Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Caulfield Grammar School

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[edit] Caulfield Grammar School

Self-nom. This article has been through FAC before and was not promoted, but has been improved and many opposing votes came before the improvements. It has also recently finished peer review, and is one of the best high school articles on Wikipedia. Compare with Stuyvesant High School, also a recent FAC, and then have a vote. Thanks. Harro5 22:56, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

• Support. I'm satisfied about the issues I had. Nice article! Bishonen | talk 6 July 2005 08:20 (UTC) Object. This article has many good qualities and sections, but too much promotional POV. I'm sorry I missed commenting on Peer Review, as you don't seem to have gotten any pointers there about that aspect. Please note that I had a similar criticism to make of Stuyvesant High School a little lower down, not because I'm obsessed with the subject (I hope), but because a promotional tone and florid style are unfortunately typical of our school articles. Perhaps they're irresistibly influenced by the fulsomeness of school brochures, I don't know. Both the current school FACs are indeed very much better than the run-of-the-mill school articles and have far less promotional POV; but they're not supposed to have any. Caulfield Grammar School shouldn't be written "from inside" at all, compare Geogre's reasoning about Stuyvesant High School. I mean, "The boarding community is a strong and proud one"? Brrr. The Yarra Junction Campus is now at the forefront of environmental education, as students live in fully sustainable eco-cabins with rainwater tanks and solar power technology"—keep the info, lose the advertising! "the establishment of a campus in Nanjing allowed Caulfield Grammar to strengthen ties with the region and give students the opportunity to enhance understanding of the world—ditto, and what a bad idea to link world—click on it and see for yourself. Please snip off anything like that, especially from the lead! And "Caulfield boasts"—yeah, probably, all schools do, but please not on wiki. A structural point: IMO the "Scholarships" and "School uniform" sections are much too crufty, they should be seriously shortened. Sections ought surely to be in some proportion to their respective importance, and together, "Scholarships" and "School uniform" aren't far off from being as long as the whole of "Academics". Am I wrong, or is the closeup of an "awards pocket", a feature of the uniform, the biggest image on the whole page..? Bishonen | talk 22:37, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

:I've copyedited the article as far as the sports section, rm a little POV (that Harro5 hadn't already taken out), and rm a lot more of uninteresting or self-evident (IMO) info. I've commented out rather than deleted, it can easily be selectively restored if you think my measures too drastic. I've done some paragraph merging, but think more of that should be done. Knocking off now, as it's 2:45 AM here, but if I don't hear screams of protest, I'll be back to massacre the rest tomorrow. ;-) Bishonen | talk 00:51, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to thank Bishonen for all the work she's done just reading over the article and making minor changes. I really do feel this is close to being ready for FA as the best high school article on Wikipedia. Anyone who can see more language problems, I beg you to be bold and change them! Thanks. Harro5 July 3, 2005 04:07 (UTC)

There has been quite a bit of work to tweak some language in the article. Please have a read before you vote, as opposition votes saying "it's all advertising" have obviously been cast without any effort to actually LOOK at the writing. Thanks. Harro5 July 5, 2005 00:09 (UTC)

The article is looking the best it ever has right now. I hope everyone has a read and a vote, because this is a very deserving FA. Thanks. Harro5 July 6, 2005 09:52 (UTC)

• Mild OppositionNeutral. Yes, really too promotional. More likely to be an advertisement than an encyclopedia article. --Deryck C. 2005-06-30 15:19:12 (UTC)
  • Could you please give some examples of promotional language? Criticism needs to be actionable, as Bishonen's was. Thanks. Harro5 June 30, 2005 22:32 (UTC)
    • The introduction used 4 lines to talk about the studying fees of the school. This is apparently an advertisement. In the VCE paragraph, I don't know what can it be considered if it's not an advertisement - showing the school's academic achievement with 12 lines? Deryck C. 2005-07-01 01:07:41 (UTC)
      • Having the fees mentioned is very important. Not many schools have fees this expensive, but it needs to be mentioned that this is normal in Australian private schools. Also, the VCE section only makes a small mention of the school's academic achievement, which is proven by yearly publishing of school Year 12 scores in Melbourne's biggest newspapers. It's all factual and in a context, which is critical to show the notability of the school. Harro5 July 1, 2005 05:41 (UTC)
        • The number of lines showing the academic results has been reduced, but the whole article still look like a brochure. Deryck C. 2005-07-05 02:01:59 (UTC)
          • It's a thin line between "looks like a brochure" and providing information. Please actually spell out what parts you are unhappy with, and why they are not encyclopedic. Thanks. Harro5 July 5, 2005 03:00 (UTC)
          • I don't quite understand what else would be expected of a school article, Deryck. It's an article about an educational institutions - of course a fair bit of space is going to be dedicated to academic issues. Furthermore, it's hardly POV to inform people of the facts surrounding a school's results - Caulfield's results persistently cream the school I went to, which wasn't bad in itself, and just about everywhere else in the state, and for these facts (as opposed to rhetoric about how wonderful they are, which would need to go) to be omitted seems rather POV itself.
• Support. I supported this article toward the end of its previous nomination period and think it is the best high school article on Wikipedia. I made some minor changes to fix it up, including removing the word "community" altogether from the boarding section (this was brought up earlier by Bishonen). Christopher Parham (talk) 2005 July 3 03:52 (UTC)
• Oppose - If I wanted to get a brochure about whether or not to send my kids to a school, I would call the admissions department, not look on Wikipedia. Páll 3 July 2005 07:24 (UTC)
  • Please Pall, could you be constructive and give some examples of what you are unhappy with? The FAC process is for making good articles great, and you have not helped with this blunt opposition. Harro5 July 3, 2005 07:36 (UTC)
  • This objection is unactionable, and thus invalid. Ambi 5 July 2005 00:34 (UTC)

