User talk:GRider/Schoolwatch/2005

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Contents

[edit] Suggestion box

[edit] Improvement

could use some TLC. Dpbsmith (talk) 14:13, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Role models

Is Dr. Michael M. Krop High School an example of a good article? Subject line says all. Dpbsmith (talk) 20:59, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Proposed move

This user page was nominated to be moved to a different location. For an archived discussion of this debate, please see User_talk:GRider/Schoolwatch/Archive#Proposed_move.

[edit] Wikipedia:Watch

For all your information Wikipedia:Watch has been set up and currently includes a Wikipedia:Watch/schoolwatch entry. violet/riga (t) 23:55, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • The problem of Wikipedia:Watch/schoolwatch, is that it is inherently NPOV. This project is inherently POV, it's inclusionist, thats the whole point. Schoolwatch is about countering the rampant deletionism of schools on the VfD page. Ancilliary to that it's about improving and making articles about schools encyclopedic.
This page exists to proclaim and defend the notion that all schools are created notable, that they are endowed by their Authors with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Inclusion, Tender Love, and Organic Growth. Klonimus 04:31, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • No, it exists to subvert the processes that Wikipedia has laid down to aid in ensuring quality and relevance. Your paraphrase is factually inaccurate, too. Such a project should not be about countering "rampant deletionism", because the very notion is a fantasy - there is no such thing. What it actually turned into was a witch hunt, which resulted in vote-stuffing in VfD discussions, as well as disruption and interference with due application of policy. What you fail to understand is that discrimination of this manner is ultimately harmful to Wikipedia. Chris talk back 21:21, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • violet/riga thank you for setting up your "watch" pages. I might use some of the others, but I will be sticking with this particular "schoolwatch" because I don't feel comfortable with the other one. Kappa 22:29, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Reverts

I'm not trying to "legitimize" anything but.... Chriscf, isn't that four reverts in under 24 hours? (Wikipedia:Three-revert rule --BaronLarf 22:08, Apr 12, 2005 (UTC)

Oops, sorry. Might well be. I slept between the first two, thought it was longer. I'll leave it for a day or so, and hope someone else makes sure the new project gets priority. Chris talk back 22:18, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'd just like to say that edit wars in someone's user space are pretty lame, especially when the user whose space it's in is currently blocked. If this can be peaceably merged the "legitimized" (whatever that means) version in the Wikipedia: namespace, all the better, though I'm not going to do it. If someone wants to revert my {{merge}} template back to the overly hostile "Stop watching this!" version, I won't contest, either. —Korath (Talk) 22:32, Apr 12, 2005 (UTC)

  • I thought the merge tag was a good idea (the tag, not an actual merge). Kappa

Much better to use WP:W to my mind – pretty much everything that's here can be done there, and it's not in a persons user space. violet/riga (t) 22:40, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • It will be too much hard work to try and make that one NPOV, much easier to have one that doesn't claim to be. Kappa 22:47, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • Let me guess, you're a smoker, yes? Too much hard work trying to give up, much easier to just stick with it and die of cancer. Keeping this one because it's "less work", despite the fact that it is inherently harmful to WP, is not an acceptable excuse in anyone's book. Chris talk back 22:54, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
      Incidentally, can we stop putting words in Jimbo's mouth by citing an email and then claiming it must support your interpretation? Chris talk back 23:04, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • I have to say that as usual I agree with Kappa 169%. Trying to save every school, is inherently POV since it is a demonstration of the POV that every school is inherently worthy of being in a truely great encyclopedia. Schoolwatch will always be POV, and as long as it is in user space that is Ok. Once it moves to wikispace, open and partisan advocacy of school inclusionism, which is the purpose of schoolwatch, will not be acceptable. Hence for thispage to the serve the purpose intended by its creator and users, it must remain in userspace. Keep this page in GRider's userspace (Or Move/Copy it to mine) and allow for tender love and organic growth. Klonimus 00:36, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
      • I believe this project is beneficial to wikipedia. "less work" fighting people over POV means more useful work elsewhere. Kappa 23:08, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
      • Nothing is stopping anyone of us from creating our own version of Schoolwatch, or a collaborative version like Violet did. To force-redirect a userpage while someone is temporarily blocked from editing, right after an attempted deletion was overwhelmingly opposed and a requested move failed consensus, reeks of hypocrisy when taking into consideration what the founder of this page was banned for. 2¢s. —RaD Man (talk) 00:52, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

