Wikipedia talk:Schools/Old proposal: Difference between revisions

Reasoning

The core of this proposal is requirement #1, which makes no value judgements about the quality of a school. All schools are notable, as long as there's non-trivial published works that could be used to write an article (as opposed to a stub or a substub). Clearly, if a school is important to its community, then out of that community will have arisen non-trivial works.

This article is based heavily on WP:CORP, as well as the other ratified notability standards, and I've intentionally veered away from including any subjective standards, as, generally, anything that meets a subjective standard will also meet the objective standard of "non-trivial published works on the subject." - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 14:41, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

My Opinion

I'm going to make a couple tweaks. It's all well-worded and good in its current form, but I think a couple of adjustments might be mentioned in the "subject of nontrivial coverage" section. In principle with its root in WP:CORP, however, I think the basis for this proposed standard has a solid foundation. Perhaps one even allowing for consensus or compromise, but I suppose we'll burn that bridge when we come to it. --Kuzaar^-T-C- 14:43, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Note: by my above comment it may be better in its current wording. I'll think about it some more. :) --Kuzaar^-T-C- 14:45, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Would it be appropriate to explicitly exclude coverage by the local community, or would that be implied in the citation of WP:RS? --Kuzaar^-T-C- 14:58, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

If it's a reliable source, it's a reliable source. This is aimed at dealing with unexpandable stubs, not articles referenced to reliable sources. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 15:02, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

That's what I had supposed. I like the proposal in its current format. I think that the consolidation of the numerous unexpandable school stub articles will be a welcome change, and hopefully more widely acceptable to the community. --Kuzaar^-T-C- 15:09, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Events

Many (probably most) schools get considerable local press coverage for events such as fairs and fetes, retirements of long-serving teachers, groundbreaking for new buildings and so on, which do not amount to sources for material in the article. What do we do about that? Just zis Guy you know? 15:16, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

That was originally the concern that I had raised above. I have always held the position that because a subject is notable in a community or limited group does not imply that it is notable to the world at large, and to a degree this still concerns me. If an elementary school is, as you said, breaking ground and it gets a front-page spot in the village ledger, would it still be appropriate for its own article, as per AMIB above, or is its unquestionably shaky claim to notability sufficient in the context of this proposal? --Kuzaar^-T-C- 15:24, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Is that village ledger a reliable source, though? Local papers (as opposed to major papers) often don't qualify for WP:RS. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 15:26, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Why would world-wide notability somehow be required? Many people around the world may not care about schools in the community where I live, but to people in a community who want to look up one of their schools, it is notable. --Stephane Charette 18:23, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

It may be the case that something is important locally, but in asserting that there should not be a good standard to hold notability to, you place the encyclopedia on a very slippery slope. How many people does something have to be noteworthy to in order to have a claim to an article? Five? A hundred? Questions like this are what make it necessary for Wikipedia to have standards, more or less, of notability within the scope of the article's field. For example, a chemist who isolates a compound that cures some minor sickness may not be notable in the "world at large" but is almost certainly notable within his field of study, and has almost certainly been the subject of multiple nontrivial published reliable sources. So, it may be that I misspoke; that instead of "worldwide notability" it should be "fieldwide notability" that I should have said. Hope this clears things up. --Kuzaar^-T-C- 18:37, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

That is fine. In the scope of a region, or a school board, the "fieldwide notability" is the school board or the city where the school is located. That means a Canadian school doesn't have to be on the 6 o'clock news in the U.S. for it to be "notable", and thus can be included. --Stephane Charette 19:00, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. That would be akin to saying that because the town council awards me the pie-baking contest championship title, I am notable. In other words, it is no claim to notability at all. Recognition would have to come from a much more important source than local to have a claim to notability. If it were the National Culinary Institute or some other well-known and itself-notable body, my Pie Champion title would (possibly) bestow notability. --Kuzaar^-T-C- 19:23, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

A Canadian school doesn't have to be on the 6 o'clock news in the US to be notable, but any event that doesn't merit mention on the local CBC or provincial network station probably isn't going to be notable. (This is speaking from experience; CTV-Saskatoon covers some pretty inane stuff.) - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:32, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

School articles to be deleted

In its current form, almost all school stub articles that we have (we in this case being Wikipedia:WikiProject Education in Canada) will get instantly deleted because of the strict inclusionary criteria, which I will quote here:

1. The school, or events surrounding the school, have been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the school itself.
2. The school is a post-secondary school.
3. The school has stood for at least 100 years.
   • (You don't need too many fingers to count the number of schools in North America which have been open for 100 years!)
4. The school is also a private business, and meets the requirements of WP:CORP.
5. The article is about a school district.
   • (School districts are not schools, they're businesses or arms of governments, so including this criteria unecessarily makes the inclusion criteria look longer.)

If I look at the work we've been doing by following links such as Whatlinkshere:Infobox Education in Canada, somewhere between 500 to 700 of these articles all of sudden qualify for immediate deletion. Now the project has recently (in the past week) been accused of things like "flooding", and "schoolcruft", but regardless of individual views on the topic of the usefullness of stubs, WP:EiC has been doing some great work in taking stubs that people outside of WP:EiC create and turning them into full articles. See this quote from today on an ongoing AfD:

I am most impressed by the level of structure, organization and thought demonstrated by the WP:EiC initiative and its team members, which makes it clear to me that the promise of expanding these into yet more productive and useful articles is eminently justifiable. I would like to suggest that other areas (perhaps organized by state in the US) would greatly benefit from the methodolgy developed as part of WP:EiC, and I will certainly take advantage of these concepts in expanding the scope of WP:NJ, which has craeted articles for most New Jersey school districts and a significant percentage of the state's high schools. Bravo WP:EiC! Alansohn 15:09, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

The biggest problem I see is the new proposed policy/guideline/process Wikipedia:Schools is too restrictive and would result in a lot of hard work being deleted. To feel comfortable that we're not going to use this to quickly delete large groups of school articles, we need to come up with something more balanced that would also take into account the following:

• the existance of schools are usually very easy to verify (for example via the school board web site);
  • thus, a stub article of a school can easily be shown to physically exist, and as thus, schools have typically affected the lives of the people who attend or have attended in the past;
    • thus, if a project exists for the area in which the school is located, and, the project can takes responsability for cleaning up and expanding the stub, then allow the article to exist and grow.

