Talk:Walter Lewin

message: He is also quite famous for being able to really fast draw dotted lines on chalkboards, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=raurl4s0pjU maybe that could go into some trivia section.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.155.233.251 (talk) 22:01, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Lines

message: This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 10:05, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject class rating

message: "In fact, many professors, like N.J.Krishnan of The Valley school use only his videos to teach their students Physics. No teaching otherwise is done here."
seems completely irrelevant here.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.39.225.10 (talk) 15:49, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Irrelevant comment

message: I think some of the information in the intro section, has enough detail that it belongs in the body of the article.  Probably in a new section.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.234.65.6 (talk) 20:50, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  intro section 

message: It says that he was born in 1936. If this is correct and verifiable, it should be put in the beginning of the article and the "article without birth date" category should be removed. If not, the DOB should be removed.
Also, Prof. Lewin is awesome.--Jtle515 (talk) 04:50, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Date of birth

message: To draw dotted lies like professor Lewin, one must hold the chalk perpendicular to the chalkboard, far up the chalk (far from the part that is touching the chalkboard) and apply optimal amount of pressure, it takes less than a minute to figure out just how much. This causes the chalk to vibrate, bouncing off the board. The faster one moves the chalk across the board, the farther apart dots appear. I just thought I'd put this here because the article describes Lewin's ability as preternatural, which it is not, as seen above.
Just to make sure I'm not misunderstood, I think Lewin is awesome, I just disagree with the preternatural part.
Nikolaneberemed (talk) 21:02, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed and fixed. Cheers, Arbitrarily0 (talk) 01:23, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  The lines, the dotted lines 

message: Although the section on Lewin's early life during WWII has been copied almost verbatim from the MIT website (as cited), it seems that a clarifying statement about his father's disappearance (regarding his being Jewish, unlike Lewin's mother) has been removed. Surely this clarification is needed, as otherwise the reason for his disappearance is ambiguous (though it was not) and the sentence seems somewhat out of context.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr Darwen (talk • contribs) 22:09, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Early life and education 

message: Lewin was well known for the lectures, however since they have been indefinitely removed, I think we should change the first paragraph. JT2958 (talk) 14:33, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think them being removed changes the fact that he is well known. To some extent, the reverse; I had never heard of him until I saw the MIT press release that they had been removed (though it turns out I know one of his graduate students). So I think we'd definitely need a source to say that he's no longer well known. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 16:06, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

text: Are his lectures well-known because they are(were) hosted by MIT's website, or are his lectures well-known for themselves? Likewise, is he known for the lectures because they were on MIT's website, or for the lectures (his work) themselves? If the latter of each pair, then I think it's undue weight to focus on the removal from that hosting site in the lead. That is, he's known for things that were originally hosted somewhere, and he has now been [accused, determined, whatever...see next section] of something that led to various outcomes. But their removal from that server seems like a minor detail in the overall picture of this person. DMacks (talk) 07:01, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Updating first paragraph 