OK, here's how I see it, and remember this is from a complete outsiders POV:

  1. WP:W is a better place for this, being in a more appropriate namespace
  2. The "Marked for improvement" and "Examples of good articles" sections would be better off at Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools
  3. The "Failed VfD debate, deleted" section could be listed on the talk page

The rest of it is then appropriate for WP:W. violet/riga (t) 22:57, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • You arent a complete outsider, you've tried to move this page. Why can't people leave well enough alone? Klonimus 00:36, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • Excuse me? I've done nothing of the sort! violet/riga (t) 21:15, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
      • Sorry, I confused your reporting of the decision with proposing of the move. Please accept my apologies. Klonimus 02:44, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Agree, support this view. Chris talk back 23:01, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • So far, I'm not convinced. If it can be demonstrated to me that WP:W is a better place, then I will make equal use of both pages. That still doesn't give anyone the right to attempt to hijack or insert redirects on someone else's userpage. —RaD Man (talk) 00:55, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Friends of GRider/Schoolwatch please Comment on these Procedings

Klonimus 04:57, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Recent Changes

Hello,

I have added a section on VfU, we have a very interesting case of an admin speedy deleting a school article after it has survived VfD. I urge everyone to vote and comment on this case.As well it would be nice if people could add some descriptions to the schools listed on VfD.

As well it would be very nice if we could all pitch in to User:GRider/Schoolwatch/Impact and update it with some notable examples of articles that have improved as a result of inclusion on Schoolwatch.

Klonimus 03:54, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Peer review

GRider, I wonder if you could have a look at the article on Caulfield Grammar School and give some feedback, either on the article's talk page or on mine. Thanks. Harro5 (talk • contribs) 06:20, May 15, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Consensus discussion

A discussion aiming for consensus is taking place at Wikipedia:Schools. Kappa 08:13, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] RfC against Neutrality

  • I'm thinking of starting an RfC against Neutrality for his mass nominations of schools to VfD. IMHO Its gone beyond good faith, and into the realm of WP:POINT. Anyone with me on this? Klonimus 19:26, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
I discussed this with Neutrality on IRC last night. He wasn't aware of how his mass-nominations were coming across to people ... Kappa 20:07, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] St Anne's

How can you say that it was deleted without consensus? 20-13 is pretty clearly for a clean delete in my book and anyone elses as well. Gateman1997 07:05, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal to end school wars

The current process regarding schools in clearly not productive, as many wikipedians are voting either to keep or to delete all school articles. Continued creation of school stubs (particularly elementary schools) and nomination for deletion of school articles seem to be driving the parties farther apart, rather than bringing us toward a consensus. (See AfD comments such as "Keep. It's a school." and "Delete. School.") It seems that wikipedians on both sides are just pushing back at each other (consider the recent creation and immediate nomination for deletion of 20+ elementary school stubs). Regardless of your personal opinion regarding school articles, I hope you agree that the current way of operation is not as productive as it might be.

I would like to propose a moratorium (perhaps a month) on:

  • nomination for deletion of any school article which already exists.
  • creation of new articles for schools below a certain level (inclusion of high schools and colleges/universities seems to be generally accepted, while lower schools provoke more controversy), and of stubs even for higher level schools.