This is what we've tried to do with WP:EiC#Cleanup needed -- when an article needing work is found by a member of the project, it is listed within the project with summarized cleanup criteria, such as "general cleanup", "cite needed", "needs infobox", "needs neutral POV rewrite". This way we can continue with the project's work and enhance the articles as we get to them. (Having said this, listing 500 articles at once and then claiming that the project is not getting through the list fast enough would not be acceptable.) --Stephane Charette 18:58, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I generally agree with most of your points. However, I see no reason for "thus, if a project exists for the area in which the school is located, and, the project can takes responsability for cleaning up and expanding the stub, then allow the article to exist and grow" to be so restrictive. The work of projects such as EiC and other regionally-oriented projects are GREAT, but WP:SCH has been around for years with a large number of participants who have not limited the scope their project to a specific geographical region, for a number of reasons. With dozens and sometimes scores of school related articles being put up for VfD/AfD in the course of the last 2 years, "those who frequently nominate and/or vote to delete school-related articles" have effectively pushed AfD into a constant cleanup process (even if such wasn't their intent), where many editors who work on school articles divert their attention away from project oriented editing of schools towards those school related articles that are in danger of imminent deletion with a 5 day window to act before the article is potentially lost. If the existing projects were referred to for cleanup of stubs, substubs or poorly written school articles, many of them would be cleaned up without the necessity of going through the (mostly fruitless) AfD process. You have just experienced an example of precisely what I am talking about with the mass-nomination and multiple-deletion of school in the Richmond area, which is effectively disrupting the work of the EiC project.--Nicodemus75 19:16, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Note, to the first editor in this section, that the guidelines that you have quoted are not all required to be met. If read carefully, you would have noticed that any one of those being true, as it says, implies notability and a place for the article of the subject in question. --Kuzaar^-T-C- 19:25, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

One of the benefits of the guideline as proposed is that many of the legitimate, non-stub articles currently being {{prod}}'ed or nominated for deletion can be speedily kept. --Usgnus 19:46, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Nothing in the proposal as I read it said any articles had to be deleted. It would appear to encourage a merge of some stubish articles of questionable notability. Vegaswikian 21:03, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

The school has stood for at least 100 years.

This would be counted from the date of establishment or founding, correct? If a school was founded in 1854, but switched buildings in 1935, would it still qualify? --Usgnus 19:30, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I would think so. 70+ years standing is a fairly strong claim to notability by any means. --Kuzaar^-T-C- 19:36, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

What if that same school moved into a new building in 1997? --Usgnus 19:43, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

That's a harder question and involves a certain amount of distinction, but I think that the easy method to solve that issue is, if there has been a continuous line of administration and the school is under the same name (and has only changed buildings), then yes, the school itself is over 100 years old. And likely has been the primary subject of nontrivial coverage. --Kuzaar^-T-C- 19:55, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

For further distinction on this, it reminds me a little of a philosophical question I encountered my first day in my Philosophy 101 class in college, in which the professor described a boat whose matter was replaced plank by plank and nail by nail over the years until it contained none of the original matter, and called into question the distinction between the idea of a boat and the material of the boat. Also the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, if you haven't read it. :) --Kuzaar^-T-C- 20:01, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

As long as the building and current name can show a continuination from the origional it should be OK. Schools do change name and buildings. As long as the history goes back 100 years why should we quible over the building or name having been changed? Vegaswikian 21:06, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

100 is a number I pulled out of the air, based on the idea that a 100-year-old school can't possibly lack non-trivial commentary. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:09, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

The article is about a school district.

I don't think this should be one of the points in the numbered list. It can be part of the text explaining that this guideline does not apply to school districts. --Usgnus 19:32, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

As AMIB explained in the top section of this page, this proposal was created to try to work toward a solution for the mass-creation of articles that are basically less than stubs. I think that the exception for school districts is okay on there to prevent confusion about the intent of the proposed policy. --Kuzaar^-T-C- 19:36, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

It's pretty clear that a school district is not a school. It's just really weird to read "A school is notable if... the article is about a school district". --Usgnus 19:52, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

That line was basically just to specify that school districts may claim notability even if all schools within them cannot. Of course, since high schools are notable as secondary institutions of learning, it's almost a given, but being explicit in guidelines never hurts. --Kuzaar^-T-C- 19:57, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Then it is not needed since I believe that there is consensus for school district articles being included. Vegaswikian 21:08, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I'll rephrase. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:26, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Alumni

Do we care at all about alumni? What if a school has X number of alumni with non-stub WP articles? --Usgnus 19:35, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that having had a person attend the school makes for a claim to notability, no, unless that alumnus subsequently attracts media or other reliable source attention toward the school itself. --Kuzaar^-T-C- 19:37, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

It's not a matter of pure alumni counting; if the school is important to the alumnus, then there's going to be a non-trivial work with the alumnus talking about the school. By adhering to #1, we keep out silliness like the elementary schools of famous people (who often won't even much remember elementary school), while still keeping schools with a substantive link to a famous person. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:13, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Too proscriptive

I don't anticipate this proposal being particularly successful. Having read hundreds of related discussions, I don't see much resemblance between what is proposed here and the actual notability standards employed on Wikipedia. Previous efforts to develop subject-specific standards for notability have, as I understand it, attempted to encapsulate and clearly express standards that were already being used. This guideline, on the other hand, seeks to employ a standard that is substantially different from the one actually being used. Because of this, even if passed this guideline is likely to be rather ineffectual.

