Talk:Milwaukee School of Engineering/Archive 1 (through 4 October 2006)

Move to Archive?

I think most of the issues on this page have been resolved and recommend that they be moved to archive to make this page cleaner for discussion of new issues. Items that may deserve ongoing discussion and probably shouldn't be moved to archive are "Material from MSOE website" and the question regarding Brooks Stevens in "Cleanup". Edurant 23:44, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea to me. TheRanger 00:10, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I also think this will work fine. Cheers, PaddyM 00:20, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Kent Peterson Censorship

I am a little apalled by how Kent Peterson, the webmaster of msoe.edu, is obviously censoring this article with his clearly biased information. This is an encyclopedia article, not a MSOE pamphlet, Kent. It does not reflect well on MSOE if you have to come here to cover up people's opinions that "look bad".

Hello.. I am the one who initally reverted your edit (others have since done so) and am not Kent Peterson. Please note that Wikipedia is not the place for personal commentary and grandstanding. See: WP:NOT and WP:NPOV for an explanation. 72.131.44.247 02:47, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

It is clear that the comments are listed as critism of MSOE's system and they are true. Having no relationship to the school I have heard these same statements from several sources and studnets of the school. The repeated removal of the information is clearly biased the entry. TheRanger 02:58, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

The personal commentary is unsourced, unproven, and POV driven. I also have no relationship with the school, other than living in the same city as it. It appears to me that your repeated revert is biased. Regards. 72.131.44.247 03:08, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

If you don't even go to the school, why are you editing the article based on speculation? I am currently a senior at the school and I think I am a more credible source than someone who "lives in the city".

As I have stated elsewhere... please source all of this "criticism." 72.131.44.247 03:12, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

As I have stated elsewhere, a person who merely lives in Milwaukee does not have the knowledge or experience necessary to comment on the environment or student concerns at MSOE.

Famous alumni?

There should be more information on Patrick Kennedy. He is not 1 of the 6 currently in Wikipedia Patrick Kennedy (disambiguation). There should also be more information on Daniel Seemiller. User:Edurant

There are many, many more famous alumni who have, especially, had founding or other instrumental roles in various well known companies in Wisconsin and across the country. KentP, I bet you could name several -- and, perhaps we should ask Jackie in the alumni office -- she could probably name 10 good choices for this category without needing to pause to think. User:Edurant

PaddyM, I noticed you removed 2 famous alumni on 18-Sept-2006 from the list (Patrick Kennedy and Daniel Seemiller). I respectfully disagree with your "nn" assertion. These were thoughtfully added in good faith based on my observations that many folks outside of the MSOE community are familiar with the achievements of these alumni; is there a more formal published guideline regarding this that I should refer to? Also, you removed degree and graduation year information from other famous alumni. Could you explain why you removed this information from the article? It is common practice at every educational instutition I have been involved with to include at least the class year when discussing alumni in publications. I am relatively new to Wikipedia editing and will gladly accept any information related to these items. User:Edurant

Yeah PaddyM, that was a bad edit. Those people belong on the famous alumni list.

Out of the two of them, only Daniel Seemiller even comes close to being notable at the institution, and only for his founding of the Ingenium. However, I can find no reference for that fact anywhere on the MSOE website. As far as Patrick Kennedy, google shows no hits for him except for the small article on the MSOE website and the wikipedia article. Not too convincing. Please see WP:BIO or WP:NN for more information regarding notability. As far as the graduation year and degree, I really don't care, but I was cleaning the article up. That being said, why don't you have a year/degree for Seemiller? Cheers, PaddyM 00:00, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

That reasoning seems valid to me, PaddyM. Using those criteria, I feel that the 2 you removed are marginal and I won't argue for their continued inclusion. I don't know what year Daniel Seemiller graduated; it would have been roughly 1982 -- too many facts to find, too little time. User:Edurant 00:56, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

For the time-being, I removed nn alumni, except for James I. Finley, until we can find a little more information. I can see Seemiller going back in, but is there any more info on him before we put him on the page? I'm just not convinced that anyone outside of MSOE knows Kennedy or Diercks. If they have some particularly outstanding achievement, then by all means, but right now I'm not finding them notable on google. I'm sure there have to be plenty of alumni in high-ranking positions, but just being vp/ceo of companies doesn't necessarily make them notable. Lets find a concensus on this, too. Cheers, PaddyM 18:37, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Retention vs. Graduation Rates

I recently corrected a large understatement of the retention rate. Perhaps the original author was attempting to estimate the graduation rate, which is lower, of course. It would be reasonable to include both freshmen retention rates and 6-year graduation rates (a standard measure used in the industry) if references could be provided. This information was provided at the 2006 faculty in-service, but I do not believe there was a handout with the figures. I cannot find the complete figures in my notes.

