Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/New Haven school Skittles incident

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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 No Consensus, defaulting to Keep, cannot see any consensus on whether this is just a short term news story and thus meeting WP:NOT#NEWS or if the coverage is significant enough to merit its own article or if it should be merged somewhere. Davewild (talk) 19:02, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New Haven school Skittles incident

New Haven school Skittles incident (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) (delete) – (View log)

Wikipedia articles are not for news reports. This article is merely a rehash of news reports about a non-notable story of transient and purely local interest (boy suspended from school for having candy), and it is written in the style of a news report itself. Possibly transwiki to Wikinews, if it is significant enough for that project, which I doubt. Sandstein (talk) 08:37, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

  • Delete Wikipedia is not a news service. A student suspended for posessing Skittles... in that case, I'm surprised I didn't get booted out of college for all the times I sat there snorking down Combos while in class! Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • (Broken clamshells•Otter chirps) 11:29, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete Yes, I know, we heard about this on the radio on the way to work, and we saw articles about it in the "weird news" section of the paper, but it's not worthy of an article. There was an incident in 1930 in Zion City, Illinois, where three girls were expelled for purchasing and using chewing gum, and it can be demonstrated that it was reported nationwide by the Associated Press. But it's not history. At most, some middle school in New Haven, Connecticut, can use this to demonstrate its "notability". Mandsford (talk) 14:49, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete. I thank God that I am no longer young in so thoroughly ruined a country. But I don't see this as an incident that supports an article. Transwiki to Wikinews if it hasn't been already. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 16:34, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong keep
  1. The article complies with all Wikipedia policies.
  2. The incident is notable because it has received significant coverage in the national press. References from CNN and the Associated Press prove this. That is more than sufficient to pass the recommendation of our notability guidelines.
  3. The article is well referenced, with 5 10 unique sources; that is 5 10 more than our article on anteater. Update - 10 sources now, including international press. Also, the student has been on at least 3 national talk shows this week and the candy company has given him a lifetime supply of Skittles.
  4. People studying the state of school discipline in America would find this article interesting.
  5. People studying nutrition, and especially nutrition in school, would find this interesting.
  6. Wikipedia has room to cover unusual subjects and our aim is to broad and comprehensive in our coverage.
  7. Moving to Wikinews is never a viable option. Their licensing scheme is not compatible with ours.
Johntex\talk 16:46, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Reply to the above:
  1. Except WP:IINFO.
  2. Press coverage is not sufficient for notability. Our scope diverges from that of newspapers; we don't cover every crime, for instance, that the papers cover.
  3. Verifiability is not the problem here.
  4. A mention can be made about this incident in an article about the state of school discipline in America.
  5. A mention can be made about this incident in an article about nutrition or nutrition in school.
  6. As noted there, this policy is not a free pass for inclusion. We are not an indiscriminate collection of information either.
  7. This does not preclude deletion. But since you wrote most of the article, you own the copyright on these parts and you may move these to Wikinews.
Sandstein (talk) 17:01, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Reply to the above:
  1. There is no violation of that policy here. There is nothing indiscriminate about this article. It covers a very discrete historical topic.
  2. Our criteria for notability is that the person/place/incident needs to be covered in multiple national publications. That is met. To speak to your example of covering every crime, we don't do that because (a) most crimes don't get coverage in the national press and (b) most of the time people don't take the time to write a well referenced article that complies with Wikipedia policy. This is not a crime, but this incident did get national press and we do have a well-referenced article here.
  3. Great, glad you agree that subject and facts are verifiable. As Jimbo Wales says, "We strive for verifiability, not truth". We have verifiability here so we have no problem.
  4. An article on nutrion or nutrition in school would not be the best place for this information. Just as we don't put everything about the United States into that article. It is entirely appropriate to have seperate articles go into the details of an individual case.
  5. Ditto
  6. As I already explained, there is nothing indiscriminate about this article.
  7. The article has been edited by another editor so my copyright to the article is not complete. Yes, I could contribute a version to Wikinews, but I choose not to do so. There is no point to even having Wikinews. A news event is just a historical event that is not that old yet. We should just cover those historical events here.
