Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Schools

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[edit] Notability

merge them, silly.
merge them, silly.

I know there has been a lot of debate on this, with modest results, but articles like Sabah Tshung Tsin Secondary School really are going too far. Secondary schools are not inherently notable. You need to establish some reason as to why this school in particular should deserve its own article. Otherwise, the insane amount of articles on individual secondary (and even elementary? I can't believe we allow articles on random elementary schools?) should be {{merge}}d into regional summary articles (List of schools in Armenia, List of elementary schools in Arizona and the like). Wikipedia is not a phonebook :( dab (𒁳) 10:25, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

It is hard to believe that this article could be challenged on notability. It needs substantial pruning and copyediting, but the claims made regarding its founding, growth, and importance to the Chinese community in Malaysia put it way over the bar for inclusion in WP. Verifiability might be an issue--I didn't follow the reference links--but not notability. It is clear in WP:N that "notability" is not related to any particular editor's personal opinion about how "important" or "interesting" a subject or its article is. What matters is whether others have taken note of it. Whether there should be an article depends on whether enough verifiable information is available, or potentially available, to develop an article that can stand alone. The amount of encyclopedic information in this article, even if cut by 75%, is much to extensive to reasonably merge into an article about the local jurisdiction or schools in the region. A "List of schools in Armenia," or Arizona, would, of necessity, be much more like a phonebook or linkfarm--it could not contain any substantive information about individual schools without grossly exceeding the recommendations on article size. Such a list or category makes sense when there are articles to link to.--Hjal 15:56, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
I comletely agree with the statement by Hjal. Not every secondary school needs an article, but the more attributable and globally interesting information in this encyclopedia, the better. Because this encyclopedia is electronic we should not be concerned about an "insane amount" of articles being generated because there aren't an "insane amount" of contributors who write school articles. Regarding Sabah Tshung Tsin Secondary School, a much better case for merge or deletion could be made for the multitude of schools in the stub class, which don't have interesting information, no pictures, and noone contributing. I look at tens of these a week for assessments and while the importance of this article may be low, it is a better start than most. I also think the comment made by dab:
"I don't see how any secondary school is of encyclopedic notability" - on the talk page of Sabah Tshung Tsin Secondary School
is fairly insulting to this whole project. What are we here for if not secondary/high schools? Anything higher is in the University project, so without secondary schools this project looses 90% of its purpose. Adam McCormick 16:48, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Every muncipality likely has a sewers department. Because its a government entity it should stay? I have np problem with some schools staying, provided they have pertinent information. Other schools in the same district have a history, and thus are NOTABLE. Is every sewer department notable? I think not - perhaps one that made a major contribution to the field.SkipperClipper 03:35, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm not trying to say that every secondary school needs an article, I'm just trying to refute the notion that none of them do Adam McCormick 05:41, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Assessment review?

I think it would be a good idea for someone to check the recent assessments by User:203.206.253.199. They have rated Talk:St Vincent's College [1], Talk:The King's School, Sydney [2] and Talk:Presbyterian Ladies' College, Sydney [3] as start class, high importance schools. I suspect these are vanity edits. Not being a member of the project nor familiar with your criteria myself, perhaps a registered user from the project could check them? Blarneytherinosaur talk 03:46, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Can't speak to the importance criteria. That IP address appears to be a newbie - only a few edits, but they appear to be in good faith. Jordan Brown 04:38, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
First off, thank you for letting us know. We at the assessment department really appreciate your help. I've had a look at these article and have reassessed them. I'm not sure that they are "vanity" edits but two of them were inaccurate. I've fixed them and placed summaries on our our page. Once again, thank you for helping! Adam McCormick 04:39, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
No worries. I could have simply reverted the edits, but I agree that the other contributions look harmless enought, so I thought it would be more constructive to mention it here. I'll let you know if I spot any more. (Looking at the assessment page, I see that you get a lot of work done for a small number of people. Great work!) Blarneytherinosaur talk 08:19, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
This might be out of place, but I could not find another categoy to stick my comment in. I am appealing for someone with the project teams to Rate the page that I have been creating on [Hazel Green High School]. I would love some outside opinions and ideas. I really want to make this article better. Thank you for your time.

