Talk:Traditions and student activities at MIT/Archives/2013

Page is a placeholder
This page is a placeholder for a more developed page on MIT student life and culture. The current description on the main MIT article suffers from link-spam and in-line external links, which degrade the quality of the article. This sub-page is meant to be either a list or article describing both the history of and types of student culture and activities at MIT.Madcoverboy 07:02, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Starting a new article because you don't like the existing one is not an acceptable reason --Steve (Slf67)talk 08:07, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

A capella groups
Added A capella groups "The Muses" and Crossproducts. Not listing the Christian and Jewish acapella groups because I don't remember what they are.

Proposed mergers
I have nominated a few dozen articles related to MIT student activities to be merged here. These nominated articles do not state the importance or notability of the organization, contain original research, POV content, or fancruft, read like advertisements, and, most of all, are orphaned and abandoned stubs. Although these article may merit inclusion within Wikipedia based upon previous precedents set for other university-affiliated organizations, they do no merit their own article. As such, each article will have its own entry/section here and when the entry has grown in scope or notability (by including history, traditions, notable awards and alumni, etc), it may warrant an independent article at a later time. Barring any future debate, the merger(s) will occur on August 28, 2007. Madcoverboy 15:36, 14 August 2007 (UTC)


 * The MIT Mystery Hunt article deserves to stay where it is, and I am not sure which of the reasons you list is the reason you nominated it. (It surely isn't an abandoned stub!)  As the article says, it has a long history and people come from around the country to participate (and participate on-line worldwide).  The "Traditions and student activities" article should summarize the event and link to the independent article, but that is all.  Qaqaq 16:06, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Mystery Hunt, Tech Squares, TMRC, and MIT hacks (with Roof and Tunnel hacking) are all close calls since they're reasonably well-developed articles and easily meet the notability criterion given their historic legacies alone. Nevertheless, I am concerned about likely original research (or at least self-referential primary sources), lack of references, and fancruft in the Mystery Hunt article.Madcoverboy 16:48, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I disagree that the article contains any significant amounts of cruft. As far as references, the article contains pointers to the MIT Hunt website and two magazine articles about the Hunt.  While I am certainly not claiming the article as it stands is perfect (I think the short "notable puzzles" section could be removed, for example, though I don't think it qualifies as cruft), I do think it stands on its own and would suffer by being shortened into a merged page.  Since you say above that the merge will only happen "barring any future debate", and since I am debating the value of the merge, I assume that the article will stay as it is unless there is overwhelming support for the change.  Qaqaq 17:58, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
 * As there seems to be no support for merging the Mystery Hunt page beyond the proposer, I'm removing that portion of the merge proposal. DenisMoskowitz 14:14, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Merges of non-contested articles completed Madcoverboy 13:34, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I would strongly suggest that the Time Traveler Convention be reinstated as its own article. As far as I can see, most things listed on this page are annual or continual events/activities, whereas this was a specific one-time event that garnered significant media attention.  It was nominated for deletion with a result of no consensus, although a glance at the deletion entry indicates a strong bias towards keep.  Joshdboz (talk) 13:31, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Style and organization
Thoughts are welcome on how to best organize this article from the current stubby lists. Look to Traditions of Texas A&M University, Carnegie Mellon University traditions, Traditions at Rutgers University as examples of well-organized and fleshed out pages. Madcoverboy 13:34, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Merge into
Revels - Cultural Fest of MIT should be merged into this article. I would do it however the information provided there is scant and I haven't found a lot more online. It'd be ideal if someone with more personal knowledge could incorporate that into this page, and setup that page as a redirect. I don't think the Revels article is notable enough to warrant a separate page, but if it's a significant event it should be covered here. Shadowjams (talk) 20:25, 25 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Looks like vandalism to me. It's the creator's first contribution.  No links and no citations.  I find no mention of it on http://events.mit.edu, a search at http://mit.edu, or http://kailashkher.com/tour.php.  If it was marketing for a festival that had ran for a number of years, and was "national", there would easy to find web sources.  I suggest you WP:SPEEDY, or if you want to be more formal, WP:PROD it. Lentower (talk) 22:24, 25 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I don't think vandalism is the right term, unless it's an outright hoax, but if people familiar with MIT don't seem to know much about it, and my research doesn't turn up anything, at the least it's not notable. I'll nominate it on that basis. Shadowjams (talk) 02:00, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Since the "Revels" in question is an event at the Manipal Institute of Technology, which is in India, I think merging the article into this one would be a poor idea. Guy who reads a lot (talk) 02:56, 27 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm removing the Merge templates. This is not related to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lentower (talk) 14:01, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Probable OR in 'Activities' section
The assertions that MIT has 380+ student activities and that they're "governed" by the Association of Student Activities aren't supported by the cited source. The second assertion most likely isn't supported by any source. --Dervorguilla (talk) 11:29, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Possible RS for Ergo subsection
Enterprising editors interested in expanding the subsection on Ergo might look at: Nelkin, Dorthy (1972). The university and military research: moral politics at M.I.T.. p. 106 "The Society of Radicals for Capitalism distributes 5,100 free copies of Ergo Newspaper weekly to the M.I.T. community. 13 "MIT and Military Capitalism," SACC Newsletter, September 26, 1969. ..."? --S. Rich (talk) 18:24, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Piano drop section
Here's a link that could be used as a source: http://alum.mit.edu/pages/sliceofmit/2012/04/27/heads-up-the-baker-house-piano-drop/ Professordad42 (talk) 21:50, 11 June 2013 (UTC)professordad42