The goal of this proposal is not to establish any precedent for or against school articles, but simply to allow interested wikipedians to cool off, to bring us away from the personal attacks which we have seen recently. In most cases, the value of creating additional elementary school articles is not immediate, and no harm would be done by waiting a short time. Similarly, the need to delete existing school articles is not immediate, and perhaps a month delay would allow more reasoned judgement as to which articles have potential to expand beyond a stub and which do not. Even if you do not agree with this exactly as proposed, I hope you will consider some way in which we can work toward a consensus and make Wikipedia a more civil place. Cmadler 12:54, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

I disagree. Even if 1 article of the absolute rubbish that gets put in here is deleted, it will be a victory for common sense. The fact that an organised cabal organises keep votes and uncivily intimidates people with the good sense to vote to delete, combined the writing of terribly articles containing subtrivial irrelevancy. There was a time only a year ago when such crap would be thrown in the bin straight away. Stopping listing schools would be a victory for the schoolcrufters. Most of the delete votes end up with no consensus, when had they voted with their brains they would have been deleted. But every one that deleted is a boost for the health of the project and we must look forward to a time where the doctors retake control of the asylum from the lunatics. Dunc|☺ 15:42, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
The fact is, there are many school articles currently being added which are not listed on AfD, and most of those which are listed are kept (generally with no consensus, as you acknowledge). AfDing mass numbers of schools is not efficient, and it is causing escalation (more school stubs created). If we can have a pause in school stub creation, it is worth pausing AfDs. I think most people agree that large numbers of stubs are not desirable. A moratorium would allow school-inclusionists a chance to prove that stub school articles can be expanded, and a failure to do so would better justify case-by-case merges or deletions. Cmadler 16:02, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
  • The proposal, while noble, is unfortunately pointless for a number of reasons. Firstly, inclusionists are not necessarily (nor often) the creators of new school articles. Many, many school articles are created by a variety of editors on a monthly basis. At this stage, it is virtually impossible to throttle growth of school articles, even if that was the desired effect. Secondly, I see no way of effectively getting the deletionists to agree to a cease-fire in their war of attrition against school articles. All previous attempts at concensus have broken down (IMNSHO, irretrievably), and as this week's vandalisitic mass-nominations demonstrate, it only takes one or two nominators to derail your entire proposal. I think you could very likely get many of us who would like to see more schools included on Wikipedia to agree to a moratorium on school article creation, but I sincerely doubt this will stop the creation of new schools because so many are created by editors who do not participate in the AfD process, even when articles they created are nominated! Secondly, how would it be policed? Deletionists would doubtless consider new school articles created after any agreed-upon moratorium to grant them license to immediate nominate all schools created to immediate AfD. I can only see this exacerbating the existing problem (not to mention the incredible acrimony and lack of concensus that would inevitably occur during any debate or vote to declare a moratorium). I am afraid that the only tool that exists at this time to "work out" the problem is the AfD process (as abused as it may be for these purposes). I think it is obvious, based on the performance of articles surviving the AfD process over the past year, that eventually a concensus will emerge on WP that schools will be included, by virtue of the fact that so many school articles have and will continue to survive the AfD process, irrespective of a vocal deletionist minority. I think it can be reliably stated (based on existing historical data), that if AfD nominations were to be made for 100% of school articles on WP at any given time, the great majority (95%+) would easily survive the AfD process - the only option left to those wishing to see the articles deleted would be to keep nominating in the hopes of changing the results (an action which could surely be brought under administrative review). Even now, traditionally deletionist editors are either abstaining from AfD on schools, and some have even changed their votes from "Merge" to "Keep" or from "Delete" to "Abstain". Like many, I am prepared to discuss and negotiate any and all proposals on how to deal with schools on a "going-forward" basis - but I really think the question will be decided by inevitability. Re-opening Wikipedia:Schools (which is essentially what your proposal means, albeit in a truncated fashion) will simply lead to the same lack of concensus that already exists.--Nicodemus75 19:02, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Another matter is the concept that "inclusion of high schools and colleges/universities seems to be generally accepted, while lower schools provoke more controversy". I touched on this indirectly in the previous comment, but I am not so sure that is true (from either side of the issue). That is to say, I am not sure that deletionists will as yet agree that high schools are "generally accepted" (even though they have a near 100% survival rate at AfD), and I am not sure that inclusionists will agree that lower schools have any less of a concensus (given their 95%+ AfD survival rate). I am not trying to hammer away at my point by saying this, I am just pointing out that even though many inclusionists (myself included) would argue that "high schools have won a grudging concensus", I am sure that many, many of the hard-liners on the other side will simply disagree. I think that the only future is a gradual and inevitable "concensus". User Dunc expresses that "we must look forward to a time where the doctors retake control of the asylum from the lunatics," and I am sure that is his goal (to return to a time when what he believes are useless school articles are "thrown in the bin straight away"), but at the same time his very statement is a concession that "the inmates now run the asylum" to use his analogy. Frankly, there is no way for the "doctors" to get control back at this stage (or in the future), and I am sure that even Dunc realizes this, despite his vitriol. With the phenomenal rate of school article creation now occurring, by the time inclusionists "give up and go home" (if ever) there will be so many school articles on WP that it will be virtually impossible to mass-delete them without re-invigorating the entire debate with a fresh crop of inclusionists who will defend the large number of school articles simply because there are so many and they have persisted for so long (it will literally be years by then). While he and other deletionists may well obtain a sense of "victory" if even one article is deleted through the process - it will have virtually no effect on the reality of school articles as part of WP.--Nicodemus75 19:34, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Focus on AFD spam and super-micro-article mass creation instead

