Talk:House System at the California Institute of Technology

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Contents 1 Article Generation / general comments 2 Dabney social membership 3 Mergefrom DEI (Dabney Eats It) 4 Cleanup 5 Booty house 6 Ruddock House Motto 7 Interhovse

[edit] Article Generation / general comments

This page was created in response to the ongoing discussion regarding the existence and format of Wikipedia's treatment of Caltech's House System. See Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Articles on Caltech dormitories. I hope others will take it from here and make this a good article. --Tisco 07:29, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The persistant (potential) problem with having one page is that some information is extremely House-specific; it's not obvious if such information should go here. For example, one person complained about the Church and Hovse of Blacker, TTBOAI being mentioned here; arguably, that's not really notable information, but what about listing of alley names in Houses which have them? Unless there's a standarized policy about what should or should not be in this article, I see the potential for abuse and vandalism. 131.215.166.9 10:23, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The point of an article should be to acquaint outsiders with the important facts about the subject. In my opinion, details like TTBOAI and a table of room numbers by alley are basically devoid of interest to anyone who has not lived in Blacker Hovse. Therefore, I don't think they really belong in a Wikipedia article. As you mention, these kinds of details feel more out of place in an omnibus article than in house-specific articles. I say that is by design. --Tisco 17:11, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

By the way, the Lloyd section currently mentions all of its alleys within a single sentence. That seems perfectly appropriate to me. --Tisco 17:30, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I don't quite feel like slapping a vfd on this article at this point, and I've contributed to some arguably marginal articles myself, but this seems like much too long of an article on a topic that is of little general or encyclopedic intrest. You don't see too many analagous articles for other universities, and those that exist are generally much shorter. I believe it should be condensed, and quite possibly merged into the general article on Caltech. --Ithacagorges 07:46, 16 Jul 2005

This article was in fact created as the outcome of a hotly contested vfd process, q.v. Formerly there was a separate article for each house, and condensing them into a single article was judged a compromise that everyone could live with. Please read the discussion there before deciding if you want to start a new process. --Tisco 19:50, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

As a deeper insight into one institution, this is great. I was at Caltech for 1 year, but being able to reference traditions as illustrative of a particular organization and set of people is very useful.

But they're all fine houses.

As a Techer, I'd like to see some mention of Rotation rules in any discussion about the Houses, but I'm not sure if this is acceptable under Wikipedia rules. Also, it might be nice to note that during the 50s and previous, members of Ricketts were known as Rowdies. This distinction is extremely important to those members of Ricketts who are from that time period, since a major cultural shift accompanied the name change, similar to the difference between current Darbs and "House of Captains"-age Darbs. CraigMontuori 131.215.90.179 17:03, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Hello again, Craig! I'm not aware of any Wikipedia rule that would keep Rotation rules out of the article. "Be Bold!" and put something into the article, if you think it belongs here. Or, if you'd rather, leave a note on my talk page explaining what you think ought to be changed, and I'll edit the article to include the altered or additional information. Or you can even mailto:bryant@alumni.caltech.edu and make your suggestions that way, if you want to. Oh -- I'll go and put something about "Rowdies" into the table right now. DavidCBryant 19:33, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm a little late to the party so let me first offer my apologies for commenting on what is now a "closed" discussion. After reading the VFD page and this article, I think we really should have separate pages for each of the houses. The House System article should be about the House System and not serve as a shell for articles about its constituent houses. Perhaps we should add some more information about the survey that was conducted to create the house system (my memory's a little fuzzy on this, but I remember something about a student and administration committee that visited several universities), more about the governance of the House System (there's just short mention of the IHC and inter-house sports. Details about the Fleming Cannon, the inverted pentagram, and which building number Lloyd is on the Caltech map seem misplaced in an article that is titled "House System at the California Institute of Technology". Thoughts? --Baldeep 23:57, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Baldeep, you're the two-year IHC Chair from '98-'00? The tour you mention was done to Ivys and English colleges in the late 20s. There was another tour done in the mid-50s before the North Houses were built, mostly to small, liberal arts colleges in the NE (Swarthmore and such). Additionally, Joe Rhodes toured nationally in the late 60s, but that was mostly for the purpose of studying Campus Unrest.

Should we mention the TURLI report which caused a good deal of campus controversy? We could also mention the fact that Rotation was suspsended from '59-'63 post-colonization of the North Houses.

By the by, how did NO get elected ASCIT Prez the year you and Jaideep left?

Thanks David, I'll put a link to Rotation Rules and maybe also a short blurb about Rotation.

