Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dudley House (Harvard College)


 * 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   no consensus. Stifle (talk) 17:41, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Dudley House (Harvard College)

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

College dorm that has not been the subject of significant coverage in secondary sources independent of the school. Hirolovesswords (talk) 21:52, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * There are separate AFDs running on 4 of 13 Harvard residence houses:
 * Articles for deletion/Cabot House (2nd nomination)
 * Articles for deletion/Currier House (Harvard College)
 * Articles for deletion/Dudley House (Harvard College)
 * Articles for deletion/Mather House (Harvard University)
 * As they have separate differing sources, they need separate consideration, but are related. -- do ncr  am  22:18, 27 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep. Nominator is on a spree of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Look at, omit the ones published by Harvard, and it still amply satisfies WP:GNG. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:56, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, User:Tryptofish, which specific reliable source(s) provides substantial coverage? -- do ncr  am  22:18, 27 January 2015 (UTC)


 * ,, , , , , , , , , , and, from Google scholar search: , , . I realize that there is some room for arguing about "substantial" versus "passing", but I still think the weight of all of these sources points towards satisfying GNG. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:51, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * None of those sources come close to significant coverage --Hirolovesswords (talk) 23:28, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I realize that this is subjective, and I also realize that you feel strongly about this, but I think you are pushing too hard with saying that none even comes close. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:41, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Significant coverage "addresses the topic directly and in detail, so that no original research is needed to extract the content". Not one of those sources addresses Dudley House "in detail". --Hirolovesswords (talk) 00:32, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I browsed several of those, and have to agree with Hiroloveswords. Novels mentioning it?  Of the Google scholar ones, the links go to Wiley online or other sites that require login;  I can't see the full articles, and of what's available, only the last one displays "Dudley House".  Full text is available elsewhere.  That's just a memorial statement about a Harvard dean, which merely mentions that among other things he "oversaw the physical renewal of the campus with the renovation of the Yard dormitories, the conversion of Lehman Hall into Dudley House, the renovation of Emerson, Boylston, and Harvard Halls, the construction of the Science Center, Mather House, and Peabody Terrace."
 * That is pretty useless. I do tend to think the topic is likely to have been covered somewhere, but Tryptofish, could you provide less:  one or two sources that really do cover the topic?  Perhaps copy a passage to here?  Or better, add substantially to the article? -- do  ncr  am  20:58, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, I will do that, below. I actually have never edited that page, and came to this AfD from seeing a message about it on another editor's talkpage, so it is not uniquely my responsibility to revise it right away, but I do accept my responsibility to provide sources in an AfD discussion, and I acknowledge that I was hurried and bit sloppy in my list above, sorry. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:16, 29 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Neutral for now. I am somewhat conflicted on this one. Although I am leaning towards a weak keep, I have three reservations with the article. First, while the subject has gotten a fair amount of passing mention in secondary sources, I am finding very little that I'd call "in depth." Secondly, with apologies to whoever rated it as a START, this looks more like a borderline stub with little hope for significant expansion. In theory stubs should be created only when there is some reasonable expectation of future expansion into a more full bodied encyclopedic article. And lastly this feels like an unnecessary content fork. On the basis of those points I think an argument could be made for a merger into Harvard College. But yeah, this seems like a subject that should be notable and I certainly would oppose an outright delete. For now I will sit on the side. I would like to see what other experienced editors have to say. -Ad Orientem (talk) 22:29, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Merge and redirect to Harvard College per my above stated concerns. There just isn't enough here to justify a stand alone article and the sourcing is too thin. This can be reversed if and when we find some in depth RS coverage. But right now, I'm just not seeing it. -Ad Orientem (talk) 21:21, 28 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep The topic is covered in works such as Harvard: An Architectural History. In any case, there are obvious alternatives to deletion which should be followed per our editing policy. Andrew D. (talk) 23:32, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh really? It's turning out that Dudley House is not a building (see below), so can you clarify?  This book is cited in one or more of the linked, related AFDs, but maybe in this case it is not relevant.  If there is useful coverage there, then copying a passage to here, or, better, actually developing the article directly, would be appreciated. -- do  ncr  am  20:58, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I am well aware of the nature of the place because the source I cited provides details on pages 231 and 322. Lehman Hall, which was formerly the Bursar's Office, is further described on other pages including 158-159.  Both names appear in the index and this is a significant indicator for me in determining whether we should retain them as blue links.  And this is just one of many such sources. Andrew D. (talk) 17:10, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
