User talk:BrassRat

Welcome!

Hello, BrassRat, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! D. J. Bracey (talk) 21:56, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Technology Review

See my comments on Talk:Technology Review. Agree it has problems. Maybe you can help figure out how to sort out what's important and factual without making it tell a story it's not supposed to be telling. I've made one change in the 2005 paragraph which contained two facts whose juxtaposition was definitely snarky and inappropropriate. Dpbsmith (talk) 10:05, 26 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification on the degrees given out by the Sloan School

I appreciate your efforts in trying to clean up the entries of all of the Sloan alumni. But I think we should be careful and precise about exactly which degrees that these alumni have earned. The Sloan School didn't grant M.B.A. degrees in its regular 2-year fulltime master's degree program until 1995, instead granting only S.M. degrees before that time, and now gives you a choice of which degrees that you can earn. If you write a thesis, you have the option of earning the S.M. or the M.B.A, whereas if you don't write a thesis, you will earn the M.B.A. Some graduates still prefer to obtain the S.M. degree. The Sloan Fellows program granted only S.M. degrees until 2005, when you now have the same choice of an M.B.A. or an S.M. Some people, particularly in academia, see the S.M. degree in management to be a more powerful credential because of its thesis component.

Hence, I think it's misleading to say that somebody obtained an M.B.A. when what they actually received was the S.M. We can include a blurb to discuss the history of Sloan's degree designations, or a link that points to such a blurb, but we shouldn't be designating people with the "wrong" degree. If somebody earned an S.M., then we should say that that person earned an S.M. The degree designations can be checked on Infinite Connection (http://alum.mit.edu), presuming that you are a graduate. Sakhalinrf 09:44, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Reclarification of the Sloan School degrees

I still don't believe that stating that one received a "Master's degree in Management (M.B.A.)" is sufficiently clear, as by stating such a thing, it seems as if you are implying that the person did get an MBA, which he did not. Something like "S.M. in Management (equivalent of an MBA)" or "Master's degree in Management {the Sloan School equivalent of the MBA}", or placing a blurb in footnotes would be a clearer way to state it.

My point is, you can't be giving people degrees that they don't actually have. If somebody earned an SM from MIT, then that fact should be clearly stated as such. We can also say state that that SM is effectively the equivalent of the MBA, but we can't actually give that person an MBA. Nor is referring a person back to the Sloan School article sufficiently clarifying because the truth is, most people aren't going to read the Sloan School entry. They are just going to see the words "Master's degree in Management (M.B.A.)" and simply assume that that person obtained an MBA, which he did not. Sakhalinrf 22:18, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is why the M.B.A. is in parentheses. Obviously the degree is the Master's degree in Management, the MBA in parentheses clarifies that it is equivalent to that better known degree. BrassRat 18:13, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Copyright violation in Dan Hesse

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Orphaned non-free media (File:MIT Seal.png)

Thanks for uploading File:MIT Seal.png. The media description page currently specifies that it is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, it is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the media was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that media for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

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Unreferenced BLPs

Hello BrassRat! Thank you for your contributions. I am a bot alerting you that 6 of the articles that you created are tagged as Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons. The biographies of living persons policy requires that all personal or potentially controversial information be sourced. In addition, to ensure verifiability, all biographies should be based on reliable sources. if you were to bring these articles up to standards, it would greatly help us with the current 698 article backlog. Once the articles are adequately referenced, please remove the {{unreferencedBLP}} tag. Here is the list:

Nabiel Makarim - Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
David L. Tennenhouse - Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
Colby Chandler (CEO) - Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
Abraham Siegel - Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
William F. Pounds - Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
Victor Menezes - Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Thanks!--DASHBot (talk) 00:14, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom elections are now open!

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ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:33, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination of List of Massachusetts Institute of Technology fraternities, sororities, and ILGs for deletion

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Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. EoRdE6^{(Come Talk to Me!)} 02:54, 12 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]