CraigMontuori 131.215.90.179 08:39, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dabney social membership

While Fleming nominally has social memberships, they consider all undergraduates to be social members automatically (and they don't require social members to pay dues). So in effect, Fleming does not have social memberships. The same is true of Dabney.

I have been a member of Dabney for a couple of years now and have never heard of this concept. Thus, I am removing "The same is true of Dabney." The same may have been true of Dabney at one time, but not now. (Alas, the only copy of the old Dabney House constitution that I know of is in storage somewhere inaccessible.) --Virtualphtn 05:42, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Mergefrom DEI (Dabney Eats It)

If each individual house is not notable enough to have a stand-alone article, I don't think DEI should have an individual article. --Karnesky 03:20, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. The thing about DEI is that it has grown beyond just being a quirk of a Tech house, much like Pomona's popularization of 47 (which is in the '47 (number)' article and not restricted to an article on Pomona). 47 lore has shown up widely (it was big at Tech when I was there), just as DEI shows up throughout the world and galaxy. And for fun, another siting worth mention: DEI was the first half of the code to release the bomb in Dr. Strangelove. -Brian Leahy, Ricketts '83. 18:30, 06 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the code for "wing attack, plan R" is "FGD 135". And coincidentally, the initial letters of a blasphemous Ricketts House exclamation are "FGD". 204.210.29.236 05:19, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Interesting. If the use of "DEI" is intentional, "FGD" is almost certainly intentional as well. "FGD" is in common usage as Ricketts slang, usually in reference to the act of breaking an empty bottle against Crud Roof, which traditionally involves yelling "Fuck God Dead!" N6 10:11, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup

There is definitely some information here that would be a benefit to Wikipedia, but the current state of the article is shameful. I understand that this situation is the result of merging a number of disparate pages, but it has been several months now and it's time this was cleaned up. 63.201.92.7 07:44, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi! I'm a Lloydie (BSMa '73) who just recently signed up as a user on Wikipedia.

I read through the article, and except for a few minor grammatical and idiomatic errors, it looks pretty good to me. I'll patch those up sometime soon, but I'm wondering if someone has substantive criticisms of errors, or of bad style, or of something else of that nature I may have overlooked. If so please mention it here ... I'll be keeping an eye on this one for a while. DavidCBryant 22:52, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

The style of this article could best be described as sophomoric ... and that's being kind. —Quicksilver^{T @} 07:31, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you so much for your incisive, constructive, and specific criticism. DavidCBryant 12:45, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I think the article should start with an overview of the Hovse system as a whole; some of this information is at the bottom but it could be expanded and should be moved to the top. Some more information on the history of the Hovse system would be good too: a good source is here. Antony-22 03:13, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Antony-22 that this article should be reorganized. I read through the report he linked to. It contains a lot of valuable historical information. I'll try talking to Tisco first, though, since he apparently did most of the work to create this article (by merging the seven different articles that used to be on Wikipedia). DavidCBryant 13:31, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I did some rearranging and added information about off-campus housing. The History can still be enhanced with information from the previously-mentioned source, and the individual House sections should probably by harmonized somehow. Antony-22 11:06, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Booty house

Hi, N6!

I noticed your edit. Terminology must have evolved. I have absolutely no recollection of "Booty Hovse". "Foo", on the other hand, rings a bell for me. But it's been almost 35 years ... thanks for the explanatory bit. DavidCBryant 01:57, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

There was a change in the rotation rules in 2000 that strongly discouraged giving the frosh details about other houses' traditions and character. People started using "Booty House" when they wanted to trash talk a house during rotation without mentioning it by name. I'm not sure this is where the phrase got its start, but it's where I first encountered it. n₆^c 03:16, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ruddock House Motto

The Ruddock House motto is indeed "Virtutis mammilas exsugimus." It was decided at the last Ruddock House election. Please do not delete it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 131.215.172.225 (talk • contribs) 22:52, 17 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Interhovse

So Interhovse was brought back this year after it's 17(? last one was in Nov. 1989, this one was 2nd term for the 2006-2007 school year, but it was technically Interhovse 2006) year hiatus. It was also billed as the South House Reopening Party and took place in the four South Houses instead of all of the Houses. The plan is for it to happen again next year on its traditional November weekend. Is this worth a mention? -Craig Montuori

131.215.90.179 02:34, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

There's not a section for campus-wide traditions yet... it would certainly be good to put one in somewhere. Antony-22 07:14, 27 March 2007 (UTC)