 * It's a stub. We don't delete stubs just because they're stubs. EEng (talk) 08:44, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Massachusetts-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 11:51, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Architecture-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 11:51, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Schools-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 11:51, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: Listed at Talk:Harvard University and Talk:Harvard College. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:55, 28 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment: article lacking. What is Dudley House?  The article is poor and unclear, it actually calls it a "house" (in quotes) and may be describing a virtual grouping rather than a residence, though there is a picture of one building identified as Dudley House in its caption.  The article states it is "serving the very few Harvard undergraduates not living in one of the other twelve (residential) houses" but that is opaque to me, maybe it means that all undergrads living off-campus are defined to be in this "house", or maybe it's the last choice housing and all other undergrads do live there.  Is it a residence or not?  I pay attention to this because at the parallel Mather House AFD, it was noted by an editor that "Dudley House is not a residence".  At this point, I don't know.  Is it the same or different than the other 12 "houses"?  It's certainly not a good article right now, maybe it should be deleted, if it is not quickly improved. -- do  ncr  am  20:21, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I happen to know the answer to your question. All of the other Harvard houses are actual residence halls. Dudley House, as EEng correctly said, is not a residence hall. It is a building in Harvard Yard, that serves as the office and meeting place of an administrative structure for students who choose to live off-campus, instead of living in one of the other, on-campus, houses. Such students living off-campus are said to be members of Dudley House, instead of being members of one of the other houses. I partly agree with you that the page, like the related pages that have been nominated for AfD, needs work, but that is not the same thing as failing notability. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:32, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Actually, the picture is of Lehman Hall, which is where Dudley House has its offices. Most people just forget than and think of the building itself as "Dudley House". This weird "virtual-House-in-actual-Hall" setup is an artifact of Harvard's attempts to pretend offcampus living (there are only a very, very few undergraduates living off-campus) is on a par with on-campus living, which it's really not.
 * Anyway, to help bring an end to this silliness, I added Lehman Hall in bold -- I forget what you call that, when the article is really two articles in one. Anyway, Lehman Hall, the building, is incontrovertibly notable --  . EEng (talk) 21:15, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Good point. Perhaps the best thing to do is, since Lehman Hall (Harvard University) is a redirect to Dudley House (Harvard College), would be to rename the page as something like Dudley House and Lehman Hall (Harvard University). It's perfectly logical to treat the "house" and the actual building as a single subject and, together, they clearly satisfy GNG. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:03, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I will acknowledge that some of those sources EEng cited are from the student newspaper, and thus are not independent. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:16, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * No, actually, a student newspaper financially and editorially independed of the school is certainly, well, independent. Just because the paper primarily reports on happenings at the school has nothing to do with it; otherwise, nothing happening in Smallville could ever be considered notable, on the argument that the Smallville Gazette somehow isn't indpendent. (Whether the Crimson is a RS is a different question. It is, but as with all student newspapers it needs to be used with caution.) EEng (talk) 08:44, 31 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete I appreciate E Eng and Tryptofish trying to provide some information, but there are no sources shown here.  Onus is on article supporters to find sources;  they have not.  The article currently has one source, http://dudley.harvard.edu/, supposedly supporting an assertion about whom the house is named for.  The source does not in fact support that assertion.  I suggest that interested editors could develop the "Lehman Hall" topic, changing it from a redirect, if there are sources about that real building.  But "Dudley House" appears not Wikipedia-notable, and a combo article proposal sounds unwieldy and a draft is nowhere in sight, so the simple best AFD outcome is that "Dudley House" should be deleted. -- do  ncr  am  21:20, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Huh? We pointed you to, among many other sources, two-page writeups in serious architectural works, here and here . That's more than enough. You seem to think the sources need to be in the article -- they don't. EEng (talk) 21:36, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Those two sources are the Bunting and Shands-Tucci sources, which do NOT have two pages of coverage. I quote them fully below and see them as inadequate.  Right, they don't have to be in the article. -- do  ncr  am  02:04, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Strictly speaking you are correct that the sources don't need to be listed in the article. But when you have an article citing only one non-RS source they probably should be listed, along with the relevant page numbers so we know we have the in depth coverage called for by GNG. -Ad Orientem (talk) 22:01, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I continue to believe that the subject of the page is properly both Dudley House and Lehman Hall, whatever the page name is. I want to respond seriously to what Doncram asked of me about sources, and I can:
 * T1- : A book about architecture that has an extended passage starting on page 158, discussing and appreciating Lehman Hall's architecture. Reply 1 from Doncram, below.
