Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/J. N. Kellett Elementary School

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 21:09, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] JN Kellett Elementary

Article tagged questioning notability thrice [1] [2] [3]. Initial {{prod}} [4] removed w/o substantiation [5]; {{prod}} replaced to initiate discourse [6], removed again w/o substantiation (removal in accordance with {{prod}} policy) [7] by kappa (talk · contribs).

Per both {{prod}}s and repeated attempts to request {{notability}}, article provides no claim of such. Furthermore, elementary schools have a precedence of removal/merging/deletion in the absence of notability (this is as opposed to high schools), iinm. — pd_THOR | =/\= | 02:32, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

  • Delete. This is obviously a hot topic, but I have always been a firm believer that elementary schools are not notable in and of themselves. --cholmes75 (chit chat) 02:38, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep or merge, no reason to deprive interested users of the chance to read about this school, for example how they were named a Flagship School of Promise despite over half its families living below the poverty line. [8] Kappa 02:45, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete Elementary schools are not inherently notable, and I don't see anything notable about this one. TJ Spyke 03:09, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete nn. —Khoikhoi 03:48, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete despite those who will be deprived of the opportunity to learn that this School or the writer of its Article can't properly Capitalize the mission statement. Opabinia regalis 04:05, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
    • The mission statement has been removed, but the editor faithfully used the exact capitalization found on the school district website. --Usgnus 05:16, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep per deletion policy. Furthermore, elementary/primary are often kept, regardless of perceived notability. --Usgnus 04:07, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment Um what in WP:DP are you refering to? And the claim about elementary schools is a) false and b) irrelevant. JoshuaZ 04:12, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
    • What aspect of the deletion policy supports or requires the non-deletion of this article? — pd_THOR | =/\= | 04:14, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
      • WP:DP#Problem_articles_where_deletion_may_not_be_needed --Usgnus 04:31, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
        • Comment Among other problems that lists articles where deletion "may" not be needed so I fail to see it being very binding. Second of all I fail to see any relevant category for it. JoshuaZ 04:34, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
          • Well, from my POV, a stub with potential. From your POV, perhaps, "Such a minor branch of a subject that it doesn't deserve an article", where the subject is public education in South Carolina. --Usgnus 04:47, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
            • I'm not objecting to articles about public education in South Carolina. That doesn't mean we need an article on this specific elementary school. JoshuaZ 04:56, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
              • Then the solution is merge, not delete. Every elementary school is a branch of public education in SC. --Usgnus 05:03, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
                • That doesn't mean every one of those details is notable enough for inclusion in an article about public ed in SC. JoshuaZ 05:05, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
                  • Perhaps not, but that can be dealt with once the merge happens. Of course, IMHO, it's not so minor a branch. --Usgnus 05:10, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
          • Futhermore, I can't find anything in WP:DP#Problem articles where deletion may be needed that applies. --Usgnus 04:51, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete as non-notable. JoshuaZ 04:12, 15 September 2006 (UTC) switching to abstain'. The three different awards listed make an arguable case for notability. I'm not persuaded by it but I don't feel confidant enough to call for deletion. JoshuaZ 05:07, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep - article makes explict claim of notability in the form of state recognition as a Flagship School of Promise. A review of the statement of this honor highlights the school's accomplishments in light of the poverty of many of the school's students. Other schools nationwide would benefit from following the pedagological models used at JN Kellett Elementary. Alansohn 04:50, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment I have seen no evidence that this is a notable award for a south carolinan school in there income bracket. At this point there is massive inflation in school awards. Almost every school gets some form of them from the state so one such award by itself does not necessarily confer notability. JoshuaZ 04:59, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep Nominator made false statement, suggesting there's a precedent to merge or delete elementaries. Obviously, there's virtually never a consensus to delete. Merge has been done many times, though most of the time, a stand-alone aritcle is the ultimate result (hundreds of new ones, each month). Schools are an important topic, and the there's a ready supply of vefifiable information. No reason has been given for deletion. Its already been demonstrated that this article is expandable, and more can follow in the future. --Rob 05:12, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