  • Existing guidelines against disruptive behaviour are ignored, and new ones would be to. Policy will need to be improved to prevent deliberately disruptive behaviour, like AFD spamming. Policy should force mass-delete nominations to be grouped into a single (or small number) combined vote, which everybody can vote on just once. Such noms happen with little fanfare, all the time, on things like roads, albums, songs, fictional characters, etc... Also, I think in general, wikipedia desperately needs a threshold for articles size. I don't care what type of article something is, it should be possible to speedy delete one-line articles without prejudicing the creation of something worthy of at least being called a stub. A quantifiable criteria (not subjective) would be needed (e.g. X number of english words, in at least 2+ complete sentences needed, >N bytes, etc...). --rob 19:47, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Focus on schools lists first?

Originally I posted these comments at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Schools but there was little feed back so I am going to repost them here. I will point out ahead that some people seem to view me as a deletionist because I have voted delete for some school pages. This is a mistaken assumption, I think there is a role that wiki can play in presenting information on schools, I just don't think a new page for every school on a one by one basis is a good use of time.

Shouldn't the first step be to create good lists at the district level that include more information than can found in a yellow pages? In those list the vital info can be established in templates that are suitable for a list format. I have been experimenting with such a format for the Elgin U-46 district. I have tried to address the relationships of schools since these are never clear in other sources. Specifically the feeder relationship between all the schools in a district. Each template then has links to school web sites, summary info and a space for a brief description of notable information for each school.

The second step is to include the correct links to the various town pages. None of the town pages in the Elgin U-46 school district linked to the school district page. In fact, many town pages in the U-46 school district didn't even mention schools (I have now added all the appropriate links).

Thirdly, after all this information has been collected in wiki it would then seem appropriate to start adding individual school pages if they have outgrown their template in the lists. Since the 'list template' has the same identifiers as the school template it is quite easy to transfer all the information with a simple cut and paste and then utilise the school template. It should be noted that deleting the 'high' in the template:infobox high school, 'middle' in the template:infobox middle school or 'elementary' in the template:infobox elementary school while editing the school infoboxes causes the 'infobox school' template (template:infobox school) to be used. This latter template is more suitable for individual school pages, with more information being revealed. For an example of this see the Bartlett High School and Elgin High School pages that are schools in the U-46 district.

I have tried this 'list template' approach since I feel that some article on a single school are not useful, especially if they have no more information available than can be presented in this 'list template' style. The new schools that are currently being created are often in a vacuum where it is not obvious which schools a particular school feeds too or from. More to the point they are often not linked to their respective school districts, towns and the respective towns do not link to the schools. I think that with really good school district pages school pages can be given some kind of context with a single link. That is where wikipedia can be BETTER than yellow pages and better than google.

