Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/MIT in popular culture


 * 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 delete. ✗ plicit  13:16, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

MIT in popular culture

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

While this resembles several recent cases (Articles for deletion/Johns Hopkins University in popular culture, Articles for deletion/Stanford University in popular culture, Articles for deletion/Tulane University in popular culture, Articles for deletion/Yale University in popular culture) when it comes to failing WP:IPC and WP:NLIST, as well as WP:GNG, it is also a major mess in needs of WP:TNTing. Unlike most such lists aka poorly unreferenced collection of trivia in the form list of works that mention MIT, this has big chunks of prose. Which would be good except they are either non-bulleted plot summaries, or worse, pure WP:OR. References here are abysmally bad, this article cites The Onion as well as some images, among "highlights". There are numerous unreferenced claims, starting with lead: "MIT's widespread overall reputation has greater influence on its role in popular culture than does any particular aspect of its history or its student lifestyle... Because MIT is well known as a seedbed for technology and technologists, the makers of modern media are able to use it to effectively establish character, in a way that mainstream and international audiences can immediately understand" and later in the body "The use of "MIT as metaphor" is relatively widespread, so much so that in popular culture...Films set at MIT are less common than those that use the MIT name as metaphor."... "Some cinematic references to MIT betray a mild anti-intellectualism, or at least a lack of respect for "book learning"." There's more, but I don't think anything here is rescuable. Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a Good Article and doesn't even have a section on 'in popular culture', and unsurprisingly, this mess was started with an edit summary "copied text which had been zapped from the main MIT article". That was all the way back in 2005, when this OR was already deemed below the standards for the main article. Given there's no valid redirect target, it's probably high time to put this mess out of its misery. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 10:10, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Fictional elements, Popular culture, Education, Lists,  and Massachusetts. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  10:10, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete per TNT as a Trump University-grade pop culture list. Sheldon Cooper's disdain for the place and Tony Stark being an alum are worth something, but it's time to start over. Clarityfiend (talk) 10:25, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Schools-related deletion discussions. Necrothesp (talk) 12:06, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete an overly excessive collection of trivia. This would work as a controlled, focused on important points that can be referenced to secondary coverage, in the MIT article itself, there is no reason for this collection of fancruft.John Pack Lambert (talk) 12:39, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete - Poorly reference pop culture list. As stated by the nom, even the "prose" sections are mostly just more of the same, just without the bullet points. Most of the actual examples listed are less than trivial, and there are large amounts of WP:OR all throughout the article. Rorshacma (talk) 15:02, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete as a collection of trivia and WP:OR. Nothing to WP:PRESERVE. Jontesta (talk) 15:10, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete Almost a catalog. TheodoreIndiana (talk) 16:02, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Merge to Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It should be curtailed to only those works significantly set at MIT (e.g., Good Will Hunting). Goustien (talk) 16:49, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete The article is a mess of OR, random trivia, and unencyclopedic prose. Merging selectively is an option, but I disagree, as the info is far too trivial. Half of the refs are SPS, including YouTube, IMDB, others, and worst of all... The Onion? I was further surprised that this is B class? It fails B1, B3, B4, B5, and B6, I reassessed it as start, but I strongly support delete per nom. VickKiang (talk) 22:18, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete: The article is a malformed collection of original research and trivia. While there might be a notable topic hidden under the rubbish, this article needs to be destroyed before something better can be built. &#8213; Susmuffin Talk 09:04, 9 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete it's chaos of trivials examples. Agreed with deletion Kazanstyle (talk) 17:29, 9 July 2022 (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.