Talk:National Museum of Brazil

"Was" / "is"

At least twice since the widely reported fire, the introduction of the article has been edited to suggest that the National Museum no longer exists: e.g. by changing the introductory words to "The National Museum ... was the oldest scientific institution of Brazil" (emphasis added). I suggest this is, at least for the time being, incorrect. The object of this article is the institution – not the physical premises at which it is headquartered, and not its collections. Putting aside whether the building no longer exists (and I note that nothing in the article indicates that it has ceased to exist), the basic fact is that there is no verifiable information from a reliable source to suggest that the institution no longer exists. For example, no source has been provided that would suggest that any law or other instrument establishing the museum has been revoked. Until information of that kind is produced, I would suggest that the introductory words (consistent with the Portuguese version of this article) should remain couched in the present tense.

I should add that there are other places in the article in which changes to the past tense may be justified. For example, parts of the article describing its collections may legitimately be couched in the past tense to reflect the fact that those collections may no longer exist (or, at least, not in the form that they did before the fire). My comments above are strictly directed at changes which are calculated to suggest that the institution no longer exists. Cyril Washbrook (talk) 06:51, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

You are correct. emijrp (talk) 08:11, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

The building may not exist, but the museum may still exist. -Inowen (nlfte) 08:33, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

It does exist. It's perhaps worth mentioning that part of the collections were housed in other buildings (see here in Portuguese). Uma coleção de invertebrados escapou do fogo, pois fica em um prédio anexo, que não foi afetado pelas chamas. O museu tem três andares e prédios anexos, localizados na Quinta da Boa Vista, em São Cristóvão, na zona norte da capital - which means "A collection of invertebrates escaped the fire because it is housed in an annex building that was not affected by it. The museum occupies three floors e others annex buildings located in Quinta da Boa Vista, São Cristóvão, in the north section of the state capital." José Luiz ^talk 12:50, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

It comprised of more than one building, so this should stay in present tense (i.e. "is"). — Wyliepedia @ 14:01, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

I strongly agree with the use of present tense, as the museum isn't limited to that one building. The museum collection can and will continue to exist without that specific building to house it. Furthermore, there is an article specifically dedicated to the building itself, Paço de São Cristóvão. Avelludo (talk) 19:53, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

• On a similar note, the text "Prior to the 2018 fire" has been added to some image captions of objects, but this seems ridiculously selfexplanatory and should be removed. FunkMonk (talk) 17:59, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

I disagree. Per the context of the initial paragraph it appears to be referring to the main building, not the abstract institution, especially because its location is referred to as being in a park. As such it's kind of silly to say a burnt down building still exists and is the largest such museum. Krehel (talk) 18:31, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

The Paço does still exist - severely damaged but still standing and with every prospect of restoration if resources can be found. And of course the museum still exists. It has taken a major body blow but that doesn't put it into the past tense. Bagunceiro (talk) 17:54, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

Near abandoned building?

The section on the fire says the museum complex, in the last year or two, "had reached a state of near-complete abandonment" - the source is the Brazilian news article [here], translated: "the National Museum completed 200 years in June in the middle of a situation of abandonment". Obviously important information but very vague: what exactly does "abandonment" mean here? Were many of the departments closed? Severe personnel cuts? Had some of the collections been moved elsewhere? 83.254.159.58 (talk) 19:09, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

I used Google to translate the source given, and it stated "several rooms were closed for total inability to function. The space that housed one of the biggest attractions, the assembly of the first replica of a large dinosaur in the country, closed because of a termite infestation." Also, obviously, if rooms had paint peeling off the walls and exposed electrical wiring, those wouldn't be safe for the public. — Wyliepedia @ 01:33, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Apparently the huge dino survived. ;) 192.121.232.253 (talk) 13:38, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Nope. It did not. José Luiz ^talk 14:34, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Revision as of 12:22, 13 September 2018

This revision is inaccurate in a number of ways and I have reverted it:

1. The native name is not "Royal Museum". This is not even an accurate translation into English of the actual native name (Museu Nacional).
2. The museum has not been dissolved.
3. The museum is not a thing of the past ("was" is inappropriate - see discussion above).
4. "By June 2018, the museum's 200th anniversary, it had reached a Federative Republic of Brazil's of near-complete abandonment." makes no sense.
5. While severely depleted the collection is not "former".

Bagunceiro (talk) 17:38, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

My opinion

• Museum Structure is now a Ruin as building itself, only the walls remained up. Nobody knows how this is to be alike, or restored as it was or reconstructed in a modern way, but now is like Trash
• Even when it has some archives spread somewhere else, the collections inside this building were completely destroyed, So as the guy put as Former Collections seems ok, because it is forever gone.
• The native name was Royal Museum as Institution as says in text itself, even when was in another building before. --188.108.144.228 (talk) 20:30, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Ah, OK, I see where you are coming from. But no, "Royal Museum" was the original name, not the native one, which is the name in the local language rather than English. See the documentation for template:infobox museum -

 name
  Name of the museum 
  Example: Foo Museum of Art
 native_name
  Name of the museum in the local language, if different

The point about the collections section is that it covers all of the collections, including those parts which are still extant, and even intact. Hence "former" is incorrect. Those parts that have been destroyed could, I suppose, be moved into a separate "former collections" section but it doesn't seem worthwhile and as yet would probably not be practicable.