--HGHSTROJAN 06:25, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

For future reference, the Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools/Assessment is the place to post assessment requests, that said, have a look at that page for the assessment (in five minutes or so). Also you can link with [[Hazel green high school]]Adam McCormick 06:48, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism

I don't have time to go on a big rant, but I am sick of cleaning up vandalism from non-notable schools. Most recently, (Bispham High School). We seriously need to start nuking the loads of non-notable middle and high school articles that are being created by school kids with biased inaccurate information which serve no purpose but to waste editors time cleaning up vandalism. I contend the recent laxity towards these articles is propelling more creation, and it is growing out of control. People are using this argument : [4]. AKA "If we have an article on po-dunk Illinois elementary school, why can't we have an article on ____?" Danski14 18:41, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

And seriously, can a High school have 31,000 students?? [5] Danski14 18:44, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
For more evidence, check out recent IP edits anytime during the school day. [6]. Danski14 18:54, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
(No, a high school probably can't have 31K students, but in that same diff note that the student uprising against the new tardy policy was led by Santa and Hitler... it's vandalism; it doesn't have to make sense.)
Indeed it's a problem, and it's not one that will go away on its own because there's always a new crop of students who think it's cool that they can make changes. Personally, I'd rather address the problem by being much more aggressive about semi-protecting articles, possibly to the point of routinely semi-protecting all articles about schools. Closing out anonymous vandals won't cure the entire problem, but it'd make a big dent.
I tend towards inclusionism here. I can't justify including most schools on any rational basis, but I know that I like that my alma mater and the school down the street are included.
Also, I'd rather that they vandalize Wikipedia than spraypaint a wall somewhere... Wikipedia is easier to fix. Maybe they'll grow up, and do so at a lower cost to society.
Jordan Brown 19:54, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, it's a tough problem...I tend to lean towards usually lean towards inclusionism myself. However, in this case, I believe that many schools just don't need an article. Some school clearly are notable: for instance long standing schools in metropolitan areas, historical schools, high ranked schools, and specialty, private or unusual schools, etc. Thats why we need to re-institute WP:SCHOOL, so admins have a criteria by which to delete new school articles. New users are creating non-notable school articles which are being overlooked. They are not watch listed, and vandalism and POV often go un checked. What is a resulting is an unmanageable proliferation of stubby school articles which do not assert notability and usually contain various trivia. Yeah, I guess some would qualify for semi-protection, but is that a solution? Any contributions to these articles are probably going to be coming from new or anonymous users anyways, so the articles would probably just sit stagnant.
Also, if people want to see some of the "bad" new school articles that are being created, check out this bot-generated page, User:AlexNewArtBot/BadSearchResult. You can search for "school" and find the articles. If not deleted, many need to be tagged with the WPSCHOOLS template. Danski14 17:52, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
And I forgot to mention it, but merging should also be considered. My high school is merged in under the city it is in. Danski14 19:50, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Probably the biggest problem in school notability is that the vast majority of schools are quite important to a few hundred or a few thousand people... and of no interest whatsoever to the rest of the world. I guess that if I had to draw a line around "worthy" schools, it would be a pragmatic one based on whether there are people who are interested enough to write about them and maintain the articles. I'm happy to keep well-written and well-maintained articles about schools that are otherwise completely un-noteworthy - I don't think that they detract from the value of the encyclopedia, and if they make the few people who are interested happy, great; maybe they will move on to more notable topics. Jordan Brown 21:56, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
I just looked at the first 20 or so of the "bad" new school articles on the above list--almost every one was a redirect. I think that his bot needs a little work.--Hjal 05:33, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
A Notable school is one that has some higher relevance than as an extension of Friends Reunited Columbine, Eton those are notable schools, a school that someone who didn't attend or live near it could name. most are little better than adverts this one for instance Mayfield School (Portsmouth) Notability Crusader 07:12, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I have done some work on the first mentioned school in this list, which has now been merged into Bispham High School Arts College and made sure that the information is correct and removed any vandalism as soon as it appeared. Having said that, the amount of vandalism recently on the article, has been both negligible, and certainly in comparison to numerous other wikipedia pages, virtually non-existent. And I am attempting to re-write the article so that is not only more comprehensive, but is well written and maintained. I had wondered why Notabilty Crusader had seemingly randomly proposed the article be merged earlier today, and this now explains it. ♦Tangerines BFC ♦·Talk 15:49, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Articles - deletion question

We need to have some sort of ground rule on whether articles on schools should be CSD'd, or sent to AFD - if we have this policy in place it could save us from having arguments like the following:

A: This school is non-notable.

