Talk:House system at the California Institute of Technology

message: Originally, the terms north and south were not used, but new and old were.  Capitalization of "Student Houses" goes back at least to 1959 (see The Tech Nov 1959 and lots more).  Sometimes you'd see "new House" and "new Houses", but more often lowercase except in the early name placeholders "new House A", "new House B", and "new House C".  The reference gradually changed during the 1970s or so to more often use north and south.  Caps remain mixed, since nothing has these terms as proper name, but Techers generally seem to want to cap something to signify the importance of the Houses (and the more recent Hovses thing is just silly).  Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization, so there's no reason to follow Techers like Antony; he can cap as much as he wants elsewhere, but not on Wikipedia. Dicklyon (talk) 23:30, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure why a usage that, as you say, fell out of usage nearly 50 years ago is relevant.  Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 03:25, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Just because nobody can point to a time when the names "North Houses" and "South Houses" were given to buildings or complexes that never had names, and still don't according to official maps. And because the practice of capitalizing things about the houses goes back to before the new/north houses. Dicklyon (talk) 03:54, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

text: By the way, that 1959 issue of The Tech that I linked has a nice cartoon of Cleve Moler, creator of Matlab (later a Lloydie), crucified and welcoming his substitute editor. Dicklyon (talk) 03:57, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Old and new houses

message: The insertion of new subsections on analysis, sources, etc. is confusing as far as continued comments are concerned, so let the comments continue...
* Uppercase - The use of proper caps averts the possibility of confusion for readers. The capitalization, IMO, should be based on either names officially adopted by CIT  or their usage in official publications and other reliable sources. The documentation above indicates to me that the use of capitals is well supported. "Official" or not this also happens to be how our language itself evolves, that is, through usage. Allreet (talk) 22:18, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comments (continued) 

message: Why this weird "Hovse" thing?  I never heard of that in my years at Caltech, as student or faculty.  It showed up in Wikipedia in 2005, and at Blacker's site by 2006 according to the Wayback Machine.  Is this just a weird styling of a few people who aren't that familiar with the Roman alphabet?  Are there sources that talk about it or actually use it?  Dicklyon (talk) 03:33, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: It my time at Caltech (mid 2000s), the spelling "Hovse" was popular among undergraduates because the signs on the South Houses use that spelling, in imitation of ancient Roman inscriptions that lack the "U" glyph.  And gdbg.org is independent of Caltech as it was written by a former student, and should be considered reliable for these purposes.  Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 02:09, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: A personal blog by a former student can hardly be considered either reliable or independent.  And I understand the reasoning, a typical silly Caltech undergrad thing.  But of course, the Romans also had no lowercase letters, so "Hovse" is nonsense, even if it was popular among undergraduates.  That's not the kind of thing that Wikipedia needs to propagate.  Dicklyon (talk) 05:52, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Regardless of its usage, this is not a case of one letter being substituted for another but a case of how the letter is being rendered. Bulgari is a similar example, as it also uses the old Latin "u" (rendered with a "v") in 100% of its branding and clothing, but that doesn't make the letter a "v", its still a "u". A brief mention can be made to say that the houses are sometimes rendered as hovses, but usage throughout the article should be the actual word, which is houses.Cristiano Tomás (talk) 03:26, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I concur with Dicklyon: Hovse" is nonsense, even if it was popular among undergraduates.  That's not the kind of thing that Wikipedia needs to propagate.' Undergrads call things "frats", too, but WP would refer to them as "fraternities".  This is not Slangpedia.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:57, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Concur with SMcandlish in concurring with Diklyon. Mention of undergrad humor - with confirmation from sources - is perfectly acceptable, but anointing their playful nonsense as "fact" is ridiculous. Allreet (talk) 22:25, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hovse? 

message: This is listed as a B-class article but according to the criteria: , so there is an issue of multiple inline "citation needed" tags and at least one "original research?" question. Aside from a large amount of unsourced material, there are unsourced sections and sub-sections. Maybe a "General references" section would help a C-class article so hopefully, someone can look at this.  --  Otr500 (talk) 20:04, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, this is clearly a C-class article.  Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 19:17, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citation and other issues