Talk:Commonwealth School

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[edit] README

Please do not remove large chunks of this article without asking first on the talk page. It is being edited a lot and it's tough to improve the worse parts of the article when they vanish. Thanks. ThinkingInBinary 12:10, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

This article needs to be dramatically improved or nominated for deletion. Right now it has far too much unverifyable trivia of little interest to the general public. Please keep in mind that this is an encyclopedia. The article should consist of information that will still be pertinant 50 years from now, or even 100 years from now. The fact that speakers invited to talk at assemblies generally leave at least 15 minutes for questions from students is not interesting to me, nor can I verify that that is factual. As it stands now, this is essentially a vanity article and does not belong in an encyclopedia. I'll give you a week to clean it up. After that I'm taking an axe to anything that's not verifiable. Kaldari 15:06, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
I don't mean to be harsh, but this doesn't really seem in the spirit of Wikipedia. Deciding that you really don't like an article's style or content and repeatedly tearing it to shreds does not seem like a good thing to do. About being pertinent 50 years from now--there are many automatically-added articles about counties or townships in random places that aren't even pertinent now. A quick tour of some random pages suggests that somewhere between 10% and 25% of articles are about things that most people would consider irrelevant a century later. Here are some examples:
Why are you spending so much time trying to destroy other people's work instead of contributing new articles or improving them? I personally don't consider it improvement to erase large parts of an article. Is there a reason you're picking on this article so much?
Two questions about verifiability: First, how do you deal with facts that you know are true but that aren't published somewhere? It's not original research, but there are thousands of Commonwealth students who know that, for example, the clay brigade is a real Commonwealth tradition. It's true, and other people know it, but how do I cite it? Second, how can everything be verifiable? If it were possible for every fact on Wikipedia to be verifiable somewhere else, it might as well be a list of those links instead, to save people's time writing!
--ThinkingInBinary 18:52, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
I'm sorry if my actions seem harsh. My first impression, however, was to list the article for deletion, but I decided instead to try to see if the article could be brought up to conform to Wikipedia policies. I'm afraid that you may not completely understand the original research policy. Just because something is a fact does not mean it can included in Wikipedia, even if many people know it is a fact. The fact must be verifiable by an outside person through the use of primary or secondary sources. As the original research policy says: "Original research that creates primary sources is not allowed. However, research that consists of collecting and organizing information from existing primary and/or secondary sources is strongly encouraged. In fact, all articles on Wikipedia should be based on information collected from primary and secondary sources."
The policy also specifically states that you "may not use unpublished knowledge as a source of information (which would be impossible to verify)".
By this policy, I imagine that about half this article needs to be deleted. Rather than using personal knowledge to write this article, it should be based on published newspaper articles, books, and reputable websites.
Would it be better in line with Wikipedia policy if I put the information in this article that I know to be true on my web page, and then cited that page in the ==References== section? -- Jeff 20:44, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
Never mind; see below. -- Jeff 21:23, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
If information is not published and verifiable, chances are it isn't notable enough to be included in an encyclopedia article. This is why it is discouraged for editors to write about organizations they are personally involved with. For example, I would never significantly edit the article about the company I work for, for three reasons:
  • It would be impossible for me to write about it impartially and objectively since I have a personal stake in the company
  • Most of my knowledge of the company is not published or verifiable by outside sources
  • It would violate the spirit of the vanity policy.
So really, neither students nor faculty of Commonwealth School should be editing this article, as it is a conflict of interests. Of course people do this all the time, so I'm not going to waste my time trying to convince you not to edit the article. I will however have to insist that this article conform to Wikipedia policies and guidelines. Kaldari 19:17, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
Kaldari: I'm curious; do you believe that most other articles on high schools should be deleted? Have a look at Groton School, Milton Academy, or Boston Latin School (to pick some local schools I know a bit about), and I think you'll find most of these same objections apply. That does not mean that it is not useful to have information out there about these schools, and it does not mean that we cannot have a reasonable degree of accuracy. -- Jeff 20:38, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
Suggesting that because we have other articles that are bad it is ok to allow another to continue to be bad is not a good way to write an encyclopedia. Instead, you should go through the other articles and remove those parts of them that are unverifiable. Sympathy is no good, unfortunately. -Splashtalk 20:44, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
I'm sorry if it seems like I'm saying "hey look at them: they're just as bad". What I mean to say is that most school articles I have found have been built this way, and saying "ok, we'll delete all of them" is a very strong statement. I was wondering if Kaldari did feel that they were all in violation of Wikipedia policy and should all be removed (or substantially edited).
I'm still curious; would it help if I took the information from this entry that I can personally vouch for, and put on an independant web page that could be cited as a source? -- Jeff 21:11, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
Never mind; I just looked over WP:V, and I see that it wouldn't be acceptable. -- Jeff 21:23, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