Please base your vote on the article instead of the nominator. - Mgm|(talk) 09:26, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep Nominator made false statement. --Prof.Thamm 08:06, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
Please base your vote on the article instead of the nominator. - Mgm|(talk) 09:26, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
Although poorly phrased, he (or she) is clearly addressing the fact the the nomination contains (at least one) false statement. Nominated upon false grounds is a reasonable part of a keep argument. WilyD 16:31, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: Usgnus said that elementary/primary are often kept, regardless of perceived notability. This is true, but not because they should be. They are kept because a large population of editors interested in schools don't want to delete any school articles despite specific concerns about the article. The kept articles are usually kept due to no-concensus rather than keep concensus. - Mgm|(talk) 09:26, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Weak keep per the award mentioned.- Mgm|(talk) 09:26, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete per spike. Its claim to have been the first to win the Flagship award appears to be false (9 other elementary schools won it a year before it. There appears to be no limit to the number of winners of this Flagship award, or the red carpet award. Ohconfucius 10:34, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment: That the article's claim about the circumstances of its recognition as a Flagship School of Promise "appears to be false" seems to be false itself. In fact, the article's statement that "The school was the first elementary school in the county to win the state's Flagship School of Promise" appears to be true. The awards were first given in 1999 and no Oconee County school won. In 2000, both J. N. Kellett Elementary and West Oak High won in Oconee. Hence the wording "The school was the first elementary school in the county to win the state's Flagship School of Promise". Thus, this explicit claim of notability seems fully supported. Given the size of the state of South Carolina, the number of schools in the state, and the relative poverty of the district compared to others in the state, this seems to be a genuinely notable award and the circumstances of the win at Kellett only make it more notable. Alansohn 11:24, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep cites multiple third party sources, is on an encyclopaedic subject. No rationals have been offered for deletion. Roughly speaking, it passes every policy or guideline that could reasonably be applied. WilyD 13:18, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep the continued use of notability as if it were the standard continues to sound alot like a DID NOT - DID TO argument. Unless someone can take issue with the content of the article as being invalid or vanity, I really don't see the argument for AfD. --Wakemp 14:53, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Not only that, but the general concensus is Notability is not subjective - i.e. this school is indisputably notable (which may or may not matter) per the sourcing. WilyD 16:21, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
      • Um what? Notability criteria exist all over. A lack of subjectivity doesn't make something magically have to one way. JoshuaZ 18:20, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep per the reasons that are described at User:Silensor/Schools. Also meets WP:SCHOOL meta-guidelines. Silensor 17:31, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment Silensor, to be blunt. You're being ridiculous. You just paste your keep argument for all schools. Once again you a) ignoring the fact that WP:SCHOOL is a rejected guideline and b) ignoring that many of the claims in User:Silensor/Schools have been refuted or have been shown to be seriously flawed while others only make any sense at all for highschools or colleges. I would therefore ask the closing admin to discount Silensor's opinion when determining consensus. JoshuaZ 18:42, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
      • Comment: Silensor has put a great deal of thought into developing criteria that lean towards an eventualist / inclusionist approach toward school articles. I would hope that we can each approach an argument that we disagree with by using a counterargument that directly addresses the issues raised and does not attempt to have someone's opinion tossed out because we disagree with the argument or approach. Why are Silensor's arguments any less worthy of consideration by the closing administrator than those of Ohconfucius, who may have misread the supporting information regarding the Flagship School of Promise award, or those of Khoikhoi, whose entire argument for deletion consists of the two letters "nn". Alansohn 19:31, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
