Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hamblen Elementary School

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was hmmm......keep, no consensus. SushiGeek 03:20, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hamblen Elementary School (Spokane, Washington)

Non-notable elementary school. Delete because of the lack of differentiation from others of its type. We should not have an article on every school any more than we should have an article on every restaurant. Johntex\^talk 00:23, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

• Comment LOL I just did a google search and found at least three different "Hamblens" around the U.S. - Hbdragon88 00:29, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete too many schools with little to say about them.--Hooperbloob 03:31, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep based on many precedents. If it's not expanded, somebody is free to merge, if they so wish, based on WP:SCH. --Rob 03:35, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Please note WP:SCH is not a policy. Johntex\^talk 03:53, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Please note, I can link to a page that's not policy. I'm going along with WP:SCH-based merges, in the spirit of compromise (I prefer stand-alone articles personally). WP:SCH isn't policy, but its a good-faith attempt at compromise. --Rob 04:15, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

You can absolutely link to a non-policy if you wish. It's just that we have so many policies and guidelines, I don't want anyone to get the mistaken idea that WP:SCH is either. Johntex\^talk 04:43, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

• Delete I don't support elementary schools, the likelyhood of notability (which also is not a policy, but I use it) is slim to none. T K E 04:12, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete No claim to notability --Icarus 05:25, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
• Perhaps a redirect to Spokane Public Schools --TBC^{??? ??? ???} 05:51, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete Next to no elementary and middle schools are notable, and the vast majority of high schools are not either ⇒ SWATJester ^Ready Aim _Fire! 05:57, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per above. --Khoikhoi 07:43, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep.--Tdxiang 陈 鼎 翔 ^(Talk)Contributions Chat with Tdxiang on IRC! 09:19, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete, no assertion of notability. --Terence Ong 10:15, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep --Irishpunktom\^talk 11:05, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom Imarek 12:13, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. I disagree that high schools (with the exceptions, say, of the Columbines and the HSPEs of the world) are notable; elementary schools sure aren't. RGTraynor 14:33, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per demonstrated consensus in past discussions. In addition, policy/practice recognize notability of every subway station in world, and schools are more significant than subway stations. Monicasdude 14:35, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Please note that, just as some past nominations of schools have resulted in a consensus to keep, other past nominations have resulted in a consensus to delete. We need to look at the merits of this individual school, where the article makes no claim of notability. Johntex\^talk 15:14, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

That's a little misleading. Virtually all verifiable real school articles for several months have been kept. Looking over a year, it's the overwhelming majority. It's often the those wishing to delete, which will point this out. We don't delete municipalities, and we don't delete schools, if they are verifiable. I find it annoying that some people miscontrue deletions of schools lacking verifiability (which I've voted and/or nominated for deletion) as being a general allowance for deleting a verifiable school. We should not be deleting articles on an entirely random basis, as you're currently seeking. Please, don't try to go back in time, and undo what's done. This is a waste of time, and we all know it. --Rob 18:37, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

While I don't think you mean to misinform, your comments are potentially misleading. You say don't "undo what's done" as if there had been some inflection point where policy changed. That is not the case. There is no consensus on a policy to keep all schools. The fact is we do delete schools that are not notable. I agree with you that we should not be deleting articles randomly, we should be doing so based on their importance or non-importance. The waste of time is in creating articles on non-notable subjects, which then take time to delete or (worse) take time to police them for up-to-dateness and vandalism in the case they are kept. Editor fatique is a real problem on these non-notable articles. Johntex\^talk 22:47, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Please give a full list of recent examples of AFDs that resulted in K-12 school articles being deleted, that did not involve verifiability issues (or copyvio), but were strictly based on "notability". Wikipedia:Watch/schoolwatch/Schools for deletion archive and Wikipedia:Watch/schoolwatch/Schools for deletion archive/2005 seem to disprove your point. You're trying to pretend a rare exception, is something normal. Given the level of your contributions towards schools, I don't see how you can be suffering from fatique. But, if you are somehow "fatiqued" anyhow, feel free to scale back your "effort", to be less tiring. I'm sure nobody will mind. --Rob 22:59, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

You're trying to twist my words. The worst fatigue is in trying to watch over these non-notable articles. Johntex\^talk 23:10, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

