Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pforzheimer House

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. `'mikka (t) 03:17, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pforzheimer House

As per WP:BAI point 4 dormitories are non notable _Doctor Bruno_^_Talk_/_{E Mail} 14:16, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

• Comment (as on the other two) There are twelve undergraduate residential Houses at Harvard, the nine traditional Harvard Houses (south of Harvard Yard) and the three traditional Radcliffe Houses, at the Quad. Any reason why you've nominated only the three Radcliffe Houses? Seems to me we should nominate all twelve as a group or none. Fan-1967 15:14, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep or merge to a list of Harvard houses or an article on the House system in particular. To describe it simply as a dormitory is missing some of the point; it is also a basic operating unit of the school. Christopher Parham (talk) 15:40, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

As I stated above, this is inaccurate for the purposes of this discussion. They are a basic administrative unit of the school ,not a basic academic unit. Harvard college is notable academically, not administratively. So they are not much more than dorms elsewhere, though some of them are a little prettier.Delete. Hornplease 06:36, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

• Weak keep or merge to Quadrangle (Harvard). Notable building at notable university. (Whatever happens, Cabot House and Currier House should probably share the same fate.) -AED 16:54, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete - Look at Template:Pennsylvania_State_University_campus and observe the judgement that went into selecting which buildings are sufficiently notable for an article and which are not. Now look at List of Penn State residence halls for a comprehensive list. Something similar should be done here. Flying Jazz 04:41, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per Christopher Parham. Failing that, merge. RFerreira 19:24, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep wikipedia is not paper. A splendid article. The object is of note for quite a few people. `'mikka (t) 00:23, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
• Comment: no merge. Merging a big article into a bigger one is exactly the opposite how wikipedia works/grows. `'mikka (t) 00:24, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep I recognize that "dorms" are not appropriate wikipedia subjects, but Harvard Houses are not dorms. They have independent endowments, athletic and artistic facilities, and grant scholarships. Some are hundreds of years old. Uucp 02:03, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
• Comments

1) Endowments, facilities, academic units, administrative units, and scholarships at other universities are not intrinsically notable. The fact that Harvard combines these functions with their living arrangements does not increase the notability of their houses.

2) If age were a reason for intrinsic notability then every class, every room, every stone at Harvard should have its own article. Perhaps the oldest buildings at Harvard are notable for their age. All of the houses are not notable because Harvard is old.

3) Countless college newspaper articles have been published for nearly every university that describe a huge volume of details including historical minutiae that are only valuable to someone affiliated with the university. Details about the names of house masters or how one house stole the other house's gong do not make this a "splendid" example of an article just because there are verifiable citations to the information in the Harvard Crimson. They make this a splendid example of the kind of insular "my-school-my-home-is-really-really-important" attitude that Wikipedia has tried, often unsuccesfully, to avoid. Show me a national or even a city-wide news story about "The Hastings Doctrine" or the rechristening of a house to a new name and I'll be more impressed with the notability of the subject matter. This article is of note for quite a few people affiliated with Harvard but not for a general purpose encyclopedia. Flying Jazz 04:02, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Comments/Response Actually, this is precisely where Harvard houses differ from dorms. For decades (in some cases over a century), they were allowed to select their own members and, despite official policy to the contrary, this apparently still happens to some extent. Newspaper or magazine articles about famous Harvard graduates do sometimes mention whether they lived in Elliott House or Kirkland House, for example, and this information tells you about the social class and hobbies of these people when they were young. (Hint: Elliott = rich, old money, Kirkland = more into sports than studying) Uucp 10:37, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

If Harvard houses differ from dorms elsewhere, that makes the entire house system notable but it does not make each individual house notable. Also, many universities (perhaps most) have living systems where one location has a lot of rich kids and another location has a lot of jocks. Flying Jazz 04:17, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Addendum A quick check of newslibrary.com shows hundreds of hits for "eliot house" and "harvard", over a period of decades, in newspapers around the United States (subtracting out the hits from the Harvard Crimson, of course). Nexis has hits in The New Yorker, New Republic, as well as regional papers like the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. I'm glad to send you copies of any articles if you'd like to verify.

"North House" and "Pforzheimer" have fewer hits, but are discussed in Boston, New York, Texas, and Illinois papers, among others.

Most significantly, when Harvard changed its policies about how students were assigned to houses in 1996, it was national news. See for example, "Harvard tries to break with tradition Students now to be assigned housing, diluting cultures of residence dorms," The Dallas Morning News, June 16, 1996. Harvard houses are not dorms, and they are notable. Uucp 17:56, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I would never argue that Eliot House isn't notable. I would argue that Eliot is notable and I also think the Eliot House article could use some work. I also think the house system as a whole may be notable. I'm arguing that Pforzheimer and many if not most other houses at Harvard are not sufficiently notable for their own Wikipedia article. I'm hoping for discretion instead of including every house at Harvard "for the sake of completeness" as an editor said here. I don't think Wikipedia should be about having an article for every member of a category for the sake of completeness. Eliot passes my notability test. Most other houses at Harvard do not. Flying Jazz 04:17, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I am amenable to this view and feel that a single article on the house system might be ideal. In addition to being more consolidated it might help stem the amount of triviality, which any article along these lines attracts. If these articles are deleted, I'll probably seek an undeletion to carry out a merge. Assuming you don't oppose such an action I'll use your comment to demonstrate the usefulness of such an action. Christopher Parham (talk) 03:28, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

A partial list of publications which have mentioned North/Pforzheimer in recent years include the Boston Herald, Boston Globe, Chicago Daily Herald, Dallas Morning News, Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution, New Haven Register, Portland Press Herald, Seattle Times, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and the Joliet Herald-News. Some of these are mere mentions; others are more extended discussions. I'm glad to forward copies of any for those who want to check. Uucp 17:16, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Rather than offering to forward this list of several publications to us, I wish you had made the effort to take the notable content about this house from just one or two of these publications and add it to the Wikipedia article with citations. This would have simultaneously supported your viewpoint and improved the article. My strong suspicion is that even the "extended discussions" in these publications say nothing notable for an encyclopedia. Flying Jazz 01:17, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

• Delete - famous Alumni does not make this house notable. Nothing inherently notable in the article. TerriersFan 03:25, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
• keep please it is a notable building at notable university Yuckfoo 22:38, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep The Harvard Houses are analogous to the individual colleges at Yale, Princeton, Oxford, and Cambridge, although Harvard is the only one of the five that uses the term "house" instead of "college". Each house has its own internal system of tutors and departmetn coordinated tutorials. They represent an intermediary locus between what people typically think of a dorm, and an independant liberal arts college. It is also important to know that just because dormitories are a "bad article idea", it does not mean they are forbidden, nor does it mean that this one in particular ought to be deleted. Why are wikipedia editors wasting their time going around nominating pefectly well developed articles for deletion just because the article doesn't matter to THEM. Just leave it be.Ivymike21 17:07, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.