Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sturgis Charter Public 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 was keep. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 20:54, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sturgis Charter Public School

Vanity page filled with rampant NPOV problems, as well as possible original research. Knowing Is Half The Battle 20:41, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

• Delete Fails to assert notability. Essay is a non encyclopedic original research.--Húsönd 20:47, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom ReverendG 20:55, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete WP:OR WP:CITE WP:NPOV /Blaxthos 23:02, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep As a public high school, this school has inherent claims of notability, and the article more than meets the qualifications for retention. Again, this nominator makes charges of Vanity for a school that seem to belie a complete and utter misunderstanding of the term. See WP:COI, which explicitly states that "Avoid using the word "vanity" in a deletion discussion — this has created serious problems. Remember that such an accusation may be defamatory. As explained below, an author's conflict of interest by itself is not a basis for deletion", which thoroughly undermines the case for deletion. The article had a lengthy section criticizing the structure of the school and its IB prgram, which has has been removed (and could have been removed -- or edited-- by any of the individuals who had an issue with the NPOV content). As one of only four schools in New England offering the IB program it makes explicit claims of notability. Alansohn 05:00, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per Alansohn's (unsigned) reasoning above. --Rob 04:15, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Note - The use of the word vanity does not undermine the reasoning for deletion. The article is clearly written with a point of view. Additionally, the article has no source citations and appears to be rife with original research. Each of those issues individually are serious problems; all of them together make a strong case for deletion. /Blaxthos 05:25, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete I'm aware that the POV section has been removed, but as a former student I know this Wikipedia article has been somewhat of a hot topic, and usually when the POV section was removed, the author reverted the article within a matter of hours. I really agree with Blaxthos' above comment however. I corrected a few factual inaccuracies relating to courses. Patrick Hurston 16:53, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: I've never seen potential for reinsertion of POV section as a justification for deletion. If it were, George W. Bush would have been deleted long ago (not that there wouldn't be those now considering this as an approach. Hmm...). A combination of monitoring the article on watchlists (it certainly is on my radar) and page protection should deal with the issue. You, of all people, are best suited to identify -- AND CORRECT (or at a minimum identify) -- the issues you have cited.
    • Reply A friend of mine (don't know his username) had tried to remove the POV pushing and rewrite the controversey section to make it more netural several times some months ago. The original author of the article (who apparently has a major ax to grind with the school) reverted most or all of his changes systematically every time, and eventually started accusing him of vandalism and "cheerleading". Patrick Hurston 20:04, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
    • PS If the article is indeed not deleted and the POV section is replaced, I will most certinally correct it, though if the original author is as vehement as he was when my friend tried, I can't gaurantee that my changes will stay. Patrick Hurston 20:07, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep For many months, individuals claiming affiliation with the school--students, alumni, teachers, unspecified others--have attempted to obliterate details of the school's history and current standing, using the entry on Wikipedia to facilitate public relations, rather than increase public knowledge. Wikipedia administrators have repeatedly refused to sanction these effortson the basis that striving for NPOV does NOT require eliminating controversy, it requires acknowledging ascertainable facts and balancing conflicting accounts and interpretation. This effort requires thought, not politicking for deletion. The "friend of mine" cited above as a champion of truth was in fact soon thereafter banished from Wikipedia for vandalism. At this time, there exist more than 700 IB-affiliated high schools in the US, as well as thousands of charter schools, and tens of thousands of public high schools. None of these characteristics--IB-affiliated, charter, or high school--is itself notable. On the other hand, Sturgis is well-known for having made an explicit promise to its surrounding community that it would involve all students enrolled in the IB program, which according to IBO policies, requires IB testing of each student in each subject area. The fact that the school claims to be educating all students to IB standards without testing students at those standards is notable locally (because of the promise of the charter), nationally (because of the debate over the role of standards in education policy), and internationally (because of the violation of IBO policy and the implicit challenge to IBO control of IB standards). For the most part, the sanitized entry merely reiterates what is already available under pre-existing entries for the IBO or minutia from the school's handbook.
  • NPOV does not require balance. It requires inclusion of all significant and verifiable points of view. POV arguments invented by editors themselves are not verifiable and should not be added. Gazpacho 01:26, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, we have ways to deal with POV pushers. Gazpacho 01:15, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep dont give in to POV pushers, I agree with Gazpacho, we have ways to deal with them. Deletion is not an acceptable alternative for something that has a potential to be cleaned up.  ALKIVAR™ 02:50, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
• Note The section in question was not citied and not verified. Had it been cited and verifiable, that would be a different story, but it apparently, as far as I can see, ammounted to original research. Patrick Hurston 04:10, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Have we not yet established the notability of high schools? It seems to me that we pretty much have, yet still the nominations come. -- Necrothesp 18:21, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. This is beyond old, go hash out your issues at WP:SCHOOLS or find something more constructive to do. RFerreira 00:54, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep- per my friends above from schoolwatch. --ForbiddenWord 14:11, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: Let me just say that what is important is the consensus among all Wikipedians, not among schoolwatch this is a very alarming statement and not at all in the spirt of wikipedia goals. I visted the link to Schoolwatch and found no discussion as to what are notable or what is not. All I found were a list of AfD's current and a past AfD's with results totaled by month list with totals by month. As to its point of view I found this statement right at top of page "the terms 'keep' and 'no consensus' are used interchangeably (as no consensus defaults to keep)." TheRanger 16:02, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment. Can I say that, as someone who is not a "member" of Schoolwatch and dislikes being classified as such by people who think most school articles should be deleted, I don't really think it's in the spirit of Wikipedia to continue to nominate secondary schools for deletion when general consensus on AfD definitely seems to be that such articles should be kept. It's a pointless exercise, and often seems to be merely a (very poor) attempt to prove a point (i.e. we can continue to nominate these articles even though general consensus is against us). Just my opinion. -- Necrothesp 16:20, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
      • Yes, the consensus that matters is the one that can turn out the most editors, and that is the group at Schoolwatch, as evidenced by the archived list of how many school articles have been deleted thanks to the voting efforts coordinated by that project page. --ForbiddenWord 17:08, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
        • Wikipedia is not an exercise in democracy. Stop trying to out-vote things and start doing what encyclopaedists are supposed to do: research. Cite sources. Don't parrot dogma. Uncle G 19:02, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
          • I know that Wikipedia is not democracy; consensus is the important thing in much of the project, though, and a very large and interested part of the community has declared their opinion on the notability of schools. That assuredly counts for a great deal in AFD, just to look at the other Keep users' comments for example, like Silensor's valuable additions to this discussion. Just look at the facts given in the article, like the 350 students figure and the budget of 1.2 million, and the fact that it's a school. That's a stronger claim by far than most articles have to notability. --ForbiddenWord 19:36, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. The nominator here has cited reasons for style editing, not deletion. Silensor 17:26, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Being a high school, the general consensus has been that high schools all meet notability TheRanger 17:30, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete, just another high school. No assertion of notability. One's the same as the next, and this is one of them. —ptk✰fgs 20:05, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete non notable school. Montco 01:47, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep and allow for organic growth, notable school. Bahn Mi 02:28, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per Alansohn's evidence of WP:SCHOOLS compliance 'The school has a substantial and unique program, structure, or technique that differentiates it from similar schools' (WP:SCHOOLS #4). Cynical 11:41, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep all enduring public institutions. --Centauri 14:38, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
• keep please articles for deletion is not the right place for cleanup it meets guideline proposed Yuckfoo 02:41, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep and cleanup, subject is notable. bbx 20:45, 20 October 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.