Again, there is no justification under policy to delete the article. On the other hand, the article would be helpful to readers/scholars studying topics such as education, school discipline, allergies, nutrition, etc. The best thing to do is to keep the article. Johntex\talk 17:17, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Maybe someone will write a True Crime book about it. Mandsford (talk) 18:14, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep article is well-written (though where were the Skittles bought from?) and cites multiple independent secondary sources. While "Wikipedia is not for things made up in school", just because something happened in a school does not undo notability. I agree with Johntex in that it may be useful for students of school administration, changing mores re school discipline, and the trend against candy sales in schools. Squidfryerchef (talk) 20:40, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep because the article meets all of the basic Wikipedia content policies (WP:V, WP:NPOV, and WP:NOR). I am opposed to layering additional "notability" requirements on top of these, because Wikipedia is not paper and one of our strengths is that we cover subjects that can be reliably referenced but might not make it into a mainstream encyclopedia. *** Crotalus *** 21:17, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete, transient news coverage of an incident does not make it notable. --Dhartung | Talk 21:44, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep - national news coverage proves notability. U$er (talk) 22:04, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Weak delete In a few years, we'll all look back at this and be like...why the hell did we keep this article? If we're not of that opinion, it's either because nobody remembers it, or because it's time to restore the article. M1ss1ontomars2k4 (talk) 23:00, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment - the coverage of these events has now spread beyond the US, including the Toronto Globe and Mail and the International Herald Tribune. Johntex\talk 00:53, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
  • ....and when you do your google news search a week from now, you'll find that the press has forgotten about the Skittles story and has moved on to other things. Replacing it in the "look what's wrong with our schools" category will be a story about someone who got in trouble in school for having a plastic knife, or cough drops, or an inappropriate T-shirt. I think he's at about "ten after" on his fifteen minutes of fame. When the kid gets back the honors that had been taken away, I can guarantee that the press will not report the happy ending. Mandsford (talk) 01:08, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
  • .....And if you want to apply that rational then you should delete all but the most famous nobility whom we have articles on. No one remembers Edward Poyning right? So let's delete the article. And there aren't any Deinodon around so lets get rid of those. For that matter, most high schools probably won't be around in 100 years so let's just start deleting all those articles too. And the 1924 Paris Olympics haven't been in the news for a while either.... Wikipedia is not paper; we can afford to be comprehensive. It is our mission, in fact. Johntex\talk 01:20, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep – This topic received sufficient national attention to be of interest to a wide range of people. The article is properly sourced with references that prove notability. Just the number of people weighing in on the Keep or Delete alone shows that it has an attraction factor. And who doesn't like Skittles? Goodhabits99 (talk) 02:44, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Provisional keep pending a merge into any article about the New Haven school district or the school in question, assuming they don't already exist. As well-done as this was, it will not merit separate coverage a year from now. I didn't write a separate "Tri-Valley Central School tampon incident" article, even though that got some national news last fall; it's most of the article about the school itself. And so will it be with this. Daniel Case (talk) 05:06, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete per Dhartung. Suggest the creator try WikiNews if he enjoys writing about this kind of stuff, because being reported in the news for a couple of days does not make a trivial incident encyclopedia-worthy. The comparison to the 1924 Olympics does not hold any water --- that was an international event which got months and months of coverage in the time leading up to it and multiple articles on different aspects and different participants during the time it was actually occurring. In contrast, the news coverage on this story stopped two days ago [1]. cab (talk) 06:04, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
  • You are mistaken about the references. If you read the article and check the references, you will see that they are as recent as today. Johntex\talk 06:07, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep/merge per Daniel Case. --Kakofonous (talk) 12:19, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Merge A great start for an article on the high school - who will remember the incident in a few years? The incident needs to be part of a topic with larger scope. Royalbroil 12:41, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep A good example of zero-tolerance policies gone awry and superceding good judgment.Brian Waterman, MS, CDP (talk) 15:48, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment In the long run, I agree that it would be good to have an article about examples of over-reaction within the schools, and that this incident would be part of that article. I appreciate that Johntex worked hard on the article, and wants to avoid its deletion. Incidents like this happen regularly in schools, and, depending on different circumstances, some of these stories are picked up by AP or UPI, and some aren't. As with ridiculous lawsuits, dumb crook news, wasted taxpayer dollars stories, things like the Skittles incident do serve as cautionary tales. That said, however, no single incident is worthy of its own page. The suspension of the 8th grader is trivial in comparison to the horrific deaths of several people in a construction accident (as in New York City yesterday), or a suicide bombing in Iraq, and even those would be objected to as lacking sufficient notability to become a permanent part of Wikipedia. I think this is headed to a "no consensus", so it will be kept. When it gets renominated sometime a few months from now, the passage of time will show a different perspective. Mandsford (talk) 16:35, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment - in the long run, people will appreciate articles like this more, not less. It would be great if Wikipedia had been around in 1900 or 1800 or 1700 or 1200 to collect