        • Comment First I note that you did not respond my point that Silensor cited WP:SCHOOLS as a guideline when it is a failed guideline. I presume from that you agree that that qualifies as ridiculous? Part of the reason Silensor's posts are so annoying is that everyone now insists that I go through an spend the time and effort explaining why almost nothing in his essay is relevant for this school. I'll list some of them here. (Maybe I should just make an essay "problems with Silensor's school essay and just post it in in an equally unhelpful and robot-like fashion") But just a few that have problems in general or in this case. 1- most Wikipedians are not eventualists so if we play by consensus this is very weak. 2- under this argument firehouses and town squares and city halls all need their own articles or need to be included. Are we prepared to do this? This argument also conflates keeping the articles with having the content somewhere (possibly merged). An argument for retention of information is not necessarily an argument for keeping an article. 3- why not we imposed such a rule on WP:PROF where the people in question have far more uniqueness that is obvious from a google search than random elementary schools. 4 - close to irrelevant without such a system in place. 5 is the strongest argument for keeping these schools and it is a good one from a pragmatic perspective. However, we don't include small bands or minor academics on the same basis. It isn't clear to me why schools should be different. 6 is almost a strawman argument which I've never actually seen on either WP:SCHOOL discussions or school AfDs. I'm in total agreement with the response there. But since no one has asserted it in this AfD it is irrelevant. 7 Obviously irrelevant to the case at hand since Jimbo was talking about highschools and this is an elementary school. 8 there are independent reasons for including cities (such as the fact that almost any biography article mentions where soemone is born, so there is a consensus that this fact is in some sense notable). In any case if this is a consistency issue I wouldn't mind merging or deleting some small town articles. 9 Is not a grammatical sentence but if it is an argument for consistency then I agree with that. However it isn't at all clear from 9 why the consistency (assuming that's what he means) should be to keep them all. WP:PROF and WP:MUSIC are applied in consistent fashions. JoshuaZ 04:54, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
      • JoshuaZ, Silensor's writing of an essay is in fact awesome. When it fell out of the awesome tree, it hit every branch on the way down. If you're making the same argument again and again, there's no reason to write it again and again. Silensor's reasoning on keeping schools (which is, in fact, a field where there's essentially no policy that applies beyond WP:V, so you have a tremendous amount of latitude) is the same in multiple cases - why would he want to repeat it again and again? Why would we want him to repeat it again and again? Everyone who's arguing for deletion of primary schools is making the same tired argument, even when it clearly doesn't apply (like this school, which has established indisputable notability) - to call him rediculous is just plain mean in addition to being verifiably false. WilyD 20:00, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
        • Please reread WP:NPA. I said he was being ridiculous. I didn't engage in a personal attack. I commented on his actions. If you want to argue that it wasn't the most civil comment you might be right and my wording may have been uneccessarily harsh. JoshuaZ 04:54, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
      • JoshuaZ, you seem to misunderstand the meaning of the word "consensus". You're asking a fellow admin to ignore the opinion of a member of the community when determining consensus. The whole point of requiring consensus is we don't do that. We don't exclude those an elite few disagree with. Now, you're certainly not alone in opposing Wikipedia's policy of requiring consensus to exclude certain topics. Most critics of Wikipedia are appalled that "just anybody" can contribute. They think only a select group of "qualified" people may participate (typically "qualified" means people who think like themself). You obviously agree with them, and think you're one of of those "qualified" people, and Silensor (and presumabely me) is not. If you want to edit an encyclopedia that excludes those you disagree with, then......... --Rob 03:45, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
        • Thivierr, with all due respect AfD is not a vote. Admins are free to disregard statements that are unproductive or have little or no policy basis. In this case, I have trouble seeing the statement as useful. JoshuaZ 04:54, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
          • Given the glaringly obvious nature of the usefulness of ThiveierrSilensor's contribution, it's seems exceedingly unlikely that any closing Admin would overlook it. While all relevent policies and guidelines might dictate keep on this article, we can always form a concensus against that in exceptional cases. WilyD 17:28, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
            • My comment was reffering to Silensor's post not Thiveierr's. In any event, I have since written a response to Silensor's essay User:JoshuaZ/Schools. JoshuaZ 17:38, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
            • Commenting to correct version- Whetber or not Silensor is an experienced user and such is irrelevant to whether he is making a good argument. To use an extreme example- I have almost 10,000 edits at this point (yay for editcountitis) none of which are automated. If I wrote in an AfD keep or delete based on "because the Invisible Pink Unicorn said so" I would hope my comment would be ignored or given very little weight.