message: I have serious POV and BLP issues with saying "a determination that Lewin engaged in online sexual harassment". If a court of law said this after a public hearing, then "determination" would be okay with me. But this is just an allegation by an MIT official with no concrete facts to back it up. I changed "determination" to "complaint", but someone reverted saying "No. Someone complained to MIT. MIT determined. They didn't just pull things down first as a preliminary step and then start investigating." We don't know what sort of investigation MIT may or may not have had, but it is still just MIT's opinion and there may be another side to the story. There are certainly plenty of other examples of colleges taking rash actions based on flimsy accusations. Let the reader decide for himself whether to trust MIT's judgment. Roger (talk) 06:41, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: "A determination" is the exact phrase used in one of the sources we cite for this sentence. (In fact, our wording is uncomfortably close to that source, and perhaps should be rephrased to avoid copying.) The other one uses a different grammatical form of the same word. Do you think it's appropriate to go by your own judgement for what it means to be a determination in place of what the reliable sources say? As for "rash actions", the complaint happened two months ago and this only came down today. By the standards of academic bureaucracies that's fast, but it seems unlikely that it's just some official acting on his or her own. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:58, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  There are no reliable sources for what happened. You cite an MIT news story and an MIT press release. They are reliable sources for what MIT did, but neither makes any attempt to present Lewin's side or a non-MIT view. I am not suggesting my judgment, as I do not know the facts either. I suggest a neutral word, and not one a judgment for one side of the issue. Again, MIT's opinion may be entirely justified, if we had the facts, but it is still just an opinion, and MIT saying that it made a determination should not mean that WP should endorse that opinion. Roger (talk) 07:15, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: What part of "MIT made a determination" is not justified by an MIT-associated source?  We aren't saying "a court of law in Trenton New Jersey made a determination" and we aren't including an unqualified assertion that he actually did anything (in part because we don't know exactly what he did and it seems unlikely we're going to find out). It's true that the current text is awkwardly passive, omitting a clear statement of exactly who made the determination, and that should probably be fixed. But your proposed alternative version, where someone complained and MIT took the courses down and un-emeritused him on the basis of that complaint without doing any evaluation of its validity, is just incorrect. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:35, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

text:  How about saying "after investigating a complaint" rather than "determination"? That way it's clear they were not just going on the accusation alone (I agree that simply "after an accusation" is not in keeping with the process as reported by MIT). But it also avoids a word that sounds like it might have some stronger legal basis than it does (we don't really know what process was followed in detail and we don't have independent reporting about it). DMacks (talk) 07:44, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: How about following what the sources actually say and calling it a determination? But saying that "MIT determined" rather than "a determination was made"? "Investigating" is still the wrong word. It's what you do before reaching a decision, not the decision itself. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:50, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: "MIT determined" is good, it's exactly who the source says did it. Active voice for who did it solves my concern about sounding stronger than it is--I don't disagree about what happened, but we aren't allowed to WP:WEASEL to make it sound anything beyond that (was my and at least part of Roger's concern). Note I said "after"--presumably being obvious that it would be the result of whatever they find to be the case regardless of what process or terminology they use for it. DMacks (talk) 07:56, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I changed it to "MIT determined". I'm not convinced that we need to put in the part about an investigation; although it seems very likely that some sort of investigation happened, we know nothing about it. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:08, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Both cited refs very clearly state that there was an investigation, and at least one has some details about it. Not that it's of encyclopediac worth for now. DMacks (talk) 08:14, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Oops, you're right about that. Still, I agree with you (I think) that adding that to the article isn't necessary. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:36, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

text:  Would you say that Rolling Stone determined that there was a frat party gang rape at UVa? The magazine said that it made a determination, after an investigation for several months. No, because it was still just Rolling Stone's opinion, and not confirmed by anyone else. Likewise, for BLP and NPOV reasons, we have to make clear that this was just an MIT decision, and we do not even know what considerations went into that decision. Anything else is grossly unfair to Lewin. Roger (talk) 18:19, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: What about what we say is inconsistent with the sources? The Tech article says "MIT is cutting ties with retired professor Walter Lewin after determining that the physicist, whose lectures had made him a beloved teacher and minor Internet star, had sexually harassed at least one student online." That seems to very clearly support the statement that "MIT determined that Lewin engaged in online sexual harassment of an online MITx learner in violation of its policies". And the Tech is an independent newspaper, not an administration mouthpiece. If you'd prefer, there are plenty of other sources (eg the Boston Globe) that say almost exactly the same thing. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 19:28, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Please do replace any press release / student newspaper sources with major newspaper sources when you see that they have the same information. I think the sources we have now are adequately reliable, but the major newspapers are better. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:01, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