<carriage return>Quite a lot of school articles do have problems because the students/staff add too much information to them. They come to read more like a current-affairs site for the school. That's part of the reason I removed the stuff to do with two new whiteboards and so on. Consider what will be of interest to people reading an encyclopedia when the school no longer exists; when whiteboards, and computers and websites are run of the mill. Will people be concerned with all that detail about Hancock when, in 20 years, the school does some other completely different trip? Certainly, they'll want to know it happened, but in how much detail? What will they really want to know about? Then, since Wikipedia is not paper, allow some leeway and include some interesting facts (facts, not factoids) that might normally be omitted in say, a Britannica version of the article. -Splashtalk 21:22, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

To your question, no, that would be cheating! It would rather step on the toes of our no original research policy. This doesn't mean research in the usual sense. It means any facts that you have determined on your own initiative without referring to somewhere else that is a reliable source. So a common example would be that you're writing a bio on someone. To enhance the article, you take the trouble to interview them. But you can't include any of that info here, since no-one but you can verify what you are saying. You'd have to get a newspaper to publish it or something, because then we would expect it to have gone through good editorial rigour. Then it could be included, because it is information that is verified from a reliable source. -Splashtalk 21:22, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I've been reading through relavant Wikipedia policy, and I think I have a decent handle now on what is allowed. The problem is, the way I've been treating Wikipedia and the way many others seem to treat it is at odds with official policy. People do write from personal experience. We could just say these people are sloppy and should go read policy, but that seems like it doesn't deal with anything. When people do this they are being useful, and often informative and helpful articles get created. One example, noted earlier by ThinkingInBinary, is Slashdot effect, but there is often information that is:
  • Well known among members of some group
  • Interesting to people outside of the group and for newcomers to the group
  • Not documented in official sources
Current Wikipedia policy does not make a way to include this information, but people want it included and so write pages for it. These pages get worked on, and often get to be pretty good. Then someone comes by applying policy and removes anything not verifyable, making the pages from lots of people's work, only to be edited to nothingness. Perhaps there is some way to keep traditional secondary source encyclopediac articles while still allowing documentation from experience? Grouping all writing of this sort under "origonal research" doesn't really match what's going on. -- Jeff 00:22, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
Honestly, I don't really care that much about an occassional bending of the policies, but this article is rather heavy on trivial non-verifyable information. If you guys can clean up the most egregious sections (School Events and Traditions mostly), I'll leave the article in peace. Kaldari 00:37, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Rewriting

Someone from the school overwrote this entire page with content from the school website; she thought some of the content would be off-putting to prospective students and parents. Some of the previous content (the good stuff, hopefully) has been restored, and the page has undergone many edits since then. --ThinkingInBinary 01:17, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Policy Violations

Replacing the entire page with stuff off the website appears to go against these Wikipedia policies:

I have this confirmed by the school's director of alumnai relations. -- Jeff 16:46, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
As it was put there by an official of the school, this should be ok. -- Jeff 16:46, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
It may be legally okay to post it, but does she know she's releasing part of the website under the GFDL? --ThinkingInBinary 17:15, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Other pages

There are two related pages to this:

  • List of Commonwealth School awards - This page has been replaced with a redirect for the time being. I have a backup of the text, but it needs more discussion before it gets reverted.