  • Keep, notable award-winning school. bbx 02:46, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment. Although my initial challenge has been refuted on one point of fact, I do not believe that it fundamentally changes the validity of my argument that the award, unlike the vast majority of awards we use as a criteria for assessing notability, appears to be non-discriminatory. If all schools are given the award, does that make them all sufficiently noteworthy for inclusion? There are often multiple winners in any given county, and therefore its value should not be overstated. The default presumption for elementary schools is unlike secondary schools, and inclusion because an area is poor, or because the segmentation is so small as to make every school unique by definition (and thus notable) is clearly extending the logic to an extreme. My delete vote is maintained. Ohconfucius 02:53, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep - verifiability over notability. --Myles Long 16:11, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep per the reasons that are described at User:Silensor/Schools. I applaude Silensor for putting together such a page. I have been considering the merits of doing something similar for other topics that I care about and now have a working model. I must say I find it odd that JoshuaZ found Silensor's remarks ridiculous. To site a proposed guideline that failed to reach consensus is not ridiculous, given the high bar for concensus. I certainly don't know the inside-baseball scoop on votes. But when I look at the WP:SCHOOL page and the WP:N page I see that both are proposed guidelines--not offical policy. Yet on page after page of these kinds of debates, exclusionists love to reference WP:N as though it were writ in stone. At worst, Silensor should have referenceed WP:SCHOOL as a proposed guideline that he agrees with. As for creating a page with his arguments for keeping an article and then pasting it into one of these page--it's a good idea. It saves space and it suggests a consistency of thought regarding the issue. It is esspecially appropriate in this kind of case, because his argument is not about whether this school has sufficeient notabiltiy or not (in which case specific arguments about the school whould be expected). It is a general case argument that notability concerns are mis-construed here. I tend to agree. The whole notablity thing to me is unfortunate--but obviously other people have differing views. On way in which these debates go is what is the proper notability criteria. These argumets are usually analogical. Is the current case more like A (for example Bios and music) with high notablity requiements or more like B (for example Towns) with lower notablity requirements. Reasonable people differ. But I think Silensor grasps an essential point in arguing for very low notablity requirements for elementary schools--they are important part of almost everyone's life for an extended period of time. JoshuaZ claimed (rather ridiculously, I thought ;)) that if we include articles about elementary schools we must also include articles about every town square and every firehouse. No, the analogy is wrong. Elementary schools play a role in all people's lives far different from that of town squares and firehouses. I think Silensor could have framed this point better. He used the term 'unique', which others rightly pointed can't be the deciding feature. Everything and everyone is unique is some fashion. Rather, what shapes the identity of a school (and thus, in some sense its uniqueness) is the people that go there. The underlying theme in Silensor's argument is that Wikipedia has to connect to things that are importantly relevant in people's lives. I agree with this. Over the life of a school (elementary, high school, college) thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people will pass through, sepending 6 hours a day in the earliest years of their lives. Those schools have a significance to people far more than a band, or a town square, or a fire house. That significance confers a certain notablity. It transcends any awards etc that a school may have won. In this way, schools--all schools are like towns--even the smallest towns. They are a central aspect of our lives (whether we recognize it or not). On this argument, elmentary schools are NOT different from high schools and colleges regarding notablity and should be treated the same. That anyway is what I take from his argument, and I tend to agree. Obviously others disagree. Finally, while I have been critical of JoshuaZ's comments, I commend him for taking the time to create his own page in response to Silensor's arguments. I find more merit in Silensor's claims than JoshuaZ does, but obviously some arguments are stronger and some weaker. But this is exactly the kind of reasoned debate that I think is the Wiki way. JoshuaZ in many ways has the harder path. Not only does he have to deal with the general "meta-level" claims raised by Silensor et.al., but he must also deal with the specific claims from those who fight this battle on the traditional notablity grounds. Jdclevenger 20:54, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
