Talk:Southern Association of Colleges and Schools

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[edit] Selected member schools

What is the point to the reverts here? A short list would seem to add some valuable content to what is an exceedingly slight treatment of SACS. -- JJay 22:29, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Because the list doesn't need to ballon to the 13,000 listed in greater and updated detail here[[1]. Arbusto 23:41, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to add a fact tag to that number since I have been unable to confirm it. I would point out that your link has well under 1,000 colleges (eliminating candidates, and the various campuses for the same institutions). For the time being, I've changed the list definition to colleges. -- JJay 23:50, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

How are you not able to confirm it? SACS CASI accredits over 13,000 schools and school systems throughout the United States and overseas. Today, SACS CASI is the global leader in helping schools improve student learning through accreditation. [2] It's right at the bottom of the official homepage. Arbusto 23:55, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Good and thanks for removing the tag. And how many of that number are colleges and universities? -- JJay 00:02, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

What does it matter? It "is a regional accreditor for over 13,000 public and private educational institutions ranging from preschool to college level in the Southern United States." Why are you only changing the list to college? You are arguing that a list is helpful, but excluding some for no reason. Arbusto 00:05, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lists of members

What's the point of keeping a list of 13,000 members? Why is the person who is arguing that the list is helpful only including colleges[3]? And why is he only including 18 schools out of that list? The link provided on the article with a list of members has statistics, dates of accreditation, accreditation expiration, and will be updated while the wikipedia list will not always. Arbusto 00:10, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

• If you want to change it to include high schools that is ok with me. It would seem that the issue is more meaningful for colleges though. Note that I have only removed two names from the list, so at no time has this list been over 100 members, let alone 13,000. -- JJay 00:15, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm not saying the list has been 13,000. However, if someone wanted to make the list complete they could control-c that 48 page PDF file and paste in the list. There's no winning: either the list is going to be misleading and incomplete or you'll have a 13,000 school list. Arbusto 00:24, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Right now it is defined as selected colleges. Hence, far less than 13,000 schools. I think for the time being it should be limited to colleges for which we have pages. I don't see anything misleading about that. On a side note, it seems kind of strange to do an article on SACS and not mention any schools that it has accredited. How is this article supposed to be expanded if we can't talk about schools? And if it is going to be limited to a few lines, why do an article at all, since there is far more info on the group right on their site? -- JJay 00:33, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

There is a SACS category. Arbusto 01:49, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

So? That did not exactly answer any of my questions. -- JJay 01:50, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

On a side note, it seems kind of strange to do an article on SACS and not mention any schools that it has accredited. = There is a SACS category. Your questions make no sense. It's an article about the organization not a list nor is it about particular schools. If the reader wants a list and detail about a school's length of accreditation there is a link for that. Arbusto 03:11, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

• The category is of very little use. It also has nothing to do with this article and how it should be expanded. Right now it is only a few lines. And attempts to expand it have been regularly reverted by you. There is nothing wrong with listing some of the universities that have been accredited by SACS. Perhaps you have some other ideas on how to expand this article? But stop wasting my time with the link to the SACS site. There is more information on the SACS site than in our article, not only regarding accredited schools but for the organization overall. That should not be used as an excuse to empty the contents of this article. -- JJay 03:41, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't consider a listing of 100 schools "expanding" an article and neither does wikipedia policy. So you know "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information" or to quote another policy WP:ISNOT a "collection of internal links." Arbusto 06:25, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

• Right, so you don't have the slightest idea of how to expand this article, which is frankly an embarrassment and seems to exists just to link to the SACS site and to the SACS category. I'm also not very interested in your misinterpretation of wiki policy or your absurd exageration since the list was never 100 schools long or 13,000. -- JJay 12:19, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

• Meanwhile, back in the real world, SACS has accredited over 10,000 institutions, so a list will never be complete, and any "selected list" would need some clearly defined criteria otherwise it will be entirely arbitrary (selected list? selected byu whom? with what authority?). I linked the category in the section. Incientally, how many military coleges exactly? Of the order of one, tens, hundreds? Just zis Guy you know? 12:43, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
• There is no need to do a complete list and I have no idea why you and Arbustoo feel that it is necessary. Our category does not include 10,000 or 13,000 or 13 million schools- it only includes a handful. Is that misleading? As you know, linking to a category is against policy. However, like with the usenet posting I can look the other way. I also do not have an answer regarding military schools. Please do some research and add the info to the article. However, the more you and Arbustoo raise issues regarding having a discussion of schools related to SACS, the more ridiculous our stub becomes. In the meantime, I have added a paragraph to give people some clear examples of what SACS does. Please help expand this article -- JJay 12:53, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

As Guy asked: "Selected list? selected by whom? with what authority?" Arbusto 01:56, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

A user reverted the removal of a paragraph listing of the schools referencing the talk page. I see nothing on the talk about that paragraph. I'd like to know who selected the few schools out of 13,000 as "examples." This should be cited or else its WP:OR and should be reverted. Arbusto 01:42, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

If you see nothing on the talk regarding your removal of information from this article, I would suggest you start at the top of this page and work your way down. You will see numerous exchanges regarding this paragraph involving yourself. I can see no reason to remove verifiable data from this article at this time. -- JJay 01:48, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Please point to the reference where you offer a citation of why these few schools out of 13,000 are selected. Did you select them at random? Arbusto 01:56, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

As you know, we have already discussed this in some detail. Nevertheless, the references are meant to show that this is a real acccreditation agency that actually sets standards for real schools. It is of the utmost importance that we avoid any confusion with the many fake accreditation agencies that exist. You will agree, I am sure, that we need to demarcate the good from the bad here and it is essential that our readers understand that SACS is the real deal. Perhaps you are not aware of the problem, but there are numerous fake associations that claim to act as accreditors- please see List of unrecognized accreditation associations of higher learning for further information. If you are aware of the problem, I have to wonder if your removal of verifiable data from this article is not an attempt to classify SACS with its fake rivals and to confuse our readers. Given the many vandals and sock puppets that constantly try to remove verifiable information from this type of sensitive article, I would ask that you not contribute to their efforts by reducing this article to a bare stub. Otherwise, I would be most interested in hearing your ideas on how we can expand this article to a respectable length-- JJay 02:44, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Considering I created the article List of unrecognized accreditation associations of higher learning for wikipedia users to differ between the legitmate and unrecognized I know it is important. Please point to the reference where you offer a citation of why these few schools out of 13,000 are selected. Did you select them at random? The category lists all the schools mentioned in the article. I know because I added them to it. Arbusto 07:15, 25 May 2006 (UTC)