"Non-notable" is your own opinion. How many times have you reverted vandalism to a school-related article? I would have to disagree with you, the worst fatigue is watching over Britney Spears, George W. Bush, Hitler, and any other entertainer, pop singer, or person of power, and you don't see us nominating those for deletion, do you? Silensor 23:13, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Amen. The vandals tend to hit the big articles which makes it really frustrating if you're trying to do a good edit on one of them. Yes, some do vandalize the small articles, but there are bots and people who just pay attention to the "recent changes" page to take care of that. Even if vandals DID focus on "small" articles that would not be a legitimate reason to delete, as we don't delete based on the possibility of vandalism. YellowPigNowNow 23:28, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

John Segenthaler shows how damaging vandalism to a fairly obscure article can be. All we need is for someone student to edit Hamblen Elementary School to say "Principle skinner molested me." and then for that to go unedited for a few months. Johntex\^talk 23:49, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

So you're saying John Seigenthaler didn't deserve a page? Anyway, defamatory content can, and often is, posted on chemical pages that are not commonly viewed, but are important nonetheless. The problem isn't with obscure articles. It's with anonymous vandals. However, Wikipedia is based on the idea that anyone can edit, so vandalism is a risk the community is obviously willing to take. I don't think the possibility of vandalism existing in the future is a proper concern in the deletion process, but I realize you feel differently. YellowPigNowNow 00:28, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Let's see. You can't find anything wrong with the current content (or history since June), so you manufacture some scenerio that might happen in the future. Shall we also delete all the RAMBOT township articles because somebody might write "Mayor skinner molested me."? As somebody who regularly edits and watches many school articles, I *know* how absurd your claims regarding vandalism are (though like any article area, it obviously exists as a problem). As somebody who rarely edits school articles (except to nominate them) you simply don't know what you are talking about. At least research something before commenting. --Rob 00:36, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

(resetting indent) I'm not digging through deletions outcomes on schools becuase it is irrelevant how many schools have or have not been kept in the last few months or the last few years. Just because a cabal has formed to try to blindly keep all school articles, regardless of notability, does not mean that the rest of us are to be intimidated. The fact is that even with the cabal to protect every school-phone-book entry, there has been no change in policy to protect schools from deletion. My arguments about vandalism apply not just to schools but to all non-notable articles. Schools are no different from restaurants or shopping malls. If there is something special about them, then by all means lets have an article about them. If not, then lets delete them and get on with more important articles. Johntex\^talk 01:45, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Many of us spent a lot of time (wasted judging buy your comments here) discussing this issue. I personally started out from your viewpoint. However at Wikipedia:Schools the only possible compromise was the merge to district or town page with no loss of content and a redirect in place. You may well disagree with this but until you have gone through the archives you will not appreciate this position. Not to mention reopening the can of worms will just waste a huge amount of time from your own perspective. The original goal was to reduce the number of school AfD's since they serve no purpose other than to cause fights. As Rob says, how many verifiable schools have been deleted recently? It is a fools errand to persue this to the end game. David D. (Talk) 03:03, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

If somebody said "...if someone wants to write an article about their high school, we should relax and accomodate them..." [1], would they be part of this "cabal" you speak of? Would that be "intimidation" (as you imply)? p.s. Did you notice that your link goes to BJAODN? --Rob 03:19, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

No to being a member of the cabal (so far as I'm aware) because he does not participate in auto-pilot keep-voting. No to being intimidation because he says he thinks people should relax, which is very different to inflamatory language such as "you don't know what you are talking about". However, I think his recommendation is a bad one. Especially when he says The argument "what if someone did this particular thing 100,000 times" is not a valid argument against letting them do it a few times. You have essentially demonstrated what is wrong with this statement when you tout the fact that some non-notable schools have survived deletion as an argument why all non-notable schools should survive deletion. That is exactly the danger with letting these kinds of articles stand. They continually lower the bar for what is to be included here. Johntex\^talk 03:35, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Re: "you don't know what you are talking about". He has a point. Have you read through the archives on this discussion? They are long and tedious but necessary because all your arguments have been made before. As I said above, i was saying exactly what you are saying now. Don't waste too much time on this. i do believe the best compromise has been reached. David D. (Talk) 03:43, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