Its quite actionable. This article reads like bad promotion copy. It is not at encyclopaedic level, and needs a thorough copyedit before I can support its candidacy. Páll 5 July 2005 00:58 (UTC)

Can you give some advice as to where you would like us to start? You haven't yet convinced me that you have read the article at all. Thanks. Harro5 July 5, 2005 01:32 (UTC)

"At the Nanjing Campus Caulfield students study five key themes of Chinese culture during a five-week program: heritage, work, family, education and challenges. Students travel to the cities of Nanjing, Shanghai, Tongli, and Beijing, visiting such landmarks as the Great Wall of China, the Forbidden City, the Ming Dynasty Tombs, the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum, the Temple of Heaven, and the Summer Palace. Students also complete homestay visits with students from The Affiliated High School of Nanjing Normal University." Reads to me as advertising copy. Will find more examples after I get some sleep. Páll 6 July 2005 10:54 (UTC)

I've removed some of the sitse, cutting it down to three, but this needs to be said to talk about what kids do in China. If you can think of a reason why this is not useful info, please tell me (I ask that you don't just say "advertising"). Harro5 July 6, 2005 11:14 (UTC)

• Support (I also supported the article the previous time), looks good enough for an FA. JYolkowski // talk 3 July 2005 19:51 (UTC)
• Support. I don't think there's much more that could be said. Ambi
• Support. All my objections have been satifactorily addressed. --Malathion 6 July 2005 10:43 (UTC) Oppose. There is quite a lot of POV in this article, for example stating that the school band is made up of the school's "Best" cellists. I agree with the objections that this article reads like a brochure. --Malathion 5 July 2005 02:22 (UTC)
  • Well, that's quite obvious really, so I guess it should be removed - any other examples? Ambi 5 July 2005 02:49 (UTC)
    • I don't see how that is POV - it's the best group, so it has the best players. Anyway, it's been removed. More examples please, or you should remove your opposition. Harro5 July 5, 2005 02:56 (UTC)
      • The point, I think, is that it's obvious that the group will have the best players available, and stating it in this way has the effect of making it seem promotional. I could care less, but I see where he's coming from. Ambi 5 July 2005 03:06 (UTC)
        • Thanks to Malathion, who worked through his issues regarding POV with me, and has helped smoothen out some more language. Every bit helps! Harro5 July 6, 2005 10:47 (UTC)
• Object. There are minor imperfections in this article. For example some dollar signs are prefixed with AUD while others are not and the choice of date format (1881-04-25) is obscure and breaks sentence flow. But my main problem is that I can't find anything that would be of any real interest to the general public in this article. Some of the more interesting quirks of the school like its decision to teach Mandarin Chinese or its shift to co-education are glossed over. Furthermore, the article fails to establish why the school is notable (which might be an inherent problem with the subject choice). I don't want to negate Harro5's work on this article or deny that this may be one of the better school articles. But in my opinion there is no way that this article exemplifies some of Wikipedia's best work and there is no way it should be a feature article. - Cedars 7 July 2005 03:25 (UTC)
  • I went ahead and fixed the minor problems you noted. I suppose Harro5 can expand the two sections you mention, but your general point (as you note) is effectively inactionable and thus not solid grounds for an objection. Christopher Parham (talk) 2005 July 7 04:14 (UTC)
    • He mentions a couple of things that he says are glossed over, though - could these be fixed? Ambi 7 July 2005 06:27 (UTC)
      • Unfortunately I don't have a lot of information as to why girls were admitted or why Chinese is taught. I'd be making a fairly good guess by saying these answers respectively - to increase the number of paying students, and to recognise the power of China and its language. I've included the stuff on China, but am not really sure whether to add the stuff on girls coming to Caulfield. I wouldn't want to mislead anyone by guessing. Any thoughts on how to move forward here? Harro5 July 7, 2005 08:37 (UTC)