Talk:Quantity surveyor

message: Why on earth has the entire entry been revised? The articles were just fine! It could have been merged or amended not deleted and replaced.
I now have no idea what a QS really does, this whole page is now so vague. Where does a QS work? Whom does one work for? Does one work on space missions or for the military? I would suggest that the large majority of people visiting this page are trying to find out exactly what a QS does and their potential roles within company's. Possible due to considering pursuing it has a profession. How does one even become a QS? It fails at even the most basic of level.
It is presented in a way that suggests that all QS's are independent (a contractor or work for a firm) and offer their services. How about QS's that works for a Contractor on a salary for example?
Future services expected? QS's are already performing over half of these services!
Is there a hidden agenda here?
--Observationmachine3000 (talk) 02:25, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Comments

message: References on this page are biased towards the UK.  The profession today is not as obscure as it once was which is evidenced by the international use of quantity surveyors.  The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors while a UK based organization has significant international membership and is promoted as a "global" organization.
The list of external links is good and generally refers to Professional Associations representing quantity surveyors in various countries around the world.
The "Pop Culture" section while somewhat amusing is of no relevance to understanding what a quantity surveyor is or what one does.
121.208.81.7 09:11, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, but it would more commonly be "Professional" than "Private". --DavidCane (talk) 23:49, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quantity Surveyor 

message: Looking to the Merriam Webster's 3rd International Unabridged Dictionary, I find the definition of "Cost" in this context to be " an item of outlay incurred in the operation of a business enterprise (as for the purchase of raw materials, labor, services, supplies) including depreciation and amortization of capital assets — and I find the definition of "Engineer" (again in context) to be  a person who is trained in or follows as a calling or profession a branch of engineering (as civil, military, electrical, mining, structural, or sanitary engineering) —  in some jurisdictions legally restricted in technical use to a person who has completed a prescribed course of study and complied with requirements concerning registration or licensing OR  a person who is trained or skilled in the technicalities of some field (as sociology or insurance) not usually considered to fall within the scope of engineering and who is engaged in using such training or skill in the solution of technical problems  
Given that cost estimating and associated responsibilities (scheduling, earned value, progress reporting et al) is generally not considered to be a branch of engineering, but is most often recognized as being a subset of "project management" (reference AACE's TCM Framework and PMBoK Guide) and given Project Management is NOT a profession (Zwerman et al, 2004, Giammalvo, 2007)I think it safe to eliminate the classical use of the term "Engineer" in relation to costs.  Which leaves us the second definition of "engineer".
To combine the two definitions to be consistent with standard use of the (American) English language, we have a person who is trained or skilled in the identification and quantification of an outlay incurred in the operation of a business enterprise (as for the purchase of raw materials, labor, services, supplies) including depreciation and amortization of capital assets not usually considered to fall within the scope of engineering and who is engaged in using such training or skill in the solution of technical problems.
Based on the restatement of "Cost + Engineer" grounded upon the two dictionary definitions, I find using the term "Cost Engineer" to be redundant with other terms (quantity surveyor, cost estimator) which better and (IMPO) define the functions normally associated with the subset of project management normally referred to as "project control" (or project management office- PMO) more accurately than using the term "Cost Engineer".
I suspect the original purpose of the founders of AACE (and the global parallel organization, the International Cost Engineering Council (ICEC) was to try to "claim" cost estimating and related functions (Project Controls? Scheduling/Programming?) as "turf" of the engineers. (See Andrew Abbott for more on this)
Bottom line- I think the term "cost engineer" should not be included in Wikipedia on the grounds it does not fairly or accurately describe anything more than a job title within some organizations.
Projectdoctor (talk) 07:34, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is a "Cost Engineer" anyway? 

message: We understand that there is a school of thought that Cost Engineering, Quantity Surveying or any other collection of varied skills is not a "profession" ala law, medicine etc.; however the idea that cost engineering is just a job title that is unworthy of an encyclopedia article is completely off base. Cost Engineering is also not a subset of PM; the TCM reference clearly delineates that it is not.
CE is a unique field of practice with a common syntax, an integrated methodology, and with representative bodies around the world, AACE being a prominent one, and ICEC being an overarching association of associations. One of the newest formed, the China Cost Engineering group, includes over 70,000 members.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jkhcanoe (talk • contribs) 13:59, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cost Engineering well established 

message: I've removed the pop list of QSs from the main article - it of very tertiary interest. The list might have some validity if it was a list of quantity surveyors who were notable for developments in the field etc. but as it's claimed all these people are not notable for their QS work I can't find a strong justification for leaving it in. I've removed it to see what happens to the consensus on this and am copying it here for reference for now. --Joopercoopers (talk) 00:19, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Notable QSs

message: Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw mentions quantity surveying at the end of his review of Mass Effect 2.   —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.73.64.160 (talk) 05:57, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Another Pop culture reference

message: I've gutted this entry, removing large swathes of copyvio text taken verbatim from Quantity Surveyor's Pocket Book and Willis's Practice and Procedure for the Quantity Surveyor. It's now pretty bare bones and lacking some context, so it needs work. I opted not to revert to an earlier version, since copyvio (from different sources) appeared to be present there are well. Hairhorn (talk) 00:41, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gutted