On another note, I'm interested in discovering whether no-content-lost merges of school stubs are actually being opposed (that is, reverted). After all, no guideline is needed to carry out such merges. Christopher Parham (talk) 19:59, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

This is a proscriptive compromise. It requires that a school be demonstrably able to sustain an article, while protecting those that are. It's intended to not impede the efforts of WP:SCH to make school articles, but it's intended to prevent the creation of school directories, something specifically called out in WP:NOT.

It's also intended to make AFD much more clear; "notability" wouldn't be a nebulous definition of whether such and such user feels that such and such school is "important" enough (and that's basically what everyone is doing, whether they think all schools are important or have a higher standard), and instead focus on whether we have the raw material to make an article about that school. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:30, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Compromise between what, though? The wiki process and core policies, essentially unencumbered by guidelines, have created and improved thousands (tens of thousands) of school articles. Those articles hardly need "protection" from a guideline. I have no reason to believe that, if we allow organic growth to continue, we will not see additional improvement buidling on our current base. This guideline represents a pernicious deviation from our current situation because it establishes that deleting verifiable information about schools is not just okay but recommended. The only thing this would compromise is the quality of the encyclopedia. Christopher Parham (talk) 04:52, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

This is a more-exclusive proposal than arguing about every single school peacemeal and having every single AFD flooded with argumentless, inane votes, and each AFD going to no conensus. Instead, it sets up a framework for discussing schools where it seems that little verifiable information can be written, while explicitly defending those about which verifiable information other than directory info has been written.

Simply using directory info and first-person-from-the-school info is tantamount to covering businesses because they have a website and a listing in the phonebook. However, it has been argued that every school can support an article; if that's so, as soon as an article shows signs of doing so, it's explicitly protected from "this school isn't important enough."

This is based on other notability policies that prevent the retention of policy-violating articles, while explicitly protecting articles with some potential. WP:BIO prevents vanity, WP:CORP prevents advertising, and this prevents the creation of directories. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:15, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Let me put this another way. Currently, information about schools is rarely deleted. Under this proposal, if a school does not meet the specified criteria, options explicitly include moving the material out of the article space or deleting it. If your primary interest here is preserving verifiable information about schools, the proposal is clearly not helping matters. Obviously it would be nice to end the AFD bickering but not at the cost of content. AFD has at least achieved the main goal of not sanctioning the deletion of verifiable material; any proposal should do the same or better.

To be explicit, the change I am suggesting is that instead of offering AFD as a possibility, the proposal should explicitly discourage editors from sending articles about schools to AFD, e.g. "Sending verifiable school articles to AFD is strongly discouraged." Christopher Parham (talk) 05:30, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Are you willing to argue that Wikipedia should be a directory of schools when it is a directory of nothing else and directories are specifically called out in WP:NOT? Is there someone willing to argue that Wikipedia should be a directory?

This entire proposal argues that all schools that can sustain an article merits an article. It's extremely inclusionist. The only thing it excludes is stubs that cannot become an article, something mentioned in WP:STUB, WP:DP, and WP:MERGE. It uses a similar process as those pages for dealing with unexpandable stubs; first, make sure they're unexpandable, then look for a merge topic, then refer the content to someone who might be able to find a use for it later, then, failing all of those, delete it. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:58, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

What exactly do you mean by directory? I interpret that policy to mean exactly what it says, that WP should not replicate the yellow pages by hosting information on thousands of items of no interest. Schools, however, are notable. So in the end we would hope to have verifiable information on all schools, just as we have on other topics of note. Yellow-pages-esque content like promotions or advertising should not be included -- that's what WP:NOT is intended to prevent.

As for stubs, I would contend that a complete article on a school might be just a few sentences; that might be all the verifiable information available. Such an article might well be a candidate for merging. But not for deletion or any other sort of removal from the encyclopedia. Christopher Parham (talk) 06:18, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

What do we do with a stub that offers nothing but directory info (name, number of students, location, contact info) that has no clear merge target? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:27, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Keep it, or find something else to do with it that is non-destructive. Christopher Parham (talk) 06:32, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Forwarding it to the project is destructive? Projects can keep whatever they like that will contribute to articles. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:34, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Removing it from the encyclopedia proper is destructive in that readers will be highly unlikely to find it in project space. Obviously seeking help from the project to find a good merge target or expand the article would be another matter -- that's already covered in the what to do section as the first recourse. Christopher Parham (talk) 06:43, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Why would someone expect to find something in articlespace that is explicitly called out in WP:NOT? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:49, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

This isn't called out by WP:NOT; that calls out directory entries. This is just a short article on an encycloepdic topic, similar to many short articles on significant people that just begin name-occupation-nationality-birth date-death date. On another note, please be careful about 3RR. Christopher Parham (talk) 07:26, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

This guideline requires some evidence that the subject is encyclopedic. If someone posted a stub on a person that was nothing but name-occupation-nationality-birth date-death date, it would not last unless someone showed some evidence that there was some way to expand the article. This is the the intent of both WP:BIO and this proposal: stubs need to show some evidence that they can be expanded into articles. If they can't do so after being referred to WP:SCHOOLS, what evidence do we have that they can be expanded at all? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 07:30, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Because schools are notable, it's safe to say that such potential exists. (With people, no such assumption of notability exists.) That's why we keep the article and wait for organic growth to expand it over time. It's like planting a seed and you come back in 10 years and it's a tree. Christopher Parham (talk) 07:41, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

