Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Millbrook High School

This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record.
The result of the debate was delete. The prank "keep" by 68.162.213.160 and the anonymous vote were not counted in the tallying process. Joyous 20:46, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Millbrook High School

Fictional school which I can find zero Google hits for. 4XC +Millbrook returns nothing. "Millbrook High" gets several thousand hits, but most of them are for real schools. How many people would watch a cable access show, and how many people care about a school at that cable access show? RickK 21:42, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)

• Speedy Delete, because... there is a real, operational Millbrook High School in Raleigh, North Carolina. Google gives over 1000 hits, it's listed on the state's website and is mentioned in many news articles. This WP article appears to be a hoax. The school is apparently having some problems, and this hoax seems to satirize them. Bad-faith, stealthy vandalism, possible libel. Wyss 02:40, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • None of which are justifications for speedy deletion. Speedy deletes must be non-controversial. Anything that you have to characterize as "stealthy vandalism" can not be considered that way. Hoaxes are explicitly not speedy candidates because we do not as individuals have a very good track record for identifying them. RickK did the right thing by listing it here. Rossami (talk) 05:15, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• There is no controversy, the school exists, the article says it doesn't. Patent hoaxes can qualify as speedies. The criteria specifically reads, Silly vandalism - Users will sometimes create joke articles or replace existing articles with plausible-sounding nonsense (example), or add silly jokes to existing articles. Sneaky vandalism - Vandalism which is harder to spot. Adding misinformation, changing dates or making other sensible-appearing substitutions and typos. The criteria also mentions bad-faith. Wyss 05:27, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• Keep. All fictional schools are inherently notable. This fictional school has probably influenced the lives of tens of thousands of fictional people. Just because you are not interested in fictional schools does not mean that you should remove good, verifiable information. Even if nobody has actually verified any of it. That's not a fair criterion, because if you delete it, nobody can ever verify it. Besides, it just occurred to me that—Wikipedia is not paper.
  • Note, the above prank vote was contributed by anon 68.162.213.160 who has exactly one other edit. Wyss 03:37, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• You should have read the whole article. It needs cleanup not deletion, because it is clearly about the real school. Keep it.Dr Zen 06:40, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• I read it. I'm wondering if you did. I quote (from near the end of the article), Even so, the administration intends to hire "happiness enforcers," or heavily- armed ex-KGB agents to monitor the Academy and the activities of its students. This is parody. Wyss 06:54, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  It just needs NPOVing, Wyss. You could simply delete elements such as that. It would take you less time than bitching about them here.Dr Zen 06:57, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Remove the PoV and parody/satire, and there's nothing left. There is no hard, gleanable information in this article (except perhaps the principal's name). It's noise. Wyss 07:04, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Then filter it to the signal, dude. Dr Zen 07:19, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

That would be a speedy, then ;) Wyss 09:11, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• Delete Looking at the history, it starts out as a very POV article about a real school, which doesn't really strike me as notable, especially from an anon user. It either suffered elaborate vandalism or was a hoax to begin with. Anyway you slice it, it's not worth keeping RoySmith 20:53, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• Delete unless greatly improved. (High Schools tend to have littl interest except to those who went to them, and if no caretakers are forthcoming, it ought to be deleted.) Cool Hand Luke 22:20, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Concur. Edeans 08:08, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• Keep and cleanup. --JuntungWu 10:27, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• Keep. I'm a fan of both Wikipedia and the show 4XC. It isn't a very big show - it's mainly run by a couple of students from the high school in question. I assume one of the creators of the show wrote the article. It is true to the substance of the show and acts as a way for others at our school to become informed of what 4XC is about and like. The show is a parody, hence the quotation marks around "is" in the article; however, that doesn't mean that the show simply does not exist. Perhaps the creators felt that the up-keep of a website dedicated to the show would be too heavy of a responsibility and instead sought simply an article on Wikipedia that would serve the same purpose. I read some of the cases advocating deletion posted on the corresponding forum and found them to be heavily discriminatory towards something of specialised relevancy. Just because the show has a very specialized fan base does not necessarially make it pointless.

From my understanding the point of Wikipedia is to provide a compository of information of all things in the world, from the most important to the most obscure. Today, 9th January 2005, the front page of Wikipedia features an article about Pet Skunks. I don't want a Pet Skunk and previously did not even know that such an undesirable thing could exist. I think that the whole article about Pet Skunks then is irrelevant. But does that mean that I should advocate deletion of that article simply because of my preconceived biases against the topic? I believe that it doesn't - and before any action is taken towards the deletion or even editing of this article, people should ask themselves the following questions: "Who am I to deem one article irrelevant simply because it bears no obvious importance to me?" "Who am I to deny a group of people their right to add to the knowledge forum that is Wikipedia simply because their work is not famous?" --Anonymous, 16:41 GMT 9 Jan 05

Your understanding is incorrect. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a compilation of anything and everything that ever existed, ever might have existed, or ever will exist. Cable access shows are not encyclopedic when they have an audience of probably dozens. "Who am I to deem one article irrelevant simply because it bears no obvious importance to me?" A Wikipedia editor, that's who. RickK 21:55, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC)

Can you explain why an encyclopaedia, a compendium of "all human knowledge", is not in fact a "compilation of anything and everything that ever existed, ever might have existed, or ever will exist"?Dr Zen 23:03, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a general knowledge base. RickK 23:17, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC)

The section you quote then lists what it thinks should not be included. How you extrapolate from that to "don't include what you think is not important enough" is beyond me.Dr Zen 00:03, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The list is not exhaustive. RickK 23:38, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)

• Delete simply because it is unintelligible and no one has stepped forward to rewrite it and I very much doubt that anyone will. older≠wiser 17:19, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Cable-access shows aren't inherently notable, so their settings certainly aren't. Niteowlneils 20:56, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• Nicely said by User:RickK. Delete. Lacrimosus 08:40, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Gamaliel 07:09, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion or on the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.