 * T2- and : Two books, about Harvard and about Massachusetts politics, respectively. Each has extended passages devoted to the role of Dudley House in bringing lower-income students to Harvard, including how this process gave rise to changes in state politics.
 * T3- : A history that notes the location of Lehman Hall as the site of the Constitutional Convention of 1780. Reply 2 from Doncram, below.
 * T4- : Another book that appreciatively appraises the architecture of Lehman Hall. ("Notable for its beautifully detailed main entrance..." etc., page 53) Reply 3 from Doncram, below.
 * T5- and : An autobiography, and a book about urban social interactions, both maybe a bit less important than some of the other sources, but both writing in some detail about Dudley House. Reply 4 from Doncram, below.
 * T6- : A scholarly paper about "community" in higher education: "For example, Harvard's Dudley House for graduate commuter students includes a computer room; recreation area; fireside room; dining hall; coffee shop; and offices for a house administrator, a faculty master, and several student program assistants..." Reply 5 from Doncram, below.
 * T7- : A scholarly paper about renovation of university buildings: "Lehman Hall (1925), designed to house the offices of the university comptroller, now provides the dining, common rooms, and offices of Dudley House..."
 * I think that we do have enough to satisfy GNG. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:16, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I inserted indented critical comments about several items above.  I appreciate your trying, but these do not seem to add up, to me, to anything like the writeup of the nomination for historic site listing, that say a California State Historic site would have, in order to justify a Wikipedia article. -- do  ncr  am  02:04, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * You are welcome. I have uninserted them, because they made my own comment unreadable, and I have moved each of them just below. The standard here is not whether the sources are the same as the sources for some page about California sites, because that would be WP:OTHERSTUFF. Instead, the standard here is primarily WP:GNG, which the page passes (and WP:NOT, which does not appear to be at issue.) --Tryptofish (talk) 17:05, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah, gee thanks, you lost the correspondence of my comments to what they discussed, and you felt free to intersperse your comments within mine...doing to me what you objected to. Okay, well, I think it is less readable now, but I am trying to make this work by inserting codes T1, T2 etc. for Tryptofish 1, 2, to try make sense of it. -- do  ncr  am  12:28, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
 * on T1 above Reply from Doncram, moved here by me. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:59, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks. This is Bunting, Harvard: An Architectural History.  I don't see any very extended passage.  There's a picture of Lehman Hall in figure 134 with caption "Lehman Hall, seen from the Yard", and it appears with other buildings in a figure 133.  And on page 158 it's described as part of a cloistering screen separating Harvard Yard:  "The cloistering screen, built between 1924 and 1930 by Charles Coolidge, consisted of six dormitories and Lehman Hall (originally the Bursar's Office. / [paragraph about other buildings] / Lehman Hall was built (with funds from the business school) to house the bursar's office, and its public function is announced by an architectural frontispiece of giant pilasters repeated on both major elevations (fig. 134).  The building's mass is also sufficient to announce its official role and to define the triangular space on its east side, though its pilasters are out of scale with other buildings in the Yard."  and on page 231 "...Lehman Hall could be reconditioned in 1966 as Dudley House, the ninth undergraduate house, which serves as headquarters for commuting students. Changes here transformed the old main office, which rather resembled a bank lobby, into a handsome lounge and commons."  That's all there is about both topics. -- do  ncr  am  02:04, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * You seem to be equating a subjective assessment of "brief" coverage (in any case, a couple of pages) with "insignificant" coverage. The source is a reliable and independent source, and what the source says, minus the spin you put on it, is that the source considers the page subject to be noteworthy. It is well-established consensus that, for example, being highlighted in multiple press pieces over time satisfies GNG, without the need for entire books, or entire chapters of books, to be about the page subject. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:25, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * on T3 above Reply from Doncram, moved here by me. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:59, 1 February 2015 (UTC) Per that source, Lehman Hall is apparently the approximate location of a former meetinghouse that was the site of the Constitutional Convention. A plaque BEHIND the hall, not in the hall, commemorates the meetinghouse/Convention.  Seems not worth mentioning in an article about Dudley House, and probably not in a article about Lehman Hall;  there's no source about Dudley or Lehman that mentions it. -- do  ncr  am  02:04, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * This is a reliable and independent source that mentions it, relates it to Lehman Hall, and it is a significant piece of encyclopedic information. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:25, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * on T4 above Reply from Doncram, moved here by me. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:59, 1 February 2015 (UTC) You imply there's more, but the whole passage is merely "Built in 1924, Lehman Hall, designed as the university's business office, is now the social center of Dudley House, the only place where both graduate students and undergraduates can be members. Notable for its beautifully detailed main entrance, Lehman also boasts on both sides a heroic parade of pilasters, a bit overblown admittedly, but doubtless intended to mark the principal frontispiece, as Lehman is, of Yard to square. [Goes on to discuss two McKim, Mead and White-designed gates, on each side, that are more important, it seems to me.--doncram]"