Criticisms

I'm not interested in getting in to a revert war with user TheRanger / 65.26.246.132 so I added a neutrality tag to the Criticisms section. In addition to being unsourced, I feel the recent contribution is POV driven, biased, and uses charged words. Certain points (such as overpriced textbooks and the cost of tuition) could be said of any school of higher education in America, and may be best discussed elsewhere. Based on my interaction with him/her on other talk pages I doubt I would be able to negotiate any sort of balanced approach to this. 72.131.44.247 04:22, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

No support for the 'harder school' claim, and the rest could be said of scores of schools. There is no real criticism of the school itself here, just a disgruntled student unhappy with the system. This information should be deleted out of hand. - CheNuevara 04:27, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

It has always been my view that the issue should be talked about here and not in reverts. That being said I feel that the removal of the neutrality tag is uncalled for as it is a directive to this page to talk about it. As to no support for "harder school" I see today it is cited and comes from a prof at the school and published on the msoe site which the rest of the ad like entry is cited from, that passes the test for me.TheRanger 15:44, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Adding a reference does not change the POV tone and one-sided viewpoint. I have since edited the entry in an attempt to provide this, but it could use more work. 72.131.44.247 15:55, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

You also "edited" (*cough* censored) some important information about the trimester system.

I have been trying to work with you to provide a balanced NPOV approach to your complaint. If you choose to outright revert my efforts, then it will be re-tagged with the POV template. I would also like to point out the Three-revert rule to you at this time. 72.131.44.247 17:45, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

You are both over the line with the Three-revert rule and if this goes on any longer both will need to be reproted!! That being said I feel that a middle ground is reachable with both the trimester issue and the grade point issue. Clearly it is supported on the grade point cited and the trimester issue is one I have heard from many sources. So come on people lets settle this in here and not a revert war that will need to be reported. At this point both of you are the problem on this issue!TheRanger 18:30, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I am done playing these games. This user will not allow any edit but his own... I have attempted to compromise with both of you but it has fallen on deaf ears. The continued reverts of my attemps at NPOV and removal of the POV tag is completely uncalled for and I am disheartened that no one else has come forward to correct this. It is my hope that this disgruntled student's personal complaint will be removed outright in time by the community. 72.131.44.247 18:40, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with 72.131.44.247 and CheNuevara. I resisted the temptation to delete this section outright, and instead tagged it with POV-section. The citation to Dr. Canino's quote is nn. As an alum of this institution and a current faculty member (stated here in the interest of full disclosure -- I'm doing my best to avoid bias and appreciate the editing that the community provides) I could state for the record my opinion about the excellent preparation MSOE gives it's students for tier-1 graduate programs and could name several MSOE graduates who are doing or have done exceptionally well in those programs. I could also provide statistics on grade inflation. And, I could state the advantages of the trimester system for students, but I do not think any of this belongs in this article. My statements would be just as valid as Dr. Canino's and just as biased, for the purposes of this article, as the current criticisms. When I look at the Wikipedia articles on many other universities, I see very few Criticisms or similar sections, and would not expect to find one in a traditional encyclopedia; it seems out of place here. User:Edurant 15:25, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Upon review of other college sites and the this page, I agree this Criticisms sections is out of place in a encyclopedia. That being said I feel that the talk page agrees it should be removed. The only ones left that may not agree have resorted child like acts of personal atacks and changing comments on this page. On that note I am going to remove the section now.TheRanger 15:44, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

• Agree - I'm glad to see it has been removed from the whole article. Everything is looking much better already. I think we should leave the clean-up tag for a little longer while we work to correct mistakes and whatnot (maybe for another week), and then we'll have a better handle of how the page should appear. Cheers, PaddyM 18:30, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

PaddyM I would agree we should leave the tag up a week or so as well so everything is a best as it can be.TheRanger 20:20, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup

I added a clean-up tag to this page. There are too many lists, the page has too much information directly from the MSOE website and the content of various sections is unsourced and non-notable. I'm not getting into an edit-war over how famous certain people are or are not. Cheers, PaddyM 21:46, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Indeed.. I'll also add that there are NPOV issues with this article which need to be resolved. Regards. 72.131.44.247 22:11, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I have supported some of the things added to the critcism section and feel some of the truely have a place here. However I am imbarresed by the latest actions of the few who are engaging in a personal attack war on people do a honest effort to edit the page to have it be it's best. The attacks on a personal level to PaddyM as well as 72.131.44.247 are way out of line and really bring this page to low.TheRanger 02:34, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm trying to get the page to a point where the clean-up tag can be removed. I tried to address the largest concerns, especially that the article was approaching a list of lists. I feel the Criticisms section shows a strong NPOV and would like to see it cleaned up. I won't argue with the person who removed "challenging" as describing the curriculum, but certainly we should give the same respect to neutrality regardless of the direction of bias. Best Regards, User:Edurant 00:50, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I think most of these issues have been resolved. Would someone like to remove the tag, or state what they think still needs to be done to justify its removal? Edurant 03:44, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Great job for all involved (especially since I really didn't do anything). Consider it removed. Cheers, PaddyM 04:02, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Works for me.. on a side note, can anyone find a source for the statement that Brooks Stevens designed the logo? The link given doesn't seem to have the information, but gives the appearance of being a reference. 72.131.44.247 04:24, 28 September 2006 (UTC)