This is circular. "Schools are notable." "Why are they notable?" "Because their articles can be expanded." "Well, how do you know that every school article can be expanded?" "Because schools are notable." If every school has coverage sufficient to expand its article, then this guideline will go far to encourage that that coverage is found and added to the articles, explicitly encouraging and endorsing WP:SCH's excellent work in this regard. (I've found that, just like WP:PCP wasn't formed from the most voiciferous defenders of Pokémon stubs, WP:SCH focuses more on improving demographic stubs than making them or defending them.) The only way a school would possibly be deleted is if it was tagged, WP:SCH was uninterested or incapable of turning up any independent coverage, and there was no logical merge target and no possible likely merge target. If all we can say about a school is duplicated from another directory, we not only invite duplicating errors in those directories, but also invite vandalism and the creation of directories of "resources for conducting [the] business" of education. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:01, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

That's not really an accurate portrayal of the reasoning. Schools are notable because they play a crucial role in their communities. Like towns, they are in themselves important institutions. Because they are notable, it is extremely likely that they have coverage sufficient to expand to a full article. This is a basic position that a lot of people have taken for a long time, and that is why deletion of information about schools is unacceptable. I don't really see the relevance of your last point to the issue...obviously we always invite duplicting errors in our sources. That is why we should use reliable sources. If you feel a directory is not a reliable source, then make that point when it is used as a reference just as with any other disputed source. Christopher Parham (talk) 08:10, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Additionally, pure directories are often not reliable sources, especially in the case of private schools, and we risk reproducing errors if there are no sources but directories. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:38, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

If a source isn't reliable, that's another matter. I've never opposed challenging information on the basis of one of the core content policies; sending an article even to AFD for those purposes is fine (and recommended by the deletion policy). Christopher Parham (talk) 06:43, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

This is largely why I'm looking for non-trivial information. Non-trivial information is easy to evaluate and consider in context; when the only sources are the school and a directory, we have to take their word for it. (A lesser concern is that this leaves Wikipedia vulnerable to hoaxes and advertising.) - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:49, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Answering question from way up there. I've had the merging of sub-stubs reverted every time I've attempted it. - brenneman ^{L} 07:34, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

That's not a promising revelation. Some sort of centralized noticeboard for such merges may be useful to help organize merges and discuss disputed ones. Christopher Parham (talk) 07:45, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

• BTW, to clarify I have no objection to the proposal as it stands right now. Christopher Parham (talk) 07:48, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

  Would you object to language discouraging (without outlawing) the creation of stubs that don't have the germ of expansion in the form of some non-trivial coverage of the school? I don't want to see stubs deleted; I want to see their creation slowed to focus on organizing, cleaning up, and improving the largely unencyclopedic, moribund stubs that barely survive AFD, while discouraging the use of AFD to force one-liners to be turned into unexpandable but barely-sufficient stubs. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:14, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

  So long as such stubs were not subject to deletion, I would agree that they should not be created as a separate article. However you should be aware that a vast amount of those stubs are being created by new or drive-by users who are unlikely to be aware of the guideline in the first place. (BTW im going to bed, check on you in the A.M.) Christopher Parham (talk) 08:22, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

  The drive-by subs are unavoidable. However, I had to delete a dozen one-line restatements of the title all by the same established author, and that situation is untenable. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:27, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Thivierr's edits

Rob, I edited your additions about local press, folding them into a section that now covers any reliable source and covers alumni as well. I didn't want to be stepping on the intent of your edits, however, save for the qualification that alumni lists are trivial coverage. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:42, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Everything keys off of #1. If a school is demonstrably unique in some way, then there's going to be non-trivial coverage. We can't take a school's word that they're unique, for the same reason we don't take a business's or person's word that they're unique: they have a vested interest in making themselves look good. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:59, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

First of all, everything has to be verifiable always anyhow. It's enough to say just that once (the link to WP:V does the trick). Expecting substantial discussion on a point such as a notable alumni is unreasonable. You're trying to remove items that have been *widely* used in many AFDs. Often, inclusion of verifiable alums has caused an AFD to suddenly move to a strong consensus. We don't insist on substantial non-trivial coverage of a Grammy award in WP:MUSIC. A small mention is adequate, as long as it's in a reliable source. --Rob 05:10, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

As for uniqueness, I'm trying to prevent gaming the system by adding inane unique things. Let's say a school is the only one in the district with five levels of German instead of four, and that this is verifiable through the district and through the National German Class Ceritification Board. Is this substance enough for an article? Hardly. Is it unique? I guess. I folded the uniqueness in with #1, because #1 mentions non-trivial verifiable coverage. If you want to split it out while retaining the non-trivial qualification, then it's just a matter of organization.

A Grammy award is non-trivial coverage in and of itself, and there's no dispute that anything that wins a Grammy has been covered non-trivially. (Contrast this with the school whose team won a local spelling bee which attracted no notice.) I want to disqualify "unique aspects" or "awards" that are so trivial so as to have not merited mention in a third-party reliable source. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:20, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

How does this version look? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:29, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

You're still trying to do, what we don't do for WP:BIO and WP:MUSIC. If I find a verifiable source somebody won a grammy, or has two albums on a major label, that's enough. I don't need multiple sources with non-trivial coverage of it. If you wish to revert me, please go ahead, and go all the way. Please don't "fold" one item into another, if you're effectively removing it entirely. I think, at this early stage of this proposal, we should just let people add items they think are appropriate. Then we can all discuss all the items. Then later, we'll see what has support, and know which to remove or "fold". --Rob 05:41, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

If we had some authority to come in and make a distinction between trivial and non-trivial school awards, I wouldn't quibble about this for one moment. Right now, lacking that authority for schools, I'm deferring to availablility of coverage to make the distinction between the Best Bilingual School Of The Millenium from the Official Nationally-Recognized Board Of Bilingual School Evaluation and the Best Springfield School Ever from the Springfield Board of School Promotion.

