User:Necrothesp/Secondary schools

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An increasing number of articles on secondary schools are being proposed for deletion. The proposers and their supporters are generally the same hard core of editors, often self-identifying as deletionists, and the opposers are generally an equally hard core of editors, including myself. In general, secondary school articles are kept, but they continue to be nominated, presumably in the hope that one day the opposers will suddenly "see the light".

Since I'm a bit tired of repeating myself, below I present my answers to the various arguments against keeping these articles.

Secondary schools are not inherently notable

• Well, no, I don't agree, and here are the reasons:
  • Hundreds of people (often well over a thousand) spend a large part of the day at every school for five days a week, most of the year, for up to seven years. They are very notable institutions to their pupils.
  • People retain the influence of their secondary school for the rest of their lives, since it's where they spent a large part of their adolescent years. So many people are influenced by every school, for good or ill. Thus they are also very notable institutions to their former pupils, every bit as much as the tertiary institutions that we invariably do keep by consensus. This is not just a few people, but in most cases many thousands.
  • Secondary schools are usually major landmarks in their community, occupying large buildings or complexes which often provide facilities to the community at large as well as to their pupils.

Information on secondary schools is often not verifiable

• That's not really true. It's easy enough to verify at least the existence of pretty much every school. And as long as the school exists then we have something concrete to put in the article.

My house is very notable to me, but surely you're not suggesting that Wikipedia should have an article on it?

• Of course not. But I seriously doubt that hundreds of people spend hours in your house every day or that many thousands of people have done so in the past.

The school only gets 3½ Google hits, so it can't possibly be notable

• A fallacious argument if ever I heard one. Google is not the be all and end all of notability. It is neither omniscient nor omnipotent. It has severe limitations. It will only bring up references to things that have been posted on the internet, and the Wikipedia policy on verifiability certainly does not state that only sources posted on the internet are valid. The fact that it is an internet search engine also means that it will not bring up any information predating a few years ago and it is far less likely to bring up information on schools that are not in developed countries. Does this mean they are any less notable? No, of course it doesn't.

If we deleted all the rubbish in the article then what was left would often only be a stub

• So what? Wikipedia does not ban or even discourage the creation of stubs. A stub saying that the school exists (usually verifiable as already stated) is perfectly acceptable.

But we don't want huge numbers of stubs, or even articles, on schools

• Why not? Wikipedia is not paper. It doesn't matter how many articles we have.

Wikipedia deletion policy says that unexpandable stubs should be deleted

• Very few stubs are unexpandable. I would seriously doubt that any school stubs are.

All these school articles mean that Wikipedia will not be taken seriously

• Where's the evidence for this? Why shouldn't it be? A complete non-argument.

Wikipedia is not a directory

• Schools do not fall into any of the definitions of a directory mentioned in that context.

Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information

• Schools do not fall into any of the definitions mentioned in that context either.

The school does not meet the notability criteria listed in WP:SCHOOL

• WP:SCHOOL is only a proposed guideline that has not been accepted by the community at large.

Why should the notability standards for schools be lower than those for other organisations, like companies?

• They're not. Any company that employed hundreds of people and had employed many thousands of people in the past would almost certainly have a right to an article on Wikipedia.

It's original research

• God, I hate this lazy claim, which is growing ever more common. Read the definition at the top of the appropriate article. Original research is quite specifically defined.

School articles attract a disproportionate amount of vandalism

• Sadly true, but certainly not a reason to delete an article. The article on Adolf Hitler attracts a disproportionate amount of vandalism, but surely nobody is suggesting that we should delete that?

It's better to trim the number of articles than to add more articles

• Quite frankly, I can't believe that people say this. I certainly completely disagree. I joined Wikipedia to write articles, not delete them.

The inclusionists are idiots; only the deletionists follow the one true path

• Okay, it's rarely actually put quite so brazenly, but that's often what they mean. Not really worth dignifying with an answer, since everyone is welcome to edit Wikipedia as long as they don't vandalise or disrupt it, except to say that I personally am not actually an inclusionist. There's a lot of rubbish out there that deserves to be deleted, and I'd happily support its deletion; but these articles don't fall into that category.

You're generalising and not addressing the issues of this particular school article

• Ah, the last gasp of the defeated deletionist. I am addressing the issues of this particular school article, since, as I've already stated, I believe that all secondary schools are notable enough for articles (with the possible exception of schools with a few dozen pupils, although even they may be notable). I've also given my reasons. Therefore the fact that I'm not referring specifically to this particular school is completely irrelevant.