Talk:Fayetteville-Manlius Central School District

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Fayetteville-Manlius Central School District was a good article nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these are addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake. Reviewed version: September 11, 2007

	This article is related to WikiProject Schools, an attempt to write quality articles about schools around the world. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page.
B	This article has been rated as B-Class on the assessment scale.	Schools Portal
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-Importance within Schools.

Must be a B Victuallers 10:43, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Fayetteville-Manlius Central School District is part of WikiProject Syracuse, New York, a project which aims to coordinate work for and expand coverage of Syracuse, New York and related subjects on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.

[edit] GA fail

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   a (fair representation): b (all significant views):

5. It is stable.

   

6. It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.

   a (tagged and captioned): b lack of images (does not in itself exclude GA): c (non-free images have fair use rationales):

7. Overall:

   a Pass/Fail:

[edit] Comments

Here are the major problems I find with the article:

• Please consult the Manual of Style for use of citations and spacing. There were a number of errors where citations included an unnecessary space before and/or after the reference tag.
• A number of wikilinks could be added to help the reader refer to additional articles. This is especially prevalent in the Organization section.
• The sections of the article should be reorganized and more clearly separated. The 4 subsections of District history could be split into sections on Academics, Alumni, etc.
• The header should be a concise summary of the article. See WP:LEAD for more information. It's a good start, but it could be more of a summary.
• On that note, the information included in the lead is suitable for a governance/organization section (which should be found near the top of the article). This would be where you might want to include charter information, structure of the district, funding and budgeting information, and any other related information.
• References need to be improved a lot. The references you do have are good, but their citations need to be more full; what I mean is that even when references are websites you should include the date you accessed the information, the publisher, and the date of publication. Much of this info is detailed on the footnotes and citation templates pages. More sources should be added (preferrably third-party sources), especially in the Alma Mater and Organization sections and any other place potentially controversial claims are made. In addition, "ibid" is not used on Wikipedia. You can name references and cite them more than once. This is also detailed on the previous pages mentioned.
• There are many instances of original research and/or point of view. Specifically the following sections: The oak tree ("The characteristics of the tree are reflected in the values, vision, and ambition of Fayetteville-Manlius. The tree is a steadfast, well-grounded, robust and distinguished entity on the natural landscape"), Notable academic achievement ("one of the best high school art programs in the country" when the source does not say that, despite any mention of awards - the same goes for "The district consistently exceeds average state and national performances"), Athletics ("F-M Athletics are renowned around the state and the country for competitive superiority, sportsmanship and academic integrity" as well as few more statements in this section), and Alma Mater ("F-M's alma mater is a stoic symbol of the district's heritage").
• Some information is not necessary in the article. In the Schools section, the detailed address information could be condensed to simply name and city. In addition, the Administration and Board of Education sections could probably be eliminated. Noting each board member does not enhance the article. See summary style for more info.
• More images to illustrate sections (athletics would be especially easy) would spice up the article quite a bit.

The article needs a good amount of work done, but I think with these suggestions it can be well on its way to Good Article status. -- Noetic Sage 23:45, 11 September 2007 (UTC)