Basically, what's the Grammy of schools? Is there one? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:45, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

And how does this relate to alumni? Why are you insisting on "Substantial mention in biographical works about alumni or staff". I didn't add any criterion for school awards. Anyways, I'll leave this alone for the moment, and see if the ownership of this page can be removed from the creator, before spending any more time on it. --Rob 06:02, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I dont own this page; I'm just trying to avoid criteria that won't allow for the expansion of an article or that will allow someone interested in promoting a school to game the system.

I'm insisting on substantial mention for alumni/staff because the fact that Corey Haim went to an elementary school isn't necessarily something that can turn into a proper article. I'm trying to draw a distinction between bare lists of alumni (another directory) and grist for articles. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:05, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Staff I'd support but alumni? No. Unless a school has multiple famous alumni (verifiable from reliable external sources) the fact that one famous person went there is not enough to justify an article, any more than the fact of being in a band which passes WP:MUSIC is enough to justify an article for their drummer. Just zis Guy you know? 09:33, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

It's not about scoring enough points on the notability-o-meter, it's about having material for an article. One chapter in a biography is better than a list of a hundred notable people. If Jimbo Wales describes how his elementary school helped form his current philosphy in his biography, we can turn that into material for an article, better than 20 notable people going to their elementary school, learning how to write cursive letters, and moving along educated but otherwise unimpressed. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 10:07, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Years and directories

I've changed the years from 100 to 5. It can easily be argued that a school that has been in existence for at least 5 years has had an effect on many people, and it was already admited higher up in this talk page that 100 years was just picked out of the blue. Therefore, I would like to argue the point that 5 years, also picked out of the blue, is long enough for a school to be known and to have an article.

In addition, the school directories that we work from are typically government owned and can be trusted better than some list posted by a 10th grader to some free hosting company. For example, at WP:EiC, we normally work from list such as:

• Province of British Columbia (AchieveBC)
• Saskatchewan (Government of SK)
• Manitoba
• Ontario Ministry of Education
• Ontario Ministry of Education (school boards)

Since these are so often government lists, I've removed the restriction that information obtained from these cannot be used. --Stephane Charette 07:15, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Those are directories, and copying info from them just makes directories here on Wikipedia. Directories are called out on WP:NOT. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 07:17, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Nice try. We use those as sources. We don't copy them. By the way, look up WP:OWN as you are reverting anyone's edit to the proposal who has a different opinion than yourself. This isn't a discussion on a proposal -- it is turning out to be something you are trying to force through. --Stephane Charette 07:20, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't accusing anyone of copying verbatim, but there's nothing you can make from a directory but another directory (or statistical analysis, I guess, but nobody on WP is doing that and it'd be OR anyway).

The intent of this proposal is that it sets as a minimum bar the existence of non-trivial coverage, to exclude advertisement and bare directory entries and nothing else. Everything else is negotiable, but if you change that, you have a proposal that has the support of absolutely noone whatsoever and that is in no way a compromise. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 07:24, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

As for years, anything that has stood for five years will have an effect on many people, be it a civic building, a church, a law office, or a store. The standard I'm promoting is availability of non-trivial information, not "number of people affected." 100 was pulled out of the blue as a number where a school can't fail to be historic; things that are five years old are not historic. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 07:18, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

One hundred years -> five? Err, that seems a bit extreme. I support one hundred. - brenneman ^{L} 07:31, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

May I suggest that you consider the impact of your proposal. Using 100 years, we should get clear consensus that the school is notable. If we were to use 5 years, it would be impossible to achieve that consensus. So if the goal here is to get a guideline in place that can achieve consensus we should leave it at 100. I would rather not have a specific number of years listed, but I don't have any ideas at this time for wording that would allow the removal of a fixed number. If this becomes a guideline, it can be changed if needed. But right now we really need to get consensus. Vegaswikian 07:34, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I too, think that 100 years is an appropriate number. Remember that the way the guidelines work at the moment, a school has to meet only one of them to be included. A school that exists for 100 years, thus in this sense, is notable only for having existed that long, regardless of the other bullet points, as the other editors above seem to concur. --Kuzaar^-T-C- 14:39, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

100 years is far too restrictive and will only serve to institute systemic bias. Schools in certain parts of the world are far more likely to have reached a certain age than in others. European and South American schools obviously have a greater tendency to be 100 years old or older than do schools in the west of the United States, or schools in Africa which may or may not have a more or less equal "notability" (all other aspects being hypothetically equal). A school which is 50 years old in say, Great Falls Montana is arguably MORE historic (as AMIB expresses it above) than a school which is 100 years old in Pimlico, England. I think this number needs to be cut down significantly (40 years?). I think it is instructive that all of the endorsements of the 100 year benchmark, which was admittedly "pulled out of the air" have rapidly come from editors who "frequently nominate and/or vote to delete school articles". My concern is obvious, that the "100 year old standard" will be used as a club in future discussion about school articles in attempts to disqualify it as "non-notable" due to "not being historic" as set out by the guidelines of some future WP:SCHOOL criteria.--Nicodemus75 20:11, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I think you're probably right on this point. I was just pulling a number out of the air to give older schools a free pass on needing to demonstrate non-trivial coverage, as discovering that coverage (which will surely exist) will take quite a bit more time due to the need to do traditional go-to-the-library research. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 00:29, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

My conflict of interest and comments on the proposal

I declare a conflict of interest here which I believe will result in nothing but pain. From some of the comments above, I would say it is clear that the agenda is to severely limit the articles that we contribute to Wikipedia on the topic of schools. This proposal that we are supposedly discussing was written by one person who is now reverting edits by anyone else who holds a differing opinion such as myself. However, as one of the authors and a contributing member of WP:EiC, I also have a very obvious bias towards saving school articles and being allowed to continue contributing in the way that we have been to improve the coverage and quality of the school articles that we have so far.

