Talk:Richard Stallman - Misplaced Pages

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MIT as Alma Mater

Hi Daveout. You said in your revert "enrolling seems to be enough to count as an alma mater".

Firstly, please let's be correct about the historical facts. RMS was not "enrolled" at MIT. He was *working* there as a programmer.

Secondly, the concept of an alma mater means an academic institution that "nourishes" you in an intellectual way, in other words, an institution that forms and shapes your intellectual character and academic personality. An alma mater certifies and documents this "shaping process" by awarding you an official degree.

Just enrolling has nothing to do with that. Take me for example. I have degrees from two universities, so those are my alma maters. But I visited two further universities (one as a student and one as a scientist) which didn't award me any degree. So, those two are NOT alma maters of mine. I don't have four alma maters, I have two.

You can think of it also in another way. If enrolling was enough, many people who never finished any academic classes or took any exam or dropped out after one semester would have alma maters. That is obvious nonsense.

So, in total: RMS wasn't enrolled at MIT, but even if he was, he wasn't awarded a degree, so MIT isn't an alma mater. ʘχ (talk) 13:05, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

According to the article, Stallman decided to enroll as a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He pursued a doctorate in physics for one year, but left that program to focus on his programming at the MIT AI Laboratory.

And according to Merriam Webster, an alma mater is a school, college, or university which one has attended or from which one has graduated.

I don't have a strong opinion on whether MIT should be listed as his alma mater or not, maybe we could use the 'education' infobox parameter instead, however Stallman seems to be primarily associated with MIT that's why I restored the status quo, i mean... it makes sense. What do you (ʘx and all other page watchers) think? -Daveout(talk) 13:39, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

"Attendance", in this context, doesn't mean "I was enrolled there" or "I have been there", but I was awarded a degree. If mere enrollment satisfied the concept of "alma mater", this would mean an obvious perversion of the term. For example, you could go on an "enrollment spree" all over the country: you just enroll at 10 universities without visiting any lectures or taking any exam and you would have 10 alma maters, just like that. In other words, the term "alma mater" would immediately become meaningless.

Also, this is not now the term is widely understood. If you personally told people "University X is my alma mater" but in reality you don't have a degree but just were enrolled for a year and then dropped out, you would be called a liar or impostor. ʘχ (talk) 14:02, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

Talking about alma mater, some sources claim it is Harvard:

Although some reliable sources should be found to claim that.

About MIT – if RMS is no longer working there, then it should not be in the Infobox, even though his connections are strong and long-term. K4rolB (talk) 09:25, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

Self-sourced material and biographies

@Drmies: Looking at your edits , it seems like most of those fall under WP:BLPSELFPUB? I'm just starting a thread here to open up a discussion. 〜 ⠀snowy🌼meadows˙ 14:49, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

SnowyMeadows, thanks, but I don't think SELFPUB is a license for us to beef up (or fluff up) biographies. Like, "Stallman is a world traveler and has visited at least 65 countries"--there really is no way in which this should be in a BLP in the first place, and that it's self-sourced doesn't help. Similar with the other stuff. Opinions are great, but to be encyclopedic a secondary source will have to argue that it is. This biography is huge, and contains, IMO, way too much ... well, it's very peacocky. (BTW I'm having a hard time reading your signature, sorry.) Drmies (talk) 15:24, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

@Drmies: But the quote you are specifically referencing about Stallman being a world traveler was not from a self-published source It's from Boston magazine. Did you remove that by mistake? 〜 ⠀snowy🌼meadows˙ 15:35, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

Oh, was it? I thought most of them were--then I removed that one because I think it's too fluffy, or see the point of it. Drmies (talk) 15:45, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

@Drmies: I do agree "world traveler" is maybe a bit fluffy. But also, the fact that Stallman travels the world as a "free software evangelist" is mentioned in the source, and seems to go towards his notability. I guess we're getting a bit off-topic though. I see you've made subsequent edits that try to give an example, but I guess I'm specifically talking about the diffs above. Not generally. Can you explain the rest of these edits? 〜 ⠀snowy🌼meadows˙ 16:47, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

are edits that claim grandiosity and board membership, based on the GNU Bulletin, not an independent secondary source, and to his own personal calendar (!); ditto--with a pretty self-explanatory edit summary, since this is in fact common practice; and and these are unused citations, to primary sources and his own calendar. BTW I still can't easily read your signature. Please have a look at WP:SIGAPP, fifth item. Thank you. Drmies (talk) 17:38, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

Off topic user discussion
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
@Drmies: You should make a post to my user talk page about it. I'm honestly happy to make changes based on specific concerns, especially if it's a color contrast issue of some sort. I just don't want to discuss my signature on a BLP talk page. 〜 ⠀snowy🌼meadows˙ 18:02, 13 October 2022 (UTC) You could just change it--you could have done so already. Drmies (talk) 18:12, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

@Drmies: Concerning this paragraph specifically , maybe we could ascribe notability with the following two secondary sources 〜 ⠀snowy🌼meadows˙ 19:57, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

References

Tozzi, Christopher (2017-08-11). For Fun and Profit: A History of the Free and Open Source Software Revolution. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-34118-9. (Even less potent was a campaign in 1988 by Stallman and some fellow hackers to distribute buttons bearing the inscription "Keep Your Lawyers Off My Computer" to combat Apple's actions.) Still, the confrontation was notable for the precedent it set.
Williams, Sam (2010). Free as in Freedom (2.0): Richard Stallman and the Free Software Revolution. Free Software Foundation. ISBN 978-0-9831592-1-6. then followed up the ad by helping to organize a group to protest the corporations filing the suit.

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BadcHasdrt

BADRETYHGFST B 2600:6C58:200:6F9D:415E:DF28:4077:DB68 (talk) 19:05, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

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