Finally, good school lists should not get posted for deletion. It seems that half the time of those on schoolwatch are patrolling and arguing against deletion. If school advocates concentrated on creating good school district pages then the worst that would happen would be a merge to a specific list. If there is more information than can be contained in a school list template then it will be clear that the school needs it's own page. If good lists are available then the school articles will grow. More importantly the school articles will grow in the context of their school district and town pages that are already in wikipedia and, thus, actually be useful. David D. (Talk) 01:47, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

  • First, I think the whole template concept you have is a neat idea, and I'll have to think more about it; as I'm sure it has more applications.
  • But, at the moment, I'm hesitant because school articles, like any article, grow as other articles link to them, and get links back by the same editors. For instance, if I edit an article of a famous person, and mention their school, I'll link to the school, and go to the school, to link back to them. I wouldn't do that if the schools inside a district article. Hence the school will never "outgrow" it's list status. I find that information in large lists tends to either become very obsolete, or is updated only by mass-re-copying from the original source. Also, the district list approach assumes somebody knows which district a school is in. For instance instance, in some jurisdictions, there are more than one district that covers the same area. And the borders of school districts, don't always synch-up with municipalities in straight-forward/obvious manner. I think categories for school articles are quite useful in finding a school by it's name and province/state, which a list can't handle. --rob 03:21, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
  • All these points are good. The Elgin school district above is a good example since it spans three different municipalities. On the other hand it is this very fact that i think makes the wikipedia source potentially more useful since these ambiguities can be cleared up. There is no doubt this mean that wikipedia will have to rely on individuals with local knowledge but that is a good thing. As far as the updates to lists i think it is a problem. The potential for stagnation of these types of pages is huge. I would argue the problem would be even greater with individual school pages, assuming the goal is to be comprehensive with regard to schools cataloged in wikipedia.
  • some advantages i see in lists is that each school could have it's own page that redirects to the district page. Once someone links to this page from, say, your famous person article, then that redirect page acts as a link and might even be written as a complete article incorporating the writers new knowledge with the info from the list template. Another advantage of having all the redirect pages is the naming convention for all the schools can be established early on. For example, it's not clear to me if we should be writing Elgin High School, as it currently stands, or Elgin High School, Elgin, Illinois or Elgin High School (Elgin, Illinois)? All these formats and probably others are knocking around in wiki. Just some more thoughts, David D. (Talk)