 * That is in the campus guidebook by author Shands-Tucci, stated to be a "serious architectural guide" by EEng below. Appears to be paraphrasing from the Bunting source ("frontispiece", "pilasters").  That is nothing useful on the Dudley House topic.  I don't think the passage is serious or usable on the Lehman Hall topic; it self-describes its comment as speculation ("doubtless intended").  There's less than implied. -- do  ncr  am  02:04, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * It is still a reliable source that says, explicitly, that the page subject is "notable for" its architecture. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:25, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * on T5 above Reply from Doncram, moved here by me. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:59, 1 February 2015 (UTC) The first doesn't mention Dudley House at all. Lehman Hall is mentioned as the building where a Center for Lifelong Learning office was located, from which the autobiographer, a teacher, got assignments of classes to teach.  Not useful at all for either Dudley House topic or for Lehman Hall topic.
 * The second is also autobiographical. It's one mention "Dudley House" sort of interestingly makes a point about Harvard's paternalism, but it's not really a usable source. -- do  ncr  am  02:04, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I already said that these are less significant than the other sources, but they are both non-fiction works that do give more-than-passing attention to the page subject. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:25, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * on T6 above Reply from Doncram, moved here by me. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:59, 1 February 2015 (UTC) If that's all it says, it's no more significant than any other computer lounge that is open to commuter students, at any university. Almost all computer lounges are open to commuter students.  Is there a story that the other Harvard computer lounges are NOT open to them?  Not significant. -- do  ncr  am  02:04, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * No, this is a scholarly journal paper, not a book, and it is a reliable scholarly source. The point is that this computer lounge and the rest were selected by the authors as what they would write about in their analyses. They obviously did not describe every computer lounge in every educational institution. They selected a limited number of examples to illustrate the thesis they were making, and they considered the subject of this page to be significant enough that they selected it specifically. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:25, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I've refuted each of your critiques. But even if, hypothetically, I am wrong about some or most of my responses to you, this page still passes WP:GNG. There is enough sourcing to satisfy the requirements of GNG. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:25, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * "Refuted"? I think you responded. Let others judge if the responses are adequate.  I'm not moved; I am done, anyhow. -- do  ncr  am  12:28, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
 * At a minimum, we have T2- and, and T7- , that are neither refuted nor responded to, and that gets us to where WP:GNG is satisfied. And, despite differences in editor opinions, there is no consensus that those three sources are the only ones that satisfy notability. Indeed, there is a good case that there are more sources. A close based on policy, rather than on editor likes and dislikes, needs to be Keep. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:36, 2 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep Writeups in two serious architectural guides (Shands-Tucci and Bunting), plus a photo of it occupied the upper half of the front page of the Christian Science Monitor for Sep 25, 1925, with 500 words on its architecture and interior. EEng (talk) 08:30, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I inserted comments on the Bunting and Shands-Tucci guidebooks to the campus's coverage just above. The Shands-Tucci one does not seem like a serious architectural guide, at least not with respect to Lehman Hall, and that does not constitute enough of a write-up, or as a serious write-up, to be usable at all, IMO, in an article about Lehman Hall.  The Bunting one does not constitute enough of a write-up either, IMO.  Neither useful at all for an article about Dudley Hall. -- do  ncr  am  02:04, 1 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment I seriously appreciate E Eng and Tryptofish both trying, but I find the claims about linked sources (particularly the two "serious" architectural ones) to be overblown, and of those I looked into I don't see any source really substantially about either topic, Dudley House or Lehman Hall.  I think its best to "Delete" the article. (Or it would possibly be okay to redirect Dudley House to Harvard_College as Ad Orientum suggests, if more was added to the one sentence there, but frankly it seems better for AFD decision to be delete.  A redirect could be set up later, if it's actually covered there, with nothing lost.)  It seems appropriate to cover the virtual Dudley House idea as part of the House System section, though I see no big deal about there being a computer lounge and some other services available for commuter students, which is routine at all universities.  There's nothing developed yet about Lehman Hall in the article, to save.  Great, we've identified some marginal supporting sources here (nothing will be lost in a deletion).  An interested editor, if they actually found more adequate sources (which may well be available), could start an article on that topic.  Lastly, I don't think there should be a Harvard exceptionalism bias shown in accepting an article that would be deleted for most other universities.  