text:  Actually the Boston Globe wording is more similar to my text that David reverted.  That is, the "determination" is just something that MIT "announced", and not something that anyone else has verified. Roger (talk) 20:20, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: What distinction are you trying to draw between MIT "announcing a determination" and "determining"? Because to me they mean approximately the same thing, but by adding more qualifiers it seems like we are trying to weasel out of clearly stating what he has been determined to do, intentionally cast doubt on whether he actually did it, and instead make this into a false balance where there are two sides to the story, one side says he did something, the other says he didn't, and both are treated as equally valid. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:43, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  No, they obviously do not mean the same thing to you, or you would not have reverted my edit. I am not seeking balance at all here, but merely following BLP guidelines. WP should only recite the facts, and not draw potentially libelous inferences. Roger (talk) 21:23, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: It is not an inference that MIT made this determination. It is a clear fact, stated in our sources. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:27, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  Maybe you think I am overly cautious. Can you wait to get opinions from editors with more BLP experience? Roger (talk) 00:03, 12 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Not a determination

message: Now we have a sentence stating that "MIT announced that ... after MIT announced that ...". In reality, there was only one announcement, and additionally the revocation of Lewin's emeritus status etc did not happen subsequently to the announcement, it happened prior to the announcement and was one of the things being announced. Can we have some better care to writing quality and temporal logic here, please? This is after all a BLP and a sensitive subject. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:37, 12 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  MIT announced that MIT announced that MIT did something 

message: Some issues I noticed when reading the page. Listing them here because I know this BLP is currently being discussed above and on BLPN. Would rather discuss before editing majorly.
*There is too much focus on listing lectures as if this was Lewin's CV. Nearly all of these could be removed and put in prose form.
*Remove citation from allegations in lead per WP:LEAD. Stuff's cited in body of article.
*Consider trimming allegation info in lead. It's a but UNDUE compared to length of lead.
*Needs a copy edit for fluff/peacock language. E.g., I changed "achieved his PhD" to "earned his doctorate" and removed degree from infobox name field. 
EvergreenFir (talk) Please  05:41, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Completely agree on your first and fourth points; thanks for the start doing the editing. Because of the negative nature of the MIT finding, I think that keeping the explicit citations in the lede is best both to ensure that we stick to what the sources say and so that readers who only read the lede can tell that it is properly sourced. I think the two sentences (one to explain the harassment and one to say that the courses aren't atill available from MIT) are about right in terms of weight. If we remove the second sentence on this from the lede, the mentions of the online courses earlier in the lede should be tweaked to say that they're no longer available. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 09:25, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

text: I've done a bunch more trimming, reordering, wikifying, etc. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 02:18, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reads like a resume and other clean up 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified (January 2018) 

message: Hi, 
As far as the lead is concerned:
* "MIT investigation" is definitely ambiguous as to which authority did investigate, so a specification like "investigation performed by MIT" (or similar) is necessary in an encyclopedia.
* Any allegation -however plausible- of "sexual harassment" without judicial sentence is not encyclopedic, it even violates Human Rights. MIT is only in charge to state that their "policy" had been violated (to their measures!) –therefore my phrasing.
* As I understand the sources, the alleged misbehavior of Lewin happened rather "in connection" but not "in" the course (it started with something like establishing a company), and "MOOC" is even two letters shorter than "course".
* It is of fundamental difference if a "student" -below, say 19?- is affected by sexually inappropriate online behaviour of a professor at a university, or a person, matured to 32 years of age. Concealing this fact violates WP:NPOV.
As far as the section "Lectures" is concerned:
* I see no problem in referring to the full blown gory details when necessary within the article, but at least I want to avoid being three times explicit about a possibly severe misconduct, without a final decision being rendered (by whichever judicial court).
May I suggest to dump the whole "details" in the last paragraph, and to refer twice to the reestablished content I phrased in the lead (putting the sourcing also there)?
I am sorry, but I do  not understand the "switch to passive voice" in the edit summary. BTW, my wordy details amounted to 43 bytes. Purgy (talk) 15:56, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wordy details,  and other flaws