What compromise would that be? What Rob is saying is that schools don't get deleted very often, so just keep them all. That is not a compromise. To answer your question, I am familiar with the debate over schools. I think some of the best arguments are in Wikipedia:Schools/Arguments#Delete. So, yes, I know what I am talking about. I am aware some people want to keep all schools, regardless of whether there is anything special about them or not. I am aware some of these people have tried and failed to establish a policy saying we should keep all schools. I am aware we should be discussing here this individual school and whether it should be kept. Unfortunately, we are deviating off of that mark a bit. Johntex\^talk 03:53, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

No I don't mean the project page i mean the talk pages, see the archives here: Wikipedia_talk:Schools#Archives. These arguments (delete, merge and keep) have been discussed to death. The compromise was that crap school articles can be merged and the school page would be maintained as a redirect. Do i think this is a good compromise? Not really. i do think it is likely to be the only comproimise that can work. Read the archives and see what you think. You will find that your position was well represented at the table. David D. (Talk) 04:02, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I have not read every word of the discussion, but I have read large chunks of it. My favorite quote is "merged crap is still crap" - which Rob said at one point in Archive3. If I understand the context correctly, he was arguing to improve articles to good quality, versus just merging stubby stuff together to make it look more "keepable". However, there is no compromise there, as far as I can tell. Just within the past 24 hours the proposal has been marked as rejected policy[2] and Rob agreed to this[3]. Therefore, I don't see how any compromise has been reached. I see that we are left to discuss each case here on its merits, just as we do for non-school articles. Johntex\^talk 04:24, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I think Rob supports that move since there is a description of how to write a school page on the WP:SCH. i did notice man in blacks 'reject tag' although i was not quite sure what it meant. Wikipedia:Schools#Current_proposal_for_schools seemed to be a workable solution to keep schools out of AfD and therefore to stop these huge long discussions which are time sinks. i still think that solution is better than the strife that comes from AfD and schools. Crap yes worth my time no (although here I am again doing just that). David D. (Talk) 04:34, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I and probably most people, didn't really love the merger compromise. But, we accepted it, as the best so far. I voted to oppose it as *official* policy or guiedline. But, it was me, who put the merge compromise wording onto to the Wikipedia:Schools page itself (so it wasn't just on the talk page). I also regularly cited it in AFD. This was an effort, to support compromise, even when the compromise, wasn't my personal version. We all gotta live with a lot of stuff we don't like. That's the only way this thing works. You have to understand the compromise doesn't have to be official, to be used. No new policy is needed to do merges, as policy has always allowed that as a regular editing decision. However, some people misuse Wikipedia:Schools, and mistakenly used it to justify deletion. All the confusion over its meaning, led me to accept labelling it as a rejected guideline. Anyways. For this article here, I will happily accept a merge/redirect, even though it's not a perfect solution. I don't vote "merge" per se, because some misinterpret it as being "like delete", which it is not. Paradoxically, you've increased the chances for a stand-alone article. Had you just done a redirect, I doubt anybody would have minded. I have done nothing to prevent a compromise, and we can easily have a compromise for this article. Once the AFD is over, a discussion of what to (e.g. merging) can be done. --Rob 04:53, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Gotta love any discussion fork away from actual Keep or Delete opinions that is longer than the article in question.--Isotope23 05:33, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

• Weak Delete - I am 100% supportive of articles for all high schools - but elementary schools is a bit too far. Weatherman90 14:47, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
• redirect and merge if necessary to Spokane Public Schools, I don't see anything wrong with that. Just zis Guy you know? 14:52, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete, no consensus to keep any schools... but in my opinion anything below high school has about the same inherent notability as your local Walmart: none. Could support a Redirect per JzG. --Isotope23 14:56, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete no consensus to keep all schools, look up in your local phone directory and you'll find numerous driving schools, traffic schools (for offenders usually), computer skills schools, comedy schools, etc. They all get WP pages, well we might as well incorporate the phone directories and say all people are inherently notable because they attend(ed) "notable" schools. Carlossuarez46 15:48, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per above, esp. Isotope. Eusebeus 16:28, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. Dpbsmith (talk) 16:38, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep As with the others. Osomec 17:30, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. Gflores^Talk 17:31, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
• Merge per JzG. Fagstein 17:39, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep or merge, schools are inherently notable. If there's nothing written about it, merge or redirect to whatever district it's in, mention there, and tag it {{R with possibilities}}. Stifle 17:54, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep or merge, per above. --Tone 21:46, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep as most schools are notable. bbx 22:41, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep as per Wikipedia:Schools/Arguments#Keep and the historical consensus to keep articles on schools. Silensor 22:50, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep. There is much precedent for keeping school articles. It has been the rare case where a school article was deleted for "notability" reasons. Other factors were usually at play. It's slightly misleading to suggest otherwise. YellowPigNowNow 23:15, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

