that first image even included? That's not (as the picture detail page says) what the atrium of that building looks like. It's kind of a cute picture, but I don't think this article is the place for it. Can we delete it? Right now it's just really confusing, especially with the second image (which is legitimate) looking completely different.

If people feel the article needs more images, maybe someone can get some from upstairs in that building? Seeing the working areas might be more interesting.