verifiable information related to some of the normal, everyday things that were happening in those periods. Scholars of today would find such articles to immensely valuable. An article like this should be kept so that it available for future readers/writers to study, learn from, re-write and reorganize. Wikipedia is not paper, it is OK to cover some things that are not the best or most memorable of their type. Johntex\talk 17:09, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Yeah, Johntext does have a point. Although it will probably be somewhere else, I believe that Wikipedia is a collection of knowledge, and I see no reason to delete it other than the basis that Wikipedia is not for news. – The Obento Musubi (Contributions) 19:21, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Merge I'm typically not a fan of "news" stories being given wikipedia articles, but this one has received some degree of attention on a national level. I'd say merge it into the school's article. If litigation or some more national attention is brought to the case, then perhaps later a stand alone page could be created. Batman2005 (talk) 17:26, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep - I know that Wikipedia's not supposed to be for news articles, especially for non-notable ones, but I believe that this is notable, and with further re-writing, I believe that we can reword this to sound less news-y. – The Obento Musubi (Contributions) 19:15, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment - Rename The title of the article screams "something made up in school". I don't know what to rename it to ( turning it into a biography of the student doesn't seem appropriate either ), though someone suggested merging it into an article on the school system which isn't a bad idea. Squidfryerchef (talk) 19:51, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Provisional keep pending beefing up how it's important nationally and shows trends in modern America, such as overreaction. — Rlevse • Talk • 19:55, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment - possible Merge to Skittles article There doesn't appear to be an article on the school or school system yet, but this could probably be merged into the article on Skittles candy. Squidfryerchef (talk) 20:01, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Merge. Partition what is there between WikiNews, the article on Skittles, and the High school's WP entry. I can't see how this in and of itself deserves its on article, unless it were a daughter article in a series on student wellness, which as of now, it is not. MrPrada (talk) 20:57, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment--Create a Category for Zero-Tolerance Policies in Schools Merging this to Skittles is not the answer, as this has nothing more to do with Skittles as it has to do with New Haven. What it has to do with is a school policy and an overreaction in its enforcement. The school made a policy, a student violated the policy, and the school decided that an extreme reaction was appropriate. Several other actions (and in many cases, overreactions) can be linked through that category, and in a year when the specific incident is forgotten, it can still easily be found. Brian Waterman, MS, CDP (talk) 00:03, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep - Widely covered, and the idea of a Category about Zero-Tolerance Extremes in schools seems like a solid idea.--Bedford 02:41, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment on this whole zero-tolerance cat idea. I think that would make a better article ... Zero-tolerance policies in American schools, maybe? There are enough examples ... from other articles I've worked on, see Pine Bush High School and the musket incident (there are sources provided). Daniel Case (talk) 15:22, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete - transient news article. If this hadn't occured in North America it is very likely that the article would have been speedy deleted on sight. - 52 Pickup (deal) 12:42, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Comment - to the extent that Wikipedia has a bias towards information on North America, the solution is to increase our coverage of other areas, not lessen our coverage of North American events. Johntex\talk 13:14, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete before it paves the way for thousands of "cat stuck up a tree" news articles. The material may be worth a paragraph in a possible article for the school itself. Marasmusine (talk) 13:19, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Rename to the school's name and make it be a section. The rest of the article would be a very raw stub but the efforts of the editors wouldn't be wasted. Gothbag (talk) 15:43, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
    I'm afraid that in all the "excitement", the author forgot to mention the school in the article. In one of those bizarre coincidences that we'll be talking about for generations to come, the kid's last name and the school name are the same. But it doesn't matter. What matters is that the kid got a lifetime supply of delicious Skittles-brand candy! Taste the rainbow. Mandsford (talk) 17:41, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
    Problem solved. Gothbag (talk) 14:48, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep More than a mere one-time news story, this is an event that has attracted widespread attention (far beyond the locale where it occurred) because it resonates with many people as a an exemplar of something that's wrong (or maybe something that's right) in society at large and in schools. It should be retained and added to Wikipedia:Unusual articles, along with other articles with which it has much in common, such as McDonald's urban legends, George W. Bush pretzel incident, and Montreal-Philippines cutlery controversy. --Orlady (talk) 23:48, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
For the record, the school is Sheridan Communications and Technology Magnet School. --Orlady (talk) 23:52, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep there's enough here of value, tho the article should be considerably shortened. DGG (talk) 01:12, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep Received wide spread media coverage and well sourced. As per *** Crotalus *** it passes our most fundamental policies, which for me means keep is the only valid choice. --Falcorian (talk) 14:24, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep, well-written and referenced article. Content like this is why Wikipedia whips paper encyclopedias. Nesodak (talk) 15:44, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete or Merge to a small paragraph in Sheridan Communications and Technology Magnet School Skittles. This is a transitory news item not an encyclopedic topic. SilkTork *YES! 18:37, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
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.