Unless an obvious change somehow takes place to allow other people to contribute to this proposed guideline, and to take into account that some people -- like those of us who are part of various school wikiprojects -- actually enjoy setting up nicely-written articles on school districts and individual schools, I'm afraid there isn't much that can be done with this proposal.

The bias of AMIB and Kuzaar is obviously well-known, as the first draft of this proposal shows. But since it is a proposal, and it is being discussed and re-worked, other people should and must be allowed to contribute. While this was in your userspace at User:A Man In Black/Schools, you did OWN it. Now that it is a proposal, you no longer WP:OWN it. Trying to force the direction of Wikipedia's stance on schools is either going to result in a dead-end no-consensus, or it will end up with lots of hurt and pissed off people. The way things are going, it is unlikely it will be enforceable. You started the ball rolling with this, let it continue! We have a chance here to finally clean up all of the non-consensus problems and get a guideline or policy in place.

As for myself, I will refrain from participating in this proposal for the time being for the following reason: my bias is clear, I've stated it before and again, and as a member of WP:EiC I would see our activities severely restricted on Wikipedia if this proposal is accepted. If nothing happens and this continues where it is heading, then I'll take this to mean that I've gotten too involved to see clearly, and thus my backing away is a good thing. However, if there is continued resitance from others who feel like I do, then maybe AMIB and possibly others should consider how they've been trying to drive this process. In my opinion, this proposed guideline is very one-sided, and it is this one-sideness which will cause it to fail to be accepted, or fail to be implemented. --Stephane Charette 07:42, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't call that a bias (or not a problem bias). If you worked for a school district, and worked on its schools, that would be a possibly problem bias. All Wikipedian edit articles and all are welcome to participate in inclusion/deletion discussions of articles. I can't imagine somebody recusing themselves from WP:BIO because they like to edit biographies. --Rob 08:05, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I've added the {{guideline in a nutshell}} to the guideline, since it's the part that the entire proposal hinges upon. I don't want own this proposal, but if the core of it is changed, then we're trying to discuss a moving target. (If you change something that subverts that core, you're not changing this proposal but instead overwriting this proposal with a new one, if that makes sense.)

Ideally, I'd like to see objections to the core separated into "I object to that core" (in which case we may scrap this and come up with a new proposal) and "This part of the proposal works at cross purposes to the goal or has unintended consequences" (in which case we figure out new wording). It's the difference between "This is a bad idea" and "This is a bad implementation."

As for your "bias," I don't think that this is just a keep all schols vs. delete every school less important than Columbine argument as it has been previously framed, and unless you have a vested interest in doing anything but making Wikipedia the best project it can be, you belong in this discussion. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:10, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't see the intention as limiting the articles contributed on schools. The intention is simply to follow the same policy for schools as we do for everythign else, that is, we include them where there is sufficient verifiable information from reliable secondary sources to alow us to ensure the neutrality of the article. Empty articles are speedily deleted whatever the subject. There is nothing new here, really, as you'll see by comparing it with the numerous other inclusion guidelines. Any school article which contains verifiable information beyond a restatement of the title will be in little danger. My personal view is that we should have a sister project for schools where much more information can be added, including using the school's own publications and testimony from its students as sources. Then we can leave the few genuinely famous schools in Wikipedia and transwiki the rest without the fights. Just zis Guy you know? 08:15, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I can't help see this guideline as an attempt to limit the inclusions of schools in Wikipedia and I really don't understand why. The fact that the guideline moves from a general statement to the standard of notably implies that there is a limited subset of schools that would qualify. On the all or nothing issue of inclusion I support all. I believe there are certain pieces of public infrastructure that merit inclusion by their existence; communities themselves, hospitals, schools, cemeteries, and airports as examples. I don't believe there is a standard for notable Airports? I cannot contribute any edits to this proposal because I disagree with the fundamental premise. The fact that we must restrict the type of article and put a burden of proof (beyond the factuality of the information) on the contributor from the first edit is unnecessary and detrimental to drawing editors. The community has gone down this road several times and I do not believe this will gain any consensus. Wakemp 15:16, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Airports are a very good analogy. Every airport with an IATA or ICAO code has its own article (or soon will). I don't see anyone going around tagging them for deletion. --Usgnus 16:21, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

In the UK there are thirty airports, around 150 universities, over 3,500 secondary schools, and around 18,000 primary schools. One British airport had twenty-six million passengers last year. In what way are they comparable? Just zis Guy you know? 20:55, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