B: It is notable.

A: Where are the reliable sources that assert notability??

B: ???

A: This should be speedily deleted

B: No it shouldn't, take it to AFD instead.

If we had some sort of ground rule, it could avoid situations like this.

I'm not one for mass-nuking of articles on schools, as it seems bad practice to mass-nuke them unless the content is obvious vandalism (e.g. "Joe Public is a loser. His school is horrid") and not written in an encyclopedic tone.

I realize this may sound like a controversial proposal, but I'd appreciate the feedback on it. --sunstar nettalk 09:31, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

There is a currently inactive/historical guideline at Wikipedia:Schools which was an attempt to interpret WP:N as it applied to schools. WP:N is currently under active discussion so the schools guideline has been temporarily put on hold until WP:N is resolved. In practice it seems that most school articles which come up for deletion either get expanded with suitable references or get merged with another article so it seems to me that it is preferable to add a "merge" or "sources" template rather than recommend an article for deletion. I'm not sure what the protocol is for merging articles but I would have thought that it might be best to have some policy of a speedy merge for new school articles which don't yet have sufficient content to merit an article. All places are notable so schools can be mentioned in an article on the town, village, etc. in which they are located. Dahliarose 09:53, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Thank you for your feedback. When I wrote the above, I was aware some people would feel that schools may not meet WP:N, so that was one of the reasons I wrote this. --sunstar nettalk 09:59, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Another alternative for US schools would be to have articles on school districts and keep all the schools in each district on the district page, with exceptions for schools which are obviously notable (e.g. Columbine High School). I understand this would not work for the UK and possibly other countries because the administrative districts are much larger than in the US, so too many schools would have to be included and the pages would be unwieldy. --Butseriouslyfolks 17:30, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Playing devil's advocate for a moment, is Columbine High School really notable? Sure, Columbine High School massacre is notable... but it has its own article; is there really a need for a separate article about the school? The bulk of the text in the school's article appears to be on the shooting incident, and so should probably belong in the shooting article... the rest is vanilla high school stuff, no more notable than for any other high school. Jordan Brown 17:42, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes I'd say it is very notable. The shooting happened there and it says they got forth in some national cheering champiopnship. WP policy says keep schools that win national championships. Saying delete Columbine HS because there is an article on the shooting already is like saying delete the pentagon, WTC, and Shanksville, PA articles because there is already an article on September 11 attacks. I am alll for having as many school articles as possible, and I have no problem in reading them all. WP is only limited by the space on their servers, and that is not a concern right now. So no worries. KeepOnTruckin Complain to me | my work here 19:02, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Continuing as a devil's advocate: the Pentagon and the WTC are notable in their own right - Pentagon is the HQ for US military and the world's largest office building; WTC was the tallest building in the US and the world's largest office building, not to mention a major commerce center. Shanksville PA is notable because of the general policy that all places are automatically notable, but other than that probably isn't. (Check out Shanksville, PA and note that there's nothing unusual there other than the 9/11 reference.)
Note that Dixon High School, President Reagan's alma mater, doesn't have an article. Notability isn't inherited; mere involvement with a notable topic doesn't confer notability. (Granted, Columbine HS is more closely tied to the shootings than DHS is to RR.)
It seems likely that many or most schools will at some point during their history do well in some endeavour - state football champions, national spelling bee competitor, et cetera - and so would by that metric be notable... but that seems like a weak argument for including them.
Out of devil's advocate mode: I'm happy to keep any well written and maintained school articles, and to tolerate an above-average level of vandalism on those articles. I think they serve as a useful entry into Wikipedia for students, and supply local color that I consider appealing.
Jordan Brown 01:03, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Remember also 15 minutes of fame. Jordan Brown 01:15, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] naming conventions for schools

Do we have naming conventions for schools, because these schools seemed to be named whatever occured to the editor writing the article?

Is it name of school only, with location added if there are two such schools?

