Talk:Philomathean Society

Removed paragraph
I removed the following paragraph from the article:

Unlike other ancient societies at Ivy League schools, such as the Skull and Bones secret society of Yale, the Philomathean Society found it difficult to sustain itself in the 20th and 21st centuries. For example, the Philomathean Society almost nearly went out of existence after WWII but for the efforts of Hilary Putnam.

To the best of my memory, this is only partially true. It's true that World Wars I and II caused the Society to struggle to sustain itself. However, societies at other Ive League schools were no different; Philo is the oldest [b]continuously-existing[/b] literary society precisely because many others fell defunct at these times and were only later re-established (if at all). Also, to the best of my knowledge, the Society has had no difficulty sustaining its membership in the later 20th and in the 21st century.

I'll try to remember to research and source this and reinstate the accurate information when my schedule permits, provided nobody else beats me to it. Shimeru 22:32, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

Other societies
I've sectioned off the other societies for now, just for presentation purposes. If there's ever more to say about them, we can set them up with their own articles and disambiguate, but given the small amount of information there currently, that's not viable at the moment. Shimeru 09:12, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Oldest Continually-Existing Society
Just made an edit to make it clear that while there is a dispute about which is the oldest continually-existing literary society the position of the Philomathean Society, as far as I can tell from their website, is that they are in fact the oldest continually-existing society. So I stuck reference to the dispute in a footnote, and qualified the claim to be only what they assert rather than that of fact. New here so let me know if this was out of line! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.123.204.208 (talk) 06:49, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I think that was a very good edit. Well done on polishing up the phrasing too. Voceditenore (talk) 07:58, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

"Current bench" removed
I have removed that section completely. Such lists are completely inappropriate. The names of private persons, not notable in themselves, with no independent references, and labelled "current" (a meaningless construct) do not belong in the article. This trivia is of interest solely to members of the society, several of whom are clearly editing this article. This is an encyclopedia article, not an extension of your web site. Please stop using it as such. Voceditenore (talk) 07:51, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Fully agreed. Esrever (klaT) 19:02, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Esrever. I've done the same thing to equivalent sections in American Whig–Cliosophic Society, Philolexian Society, and Philolexian Society. I'm sure there are many more student societies with inappropriate "Current officers" sections. They should all be removed when found. Voceditenore (talk) 08:01, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Voceditenore, can you confirm if this restriction applies to the Head Officer? Information never hurts. Pfbeqrnrgkoprijuwnafj (talk) 01:24, 5 September 2019 (UTC)