They are comparable in that they all deserve articles. Incidentally, according to wikipedia there are +220 airports in the UK. See List of airports in the United Kingdom. --JJay 21:15, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Here's an example of an airport stub: Red Lake Airport. --Usgnus 21:25, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Rather than looking at the problem as one of keeping versus deleting schools, I would suggest that we should look at it more along the lines of: How can we make the quality of the encyclopedia as good as we possibly can? My personal feeling is that this can be best served by having articles on any schools for which there is enough verifiable information about, and keeping information on other schools in a school district article or some other central spot, so that if more information comes along we can spin it off. If anyone else has any differing ideas as to how to increase article quality, I'd love to hear them. JYolkowski // talk 21:44, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, precisely. To be honest I think that there is probably community consensus for this principle. AFD of course will not find such a consensus. Christopher Parham (talk) 23:18, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I could not agree more with the 2 foregoing comments. Frankly, if the {{guideline in a nutshell}} added is the accurate stated intent of this proposal, I think it is pretty clear that this proposal will fail miserably and utterly. As has been stated hundreds of times in the past, many of the editors who contribute to school articles and school-related projects simply believe (as Wakemp puts it) that "there are certain pieces of public infrastructure that merit inclusion by their existence; communities themselves, hospitals, schools, cemeteries, and airports". Other editors do not believe the same thing. Those of us who believe this, do not see the details of each individual school as trivial anymore than the relatively similar details about many, many, many communities listed on wikipedia are trivial (median income, specific demographic makeups including tenths of percentiles, etc.) I too disagree with the fundamental premise of this proposal. I think it is highly informative to review the previous school discussion which has now been archived (albeit improperly such that the archived discussion pages are all mislocated). As far as I am concerned, irrespective of the first principles or premise upon which I think a discussion towards reaching consensus on schools must be based, it must have the result of at least achieving the result that exisiting tools have created, ergo: thousands of schools are now (and have been for years now) included in wikipedia and any reader or editor of the encyclopedia can reasonably expect to find information about a school here in the same way they can reasonably expect to find information about communities, airports, etc. I must harken back to April of 2005 where CalJW put it so well: "The only reason to come up with some new policy is to create a means of deleting some school articles. Those of us who think all the articles should be kept will never accept such a policy..." If anything, there is now an additional year (plus) where this has become even more clear. I can already see that with this proposal, we are setting up for a repeat of the last WP:SCHOOL "discussion" of which I was highly critical at the time. Already, editors are opting out of the discussion - why? because "those who frequently nominate and/or vote to delete school articles" are already instantly reverting, "folding" and removing any changes to the proposal that would accurately reflect the premise that those of us who believe school articles ought to be included in wikipedia hold to. The whole problem is, and always has been, that so called "school inclusionists" disagree with your premise, they don't necessarily disagree with all of your bullet points. This proposal is bankrupt because fails to take into account the strongly held belief that Wakemp in the first place and is thusly doomed to failure. Instantly reverting or "folding" changes to the proposal that reflect how other editors feel about the issue is simply an attempt to control the debate and excise the differing opinion on the fundamental issue to somewhere outside of this discussion in a vain hope that by pushing the foundational belief of most "inclusionists" out of the discussion that a false compromise could be reached.--Nicodemus75 20:29, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I take it, then, that this is a statement of your intent to continue your obdurate refusal to accept widespread consensus in respect of covering only those subjects which have achieved sufficient external coverage in reliable secondary sources to allow for a verifiable and non-trivial article. Just zis Guy you know? 20:41, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

No such consensus exists, despite your (and others') attempts to "prove by repeated assertion" the same. Wikipedia has **THOUSANDS** of communities, municipalities, towns, etc. that HAVE ZERO "sufficent external coverage" as you put it. There are articles about towns in the USA and Canada where there are less than 10 people residing, articles which exist because of a single source obtained from a government source. No one is arguing WP:V here. There is no question that an article about any school needs to be verifiable as stipulated in WP:V.--Nicodemus75 20:50, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

There are notability guidelines for numerous content areas. In every case there is a bar to inclusion which is set well above simply existing. But it is evident that you will never accept any compromise whatsoever. Just zis Guy you know? 20:57, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Painting those that disagree with you as irreconcilable extremists is a frequently-used tactic in these discussions over the past 3 years. In the recent past, you've publically characterized those who feel that schools merit inclusion in wikipedia by virtue of their intrinsic importance to infrastructure in the same way as airports and communities themselves as acting in a "religious" and "non-rational" manner. It is simply false to suggest that "In every case there is a bar to inclusion which is set well above simply existing." This is obviously not the case when it comes to communities, municipalities, towns, airports, railroad cars, etc. Simply rejecting the argument that schools ought to be treated the same as communities and airports by characterizing those who hold that position as religious, non-rational uncompromising extremists is an example why these "discussions" continually fail to reach consensus. --Nicodemus75 22:26, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

• Hmmm... no. Personal attack removed
  brenneman ^{L} 23:26, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

  Show us the "analysis" please. Point us to the "demonstration". And since you want to personalize things, then show us the school articles that you have improved. Personal attack removed --JJay 00:30, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

  You seem to forget the people who share your views on AFD, and never create and/or substantionally improve any school article. There's editors here, who's only edits to any school article are adding the {{AFD}} tag. They dream up all sorts of standards for articles, as they have never, and would never, bother to live up to those standards (e.g. make a qualified article). Its easy to have a "wide pattern of opinion", as random deletion doesn't bother people who haven't contributed anything in this area. We do have editors who regularly support keeping all verifiable real schools, and improve many, and work on many other non-school articles. Guidelines, like WP:MUSIC have succeeded, as they were developed by those who actually make them, and not by those who's exclusive interest is in removing them. --Rob 00:13, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

  • Err, of course the burden to grow a micro-stub is on the people who want to keep it? Not on the people who suggest it be deleted? I'll dig up the stats, but it may take a while, it was in a now-deleted user page. - brenneman ^{L} 01:29, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

And, in record time, this has been personalized and rendered useless. I'm sorry I wasted everyone's time; I had hoped that people could discuss the subject instead of each other. Let me know when you're done accusing each other of bad faith and assassinating each other's characters. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 00:33, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Personal attack removed --JJay 00:40, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Schools that don't meet the criteria

This is somewhat obvious, but I'd like it if the criteria for adding a notability tag only referred to non-substub pages. One-liner school articles probably should just be merged/redirected into a school district article. They can always be split off again following sufficient organic growth. Thanks. — RJH (talk) 19:18, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