I have replaced the List of Commonwealth School publications with a redirect to this page. The article in question was neither encyclopedic nor verifiable. Please limit the content of Wikipedia articles to that which is notable and of interest to the general public. For example, I don't imagine the general public would be interested in who edited the school's satirical newspaper in 1997. Kaldari 18:17, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Link to the QOTW website

I just modified the section on qotw to have a link to the group's archive website. It is debatable whether this link should be here, and I'll give some reasons both ways below, but I think it is worth it.

[edit] Against having the link:

  • Many or perhaps most of the archived quotes on the website would be of interest only to those in QOTW, and these people probably already know about the website.
  • A small fraction of the quotes could unintentionally make the School look bad when read by those who don't know their context.
  • The website is not very often updated, and isn't likely to be updated in a while.
  • Some people who don't understand how wikipedia works might think that this link is an endorsement of qotw by the school.
  • Mr. Wharton said that most people outside the school don't find QOTW funny or "don't get it". --ThinkingInBinary 12:51, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
  • The "QOTW Uncensored" page, however deeply hidden, is going to offend people. --ThinkingInBinary 12:51, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Not really. It won't offend people if they don't see it, and people are less likely to see things that are "deeply hidden". -- Jeff 16:35, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] For having the link:

  • It is a logical link for background information, much like the one for firstclass
  • Interested students could find out about it and learn how to join.
  • The site links to the automatically updated (but not-very-pretty) email archive.
  • Properly used, it shows huge amounts of what the atmosphere at Commonwealth is like (even our jokes are usually intellectually motivated :-\) --ThinkingInBinary 12:51, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

As the harms do not look serious to me, and the information benefit is strong (and in line with wikipedia's goals), I would say keep the link. -- Jeff 21:36, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

I would have to agree with Jeff on this one. --Reillyeon 21:58, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

I personally agree, but have heard arguments by more important people otherwise. --ThinkingInBinary 12:51, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Things seem to have calmed down some, and I think people looking at this page would find them useful, so I'm putting back the links to qotw and the leek, plus a link to a non-wikipedia page of traditions I've written up.

-- Jeff 01:56, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Things to Add or Change