  To put it in more precise terms, out of the past 430 school articles nominated for deletion, 24 were deleted. In most cases they were deleted because they were either unverifiable or proven to be a hoax. Enough of the myths. Silensor 23:19, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

• weak keep, mostly as per weatherman, but weakly feeling that every school is as notable as every subway stop or chemical . . . --He:ah? 23:49, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
• Merge, if it's not expanded, based on Wikipedia:Schools and in the spirit of compromise. David D. (Talk) 02:10, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
• Weak Delete or Merge - Valid arguments on both sides, but in the end I fail to see any encyclopedic value in a separate article. -Big Smooth 03:18, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
• Ninja Keep in otherwords keep this and kick the nominator squaar in the nuts </cartman> All schools are valid inclusions to a global encyclopedia. This is reinforced quite effectively per Wikipedia:Schools/Arguments#Keep  ALKIVAR™ 04:21, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per Wikipedia:Schools/Arguments#Delete. U$er 04:29, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. Elementary schools are notable for only a few reasons (mostly morbid): bombings, shootings, and special needs accomodations (aka... only elementary school specifically for autistic children in all of new england, even that would probably warrant a debate). Delete, please. — Scm83x ^{hook 'em} 04:40, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. Non-notable, as Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. If kept, do not add transient and generic information for expansion's sake. — Rebelguys2 ^talk 04:41, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
• keep please the school is very important to note Yuckfoo 05:04, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
• keep per Alkivar et al. - Jaysus Chris 05:38, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per Wikipedia:Schools/Arguments#Keep. Christopher Parham (talk) 06:08, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom and Wikipedia:Schools/Arguments#Delete. ClarkBHM 06:47, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
• keep - If an elementary school can be deleted because it is non-notable, why is Addy, Washington kept? Addy is basically a truck stop (I live a few miles north of Addy), yet it remains, but a school, whether its a primary or a secondary, does shape people's lives and the articles do offer somewhere for new people to begin to work on Wikipedia. Not to mention that Hamblen Elementary is tied into the former Spokane mayor Jim West scandle. Alemily 19:53, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Because the articles on towns start from material generated by a bot from a reasonably comprehensive, authoritative, accurate, and up-to-date database, and therefore the collection of town articles taken as a whole, is reasonably thorough, reasonably consistent in style, and reasonably accurate. That doesn't mean everyone approves of them by any means. However, it is not fair to compare the current set of school articles in Wikipedia, taken as a whole with the current set of town articles. Dpbsmith (talk) 16:27, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

RAMBOT census places (which you refer to) applies to a country with 5% of the world's population. All the issues with currency apply to all the other places in the world (95%). Articles on places outside the U.S. is one of the largest areas of *human* created articles (full articles, stubs, and substubs). Thank goodness we don't waste time on AFDs on all those articles. Incedently the *vast* majority of those human made articles (with no bot maintenance) have no claim of notability, yet remain one of the most valued parts of this project, and are what attract a large portion of readers and editors. --Rob 17:12, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

• Delete - elementary schools should not be kept unless notability is established. I don't see it established here. -- Jjjsixsix ^(t)/_(c) @ 21:41, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. Per above reasons. Vegaswikian 22:35, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep all schools. Usual arguments. If you just don't see the beauty in an encyclopaedia that has a well-written article on every school (and every restaurant) in this world, then you're too dull to argue this with anyway. Grace Note 07:39, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep by default. Notable-non notable distinction is inherently POV. --millosh (talk (sr:)) 10:21, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep.as Grace Note.--Luka Jačov 11:27, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. Non-notable school. Wikipedia is not a directory. --G Rutter 16:00, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
• Ninja Keep same as ALKIVAR. Notability isn't, fortunately for Wikipedia, a reason for deletion. --GTubio 20:33, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per User:Thivierr. --estavisti 20:49, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.