Talk:Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science

Merger

Per [1] (broken link) on WikiProject Universities, departments and degree programs within universities lacking non-affiliated citations generally do not fulfill notability criterion for organizations. Because Wikipedia is not a directory and this article is just an indiscriminate, incomplete, or outdated list of notable as well as non-notable faculty members and alumni, it should be merged into the entry on MIT School of Science. When the entry on that article has grown in scope or notability (history, research programs/centers and accomplishments, notable faculty and alumni) to warrant an independent article. Barring any future debate, the merger will occur on August 28, 2007. Madcoverboy 05:25, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

The strongest possible objections. I certainly agree that in general we should not have articles on individual university departments. But sometimes we should. And a singularly distinguished departments such as some of those in this group, --some of the best in the world, at a university that is also one of the best in the world, is obviously another matter entirely. I would in fact think that for universities of the stature of MIT, many of the departments would be considered notable. We obviously need to discuss the point in general, or it will be a long battle, university by university. I think the concept wanted is "world-class", but I think the criteria to be taken into account need discussion. Attacking individual sets of articles may not be the way to do it. Incidentally, notability is permanent, so if a department ever was notable, it remains so. I also note that probably every or almost every present or past full professor at MIT and similar research universities have published sufficiently important work that they would be held notable at WP:AFD under the provisions of WP:PROF. And that notable alumni is universally defined in WP education articles as alumni with WP articles. DGG (talk) 09:18, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree that some university depts are sufficiently notable to merit separate articles. But policy aside, a factual correction. The McGovern Institute (where I am based) is affiliated with, but not part of, the MIT school of science. See http://web.mit.edu/science/deptslabscenters/index.html. Some of the McGovern Institute's associate faculty are from schools other than the school of science. McGovern Institute is an example of a general trend at universities to create centers, institutes etc, that draw membership from multiple departents and schools, thereby faciliting research collaborations that cut across traditional administrative and disciplinary boundaries. Charlesgjennings (talk) 18:57, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree also. To merge this into another page would make the resultant page very confusing and unclear and pronouns would have to all be spelled out so you can't write in a clear encyclopedic style. These are distinguishably notable and merging them would not only be misinterpretation of wp:note but also the clearity would be lost and much content would have to be deleted to fit the size of article guidelines (not to mention, these articles aren't assuming zero growth--i.e. we're not writing an article about something historical, but something which is current and will constantly be getting updated and worked on). Sentriclecub (talk) 09:45, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Objection. Exceptional cases as user DGG has mentioned. Prowikipedians (talk) 08:25, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

The article on the Center for Ultracold Atoms should not be merged since the center is a collaboration of MIT and Harvard, it makes no sense to merge the article with an article related to either of these institutions, because it is related to both.Johnpacklambert (talk) 02:28, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Encyclopedic tone

When editing Wikipedia, please take care to maintain a neutral (WP:NPOV} and objective WP:TONE, and to avoid WP:PEACOCK writing. The factual achievements at MIT can speak for themselves, without needing additional promotional language. For more guidance, please read Wikipedia:Avoid academic boosterism and Wikipedia:College and university article advice. Reify-tech (talk) 18:27, 24 May 2019 (UTC)