• I've added this to the proposal (note that I've also changed the tags to use as well). JYolkowski // talk 21:46, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Post-secondary schools

I have removed the bullet point that is an attempt to exclude technical schools and community colleges, etc. from notability. Many techincal schools and community colleges are *not* corporations or companies and are state-run/owned institutions making the reference to WP:CORP irrelevant. Beyond that, "community college" has a different meaning in different parts of the world, in some areas a "community college" is larger or indeed more prestigious than a "university". I also fear the elitist systemic bias against educational institutions which do not educate as "universities". Technical/vocational post-secondary facilities are no less worthy of an article on intrinsic basis than "universities". I have no doubt my change to this "proposal" will be reverted or "folded" by its original authors.--Nicodemus75 20:43, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

There are many more tertiary colleges than there are universisties. Technical colleges are functionally indistinguishable from secondary schools, in this country at least. Just zis Guy you know? 21:00, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

In North America, community or technical colleges are, based on my experience anyway, more prestigious than high schools, but less so than universities. JYolkowski // talk 21:48, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Counting words and other comments

Quote from a comment above by Aaron Brenneman:

If we want a vivid demonstration of the fervor, simply count the number of words per contributor in this section.

If we're going to start counting words, why don't we see who here has contributed any words to any school article?

Further discussion on my talk page

For those of you still following, last night I said I'd step back. It has been intersting to see where the discussion has gone since. I strongly suggest -- to both camps -- that you also see the side discussion between AMIB and myself that has been ongoing all day on my own talk page. Note: the discussion is long.

In regards to trying to merge school articles into school districts

I would like people to stop saying that stubs can/should/could/etc be merged into the school district or school board articles. It doesn't work, and your suggestion simply proves you've never worked on a school article. Want to know why? It has been tried. The best example I can give right now is Peel District School Board. This is discussed (briefly) in the discussion between AMIB and myself on my talk page, but if you don't believe me, go check out the article in question. Not only is it borderline unmaintainable, but it an eyesore (though better than what was previously there). In my opinion, it looks more like one of those lists or directories much more than an article with a navigation bar and an infobox.

An acceptable school stub edited by AMIB

Please take a look at that last example, Delhi Public School (Ontario). This is a school stub that AMIB edited to demonstrate for us what he believes is an acceptable stub. The version of the stub that I had created is here (note the use of references throughout to fully WP:CITE the information I gathered). The latest version of that stub was edited by AMIB (see the history).

The question (from my talk page) now becomes:

So if adding a single small fact to a stub -- even the fact that the school has recently purchased a jungle gym like you did to the example article above -- is all that matters, state exactly that in the proposal! The proposed guideline would be very much simplified, down to just a single paragraph, and I'm certain you'll get a lot more people agreeing to it than the situation you have now.

Polarized discussion and non-neutral proposal

AMIB also asked me Do you feel that this proposal is essentially misguided?, and further in our discussion I pointed out the following which I think several people should read:

The premise of the guidelines is to set the bar so high that all of the stubs would get deleted or moved out of article space. As long as this continues to be the goal of the proposal, and you and various other people revert or refuse to accept input from people who are actually working on school articles, then there isn't anything else we can do. Take a look at the conflict this causes, and how divided the views are between people who work on schools and people who haven't worked on school articles: these two comments are side-by-side on the proposal's talk page:

• I don't see the intention as limiting the articles contributed on schools. JzG
• I can't help see this guideline as an attempt to limit the inclusions of schools in Wikipedia Wakemp

Obviously -- to me anyway -- there is something very wrong with the proposal when people cannot even agree on the effects or the intention of the proposal! If the proposal was neutral in it's intent, then people wouldn't be so polarized.

--Stephane Charette 00:11, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

The goal of the proposal is to resolve the issue of the unexpandable stubs. Any demonstration of expandability protects a stub. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 00:19, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Then in that case, there is no more problem, because every stub can be expanded into acceptable articles. For example, the article that you brought up to standard, Delhi Public School (Ontario), a few days ago looked like this, which I'm certain everyone will agree looked like an unexpandable stub. You and I with just a few edits have taken it to an acceptable level.

I suggest we simplify the entire proposal to reflect what we're trying to accomplish. --Stephane Charette 00:29, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Continuing, and suggested reading

I realize that AMIB has just posted a comment seeming to indicate he's no longer interested in this proposal (edit summary: "fuck it"), but I would like to see what we can do now that everyone has been forced into this position.

However, prior to doing more, I'd personally like to read up on the guidelines that other projects have adopted. There have been several linked in various comments above. My thoughts at this point would be to read through them and cherry-pick from the work that has already been done by various group on Wikipedia.

Reading material for tonight include:

• WP:MUSIC -- This page gives some rough guidelines which we might use to decide if a musical topic is notable.
• WP:CORP -- This page gives some rough guidelines which Wikipedia editors use to decide if a company, corporation or other economic entity should have an article on Wikipedia.
• WP:BIO -- it is the opinion of many Wikipedians that these criteria are a fair test of whether a person has sufficient external notice to ensure that they can be covered from a neutral point of view based on verifiable information from reliable sources, without straying into original research (all of which are formal policies)

Anyone else have further helpful reading material? Thanks. --Stephane Charette 00:54, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Speaking of WP:CORP, you may find it interesting to read the page history from before this was moved into Wikipedia: space. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 00:57, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Where do I get that? --Stephane Charette 00:59, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Ok, got it. Wikipedia:Schools/Defunct and Wikipedia talk:Schools/Defunct. --Stephane Charette 01:06, 3 August 2006 (UTC)