Talk:Living Computers: Museum + Labs

commentary on cleanup and content pruning

This looks quite nice. I edited the sortable list to indicate which computers are available for use in the exhibit hall, and then online. I removed a few things that are no longer on exhibit. Several working pieces of equipment are on display, but only available for demonstration from the tour guides, rather than hands-on by visitors. I called that "demo". Can you add that to your database? Or show me where that is done?

Cleanup and content pruning

A large portion of this article's content isn't really appropriate for Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is not a catalog or directory and is not a primary source. Ideally, the LCM+L would have a simple and up-to-date list of all computers in their collection, and this article would link directly to that or would reference it as needed. However, it doesn't appear they have such a thing, and in any case there is substantial benefit to keeping such a list, particularly for having wikilinks to all the specific computers and models in the LCM+L's collection and exhibits. So I'm not inclined to delete the lists just yet, but it should be reformatted some.

The pictures of the computers are frankly useless. If it's a generic picture of said model, then it provides no more information than could be gotten by following the wikilink to the article on that computer. If it's a specific picture of the exact one exhibited at the LCM+L, that would be helpful, but rather than cluttering up this page, that should be presented by a simple category on Commons, and possibly a small gallery at the end of this article. --Bigpeteb (talk) 17:26, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Ah, and a quick perusal of the LCM+L's website brought me to http://www.livingcomputers.org/Discover/At-The-Museum/VintageComputers.aspx, which does in fact list the machines they have on display, with specific pictures of each one. So really, if this article does have a list of computers at the museum (which I'm fine with, but other editors can debate), that list should cite that page, and any computers in the list that aren't in that citation should have a separate citation to verify their existence and whether they're on display. --Bigpeteb (talk) 17:29, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

I concur that linking to LCM+L's collection page makes much better sense than maintaining a list here. Also, their photos are of the actual devices onsite rather than generic photos. I would vote to remove the list in this article. Plain Text (talk) 19:49, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Upon reflection, I actually support keeping a list of the devices on display at the museum. The most compelling argument is that there are quite a few devices on display which aren't mentioned on LCM+L's website, such as all of the video game consoles. There's also a utilitarian argument, that it's useful to have this page link to all of the specific models and devices they have available, in case someone is trying to track down details about a particular device. --Bigpeteb (talk) 20:45, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Collections

This edit removed the list of computers at the museum with the reason "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information". However, after looking for some other policies, I don't think WP:INDISCRIMINATE is a suitable reason to remove this data. A better guide would be other museum articles, and after looking at these and policies for them, I see plenty of reason to keep it. WP:WikiProject Museums/Guideline#Interior and contents and WP:Wikipedia for Libraries Archives Museums give examples such as Catalogue of paintings in the National Gallery, London and List of works in the Museum of Modern Art which have extensive lists of items in their respective museums' collections.

I do agree that the lists of operating systems, programming languages, and games is not as useful and comes across more as advertising material, so I didn't restore it. But I believe the list of computers as items in a museum collection is relevant, useful, and appropriate, and think it should stay.

Regarding primary sources, this is only natural for a list of items in a musem's collection. The other museum articles I mentioned do so as well, and this seems like a fair use of primary sources. In any case, the complaint was added after the list of items in the collection was removed, and looking at all other material in the article, I can't say I agree. Except for the lede, almost everything else comes from a secondary or tertiary source. --Bigpeteb (talk) 18:59, 6 December 2019 (UTC)