It is nice to see something which is an actual response to what I posted. However the argument that since everyone is affected by schools is simply irrelevant. If the poeple who are being affected are not notable than whether or not they were affected doesn't matter much. Furthermore having an affect on everyone's lives clearly isn't enough by analogy. Everyone is affected by their parents. That doesn't mean every single parent in the world merits an article. People are changed by their pre-school day-cares. Should we have special articles for each pre-school? Furthermore, I would argue that in many ways people are affected far more by their town halls where all the decisions for schools and other institutions arise. Similarly I can make an argument for inclusion of firehouses- there isn't much more of an effect than what one gets from saving lives and possesions. And firehouses are frequently used as voting locations and town meeting places central points of the democratic tradition that transcend any other issues. They really aren't that different. This is why for things like WP:BIO and WP:PROF (despite the fact that profs influence 1000s of students in some ways far more directly than a college itself) we insist in those cases of having real criteria and not this blanket keeping. JoshuaZ 21:05, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
Also as to the matter of being on a harder path- I'm not on a harder path- I don't want all schools to be deleted I want real consideration to go into whether or not a school is kept. If a school has specific claims of notability then by all means it should be kept. This is not the case here. JoshuaZ 21:06, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
Comment There are two points in reponse. JoshuaZ offers this response to the "affected by" analogy, "having an affect on everyone's lives clearly isn't enough by analogy. Everyone is affected by their parents. That doesn't mean every single parent in the world merits an article." Parent's of course have a huge affect on their one or two or twelve offspring. If we found a parent (foster or otherwise) who looked after 25,000 children over the course of his or her live, that would be notable in of itself. Not just because it was so rare (although that would be true). But because that one person (or that one school) touched so many lives. The second point is the intimacy of the effect. Without a doubt, town halls and fire houses, and police stations (and state and national capitals) all have a profound impact on the quality of lifes. But it is almost always a invisible, distant impact. Many people don't know their city councilman, or state legislators, or even their congressmen or senators. and tend to be quite ignorant (often happily so until something goes wrong) about what these people do. But they understand and remember and think about what their schooling was. There is a day-to-day intimancy that makes schools different from the other cases. Regarding the analogy between professors and schools, there are also two points. WP:PROF is about notability of academics--in a sense a subset of WP:BIO. I have argued that WP:BIO is the wrong level of analysis for schools The second point is that WP:PROF is of course not policy, but a guideline. I actually think that it is TOO restritive, for essentially the reasons that JoshuaZ suggests, "...profs influence 1000s of students in some ways far more directly than a college itself) we insist in those cases of having real criteria and not this blanket keeping."; but with the opposite outcome. I read this as a reason to lower the bar on WP:PROF. Again, I find these notablity debates to be so much red-herring. Notablity, as I read WP:N is a shorthand way of evaluating the veriviability, realability, and NPOV of an article. It can also be used to assess whether the article violates WP:NOT about not being an indiscriminate collection of information. Those ARE the policies of Wikipedia. No one (that I have seen, but it would be easy to miss) has argued that this article or many like is not verifiable, not based on relaible sources, does not have an NPOV. It does not fall under any of the 7 categories on Not and Indiscrimate Collection of Information. I think where there are real concerns of an article violating THESE polices, notablity can be a way of judging the issue. But too often, debates about notablity overwhelm all other issues. This shifts the debate from the merits of the article vis a vis policy, to debates on the merits vis a vis AN instrument to assess policy. Jdclevenger 21:59, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep as an award winning school, this is worthy of documentation. Yamaguchi先生 22:54, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep- JN Kellett is, no doubt, a small elementary school; however, it has done so much to gain noteriety. The school has become known as a technology model school. The teachers go to extensive training to be the best at what they do. The Red Carpet School award, while applied for by almost every school in the state, is only awarded to those schools who show excellence in student conduct, friendliness, and staff capability at all times. This school deserves to have its own wiki site. To think that every elementary school, fire department, and court house will desire to have its own wiki page is completely unrealistic. Despite the vast spread of the internet, there are still some people who have no idea what a wiki is. I feel that those schools, fire departments or court houses that desire to take the time to make a wiki site, should be allowed to do so. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.166.131.128 (talk • contribs)
    • — The preceding discussion comment was the first contribution by 12.166.131.128 (talk • contribs).
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.