The "ruin" question is, I admit, about English nuance. But generally speaking a ruin is past saving and/or with no prospect of restoration. This, at least as yet, cannot be said of the Paço.Bagunceiro (talk) 21:16, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Merge with fire article

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

I've merged the fire article here, since obviously an integrated presentation is called for. I shed more than one tear along the way. Tragic. EEng 18:51, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

@EEng:The fire article seems like a significant enough event to me to merit its own article. Could you justify why it ought to be merged with this one? - Sdkb (talk) 07:05, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

The question isn't whether a topic "merits" its own article, but rather how best to present the material -- see WP:NOPAGE. Both the fire article and the main article duplicated each other to a significant extent. Much of what you'd say about the museum per se, and about the fire, revolves around the collections, what was there and what was saved and what was destroyed, so an integrated presentation seems best. EEng 13:19, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

• @EEng: The fire article is long enough where it is probably better presented as its own article. Furthermore, the National Museum of Brazil was notable before the fire occurred, so your point about overlap doesn't make sense to me. The collections should have been included in the article before the museum was destroyed. The fire is notable even without detailing the lost heritage.  — Mr. Guye (talk) (contribs)  15:46, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

The fire section is the length it is because it's grossly overdetailed and reads like a series of news articles ("One of the linguistic researchers, Bruna Franchetto, who returned only to see her office as a pile of ash..." and so on); even as it is the overall article is well within reasonable length -- short, even, given that it is a major national institution. Anyway, it's a bit late to change course, as many editors have built on the merge to help make it an integrated presentation. It would be kind of silly to have an article describing the wonders that once were, with a little something at the end saying, "Oh by the way, it all burned down recently; click here". EEng 16:43, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose merge Major events, including disasters, that are independently notable, almost always have their own article. Support separation and restoration of the original article as a stand alone. with an appropriate brief summary of the fire in this article coupled with a link to the more detailed article on the fire itself per longstanding normal practice on Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ad Orientem (talk • contribs)
• Oppose merge as well. The article is already in need of expansion to include information on the massive palaeontological collections also housed in the museum. Combine that with the section on the 2018 fire and the article will become insanely long and difficult to comfortably navigate. The museum fire was a major event and certainly warrants its own article, it can simply be summarised here. ▼PσlєοGєєкƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼ 18:10, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose merge per the discussion above. - Sdkb (talk) 09:14, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose merge I agreed with the discussion above: the fire is already notable to have it's own article. Erick Soares3 (talk) 20:00, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Continuing

In the section above, it appears that everyone except the merge proposer wished for National Museum of Brazil fire to remain separate, but that the merger was implemented anyways through edit warring. The fire section currently takes up a very large portion of this quite long page, and looking at other disasters (e.g. Notre-Dame de Paris fire), having a separate page seems the norm.

Courtesy pinging prior participants @EEng, Mr. Guye, PaleoGeekSquared, Erick Soares3, and Ad Orientem: and reverters @Mr. Guye, PlanespotterA320, Fbergo, and Keiiri:.{{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:41, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

• Support as nom. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:41, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
• Strong support for splitting per nom. The article about the fire exists in dozens of languages sans English and is an incredibly important tragedy in the history of world preservationism, not a minor event just in the history of the museum.--PlanespotterA320 (talk) 23:43, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
• The arguments for separate articles continue to be confused appeals to the idea the fire "merits its own article" or "is notable", which isn't the question; the question is how the material is best presented -- see (as I keep saying) WP:NOPAGE. No one seems willing to address that, but I'm past caring at this point. EEng 23:50, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
• Strong support. This will take a lot of the size out of the museum article itself, and allow for much more and improved prose and WikiCommons media usage. –♠Vami_IV†♠ 23:57, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support split. To explicitly address the points of WP:NOPAGE:
  • Understanding the significance of the fire doesn't require the full context of the page. The section on the fire by itself includes sufficient information on the particular collections that it discusses so that the reader understands why losing them is important.
  • This is a case where the "resulting article would be too unwieldy"; at ~54k readable prose (per XTools), it's into "may need to be divided" territory, and there's a fairly natural split here.
  • There are dozens of sources in the fire section; we won't be spinning it off into a permastub ―Vahurzpu (talk) 00:45, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

• Comment Why there is a lot of oppose to merge, the articles still boldly merged? Well, i suggest reverting the edit by EEng due to the merge has no consensus and it is not the norm in wiki that merge article without consensus (and with a lot of oppose ). The bureaucratic process of adding vote for split, is not needed .... Matthew hk (talk) 01:54, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

  Matthew hk, EEng was absolutely in the wrong to go ahead with the merge in the absence of consensus. If people had been paying more attention, it would have been reverted and they would have been admonished for edit warring. I considered just actioning the prior consensus, but since this fell through the cracks and sat for almost two years, I think we may as well reaffirm the consensus just to remove any doubt. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 05:29, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

• Strong support for splitting, as per my prior reasons and those stated by others above. ▼PσlєοGєєкƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼ 11:31, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support for splitting. A short one-paragraph summary should be kept in this article (similar to Notre-Dame de Paris / Notre-Dame de Paris fire). Fbergo (talk) 12:47, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support split per my previous comments.  — Mr. Guye (talk) (contribs)  15:02, 22 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support split. Why hasn't this done already? There is a clear consensus, except for one user who is the one who edit-warred into the merger. @Sdkb: Pinging the original poster cause this needs to be closed. Eccekevin (talk) 01:34, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
• Support split. The fire is a notable event in itself. There was no consensus to merge. Candido (talk) 12:55, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
• Support split or we should merge Notre-Dame de Paris fire with Notre-Dame de Paris. Erick Soares3 (talk) 01:18, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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