David, I think that your idea is at its basis a good one, and well-intentioned. I know I'm just an idiot, but I think there are 2 or 3 problems with your idea.
    • 1. I think that your idea is born from trying to find a solution or middle ground to the war over school articles. I do not think that it is a concept that you (or others) would have conceived of without all the acrimony. That is to say, I find the development of the idea un-natural in the WP context because I very seriously doubt that anyone would ever consider creating articles about schools in this way. Most editors who resolve to write school articles will just sit down (and quite logically) write an article about a school with which they are familiar (this is somewhat related to my point #2, below). In the same vein, people searching for information about a particular school, are unlikely to enjoy reading through what is by necessity a somewhat cumbersome list, looking for details on a particular school that interests them. I don't think that a band-aid, created because of the blood being spilled over schools is a long-term solution to the problem.
    • 2. I do not see how a proposal such as this will make sense to anonymous, random, or new users (who are still responsible for something like 60% of all edits to WP, IIRC). New articles for schools will still be created by many, many editors and a solution such as yours will require constant policing and moving of new school articles. I suppose that is fine (this sort of policing goes on all the time on WP in some ways), but apart from theoretically (see point 3, below) preventing all the wrangling over the deletion of school articles, I am not sure what is accomplished by creating these lists - except to re-direct labour and effort on WP to re-organization instead of editing.
    • 3. I am not at all convinced that this will put an end to the battle over deletion of schools. Those who oppose the inclusion of school articles on WP as a matter of principal, would be, I imagine, as opposed to reams of elementary schools organized by lists as they are to the articles that currently exist (stubs or otherwise). If your response to this would be, that perhaps the number of deleted articles would be lessened and schools could be included - I would submit that almost all schools (elementary or otherwise) are surviving the AfD process anyway - and that this will gradually lead to a concensus on WP that schools are here to stay.
Believe me, I understand that there is a group of dedicated "deletionists" who do not believe that schools have a valid place in WP, for reasons that they feel are very justified, but in the end, it is no different from all the Pokemon articles on WP that are out there. I am deadly opposed to all of these Pokemon articles, and I think that a single article explaining what Pokemon is is sufficient (and perhaps some pages for the televsion show and movies) - but the fact is that the many Pokemon articles on WP are here to stay because they are of significant interest to many editors and readers. A crusade to delete them, as has and continues to be mounted against schools, is pointless, acrimonious and in the end - destructive.--Nicodemus75 04:11, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the non idiotic and thought provoking reply. You are half right in that I thought of the templates as a potential alternative to the many school pages that are created with minimal content. However, the idea of a hierarchial list for the school districts is still something I think is important and informative regardless of the templates. I think it is important that all these school articles are anchored to such lists as well as the towns and cities being anchored to the school districts and schools. I find it amazing that some towns (maybe many, I have not done a comprehensive survey) that have a school with its own page in wikipedia do not even mention, let alone link, to the said school. At the end of the day the most important thing to me is not whether these pages exist but that they are presented in context to their surroundings, both geographical and political. An analogy is that creating and nurturing school articles (including protecting bad school articles) in the absense of context in wikipedia is like repairing scratches on a car when the engine and steering wheel are both missing. I just think we can do a lot better. I am new to this debate so I apolgise if I am rehasing a lot of old discussions and again, thanks for the input. David D. (Talk) 04:30, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
The problem here, (I did not think I needed to reiterate rob's reply) is that this is not how Wikipedia normally deals with such items. Articles are categorized here when there is anything much more than a couple of wordsabout each item, in which case lists are sometimes used. Even then, items which are larger than a "list" will accomodate,usually maintain their own articles distinct from the list. See antipope for an example of what I am describing. Look at the section on modern antipopes and you will see a "list", where some have articles and most do not. Wikipedia simply has not evolved as a series of "lists" but rather of articles. Anything that doesn't recognize this, is swimming against the tide.--Nicodemus75 04:39, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
Interesting. But in this case wouldn't the red links represent important but missing articles? One of the problems i have had with categorties is I find them hard to use. How many sub categories do I need to drop down before I find my article. How many articles are missing from anyone category. It seems they are flawed in the sense that they only present the knowledge that is already in wikipedia. I thought the point was to have all human knowledge in wikipedia? I suppose I had seen lists as a way of having a comprehensive catalog that could then be used to encourage people to write new articles to fill the gaps. But my sense is that many here, from experience, think that lists actually delay articles being written. By the way, I agree with the pokemon thing you talk about above. It is crazy that such fads have so many pages, I suppose that is life for some. Schools are obviously more important that that type of article. David D. (Talk) 05:05, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
With respect to Pokemon articles, there are literally hundreds of similar themes/subjects on WP that are like this. It is part of what drove me to become a hard inclusionist on schools. There are thousands upon thousands of articles from hundreds of subjects/themes that objectively speaking have an interest to only small subcultures (mostly in North America) which are included on WP for a number of reasons/arguments. To a large extent, the existence of these articles goes a long way in proving just how subjective the entire morass of "notability", "interesting", "important" or "encyclopedic" really is. Individual school articles are obviously more relevant to most people than what the powers of some individual Pokemon are - but nonetheless Pokemon survives and grows in WP relatively uncontested, whereas schools are the subject of the worst fighting in the history of WP. I hope that some of my arguments will convince you of the validity of school articles and that you will vote to keep them, or at least abstain from future votes.--Nicodemus75 05:14, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
I have abstained on quite a few already while asking questions or making comments. Much of my time in this has been trying to figure out the arguments from both sides. i have chosen to abandon the delete/keep pages since the arguments get too contentious and i really don't want to waste time in those kind of venues. My main goal is to contribute positively to the whole project. My early delete votes were based on the yellowpages nature of the school articles being created. They were/are truely awful content for an encyclopedia. As well as the thought of who will be keeping an eye on these with regard to vandalism (as you may recall). I am also swayed by the keep arguments although I do see see room for improving the context and conectivity as a high priority. In that sense I am sure I can make useful edits that you will see as positive. David D. (Talk) 05:32, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Another suggestion... move low-quality articles to a "cleanup" area.

...which I'm sure will please nobody...