Nor should there be a bias against covering stuff at Harvard, but there are lots of universities with more than 100 years history that have archives and campus historians and plenty of similar internal documentation of all their buildings, and we don't accept their stuff for buildings or social groups not covered substantially outside. -- do  ncr  am  02:04, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * You're proccupied with what's in the article at the moment, and as you really should know by now that's got nothing to do with it. GNG calls for "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". Princeton University Press, the Harvard Crimson, and the Christian Science Monitor are not "archives or campus historians [or] similar internal documentation" -- they're independent sources (as is, if truth be told, Harvard University Press as well -- but let's leave that for now). What you've so helpfully quoted above, plus the 500 words in the Christian Science Monitor, are certainly significant, whether it's as much as you (or I, or Tryptofish for that matter) would like to see in the article -- significant doesn't mean extensive. EEng (talk) 02:49, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Coupla more sources: Buildings of Massachusetts: Metropolitan Boston ... "latest volume in the Society of Architectural Historians’ Buildings of the United States series" "A number of buildings within the district are close to the proposed undertaking and have appreciable architectural or historic importance: Wadsworth House, Lehman Hall..." EEng (talk) 02:55, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I am NOT pre-occupied with what's in the article. I have reviewed sources suggested by you here in the AFD, particularly the Bunting and Shands-Tucci guidebooks that you hung your hat on before as each having 2 pages of coverage, which neither has.  Fine, you can move on to suggest others when those don't work.  But the "Buildings of Massachusetts" one, per what i can see searching on Lehman Hall within its google book, looks like it has less than the 2 guidebooks.   From what I can see of the second, which is "Red Line Extension, Harvard Square to Arlington Heights, Boston: Environmental Impact Statement, Volume 2", there is NOTHING useful there, it just mentions Lehman Hall among list of other buildings possibly having a construction impact from some proposed transportation project.  I have not seen the Princeton University Press, the Harvard Crimson, and the Christian Science Monitor sources.  Perhaps they do provide adequate coverage of "Lehman Hall" as a topic, though at this point I would be entitled to doubt that.  And you or some future editor would not be prevented from creating an article about that.  This is an AFD about Dudley House, and I've tried long enough and don't see substantial coverage available anywhere, and my view is it should be DELETED.  Not likely to reply further. -- do  ncr  am  05:05, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Why so angry? By "preoccupied" I meant that you keep saying things like Article lacking ... maybe it should be deleted, if it is not quickly improved .. draft is nowhere in sight ... nothing lost ... nothing developed yet about Lehman Hall in the article, to save ... nothing will be lost in a deletion. The significance of the two sources I just mentioned is that they refer to Lehman as (respectively) being among "exemplary and representative buildings" of Massachusetts, and "having appreciable architectural or historic importance". Sorry if I overstated re "2-page writeups" -- I was relying on the page ranges in the indices. You seem to be ignoring the Christian Science Monitor and the fact that (I repeat) signficant doesn't mean extensive.
 * To end artificial fussing that "This is an AFD about Dudley House" I've moved the page to "Lehman Hall (Harvard University)", since the sources most easily found are about Lehman. EEng (talk) 07:58, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Not angry. Don't keep attributing views to me, okay?  Maybe i was a tad irked having to repeatedly deny views you repeatedly ascribed to me, and disappointed that sources turned out to have less than suggested.  I don't mean to ignore the Christian Science Monitor source you assert, but there's no link and I don't have it.  I wonder, did you read the CSM source, or do you just have a blurb saying how many words it has, and you are assuming it covers what you hope it does?  And now you've moved the AFD article...this is like quicksand.  Here, I think the right thing to do was to keep it simple, and delete.  BTW in general I'm interested in helping develop articles and considering alternatives to deletion, and I'm usually voting Keep or Merge & Redirect.  My calling for Delete, eventually, is unusual. -- do  ncr  am  12:28, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Comment: suggestion for close Now the AFD nominated article has been moved, during the AFD, from Dudley House to Lehman Hall (Harvard University), leaving a redirect. Moves during AFD are usually not done; it complicates an AFD discussion and is discouraged, though not absolutely prohibited, by AFD guidelines. Seems to undermine the AFD decision process, and to be presented as a fait accompli. Whatever, I won't try moving it back. So what now? To the closer, please do try to rule on both: So I think the AFD should be closed Redirect or Delete, about Dudley House, with no judgment on Lehman Hall. -- do ncr  am  12:28, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
 * about the "Dudley House" topic The redirect does matter; it appears on widely used navboxes Harvard and Harvard residential houses.  In their contexts, readers are expecting coverage about housing.  I think "Dudley House" should not redirect to Lehman Hall, a building without housing.  It's better redirected to Harvard College (which Ad Orientum preferred, my 2nd choice), or deleted (my first choice, but I suppose anyone could immediately re-create it).  The AFD should be closed "Redirect" or "Delete".  If redirect, please judge all the way and indicate which is the target of redirect, rather than leaving that decision to a new RFD process.