  • More information about academics.--Reillyeon 21:56, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Perhaps not long descriptions of every course/department, but a simple list of departments and courses. Mr. Wharton pointed out that this stuff is all in the catalog/on the website anyway, and they've already edited it. --ThinkingInBinary 13:00, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
  • A useful thing to mention is how the set of courses offered is often adjusted to what students want, particularly as far as higher level classes. -- Jbms 06:46, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Information about the art programs available at Commonwealth (art classes, plays, etc.)--Reillyeon 21:56, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Ditto on the curriculum--might not be worth duplicating--but a list of plays would be great! --ThinkingInBinary 13:00, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Information about Commonwealth's interaction with the community around it (community service, City of Boston) --Reillyeon 21:56, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Yes, there are lots of organizations that would be good to mention. --ThinkingInBinary 01:22, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
  • A short, general description of "what kind of school Commonwealth is", beyond a "private school in Back Bay". What's important to us, what is an average Commonwealth student interested in--something a little less objective. --ThinkingInBinary 01:22, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Umm, "a little less objective"? That doesn't really sound like the job for Wikipedia. -- Jeff 21:14, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Well some might say that objectivity doesn't exist, but of course, that is not something to discuss here. More in line with wikipedia policy, ThinkingInBinary (perhaps someone I know?) could have suggested that some less trivial information be added to the general description of the school. For instance, the fact that most of the students and faculty are liberal could be mentioned, although I'm not sure that would be useful. I don't know how to best describe the atmosphere of the school, but I think it would indeed be very useful to do so. -- Jbms 06:46, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I think a few quotes would be appropriate, indicating how students, faculty, and alumni describe their school. (Perhaps it would be OK to take these from admissions materials?) This would communicate more of the school's personality and feeling, but as quotations they would be sufficiently NPOV. - Reed H. Sept. 06
  • Under traditions, a description of announcements should be added. I will perhaps try to write this. --Jbms 08:32, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
  • If you do, you might want to mention that prior to --- I think it was 2001/2002 --- announcements were at the end of lunch instead of as part of recess and the reasons for the change (everyone, including you, was skipping) them. -- Jeff 21:13, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Well it actually seems to me that while announcements are a useful tradition to mention, those specifics of timing and the reasons for changing the timing are not particularly important to mention. -- Jbms 06:31, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I agree. Is the same bell still used? I believe there is an interesting story behind it but I now forget. -- Reed H. September 2006
  • A description of the student lounge should also be added. I am not really qualified to write this, but perhaps someone who is will do so. --Jbms 08:32, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Not sure if it's important -- Reed Sept. 06
  • A description of the sports programs should also probably be added. They are modest, but definitely worth mentioning. -- Jbms 06:46, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Some pictures of the school (such as of the outside), or at least one, would probably be useful. Someone in Boston could produce this very easily. -- Jbms 06:51, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • The logo as well?
  • *Added Songs*: I added mention of some of the tradditional songs of the school. If they are getting too much into trivia, then please feel free remove them. I think they are useful in that they provide relations between Commonwealth and other realms of information on Wikipedia. I also couldn't get them out of my head! - Reed H. September 2006
  • *The Walled Garden*: If anyone has a copy or can find publication information for this book, it should be added to the end as a reference or pointer for more information. -- Reed H. September 2006

[edit] Reasons to add to this page

  • It is good to have a neutral article that, without grossly misrepresenting the school, portrays its unique attributes, positive and negative. --ThinkingInBinary 01:16, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
  • It was turning into a good page that really described the school. --ThinkingInBinary 01:16, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Parents might want a more clear and less promotional description of the school than the website. They might want something that is clear of precisely the perfectly edited, balanced, and tuned writing that the school puts out. --ThinkingInBinary 01:16, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
The question is, though, is Wikipedia the place for that information? -- Jeff 20:49, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Schools and links from that page. -Splashtalk 21:01, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Reasons not to add to this page

The administration of the school has suggested that:

  • They want the page to present the school in a very specific way.
    • It's not up to them, it's up to the editorship of Wikipedia at large. There is no ownership of articles on Wikipedia. -Splashtalk 14:58, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
      • I understand it's not up to him through Wikipedia, but he has asked students (at least me) not to add stuff to it. --ThinkingInBinary 01:10, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
  • The content we are adding is already on the website, in the catalog, etc.
    • That's not a problem, since this article is not for advertising. There's no reason to suppose that only interested parents will be reading this article. -Splashtalk 14:58, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
      • Yeah, you'd think it would be useful for other things, like alumni finding out interesting things about the school culture. Unfortunately he is worried about what prospective parents/students would see, and has removed content because he doesn't think it's relevant to them. --ThinkingInBinary 01:10, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
  • If we add it and paraphrase/edit it, they will have to edit it again.
    • That's up to them. -Splashtalk 14:58, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
  • If we add it and don't paraphrase/edit it, it's not proper Wikipedia writing.
    • More specifically, it it were copy-pasted it would be copyright infringement and it would be removed on sight (I'm watching this page). -Splashtalk 14:58, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
      • Not true, if they are the copyright holder they can use it as they like. They do have to agree to the GFDL, but they can release it to be used on Wikipedia while still holding the copyright. This is what they did when they replaced the page with stuff from the website, some of which is still there. --ThinkingInBinary 01:05, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
  • If they edit it, it will end up similar to the website.
    • Then someone else should re-edit it until it isn't similar to the website because the website is essentially non-neutral in its presentation, and one of Wikipedia's core principles is neutrality of point-of-view. -Splashtalk 14:58, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Thus, we should just link to the school's website instead of adding stuff here.
    • Absolutely not. Wikipedia is not a collection of external links.
      • It's not a list of links, it's just like many other articles about companies/organizations/schools have an external link to the organization's home page. We're not planning to put up a whole site map or anything. ;-) --ThinkingInBinary 01:10, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I see the point, but disagree that it's a reason to completely stop adding stuff. Perhaps it's a bad idea to add loads of stuff from the catalog, but expanding the article with simple things that don't require lots of editing/review (like a list of courses in each department) would be useful, in my opinion.