Instead of nominating seriously deficient school articles--substubs where it appears unlikely that the submitter intends to do any further work--could they routinely be moved into some kind of user space, e.g. GRider/Schoolwatch/Name_of_school.... they could remain there, bothering nobody, in a known location where editors interested in schools could work on them. When the article was brought up what the Schoolwatch editors thought was an encyclopedic level of quality, it could then be "unveiled" in the main namespace.

Not unlike the "pure wiki deletion system," which I think it unappropriate for WIkipedia as a whole, but might work quite well for school articles.

I think the school-inclusionists' weakest case involves very short and "yellow-pages-like" school entries. What tends to happen is that these are improved "under the gun" during AfD. I think enforced cleanup is much better than no cleanup, but it certainly leads to some artificial "BEEFSTEW" bloat, "reaching" for dubious claims of notability, etc. It also leads to the usual unproductive contentious discussions in VfD.

Regardless of what one may think about the entire category of schools in principle, what has been shown in practice is that good, thorough, informative, well-researched articles on fairly ordinary schools are not only not deleted, but enjoy a fair degree of acceptance.

I believe that if school articles were brought up to a reasonable level of quality before appearing in the main namespace, most of them would not even be nominated for AfD, and those that were would receive, not just "no consensus," but majority consensus for "keep."

I know nobody is going to agree to this... but if the goal were to prevent school articles from being deleted with a minimum of dispute and contention, I bet it would work. Dpbsmith (talk) 10:07, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

P. S. The technical aspects of providing a mechanism are not hard to work out. Anyone could move the article. A tag could then be applied explaining its status. Sysops could routinely delete the redirect from the main namespace whenever they got around to it, or whenever anyone specifically requested it. Dpbsmith (talk) 10:10, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