If location is added, is it , location or (location)?

Is it only city?

What about articles like, Our Lady of Good Counsel High School (Sion, Mumbai, India)?

What about articles like School (Country)??

Does the latter happen when there is more than one of the same school only one is in England and one in France?

If there are two schools both named A, one in England, one in France, are they named A (England) and A (France) or A (London) and A (Paris)?

What if there are three schools named A, one in England, one in France and two in America? Are they all named for their cities? Or are they named A (England), A (France), A (United States, Los Angeles), A (United States, Juno) or are the schools in America named A (United States, California, Los Angeles) and A (United States, Alaska, Juno)

or of course, A, United States, Alaska, Juno?

Do we have a complete set of naming conventions? Do we have a partial set? Do we have a decisions about styling? About anything?

If we don't have anything, or have partial stuff, how would people feel about my coming up with a complete naming convention system for schools? Miss Mondegreen | Talk   13:43, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm all for a complete naming convention. My only thought is that some of these editors get very protective over the names of their schools so we would need a united front on this. Adam McCormick 01:35, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I would agree that the names of most US States are unique enough (with the possible exception of Georgia) that they shouldn't need further disambiguation. I would say the same could be said of parts (not sure of the proper term) of England such as Wales, London, etc... I would this the best generalized convention would be:
School Name (Municipality, State/Region)
  • Then it should be clear especially if the Municipality and/or state have their own articles. Adam McCormick 06:38, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Broader School Category

I would like to create a parent category for all of the schools which use the WPSchools and WPSchoolsAssessment templates which would have sub categories of "Schools by importance" , "Schools by Quality", and "Unassessed School Articles". Seems like this would make finding schools a bit easier for the average person rather than just for this project. I'm going to look into it.

On a tangent issue, I'd like to add this category to the WPSchools Template. Adam McCormick 01:46, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Nevermind, This already exists but some cleanup is definitely in order. I'll see what I can do. Adam McCormick 02:05, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Collierville Middle School

I just declined a speedy deletion on this, though it needs cleanup and sourcing if someone interested in school articles wants to have a look at it.--Isotope23 18:30, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I have just realised that this is part of the below "crusade" discussion. I will assesses this article for you as soon as I can. Camaron1 | Chris 17:50, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
No rush. I didn't realize this was part of a larger effort by an individual editor, I just came across this particular article when I was cleaning out the usual glut at WP:CSD. Regardless, it is appropriately tagged and stubbed at the moment, so whenever someone gets around to it is fine. Per the discussion below though, it might be a good idea if someone from your project keeps an eye on cat:CSD and PROD's for a while.--Isotope23 13:32, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
This article has now been assessed. Camaron1 | Chris 16:31, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Crusade on school articles in Portsmouth

Recently there has been an attempt by an anonymous user to have all school articles in Portsmouth deleted. The details are given here. I have strongley opposed it, judging by some of the articles are classed as "mid" importance and one "high". Camaron1 | Chris 17:21, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Odd that on the same day that User:Notability Crusader is doing exactly the same thing with districts in and around Southampton and also chose to propose a merger of one school in Bispham, Blackpool Lancashire. ♦Tangerines BFC ♦·Talk 17:34, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I am quite sure this is the same user, take a look at his/her contributions list. Camaron1 | Chris 17:47, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
Ah yes indeed, exactly the same user, it would seem. Being relatively new to all this, I am not sure what the protocol is, but is it ok to edit using both a registered and unregistered name at the same time? ♦Tangerines BFC ♦·Talk 17:57, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
It is not encouraged no, and can if it is for abuse be grounds for a sock puppets case. However, this user has said they were this person and it seems, just decided to register on that day. Camaron1 | Chris 18:10, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
Fair enough, it is just a tad confusing when the same user was editing under two users around the same time. Thanks. ♦Tangerines BFC ♦·Talk 18:23, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I have updated the details of the 82.26 Bandit here, with direct links to contributions for ease of reference. -- Drappel 20:21, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Seems that the calls for changes to schools/districts in Southampton and Portsmouth suggested by Notability Crusader (contributions) and the admitted same person 82.26.107.104 (contributions) made while the proposer was trying to disrupt Wikipedia to make a point, have now all been removed. -- Drappel 11:00, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

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