He has also pointed out that adding to this article has left it "unbalanced", with more focus on things like the Jobs program and Hancock than Academics. While I fail to understand why individual contributors are responsible in any way for this, I understand his concern. I don't know exactly what to do, since it's harder to describe Commonwealth's academics in clear, well-written language... it's hard to explain.

Lastly, the director of alumni relations has asked me to stop adding to this page. It's frustrating, because their high standards of quality for communications about the school mean that any edits will have to be scrutinized, and everyone is already quite busy. --ThinkingInBinary 13:09, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

  • It is not up to the school what appears in the article, I'm afraid. They are free to edit it as individuals, but they are not welcome to determine for themselves what will and will not appear here. The article as it stands needs editing down: there's some chunks of stuff in there that aren't really encyclopedically interesting. But that is no reason to refrain from adding or editing. What edits an editor makes on Wikipedia are up to that editor alone and not their headmaster. Be bold, but be sensible and do not ask for permission to do things. If you plan to do something obviously controversial, drop this talk page a note, like you already did. -Splashtalk 14:58, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Although I adhere to your beliefs that editors should be bold in what they do, I'd like to make sure that whatever I do, logged-in or anonymously, is okay with my school. They're a very nice place and try to be flexible about things, so I don't want to disobey what they say in secrecy. --ThinkingInBinary 02:28, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Headmaster/headteacher

We need to decide whether to call the section on the principals of the school "headmasters" or "headteachers", and which to call the current one.

[edit] "Headteacher"

  • Pro: It is definitely gender neutral
  • Con: It sounds clunky
  • Con: His primary function is not as a teacher
  • Con: No one uses the term at the school, and I've not heard it used anywhere else.

[edit] "Principal"

  • Pro: It is a very common term for the head of a school
  • Con: It's not used at Commonwealth
  • Con: Mr. Wharton does teach a class, while principals generally don't

[edit] "Headmaster"

  • Pro: Mr. Wharton is called the headmaster. He is not refered to as the principal or the headteacher.
  • Pro: I believe all past ones have been called headmaster, including Ms. Keenan. At any rate, I have heard comments like "when Ms. Keenan was headmaster..."
  • Con: Might be gender specific

Because of these reasons, I think we should put all instances of "headteacher" back to "headmaster" -- Jeff 21:02, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

No one's made any comments here, so I'm going to go ahead and change "headteachers" back to "headmasters". -- Jeff 16:32, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

How about "Head of School"? That is not gender specific, and besides, I've always found "headmaster" a bit archaic.

nobody says that either
When my school had an interim head, she was known as the "Head of School," and the position would continue to be known as such if the current headmaster were not a traditionalist pig. Nani 17:05, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
I think the previous comment meant no one /at Commonwealth/. I've certaily heard "head of school" before at other schools. I would still say use "headmaster" for here, though, because he is ((just asked a current student)) still universally referred to with that name (or "mr wharton").
-- Jeff 00:30, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
"Head" or "Head of School" are the correct terms for the head of Commonwealth, I believe. A male "Head" may be called "Headmaster". It varies depending on the personal preference of the head of school, however. - Reed H. September 2006
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