But, you're actually going in two directions here. You want to get the stubs "out of the way", but they'll be in a "known location". That's a contradiction. Wikipedia is unique in the the editors are the readers, and the readers are the editors. Articles, tend to be enhanced by those readers who first hoped to read about the topic, find it, see it has less then they already new, notice that "edit" link, and are happy to find they can actually edit something. But first it has to be found, not just by long-time editors, but by newbies, who know nothing aobut wikipedia's practices. Also, imagine redundancy, when somebody doesn't see their school in a category, and makes a new article for it. --rob 12:46, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
It's certainly not a contradiction. When I take a book off my desk and put it on the shelf, I'm getting it out of the way and putting it in a known location. And as nearly as I can tell, in the past year, in the cases where a school article has been significantly improved it has not occurred by the process you describe. Dpbsmith (talk) 15:09, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
If you go to a library, and take the only copy of a book off the shelf, and sit at a desk a *very* long time, *you* know where the book is. Nobody else does. That's bad. 99% of wikipedians would have no idea this "special place". Wiki is not a place for a personal projects. It's not even a place for small *exclusive* provate group projects. Articles are for everybody to improve. You're approach is for a classic publisher who has a "work-in-progress" and "released" versions of materal. Wiki, by definition, is 100% work-in-progress and 100% released. My example has worked, and certainly could work better if editors in non-school articles (especially bios) would be encouraged to do more of the two-linking. Also, I beleive in the approach I've described because I feel a key reason to have schools (or anything) in wiki, is if we can do something in a uniquely wiki way. I see no point in school articles, if there only hope is to be expanded to be a full copy of the school's web site. I'm not saying your approach should not be done anywhere, but I don't see how it works on wikipedia. --rob 15:27, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
I agree with rob that this idea is counter-wiki and counter-productive (although I agree that it would "work" to reduce contention over school deletion). Frankly, it is a moot point anyway, because as Dpbsmith has already conceded, there would never be agreement or consensus to handle things this way.--Nicodemus75 15:41, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
"Counter-wiki?" I was hoping for a little pragmatism here. Is the goal to build an encyclopedia, and to get good articles about schools into it, or is it to have a theological debate about the importance of purity of wikiness? I have hopes that the school debate is really about school articles, and not simply an arena for factionalism about some abstract issue. Dpbsmith (talk) 16:01, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
All the vitriol of AfDs aside, I think that the debate has become about a philosophical question, rather than the merits of individual schools or somesuch. Further, I think the philosophical debate is a valid one, not simply factionalism for it's own sake. There are two competing philosophies about Wikipedia that have hit head to head in the schools debate - in a sense, the schools themselves have become a proxy for those philosophical views. There is a dividing line between what some editors believe is "notable" or "encyclopedic" - this could be schools, rail-stations, roads, towns, public officials, candidates for public office, Pokemon minutae, etc. The two competing views are about whether or not certain institutions are notable or encyclopedic beyond the clearly universal notability of say, a country or a Pope. This is a real debate, despite all the acrimony, name calling, AfD nominating, wrangling, and now overzealous admins closing or speedying schools. There is a real question: "Are schools inherently notable or not?" and "How do we make an objective decision about whether or not a thing (schools in this case) are inherently notable?" The entire debate about schools being encyclopedic is whether or not they are notable. Obviously, objectively, completely non-notable things don't get articles (like my cat). The fact is, that those who do not think that schools are inherently notable, have and continue to wage an aggressive campaign to nominate school articles, fully realizing that the schools will survive the AfD process (at least the great majority of them [95%+]). I do not say this to attack them unfairly, but it is obvious that this has taken place. I should also point out, that those who routinely vote "keep" on schools because they believe all schools are inherently notable, are almost never the creators of new school articles. If anyone recognizes the problem, it is the inclusionists. We simply do not have time to work on school articles as we would like to, because they are being created at such a phenomenal rate, by editors who by and large have no idea there is even a problem with schools on WP!!! They just log in and create an article about a school (usually starting as a stub). Then they are being nominated for AfD and our efforts go into voting to keep them, and emergency article clean-up to try and influence marginal or moderate voters who vote strictly on the content of the article at the moment of AfD. Given the success of school articles in surviving the AfD process, the earnest hope of all inclusionists, would now be that AfD nominations will steadily decline, giving more opportunity to get to the problem of bringing school articles up to par. There were, as you know, plenty of previous attempts come up with a system for regulating schools articles. These failed largely because deletionists continued to nominate schools for AfD irrespective of the discussions and the process. This is really what led to a "war" over the school articles. I think that most of us inclusionists would have been prepared to give up elementary schools, or give up something anyway in the course of a concensus building debate and discussion. But with hoards of high schools, etc. being nominated - it quickly turned into an all-or-nothing proposition for both sides. That is, the continued, rampant, multi and mass-nominations through the course of the year (often by the same usual suspects) created an environment where concensus building was, and remains impossible. The entire debate is one of two things: either it is ALL WP:POINT on all sides, or it is a legitimate philosophical debate. I believe that is *must* be the latter, because the existence of school articles on WP in the final analysis will surely not be just a point. It will be whether or not the community on WP reaches an eventual concensus on whether or not schools are significant enough to have articles here. Despite the acrimony and wrangling of now, in 2 or 3 years time, even those who currently oppose schools will say "Why did I waste so much time and energy on that??" because there will be a general concensus on WP (not a concensus from the factionalists that are fighting it out at the moment, but rather from the bulk of other, largely disinterested editors) that "oh there are lots of school articles here - I guess that is the way it is." It doesn't change the fact that the issue has to be hashed out by those of us factionalists who care - but in the end, the debate itself won't matter as much as the articles themselves, even though that is not the case today. --Nicodemus75 16:42, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
I think Dpbsmith's proposal is quite workable and certainly works towards the goal of building an encyclopedia. The main problem with school articles is that there's such a small number of potential editors for each one. The percentage of users who can become an editor of a specific school article is quite low. The majority of users just don't have access to the necessary information. Dpbsmith's proposal would provide articles with a place on Wikipedia where they could be worked on until they reach an encyclopedic level of quality. I believe that a vast majority of users would vote to keep a well-written school article. Carbonite | Talk 16:21, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Harrow School

This is a general request for peer review of the Harrow School article, which I have nominated for peer review and would like to be a featured article. I have done my best but some suggestions by people who understand schools articles would be appreciated. It is already a featured article on the schools portal. --Oli 19:50, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] List of 22,000 high schools

Facebook.com has provided us with their list of over 22,000 high schools, with red/blue links for all. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-11-5 20:39

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