 * about the "Lehman Hall" topic I suggest the current article, now at Lehman Hall (Harvard University), can be considered to be a new article, and just left there, open to being nominated for AFD, with no judgement taken by this AFD.
 * (I pity the admin who has to close this -- so much reading for so little purpose.) As seen in the sources now in the article, for 50 years Dudley House has been most closely associated with Lehman Hall, and that article is the right place to discuss it. Redirecting to Harvard College would be awkward, because each of the other 12 houses has its own article linked from there, leaving readers of Harvard College to be confronted with a sudden digression on Dudley House for no apparent reason. EEng (talk) 13:27, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Unwittingly suiting action to words, even as I was writing the above you were busy giving a dramatic demonstration of how absurd your idea is, by interrupting the already overburdened article on Harvard College's 400-year history and current structure with the information that Dudley House has a computer lounge in Lehman Hall . EEng (talk) 13:32, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay, yes, I was sarcastic in that; I did not expect the computer lounge comment to survive for long, indeed I do not believe it is not Wikipedia-notable that there is a computer lounge and other services for off-campus students.  What is so great about Harvard providing computer labs, when every university does that?  But, your reverting my edit lost link to the current Lehman Hall article, and lost clarification that Dudley House is a virtual "house", not a real one.  I would rather you improved the writing, which was indeed sarcastic and not permnanently acceptable, instead of reverting to a confusing, poor account that fails to clarify that Dudley House is fake, except for insiders who already know it.  Please I would rather you not be so adversarial.  The point is to improve Wikipedia coverage, not to "win" in an AFD argument, right? -- do  ncr  am  21:59, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I understand how AfD discussions can get heated and I'm happy to cut some slack for participating editors for that reason. However, you made an edit to Harvard College, that EEng properly reverted. That page isn't even the page nominated here, and it is of course in mainspace, where our readers (as opposed to editors) look. The edit introduced some inaccurate content and, by your own description, was sarcastic and not intended to be kept. That goes beyond sarcasm in the course of an AfD discussion, and is a violation of WP:POINT. It strikes me as unnecessarily adversarial, and it did nothing to "improve Wikipedia coverage". At any rate, I am glad that you have revised, in context, your previous "delete" position in this discussion, and that we are close to having consensus for "keep", as of this time. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:23, 2 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Moving an article which is at AFD to change its title is an acceptable instance of WP:BOLD and so EEng did good. There are perhaps lingering memories of a time when this used to cause trouble but the veteran admin Uncle G has explained that these were resolved many years ago. Andrew D. (talk) 13:22, 2 February 2015 (UTC) ""It used to be the case that one shouldn't move articles whilst they were being discussed. I should know.  I was the one who wrote that into the Guide to deletion in the first place.  This was for purely technical reasons: it broke the notice on the article.  And the Guide to deletion even said, in its very first revision, that the problem was avoidable if one was careful and renamed the AFD discussion page to match. Around 2006, a means was found to avoid this problem.  I was there at Template talk:Afd/Archive 4 as one of several encouraging its adoption into the mainstream notices, and it was adopted to make the mechanism that you see now.  The prohibition on renaming articles whilst they were being discussed at AFD went away.""

- Uncle G


 * Thanks, Unc Andrew. EEng (talk) 13:27, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) For avoidance of doubt, please note that I was quoting Uncle G there using the quote template — the man himself is not so active now, alas. The quote template doesn't seem to do a good job of making the status of the text clear.  I see you figured this out but I'll try tinkering with the format to make it clearer.  Andrew D. (talk) 13:36, 2 February 2015 (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.